There was this engineer, on a cruise ship in the Caribbean for the first time. It was the most wonderful experience of his life. He was gay and this was his first all-gay cruise. He was being waited on hand and foot by a cadre of men all with perfectly chiseled bodies. But, it did not last. A hurricane came up unexpectedly and the ship went down almost instantly.
The man, who happened to be African American, found himself, he knew not how, swept up on the shore of an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing. The black man looked around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it. So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea mightily for a ship to come to his rescue.
One day, as he was lying on the beach stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true? Was it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came this rowboat. But in it was the most gorgeous man he had ever seen, or at least seen in four months. He was black, too, had smooth dark skin, and his long dreads flowing in the sea breeze gave him an almost ethereal quality. The stranger spotted him also as he was waving and yelling and screaming to get his attention. He rowed his boat towards him.
In disbelief, the first black men asked, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"
"I rowed from the other side of the island," he said. "I landed on this island when my cruise ship sank."
"Amazing," said the first man, wondering how he had missed this perfect specimen of manhood. "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there? Where, did you get the rowboat? You must have been really lucky to have a rowboat wash-up with you?"
"It is only me, and the rowboat didn't wash up, nothing else did."
"Well, then," said the man, "how did you get the rowboat?"
"I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on the island," he said. "The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm branches, and the sides and stern came from a eucalyptus tree."
"But, but," stammered the man, "what about tools and hardware? How did you do that?"
"Oh, no problem," he replied. "On the south side of the island there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware. But, enough of that, he said. Where do you live?"
At last, the first man was forced to confess that he had been sleeping on the beach.
"Well, let's row over to my place," he said. So they both got into the rowboat and left for the other side of island.
The tall dark man with the dreadlocks easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to his place. His muscles glistened in the summer sun as he tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked up a stone walk and around a palm tree, there stood an exquisite bungalow painted white and trimmed in red, green, black and gold.
"It's not much," he said, "but I call it home. Sit down please. Would you like to have a drink?"
"No," said the man, "one more coconut juice and I will puke."
"It won't be coconut juice," the man replied. "I have a still. How about a pina colada?" Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk.
After a while, and they had exchanged their stories, the man who had created the little paradise said, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?"
"No," the man replied, "I was clean shaven and shaved my head too, even on the cruise ship. It's fashionable to be bald these days."
"Yes, I know. Well, if you would like to shave, there is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom."
So, the man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bathroom. There in the cabinet was a razor made from a bone handle, two shells honed to a hollow ground edge were fastened onto its end inside of a swivel mechanism. The man shaved, showered and went back down stairs.
"You look great," said the other man, "I think I will go up and slip into something more comfortable." So he did. And the man continued to sip his pina colada. After a short time, the man returned wearing a large fig leaf strategically positioned and smelling faintly of gardenia. He sat down and faced the first man squarely.
"Tell me," he asked. "We are both gay men and have both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. I have a very nice house here, but you know what I mean. Have you been lonely? Is there anything that you really miss? Something that everybody needs. Something that it would be really nice to have right now." As he finished his question, he leaned back and crossed his legs so that the man could see the outlines of heavy equipment underneath the fig leaf.
"Yes, there is," said the bald man, as he moved closer to his host while fixing a winsome gaze upon him. "Tell me. Do you happen to have an Internet connection?"
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