No food, of course. Or fishing gear.
Or land.
Just that silver coconut that had managed to keep a perfect distance between him and his boat for the last several hours, no matter where he drifted. He watched it bob, bored. He supposed he could start a diary. But he was a TV guy, not a journalist. TV guys weren’t known for their writing skills. But give ’em a teleprompter and they went to town! Yeah!
And what would he write about, anyway? How, in his arrogance, he’d wanted a smash-bang season opener of Con Con the Survivin’ Man (mahn), how he’d insisted on keeping distance between his little boat and the larger rig, the one with the camera crew, the producer, and the food.
How he’d ignored the storm, instead shouting survival tips to the camera over one shoulder while braving the squall. How he’d lost his balance and gone sprawling, how everything had gone starry and dark, and by the time he sat up, the crew boat was nowhere in sight. The storm had howled and nothing was in sight, and for a while he’d assumed he was in real trouble. And all this before sweeps week!
But just as suddenly as it had sprung up, the storm disappeared, leaving him stranded.
Yeah, he’d write all about that. He could see it now: The Memoirs of Captain Dumbass. Chapter One: I forget every single nautical rule of safety and survival.
No, he was in a mess of his own making, and writing about it wasn’t going to help. He and the silver coconut were on their own.
And where did that come from?
Well. It was the only thing to look at, for one thing; small wonder most of his attention was fixed on it. Wherever he looked he saw the endless ocean, the cruel unrelenting sea (hey, that was poetic, kinda, he should remember it for his triumphant comeback show), no islands, no greenery, no birds . . . just the silver coconut.
The survival expert flopped back into the bottom of the boat and realized that he had never seen a silver coconut. And the nearest tree was probably a zillion nautical miles from here. He studied the sky, which was an irritatingly cheerful blue. A “no dumbass got his bad self abandoned on my watch” kind of blue. The most annoying blue in the world, come to think of it. Arrggh.
He sat up, scowling. Better to look at the coconut. Which was quite a bit closer. Maybe the tides had changed? No, that didn’t make any sense. Maybe—
The coconut had a face. The coconut was a severed head!
Chapter 2
Oh Gawwwwwwd help me!” he cried in a baritone that would have sent gulls screaming from their perches—if there had been any gulls. He flopped back down in the boat.
Just what he needed. Tom Hanks’s character in Cast Away had Wilson the volleyball; he, Con Conlinson, would have Silver Severed Head. He should have listened to his mother. She’d wanted him to take the Civil Service exam and stay the hell out of showbiz.
He peeked over the rim of the boat. The head was very close now. He could see at once why he’d mistaken it for a silver coconut . . . the face was very pale, the eyes wide open, with silver pupils and long, flowing silver hair. Not old lady silver. Silver silver. The color of old nickels, polished by an obsessive. It was sort of striking and frightening at the same time.
The cold, dead lips opened. The silver eyes blinked. “Do you require assistance, biped?”
He flopped back down in the boat. Day two, and already the hallucinations were setting in. No fresh water, no food. What had he been thinking, taking the smaller, poorly equipped boat? He hadn’t, that was all. After all, the crew was always there to pull him out of a jam. Why should last weekend be any different?
“Excuse me?” the severed head said, much closer. “Are you all right?”
He flopped an arm over the edge and heaved himself off the bottom of the boat, making it rock alarmingly. The severed head was very close now, only a few feet away. And . . .
“Holy shit, a mermaid!”
“If you like. I am of the Undersea Folk. And you have not answered my question.”
“A friggin’ mermaid, right here next to me! I thought you were a severed head!”
The mermaid swam cautiously closer, easily parting the water with her long, pale arms. Her silver hair streamed behind her. She was sleek and pale and sweetly plump; her round face was set in a frown. “I think you have been exposed overlong to the sun.”
He stuck his hand over the side of the boat. She stared at it. “I’m Con Conlinson. Well. Just Con.”
Tentatively, she reached up and brushed his fingers with her cool, wet ones. “I am Reanesta.”
He burst out laughing. Maybe he had been in the sun too long. “Seriously? That’s your name? Reanesta? It sounds like a prescription sleeping pill.”
“I do not know what that is. And you have not answered my question, which, in a way, answers my question.”
“Huh?”
She disappeared with a flip of her silver tail and reappeared seconds later on the other side of the boat. She shook her head so that her long hair fell back, and blinked water out of her eyes. “Your craft is intact,” she announced, startling him so that he nearly fell overboard. “And you have the means to propel yourself elsewhere.” She gestured to the oar. “So are you harmed? Or ill?”
“No, I’m fine.” Also: dazzled, besotted, horny. Those eyes. That hair. Those—
“Then why are you still here?”
“Where am I gonna go?”
She seemed taken aback and made a vague gesture, one encompassing the ocean. “Where would you not go?”
“Uh . . . I don’t have a tail. Not that I have anything against tails. Particularly yours. In fact, yours is gorgeous,” he hastened to assure her.
“Gorgeous?” she repeated doubtfully.
“Gorgeous.” It was the color of candlefish, all sleek silver, wider at the hips and narrowing to wavy silver fins. “In fact, you are really gorgeous.” And those tits! He was having a terrible time maintaining eye contact. She was delectably curvy, and her breasts bobbed sweetly in the water, the nipples so pale a pink they were almost cream colored. She was like a ghost . . . or a dream.
“No, I am ugly,” she replied simply, as if she were explaining that two and two made four. “And I think you must be ill. Perhaps you should rest. Or eat.”
“Ugly!” He nearly toppled out of the boat again. “Are you shitting me?”
“I . . . do not believe so.”
“You’ve at least got some meat on your bones, unlike all those anorexic big-mouthed Hollywood brats. Your hair—your tail—your eyes—your ti—your brea—you’re the best-looking woman I’ve ever seen. Ugly! Sheee-it!”
“Well,” she said, swimming idly around the boat, “my blubber does keep me warm.”
“We’re in the South Pacific,” he said, feeling stupid. “What do you need to keep warm for?”
“I travel all over. And if you swim to the bottom, it can be chilly. But my coloring is bad. My friends are yellow and blue and green and anything you can imagine. I am”—she looked down at herself—“I’m a noncolor. I am practically not here.”
“Noncolor, my Alabama butt.”
“Your—what?”
“Where I come from, silver’s just about the most precious thing there is. We use it for money. It’s really valuable. And pretty.”
“The habits of bipeds are not known to me,” she admitted, rolling over on her back. She idly splashed with her tail, and yawned. “That is why I followed you for the last two days. When you seemed, ah, confused, I thought I might offer assistance.”
“Well, that was nice of you.” Two days? “Appreciate that.”
“Due to recent events among my people, we are allowed to show ourselves now.”
“Get outta here!”
“I beg your pardon.” She splashed, harder, and he was instantly drenched from eyebrows to belt buckle.
He coughed for five minutes while she watched impassively and finally wheezed, “Sorry, it’s a biped saying meaning to express shock or amazement. I remember, I saw it on CNN! You guys have been in h
iding for, what, centuries?”
“Indeed. But our great king, in his wisdom, has decreed that if we wish to show ourselves to surface dwellers, we may. But you are the first one I’ve seen so close.”
“Well, I’m honored.”
She seemed oddly pleased. “Thank you.”
“So, you live around here?”
“I live all over.”
“Ever been on land?”
“Yes.”
“Ever been to an Alabama barbeque?”
“No.”
“That was a joke.”
She frowned. “It wasn’t funny.”
“Well, I’m tired. And thirsty. And starving. Shouldn’t have mentioned barbeque. I—hey, where’d you go?” Because she’d disappeared, dropping out of sight with a flash of her tail.
“Well, sheee-it,” he muttered. “Meet the prettiest gal ever and scare her away in five minutes. Nice work, Con.”
It didn’t seem to be his week, that was for damned sure.
Chapter 3
A couple of minutes later, she was back. “Say, hi there!”
“Hello again.” She tossed shiny things into his boat. Tiny . . . headless things. Fish. She had caught and killed three small silver fish for him.
“I am aware that bipeds can be unusually squeamish,” she said, picking a scale out of her unusually sharp teeth, “so I killed them for you.”
His gorge rose, and he fought it down. This wasn’t a meal, this was bait! “Uh, thanks, Ree.”
“Reanesta.”
“Yeah, I’m stickin’ with Ree. I, uh, it’s not that I’m not grateful, but I can’t eat these like this.”
“Like what? Shall I bite the fins off for you?”
“No!” he shouted. Then, more quietly, “I mean, no thank you. Listen, I couldn’t never even eat sushi without wanting to puke.”
She frowned at him. “But you need the moisture as well as the protein.”
“I know. But I can’t. It’s a mental block thing.”
“You require them cooked?”
“Yup.”
“But we have no fire. So you must eat them as they are.”
“Yeah, but I can’t.” Inwardly: Some survival expert! Well, what his viewers didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. “See, usually my crew has food, and I don’t have to actually do the things I tell people to do.”
“Watch me, Con. It’s easy.” And she reached into the boat, snatched up a fish, and crunched. He watched, wide-eyed, as she demolished the thing with her small, sharp teeth, wiping a dot of blood off her cheek when she was finished. “Ah! Delicious. See?”
He leaned over the boat and retched. Oh, you’re making a great impression, asshole! he thought as he barfed.
“Oh, dear.”
“Please don’t do that again,” he begged.
“I foresee problems ahead.”
“Ya think?”
“Let me do so,” she said. “I will come back.” And she was gone again.
He lay back in the boat and thought about what an idiot he was.
Chapter 4
He must have dozed, because a gentle rapping on the lone oar woke him up. He sat up and there was Ree, holding out a fistful of what looked like puffy seaweed.
“We call this Traveler’s Grass,” she explained. “It grows in salt water, but it won’t dehydrate you and will fill your stomach.”
“Well, I never was a salad man, but you know what they say about beggars and choosers.”
“No.”
“Never mind,” he said, accepting the clump of seaweed. He put some cautiously in his mouth, chewed, then took another bite.
“Slowly,” she cautioned, “or you will vomit again.”
“Don’t wanna do that,” he said with his mouth full. This . . . wasn’t bad. A little briny, sure, but his stomach wasn’t resisting and that was the important thing. And the more he ate, the more he wanted. He finished the fistful in less than a minute. “Wow, thanks, Ree! God, I feel better.”
“I will bring you more. I will come back.”
“Not one for long good-byes, are you?” he shouted at her disappearing tail.
In another minute she’d brought an armful and plopped it into the boat. “Perhaps once you’ve had more of this, you’ll be sensible about the fish. You must have fresh water.”
“For such a pretty gal,” he said, chewing, “you’re a pretty big nag.”
“And for such a helpless biped, you’re remarkably unwilling to save your own life.”
“Hey, I bet you’ll find people all over the world who don’t eat raw fish.”
“Stupid people. Dead people.”
“Aw, go bite the head off another fish.”
“Perhaps I will!”
“Well, who’s stopping you?” he yelled, still chewing.
“No one at all,” she snapped back, and vanished again.
Which was fine with him.
Er, right?
Chapter 5
Reanesta guiltily swam back an hour later.
Yes, he had annoyed her with his helpless ways and silly prejudices, but he was sick and, even if he wouldn’t admit it, already dying. She had been wrong to take offense and leave.
So she swam up to the boat, which had drifted but not so far she couldn’t find it, and politely knocked on the oar again.
His stubbled face popped over the side and he smiled when he saw her, showing those odd, flat teeth common to bipeds. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t eat the fish. It was a wonder they managed to eat anything with those dull things.
“Ree! You came back!”
“Yes. I apologize for arguing. You’re ill and unaware of your irrationality.”
“Uh . . . thanks, I think.” He was looking down at her with those dark eyes, his cheekbones prominent and the stubble on his cheeks an interesting reddish brown. His hair was as dark as his eyes. Like her, he had very ordinary coloring, but she found him interesting all the same.
He was the first biped she’d had the courage to approach. And, she had to admit, she liked that he liked her. Perhaps that was part of his appeal.
“Here.” She handed up a fistful of Lallyflowers, the ones that grew in shallower waters, which she was fairly certain he could eat. “Try these.”
“Thanks,” he said gratefully, and chomped into the yellow petals without hesitation. “And thanks for coming back.”
“I was wrong to leave.”
“Naw, I was being a jerk.”
Privately she agreed, but said nothing.
“These aren’t too bad, though if I get out of this I’m never eating a salad again.”
“Do you think,” she said tentatively, “now that you have something in your stomach, you might try a fish?”
He looked guilty and said around a mouthful of petals, “I chucked ’em after you left.”
She inwardly cringed at the waste. No wonder the planet was such a mess! Perhaps her folk should take it away from the bipeds. “If I brought you more?”
He hesitated, then said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll give ’er a try. Can’t promise to keep ’em down, though.”
“Excellent! All right, I will get some. You stay here.”
“I wasn’t planning on going nowhere,” he said dryly, and she flushed, embarrassed—what a stupid thing to say!
“I will come back,” she promised, which was something she had never said to anyone in her forty-five years, but which she had said many times to this man. It was very strange.
“I’ll be waitin’.”
She vanished into the water, darting for the bottom, looking for something he might try to bite. She ignored the manta rays—too big—and the barracudas (same reason), although she knew for a fact both were delicious. She finally settled on a wrasse and two small parrot fish, snatching them and biting their heads off before they could evade her. Then she arrowed back up to the boat, watching as the silhouette got bigger and bigger until she popped out of the water.
“Oh, great, you’re back,”
he said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
“You said you’d try,” she scolded him gently. She handed him one of the parrot fish.
He sniffed it, shuddered, and nibbled on one of the fins.
“No, no. You have to bite. You’ll never get any protein that way. I know! Hold it over your mouth and squeeze and at least drink the blood.”
“You’re being,” he said, “the opposite of helpful.”
“Oh, for the king’s—” She seized the side of the boat, switched to her legs, and heaved herself into it.
He stared at her. “Silver hair, uh, all over, I see.”
“Yes, yes. Like this.” She grabbed the fish and leaned toward him, holding it over his mouth. He was still staring at her. “Open your mouth,” she said, trying not to lose her temper, and, obediently, he did. She squeezed, and blood trickled into his mouth, over his silly flat teeth and down his throat. She squeezed the fish dry, then dropped it on the bottom of the boat. “Oh, hooray! You did it! Oh, well done!” She bounced and clapped, but quit when the boat started to rock.
“Huh? Did what? Bleeeccchh! What the hell did you do?” He spit over the side.
“You drank the whole fish!”
“I did what? No fair!” he accused. “You distracted me with your nudity.”
“And a good thing, too,” she said primly, folding her arms across her chest and crossing her legs. “Otherwise you’d be dead of dehydration. Now. Ready to try another one?”
“Another what?” he said absently, but opened his mouth again, and drank both fish, and afterward they had a terrific argument about the diabolical use of her feminine wiles—whatever that meant—and she jumped overboard and swam away again.
Chapter 6
An hour later, he was still spitting, but couldn’t deny he felt better. But it was pretty damn diabolical of her to use her body like that to distract him into—eecccch!—drinking fish blood.
And it had all started so innocently, too! He’d been minding his own business, working on not staring at her tits, when all of a sudden she had legs (and like the song said, she knew how to use them) and was clambering into the rowboat.