Lenas Last Dive

The Bahamian night was warm and still as Lena stood on the shore, waves gently rolling onto the beach, the faint hum of insects blending with the rhythmic lapping of water.

She double-checked her equipment, her movements steady and deliberate. The small tank, chosen for its compact size for ease of motion down below, rested at her feet, its dull metal catching the moonlight.

She expertly hoisted the cylinder over her head and slid the straps over her shoulders and tightened them, the familiar weight settling against her back like an old companion. She cinched her weight belt, just eight pounds needed for this taut mermaid.

She spat into her yellow oval mask, and bent down to rinse the lens in the surf, her fingers lingering on the rubber skirt before she tugged it over her face. She adjusted the straps, pulling them snug, and exhaled a slow breath between her full red lips. The heady scent of the rubber mask and saltwater filled her nostrils, grounding her in the ritual she had performed countless times before.

She stood for a moment, the moonlight tracing the lines of her body. At 65, her tall frame was lean and strong, honed by decades of swimming and diving. Her skin bore the marks of time and a life lived under the sun--a scattering of fine wrinkles, the faint outline of old scars--but her muscles moved with a quiet grace, a testament to years of discipline and love for the sea. She wore a simple black one piece bathing suit, its fabric snug against her, accentuating the power and purpose in her every movement, her nipples hardening atop her modest breasts beneath the lycra.

Reaching for the regulator, she drew her first breath. The air tasted dry, mechanical, but it was steady, reliable. She held it for a moment, then exhaled, the sound of the escaping air breaking the quiet like a whispered promise. Scuba breathing touched off a tingle in her pussy, between her long, powerful legs.

The water was a mirror, reflecting the stars and the sliver of moon that hung low in the sky. She tugged on her rocket fins and began backing into the sea, glancing at the empty beach behind her. No one to call her back, no one to question her. She was alone, exactly as she wanted to be. No man could please her in her underwater realm and only one woman ever could. And she perished there.

With a final check on her straps and hoses, she waded in and then descended, the water swallowing her in an embrace both cool and comforting. She adjusted her flashlight, the beam cutting through the dark depths, and powered her fins. The surface shimmered above her for a moment longer, then faded as she descended, disappearing into the void.

The water was cool against her skin, seeping through the thin suit. She could feel the growing pressure as she finned deeper, her ears popping intermittently as she pinched her nose through the mask pockets. Her breaths came slow and steady through the regulator, the sound amplified in her ears, a rhythmic reminder of her isolation.

Her flashlight beam swept across the dark expanse, picking up flecks of plankton that glimmered like tiny stars suspended in the abyss. The water grew colder as she descended further, and the faint blue of the surface light faded to a murky gray. At 80 feet, the wreck emerged from the gloom like a shadowed monolith, its outline jagged and broken.

She hovered for a moment, taking it in. The sunken WW2 destroyer's skeletal remains loomed large, rusted steel draped in a tapestry of barnacles and seaweed. Fish darted through the open spaces, their silvery scales catching the light. She swam closer, her movements deliberate, the beam of her flashlight tracing the contours of the hull until it illuminated a gash--an entry point.

She approached cautiously, the edges of the breach sharp and uneven. Her hand brushed the cold metal as she steadied herself, the sensation grounding her. With a deep breath, she angled her body and slipped through the opening, the darkness inside swallowing her whole.

Once inside she trained the light on the coral-covered superstructure. Her head tingled from the depth and there wasn't much time for play. She unstrapped her tank and slid it on the floor of the wreck and tugged off her suit, revealing her well-muscled body, her heavy pussy lips hard and engorged. She took a series of breaths and then finned away, wearing only her mask, belt and fins, swimming farther and farther away from her life-giving air.

Pushing her limits and scuba danger always jazzed her, her hand rubbing her clit as she penetrated the hold. It would be easy, so easy to get lost in the cavernous gloom. Unable to find her tank, too far to fin back to the surface.

--------

It wasn't the first time Lena had danced with death beneath the waves. She remembered the cavern dive from a few years ago -- a sunlit sinkhole in the shallows of Andros that promised adventure, its entrance plunging straight into shadowed depths. The allure of its underwater tunnels had been irresistible to her younger self, a woman brimming with confidence and the heady arrogance of experience.

Lena had been freediving for years, longer than most people had been alive. The ocean was her sanctuary, a place where time slowed and the world above the water felt miles away. But this wasn't the open sea. This was a cavern deep beneath the surface of the earth, a place that both fascinated and terrified her. The light from her dive lamp flickered against the jagged stone walls, the silence pressing in from all sides.

She had come here to push her limits, alone as always, as she had done countless times before. Lena had always been able to control the tightness in her chest, to ignore the growing urge to breathe, able to hold her breath for three minutes. She prided herself on her discipline, on her ability to master her body's primal urges. But that dive was different.

The passage she had followed had narrowed, the rocks closing in like a fist around her. She had miscalculated, taking a wrong turn that led her deeper into the maze of the cavern than she had intended. Her chest felt tight now, her lungs burning with the rising demand for air. Panic, a feeling she had learned to suppress, began to rise like a tide.

The urge to inhale was overwhelming, visceral, clawing at her consciousness. She could feel the dark, oppressive weight of it pressing on her, and for the first time in years, doubt crept into her mind. Would she make it?

Lena, focus. She repeated the mantra to herself. There was no room for panic here. No room for mistakes. She could make it to the surface if she stayed calm.

She kicked harder, trying to find the way back up, but the cavern seemed to twist and stretch endlessly. The walls closed in tighter. She tried not to dwell on the increasing pressure in her chest, to ignore the feeling of suffocation slowly overtaking her thoughts.

She had always been good at breathing -- the breath. She'd spent years learning to dive deeper, longer, to still her thoughts and listen to the rhythm of the water. Now, as the urge to breathe grew unbearable, she had to remind herself that she was not just fighting her body's instinct--she was fighting against time itself.

The darkness of the cavern was almost complete now. Only the faint light from her torch illuminated the narrow path ahead. She moved faster, knowing she had mere moments before her body would betray her, before she would lose the ability to resist the urge to inhale.

Then, just as she thought she might give in, she saw it. A faint shimmer of light, barely perceptible at first, but unmistakable now. The surface. The entrance. The way out.

With renewed strength, Lena kicked harder, pushing against the growing need for air. Her chest felt like it was on fire, but her focus was laser-sharp. She couldn't let the panic overwhelm her. She had come this far, and she wasn't about to fail now.

Her lungs were begging, pleading for release, but she refused to listen. She would reach the surface. She had to.

The light grew brighter, the water less dark. She was close -- so close. Her hands reached forward, pulling her upward. She could taste the oxygen in the water now, as though the surface itself were drawing her in. Her head broke the water's surface just as the world around her blurred. Her mouth opened in a ragged gasp, the air tearing into her lungs like fire.

She clung to the jagged rocks, her chest heaving, her limbs trembling with the aftershocks of survival. The cavern's stillness mocked her ordeal, the water calm and unbroken save for her frantic breaths. She shuddered and came, howling with ecstacy. She had never been so excited before, the air hunger so raw.

-----

Thinking about that now in the bowels of the wreck her fingers plumbed her pussy urgently, bubbles squirting from between her lips. She had never come closer to drowning, but her experience that day years ago, her cool in the face of danger, saved her. She purred as she pinched her large nipples, and traced her exposed areolae. She convulsed as she pumped herself, harder and harder.

Before Lena could cum, she felt the first urges to breathe and reversed her course, and soon found the tank where she'd lain it. She put the reg in her mouth, purged it and drew a deep breath.

The weight of the ocean pressed against Lena from every side, the silence only broken by the rhythmic sound of her excited breath through the regulator. She was deep, deeper than she had ever gone before, in the cold, endless blue of the sea. The pressure of the water around her was palpable, an ever-tightening hug that seemed to draw her further into its grasp.

The air in her scuba tank was still plentiful. Or so she thought. For all her play this evening, swimming away from the tank, drawing deep breaths to fuel her reveries in the hold far away, she didn't notice a small leak in the first stage. When she at last strapped into the tank for a final tour of the hold before surfacing, she neglected to check her pressure gauge, more mindful of the time she had left for a non-decompression dive than her precious air supply.

At first, it was easy. The air flowing into her lungs was cool, crisp, and perfectly regulated, each breath a smooth, steady rise and fall in her chest. The bubbles from her exhale floated upwards in graceful, silent arcs, disappearing into the vastness above her. There was no rush. She was calm, her movements deliberate as she explored the silent world beneath.

But then, slowly, imperceptibly at first, the breaths started to change.

The first hint of difficulty came with a subtle resistance as she moaned a fevered cum, a slight delay between the inhale and the feeling of air entering her lungs. It wasn't much at first, but it was enough to register in her mind. She pulled in another breath, feeling the slight effort it required. Something's wrong.

She glanced at the gauge -- shit, she thought. Time to go, another adventure for the risk-taker. But she had kicked up some silt in an adjacent corridor, and was inadvertently descending deeper. The air felt thinner, harder to draw in, as if the ocean itself was fighting against her need for breath. Where is the exit? her mind screamed.

Each inhale became more strained. She could still feel the air coming, but there was less of it, each breath harder to sustain.

Her chest expanded, but it didn't fill with the fullness she expected. It felt as though the air was being sucked away by some unseen force. The regulator in her mouth made a faint, almost imperceptible noise--a subtle hiss that sent a jolt of panic through her mind. The tank is running low.

Lena's pulse quickened. She tried to calm herself, to slow her breath, but it was becoming harder to control. The deep, primal urge for air grew stronger, her lungs demanding more, pushing her into a faster rhythm. She tried to stay focused, to remain calm, but the sensation of the air supply dwindling sent a creeping terror into her chest.

With each breath, the resistance was greater. The inhale wasn't smooth anymore--it was labored, as if she had to suck the air into her lungs through a smaller and smaller straw. The cool, comforting sensation that had once come with each breath was now replaced by a cold, hollow emptiness. The tank, she knew now, was nearly empty.

Don't panic. Don't panic. Focus Lena!

But her body was betraying her. She tugged at the regulator, trying to force air into her lungs, but the feeling of nothingness increased, making it harder to draw even the smallest breath. She could feel the weight of the water pressing tighter against her body, as if the ocean was closing in, surrounding her, smothering her. Her chest tightened further, the airless void inside her body growing. Her head rocked as she sucked helplessly for air.

The regulator was heavy in her mouth now, her breaths dragging with an unnatural resistance. She had known this moment was coming; she had felt it in the thinning rasp of each inhale and the fleeting bubbles that drifted upward like faint ghosts. Yet the finality of it tightened her chest in a way that had nothing to do with lack of air. It was fear -- ancient, primal, undeniable.

Her gauge--so coldly precise--had hit the red zone minutes ago. She had exhaled a long, deliberate breath then, trying to calm the rising tide of panic. But calm only carried her so far. The regulator gave a dry, empty hiss now, and she knew.

The moment it stopped, it was almost silent. The bubbles ceased, the hiss vanished, and the world seemed to shrink, leaving only her pounding heartbeat and the oppressive dark.

Her mind screamed for air. I need air! But all that was left was the distant hum of her pulse in her ears, the increasing pressure against her chest, and the heavy, unyielding silence of the deep. She tried again, pulling, but there was only the bitter, dry taste of emptiness where once there was the cool rush of life-giving oxygen.

The ocean seemed to swallow her, the weight of the pressure and the lack of air in her lungs threatening to drag her into its depths. The edges of her vision began to blur, the world around her dimming, as her brain begged for oxygen, the need for air becoming more and more urgent, more and more desperate.

But there was nothing. No relief, no escape.

Her limbs, once powerful and purposeful, felt weak, her movements slow, sluggish, as if the very water around her was weighing her down. The terror clawed at her throat, but there was nothing left to scream. She could feel the panic building, but it was fleeting, distant, as her body slipped further away from the desperate fight for air.

The beam of her flashlight wavered as her hand trembled. She had searched the narrow passageways of the wreck for an exit, but the twisted corridors only led her deeper into its labyrinthine hold. Rusted beams loomed like the ribs of a giant beast, and her movements stirred up clouds of silt that clung to her, an oppressive fog obscuring everything.

Her lungs burned, the instinct to inhale clawing at her. She pressed her lips around the spent rubber of the reg, as if sealing her body against betrayal. Her flashlight flickered, casting jagged shadows against the wreck's walls. Her thoughts raced. What now? What now?

Her fingers brushed the wreck's rusted walls, desperate for something--anything. She thought of the surface far above her, the impossible distance that might as well have been another world. Her vision blurred. Was it the silt? Or her body's plea for oxygen?

Her chest convulsed. She couldn't hold it anymore. The instinct to breathe overwhelmed her. She ripped out the reg, her mouth opened, dragging in...nothing. The water filled her throat like icy fire, her body writhing as it fought the inevitable. Her flashlight slipped from her grasp, spinning slowly as it fell, its light casting one final, fading beam across the wreck's skeletal remains.

Lena stopped struggling. The burning subsided, replaced by an eerie calm. The silence wrapped around her like a shroud. Somewhere in the distance, beyond her understanding, a tiny fish darted past the wreck's jagged edges, oblivious to her, to her struggle, to the vast finality of this moment.

ENDS