This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted are 18 years or over
*
Beck was treading water at the deep end, breathless with laughter. Twenty meters away on the patio, Maya dropped to a crouch, then sprang like a sprinter leaving the starting blocks. Reaching the pool’s edge she took a flying leap, hugging her knees to her chest the better to bomb her little blonde target. She surfaced under the subsiding cascade and they wrestled, squealing and cackling, before Beck broke off and crash-dived to the bottom.
Back at the shallow end they hauled up onto a submerged terracotta step, where they lay on their backs, propped on their elbows under the hot mid-afternoon sun. “I usually swim naked.” Maya announced out of nowhere, her belly rising and falling, breasts quivering atop her heaving ribcage.
“Me too.” Beck said, still breathing hard.
“Mum made me wear this. To be polite.”
“Same here.” Beck commiserated. “My old boy said I had to act civilised.”
“How do you normally act?”
“Natural.” Beck said without missing a beat. She nodded in the direction of Maya’s bikini bottoms. “Still, I really love your bikini. Reminds me of rainforest.”
“Why thank you.” Maya smiled. “I lost my last one. You know the Blue Lagoon? Near Reykjavik?”
Beck shook her head.
“Iceland?”
“Iceland? Is that like some kind of theme park?”
Maya gave her the eye and decided she was joking. “You should go you know, the Blue Lagoon. There are geysers and steam vents, and the water’s as warm as a bath. I reckon you’d love it.”
“What do you do there?”
“You just wade around and stuff. The water comes from deep underground and it’s supposed to be good for you. There’s even a bar if you feel like a beer, like a swim-through. Anyhow, I hate wearing swimmers so I took my bottoms off and stashed them under a seat near the bar, but when I came back some asshole had stolen them.” She shot Beck a lopsided yet dentally-perfect grin. “Mum had to dig up a towel real quick and come to my rescue. I said, ‘don’t come in, I’ll come to you’, but she didn’t want to start an international incident. Holy shit she was cranky.” She snapped her waistband elastic. “Got these in Hawaii. Only three hundred bucks. How much were yours?”
“Not sure.” Beck hefted a shoulder. “They were a present.”
“To Dive Fors?”
“Uh huh.”
“Somebody loves you.” Maya said, then slid forward a ways and dipped the back of her head in the water. “Your boyfriend’s nice. He’s a writer, right?”
Beck screwed up her face. “Boyfriend? Gawd. Wait till I tell him.”
“Well what do you call him?”
“Damon? I don’t know. I call him lots of things.”
“But he’s your partner?”
“I suppose. He’s more like my guide I guess. He’s my teacher.”
Maya rolled over onto her tummy to sun her back. “I thought that sort of thing was illegal.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Teachers. Having relationships with students.”
“What? No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Doesn’t worry me.” Maya said blithely. “I do lots of illegal stuff. Mum always says the law is for losers.”
“But it’s not like that!” Beck persisted, “You see Damon and me... I mean he... I guess... I guess you could say that he saved me.”
“What from?”
Tell her the truth? How she’d fled her meth-addict mother and her mother’s drug-dealing boyfriend, escaped by stowing away on the old man’s yacht? Describe her life as a scumbag’s child, dressed in rags, foraging for food in restaurant dumpsters? “Truth is I was lost. Lost at sea. And Damon found me.”
“What were you doing out there?”
Beck narrowed her eyes. “Fighting for my life.”
“I mean seriously?”
“I mean trying... not... to die.”
Maya thought about it. “That’s cool.” She rolled onto her back again and idly kicked at the water. “But you’re a couple, right? Like you’re in a relationship?”
“Of course.” Beck frowned, suddenly wary of where this might be heading.
“I mean a physical one.”
Beck nodded. “That’s part of it.”
“Really? How old are you?”
“Nineteen.” Beck said, the standard reply. “What about you?”
“Just turned eighteen.” Maya said then swung the wheel back. “Nineteen and in a relationship. That’s pretty amazing.”
“What’s so amazing?” Beck said defensively. “We’re just two people who love doing the same thing. Sailing.” ‘And each other.’ she added silently.
“But... why not a younger guy?”
“I don’t know any younger guys.” Beck replied a little impatiently. “At least none who come with their very own yacht. Who know how to sail. Who don’t freak out the minute the weather turns nasty.”
“I guess.” Maya said. She still had so many questions; How often did they have sex? And when they did could he ‘perform’? And did she ever feel the need for someone a little less... wordly? “I’m not prying, am I? Mum told me not to pry.”
“I don’t mind,” Beck replied, “but there’s not a lot I can tell you. I mean, we might seem odd but we’re actually quite ordinary. I bet your life is much more exciting.”
“Mmm...” Maya thought about it. “It’s okay, I guess.”
“Okay? You could fit my entire bedroom in one of your drawers.”
“That’s just stuff.” Maya said dismissively.
“Maybe. But I bet you’ve got dozens of boyfriends.”
Maya looked at her. “Not a one.”
“Oh, go on.” Beck rolled her eyes. “Someone as gorgeous as you?”
“Me? Gorgeous?” Maya grunted with derision, “Hardly. If you want gorgeous you should see the girls at my school. I’m one of the ugly ones.”
“Rubbish!”
“No, it’s true. Anyway, when it comes to guys there’s not much on the market. Bankers and barristers and stuffed-shirt SC’s. And most of them are already married. Dated a couple, just because, but I kept winding up with an angry wife breathing down my neck.”
“What about boys your own age?”
“My own age?” Maya turned her nose up. “Eww... no thank you. Bunch of wankers. Poncy little turds all destined for a job in daddy’s firm.” She shook her head. “Nuh. I’ll take a girlfriend any old day.’
Beck rolled over as Maya had done and her young host stared at the flex of Beck’s bottom as she stirred the water with her legs. “But there must be thousands of guys out there, who’d kill to have a girlfriend like you. It doesn’t make sense.”
Neither did sailing around with a man old enough to be your father. After a moment’s pensive silence Maya cocked her head. “Do you like girls?”
Beck’s groin throbbed with a sudden rush of heat. She flipped over again, onto her back. One cup of her bikini-top came askew, exposing most of her tiny breast and a glimpse of stiff nipple. She quickly adjusted the wayward material, but not before Maya had feasted her eyes. “Of course.” Beck shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”
“I mean really like them.” Maya persisted. “Like, really.”
Beck held her tongue as the colour rose in her cheeks. Yes. She did. Especially this one, the first of her kind she’d ever encountered. A slim, beautiful, exorbitantly wealthy teen, with a sense of fun and body to die for. No missing teeth, no morbid obesity, no little critters scampering through her hair.
“Can I ask you something, Becky?”
Another shrug of the shoulder. “It’s a free country.”
“It’s not, you know. Just ask Mum.”
“What I mean is go right ahead. What do you want to know?”
Maya brought her knees up and flopped them to the sides, unconsciously or not spreading her legs. Maya’s lean thigh settled on Beck’s hip and the little blonde’s heart skipped a beat. Maya looked at her. “Do you think your boy... partner finds me attractive?”
Beck swallowed and the alarm bells started to ring. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. It’s just hard to tell what’s hot or what’s not these days.”
Beck rolled onto her side to face the brunette teenager- now was as good a time as any to take the first step. “If he doesn’t have a great big hard on for you-” she said in a low voice, “I’ll walk naked all the way to Cape York.”
“And how does that make you feel?” Maya asked, but her question was drowned out by a sudden commotion. The girls looked up in time to see Watson step out of the big sliding door, back in a pair of board shorts, looking normal.
“That’s right bitch-face!” a voice shrilled. It was Tanya. “Don’t flippin’ wait!”
Caddy, already one foot out the door, stopped and turned. “What?”
“Flippin’ wait!”
“Jesus Christ, make up your mind.”
“Fucken’ bitch!” Tanya fumed. “Here I am with my leg hanging off and you can’t even give me a hand. Come on, slut, give me a piggyback.”
Caddy slapped her thigh then bent at the waist, arms braced on her knees. “Come on peg-leg, climb on.”
“Bet you can’t.” Tanya said, bouncing up and down on her good leg a couple of times before leaping on board.
“Bet I can.” Caddy grunted, and staggered doubled-over onto the patio.
Tanya reached down and commenced slapping her sister’s behind. “Giddyup!”
“God!” Caddy panted, setting Tanya carefully down by the pool, “I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that.”
Tanya lay back on a sun lounge and gingerly settled her leg. Caddy, meanwhile, strolled around the corner to the steps to talk to the girls. “How’s the water, Beck?”
“Absolutely fantastic thanks Mrs... Mrs...”
“Just call her Aunty.” Maya said, rolling over onto her stomach and rising to her knees. “All my friends do.”
“Are you keeping our guest entertained?”
