Chapter 5 – Magnetic Island – Days 5-9
Maggie and Susan had a lovely day at Kuranda and were both sad to say goodbye on their return, but Susan had a bus to catch. After a promise to keep in touch and an exchange of English addresses, they went their separate ways.
Susan didn’t know why, but as she climbed onto the bus she felt a bit down—perhaps it was just coming down after all the excitement of the last two days. She and Maggie had such a great time together and the thought of them going in different directions was a downer.
Susan also felt a twinge of regret for missing Mark last night. She mentioned his note to Maggie today, who responded with a raised eyebrow. Still she wondered what might have been there? Maybe a one-night fling, but there was a definite spark. She would have liked to see where it led.
She settled into a seat by herself and watched the green countryside, with the mountains to the west, slipping by. It would be four hours to Townsville, with a half hour stopover mid-way. She had booked a room for the night and would go on to Magnetic Island tomorrow for three days before flying south to Sydney.
As the bus rolled along Susan felt her mood lift again; there were new places to see, new things to do. The mountains faded into deep shadow, then final flares of light on their tips with a departing sun—an eerie and distinctly Australian beauty. Travel was such a mood aphrodisiac.
By the time they made it to Townsville she was yawning. But at least the jetlag was gone. Susan tumbled into bed and did not stir until bright daylight brought her awake.
After a leisurely breakfast she made her way to the ferry jetty. There was a 9:30 ferry to the island. Once on the island she caught a bus to Horseshoe Bay, which on her map faced out towards the great Pacific Ocean.
Here she found a backpackers hostel, recommended by somebody in Cairns who had said it was the best on the island. No one was in sight so she dropped her pack on a vacant bed. She put on her pale blue bikini and walked to the beach with a book. She sat gazing out over the vast blue expanse, soaking in the pleasure of the warm, endless ocean space. There were only a couple other people on the beach and they were far away. It was her own private piece of paradise.
Susan moved back under the shade and stretched out on a towel. Her novel told of someone else’s imaginary life. Her own life, whenever she looked up, also felt like it sat inside a holiday storybook.
Finally hunger brought her back to the hostel. In Townsville she had bought a loaf of unsliced bread, a pack of ham, and tomatoes. Now she made herself an oversized sandwich, with two thick bread slabs layered with ham and tomato.
There were bedroom noises but otherwise she had the place to herself. She carried her plate to a bench table by the window and sat facing out, away from the kitchen. Her view was along the beach towards a green headland. She ate with ravenous hunger.
Like an electric tingling up her spine, she became aware of soft footsteps behind her. Something else, familiar but not, had also caught her subconscious attention.
She turned around. As her eyes adjusted from bright light, she realised it was him, Mark. He was standing a few feet behind her, tall and broad in the gloom. Her gaze was drawn to his direct eyes and mid brown hair with sun-bleached tips. He was looking at her with what seemed like hopeful recognition.
Their eyes connected. She felt a jolt pass between them, tightness in the pit of her stomach, a raw emotion of physical connection. She knew he felt it too.
While this emotion washed over her, Susan’s face flashed in a smile of delight, attraction and pleasure, re-meeting someone familiar in this country of strangers.
Mark smiled back, but with guarded hesitancy, and said, “I thought it was you, but then I thought it was just imagination. You look great, even better than the picture in my memory. But, of course, absence of a face mask improves us all, even me.”
Susan burst out laughing, a kind of giggle fit. She felt breathless and flushed, like an adrenaline rush. She was also self-conscious that she was only clothed in her skimpiest bikini. It showed off lots of her body that he was clearly aware of.
She pulled herself back from embarrassment and, pointing to her sandwich, said, “Have you eaten?” Mark shook his head. “I have plenty of bread, ham and tomato, can I make you one?”
Mark nodded and said, “Yes that would be great.” They settled down to eat, side by side, facing the bay.
Susan could not help herself from chatting away and telling Mark what she had done in the last two days. Then she looked at him and said, “I was really disappointed I missed you that night at the hotel. It would have been great to go and have a drink together.”
“I felt a bit silly asking you, like I barely met you with diving and lunch. But I found you interesting and we seemed to like the same things. You’d said where you were staying in Cairns. So, I thought, what the hell, no harm in asking.”
“Well I am glad you did even though it didn’t work out. Now here you are. We have a second chance tonight.”
They sat there while a few minutes went by, both gazing at the view while they ate. Susan was very aware of Mark’s body. It was close, almost touching her. A couple times they brushed each other and she felt a little thrill.
Mark turned to her, saying, “What are your plans for the afternoon?”
“I hadn’t thought about it yet. What about you, do you know your way around this place?”
“I have been here a couple times. There is a lot to do, horse riding, jet skis, sea kayaks and more. But one thing that is particularly good in the afternoon is to go walking in the national park, out to the head of the bay. You often see dolphins and turtles in the sea; sometimes you see a koala in the bush. There is a lovely little sheltered beach at the end where you can swim.”
“That sounds like a great idea, shall we do the walk this afternoon then perhaps something more adventurous tomorrow?” said Susan
“Why not,” said Mark, in his slightly droll way.
He filled a water bottle, put it in a light pack which he dropped over one shoulder, and they headed off. He led the way, following the top of the beach. After a few minutes they reached a path into the forest, a mixture of gum trees and other scrabbly ones, with funny pointed cones that poked out at odd angles.
“What are they?” she asked.
“That’s a banksia tree,” he replied, “and those are the banksia men that live on it.” Mark added pointing to the cone-like things, “They attach themselves and wait until someone like you comes along. Then they jump out onto you.”
Susan widened her eyes, and said, “Oh really! I know I am just a dumb Pommie visitor, but even I know when I am being had.”
“Just testing you,” he said.
They walked on, climbing a rocky ridge. On their descent down the other side a breathtaking view unfolded: a little indented rocky bay with crystal clear water and a sweeping horizon of sea and sky, blending together far into the distance.
“Wow, this is really something,” said Susan.
Just as she spoke, barely twenty yards out, two dolphins, side by side, came leaping out of the water, frozen in a split second of perfect symmetry. Susan shook her head in wonder.
“I knew you’d like it,” said Mark, then added, “but that was amazing, like they turned it on, just for us.”
She linked her arm through his and gave a squeeze of delight.
He brushed her hair back from her face and touched her cheek. Then he pulled away. “Let’s keep going, it’s a bit of a way yet.”
They went on, mostly him leading and her following. Sometimes, when the path widened, she would come alongside. A couple times he lightly rested his hand on her shoulder. It felt good and Susan responded by placing a hand on his hip.
They came down off the ridge into a green depression: a small swamp that the path tracked around. It was open, with paperbarks in the centre, and huge forest gums at the edge.
Mark motioned quiet with a finger to lips. He paused, standing
stationary for perhaps thirty seconds. Then he took her hand and raised it to point at a high branch of one of the big gums.
She followed the hand with her eyes and her eyes adjusted to the gloom. A small movement brought all the detail into clear focus. There, sitting on a high branch, was a mother koala. She was pulling a branch towards and eating off leaves, one by one.
Susan gasped. She knew it was a mother koala because on its back was a large baby, perhaps half her size. She watched as the mother directed the leaves towards her baby. It followed its mother’s lead and began to eat the leaves, one by one. It mimicked her exact movements as it ate with apparent relish.
They both stood transfixed for five minutes, watching until all the leaves were gone. Then mother koala curled up, baby now in front on her lap. They both closed their eyes and, for all the world it seemed, they just fell fast asleep.
Mark smiled, “Seriously something, Huh!”
“I feel so lucky that I got to see that,” said Susan
They walked on, now holding hands, not talking but moving along together, enjoying the peaceful forest. Gradually they climbed onto the hillside again, tracking the edge of little rocky headlands that fringed the sea. Finally they reached the end where the path fell away onto a little sandy beach, facing out towards the wide ocean. They stopped at the edge of the sand and stood for a minute, fingers entwined.
Then Mark pulled away. “Come on, time for a swim” he said.
He pulled off his T-shirt and plunged into the ocean in his shorts, hard muscles rippling as he powered away. She lifted her dress over her head. She followed him in, wearing the bikini. They both splashed and swam separately for a minute. Then she swam up to him. She stood in water, up to her waist, in front of him, looking up. “Thank you so much for showing me all this, it has been the most wonderful afternoon.”
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked directly at her, his steady eyes looking into hers. “It keeps getting better from here.”
She moved in close against him, feeling his firm body, and wrapped her arms around his chest. His arms pulled her tight. She could feel his maleness hard against her. Unconsciously, she pushed her pelvis against his leg, as a deep ache ran through her.
Her body longed for sex and here it was, in waiting, in the middle of nowhere, perhaps paradise. Normal restraints fell from her mind, there was only here and now.
His hand ran down her back and over her bottom, stroking her, grasping her buttocks. Then she felt his hands, inside her pants bottoms, touching her naked flesh with a sensitivity that made her shiver all over. He pulled back slightly, ran his fingers through her hair and tipped back her face, saying, as he looked at her.
“You have the most wonderful blue eyes, just the same colour as this beautiful bikini that barely covers you. Every time they look at me they make weak inside. Then I want to do this to you” he said, sliding his other hand down under her top and cupping her breast.
She felt a little moan escape. They both knew what they wanted.
Susan felt his hands on her bottom again, sliding down her bikini pants. Then there was incredible pleasure as he stroked her soft belly, all the while moving down and into that aching place.
Holding together, touching these places on each other, they came back to the beach. He spread a towel on the sand, and pushed her down onto it. Then he was on top and astride her. His body felt huge and hard, his face a silhouette against the light. She felt her legs come apart and her pelvis arch as he pushed inside her. It felt huge but exquisite, this long-missed pleasure of joined bodies.
The surges of pleasure came faster as they rode this rising wave together. At last she could hold back no longer. As Susan fell over the edge of the orgasmic wave she grasped him, wrapping arms with all her force around his hard back and let out, “Oh God.” It was like a signal, and he was exploding inside her, such a cascading, overwhelming, release, and relief.
They lay together panting and slowly subsiding. She could feel their combined wetness flowing out over her thighs. I needed that so badly and it was so good, she thought.
Then a sudden panic hit her. My God, I stopped taking the pill when Eddie and I broke-up. She hadn’t considered that until now.
Well it is past time to undo this she thought as she felt his hand stroke her and felt him begin to harden again.
Now they were doing it all over again. This time she pushed him onto his back and climbed on top, working herself up and down like a gymnast. His hands grasped her buttocks and stroked her as she moved, his mouth on her nipples. More and more, deeper and deeper, harder and harder. When it felt like she would pass out with the building pleasure, he grasped her and flipped her below him. He drove in with incredibly hard thrusts, almost hurting her. His sheer male dominance brought her to a huge climax, as he came again himself.
They lay still together for a while before they both felt the need to swim and wash. They splashed and swum, and then came together; Susan swimming up to Mark who was standing in waist deep water.
She dived into him, pushing her face into his belly and working down. She took him in her mouth and he hardened again. Mark lifted her effortlessly and placed her hips against his waist. He pushed her down onto him while his face was in her hair. They stayed in the water and made slow love in the little wavelets, first standing and then, when it felt like it would overwhelm them, lying together in the shallows.
Desire satiated, they sat on a rock soaking in the afternoon warmth, with occasional affectionate touches, before they decided it was time to head back.
The walk back had a pastel feel, like a dreamy painting, as if they had both wanted this consummation so much and, now that it was done, they just wanted to let the afternoon slowly ebb away together.
It was almost dark by the time they came back to the hostel and it was crowded with other backpackers. Mark suggested Susan sit on the verandah while he got them drinks. He returned with a six-pack. They sat together, almost silent, sipping their beers and watching the light fade from the horizon.
Susan finally said, “Do you make a regular practice of picking up female backpackers and taking them for a walk, wowing them with beauty and ravishing them, the way you did to me this afternoon?”
He replied with a half smile, “Well I have done something like a couple times, but never as good as with you. There is something about you that is different; it is like you are a free spirit who has never been quite captured by ordinary life.”
She snuggled into him and said, “Well, I knew I wasn’t the first, but this was really something for me too, I think it is your wild edge that gets me in.”
Mellow with beer they decided that a steak at the local hotel would be dinner. They both showered and put on best clothes for the night out. Over dinner Mark told stories and snapshots of his life, working in the outback, working in mines, working on an oil pipeline in the Middle East and other jobs in Africa and Asia. It was clear he had done many things, though he told little of his early life, family or friends.
Coming back the hostel was quiet; it appeared most others were already in bed.
Mark brought a mattress out on to the verandah, and she came into bed with him, laying her cheek on his bare chest. First they cuddled, then as desire grew they made languorous love, looking at each other in a faint glow of starlight. Then they both slept.
In the early dawn Mark rose and directed her to her own bunk. He packed up his bedding and headed off into the early dawn, she knew not where.
She fell into a deep dreamless sleep in her own bunk. The sun was well up when she woke again.
Mark was sitting with a cup of coffee at the kitchen table when she came out and he fixed her another one to share with him.
They spent the next three days together jet skiing, sea kayaking, snorkelling, sailing. Best of all was horse riding. They had gone for a ride together, after breakfast that next day, riding sturdy ponies bareback along the beach.
Susan had
done the equestrian thing in England. Mark, self-taught, was a superb rider, so well-balanced. They loved riding along together, sometimes walking and trotting, knees brushing; other times a lolloping canter and occasionally an all-out gallop as they raced frenetically to get to the front, laughing with joy and exhilaration.
On the first day it was proposed they go with an organised group. However, Mark sought agreement for them to ride alone, telling of his life working with horses on large stations. Having demonstrated their riding ability they were given the same two ponies, each day for two hours, to ride on their own. They would ride along the beach to the furthest end, walking, trotting and an occasional gentle canter, moving slowly to draw out anticipation of the pleasure to follow. Nearing the beach end their pace would quicken as desire grew.
Once out of sight they would fall into the water. It would begin with swimming, but soon, clothes cast aside, they would ravish each other. The return ride: a wild gallop—their way to begin each day.
Afternoons were on the water; sailing one day, jet-skiing the next, sea kayaks another, paddling around the point to their first day beach and repeating their pleasure there.
Initial plans were to leave on the third day, but they stayed two more days. They did not want their idyll to end. By the fifth day they knew they must both go separate ways.
Mark had a week’s work in central Queensland and then was heading on to the Alice while Susan was Sydney-bound and could delay her flight no longer.
They were sombre on the ferry back to Townsville. At final parting they hugged tight. Mark did not talk a lot. Susan felt the ache of impending loss; she’d grown huge affection for this sun-toughened man from out the back of somewhere, wherever that was. Many layers lay beyond where she had reached. She was sad; her days discovering him were at an end.
Susan had the option of flying to Uluru or Alice Springs for a week on her way home, with a home flight booked out of Darwin. Mark might be somewhere around there too, but she didn’t quite see how it would happen that they would be together again.
As he started to pull away he handed Susan a card with “Mark” and a mobile number written on it, saying, “Well, if you do come by Alice the week after next and want to see real bush, send me a text to let me know. I need to make a trip from the Alice to the Top End to do some business along the way around then. Perhaps you could come along too and see all the nature and emptiness.
“Just let me know, if that’s what you want. Then, if we can work the timing, I will line up for you to come along. The trip will take about a week, maybe a bit more. I will be mostly out of phone contact so a text is best.”
Susan felt a surge of hope mixed with uncertainty. It was indefinite, probably unlikely, but it was something.
She tucked the card in her purse and gave him a brittle smile and a wave as she walked towards the bus which was to take her to the airport. Mark stood there looking at her with an inscrutable look on his face, but it seemed to hold more than indifference.
Suddenly she did not want it to end like this, with an almost casual goodbye. She ran back to him. He put his arms out. She pressed her body against him one last time, nuzzling her face into his rough cheek She said, “Mark, I really want to see you again. I hate saying goodbye. This has been so special for me.
He said. “Me too,” and held her close. For brief seconds it was just the two of them, the other world faded away. Then the toot of the bus pulled her back and they separated.