"CARLOS," CASSIE SAID AGAIN, her finger running in circles on her bare thigh. "Shut that thing down and come for a swim with me."
Her husband had his short beard only inches above the keyboard, hunched over like some sort of deranged goblin, biting his lip at the screen. "In a bit, honey. I've still got a few things to sort with the Chinese—plus some client emails."
Cassie pouted, her chest deflating in time with the response she expected. She eyed him for a moment longer from across the room before sitting up on the mattress. With a flick of short brown hair, she flipped a set of long, freshly waxed legs over the edge of the bed and made for the bathroom.
The little bungalow's affordably vacational price reflected the quality of the room, but was not entirely to Cassie's displeasure. The doors were weathered, the windows webbed and stiff, and the room ever hot and stuffy—yet the rustic qualities all added up to a charismatic little place on the coast of Mexico.
A click of the bathroom light brought her eyes flashing back at her in the mirror: green like the hood of a sun-touched forest, sharp as an electrical jolt. It was beginning to be a shame, she thought, that her husband seemed more interested in his screen than sparkling his eyes at hers like he used to. She ran her hands over her stomach. The rose silk of the robe allowed a slide so smooth and satisfying over her body that she could imagine all too vividly someone else doing it for her—wrapping their arms around her from the back, touching her body as she felt that hard bulge pressing against her buttocks...
She smiled to herself for a moment, catching herself fantasising again. She took a breath, studying herself soberly. She was over forty now; it might not be long before the boys would stop checking her out.
Maybe it would be a relief, she thought. Maybe she wouldn't miss the attention she was still accustomed to. She took up her hairbrush, humming as she worked away at herself for some minutes, only managing a touch of eyeliner and some strawberry lip balm before getting distracted with her thoughts again. Her breasts left a desirable cleavage peeking between the folds of the soft, pink fabric. Even now, her waist was still slim, her curves tight, her skin faultless. They all begged for attention—for touch. Marriage had meant a lot less of that over the recent years, and many a morning had been spent with some coconut oil and a vibrator, picturing some young stud pawing at her body like they used to in her twenties. Her nipples had certainly not forgotten the feeling, pushing visibly into the silk of her gown.
Cassie's hand went to her shoulder, pulling the slippery fabric off her shoulder effortlessly. The bare skin of her shoulder looked baby-soft as it did in her teenage years, and she shrugged off the other side to match. The gown stayed only over the contours of her full, voluptuous breasts for a few short moments before she let it slide off them as well. The gown slipped off completely, leaving her naked there in the bathroom with the silk puddled around her feet. Her breasts looked glorious with their tan—so big and soft. It was about time for their daily dose of sun.
Popping the cap off a bottle of SPF coconut oil, she made a few squirts over her arms, breasts, stomach and face. Her face she rubbed in fairly delicately; her arms a bit more assertively; her buttocks lovingly—leaving her breasts for last.
Once well oiled, her nipples still pointing firmly outwards, she donned her summer-yellow bikini and wrapped on a sarong in lieu of the bottom half.
"I'll be out on the sand if you want to find me," she told Carlos, half-way out the door, knowing he hadn't really been listening when he gave his "mm hm" response.
Cassie paused. Just as she was about to close the door behind her, she looked back at her husband one last time, seeing little more than the frustrated curve on his brow.
"You're not going to spend all day on that damned machine, are you?"
He turned to Cassie for a moment to hush her with a smile and a wink. "Sure, babe," he said. Then he turned back to his computer.
The sand was white, fine, and hot, and Cassie hurried on bare feet over to the colder, wetter sand nearer the shore, feeling the burning die as the coolness soothed her soles. She allowed herself a long stare over the bay as she walked towards the distant end. Chacahua was a monster of a beach; so long that it would probably take her several hours to get to the end and back. Fortunately, she wouldn't need to go that far to put some distance between herself and the little restaurants that grouped together at one end. The rest of the beach was entirely free of people, and she strolled away from them all, contemplating another perfect day in paradise, pushing out thoughts of when the holiday would come to an end.
Past the last of the rental bungalows she wandered, just out of range of the pulsing tide, until she reached the vast, empty mid-section of the beach where the people rarely came. It was much more private out at this distance. It was simply impractical for a sunbathing spot—unless one decided to rid themselves of clothing altogether...
As for Cassie, that was her plan. She stood alone in the middle of the extensive strip of sand, breathing in the ocean air as she gazed into the sparkling distance, witnessing again the perfection of the place. She'd found her spot. To her left, to her right, nobody was even close, and with the slightest shake of her waist in the breeze, her sarong came loose. With a practised flick, her sarong flattened out into an almost perfect rectangle on the sand. She'd gotten good at the art of the flick over the last couple of weeks, and smiled to herself as she plonked herself down right in the middle. Already bottomless, she slipped undone the knot of her bikini and placed it on the sarong by her side. With the intention of liberation rather than sensuality, she still couldn't dent the slight spike of adrenaline that coursed through her at the nakedness she embraced. Alone again on the beach. Naked. She wondered if it was a feeling she would ever grow fully accustomed to, or if public nudity would always elicit some excitement and naughtiness in her. Yet stimulation was not her intention.
She relaxed into the warmth the sun was bathing her in, finding her zone of ease in the natural light washing over her oiled, exposed skin. Through her shades, she sat transfixed on the waves taking turns coming in to break, washing up, closer and farther, like they couldn't agree on a good distance to come up to. Beyond the smaller breakers, further out in the bay, a sudden movement caught Cassie's eye. There was a person in the water, bobbing there. From the long hair Cassie immediately thought it to be a girl, but the bare top and large frame suggested a surfer dude instead. It wasn't long until the man had found his wave, smoothly propping his body up on his board and flicking himself up onto his feet. With impressive skill, the man went down diagonally, swiftly driving the board back up the wave, then down again, following the curvature of the water as it began to curl into a roll. The man carved down in front of it like a pro, the break chasing behind him. Only when he got closer to the shore did the wave begin to collapse into a rushing jumble of whitewash. In one last effort to milk the wave, the man did an upwards turn, finding air momentarily while he jumped off almost comically.
Cassie smiled, appreciating the good nature of the situation, plus the talent of something she hadn't really seen much of before. Disappearing under the waves, the man's board seemed to bowl along, swept up by the white water towards the shore. Moments later, the man resurfaced, much closer to Cassie than he had been before. He was younger than Cassie had expected—maybe in his mid- to late-twenties. His long hair clung wet down to his shoulders, and his well-tanned skin sported a shoulder tattoo that reached part-way across his firmly built chest. Only part-exposed in the water, Cassie could tell the guy was ripped, chiselled in jaw and nose, and—it took her a second to realise—was looking right in her direction. She caught his solemn stare for a moment as he brushed the hair from his keen, penetrating eyes; then she found herself squinting uneasily down the beach, kidding herself that she would have glanced away regardless of where the young man had been looking. And still, the beach stood empty, peculiarly void of tourists for such a pleasant season. It seemed only that it wasn't school holidays that people didn't want to visit this little surfer's paradise.
Suddenly feeling her eyes go sleepy in the morning sun, she rolled over onto her front. Her breasts, large as they were, proved to be a kind of pillow against the hard sand, and she could feel the warmth penetrating through the towel onto her nipples as she let the fullness of her bodyweight relax. Wiggling into a comfortable position, she lay her head on her hands and zoned into thoughts of nothingness. Only the coolness of the breeze occupied the reptilian part of her brain, feeling it like the ghost of a massage up her legs, over her bare buttocks, and up across her back. Then, sleep.
Several minutes had passed before she stirred from the sound of crunching sand. With one eye creaking open, she saw a pair of wet, hairy legs making their way towards her—until they stopped, a few feet away, toes pressed into the virgin sand. Squinting from the sun, Cassie twisted her head up awkwardly at the figure above her. It was the surfer boy. His eyes stayed keen on her, blue and intense. She would have found his stare almost overwhelming, yet his eyes had a friendly, cheeky warmth to them that deburred any feelings of creepiness. Still, Cassie was surprised to see him there. What did he want?
"Hey there, do you speak English?"
It was obvious he was exotically foreign by his accent; but his English flowed perfectly, and she couldn't quite pin the origin.
"Hi," was all she said back, her head wavering slowly like she was looking for his reason to approach her. He had a naughty kind of look in his eyes, and a slight matching pout on his lips that contagiously sprouted on hers as well. "Can I help you?"
