The Stars Trilogy (50 page)

His eyes were suddenly shining with a strange intensity now.

“We should start using condoms. Do you have any stashed in the plane?” she inquired jokingly. She didn’t know if broaching the subject was good or bad or way too early. But they had made love unprotected. This should be discussed between them sooner or later. The sooner, the better. Now was a good time.

“No,” he said quietly.

Gosh, not a good topic definitely. He was withdrawing again. But she had to make matters clear to him. She always believed in good communication to avoid any misunderstanding. “I do not believe in abortion,” she declared softly.

Silence.

She couldn’t stand his monosyllabic responses. Voicing out her concerns became more imperative. “But just in case we get careless and if I do get pregnant...I’ll keep the baby. I can  handle it, don’t worry.”

He didn’t respond to that.

“I won’t ask anything from you. Not a thing. I swear. We can draw an agreement on that if you like.”

“Would you like to get pregnant?” he suddenly asked her. He was staring at her in a different way. But he didn’t look mad or anything.

“Uhm...” How was she supposed to answer that? Of course she’d have his baby in a heartbeat! But...that would sound so desperate.

“If you get pregnant...I will support you. You won’t want for anything...and the baby. I’ll take care of you both. If...you get pregnant, that is.”

She inwardly sighed in relief. That was a good enough answer. She won’t ask for more. For now.

She smiled. “Thank you, Dare. All I want is for you to recognize the baby. Nothing more. But let’s not worry. We’ll just be careful next time.”

He gave her a small smile and stood up.

“Come on, let’s get in the plane. The fire will keep away bears, wild boars and tigers but the heat will attract snakes.”

“Snakes?” she squeaked.

“Pythons, they thrive in the jungles. They eat people.”

“Oh you’re such a rascal!” She ran to the plane.

That night, within the cramped interior of his wrecked plane, Dare slept beside a woman for the second time, with her in his arms, his nose buried in her hair.

He did not feel the need to escape. To find his own space.

On the contrary, it was him who pulled her in his arms and blended their spaces.

When his eyes closed and he was hovering toward unconsciousness, he felt nothing but serenity.

Inside out.

He didn’t think he’d ever felt like this in his entire life.

Celine investigated the interior of the plane and found more wonderful “treasures”.

They just got back from another “expedition” in another part of the forest. After trekking for close to an hour finding nothing but trees and more trees, Dare decided they should get back to the plane again for lunch. He was out making a fire to heat sausages and soup with.

Oddly enough, the plane was stacked with canned goods and other supplies.

At the back compartment she found a small towel, two large shirts and two unused men’s briefs, more toiletries like dental floss, shaver, shaving cream, sunblock, baby oil, several sachets of shampoo and toothpaste, mosquito repellent lotion and petroleum jelly.

“Dare, look! I could stay here for two more weeks and it would feel like home!”

“No kidding,” he answered from the outside as he added more twigs to the flame.“What did you find?” he asked, peeping inside the plane.

She happily showed him the shaver. “Comforts of civilization. I’m content!”

He touched his face. “I could use a shave.”

She smiled. He had a five o’clock shadow but it only made him twice as gorgeous in that scruffy, super alpha way. “I like your beard like that.”

He grunted. “Come on out, food’s ready.”

It was him who prepared their lunch this time.

She crawled out of the plane and joined him outside.

Dare found a new variety of banana this morning, the kind that Filipinos used for banana que. She suggested they roasted some ripe ones for breakfast and he liked it. He roasted some for lunch, too. That, plus sausages… perfect!

“Hmmmm…mmmmmm!”

Dare watched her munch on the sausages like a kid with that peculiar moaning she made. She would lick her fingertips every now and then. He was grateful she only did that when they were alone. Another man would hear her make those mewing sounds and he won’t look at her the same way.

She caught him staring. “Sorry. I can’t help it. Sausages are delicious! My favorite!”

“I can feed you with a more delicious sausage. Much, much bigger than these.”

She threw him the tiny piece of sausage she was holding. It bounced on his chest and dropped to his lap.

Chuckling, he picked it up and and popped it in his mouth and winked at her.

She giggled and stuck out her tongue at him.

She is adorable.
There was a child-like quality to her that was contagious, a quality that the women he’d been hanging out with in the last decade lacked. They were all hard, calculating bitches who couldn’t be trusted with his back.

But Celine…ahh…Celine asked him to jump from the plane using the only parachute available. She told him she loved him and then asked him to save himself and just leave her.

He still couldn’t get over it. The fact that he returned the favor was irrelevant. It was rare when another human being could match the kind of man he was inside. The man that he didn’t show to anybody.

Except with her.

She stretched her legs in front of her and leaned back, supporting her upper weight with her arms. "This is nice,” she said, inhaling deeply, looking up.

He made an affirmative sound deep in his throat and drank from his bottle of mineral water.

“Don’t you sometimes wish for peace? Away from the public eye?”

“Everyday.”

She tilted her head to one side, watching him.“But...?”

“But we can’t have everything. We have to choose a path that will take us to our desired destination and it often comes with a price. This is the path I chose. The price is my privacy.”

“Where do you go to take a break from it all?”

“I have a house in Aspen. I go there to ski in the winter, when I’m not working. And here in Phuket during summer. I have a villa in Monaco. I go there to watch the F-21 and Formula 1 every year. And another villa in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I rarely visit the villa so I rented it out to a famous writer who spends most of the year there.”

“It must be hard to avoid the paparazzi.”

“You have no idea. They can track you anywhere. They use powerful lenses. Glad they’re not here or they’d get an eyeful.”

She giggled. “They sure make a lot of money out of you. The business of selling dirt is pretty lucrative you should turn yourself into a stock option.”

He laughed at that. “What a marvelous idea. Would you handle my portfolio?”

“Not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“In order to make money, I’d have to constantly generate or multiply your dirt. I’m not good at that. I want you cleaned up.”

“Shame. Why would you want me cleaned up? The world loves my shit.”

The look she gave him was like a caress to his soul. Why did she look at him that way? It was just so different. She looked at him like she knew all his secrets. But only two people knew his deepest secrets and one of them was him. The other one won’t talk. Ever. His secrets were all safe-guarded  by a top notch legal team and anybody who’d attempt to air any dirty laundry that he deemed damaging to his career would face a 50 million-dollar lawsuit.

“Because I want people to see the real you.”

He fell quiet. “The real me, huh? What is the real me?” he asked after a pause.

“The sensitive, selfless, heroic you.”

He swallowed. “You exaggerate.”

She smiled. “You could have jumped from that plane in your own parachute. But you didn’t. It was the most selfless, heroic act. In military, they give soldiers like that the medal of valor.”

His insides turned to mush. He was a man immune to compliments as he got them everyday from people who wanted something from him or the ones who adored his celebrity. He stopped believing in compliments long ago. The were as real as his thick bunch of platinum plastics. But every compliment she gave him, he wanted to believe. “You’re very good for my ego, Celine,” he said casually to cover up the vulnerability that assaulted him.

She smirked and raised a haughty brow. “I know I am. You should give me a raise.”

He laughed. “Very modest, too.”

After lunch, they went to investigate another direction of the forest.

Celine no longer minded the long treks and the itch on her skin. She was getting used to it and she enjoyed their treks together. They’d talk about just everything under the sun. Dare was surprisingly very well-read, something that the articles about him didn’t mention. It was such a bonus because she loved books. She was a wide reader with a vast collection of hard-bound tomes on a lot of subjects. She got this love of reading from her mother.

Dare had quoted Sun Tzu several times already. So, the old man was his favorite sage. No man would be as successful as Dare without learning lessons from the great military tactician. Dare and her brother Jordy had much in common, actually. Both were distrustful, calculating strategists who had an aversion to losing.

“What are you smiling at?” he asked her.

“Nothing.”

“Why do women say nothing when there is clearly something going on in their minds?”

“Well, we don’t have to always express what we think.”

“Why not? It will make the world a better place if people are just honest with each other all the time.”

“Okay. Can you actually claim to be honest all the time?”

He stopped walking and looked at her. “99.9 percent, yes. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

“Even if they hurt people?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yes, I remember your brutal honesty to me the first time we met. In the limo. You really meant what you said. And then you had to eat them two days ago.”

His jaw dropped. He closed his mouth and cleared his throat. “That was an error—”

“Right. You shouldn’t say things you’re not sure you can stand by. Once you hurt people with your words, you can no longer take them back. The damage has been done.”

He sighed. “Celine…”

“Good thing I’m so forgiving.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“What?”

“Be so forgiving.”

“Why?”

“People will take advantage of you.”

“Oh, like you did?”

She saw his face flush in embarrassment. “Celine…”

She laughed. “Gotcha!” She hugged him. “No harm done. I’ve been wanting you to take advantage of me from day one. It took you a plane crash to do so.”

He chuckled. “Ah, baby.”

“What’s the .1% for?”

“For white lies when women ask me how pretty they are or if they’ve gained weight on their pinkies.”

It was her who slapped his backside this time.

“What, that’s a major area where a man has to be dishonest or risk bodily injury.”

“Hmmm, those are wonderful lies.”

They stood there, in the middle of nowhere, under the giant trees, surrounded by unfamiliarity…and yet Dare felt home. Something inside him was transforming. Drastically. And his inner guard was asleep.

Be forgiving.

He hugged her tighter.

They detoured to the lagoon on their way back to the plane. Dare had made a trail of sorts the last time they were there so it was easy for them to trace back the location. Dare’s watch was a complicated-looking gadget but he could read a lot of things from it. It even recorded humidity so he could predict if it would rain.

He checked the vicinity again like a military guy. He even inspected the lagoon, disturbing the  still water by throwing stones at it several times. Only then did he allow her to take a dip.

“Thank you, Daredevil, for making sure no terror piranhas will bite my butt,” she said, teasing him.

He just grunted but didn’t immediately follow her into the water.

She washed her hair and her body, waiting for him to join her.

He was standing a few meters away, his back to her. What was he staring at?

She missed him.

Last night, they slept so peacefully in each others arms, as if they’d been sleeping together for ages. There was no awkwardness. Going into his arms and snuggling in his warmth and quiet strength was the most natural thing in the world for her. She couldn’t imagine being parted from him after this.

She sighed at the sudden thought.

Doubt intruded, along with her insecurity.

No…she would have none of that. Insecurity will destroy everything. She must be patient with him. Something happened to him after they met in Coney Island. However briefly they had interacted, she felt his openness then, the inherent goodness inside him. His remoteness during the first days of their second meeting was a total turnaround from the Dare of many years ago. She wanted to know what happened to him all those years after their meeting, how his life had come to what it was today.

He had been open and generous with his body to her. And he saw Dare of that long ago while the plane was crashing. But now that they were safely on the ground, he closed shop on her again…somewhat. Not totally like he did in the past days, but he was still very guarded with his feelings. Their personalities were such a contrast. She liked to express her feelings, her joys and pains. She chose her friends well, but she didn’t have trust issues. Dare, on the other hand had trust issues as high and vast as the Himalayas.

But what choice did she have? This was the man she would spend the rest of her life with. She should make do with what she had and just try to love and nurture him so that he would be nursed back to his old form, the happy, loving, generous and open person he once was.

“Dare…?” she called out to him.

“Hmm?” he said but didn’t turn around.

“Join me already. I miss you.” 

He’d tried so hard not to touch her the whole day. When he woke up this morning, she was still asleep and he spent an hour feeling her softness and warmth, her fragrant skin and hair as his cock demanded release. He was forced to finally let go of her when his groin felt too full and he had to get out of the plane to take a leak. He had difficulty pissing too. His cock was probably confused whether to release cum or urine. Funny shit, that.