All We Have Is Today

Lisa sat at the end of the long pier jutting out from a wide sandy beach on the island of Provo. Her legs dangling, toes skimming across the warm Caribbean waters she had escaped to, her eyes closed as the sun began its work unlocking the coming explosion of freckles across her pale face.

It was early morning and the rolling surf and cry of seabirds confirmed she was miles and miles away from college, work and school pressure, and heartbreak. Her aunt's beach house was free for the month of June and she accepted her invitation with indecent haste. It had been years since she'd beachcombed here and snorkeled the verdant reefs just offshore, now she was back, all grown up, free of family and happy to be.

The 20-year-old young woman's shoulder-length brown hair rustled in the breeze under the tattered ball cap she pulled off a hook in Auntie Joan's closet. She was short ("I'm undertall!") and lithe of figure, concealed beneath an oversized Harvard tee and bikini briefs. When her eyes opened behind her large brown shades -- also swiped from her aunt's well-stocked cupboard -- she saw a pod of dolphins passing well offshore, and envied their freedom.

She would soon have to return to tell many truths. Tell Robert it wasn't to be. And her parents that the pile of money they'd invested in developing a lawyer for a white-shoe firm might better have been gambled in Vegas. Not that she had any viable alternatives or exciting new plans at the moment, and unlikely these would germinate before she caught the puddle jumper back to Miami.

But that day was not today.

She extended her arms behind her and leaned back, absorbing the cleansing beams. Soon she'd reach for her mask and fins to cool off in the sea. In mid-reverie she heard the light pop of bubbles on the surface and, sitting up, she saw a head of a diver emerge a few yards from her vantage point. It was an older woman, and when she spat out her reg and pulled down her mask, Lisa seemed to recognize her.

"Good morning!" the woman called. "Another amazing day, huh?"

Lisa smiled. She did know her. "You're the lady from next door -- um, Mary?"

The woman swished water over her face, washing away the "nasal nudibranchs" divemasters warn students to clear from sinus pressure underwater. "Close! It's Mara."

"Oh right, right!" Lisa chuckled. "I'm Lisa, Joan's niece."

Mara finned in closer until she was able to brace herself on the sandy bottom, and removed her fins, throwing the first then other on the dock beside her new friend. "I remember you," she said, taking hold of the dock ladder, preparing to hoist herself out of the water. Lisa got to her feet to help the tank-burdened woman, then saw the taut, muscled arms on the railings that persuaded her assistance was not required. The lady knew how to handle herself.

"You used to come here for spring break years ago," Mara smiled, now standing beside Lisa, dripping on the deck. "You would swim down and wave at my partner and me, I mean way WAY down! You must have big lungs in that tiny package."

Lisa laughed nervously and folded her arms across her package. "Oh god, you remember that! Well, I'm a little out of practice, I'm afraid. Life's kind of gotten in the way the past few years."

Lisa stole sidelong glances at Mara, who stood a good half-foot taller than her. The older woman had a striking, natural beauty reflecting what had to be an adventurous life. She rocked a well-worn wetsuit bearing the faded logo of a logo defunct brand and radiated competence, her gear fitting her like a second skin. Her short, greying hair was cropped close to her head, effortlessly practical yet stylish, with the silvery strands catching the morning light.

When Mara unzipped her shortie suit, Lisa peeked into the contents inside, muscles subtly rippled beneath her tanned yet somehow undamaged skin -- Lisa made a mental note to ask after her skin care regimen. Abs too, gawddammit! Mara's high cheekbones and faint laugh lines around her eyes gave her a timeless elegance. She had scary-beautiful gray-blue eyes that seemed to hold the depth of the sea itself.

Lisa retrained her gaze on the horizon before it got weird, if it hadn't already.

"You know," Mara said after a few soulful moments, "if you're going to spend all day looking at it, you might as well get in."

Lisa pointed to the snorkel gear at her feet. "I've come prepared."

"I mean scuba diving," Mara said. "Have you ever tried it?"

Lisa shook her head. "I always wanted to, I always meant to, ever since I saw you--" She bit her lip and caught herself. She almost admitted the reason she swam down all those times as a guileless teenager was to get a closer look at Mara and her partner, as they swam hand-in-hand along the lush wall just offshore. She wouldn't have confessed that she'd developed a crush on the couple, wondering what it would be like to be free enough to express that kind of love.

Mara released the straps of her tank and lowered it to the dock with ease. "You should try it, you'd be a natural, the way you handled yourself in the water," she said. "How long are you going to be in Provo?"

Lisa shrugged. "A few weeks, maybe longer." A beat. "Maybe forever. I dunno."

"Well," Mara smiled, "you are in luck -- you are looking at a PADI-licenced scuba instructor. I can put a C-card in your wallet inside of a week."

Lisa scoffed at the notion. Where would she have time for that, for all the self-recriminations and crying and eating tub after tub of cookie dough ice cream? (Did they even HAVE cookie dough ice cream in Provo?) Then she had to ponder her budget. "What would that cost?"

Mara shook her head. "You get the good neighbor discount -- it's free. Actually, you'd be doing me a solid. It gets a little lonely down there and it's more fun to share it with--" Now it was Mara's turn to catch herself from spilling true confessions with someone she'd just met. She reloaded: "Been awhile since I took the instructor's course but I think there's something in there about the inadvisability of diving alone."

"Right, right," Lisa said, then looking down the beach at Mara's modest cottage near the bend in the cove. "Sorry to pry, but where's your, um..."

"Elaine," Mara quickly replied. "My partner Elaine. Good lord took her about two years ago." She sighed. "Fucking breast cancer."

Lisa was stricken -- what the hell was she thinking prying like that? "Oh Mara, I'm so sorry for your loss." Mara touched her arm gently and nodded. "No worries," she said, matter of factly. "Shit happens, you move on."

Lisa nodded. "Yep, that's my guiding principle now," she said, and before she knew it, in the spirit of openness between them, she confessed her own recent setbacks, paling as they did in comparison to Mara's tragedy.

Mara put a hand on Lisa's shoulder, and the young woman felt a stir. "Seems maybe we can help each other here," nodding out at the reef. "Down there you get away from smartphones, social media and all the ills of the world," she said. "It's peaceful, for an hour maybe. But it's a place to start, yes?"

Lisa smiled and shook Mara's hand. "Yes! You got a deal. When do we start?"

Mara tried not to dwell on the late love of her life and after a couple years had actually succeeded in thinking of Elaine only once every other hour. Lying in a hammock on her verandah that evening, sipping a Kalik lager while looking out on the calm evening waters and savoring the breeze, she couldn't help thinking how much her new friend reminded her of her old flame.

A silly thought on the face of it -- they were nothing alike. Elaine was tall and athletic, loud and raucous, black and proud, while Lisa was small and sweet, pale and quiet. Elaine would port their tanks to the shore on her broad shoulders, her long legs like pistons -- Mara wondered how the girl would manage to lug her air on shore.

But when Mara first met Elaine, she was about as old as Lisa and a college student too -- her student in fact, at the University of the Bahamas in Nassau where she taught English lit about twenty years ago. Like all profs she had to deal with over-sexed students engorged with puppy love or trying to woo their way into higher grades and, like most of her colleagues (the women, anyway) she successfully fended them off, male and female. Elaine, brilliant and challenging, played the long game, flirted without coming on strong. A smile that melted.

As a post-grad student working on her PHd, it was a different story, the rules more lax although her department head looked at the developing relationship with a little dismay. Elaine would whisk Mara away in her Jeep to remote spots on the island for shore dives where they could be alone.

At first, nothing much happened, they became buddies in every sense. But then came the day at the wreck off the west end. It was a popular dive spot for advanced scuba and freedivers, the small navy ship sitting upright at 50 feet, but that morning they had the site all to themselves.

They were on the surface, bobbing in the gentle wake. Mara adjusted her mask, trying to steady her breath--not from the exertion of freediving but from the awareness of Elaine swimming alongside her. Mara had long since given up subtle glances at her long limbs which sliced through the water with ease, her dark skin radiant and her full, kissable lips.

Mara shook off the thought and focused on the next dive. Elaine wanted to penetrate the wreck -- so far, they circled the vessel but Mara was wary of overhead environments. At last she gave in -- Elaine was keen and said there was something amazing she wanted Mara to see. Both of them were experienced freedivers, Elaine's lung capacity more than a match for her own.

The wreck loomed below, its rusted and coral encrusted steel structure a ghostly silhouette against the sandy seabed. After a swift descent, they entered and the silence of the ocean surrounded them, broken only by the muffled sound of their movements. Inside the ship's remains, they found a series of small chambers, one of which contained an unusual discovery: an air pocket created by the traffic of scuba divers parading through during the week.

Mara surfaced into the small space first, pulling her mask down to her throat and gasping softly as she adjusted to breathing air again. Elaine followed, her laughter bubbling up as their eyes met.

"See, I told you! Can you believe this?" Elaine said, her voice echoing off the rusted walls. Droplets clung to her braids, and her smile was brighter than the sunlight they'd left above.

Mara chuckled, trying to keep her tone light. "Quite the find. It's not often you get to breathe inside a shipwreck."

Elaine tilted her head, watching her professor with an intensity that made Mara's chest tighten. "I have to confess my ulterior motives getting you in here," Elaine said softly. "There's something we need to talk about."

And there it was, somebody said it. Mara thought it would have been her. She froze, her breath catching. "Look, Elaine--"

"I have to say this," Elaine interrupted, her voice firm yet tender. "I know it's maybe not what you want to hear, but I can't keep pretending I don't feel this way. I like you, Mara. Maybe more than I should. I can't stop thinking about you, about us together."

The air pocket suddenly felt too small, the space between them charged with an energy Mara had fought to ignore. Water dripped from the ceiling in rhythmic plinks, punctuating the silence that followed.

Mara's mind raced. She was her teacher, her mentor. This was crossing a line--wasn't it? But the vulnerability in Elaine's loving gaze made her question everything she thought she knew.

"Elaine..." she began, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's not as simple as two people attracted to one another."

"It doesn't have to be hard," Elaine replied, a spark of determination in her tone. "Any way, I just needed you to know what's happening on this side. That's all."

For a moment, neither spoke. The ocean seemed to hold its breath with them. Mara wanted to say something, well, adult! To offer clarity or comfort, but all she could do was meet Elaine's eyes, the weight of her feelings sinking as deeply as they had moments before.

Mara's breath hitched, her pulse pounding in her ears. The air pocket was warm, dense with the smell of rust and the stale tang of trapped oxygen. It wouldn't last long. That would be their time out.

"We can't stay here," Mara murmured, though the words felt like they were meant more for herself than Elaine.

The young woman moved closer, the water sloshing gently around them. "I know," she whispered, her voice soft but unwavering. Her dark eyes searched Mara's, as though asking for permission and forgiveness all at once. "But for just a second... can't we stay?"

Mara felt her resolve crack. For so long, she'd been fighting her growing feelings, burying them under professionalism, logic, and the steady mantra of everything that made this impossible. But here, in the confined intimacy of the wreck, with the world far above them, muffled by water and their breaths mingling in the close air, it felt like there was nothing left to fight against.

"Oh Elaine..." Mara began, her voice trembling, but before she could find the rest of her words, Elaine's hand brushed her cheek. The touch was tentative, as though she expected Mara to pull away. Instead, she leaned into it, her eyes fluttering closed.

The kiss happened before either of them could think twice -- gentle at first, lips barely grazing, then deepening as the weight of everything unspoken poured out between them. Elaine's hand slid to the nape of Mara's neck, anchoring them as they floated together.

As they kissed, Elaine's hands began tracing the outlines of Mara's body through the neoprene and then she gently tugged down the zipper of her suit. Mara gasped as Elaine's mouth found her hardened nipples and began nuzzling them. Her hands continued to descend and pulled the wetsuit crotch strap and bikini bottom aside so she could gently finger Mara's inflamed clit. She hugged Elaine tighter and tighter as she bucked in her embrace. She moaned and gasped as she surrendered to her young lover's touch.

The air pocket was surrendering too, it's limited supply of breathable air disappearing with each passionate breath. Mara could feel it in the heaviness of her breaths. But for these few stolen moments, nothing else mattered. The world outside the shipwreck, the rules and consequences--they all dissolved into the saltwater around them.

Finally, Mara pulled back, her forehead resting against Elaine's. Both of them were breathing hard, not just from the kiss but from the dwindling oxygen. She slowly tugged her zipper back up.

"We need to go," Mara said softly, her voice a mixture of urgency and regret. Be a shame to suffocate just as it was getting good.

Elaine nodded, her expression tender and full of understanding. "I'm glad I told you," she whispered. "I'm glad this happened."

Mara's heart ached at the words, but she didn't respond. She couldn't--not yet. Instead, she adjusted her mask, signaling for Elaine to do the same. Together, they slipped back into the water, leaving the air pocket--and the undeniable truth of their moment--behind as they ascended toward the surface.

And then nothing was the same.

As Mara's flashback continued she noticed how wet she had become and how she was absently fucking her neglected pussy. Tears flowed as she brought herself to a climax that her lover had somehow gifted her from the past. When she was younger and wiser.

Lisa reported to the dock about a half-hour early, trying and failing not to look too eager. She turned back to the beach to help Mara lug two sets of dive gear to the water's edge and had to pay especially close attention to the detailed instruction, distracted by the attractive woman in her form-fitting one-piece bathing suit.

She forced herself to maintain eye contact, depending on her peripheral vision to do recon in Mara's cleavage, the zipper of her suit teasingly down a couple inches, and she gulped in embarrassment as her teacher tugged it back up in mid-lecture as though she understood its unintended effect.

Lisa felt like a teen boy in comparison and wondered where these sapphic feelings were suddenly coming from. Every day at Harvard she was surrounded by countless firm-bodied young women, and smart-looking yet still-fetching older women professors, but there was never any question in her mind which team she was playing for. She laughed at the oft-repeated concept/joke of women "experimenting" with their sexuality in college, like they were all supposed to be wandering around with lab coats, thick glasses and clipboards as they went about their voyage of discovery and self-actualization in the dorm.

Soon it was time to gear up for her first dive and again she felt charged as Mara cinched her weight belt, lifted the tank to her back, positioned the hoses across her shoulders and placed the reg between her lips. Mara's touch was gentle but assured, quick and careful, and Lisa couldn't help inhaling her hair as the teacher ducked to connect her buoyancy compensator. Now she'd have to ask about her shampoo too.

Once in the water and kneeling in the shallows in front of the dock, Lisa soon demonstrated her understanding of hand gestures, removed, replaced and cleared her mask and had buddybreathing down pat. Placing Mara's reg in her mouth she took a moment to savor the taste and wondered if that would be as close as she got.

As relaxed as she appeared, Lisa's nerves were electric and at first, it was overwhelming--the weightlessness, the hiss of the regulator, the silence broken only by her own breathing. But then she looked around.

The underwater world was surreal. Shafts of light filtered through the water, revealing schools of fish darting between branches of elkhorn. Mara stayed close, glancing back often with reassuring eyes. Lisa found herself mesmerized, both by the beauty of the sea and by the woman leading her through it.

When they resurfaced, Mara's smile was wide and genuine. "Not bad for a first-timer."

Lisa grinned back, adrenaline and something else coursing through her. "That was incredible."

By the second day they were able to proceed to the deeper reef and Lisa was back to stealing glances at her teacher when she probably should have been drinking in the coral and thick schools of fish. She ensured Mara would be looking away and not notice the fascination she had with her. For the first time since she left New England, her heart was light.

Lisa would later be surprised to learn that Mara had begun taking extracurricular interest in her student as well. She quickly figured Lisa's slender frame belied wiry ready strength, not overly athletic but fit enough to keep up with the challenges of scuba diving. There was a certain awkward grace to her--Mara figured she was still learning to navigate the world and her own body, but her movements had a sincerity that made her captivating. She caught herself. She's jailbait you dirty old woman! she snorted inwardly before clicking back to teacher mode.

That night she treated Lisa to dinner on her porch when she whipped up blackened grouper, grilled corn on the cob and pork and beans. She watched wide-eyed as her tiny guest wolfed down the fare, not apprehending that was how Lisa dealt with nerves. She learned of Lisa's love of photography and how excited she was that diving had possibly opened up a new watery avenue for that passion. Mara thought of Elaine's underwater photography equipment locked away in the attic and almost mentioned how it would warm her heart -- and honor her lover's memory -- to bequeath it to her. But she wasn't ready to do that.

In spite of herself she began opening up about her life in retirement, having walked away from the academy and how she believed she'd spend the rest of her days in the water with Elaine and returning to her thesis. Lisa seemed rapt even as Mara began to bore herself with her plans and aspirations. She wrapped the evening and told her student she expected her to be fresh and ready to go at the appointed time. She allowed a warm, friendly hug and watched as Lisa bounded down the beach a short distance to her aunt's cottage.