What is it that drives us back to the sea? We escaped from the tides and the surf and the foam all those millennia ago, so why does the crashing pound of those rhythmical waves claw at us still, mirroring the Sirens' call?
I wonder this as I lounge here on a Cornish beach. It is the height of summer now, and this is the second sunny day we've had. We go home tomorrow. Still, the weather brings us out in our droves; the weather and the whisper of the water.
I'm on holiday with Sylvie and her family. It is as fun as it can be. I'm enjoying peering through dark sunglasses at the perfect and the almost perfect bodies of the women who waltz by, and wondering which of them I could realistically have.
Anne has texted me twice this week. I can't decide if she's making a real effort by texting me, or if this meagre couple of texts shows I'm worth anything much to her at all.
This whole weekend, it's made me question why I bother holding on to this relationship with Anne. Of all the people to choose to have an affair with, why the woman I previously loved and lived with? I may as well have chosen some beautiful young thing. An oozing, raw, sexual presence whom I could just meet for a meal and some red wine in a shaded corner of a bistro, before whisking off to a hotel room for a few hours of sweating, heaving passion.
That way sounds good. I get everything I want - all the sex, the excitement - and I don't have all these unresolved issues cropping up, all the raised eyebrows and impatient huffs as I manage to annoy Anne, yet again. At least now I can leave before the row starts. That's probably why it's just about working. It's funny that I never row with Sylvie. She is an implacable pond before me and I can just skim right over her without a care.
Everything inside tells me I should concentrate all my attentions and affections and time on just one person, Sylvie. But then, I'm thinking, is she worth it?
So, as the waves crash in my ears like tribal drums, I close my eyes on the bikini beach and drift off to sleep while the sun's still high and my body's still warm and Sylvie's still by my side.
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2 comments:
Congratulations - romantic, erotic, lovely post. Your style could be called classic! Authors like you are worthy followers of classics like Dickens or Jókai Mór, if I may say so.
I love this. It's so evocative of summer holidays years ago when the summers seemed to be always hot and shiny and you could lie on the beach all day, smelling the sea and fish and chips! It takes me back to a really happy time.
Your writing is so descriptive; I love it.
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