In Search of Spice, page 29
Suzanne gestured to the band, and improvised a sensual and seductive dance to the thumping of the music. The shell necklaces, pretty effective at concealing the kai Viti women’s breasts, lost the contest with her impressive array and the frequent exposure made her even more enticing. On her conclusion, the crowd leapt to their feet cheering, the Ratu embraced her and offered her a celebratory draught of kava which she drained dramatically in the fire light, standing proud and oblivious of the fact her breasts conquered the shells and squeezed them into the valley. Euphoric with the attention and the kava, she pulled up the girls from the crew and shoved them off to the kai Viti girls to be dressed up.
Suzanne sat down with the Ratu, smiling happily and accepted more kava. She felt euphoric and couldn’t remember being so happy. She became aware of the disarray on her front and ineffectually tried to correct it as the girls returned along with the giggling kai Viti girls who started to teach them the steps to one of their dances.
As the fires died down, the kai Viti pulled all the girls into a line and they started a slow and sensual dance in front of the men. Suzanne found herself in front of the Ratu, whose eyes were riveted on her breasts. The girls kicked high, leant right forward and swayed. Now everyone was showing off, not just Suzanne. The Ratu’s eyes glazed. He leapt up with a shout and started to whirl in front of Suzanne, followed a moment later by the rest of the kai Viti men, the crew joining in behind them.
Sara found Maciu in front of her, startlingly handsome in his finery, who mirrored her movements and she responded to greater heights of agility, as did the other girls. Which inspired the men to greater heights. Suzanne changed the dance from athleticism to eroticism, as the euphoria washed over her, the steps becoming slower, the body swaying more, and all the other girls followed suit. The men followed the lead.
She didn’t notice Hinatea break away and drag a protesting Sara out of the dance, nor the other Pahippian girls pulling out the rest of crew members. The Pahippians hustled them back to the ship.
“Wait,” cried Sara, still smiling and not wanting to go, especially with the way Maciu looked at her. “Don’t forget Suzanne.”
“Fuck her,” said Hinatea, displaying a disgraceful fluency in Harrheinian. “She drink too much kava. Her own fault.”
“What do you mean?” Sara asked climbing into a boat as Hinatea pushed it off.
“Too much kava makes you want to fuck,” said Hinatea succinctly. “Why Ratu give her so much. He happy tonight, tomorrow you get good trade terms. But if you fuck Maciu then he get good trade. See, Hinatea save you trade treaty tonight.” Hinatea started rowing self-importantly while Sara tried to process this information, wondering if she should insist on going back to rescue Suzanne.
Suzanne groaned, without opening her eyes and tried to remember. Her head pounded and ached, something heavy lay on her side and breasts while she felt sore all over. Her eyes shot open as she recognised the heaviness as an arm with a huge hand enclosing her left breast. She recognised the ache in her breasts and throbbing in her groin and groaned again as bits of memory returned.
She blinked her eyes as the headache told her she how little sleep she had managed, and rubbed her breasts, feeling the tenderness. Sitting up, she looked around and saw the Ratu lying beside her, his member still impressive in the slack, and she rubbed her belly ruefully, becoming conscious of a very full bladder.
She started to get up and the Ratu awakened, eyes lighting up and grabbing her leg. She smiled at him and indicated her bladder, asking where she could pass water in Belada. He jumped to his feet, fast and agile for such a big man, leading her to the back of the hut. She stopped and went to grab the grass skirt, the only item of clothing she could see, but when she picked it up she realised it was torn to pieces, and she also saw bits of her beautiful shell necklace on the floor. Suzanne scratched her head, wondering how she managed to get herself into this predicament, while the Ratu’s attentiveness showed his impatience to get her back into the hut.
A Tender Embrace
Pat stretched his long limbs in the sun and tried to look at Silmatea’s breasts without Hinatea noticing. He and Rat were out with the girls in a dugout canoe with a bamboo outrigger, taking the luxury of a day off work to go fishing, after three exhausting days looking for ore and clay deposits over the island.
Hinatea, dazzlingly beautiful with a large red flower behind her ear, expertly paddled the canoe along the inside of the reef. Standing in the prow of the canoe was somebody who refused to be left behind. Mot loved fishing, barking at the flying fish and searching the horizon for her friends the dolphins.
The boys wore their rough canvas trousers, cut off into shorts with ragged edges, bare feet and torso; their skin tanned to a dark mahogany brown by the tropical sun. The girls were nude. They disliked wearing clothes, not seeing the point of them and actually getting ill when their clothes got wet. They had submitted with bad grace to wearing clothes on the ship, but now with a day off they were revelling in their normal freedom.
Pat idly watched a big scarlet-throated frigate bird flying low, its deeply forked tail almost touching the water. As he observed its flight, his head turned towards Silmatea and Hinatea cracked him hard on the side of the head with her paddle.
“No look at Silmatea’s tits,” she said severely. Hinatea was hardly jealous of Silmatea, and it would not have bothered her for a moment if Pat were to make love to Silmatea. However, the Pahippian girls had discovered that Harrheinians didn’t think that way, and the boys would submit meekly to chastisement for any transgressions involving other girls. So actually, she was just enjoying herself. Hinatea and her friends had taken a few days to realise that they could actually have one boy to their very own, and didn’t have to share. Once this realisation dawned, the free for all the male crew had enjoyed, which also infuriated the female crew members, ended abruptly as the girls selected their men. Hinatea had toyed with the idea of having several, but decided it was too much hassle and, besides, she had noticed the Harrheinian girls only had one each. She was trying very hard to be a Harrheinian, even if they were very stupid about so many things.
Pat rubbed his head, checking for blood. “I wasn’t looking,” he growled, inspecting his fingers. “That bloody hurt, and it wasn’t necessary.”
“You bad boy,” said Hinatea contentedly. “If not this time, then other time I don’t notice.” She kept paddling while Silmatea smirked in the front. The girls turned the canoe through a gap in the reef and into the open sea. Immediately, Mot started to bark excitedly, paws up on the prow. Flying fish were gliding away from the front of the canoe, and it was Mot’s life’s ambition to catch one of the glistening toys. Silmatea kept an eye on her, for she would jump in after one if they weren’t careful.
The canoe slowed, going parallel with the reef, and the girls were peering down into the water. Pat and Rat unpacked the fishing lines and prepared them. Hinatea called out urgently and the two girls spoke rapidly to each other in Pahippian. Silmatea stood up, a stick in one hand and a net in the other, and dived neatly over the side, with hardly a splash.
Leaving their lines, Pat and Rat leaned over the side to watch her. The reef was like a bulging cliff and Silmatea was swimming alongside the drop off about fifteen feet down. She went past several holes, looked into each briefly, then selected one into which she inserted her stick. They could just see her jiggling it in the clear water, then she was pulling it out and something was attached to it. She stuffed it in the net, quickly as lots of quite large fish came charging towards her and seemed to attack the net. Silmatea pushed hard for the surface, still pursued by the fish, and threw the net into the boat, where it landed on Rat. It exuded a long arm covered in discs which attached themselves to Rat, who screamed and ineffectually tried to scrape it off.
Fascinated, Pat leaned forward, grabbed the tip of the arm, carefully pulled it free and inspected it. The animal seemed to be all arms and it came out of the net, gripping his arm with several of its arms, which undulated. The discs proved to be suckers which were able to grip his flesh, while the arms all came from the base of a bag with two big eyes in the middle. It was changing colours rapidly, going from white to dark to brown to white again.
“Careful it does not bite you,” said Hinatea, leaning forward, pushing an interested Mot out of the way and grabbing the body of the creature, restricting its arms. She pulled it back and away from Pat’s arm, exposing the two big, soulful looking eyes. Bending over she seemed to kiss it between the eyes, it shuddered and went limp.
Seeing Pat’s perplexed look, she showed him a bump between the eyes. “You bite this, he dead. Very good to eat. Here, try.” She tore off an arm, bit a chunk off and offered it to Pat. He copied her and had to admit it was very tasty, chewy and delicious. Hinatea turned it over and showed how the arms all came from around the mouth, where there was a hard, sharp beak like the parrots Pat had seen on Vitua.
“We call eight legs, also best bait. See, when Silmatea catch all fish come to try and eat. So put bit on hook and you catch.”
Silmatea surfaced with another octopus, from which Rat cringed away. Mot stuck her nose into it and yelped as the octopus attached itself to her muzzle, desperately shaking her head and trying to scrape it off. Hinatea came to her rescue, killing it swiftly.
Pat watched Silmatea underwater again, as Hinatea controlled the canoe and Rat dropped a line down, the crude hook baited with a chunk of octopus. He caught a fair sized fish instantly and was hampered in bringing it into the canoe by Mot who considered it her job to actually catch the fish, clearly hoping it might be one of her nemesis, the flying fish.
“Silmatea look for holes in rock,” Hinatea explained. “If hole has stones in front of it, then eight leg inside. He put stones in front of hole, make pretty for his house. When he go out, he push stones to one side and go other way. But you never find him on reef, because he too clever at hiding. Change colour and look like rock. Have to find in hole.”
“How do you get him out?” asked Pat, watching as Silmatea probed at a new hole. She was able to stay under water for a long time, and Pat wondered how long he would be able to manage.
“You put stick in hole, he grab stick. You turn stick and he hold, grab with more legs. When more legs on stick than holding him in hole, you can pull out slowly and he don’t let go. If he big, kill straight away. If small bring to canoe. Must go quick as fish try to steal.”
“How big do these things get?” Pat asked, looking at the beak again.
“These not big,” said Hinatea, holding her hands a fair distance apart.
“That’s bloody enormous,” said Pat, looking at the octopus and again at the distance between her hands.
“I rest now,” announced Silmatea as she climbed aboard. Hinatea took her stick and net and dived overboard, while Silmatea gave Rat a quick kiss, then pushed past Pat to the stern of the boat, ensuring he was able to have a good, close look at her breasts on the way. There she took up the paddle and held the canoe roughly on station.
Hinatea surfaced with a huge shell in her net, a snail the size of a person’s head with a shell that coiled out to a long point. She shouted something to Silmatea, swapped nets and was gone again.
“She has found some clams,” explained Silmatea. “Good eating.”
Pat liked clams, but was unprepared for the enormous thing that Hinatea brought up next, the size of two hands side by side. Very different from the little ones in the sand at home.
“They good to eat when small like this,” said Silmatea grinning.
“They get bigger?” Pat asked in astonishment.
“Oh yes.” Silmatea’s Harrheinian was a bit better than Hinatea’s. “This one is a baby. They get this big.” She held her hands as wide apart as they could go, pushing her breasts up as she did so.
“You’re kidding,” said Rat, as he hauled up another fish.
“No, honestly, they get that big. Not good to eat, very tough, and you must be careful. They shut quickly when you come near, and if you get your hand or foot inside you cannot get out and drown.”
“Everything is bloody huge around here,” muttered Pat.
“Except tits!” Rat said with a straight face and tried to dodge the water Silmatea splashed at him with her paddle.
Hinatea swapped places with Silmatea and it was Pat’s turn to be kissed. The girls were very demonstrative, always touching and stroking, which was something the boys were finding difficult. The thought of a girl behaving like that had been the stuff of fantasy growing up, but the reality was disconcerting in the extreme.
Pat was distracted from his fishing, but tore his lips away as his hand was smashed down to the gunwale of the canoe and the line pulled through his fingers so fast they tore and bled. He jammed his foot on the line, gripped it with both hands and it promptly broke. Looking over the side they could see a large, humped fish angrily racing around the canoe, snapping at other fish and trying to work the hook out of its mouth on the coral.
“Eeee!” Hinatea said, looking at it. “A trevally - they very fierce, too big to catch on line. Break it every time. Don’t fish while he here. You no catch anything, he take bait and break line every time.”
Rat hurriedly pulled his line in, and indeed the trevally raced after it, snatching the bit of octopus tentacle off without hooking itself. They watched the trevally in silence as it circled about underneath them, all its fins raised and clearly highly annoyed.
Silmatea surfaced, some distance away, shouting shrilly in Pahippian. Hinatea shouted back and started the canoe racing towards her. Silmatea climbed aboard in great excitement, stammering out her story and shaking as she did so. The two girls conducted a long conversation in Pahippian, big smiles on their faces and the level of excitement going higher and higher. All the time Hinatea paddled slowly, keeping the canoe over the same area.
Pat and Rat wondered what was going on and eventually managed to get the girls to speak Harrhein.
“Is a grandfather!” Silmatea squeaked in excitement. “The biggest ever!”
“You help us catch him,” stated Hinatea, looking down into the water. “We cannot catch normal way.”
“We will be so proud,” said Silmatea. “Not many people ever see a grandfather this big, and very rare to catch one.”
“Remember one at Hula’ao,” said Hinatea. “It kill and eat girl who try catch it.”
“Oh, yes, that was Moana. I liked her. She was very silly to try and catch one on her own.”
Pat and Rat were feeling slightly alarmed. “What is a grandfather?’ Pat asked.
“Like the little ones, but bigger,” Hinatea waved at the octopus vaguely.
“Bigger? You said they only got this size,” accused Pat, worried and holding his hands apart. “How much bigger?”
“Is not eight leg. Is grandfather. Is different. Look, there is one of his legs.” She pointed through the waves.
Pat looked, but all he could see was a large moray eel, actually a huge eel nearly twice as long as he was. In fact he couldn’t see its head and with a sinking feeling he realised that it was an octopus tentacle.
“Dear God,” Rat said quietly, while Mot, who was also looking over the side, barked and licked his face enthusiastically. “The fucking thing is enormous. Wait, if that is one of its legs, how big is the bloody beak?”
“Oh, probably about like your hands together,” said Silmatea matter of factly, adroitly manoeuvring the canoe to get a better look at the hole the monster lived in.
“How are you going to catch it?” Rat asked. “I don’t think your sticks are big enough.”
“No, you right,” said Hinatea. “We need him out of hole. So we use bait. He come out, start to hold bait, Silmatea and I swim down and catch him.”
“What do you mean, ‘catch him’?” asked Pat. “You won’t fit him into a little net.”
“We pull head back and bite between eyes, like with eight legs. Must bite hard, but he die, easy.”
Pat and Rat digested this slowly, as the enormous tentacle slowly retracted into the cave. Another one came out and moved a rock around in the entrance. This tentacle looked different.
“That his catching hand,” said Hinatea. “See, is flat at end? Also has claw to help hold.”
“Charming,” said Rat in a shocked tone. “Are we safe in the canoe? Can it reach up and grab us?”
The girls looked at each other and shrugged.
“Probably,” said Silmatea. “I think I hear of it happening many years ago.”
“Fuck this,” said Rat, who was as brave as anyone, but courage tended to evaporate in the eggshell of a canoe. “Let’s get out of here before it notices us.”
“No,” said Hinatea firmly. “We must catch it. Very good eating, and stop it catching people fishing and the Gods will be pleased. They hate the grandfathers.”
“What are you going to use as bait?” Pat asked, picking through the fish they had caught and pulling up the largest, inspecting it critically. It was a red snapper and he thought it would be suitable.
“You,” said Hinatea, looking at him with her eyes twinkling.
“What?” Pat said, startled, while Rat’s mouth dropped open.
“You swim down, hold onto that rock there. He reach out and taste you with arm. He try pull you into hole. You hold rock tight. Then he come out to you, and hug you. Me and Silmatea swim down and kill him. Easy.”
Pat stared at her in shocked silence for a good minute before he spoke.
“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY? NO WAY!” he shouted. Pat hardly ever swore.
“What mean crazy?” Hinatea asked with interest. “New way of fucking?”
Pat didn’t reply, his mouth was working with nothing coming out. Rat was staring over the side at the monstrous tentacle, his face white. Mot thought it was all wonderful and barked excitedly, wagging her tail.
Hinatea turned to Silmatea, and spoke in Pahippian. “Which one do you think we should use?”
Silmatea eyed the two boys, both now looking over the side of the canoe. “Yours, I think. He is bigger. The grandfather might not come for mine, too skinny.” They were both careful not to use the boys names. “How are you going to make him go down? He is very scared.”
