He found himself standing on the beach. He was naked yet curiously he experienced no shame or embarrassment, and he was at the shore's edge impassively observing the wavelets break relentlessly upon the rippled sand.
The sea was green; the sky was blue and the sand yellow. It was like a child's crayon drawing: primary colours in a primary world.
He had alternately swum and sunbathed here many times in the past. It was his hometown, the town of his birth and childhood.
Something suddenly came to mind that he thought he had long forgotten...
He was fourteen again and lying on a towel spread over the powdery sand. His eyes were closed as he had felt the sun's rays warm the flesh of his chest and torso. He had thought of his body changing, changing from boy to man.
A part of him had sought to become a man, he craved the power a grown man had. Yet another part of him had sought to remain a child.
He had lazily opened his eyes and cast a glance down at the golden tan of his tummy. It was a part of him that was still soft - and feminine. He liked that, to be the female he wished to possess.
His gaze had slid further down to his strong legs, masculine limbs now hairy and he had felt reassured by the sight of them - they were the legs of a man destined to be rarely bested...
"Contradiction, conflict, paradox, oh, the delicious irony of existence, darling."
The honeyed voice had startled him, and he had twisted round but only the breeze was there.
"I will always be behind you - and never seen," she teased.
He felt her lips, lips composed only of a gust of sea air, kiss him tenderly upon the nape of his neck.
"I am going to give you what you so thirst for and deserve."
She ran her ethereal fingers across his nipples, and he surrendered to her intangible embrace.
"What is it that I so desire?"
"To be a woman but blessed with a man's yearnings."
"How do you know this? I have told no one."
"Have you not guessed yet my sweet?"
He imagined her pouting her lips.
Yes, it was all coming back to him. Him diving into the river to rescue the lad on the bike who had taken a tumble by the bank and fallen in.
"I'm drowning, and this is all some sort of hallucination or illusion brought on by oxygen starvation. I'm at the bottom of the river..."
"Not quite dead dear, but close, which is why you are here with me and I'm your friend. Call me Luci."
"I get it. Hal-LUCI-nation, LUCI-d dream, LUCI-fer. So, you're just an illusion, Luci, the body making my death a comfortable death."
"An illusion is just an extinct reality, is it not Douglas? Surely you have guessed who I really am now?"
"You're God - and a woman."
"Exactly right, honey."
He opted to play along; he had no other option.
"That's okay, you play me along," she responded patronisingly, reading his thoughts.
He stared out to sea and fixed his gaze upon the distant coast of the mainland. He did indeed feel tranquil. Dying wasn't so bad after all.
Her invisible fingers caressed his thighs. Aroused him.
He waited for the last few seconds and anticipated the curtain of descending darkness as his awareness ebbed away.
"The boy is going to live, you saved him, threw him to the bank before you slipped under. Just thought I'd let you know."
"Luci, I have some questions for you."
"I'm sorry but there isn't time."
She pressed her soft lips against his...
*
Greg removed his mouth from Douglas's. It was the first time he had been called upon to utilise his resuscitation training.
"He's gone. I did my best," he explained to the small throng of onlookers on the bank.
Greg gently pulled the eyelids of the corpse down, the cold gaze into infinity chilled him, and reached across to pick up the coat he would place over his face.
"The boy's fine though a little shaken up, and cold. He would have died had he not dived in. He gave up his life..." Greg's colleague explained to the small crowd."
He may have suffered a heart attack; I don't think he drowned though he had water in his lungs." Greg talked distractedly over his colleague from River Front Auto Services before noticing a young, and rather attractive, dark haired woman hurry along the walkway. In the distance the banshee wail of the ambulance sirens drew ever nearer...
*
Maria slotted the key into the lock of her door, pushed it open and entered her flat which had been converted tastefully into luxury apartments, Holland Mill House, from an old warehouse overlooking the river.
On the mat was an envelope with the single word scrawled on it in black biro: Maria. She picked it up and then placed it down on the small table in her small hallway. More correspondence from the Residents' Association she suspected.
She slipped off her expensive Italian leather handbag and removed her coat with the image still fresh in her mind of the rather disturbing incident on the river path a few minutes earlier in which it had looked like a man had died whilst rescuing a young lad from drowning. She recalled the drenched and shivering boy, with a coat draped over him, sitting on the grass with his knees folded into his body. He had appeared only to be shaken but not hurt and she was relieved by that, relieved for those that loved him.
The man, in tragic contrast, of whom she only stole a brief glimpse as she had hurried by, looked as though he was indeed dead - glassy eyed and slack jawed, such that his mouth gaped open. He was middle-aged and overweight.
The macabre tableau had quite shocked her and she was looking forward to talking about it later, talking it out of her system with her gay partner, Jayne, of four years whom she loved deeply.
She entered her kitchen and realised she wasn't that hungry yet, it wasn't quite half five, so she emptied her shopping bag, placing the perishables in the fridge-freezer and the rest in the cupboards. Anxious to get out of her work garb Maria ambled out of the kitchen and into the bedroom.
She paused in front of the full-length mirror and then stripped completely naked, she liked what she saw, and was mildly and guiltily excited by it too.
Reflected in the soft bedroom light was a slender female of five foot seven inches, tall for a woman, with wavy raven hair tumbling onto bronzed shoulders. Her round face was pretty with large brown eyes, a small nose, and full lips. Jayne had remarked once, whilst they were watching an early film in the
Pink Panther
series that she thought she half resembled the actress, Claudia Cardinale.
Her breasts were of modest size but firm and her dark nipples were quite prominent and sensitive, though she occasionally relished them being lashed with a small flogger. Her arms were long and quite toned probably from carrying books around all day in her job as manager in a bookstore and she noted the just perceptible shadow created by the fuzz of tiny black hairs on her forearms. Her tummy was tidy and the neat slit of her close shaven vagina quite visible. Her legs were long and shapely.
Maria felt that her skin and complexion was good - she developed a deep tan during the summer months which only faded very gradually through the cooler ones. She suffered from very few imperfections - a small mole on her upper right arm and a slightly larger mole on the mound of her left breast. But that was it really.
Not bad for thirty-four, she concluded with some self-satisfaction.
Maria, still nude, moved over to the bed and flopped down onto it. Head on the large lemon coloured pillow, hands behind her head, and eyes unfocused, Maria replayed in her mind the last time Jayne had beaten her without mercy her unclad body on this very bed just ten days ago....
"Hands by your side and head down.... NOW!" Jayne barked in her South London accent.
Marie immediately complied like a trooper on the drill ground yet couldn't resist sneaking a glance at Jayne in her leather boots, shiny leather micro skirt with leather cap atop her flaxen haired head.
"You will receive twenty strokes with the paddle, twenty strokes with the cane and twenty strokes with the cat. Get onto the bed and assume the correct position for your punishment."
Meekly, Maria clambered onto the mattress, knelt and then rested her forearms on the covers allowing her head to sink down in an attitude of resignation.
She heard Jayne pick up the paddle, imagined her weighing it in her right hand, visualised her more than ample breasts, her fair complexion with light freckles dusted upon her arms and shoulders. She saw her pretty face with arctic blue eyes, thin but strong lips and straight nose...
The heavy blow of the leather paddle rocked her nude frame simultaneously as the pain spread like fire across her left buttock. She gasped and clenched her teeth - the first one was always the worst. Till the second one.
The sound of the impact reverberated around the room, and she let out a small gasp, yet already her cunt was flowing with juice.
Blow after blow landed on her reddening cheeks, and each one only served to deepen her submission to Jayne, to worship her...
The last cruel cuts of the cane broke her skin, she could feel it, yet she asked for no let-up, and the last phase of her beating with the flogger was nearly upon her...
She discerned Jayne place the cane on the glass top of the bedside table.
"Lie flat on the bed with your limbs spread out."
