The Hermit

"Oh yes, that looks delicious. Thanks. You live alone here?"

I nod, desperately trying to limit my communication with this woman to the absolute minimum, lest I be infected with her upbeat personality.

"Would you have some clothes I could borrow? I didn't exactly have time to pack." That smile is back. It's still fabulous.

I nod, and go to my stern cabin to get her some sweats. I don't know how long I can stay grumpy in the face of that smile.

"Take one of the forwards cabins." I hand her the clothes.

"Thanks. They're all available?"

I just nod again.

"Why is a man like you living all alone? How have you managed to keep the women away?"

"What?" The total shock on my face brings on that musical laugh again. Then she takes pity on my confusion.

"Never mind. I'll get changed. It gets kind of cold in this wet bikini." There is far more warmth in that smile than a stuck up fashion model should have, as she turns and heads forward. I watch her for a moment; she's just as gorgeous from the back as from the front. I shake my head and try to puzzle out what she was talking about.

Julia told me time and again over the years that I was "just a guy," completely ordinary, with nothing special or attractive about me. I was lucky to have her, she told me, and I had come to believe her. Now this incredibly beautiful woman, an actual fashion model no less, was asking me how I kept the women away? I figure I have some time while she's changing, so I try to figure this out.

Two minutes later she's walking toward me, making my ratty old sweats look better than they have any right to. Of course, she's a fashion model. So she's supposed to change quickly and to look good in everything. Still, my only comparison is Julia, who could take half an hour to change her shoes. I could get used to a quickly dressing woman, I think, chuckling a little.

"Hey, you can have a friendly face. I think you're not as grumpy as you try to be."

I'm trying desperately not to smile back at her. It works, sort of. Her hair is drying and it becomes obvious that she's a brunette. It doesn't matter, she would look good with any hair color. Damn, stop this, Mark. All it will bring you is trouble and heartache.

"Would you mind if I stayed below deck? I don't want to remind Fulvio I'm here."

"Hmm," I say in an affirmative tone. My attempts to stay monosyllabic are starting to sound ridiculous, even to me.

"Okay. See you tomorrow. Would you mind if I borrow your eBook reader?"

I nod again and retreat into the safety of my cabin, feeling relieved to be alone again.

xx

Early morning on deck. I'm always grumpy in the morning. The cup of coffee that is my only companion doesn't mind. I could stay in bed, but then I'd just lie there and think of Julia. That's no good. I'm thinking of her anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

She hated my morning grumps. Now that she's not here to grouse at me, I've come to like this mood. I can sulk all I want to about how life (really, Julia) treated me, and there's no one to tell me not to.

The noise and commotion from Brione's Floating Whorehouse finally stopped around 4 am. Now it looks and sounds like a ghost ship. I'm betting they won't be up until noon. Good.

I hear shuffling below decks. My uninvited guest seems determined to break out of the 'fashion model' mental box I created for her. She's over 20, she's not bulimic, she's not stuck up or bitchy even when I'm almost rude to her, and now she's an early riser? What's next, she's a certified diesel mechanic?

"Morning." Her head emerges from the hatch.

"Morning." I'm sure my grumpy mood is obvious.

"Coffee?"

"Galley."

She disappears down the hatch. It seems she's just as terse as I am in the morning, though a lot nicer looking.

I turn back to look at the sea. The smooth surface of the bay is painted with images of Julia and her lover, intimately joined, smirking at me. Shit.

I hear my unwanted guest coming up on deck. Now that she's had her coffee, she'll be all perky and happy and want to talk, about stuff I either don't care about, or don't want to talk about. And she'll smile that fashion-model beautiful smile, don't forget that. Shit. I don't want anyone to cheer me up. I want to mope. Alone. Don't I have the right to do that?

Anna (now I remember her name) surprises me again. She doesn't say a word. She sits on the deck next to me and gazes at the calm sea. The air is still fresh and crisp, and the intense Greek sun hasn't yet begun to scorch everything in sight. Strange: all I see now is the sea. Julia has disappeared. The silence stretches comfortably between us.

"So what's the deal?" she suddenly asks.

"Deal?"

"You rescued me. What do I have to do?" She looks a little tense now, almost as if expecting bad news and not wanting to hear them.

"Did everyone that helped you in the past wanted something in return?" Damn, I didn't want to talk that much and I certainly don't need to learn anything about her past, but her question has surprised me.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well, your life must be pretty shitty, then." Yeah, right. Any woman as beautiful as she is would have men lining up to beg for the privilege of doing her a favor.

"It is." I look at her. She is serious; her beautiful face looks completely forlorn. I turn away, not knowing what to say. This silence is not comfortable.

It occurs to me that getting out of here before Brione and his fellow revelers wake up is a sound idea.

"Is there anything on that ship that you need?" I'm surprised how gently I ask her.

"No." She says it firmly, as if she's renouncing her high fashion life and everything associated with it.

I nod and prepare for getting under weigh. I hope she won't follow me around and try to 'help.' She doesn't: she stands at the rail, silently gazing at the sea. Is that just how she is? Or has she figured out that's what I would like? Either way, she seems to know me far better than I'm comfortable with.

I stow our coffee cups in the galley and get to work. I bring in and stow the mooring lines; fortunately, I can do it without using the dinghy. Getting the anchor in with the winch motor will take a while and be noisy toward the end, but there's nothing I can do about that. Anna looks anxiously toward the Floating Whorehouse as the noise increases.

There isn't much wind, so I fire up the diesel. I'd like to put some distance between myself and Brione just in case the anchor winch woke someone up on the Whorehouse. Halcyon has a nice turn of speed if I need it, but I'd prefer to just disappear.

I can almost see the tension leaving Anna as Brione's yacht grows smaller and finally disappears from view. She looks even more beautiful, which I hadn't thought possible. She sits next to me, quiet and happy, as I stand at the wheel.

With Brione out of sight, I've had enough of the diesel's noise. I set the sails and kill the engine. Ah, blessed silence! Only the wind, the waves, and the sails can be heard. I trim the sails and return to the wheel. The companionable silence falls between us again.

I look over at her from time to time as she sits quietly, gazing at the sea. With Brione out of sight, she seems relaxed and serene. She doesn't seem to have a care in the world. This is odd, I think. She doesn't look like a woman who's just thrown away a career most girls would kill for.

If Julia had done that - not that she would, but if she had - serene is exactly what she wouldn't be. Nervous, shrill, demanding, yes. Serene, no. Unless...

What if this Anna is thinking of me exactly as Julia did? What if she's decided that since I let her come aboard, I must be the sucker who will support her in the style to which she's become accustomed? Is that why she hasn't a care in the world? Oh, shit, I thought, here we go again. Henry Higgins was right: Let a woman in your life, and your serenity is through. I was finished with that forever.

I look at her. She has turned her face away from me, gazing over the port rail at the sunlit ocean. She looks completely innocent. Of course, I remind myself, she's a model. Ex-model, that is. They can look like anything they want to. I look upward to check the sails, then off to starboard.

"What did she do to you?" My reverie is broken. Wait, how did she know that? I stare dumbly at her.

"Well?" Damn, the morning has been almost perfect and now she has to ruin it.

"Nothing. I'm just a guy."

"Sure. A handsome guy, obviously well off, sailing alone on a gorgeous boat, trying to cover the fact that he's nice by being grumpy."

What, handsome? I've found the first flaw in her: she definitely needs glasses.

"You need to talk about it sometime; we're all alone here, and I'm a good listener, but I don't want to press."

"Thanks."

Damn. Am I that obvious?

"Yes, you are." My head snaps around and she just chuckles. I can't help but smile. Shit, keeping my defenses up is not really going well.

"Okay, I'll bite. What will I say next?" She actually blushes a little.

"I don't know what you will say. I do know you try to keep your distance by being silent.

She takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye. Her face registers determination, though I think I see sympathy in her eyes. Or do I imagine it?

"You've been hurt, badly. Your reaction is to curl up in a ball and keep everyone at a distance, because you're afraid you'll get hurt again. That's okay, it's natural; even animals do that. Sooner or later, though, you have to uncurl and start moving again. You're walking and talking, but you're still afraid of being hurt, especially by women. I get that. But you've chosen to cut yourself off from humanity, with only your pain for company. What you don't see is that every time you choose to think about your wounds instead of other things or other people, you let her hurt you again. Your pain gets worse instead of better. You don't even get any sympathy, because you've cut yourself off, so no one's here to see you."

I pictured myself as suffering in noble solitude, insulating myself so that no one, certainly no woman, could ever again do to me what Julia had. What if all I'm doing is sulking? I decide to give her the basics; maybe she'll stop talking and I can think. Or sulk, or whatever.

"Okay, I was married to the woman who'd been my best friend since we were kids, but it crashed and burned."

"She cheated?"

"Yeah, and at the end all she wanted was my money. So you see why I'm a little gun shy, especially when it comes to women." There, that should hold her for a while. But it doesn't.

"I'm sorry, I thought it must be something like that. But now you're letting her continue to hurt you, and keep you away from happiness. It's a shame that you give her that power over you.

"Look, you're going to have to talk about it sometime. You can't just lock all of that up inside, it's not good for you. And who better to talk to than someone you'll never see again?"

I look at her in surprise. I guess she isn't making a play for me, after all.

"Don't worry, I already knew you planned on getting rid of me at the next port. So your secrets are safe with me." She paused. "Would it help if I told you my story?"

I think for a moment. If she's telling me her story, she isn't asking about mine, and trying to make me move past the pain of Julia. That scares me. But what if she's had it worse than I have, and handled it better? Then I'd have to open myself up to this beautiful stranger whose world is completely different from mine. What would become of me then?

She interrupts my musing. "Back to the silent treatment, then?" She has this infectious grin, like a mischievous little girl. I'm about to smile back at her, when I catch myself. No attachments, I remind myself; don't let her get to you.

"Too late," she's still grinning. Damn, she caught me again. I'd better watch myself around this woman.

Slowly her smile fades, and her eyes focus on the far horizon.

She speaks in a flat monotone, as if she's reciting.

"I grew up in a small town, where everyone knew me. Other kids were smarter or more talented, but I was the one who was expected to go out into the big world and do something. Be famous, you know. When the only thing you can do is look beautiful, that means modeling.

"I soon found I was at the bottom of the food chain: quite a change from being the princess in my little town! For the first time in my life, I was told I wasn't good enough. Time after time, and in the crudest and most hurtful terms." She turned toward me, her eyes pleading for understanding.

"Mark, when you do something - a project, a report, or something - and you're told it isn't good enough, that's bad enough. When you're told it's you, yourself, that isn't good enough, nastily, again and again, it really does things to you." She paused and turned back to the horizon.

"Like a lot of models, in self-defense, I began to think of my body as something that wasn't really part of me. It was almost like a tool box or a skill set. I did my best to keep it up: I worked out, I ate right, all those things. I still wasn't good enough: I was never chosen.

"Then I noticed that the directors chose girls they already knew: girls who had partied with them, or with someone even higher up the food chain. Partied, of course, was a euphemism for sex. It didn't matter whether the director was a man or a woman, it seemed that was what you had to do.

"I resisted for a while, but the pressure of not getting any jobs was too much, and I gave in. It wasn't all that bad: most of them were considerate, even nice. I had gotten used to considering my body separate from myself anyway; I was just using it to get the job as well as using it on the job. I began to get some work.

"Everyone in my little town was overjoyed every time they saw me in some catalogue or advertisement. It was as if I carried the hopes and dreams of the entire village. So I kept doing it, even though I knew I would never reach the top, and I was beginning to hate my life. I knew several girls who were in abusive relationships, and I began to understand them better." She sighs.

"I'm not sure what finally made me change my mind. I'd been on Brione's cruises before, and knew pretty much what was expected of me. For some reason, whether it was the bet or the gangbang, I'd had enough. I hid in my cabin until the goons dragged me out, and you saw what happened after that." She stops and looks at me.

"They never thought I would have the nerve to jump. I probably wouldn't have, except your boat was there, and I'd heard you stand up to them earlier in the day. I was terribly afraid last night, that Brione would send his goons after me. Believe me, that was one time I was glad to be just another replaceable pretty face! I wonder if I broke up their bet." The corners of her mouth turn up as she imagines it; I smile back to encourage her. I still can't get used to the idea that anyone would think that she's just another pretty face.

"Now I'm done. That's all over. The village will have to find someone else to be famous for them. So what if I have no job and no money: I've been there before and survived. I won't sell my body, nor let people tell me I'm not good enough, ever again. I don't know what's coming next, but whatever it is, I know it will be better, because I'm free!" She smiles at me. I had thought she couldn't look any more beautiful, but I was wrong again. The animation in her face makes her radiant.

"So now you think I'm a whore." She's still smiling, and her eyes twinkle like stars. What the hell do I say to that? Fortunately for me, she's probably used to men losing coherent speech when she gives them her Grade A Treatment. I mutter something about choices and honesty and stuff that I'm sure makes no sense, until she rescues me.

"You know, in a way, I'm a virgin." My mouth falls open, and she laughs again. I was right: I could definitely get used to hearing that laugh.

"Remember, I told you I had come to think of my body as separate from my heart - the real me. So yes, men and women have used my body, and yes, I enjoyed it sometimes, but I've never made love. I've never shared my heart." She looks at me seriously for a moment and continues.

"All I ever really wanted is what my mother has: a quiet life with a good man, and a house full of love. I lost my way for a few years, but not anymore." Then the smile is back.

She is so determined and optimistic that I feel weak and whiny in comparison. I excuse myself to go below where she can't see my feelings, and return with two glasses of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. We toast to her future, and I suddenly realize it's not just her face and her body that are irresistible: it's her. I decide to tell her my story, to avoid thinking about her.

"Do you..."

"Yes, I still want to hear your story." Still with that smile. Am I really that transparent?

"Yes, you are, but I still want you to tell me the story." Damn, how is she doing that? Oh, well, something else to figure out later. I begin.

"I met Julia on my first day of school. She was a cute little thing, and a couple of bullies were pulling on her pigtails, and I made them stop. From then on, I was her protector, and she helped me with my homework and kept me from being stupid. My family had money and hers didn't, but that doesn't matter when you're six. We were inseparable.

"Then she grew into a pretty and popular girl, and she didn't want me fighting off the boys any more, she had other things to do with them. We were still friends, but everyone including my mother told me she was out of my league. I was just too ugly."

"Your mother?" She sounded horrified. "That's pretty brutal. Not to mention totally wrong."

"Maybe, but I still have trouble with that, even today."

"Your mom needed glasses, or else she was drunk. She was confusing you with two other guys."

"Hey, don't talk about my mother like that!" I scowl at her. For just a moment, Anna thinks I'm serious, then she bursts out laughing. I smile at her, then continue my tale.

"We ended up going to the same University. She got in touch with me and wanted to talk. She'd had some bad experiences with stuck-up assholes, as she called them, and remembered how safe she felt with me back in grade school. She hinted that I might have a chance with her after all. Of course I was all over that, and before I knew it, I proposed, she accepted, and we were married. I was the luckiest guy in the world, until I came home and found her in our bed with another guy. I didn't even confront them; I just locked myself in my study and licked my wounds."

She nods, as if that's what she expected I would have done.

"She cried a lot, begged forgiveness, and promised to remain completely faithful, to never do this again. I resisted for a while, but I really wanted her back, so I agreed."

"You forgave her, then?" I nod.

"I think I would have forgiven one mistake, too, but she obviously didn't keep her promise." Anna looks thoughtful for a moment. "Did she have money when you married?"

"Well no; why?"

"You said earlier she went after your money when you divorced. I'm just guessing, but what if she thought that because you had the money, you had the power in the relationship? What if she felt insecure because of that?"

"I loved her! I did everything I could for her. Why would she feel insecure?"

"Maybe dependent is a better word. Either way, I wonder if her cheating was an attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to even the scales? Perhaps to take some power for herself, and make you somehow dependent on her?"

"What, are you making excuses for her now?" I'm getting a little pissed at her, to tell the truth.

"No, not that. I don't think there are any excuses for breaking promises like that, not real ones, anyway. I'm thinking of you. You're stuck in this lonely, isolated place. You're not getting hurt, but you're also not happy, and you won't be until you start living again. To do that, you need to understand at least a little bit of why she was so cruel to you."