Visited by the Dreams

Chapter 14 - The Art of Listening

Greg dressed hurriedly upon discovering Susan was gone from their cave so early in the morning. It was barely light out, and given how uncomfortable she'd been the night before, he couldn't help wondering if she'd become ill. It wasn't like her to brave the ladder while it was still dark unless she considered it an emergency. That had happened a time or two with their constant diet of fruit, but always she returned more or less immediately. This time she'd gone for hours. Fearing Susan might be in trouble or needed help, Greg went looking for her.

First, he checked the ledge and the point just outside their cave, just as a faint hint of early daylight began to lift the blackness of night. Outside it was still raining, and Susan wasn't there. Greg peered through the rain and the early morning gloom as vague silhouettes gave way to actual shapes, searching the beach and the rocks below from his viewpoint above. He didn't see her in any of the usual places. Below the cliff directly in front of him, the surf pounded the rocky point where it extended out beyond the ledge at low tide, and on this morning much more of the lava point was exposed than was usual on most days, creating a vast field of tide pools at the base of their cliff. That's where Greg finally spotted her, standing on a normally submerged rocky ledge, out a good ways from their cliff. Though from where he stood he couldn't be at all sure what she was doing, he studied her for a time, waiting for it to grow lighter before following her down the ladder to the obsidian pool, making his way to the beach and the rocky point beyond.

Greg drew closer and realized as he did that Susan was sitting in one of the exposed salt water pools discreetly trying to bath. Dressed only in her bra and panties, Susan was desperately trying to wash something out in the small pool of ocean water where she sat. She rose startled when she discovered him watching her, then squatted down immediately, sitting or kneeling in the pool. That's when Greg spotted the brown tinged water swirling around her legs.

"Susan, stand up," he called.

She shook her head.

"Those waves are going to knock you over. Here."

He offered her his hand and got her to stand up briefly in the water before sitting down on the rocky edge again. But not before he saw the dark stain on the front of her clothes. Embarrassed, she tried to cover herself, but he'd already seen the soaked jeans in her hand and the blood running down the inside of her legs. She just sat there miserably with the rain running down her face looking a lot like tears, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

Greg turned away at first, feeling that he had invaded the young woman's privacy at her bath, when he realized what a predicament she was in. Here she was, alone with a man she hardly knew, with not even the minimum in the way of supplies and her menstrual period had begun. He backed away slightly.

"Can I do anything to help?" he offered, keeping his distance in an effort to respect her personal privacy as he called to her across the rocks through the storm.

Miserably Susan shook her head.

"No ... please, just stay away!" she called back, and she sat down on the rocky ledge beside her pool. The spray from the waves washed over her, as the foam in the pool grew brownish from her blood.

Greg stood in the rain watching, wondering what he could do, wishing there was something he could offer her that would help, but also deciding that there probably wasn't. Even under the best of circumstances, this was a private thing. The women he knew generally preferred not to involve men in it at all. Perhaps he should just leave her alone.

Feeling useless, Greg made his way back to their cave. He made himself a breakfast from the left over pudding and spread his shirt out by the fire to dry, still wondering what he could do. An hour later when he checked on Susan from the vantage point of the ledge, she was still sitting by her pool, though apparently she'd finished washing those items she had worked so frantically to clean before. A mound of wet clothing lay on the rocks beside her while she just sat, hardly moving in the rain. Greg seriously doubted she'd eaten anything before departing the cave and resolved to take her something. He had no better ideas on how to make her more comfortable, and that was the least he could do.