This is the second chapter in the 'Fifty Cent Piece' short series. I hope you enjoy it. Constructive feedback is always appreciated. All rights reserved, © Northern_One, 2012.
*
The rain had stopped at some point during the night but the wind continued unabated. No fun in a tent but great for sailing and I'd spent the morning out on the waves, making the most of the ideal conditions. It was hard work though and after a couple of hours my arms were exhausted and I'd reluctantly come into shore. As I sat on the beach, gazing out at the rolling breakers I thought about the previous afternoon and my encounter with Anna. I'd spent the evening in a slightly bewildered state, trying to rationalise the whole thing but was unable to make much sense of it. I didn't know the first thing about her. Did Anna genuinely like me and was there a chance it could lead somewhere? Or was it just a one-off, a chance encounter never to be repeated? Surely it wasn't normal for a girl as gorgeous as her to go round sharing showers and wanking off men she'd only just met but then who was to say what was normal? I told myself to stop analysing it and to enjoy the memory of her perfect tits, her hand around my cock, that ankle bracelet...
Pangs of hunger snapped me from my daydream. I'd had a tin of baked beans and some bread the night before and a couple of bananas for breakfast but my morning's exertions were suddenly very apparent. There was no one else around -- the tent-dwellers had moved on as soon as the sun had come up and the other vans were nowhere to be seen - so I decided to leave my board on the beach and drive back to the little village store and stock up. I needed some more change for the shower anyway. Who knew, perhaps lightning might strike twice?
A couple of hours later I was back at the campground. I'd rinsed all my gear out, showered -- alone, this time -- and had a big lunch. The wind had dropped and the sun had come out and I was in my deckchair with my iPod on, a trashy thriller in one hand and a big joint in the other, feeling very content. None of the vans that had been there the night before had returned and I was completely alone. I guessed most people had moved on in search of better weather but Anna had said that they -- whoever they were -- would be around for a few days so perhaps I'd have company before too long.
The cumulative effect of the sun on my face, the spliff and some mellow music must have made me nod off. I was woken by the sound of voices and the hollow clang of van doors being slammed. I looked at my watch and saw that I'd dozed for an hour or so and had missed the arrival of a couple of new tents and some familiar-looking campervans. Although the peace and tranquillity was pleasant having a few people to chat to wasn't a bad thing. Travelling alone was fine most of the time and I liked having the freedom to come and go as I pleased but not having a companion to share the experiences with did sometimes make me feel a little alone. Hearing raised voices from the direction of some of the vehicles brought a wry smile to my face. I might not have anyone to share the experiences with but at least I didn't have to try and maintain a tricky relationship whilst living in a cramped tin box. I lit the half-smoked joint and thought about Amelia. She used to complain when I smoked but thought nothing of greedily hoovering up a line of coke if someone offered it to her. Perhaps for the first time since I left home I was actually pleased she wasn't here.
More angry-sounding voices were followed by a slammed door and an engine starting up. I looked across the field and saw an unusually modern campervan heading towards the exit, its impatient driver revving the motor hard and churning up the muddy turf as they sped away. The noise of the argument and the subsequent display of aggression were at odds with the general calm of the place but once the engine's sound faded into the distance the waves breaking on the beach took centre stage once again, an eternal rhythm unconcerned with the trivialities of human concerns.
My existential musings were interrupted by a figure blocking the sun in front of me. I looked up and shielded my eyes to see who it was but the brightness meant all I could see was a silhouette.
"Can I have some of that?" asked the figure, pointing at the joint smouldering in my hand. The familiar accent told me it was Anna. My slightly stoned brain turned to mush.
"Hi! Yeah, of course. Here, sit down if you like," I said over-eagerly as I awkwardly clambered out of the deck chair. "How are you?"
Anna took the joint and slumped into the canvas seat. I leant against the side of my van and watched her inhale a deep lungful of smoke. She was wearing a pair of tight white shorts and a black bikini top and looked incredible.
"Fucking pissed off with my idiot boyfriend. Fucking ex-boyfriend now anyway." She was clearly angry but something about her accent prevented her from sounding it.
"I did hear a bit of an argument. Was that you two?"
"Yes. He's a dick head." The way she separated the two words made it vaguely amusing to my stoned ears.
How was I to react to this news? I barely knew the girl and had no idea she was even with a bloke. What could this mean for me? My befuddled mind attempted to process this new piece of information. Anna had shared a shower with me even though she had boyfriend.
Had
a boyfriend? Not any longer? I was almost embarrassed by the speed at which I began thinking about the possibilities thrown up by their argument. Amelia seemed further away than ever.
Anna took a deep drag on the joint and handed it to me.
"Thanks Sam." Anna looked up at me, took off her sunglasses and smiled. "You are good at helping me."
The spliff had made my mouth dry and I slurred a response that I hope suggested it was no problem and I was happy to rescue damsels in distress whenever I could. I realised I needed to have a sit down while I rode out the high and I dragged out another fold-up chair from the depths of the van. Not only was Anna hot as hell and the possessor of the finest wanking hand in the southern hemisphere but she could handle her weed too. I was rapidly becoming smitten.
I opened a slightly warm beer for each of us and set my chair up next to her. Once I was confident my mouth would work properly I decided to see what I could find out from Anna about her relationship status. I wasn't in the habit of diving in to try my hand with a girl who had split up with a boyfriend literally minutes earlier but then I wasn't in the habit of taking showers with beautiful strangers either.
"Do you mind if I ask what happened with your boyfriend then?"
"Oh, he's an idiot," Anna said, taking the joint from my hand without asking. "He came all the way here cos he wanted to spend time with me even though I told him it was girls only. He's been trailing round after us for weeks but I think he finally got the message." She leant her head back and drank some beer.
"OK," I nodded, hoping I could fill in the gaps as we went along.
"I told him he could do what he wanted as long as it was nowhere near me and that I'd see him at home when I get back next year. We're finished anyway." As if to reinforce her point she dropped the roach into her already empty can. It went out with a hiss. "Have you got another beer?" She asked, handing me the empty and standing up to find another drink.
I told Anna to look in a box under the bed where I kept my food and drink. Maybe it was my weakness for pretty girls but I didn't mind Anna apparently treating my things as her own. Aside from it being slightly disarming I liked how relaxed she clearly was with me, even if I couldn't say quite the same for myself just yet.
"So who are you here with?" I asked.
"There are three of us. We're all in the blue van," she said, pointing towards one of the battered old campers. "We just finished university and wanted to travel. Edvard followed us here even though I asked him not to. He bought his own brand-new camper and has been like my shadow. He's a nice enough guy but he's too overpowering. I want some freedom, you know?"
Anna looked at me as she said this. A spray of foam from the warm beer shot towards me as she pulled the ring and she grinned cheekily. Her story seemed quite similar to my own. She'd studied design and graduated that year but had no great desire to embark on a career just yet. Her and two girlfriends had decided to take some time off to explore the world and had landed in New Zealand a few days after me. Her relationship with Edvard also sounded pretty familiar. He was a law graduate with a good job lined up and, so it seemed, had mapped out his life with Anna already. She, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. As she talked I thought about Amelia and how angry she got with me when I gave up my job, how incredulous she was at the thought of taking a break from the rat race. I looked at Anna. She looked straight ahead, perhaps pondering the wisdom of throwing away what sounded like a very comfortable life with a wealthy, career-focused high flier. After a moment she turned to me.
"So, tell me about you, Sam. And try not to mention the weather."
As I told Anna about my travels so far, about leaving Amelia, about how bored I was in my job, I began to lose some of my British reserve. She was just about as pretty a girl as I'd ever met but she was also fun to chat to and whereas normally I'd have been trying too hard to be funny in the vain hope that I'd impress her, with Anna I was beginning to act naturally. I had nothing to prove and with the ice having been well and truly broken the previous night we were getting on well.
Anna asked me how things stood with Amelia and me. I stopped for a minute and thought, then told her what I then realised was the truth -- there was no Amelia and me anymore. As much as I liked her we were too different. I was here, she was there. It occurred to me she'd probably barely given me a thought since I left.
We both had a plenty to think about. Anna and Edvard had seemingly broken up literally minutes earlier and I'd come to the realisation that a one-sided long-distance relationship wasn't really a relationship at all.
The topic of the previous night had yet to surface. Part of me thought maybe Anna was embarrassed about it but another part of me thought maybe she was just a horny little minx who got it on with whomever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She had been slightly reserved the night before though, relatively speaking of course, not wanting to kiss me or for me to get too enthusiastic. I supposed that was because at that time she and Edvard were still an item, perhaps what we had done somehow didn't constitute being unfaithful. Another possibility still was that she'd found me utterly irresistible and had barely been able to control herself. This seemed less likely.
There was a lull in the conversation. It wasn't an awkward silence but just as I was summoning the courage to broach the topic of the shower Anna turned to me and we both spoke at once, drowning out what each other said. We stopped and laughed.
