Butterflies spiraled around her as she walked the beach. The young girl unfurled her bare arms and the creatures corkscrewed in the air, following her gestures. Little wings fluttered against her skin as she closed her eyes and attuned herself to nature.
	She turned her nude body to the surf and opened her eyes again, and sensed herself as a tiny speck in the vastness of it all. And out on the endless plain of blue, another speck winked back.
	It was dark, and bobbed with the current. It would wink out every now and then as the waves rose, and when they fell, the girl could see it more clearly: it was a person, slung over a piece of debris and bobbing in the water like a piece of bread. The girl stood and waited. The floating person floated closer.
	When the marooned reached the shallows, the girl stepped into the water. Her feet sank into the sand as she closed the distance, and she saw that it was a man. He was unconscious, his clothes torn and ragged. His arm draped over the rotting piece of wood he had been clinging to for his life.
	The girl bent down and pulled the man to shore. She crouched by him as water lapped against his face and she studied him. His mouth hung open, slack and breathless. The next lap of water dumped in his mouth. And it was then that he coughed.
	He opened his eyes and looked up at the girl. She smiled back. He stared at her for some time as if he was not sure if he was in a dream. Then he sat up.
	She remained crouched next to them, and they watched each other silently as the water stirred its chorus. The man’s chest heaved as he brought in much-needed oxygen to his lungs, and when he appeared to the girl to be healthy, she stood up, gave one last smile, and turned to walk away.
	The man turned his head with her, watching her depart to the edge of the jungle. Butterflies wheeled through the air to join her, creating a striking image: one nude child, wandering ahead with a decisiveness and sure footing worthy of an adult, and the small and myriad bodies of the insects that symmetrically swirled on either side.
	The girl paid him no further mind. Already she disappeared into the thicket of the jungle, needling through vines and canopy towards her daily tour of the island.

*****

	At night, she clung to a tree, thirty feet up, her limbs wrapped around the trunk like a koala. Her eyes were closed, and in that position, she dreamed.
	Occasionally she would open her eyes and look out at the stretch of the island below, her smile broadening. Upon opening her eyes at one of these moments, she spotted a light she had never seen before during her time on the island: a flickering orange flame, coming from the beach.

****
	The man sat by his fresh fire. His shirt hung on a makeshift frame made from twigs and dried near the flames, which he held his hands over to warm himself.
	His stomach growled. He had tried to spear a fish earlier, but found it to be harder than he thought it would be. He sat with hopes of spying a night rat or a crab, something he could catch and kill and cook. While he waited, he thought back to his friends, wondering if they were searching for him, wondering if they even noticed when he tumbled over the railing of their yacht in his drunkenness. Would they assume him feeble and drowned? Were they mourning for him, or were they clinking glasses and already telling stories about his stupidity?
	His stomach growled again. He thought of the girl. After she had left, he saw no signs of any other people on the island. Though he didn’t wander far. Not with the dark coming. Perhaps there were many natives here, he thought. Yet the girl did not look like an islander. Her skin was tan from the sun, but otherwise it was fair, like a European’s. Her face looked like the familiar smiling face of any girl from his home town. She did not look the least bit primitive.
	But why was she naked? his thoughts went next, and the answer was obvious: if he lived on an island like this, he would probably run around naked as well. She obviously was living comfortably here. Which meant that there must be others.
	He surveyed the line of darkening trees at the edge of the beach and decided he would go looking at first light. He was bound to find somebody.
	In fact, the “somebody” he already met was emerging from the trees that very instant. She crossed the stretch of sand, walking slowly, still nude, her arms swinging lazily at her sides. It seemed as if she didn’t notice him, for she was panning her eyes amongst the stars, but she was walking directly towards him, and when she looked down again, she met his gaze directly.
	She reached him and stopped, standing over him. She smiled and did not say a word.
	“Thank you for saving me,” he spoke. “Who are you?”
	She crouched down beside him and held out her hands to the fire.
	“Do you speak English?” he asked next, but she looked at him and smiled, as if she didn’t even hear his words.
	“Are you deaf?” the obvious question came next. She studied him, and he was at a loss for words. There was something extremely intelligent about her, despite the gap of communication. It was in the way she looked at him and the way she sat on her haunches that showed she knew everything she needed to know about him and the island around them. All that from looking at her face.
	His stomach growled again, and the girl looked down at the source of the sound. The man rubbed his belly.
	“I’m hungry,” he said, motioning as he spoke. “Do you have anything to eat?”
	With that, the girl stood, turned, and headed down the beach. She looked back at the man over her shoulder, and he stood and followed her. The small outline of her body in the dying light was grey against grey, and she was like a ghost on the surf. When she reached a palm tree, she sprung up onto it, silent like a ghost, and ascended so quickly that the man was not sure she even used her limbs.
	A coconut hit the ground and then the girl dropped back down in a crouch. She took the fruit and happily cracked it over a rock. The man watched her as she worked, hypnotized. When she stood and handed him a half of the smashed fruit, he reoriented himself and accepted the gift.
	They returned to the fire, and the man ate. The girl did not indulge. The man ate both halves. They sat in silence through the meal, and when the man was finished, he pulled his knees up to his chest, rested his head, and watched the girl, who watched him. He occasionally said something, another question in hopes of getting her to talk, but she never did.

*****

	The air hissed around him and ruffled his clothes, his hair. He opened his eyes and saw the endless sea below. He was hurtling through the air very fast. Was he falling out of the plane once again? he wondered. Perhaps the time on the island, as long as it seemed, was only a dream consisting of a few minutes, and he was still falling. He had heard that falling seemed to take longer than it really did.
	But then he remembered he hadn’t been on a plane; he had been on a boat.
	Just as this thought passed him, a pair of slender arms touched his waist, and he craned his head down and the girl was there, wrapped around him, clinging onto him for safety. But she did not seem scared. She peered up at him with a relaxed smile as they twirled through the air.

	He opened his eyes and she was still there. He lay on his back in the sand and the ocean that had sounded like rushing air still roared on the horizon. The girl lay against him and peered at him from below his chest.
	“Hey there,” he said. “...I suppose it is cold out here...”
	She sat up and stretched, and as she did, the man felt something free itself from the weight of her body. He was naked from the waist down now as well, the girl apparently having discarded his pants while he slept. His heart skipped in alarm.
	“Whoa,” he said, but she looked back down at him and smiled. Her hands came down on his chest and rubbed him. His erection bumped against her belly. A shock traveled through his body.
	The man scooted backwards, trying to escape the girl. He managed to free himself, and she remained poised over him. As he pulled his hips free, his waving part moved just below her face, and she looked down at it with some sort of amusement.
	Her lips barely met it before he managed to pull his legs free. He planted them on the ground and stood, questions of protest forming in his mind. But his body sent a different message, waving his erection over the girl who knelt propping up on her hands, looking up at it.
	The man knelt before her to divert her attention.
	“Hey, just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
	She crawled toward him and fell on him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and cradled her head against his stomach.
	“H-hey...”
	The girl was without words, as always, and the man found himself embracing her, and they sat on the beach, bare skin to bare skin. The man felt a strange electric calm while holding the girl in his arms. They sat like that for a few minutes before the girl lifted her head and looked him in the eyes again.
	“Who are you, really?” he said.
	She didn’t acknowledge his question. But she layed her body back down against him, and slid down his torso. The friction against his lap gave him a jolt. And then her face met his head.
	He sat there, unable to put a stop to her, somehow hypnotized by her as she studied his stiff part and nuzzled it against her cheek. She tested it with her hand next, and the man found himself leaning back and accepting what was happening. She wasn’t actively pleasuring him so much as toying with his body, prodding and squeezing lightly and tracing her fingers up and down, seeing what different reactions each different touch made.
	When he pulled his head forward again she was looking at him, and the eye contact sizzled his nerves. He came; erupted into her hands. Deftly, the girl held out her free palm and accepted the growing ivory pool. The man looked away again and let himself pump out, and then his body slacked. He collapsed into the sand.
	The girl stood up, his expulsion cradled in her palm, and she hurried away. The man passed out.

*****

	She stood farther down the beach, crouched over a hole she dug in the sand with her unburdened hand. Cupped in the other was the man’s gift, which she she let slide off her palm and into the hole. She wiped the remnants off with her finger and flung them beside the rest, and then covered the hole back up.
	When she was done, she stood and walked over to the fire. She watched nightbirds swoop and glide over the black ocean, and momentarily assumed their vision, seeing the glint of moonlight on the surface from directly above. Then she returned to the beach, found the man laying on his back still, sleeping peacefully.
	She curled up next to him, nestled her face against his chest, and closed her eyes.

*****

	The man awoke with a jolt to the sun burning his face. He sat up. The fire smoldered and smoked next to him, and the air smelled of sand and salt and soot. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
	The phantom pleasures of her touch chased through him again, and he looked down and found himself becoming aroused.
	He got up and surveyed the camp. There were no signs of the girl, and no footprints or other indication that the area had been visited during his sleep. So he took a walk.
	He went down the beach. Not to far away was the tree from which the girl had retrieved his coconut. He headed towards it, clinging to familiarity. It struck him now that he was just as her: walking through paradise, naked as the rest of the wildlife. He laughed to himself.
	He stopped at the tree, not surprised that there was nothing of interest there. So instead he turned to the ocean and looked out.
	It was then that a sound rose in the air: the laughter of children. He turned around and saw a group of three girls skipping down the sand. They were naked as the other girl, but younger, perhaps six, seven or eight. Perhaps all, respectively. They didn’t look like her; they were fairer, more pale, as if they had just stepped out into the world. One of them had bleached-blonde hair that was almost white, and the others had similar colors. They paid him no mind and chased each other down the stretch of beach, oblivious to him in favor of their childish games. They also seemed more vulnerable than the dark-haired girl from the previous day; they stopped and investigated everything they saw: the rocks, the lapping water of the tide, and the sand itself. The island seemed very new to them.
	The man knew that they were not any clue or connection to anybody that may have lived here. They disappeared down the beach and then he stood alone, the rush of the ocean drowning out their voices. He thought for a while. Home seemed like a distant memory; not even part of this reality.
	He waited for the girl.