She rises like Venus from the ocean, her sheer swimsuit clinging to her like a second skin. Her rosy nipples are visible, and so is the curve of her stomach, the shadowy indent of her belly button, and the dark triangle between her legs. She might as well be wearing nothing at all.
She’s undaunted though. The Parliament dangling from her coral lips is soaking wet and she’s laughing. The sea ripples waves of orange behind her as her hair hangs in wet clumps around her shoulders, dripping salt and sand and sex. She’s a mermaid, the girl on the half shell. She climbs out of the sea, the sea foam clinging to her wobbling legs. Beads of salt water decorate her brown skin. I’d give anything to cling to her like the ocean.
She’s kicking her way out of the sea, but I stop her with my body, preventing her from hopping over another wave. She stops laughing. The cigarette drops from her mouth, floating on the water like a lone piece of drift wood. I bend down and kiss her earlobe, flicking my tongue over her silver earrings. Metal and salt. She sighs, a little moan in the back of her throat, and presses against me, a barnacle kissing the side of a submarine. I feel those hard nipples brushing against me. I want to feel her.
She tilts her head up to lick at my sun-burnt throat, and my hands drift down the sides of her body until they find themselves in the water, splashing around, moving the crotch of her swimsuit aside with two fingers so the ocean can lap at her swollen clit. She lets out a noise that is both a gasp and a giggle, and looks over our shoulder at those still lingering on the sand, but I am indifferent to them as I plunge my fingers inside her, now unsure of what the ocean is and what is her. She groans in my ear—a needy groan—and I crave the sound of her desperation as the waves roll up to meet our skin. She clings to me, her fingers burning white dots into my red back as I push into her again and again; she hooks a leg over me and we topple into the water. I suck on her lips; she keeps them closed tight, like she’s the second cousin to a clam, and I’m out for the pearl.
I kiss her wet eyelashes, my fingers diving deeper into her like a hook and she sighs against me, hot summer air against my sunburn. I feel her closing in around me, clasping my fingers over and over. Her hands dig pale imprints into my skin, but I don’t feel a thing. All I can hear is the roar of ocean in my ears. I’m inside of a seashell.
When her grip loosens, she drifts away from me, swimming the backstroke, a smile on her face. We let the tide pull us back to shore.
