The pavilion is built on stilts, near the beach. The coral soil gives the meter of water that covers it an intense emerald green color.She had arrived...a few hours earlier. The trip was peaceful. She was the only passenger on the small plane and she slept the entire flight. She woke up just in time to see the perfect ring of coral that makes up the islet from the sky. The deep blue sea seems to be trying to swallow it up with its breakers covered in white foam. Inside, the lagoon is decorated. We were packed in with a pile of blankets on top of us. You’d think neither one of us generates any body heat. Well, I know for certain she does. She started out on the floor beside the bed, having refused to leave me alone last night. She fixed soup when we got home from the hospital, made me tea, sat with me, talked with me, and then dragged a bunch of blankets in and lay down on the floor. Sometime during the night, I had nightmares—screaming. I-don’t-know-who-I-am nightmares. Bald-fright. The next morning she woke up even more depressed and with a hangover. She searched through her medicine cabinet until she found the bottle of Valium. She took two capsules out and popped them into her mouth and washed them down with a glass of wine then, naked and unwashed, went outside to tan. She had either fallen asleep, or was it a drug-induced slumber, and didn't wake up until the sun had gone down. Going back inside her apartment she decided that she needed something to drink and maybe. “Sit.”She guided me to the bed and I did as told, perching upon the edge while panting softly, the effort to regain control taxing me as she made her way to the desk, returning just as I has finally mastered my body’s reactions once more.“A present,” she said simply, her voice devoid of warmth. “Give me your right wrist.”As though entranced, I raised my arm, holding it horizontally, observing almost indifferently as placed a golden manacle around my slender wrist, fastening it closed with a.