against the darkness. Reaching both arms up in an embrace of the night sky, she fell backward with a splash in the pose of someone making a snow angel. Again a flash of violet and green around her in the waves. She surfaced, brushed her hair from her face, and called out to him. “Pure freedom.”
“We can’t force you,” Clione said, from somewhere deeper. “But it’s your loss.”
“Not forcing him?” Sharon replied, lunging out of the water. Amazonian, she ran toward him, her breasts bouncing up and down with each stride. Rushing him like a linebacker, she grabbed his arm, pulled at his shirt, sending buttons flying.
“In!” she screamed. “You’re going to have fun whether you like it or not!”
Reed pulled away, trying to avoid contact with Sharon’s wet breasts and thighs. Her hair hit him in the face like strands of rope. He stepped back and Sharon shifted her weight, pulling him off balance and down into the sand. For a moment she was on top of him, then they were side by side. Sharon laughed and released him. “You’re going in,” she said. Somehow, in just those few seconds, he’d begun to get hard.
Desperate to keep his thin pants from turning into a tent, he ran the final few steps and splashed in until he was waist-high. He felt nauseated. The water was so warm it was hot, the temperature of urine, and he breathed quickly, in and out, trying to focus on the girls beside him and not on what was out there, what might be waiting for him. Images of otherworldly creatures flashed through his mind, the things that seemed like Alien with giant teeth and vestigial eyes that he’d seen on late-night television programs. He stepped on Sharon’s foot and stifled a scream, thinking he’d surprised a stingray or crab or something larger that was waiting for him, something lurking out there. He fought against panic by forcing himself to breathe, to stop shaking, telling himself that people swam here all the time without being harmed.
In front of him, Sharon dove, the white of her buttocks showing briefly in front of him before the splash. She was so natural and relaxed. He realized Sharon was flirting with him, showing off. Clione was more reserved but clearly didn’t care about being seen. These girls were as free as the ocean’s waves. It felt right, somehow, that they accepted their bodies, that they were fiercely unashamed. Laurel didn’t even undress in front of him anymore. It had been years since he’d seen Laurel fully naked.
Clione was still next to him. As they’d gone out, she’d been behind him but now somehow they were hand in hand, his left in her right. He felt the heat of her palm against his own, and wondered if she could feel how fast his heart was beating. They’d stopped moving, and the naked girl beside him looked up at his face. Her hair wet, plastered back against her skull, the tips of it hanging down at her shoulders, she looked much younger than a girl just out of college. Her full lips, the soft curves of her body, seemed more like someone fresh out of puberty.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said quietly.
She stiffened slightly. “Are you going to swim?” she said. “If you’re not, you’re missing something.”
In response, he let go of her hand, took a deep breath, and dove. His heartbeat mixed with the sound of waves, a rush of water and noise that overwhelmed him, disoriented him. Everything was a deep blue-black; he couldn’t tell where the surface was. He put his feet down, stood up, feeling wetness between his toes, the stickiness of the sandy bottom. He was only waist-deep, but it felt like death itself were creeping onto him, weighing him down. He realized that not being able to see anything helped. He could do it, he told himself. It would be okay. It was looking out into the blueness of the ocean that paralyzed him. Like blinders on a horse that allow it to tune out the distractions of a busy street, if it was dark, totally dark, he could swim. It made it easier to ignore what might be out there.
Clione and Sharon were much deeper, already treading water and splashing each other.
“Come on,” Sharon yelled. “The water’s fantastic.”
He swam dog paddle, his head up, fighting the sucking pull of the current, until he was deeper but could still touch the sand. It would be okay if he could swim without getting his toes wet, he thought. But that sensation of wetness was as intolerable as fingernails scraping at a chalkboard.
Too far away, the girls were still fighting, splashing. He was glad they were ignoring him. His head could slip beneath the surface and by the time they found him he’d be gone. If they could find him in the darkness. Finally, feeling a rush of adrenaline and terror, he pulled his toes off the bottom and kept swimming, sucking air in quickly, shallow gulps like a fish left on a lawn, until he reached the girls. He kept paddling, back and forth, like a dog.
“You made it!” Clione said, smiling as Sharon doused her. “Time out, time out.”
“I win!”
“No way. It’s time out. I have a visitor.”
“Get her, Reed. Now’s your chance!” Sharon sent another volley of water, dousing the both of them.
“All right,” Clione screamed. “Now you’re really going to get it!” Cupping her right hand in a tight V, she began shooting water at the other girl. She was precise and mechanical, aiming directly for the mouth and eyes, her powerful leg strokes keeping her head above water despite lacking the use of her left arm, but she tired quickly. Sharon laughed, sending volley after volley of water into Clione’s face and eyes. Clione’s left arm, with only a limited range of motion, was not good either for keeping her afloat or for splashing. She would kick, shoot a volley at Sharon, and then turn her head as Sharon mercilessly returned fire, until finally Clione started to sputter.
“You win,” she said.
They returned to the beach, Sharon leading the way with a powerful crawl, Clione following with an uneven, weak sidestroke, and Reed taking up the rear with a dog paddle, the only stroke he’d ever mastered and one that kept his head safely out of the waves. When they reached the shore, Reed realized it had started to drizzle, a light sprinkle of drops that hit the water soundlessly, and the lightning was much closer, too. The storm would overtake them before they got back to the shore. He was glad when he felt his feet touch the soft bottom. By the time he was out of the water the girls had dressed, and the three of them darted back to the restaurant awning just as the sky opened up and it began to pour.
“I’ve got a bottle of wine back at my room,” Reed said, as the three slid into the taxi. Sharon went first, followed by Clione, and Reed was last. Just sitting this close to her felt exhilarating, full contact from the bottom of his thigh all the way to his shoulder. He was sorry that the ride ended only minutes later when the driver pulled up to the youth hostel door.
The rain had left the courtyard empty, and they dashed across to Reed’s bungalow. He let them in and then ducked back out to the bar to grab glasses and a corkscrew. Sharon was sitting on the bed when he returned. Clione was standing, looking uncomfortable.
“This place is beautiful,” Sharon said. “How much is this?”
“Sixteen.”
“I wish I could afford that.”
Reed popped the cork, then filled each glass halfway.
“How much do the dorms cost?” he said, handing each girl some wine.
“Six dollars.”
“That’s nothing.”
Sharon shrugged. “When
