Sea

Sea ~ part 4

       They run down the sand, barefoot, with hoodies pulled around them. The evening air is still warm, the sky darkening over the sea, but glowing orange and purple behind the beach. She ditches his hoodie on the sand, close to the water, and wades into the lapping waves, her arms crossed over naked breasts, only her knickers against her skin.

       "Wait!" he calls, struggling out of his clothes and following her in. She doesn't wait. She knows he will follow her. When the swelling water is waist deep, she plunges forwards, kicking her legs behind her, buoyant on the water, her hair streaming down around her into the water. His dog paddles in the shallows, obediently watching his master as he wades into the waves. When he reaches her, he is breathless and laughing. She can only just rest her toes on the seabed. She splashes water towards him as he approaches, and then she turns and dives, kicking her feet upwards, circling in the water, and surfacing close to him, water dripping down her face and neck. He grasps her waist, before she can dive again, and pulls her towards him.

       "Your hair and your huge eyes," he says, and he giggles. "You're the Little Mermaid. What did you trade to get your legs? Not your voice." He laughs and bends to kiss her, and, as they kiss, she wraps her legs around his waist, weightless in the salty water. She tastes the salt from the waves and the sweet warmth of his mouth mingled on her tongue.

       "I don't like the ending of that movie," she says abruptly, as they surface from each other for breath. "That Disney happy ending. Yeuk!" and she makes a disgusted face and pulls away from him to float on the water again.

       "Why?" he asks, "How should it end?"

       "She dissolves in the foam on the waves," she tells him. "The prince doesn't love her back so the spell breaks. That's how it's supposed to end."

       They swim together, circling each other as the sky and the waves darken. She floats on the undulating waves, kicking her feet up and lying on her back, her hair streaming around her like fine seaweed. He watches her, his head and shoulders bobbing over the ebbing and flowing water, his eyes darkening with the sky. A single glowing evening star hangs above the beach. 'Is it Venus or Mars?' she wonders. She cannot recall which: the bringer of love or the bringer of war? She is glad she cannot remember which.

       When they kiss again in the darkening water, his fingers and his lips are urgent once more and she is easily persuaded out of the waves and back to the house, which now stands shadowy but warm. He closes the door and then pulls her to him, kissing her hungrily and pushing her roughly against the hallway wall. The pressure of the wall behind her upturned head and his chest pressed against her almost winds her, but there is a deep beauty in this consuming desire. He pushes himself between her legs, his fingers gripping her thigh. He takes her weight and she wraps her legs around him again, feeling almost as weightless as she did in the sea. She feels warm dampness from her own desire against the cold wetness of their underwear, and him hard against her again, as he pushes himself against the curve of her groin. He bites down on her bottom lip and she gasps with the sweet shock of desire which runs through her.

       "I want you," she sighs into his hair, as he kisses her neck, "so much..."

       "I know," he murmurs, his fingers digging into her left thigh and his teeth grazing her shoulder.

       He lowers her down to her feet again and takes her hand, leading her across to the bed. The candles still burn, and they are the only source of light now, the window hanging dark and mirror-like; and they discard each other's sea-damp clothes in the flickering orange glow. He draws her close to him again, and her mouth finds the curve of his neck, his collarbones and his smooth chest, and he tastes of salty water as she runs her tongue and lips across his chest and down his upper arm, kissing the interweaving pattern of his tattoos, and seeing them fixed in her mind's eye behind her closed eyelids.