Page 30 of Wild Life

People had said that kind of crap after my parents died, and it had always irritated me. My entire sense of security had been stolen from me, yet I was supposed to thank some dude who lived in the sky for sparing my brain from hemorrhaging upon impact, like my emotionally negligent parents’ had, and subsequently forcing me to be raised by my even colder and more distant aunt. If that was what luck meant, then slap my ass and call meLady Luck.

I skinned another rambutan and popped it into my mouth. Juice exploded over my tongue when I punctured the flesh with my teeth, and the mild tartness made my lips pucker.

A moist nose shoved its way into my lap, nostrils vibrating and expanding at my stash.

“Hey!” The fruit had taken me all morning to harvest, and I wasn’t going to give it up easily. I turned away to escape the garbage-disposal-on-legs that was trying to attack my treasure.

There was no hiding food from the pig. He could’ve given those bougie truffle pigs they used in France a run for their money, except he probably would’ve eaten everything he found before it ever had a chance to make it to market.

I gently trapped his snout with my hand, and his eyes shot to mine as if I were keeping him from the only meal he’d had in a week, although he had just stuffed his gut with a hearty portion of the bananas that Cryptid had harvested for us. Leaning in, I held his innocent stare. For a giant creature, he was so juvenile. The more I was around him, the less I noticed his intimidating size.

I softened my voice. “I will share my treats with you if you calm down.”

His eyes darted between both of mine as if he understood my words, which was remarkable since he’d probably never heard another human speak in his life.

A loud grunt startled me. Cryptid stood in the doorway of the hut, watching my exchange with the pig. He had avoided me all morning, so I wasn’t shy about giving him a taste of avoidance, too.

“Good boy,” I praised, turning back to the pig. I removed my hand slowly and straightened up while he remained seated before me, no longer a frantic barge of huffs and snot. I quickly peeled away the spiky shell of a rambutan for him and tossed it in the air. He caught it and immediately swallowed it down, then resumed position. “See? Good things happen when you’re patient.”

I fluffed his ears and went back to peeling fruit for both of us.

Cryptid lumbered past as if I didn’t exist. As if we hadn’t spent the night in each other’s arms.

When I had returned to the hut, I’d been defeated. I should have stuck it out longer on the beach, but with every degree the sun had traveled closer to Earth with no sign of rescue, the harder the rejection had gripped my suffocating hope. Spending the night out on the beach was lonelier than when I had spent it outside in the hammock pretending to sleep.

My brain had been too tired of thinking, allowing my feet to take over and bring me back to camp. I didn’t know how I had remembered the way. It was like my body had been pulled on an invisible line that connected me back to the hut. Back to Cryptid.

I had given up. Then I had given in.

Like always when I was lonely, I’d found my way into a man’s bed. Except this time hadn’t been out of desperation. Instead, it was like coming home to a place where I could be completely honest and not worry about having to mask my childhood-trauma-turned-adult-dysfunction.

Despite his frequent attitude, Cryptid felt safe. And last night, he’d proven that he was capable of warmth. He had given me what I needed rather than me taking it like I always had from other men. And for the first time, I hadn’t used my body as a bargaining chip.

I was in the habit of trading sex for intimacy. Some believed the words were interchangeable—a common misconception. Sex was physical, the act of fucking, so to speak. But intimacy went deeper. It had the power to make you feel whole when sex left you incomplete, especially if you forced yourself to go through with it without having a real connection with your partner.

For once, I hadn’t offered myself up to a man like a platter of goods. I’d been truly vulnerable and received the intimacy I needed to ease my loneliness.

All of that had vanished when I woke up in an empty bed, yet again. And he had punctuated the insult by acting as if it had never happened.

It was almost as if I had imagined the entire thing—a dream. But I distinctly remembered how secure I was in his arms.

And I also recalled how his hard dick had pulsed against my thigh. He could pretend I didn’t exist, but he couldn’t fake an erection.

I watched him as he organized more wood against the hut. More specifically, I watched his loincloth shift as he bent over, hoping to catch a glimpse of the bulge that had pushed against my leg all night. My teeth sliced the rambutan in my mouth in half, and I used my tongue to dislodge the flesh from the seed.

The man might’ve been unfortunate to be stuck on a deserted island, but that misfortune didn’t extend to his length. Cryptid was a monster of a man with a monster dick, and I was too curious to see what it looked like.A quick peek.

Last night, I had demonstrated control in not straddling him in hopes that he’d hold me afterward, and that certainly deserved a preview of what I was missing. I had been a good girl, and good girls deserved rewards, right? Just a glance would do the body good.

It had been fully erect for much of the night, and it must’ve been painful to have gone that long without coming. Maybe that was why he was cranky. Did he know how totake care of his business? He had to, right? It was something all men instinctively knew. I mean, if apes could do it on their own, certainly a man stranded should know how.

His cock sucked me so deep into the rabbit hole of dirty desires that I hadn’t noticed the pig gobbling fruit from my lap. I tried to push him off and failed, falling over as rambutans rolled in all directions around me. I opened my mouth to curse the lug out, but the seed inside went rogue and slipped into my throat. It traveled down my esophagus, but not without a fight. Coughs and gags racked my body, until I was on all fours, hacking like a cat with a furball.

When the tears finally cleared, I was face-to-dick with the loincloth that had distracted me almost to my death.

The cock’s owner stared down at me with nothing but a raised eyebrow, as if I were an idiot.

Not funny, Universe.

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