"Skipper?"

"Yes, little buddy?"

"Were you ever married?"

The skipper shifts his weight and the vibrations move upward and make my hammock hum. "No Gilligan, I never was. I came close once, but I guess there's only one woman I could ever really love."

"Who's that, skipper?"

"The SEA, little buddy! Once a man falls in love with the sea, he can never be happy with any other woman. And women are jealous of the sea because she carries their men away where they can't follow. When I was your age I thought I could have it all, but in the end I had to make a choice. Remember, Gilligan, you can have a woman or you can have the sea but you can't have both."

The skipper's been drinking pretty steady ever since the wreck. He's got a still on the other side of the island and he visits it every night before he turns in. We all know about it but nobody says anything. He says a little torpedo juice puts hair on your chest.

"Skipper?"

"YES, little buddy?" He pretends to be angry with me when I interrupt his sleep like this, but secretly I think he kind of enjoys it. Anyway the nights on the island are hot and it's hard to fall asleep without thinking about things. Like The Pirate's Woman. That's a movie I saw twelve times before the wreck, with Ginger Grant and a pirate who tore at her dress and pushed her down onto the deck of his ship.

"Have you ever been with a woman?"

"Gilligan, I've made love to more women than you can possibly imagine. Why in Hawaii alone I-"

"What's it like?"

Silence. I can hear him thinking; I know that he's looking at me hard in the dark. "You mean, what does it feel like?"

"What does it feel like to be inside? Is there anything that can go wrong? Are there any pointers you can give me in case-"

"In case what?"

"In case it ever happens to me."

"Ginger hasn't approached you, has she little buddy?"

"No skipper. Honest. It's hard not to think about it sometimes though."

"Gilligan, if you want my advice you'll stay away from Ginger. That woman would just devour a boy like you. It would be like going for your first swim in the middle of the Pacific during a typhoon. No, what a swimmer needs his first time out is a nice friendly little pond, somewhere he can take a dip without getting too far from shore."

"But skipper, I already know how to swim."

"I'm talking about Maryanne! You must have smelt the perfume she was wearing tonight. That girl's been on this island for a long time now and if she's not ripe for the picking I don't know who is. Those little shorts she wears and that blouse and those big brown eyes. I can't say I haven't been tempted. At first I thought we were going to be rescued right away and it wouldn't look right if any stories got out, an old sea dog like me and her just a girl. But I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever see Hawaii again."

"Skipper?"

He puts his arms behind his head and says nothing.

"Have you been with a woman lately?"

The skipper rolls out of his bunk and pushes his face against mine. His tiny blue eyes glimmer in the darkness. "What did you say, little buddy?"

"I just wondered if . . ."

"Gilligan, I'm going to forget you asked that. We've talked enough for one night. NOW GO TO SLEEP!"

He gives me a swat with his cap and crawls back into the sack. Skipper is still a little sore at me for firing the last rounds of our flare gun into the tool hut last week. I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. Somewhere in the distance I can hear one of the girls giggling.

"Little buddy?"

"Yea, skipper?"

"If you want to take a dip in the lagoon with Maryanne tomorrow, I can fish somewhere else."

"Thanks, skipper."

"Now remember, Gilligan, these farm girls can be kind of skittish. You need to handle them gently. Understand?"

"I think so."

"And before you see Maryanne, I want you to get some help from the professor."

"What kind of help?"

"Well, little buddy, the navy taught me everything I know about sex, and the first thing they told me was that a man should never go into battle unprotected. Before you take another step you need to get yourself some armor."

"But skipper, I don't want to fight with Maryanne. And even if I did I wouldn't -"

"I'm talking about RUBBERS, Gilligan! Now pay attention! If you're going to make love like a man, you've got to start facing facts like a man. Now I'm not saying you should rush into anything. Take your time. But when the moment comes I want you to be ready. OK?"

"Aye aye, skipper."

"Good night, little buddy."

Part 2...