She removed her top and began taking the gold rings out of each nipple and replaced them with curved barbells. She grabbed the small chain that encircled her hips and pulled the clasp around front and unfastened it and placed it on a nail that had been driven in the wall next to the mirrored medicine cabinet. She decided to leave her rather extravagant navel jewelry in instead of changing it out. From there she stepped into the shower and washed her morning off and after a few moments stepped out and dried off. She grabbed a bottle that was on a shelf above the toilet of sunscreen and smeared herself from head to foot, and front to back with the lotion.
Her tummy rumbled as she finished applying the lotion to her arms. She went to her vanity in the bedroom and turned on its lights. Naked, she walked to the kitchen and grabbed an apple and her handy dandy apple slicer and cut it into eight pieces and cored it all in one motion. She threw away the core, and placed a dollop of peanut butter on a salad plate and put her sliced apples on it and carried it back to the vanity. It didn't take her long to eat her apple and peanut butter combination, and she didn't miss a beat in placing the eyeliner, mascara, lip liner and lipstick perfectly on her face, even with the long nails.
Some women are clothes horses. Some are shoe horses. Amanda was a bit of both, she was a bikini and a shoe horse! Her closet had thirty-nine different bikini's in it. Many she could mix and match, but hardly ever would she be caught with the same suit or the same combination on in public. At first she grabbed a red bikini, but after realizing she wore red the night before, she changed it to a new white suit with navy and gold highlights that she'd never worn outside of the store where she bought it from a week or so before. It even still had the tags on it!
Next to the front door was a tote bag that had a small pillow for her head, a clean towel to lay on the beach with, another towel to dry off with if she went into the water, a place to put a couple of bottled drinks, she went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of mineral water and another cold bottle containing a strawberry-banana smoothie and placed them in their proper places in the bag. It had a small place for her cell phone that she used for a thirty minute timer, a half-full bottle of sunscreen in case she needed more while she was at the beach, a book, and a spot for her sunglasses, which weren't in their proper place! She set the bag down and looked at the bar counter that separated the kitchen from the small scantily furnished living room. They weren't there. She went to her bedroom and neither the vanity or the dresser had the sunglasses. But she did spy them on the back of the sink in the bathroom.
She grabbed the sunglasses, and carried them into the front room, put on her white wedgy-heels. She grabbed the tote and then realized she was forgetting something. . . . It wouldn't come to her, so she decided to head out to the beach as is. She had her keys, that wasn't it. Her tote was full, that wasn't it. What the heck was it? "Oh well," she said aloud and stepped out the front door, locked it and headed to the sidewalk when she finally realized what it was she'd forgotten! "Oh!" she said and went back into the house and grabbed her white sarong from her closet and attached it around her slim waist. Now she was set for the beach!
She grabbed her stuff, put her sunglasses back on, locked her front door and set out once again. The beach was a short block from her home to the storm wall, and then a couple of dozen steps down and, she scanned the beach to see if her favorite spot was open from the top of the cement staircase. There were a lot of people there today and as luck would have it, her spot was completely vacant.
As soon as she hit the sand, the sarong came off with the shoes and she waddle stepped to her place in the sand. She laid out her beach towel and arranged her things, and placed her small pillow on the towel and got comfortable laying on the sand and began to read her book.
The wind on the beach had warmed up to almost a sirocco-like temperature. Dust and sand was kicking up closer to the water. Her spot was semi-sheltered from the wind by the storm wall nearby. The sudden gusts were picking up some peoples belongings and scattering them closer down near the water. There was nothing to concern her about her stuff, so she grabbed her book, set her timer and began to read. Time went by very quickly and her cell phone went off indicating it was time to roll onto her tummy and tan her back.
She noticed that the population of the beach was mostly made up of families enjoying the summer sun and sand. It almost felt to her like she was the only single female out there and the single men were hiding as well. Perhaps she might take Kyle up on his offer for dinner tonight. She could use the mixed company and a romantic setting. She set her book down and closed her eyes imagining what the night could bring if she pursued that course of action. The problem was, her alarm went off almost instantly. She'd fallen asleep! It's a good thing she'd set the alarm, or she'd have gotten sunburned. So, she flipped her self over again and reset the alarm. One more go around and her tanning day would be complete.
Chapter Seven
Three showers in one day is a bit on the obsessive side, she thought, but she didn't want to wear beach sand all over her house, and did just a rinse off when she got home. She slipped another bikini top on and a pair of shorts she'd made out of an old set of sweatpants she thought were more than comfortable. She went outside and hung up her wet things in the warm, gusty air and went back inside.
She sat on her front porch and wondered why things were so quiet today. It was going on 3 pm and she hadn't had any phone calls. And worst of all, she really didn't have any plans tonight beyond the offer from Kyle, and the more she thought about it the more she didn't really want to feed from the same trough two nights in a row, even though it was an incredibly awesome trough!
As it occurred to her, she really didn't feel like doing much of anything that night. The feeling was more of a return to what she was trying to change away from for the past two years. So, she made a point that she was going to figure out something to do that Sunday afternoon. But she wasn't sure yet as to what it could be. Well, the options were another bar scene, Kyle, a movie, call Sylvia Garcia, a Latina friend of hers from work who's been after her for about two years to do something with her. She made her decision and followed through with it.
