Kama’aina
Many miles from it’s native forest, the small amakihi glided through the early morning darkness above the Ka’u Desert. The bird banked in a gentle turn over the barren landscape of jagged a’a lava rock, sand, and abrasive volcanic ash, then descended gracefully to it’s chosen landing spot. The amakihi shook to fluff it’s golden-yellow and green body feathers, tucked it’s wings to it’s sides, and immediately vanished.
A rugged, brown-skinned man stood where the amakihi had been an instant before. He wore only the traditional malo loincloth. He turned to the east and prepared to greet the sun of a new day. The sharp rocks underfoot did not cut him; his feet were hardened by nearly three decades of walking barefoot in his native land. He settled to his knees in the rough desert sand and pumice ash, then sat back on his heels. The abrasive sand and ash comforted him—the land was his friend and constant companion.
The first rays of daylight broke over the rocks to the east. The man acknowledged the new day and the gods who created it and the mana it would bring, then closed his eyes. He did not need to see who or what might approach. Those who needed to find him would find him in their own time. Those who did not need to find him would not even see him as he waited.
The hike was slower going than they’d expected. The clear path that they’d trekked easily at the beginning of the trail had faded as they got further into the desert. The shrubs and dry grasses had disappeared along with the packed lava gravel trail, giving way to the barren, other-worldly landscape of Ka’u. They navigated the now-invisible trail by sighting from one stone cairn to the next. The piles of lava rocks were the only markers for the trail, this far into the desert.
“It’s getting hot earlier than we expected,” Tamara said.
Jenna smiled. She often teased her best friend, calling her habit of stating the obvious ‘The Blonde’s Prerogative.’ She knew that Tammy was anything but a dumb blonde, though. They’d both graduated Cum Laude a few weeks earlier, and Tammy had only missed Magna Cum Laude by a couple of hundredths of a point.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Still, though…” they looked at each other. “Best. Graduation. Gift. EVER!” Both girls chorused before giggling over that line for what must have been at least the hundredth time.
They’d met during their sophomore year at college and immediately become fast friends. They shared interests in history, anthropology, and native cultures. When Jenna’s roommate had transferred to another college at winter break, they’d prevailed upon the Dean of Housing to let Tamara move in with her. They’d spent most of their time together since then, including vacations. It was only natural for their parents to get together and give the girls a shared three-week trip to Hawai’l for their graduation.
Tamara checked her watch. It was almost 10:30, which meant that they’d been hiking for nearly four hours.
“Time to redo our sunscreen,” she said. Jenna nodded, then glanced over her shoulder. She spotted the three guys about fifty yards behind them. They’d been following the girls for the past hour or so.
“Maybe we can lose our tail while we’re at it,” she said. It wasn’t anything new to the girls. Either one of them alone would turn heads; together they risked stopping traffic. Jenna was tall and athletic, with long copper hair. Tamara was a couple of inches shorter, but with a more curvy figure and a long mane of blonde hair. They drew attention wherever they went.
They’d noticed the trio over an hour earlier, when the men were a few hundred yards behind them and hiking quickly along the trail. The girls were moving somewhat slower, taking time to look at their surroundings, point things out to each other, and share the experience and the discoveries they made. Once the men had spotted the girls, though, they’d slowed down to stay 50 to 100 yards behind them.
Only one of the men appeared to be at all experienced as a hiker. He was dressed like the girls, in serious hiking boots, rugged shorts and shirt, and wearing a baseball cap to protect himself from the sun. The other two men were wearing sneakers, denim cutoffs, and t-shirts, and they had nothing between their heads and the sun.
“Bunch of malihini,” Jenna had muttered, causing Tamara to laugh. The girls harbored no delusions, though. They knew that they were also malihini.
All of the tourism professionals they’d encountered in the islands had given a very charitable definition of malihini: Visitor. But after hearing the word used in an unfriendly tone by locals on a few occasions, the girls had looked it up in their Hawaiian dictionary. It meant “stranger” or “foreigner.” Based on the tone they’d heard a few of the locals using, some didn’t welcome the strangers to their homeland. Jenna and Tamara had made it their goal to leave Hawai’i as less malihini than they’d arrived.
Tamara stopped at the next stone cairn marker and shucked her day pack. Jenna followed suit. They took the obligatory drinks of water from their bottles, then opened up their day packs to break out their sunscreen.
“I have no idea how close we are to the end of the trail,” Tamara said, “but it can’t be more than another hour or two… Wow! No points for subtlety there.” Jenna glanced back to the three men behind them on the trail. When the girls had stopped, the three men had stopped, maintaining their distance. They appeared to be talking among themselves.
“What are they waiting for?”
“Well,” Tamara said, smoothing fresh sunscreen on her arms, “based on my research I’d say that they’re waiting for us to get naked, start having sex with each other, and then beg them to join us.”
Jenna chuckled. She knew what “research” Tamara was talking about.
It was commonly accepted practice to hang out in other peoples rooms in the dorm. It made it feel like your entire college life wasn’t crammed into just a single room. Jenna and Tamara were as used to having visitors as they were being visitors in other rooms on their floor. On the day of the “research” the girls were next door in Brad and Eric’s room, just hanging out and talking.
Tamara was waving her hands to emphasize whatever point she was making when she accidentally knocked a stack of magazines and papers off Eric’s desk. She apologized and crouched down to clean up the mess she’d made when she spotted an issue of “Playpet Letters” peeking out of the middle of the pile. Her cleanup mission was forgotten as she grabbed the magazine from the floor and jumped onto the bed next to Jenna to share her discovery.
The two girls read snippets of several letters aloud, much to the dismay of the boys. After a few minutes of flipping through the magazine and torturing the boys with their laughter, Tamara made an observation.
“You know, it looks like a popular theme here is ‘I stumbled onto two girls having sex with each other and they asked me to join in.’ I gotta tell you, though, that’s not very likely.”
“Why not?”
“I hate to burst your fantasy bubble, Brad, but I’m straight, and the idea of having sex with another girl kinda grosses me out. How about you, Jenna?”
“Same here,” the redhead agreed. “It’s guys or nothing for me.”
“What about lesbians?”
“I have lesbian friends, Brad, and I’m pretty sure that none of them has the slightest interest in having sex with a guy.”
“Ah, but bisexual girls…”
“Are few and far between, Eric,” Jenna chimed in. “I don’t think I know any. I do know a couple of bisexual guys, though, so maybe you could…”
“EWWWW!” came in stereo from the boys. The girls laughed.
“See what we mean?” Tamara asked. “It’s the same way for us as it is for you. Despite the fiction in this magazine, girls aren’t all closet bisexuals.” The boys looked a bit disappointed.
“Looks like someone made an executive decision,” Jenna said. Tamara looked and saw the three men walking toward them on the trail.
“They look kinda old,” Tamara observed. “Mid-30’s to 40’s, I’d say. Way too old for us.” Jenna grunted in agreement.
“I’ll bet they don’t think we’re too young for them, though,” she added. “I think we should play ‘intellectual intimidation’ on this one, Tammy.”
“Baffle them with brains? That’ll be fun!”
“Good morning ladies!” The call came from the taller of the guys who didn’t know how to dress for a hike. The girls turned to watch the men approach. Tamara smiled and stretched her arms up over her head, pushing her ample bust outward. The tall one stumbled, then caught himself and tried to make a verbal save.
“Out for a morning hike?”
“Doing a little research, actually,” Jenna replied.
“What kind of research would that be?” Hiking Boots asked with a suggestive grin.
“Cultural and physical anthropology.”
“I don’t see any shovels. And how are you going to dig in this?” He kicked the toe of his boot against the hard lava. Tamara fixed him with a pained look which she held for a few seconds, for maximum effect.
“She said cultural and physical anthropology, not archeology. Dirt digging can be fun and all, but we specialize in the study of historical, ancient, and primitive cultures, like the ancient Hawaiians.”
“Easy Honey, George didn’t mean to insult you,” Tall Sneakers said, coming to his friend’s rescue. “You look a little young to be anthropologists. And what could a hike through the Cow Desert tell you about ancient Hawaiians, anyway?”
“How old are anthropologists supposed to be?” Jenna asked. “Our college degrees are in anthropology, and we’ve been doing anthropological research together for years.”
“And as for what a hike through the… Ka’u can tell us,” Tamara pronounced it correctly, as two syllables, “it can tell us a lot. Geography and climate have a huge impact on how societies develop. The Hawaiian culture would be completely different if they were located in New England like the Abenaki peoples. The differences in terrain and climate necessitate different ways of living.”
“Look at the changes in the Acadian culture when the Great Expulsion during the French and Indian War forced many of them to move from the Canadian Maritimes to what is now Louisiana,” Jenna added. “The culture of the Louisiana Cajuns has similarities to their ancestral Acadian culture in the Northeast, but the geography and climate change forced many cultural changes.”
The men’s heads swiveled back to Tamara as she spoke.
“This island has microclimates from five of the six main climatological groups in the Koppen-Geiger classification system…”
“Some consider Group H to be part of Group E,” Jenna interrupted.
“It’s debatable whether Alpine really should be part of Polar,” Tamara continued, “but it doesn’t matter. On the coast to the east is Hilo, the rainiest city in the United States, but here we are standing in the middle of a desert… a pretty barren desert right here, I’d say.”
“It reminds me a little of some of the mountain areas in the Sonoran Desert,” Jenna picked up. She could see that the men were starting to look a little befuddled. “This desert doesn’t have seventeen separate Native American tribes currently living in it, though.”
“And due to the altitude, it’s nowhere near as hot at the Sonoran Desert was when we were there last summer,” Tamara continued, “but the presence of the desert here had an impact on the development of the ancient Hawaiian culture, just like the rain forests north of Hilo, the seasonal snow on Mauna Kea, and all of the other geographical and climatological variations on this island did.”
The three men looked a bit overwhelmed, so Jenna went for the kill: “So that’s what we’re doing here. How about you guys? Are you out on a morning hike without the wives?”
“How… uh, why do you think we’re married?” Short Sneakers spoke for the first time.
Tamara gestured toward his left hand. A band of untanned skin showed where he’d recently removed his wedding ring.
“Like I said, we study primitive cultures,” she said with a smile. “We’re pretty good at noticing the obvious things.”
The other two men decided that it was a good time to shove their hands in their pockets. They exchanged glances and finally Hiking Boots George spoke: “Well I guess we should get going. Good luck with your, uh, research.”
Jenna waited until the men had hiked beyond hearing distance before muttering: “Damn malihini!” Tamara snickered in response.
The girls went back to their task of protecting themselves from the sun. They were careful to apply sunscreen to all of their exposed skin. The adjustment bands on their baseball caps lifted their long hair away from their necks, forming loose ponytails. They made sure to sunscreen the normally unexposed backs of their necks.
They took their time repacking their day packs, giving the men time to open up some distance ahead of them. It looked like the men had gone back to their original faster pace, probably wanting to avoid another embarrassing encounter with the girls. When the three disappeared over a rise a few hundred yards in the distance, Jenna and Tamara shouldered their packs, took a couple of sips from their water bottles, and continued their hike.
“Even if you ignore our obvious physical appearance, I don’t think we’re going to be mistaken for locals any time soon.”
“Yeah, Tammy, we’re still malihini, too. Not as bad as those clowns, though. Maybe they thought the ‘Cow Desert’ was a good place to find a steakhouse.”
Tamara giggled at her friend’s joke. The girls had spent a few hours learning and practicing Hawaiian pronunciation before they’d come to the islands. While it had been a big help when it came to names of places and streets, it hadn’t prepared them at all for the pidgin that the locals spoke to each other.
Even if you ignored the apparently important roles that pitch inflections and facial expressions played in the local-speak, it was still a mashup of English, Hawaiian, Portuguese, and several Asian languages. It sounded like English, but with bizarre grammar and lots of words that had to be adapted from other languages. And like Hawaiian, many words seemed to have multiple meanings. Overall, the girls found it almost incomprehensible.
“You know,” Jenna said as they approached the rise the men had crested several minutes earlier, “I could forgive the cheating. I mean, if you’re in a relationship and you’re not getting what you want out of it, you try to make it better. If you can’t make it better, then you find what you want somewhere else. That’s human nature.”
“I seriously doubt that all three of those guys fit that description, Jen. They’re on vacation in Hawai’i with their wives, after all.”
“Oh, I agree, I’m just saying that I can understand need fulfillment leading to cheating. The thing that gets me is the lying. If you want to be honest and tell me that you’re not getting what you need in your marriage and you’d like to see if you can get it from me, I can kinda respect that. But if you take off your wedding ring and try to hide the fact that you’re married, you’re lying to me and that just… what the hell?” Jenna stopped at the crest of the rise, looking to her left. Tamara followed her gaze out into the desert.
Silhouetted against the sky in the distance was the figure of a man kneeling. He was facing away from them, sitting back on his heels. Even though he was a couple of hundred yards away, the girls could tell that he wasn’t one of the men they’d met earlier. He was shirtless, and his skin was the darker brown of a Polynesian. Tamara looked around, but the three men were nowhere to be seen.
“Where are those guys? Why didn’t they stop? It’s not like you could miss him out there.” Jenna tore her gaze away from the kneeling man and looked down the trail. There was a cairn near a large jumble of jagged lava boulders.
“I think the trail turns behind that outcropping. They must have kept going. What a bunch of jerks!” She turned back to look at the kneeling man. “Do you think he’s alright?”
“HELLO!” Tamara called out. The man didn’t move or give any indication that he’d heard them. “HELLO! HELLO?” The man still didn’t respond. The girls looked at each other and immediately knew what they were going to do. You don’t leave someone alone in the middle of a desert.
Walking carefully, they made their way slowly across the rough lava and ash toward the man. They called out to him a few times, but saw no indication that he could hear them. As they got closer, they could see that his back was well-muscled, and he appeared to be barefoot.
“What’s he wearing… is that a bathing suit?” Tamara asked. Jenna shook her head slowly.
“Traditional clothes, I think,” she said. “Maybe he’s here for some kind of ritual. Still, I’d think that kneeling on lava like that would hurt like hell.”
After a few minutes of careful hiking the girls reached the man. He didn’t move or acknowledge them as they approached, so they walked around in front of him, their shadows falling across his body.
“We don’t mean to interrupt,” Tamara said, “but are you okay?”
The man opened his eyes and the girls gasped. They’d been expecting the deep brown eyes that all of the other Hawaiian men had, but this man’s eyes had stunning green and golden-yellow flecks mixed in the brown of his irises. They felt themselves falling into his eyes—falling and falling until everything went dark.
The girls’ eyes opened and everything had changed. The barren desert was gone, and they were standing atop a stone platform, a heiau in the middle of a lush valley that looked very familiar. They were naked. The man from the desert was standing in front of them. Behind him they saw a blood-stained altar.
Fear surged up in their hearts and they opened their mouths to scream, only to be silenced by a stern look from the man. They wanted to scream, but they couldn’t make a sound. They wanted to run, but their bodies wouldn’t respond. The man stepped forward and placed a hand on each girl’s forehead. He didn’t speak, but the word ”malamalama“ echoed in their minds and the light of knowledge that it promised flooded into them.
The valley, they realized, was Waipi’o Valley, the Valley Of The Kings. They’d been there two days before their desert hike, taking a mule-drawn wagon tour and then exploring on their own. They had seen several heiau temples, including the one they currently stood on. Out of respect for the ancient Hawaiian religious beliefs, they hadn’t climbed up onto the platform as others in their tour group had.
Even stranger than where they’d suddenly appeared was when they’d suddenly appeared. The old Hawaiians had no exposure to the Christian calendar, but the girls knew the year was 1759. It was long before the missionaries set up shop in Hawai’i in the 1820’s. It was before Captain James Cook’s crew became the first Europeans to see Hawai’i. The man who would come to be known as King Kamehameha the Great was an infant. Somehow they’d been taken back over 250 years in time.
Looking around, Tamara and Jenna confirmed the knowledge of the year in their minds not only by what was in Waipi’o Valley, but also by what wasn’t there. There were no trails packed by dozens of tourist wagons passing by daily. There was no distant buzz of rented four-wheeled ATVs zipping through the valley. There was no periodic thump-thump from helicopter tours flying overhead. They were in a Hawai’i that wouldn’t know those things for many, many years to come.
The bloody altar made it obvious that they stood on a heiau po’o kanaka, but their minds had been calmed by the man’s touch. The malamalama they had been granted told them that they were not there to offer their mortal lives, but rather their… identities, for lack of a more accurate word. Nothing would be taken from them that they didn’t voluntarily offer.
Though they were in the Valley of the Kings, the man standing in front of them was not a member of the ali’i royalty class. He was a kahuna; a priest, healer, sorcerer. He offered them only exactly what they wanted: A chance to leave behind the existences they had brought with them and replace them with new lives that were in harmony with the land and people they sought to understand. He relaxed his grip on their minds to let them make their decision.
There was never a moment’s doubt or hesitation by either girl.
Tamara and Jenna knelt and bowed their heads to wait for the kahuna’s decision. He looked into their minds and into their hearts, then nodded. He reached down and offered each girl a hand. Taking his hands, Haumea and Hina stood, voluntarily ceding control of their minds to the kahuna again. There was no concern about being atop the heiau where only ali’i and kahuna were allowed—they now shared the names of two well known akua: Haumea, the goddess of fertility and childbirth, and Hina, the goddess of love and peace. The kahuna turned and led them down from the heiau to the valley floor.
Their descent from the heiau caused quite a stir among the maka’ainana, commoners who farmed, fished, labored, and served the ali’i and kahuna. They all knew and revered the kahuna, but the never expected him to be in the company of what could be nothing other than two akua. Both goddesses had white skin, one with golden honey-colored hair and the other with flaming red hair. There was nothing in the kapu system of conduct told them how to act in the presence of actual akua, so those gathered around the base of the heiau stood and stared in wonder as the girls descended. Finally they decided that the best idea was to act as if the goddesses were ali’i.
The maka’ainana prostrated themselves on the ground, with their faces pressed against the dirt. The girls were upset to see them quaking in fear, and they knew that the commoners were terrified that they had broken kapu and would be put to death immediately. The kahuna allowed them their voices for a single word.
“Pu’uhonua,” the girls called out in unison before their silence was enforced again. They were relieved to see that their utterance of pardon and refuge from punishment had calmed the people’s fears somewhat.
The kahuna led them further up the valley a few hundred yards, then stopped near a small hut. The girls instinctively knew that it was a hale ai’na, a place where women ate. They could hear women talking in the distance and they found that they understood the Hawaiian perfectly. The malamalama light of knowledge had given them great gifts.
The kahuna left them and walked back down the trail toward the heiau and the ocean. His will kept them firmly rooted to where they stood outside the hut; he would not break kapu or allow the girls to do so. They still couldn’t speak, but they communicated with facial expressions and hand gestures to the best of their ability. By the time the kahuna returned, they had reached a mutual understanding that they were willing to be part of this society for as long as they could, and they knew that they both understood Hawaiian fluently.
The kahuna brought fish and fruit on broad green leaves. He entered the hut alone and placed the food inside before exiting and leaving the area as kapu required. After he was gone, the girls went into the hut and ate. The leaves provided a makeshift writing surface, once the food was gone.
“Feels like something big is going to happen soon,” Jenna/Hina scratched with her fingernail.
“Same here, but I don’t know what,” Tamara/Haumea scratched in response.
“Knowledge seems to appear when in my head when I need it.”
“Me too. I hope that continues.”
They exited the hale ai’na and saw the kahuna waiting a short distance away. Instinctively they knew that he’d gone to a nearby hale mua where men ate and he’d eaten while they were dining. He walked to them with a solemn look on his face. A word echoed in Hina and Haumea’s minds: Ho’oponopono.
They cleansed their bodies first, immersing themselves in a pond at the base of a small waterfall. Standing naked in the cool water, they faced the kahuna. The ceremony required that all participants freely and willingly enter into it. They felt the kahuna release the hold he had on their minds and bodies. Free to move, they walked out of the water together and stood before the kahuna. They could speak, but they found it wasn’t necessary. In freeing their minds, the kahuna had also freed them from their mortal limits. Each girl could feel the thoughts of the other, and they both knew that they freely and willingly wished to enter the Ho’oponopono ceremony of forgiveness, reconciliation, and rebirth.
To their surprise, they felt the kahuna’s desire to enter the ceremony as a participant, rather than as just the spiritual mediator. They accepted him without hesitation, and felt his acceptance of them. His name was Aina, which meant “the land.” He removed his malo and stood naked with the two women.
They felt Aina begin the Ho’oponopono ceremony with the pule, the prayer to strengthen the connection between their spirits and their emotional commitment to each other. Once the pule was finished, he was the first to enter into the ritual.
Their mental bond allowed Aina to express thoughts and feelings that words could not. He recounted the disharmony and conflict he had created and took full responsibility for it. He expressed his regret and sorrow for having created those things. Haumea and Hina accepted his feelings without placing any blame. He requested their forgiveness, and it was freely given. He shared his love for them, and they openly accepted it. They felt his gratitude and thanks for their acceptance.
Hina went next, repeating the process and feeling the forgiveness and acceptance that Haumea and Aina had for her. Finally Haumea took responsibility for her burden of past pain and received forgiveness and acceptance from Hina and Aina. When they had all finished, the three had reached a state of resolution.
Aina felt a return to a state of harmony he’d once had. He’d sensed that these girls were special and that he needed to not only guide them through Ho’oponopono, but also to participate in the ceremony with them. His inner peace restored, he felt mana flowing more freely to him.
For Haumea and Hina, it was a totally new experience. They felt as if they had released their previous lives and all of the negativity that had been associated with those lives. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from their shoulders and for the first time they were in harmony with themselves, their lives, their loved ones, and the entire universe. It was a state of wonderment, a state of inner peace, joy, and harmony. They felt cleansed and calm.
With resolution achieved, it was time to make their lives anew, to make new commitments to themselves, to each other, and to others. It was time to commit to better their lives.
The girls committed to living in harmony with Hawai’i, accepting her ways and customs, and listening to everything that she had to teach them. Aina, speaking as kahuna for the land, committed to having Hawai’i accept them and care for them as she would for her own. The girls committed to their friendship and love for each other. Individually they made commitments to others in their lives.
When they were done, Aina declared pani, the closing of the matter and that all wrongs had been righted. Then he concluded Ho’oponopono with pule ho’opau, the closing prayer. He walked to a nearby bush and retrieved two lei made from the fruit of the hala tree. He placed a golden-yellow and green lei around the neck of each of the girls, signifying that they had performed Ho’oponopono. For the first time since the girls had met him, he smiled. Holding hands, the three of them walked back into the pond to cleanse themselves again.
The girls looked at the world through new eyes. By giving themselves to Hawai’i, they’d accepted the ways of the land. The Hawai’i of 1759 had no sexual taboos beyond those of social class. Sex was for pleasure and happiness, and it was freely engaged in by all who had reached puberty, in all ways that it could be performed. Hina and Haumea now saw each other in ways that Jenna and Tamara never had—as beautiful, sexual, desirable women.
Moving together, thigh-deep in the water, the girls began exploring each other’s bodies. The soft, smooth curves of a woman were very different from the bodies of men they had experienced in the past. They embraced, feeling the delicious contrast between the warmth of their soft bodies in contact and the cool water surrounding them. Their first kiss was timid and tentative. Their second was soft, deep, and passionate.
Aina stayed a short distance away and let the girls explore their new love and intimacy for several minutes. He had never seen the slow, relaxed passion that these women displayed for each other. He had seen Hawaiian women pleasuring each other many times, and it was certainly different than a Hawaiian man with a Hawaiian woman or two men together, but it was nothing like the sweetness and wonderment and caring that the two women before him were displaying. He found it very arousing.
Moving behind Haumea, he brushed her long mane of water-darkened blonde hair to the right and kissed the side of her neck. She sighed softly into Hina’s mouth and pushed her round ass back against his hardness. Aina grasped her hips and let his cock slide down her ass and between her legs. Hina’s hand was already there, pleasuring Haumea, and she gently took his shaft in hand and guided him to Haumea’s entrance. Aina pushed forward and slid deeply into Haumea’s warmth.
Hina broke the kiss with her friend and stepped back to watch Haumea and Aina share pleasure. Haumea’s large breasts undulated rhythmically as he thrust deep inside her. Lowering her head, Hina captured a swaying nipple in her mouth and sucked. Awash with pleasure, Haumea wrapped her arms around her friend’s head, pulling her tightly to the breast. She drove herself back against Aina’s thrusts as her need peaked. He lunged deep into her as she cried out her joy and accepted his seed. The three of them stayed locked together for a few moments before Haumea fell forward into Hina’s supporting embrace.
The two girls kissed gently for a few moments before pulling Aina into their embrace. Noticing that his erection hadn’t flagged after coming inside Haumea, Hina released him from their embrace and turned to kiss Haumea again. Arching her back to raise her ass, Hina presented herself to Aina as Haumea had. He entered her from behind and she moaned out her pleasure. She was taller than Haumea, so Aina pulled her ass tightly against him to bury himself deep within her soft folds.
Haumea kissed her friend passionately and palmed her firm breasts. Rolling Hina’s nipples between her fingers brought a whimper of delight from the redhead. With Aina holding her so tightly against him, they couldn’t thrust deeply. Instead, he surged rhythmically inside her, moving only a tiny bit. For Hina it was a slow, blissful build.
Haumea lowered her head, but did not take Hina’s breasts into her mouth. She continued lower until she was kneeling in the water. She lifted Hina’s legs and placed them over her shoulders. Hina was suspended between Aina’s cock and supporting grip on her hips and Haumea’s shoulders under her thighs. Haumea leaned her head forward and began to tongue the spot where her lovers were joined. Swirling and licking, she quickly brought Hina to a screaming orgasm and watched in wonder as Aina’s cock throbbed and pulsed, sending his seed deep into her best friend.
Haumea and Aina carefully lowered the shuddering Hina into the water. The three embraced for several minutes, feeling the love, peace, and harmony between them. Aina released the two girls from his arms and stepped back slightly. He gently kissed each girl, then watched as the girls softly shared a kiss. He looked at them with softness in his striking eyes and spoke aloud for the first time.
“Aloha.”
For the girls, it was perfection. The word had many meanings—it was a greeting, a welcome, an expression of compassion, and a declaration of love. It encompassed exactly what they were feeling. They looked at the man who had changed their lives.
“Aloha,” they replied in unison. They were filled with happiness and joy, and they closed their eyes and smiled as the harmonious feelings washed over them. As they felt the universe shift around them, they remembered that aloha was also a farewell.
The sun hung low over the western desert when they opened their eyes a moment later. They were dressed in their hiking gear, standing at the spot where they’d found Kahuna Aina. There was no evidence that he had ever been there, just a few faint bird tracks in the fine volcanic ash and dust.
The girls looked at each other. Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed.The loose ponytails hanging down from their baseball caps were damp, but drying in the late-day desert heat. They each wore a golden-yellow and green lei made of the fruit of the hala tree. The leis felt awkward on top of their shirts, so each girl unbuttoned a few buttons of her shirt and carefully placed her precious lei under her shirt where it would be in contact with her bare skin.
The visible evidence of their transformation was insignificant compared to what they knew and felt. Within them was a peace, a calmness, a feeling of love for each other and for the spirit of Hawai’i. They shared a new, yet ancient connection to this place. What had seemed a barren desert when they’d entered now was full of life. They felt the touch of every living thing in the desert, as well as the life of the desert itself.
They also felt the touch of their love for each other. They embraced and shared their connection to this new world through their soft lips.
“HELLO? HELLO?” It was a hoarse cry from the east. Tamara and Jenna turned in the direction of the voice and saw a man and woman stumbling across the rocky desert toward them. It took them a couple of minutes for them to reach the girls.
“Thank God we found you,” the man said, his voice dry and scratchy. “We lost the trail… tried to use GPS… couldn’t get around a ravine.”
“A GPS does more harm than good here, unless you have trail maps loaded into it and it knows how to follow them,” Tamara said, taking the device from him. “I’m Tamara and this is Jenna.”
“Tyler,” he said, “and this is my wife Caitlin. We’re on our honeymoon.”
Caitlin nodded, eyeing the two girls. She was almost certain that she’d seen them kissing each other. Based on the tent in the front of her husband’s shorts, she was sure he’d seen it, too. She put her arm around him possessively, marking her territory.
She was tired, dirty, sweaty, scratched up, and bruised. Her short brown hair was a tangled mess. She felt like a lump of coal sitting among diamonds. Why were these two gorgeous girls out here in the middle of the desert looking model-perfect and making out? They looked to be about her age, or maybe a little younger, and she was in no mood to deal with tall, leggy competition sniffing around Tyler.
“You need water, don’t you?” Jenna asked. Tyler nodded. The girls removed their day packs, crouched down, and took out their full spare bottles and gave them to the couple.
“Don’t you need water?” Caitlin asked. The unbuttoned shirts on the two girls undoubtably gave Tyler a great cleavage show while they were crouched. They were being nice, but she felt even more threatened.
“We’ll be okay,” Jenna said. “Just take small sips at first. The thirst you feel is dehydration, but you might get sick if you drink a lot all at once.” Caitlin nodded as if she’d already known that. It was bad enough that these girls were taller and curvier than her, she’d be damned if she’d let them look smarter, too.
Tamara handed the GPS back to Tyler.
“No trail maps,” she said. “Without them, it’s going to try to take you on a straight line to your programmed destination. You have the Hilina Pali Lookout as your destination, and it was trying to take you the shortest route to it, with no regard for the terrain. Out here, the shortest route usually isn’t the quickest or the safest.”
“We’re going to the Hilina Pali,” Jenna told them. “Would you like to come with us?”
“YES!” Tyler exclaimed. “Is this the trail?”
“The trail is a couple of hundred yards that way,” Jenna said, pointing toward the slowly descending sun. “It looks like it’s almost six o’clock, and we should be at the lookout in about forty minutes—plenty of time to catch the sunset.”
“It all looks the same out here. How can you tell where the trail is?” Jenna just smiled and shrugged. Tamara gave her a faint smile. If you listened to the land and accepted its wisdom, how could you not know where the trail was?
The girls led the way, smoothly and easily walking across the uneven lava surface. They kept a slow pace because they knew that that Caitlin and Tyler would have a harder hike. The newlyweds were tired, and they were not at peace with the land.
Caitlin watched them from behind; their long legs moved smoothly and their firm asses swayed seductively from side to side. Was this show designed to entice Tyler, or were they lezzies hoping to seduce her? Tyler held her hand as they picked their way across the rough terrain. He was watching the ground, not the girls in front of them. It was slow going, and Caitlin stumbled a couple of times. Even worse than their obvious attempts to seduce either her or her husband was the obvious ease and grace with which the two girls hiked the desert. She was struggling and stumbling while they were making it look like a sensuous cakewalk that they’d been practicing their whole lives.
Finally they reached the trail and the going got easier. Again, Jenna and Tamara were in the lead with Tyler and Caitlin behind them. Caitlin noticed that on the smoother terrain of the trail, the girls moved in near-perfect unison. Their hips rolled smoothly and their asses swayed in what could only be described as a seductive dance. Her jealousy flared again and she assuaged it by deciding that, nice as they appeared to be, Jenna and Tamara were almost certainly professional strippers on vacation.
It hadn’t taken long before scrub vegetation had started to appear. The dry grasses and small, gnarled bushes had given way to more green shrubs, desert flowers, and greener grasses. They’d reached the Lookout in forty minutes, exactly as Jenna had predicted.
There was a National Park truck parked on the road near the pavilion at the Lookout. A park ranger and a teenaged boy were cleaning up litter around the pavilion. Tyler and Caitlin immediately went into the open stone structure with the corrugated metal roof. He began looking her over and tending to her scrapes and bruises as best he could. Tamara and Jenna walked just past the pavilion, taking in the unobstructed view of the pali cliffs and the coastline below them.
The brown-skinned local boy entered the pavilion and asked Caitlin and Tyler if they were okay. The gave him a short recount of them losing their way, getting sent deep into the desert by the GPS, and finally being shown the way out by Jenna and Tamara.
“You stay lucky kama’aina sistahs wen spock you,” he told them. “Ka’u easy place fo get bus up nighttime.”
“My son is right,” said the ranger as he entered the pavilion. “Just a few weeks ago…”
Standing just outside, Tamara and Jenna looked at each other in surprise. They’d understood the local pidgin perfectly, and the Hawaiian boy had called them kama’aina. That was what the locals called each other, usually meaning “local” or “islander.” The literal meaning was “child of the land.” They’d forgotten all about their desire lessen their malihini status, and now it was gone and they had become kama’aina. They had offered themselves to Hawai’i, and it had accepted them. They were children of the land.
They heard the sound of a shuttle bus approaching. The hotels ran them to the Lookout on hourly intervals during the day to pick up hikers. This one was about half full of tourists coming to watch the sunset. It would be their ride back. They saw Caitlin round the corner of the pavilion and walk toward them with her eyes downcast.
“I need to apologize to you,” she told them quietly. “I… I’m not a very nice person.
“The ranger told us about a guy who got lost in the desert a few weeks ago. He tried to cross a rift and fell while he was climbing down. He broke his leg and was stuck there. The ranger said that the wind shifted that night and sulfur gasses from a lava vent settled across the desert. The guy didn’t have a chance. He died from the poison gas. It stayed for three days before the wind shifted again and they could go and recover his body.
“You probably saved our lives, and… and I’ve only been thinking jealous, bitchy things about you. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. We just got married and all of this is new to me. We want to have a baby right away and I was hoping… but then… well, you’re so beautiful… I just… It’s no excuse, I know. I’m sorry, and I wanted to apologize to you.”
Tamara took Caitlin’s hand in hers.
“Do you see him?” She asked quietly? Caitlin glanced up at the pavilion and spotted Tyler checking on her. She nodded.
“He loves you. There may be brief distractions for his eyes now and then, but none of them even faintly compares to you as far as he’s concerned. His attention may wander sometimes, but you are always in his heart. We’re nothing but a brief spark popping off a burning piece of firewood and fading as it rises into the night. You’re the steady warmth of that fire, always burning in his soul. For him, we are nothing compared to you.”
Caitlin’s eyes teared up.
“Thank you. Uh… mahalo,” she said.
“’A ‘ole pilikia,” Tamara told her.
“That’s beautiful. What does it mean?”
“’A ‘ole pilikia is one way to say ‘you’re welcome’ in Hawaiian,” Jenna told her. “It literally means ‘without problems.’”
She took Caitlin’s hands in hers and smiled softly.
“May Hina, the goddess of peace and love, bless your marriage for all of your days.” She hugged Caitlin, then stepped aside as Tamara took her place and took Caitlin’s hands.
“May Haumea, the goddess of fertility and childbirth, bring happy, healthy children to your loving home.” She hugged Caitlin.
“Thank you both,” she said.
“Go to him,” Jenna said, tilting her head slightly toward Tyler. “He wants to share this sunset with the only woman in his heart.”
Caitlin hugged them both again, then hurried back toward the pavilion.
The sun continued it’s slow descent toward the horizon, watched by dozens of eyes. Just as the orange orb touched the ocean horizon a amakihi bird lifted from the ridge of the pavilion roofline and swooped down over the pali in a streak of yellow and green. He climbed into the sky and turned northeast toward the lush valley that was his home.
His departure was noticed only by the two kama’aina girls who were quietly appreciating the beautiful sunset that their new home was sharing for them.