Author's Note: Same as usual, what follows is a bit more story driven and takes some time to get into the sexual interaction. I thought about submitting this story to a number of different categories but ultimately settled on "Mature" as it just felt the most right.
Comments are always appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real life in name or circumstance are purely coincidental. I don't know anyone by the name of Sydney Buckner. All characters over 18 years old.
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I sat on my Tommy Bahama beach chair under my Tommy Bahama umbrella, paging through my hard-cover thriller, a small cooler with drinks and snacks next to me, looking exactly the cliche that I knew I had become.
...and it didn't bother me in the slightest.
It was a Tuesday and, not surprisingly, a quarter of the beach's population were the same ol' regulars that were there all the time; an in-and-out group of about 40 of us that could always count on seeing a familiar face on any given day. I was friendly with most of them and would normally sit by at least a small random handful, all of us rotating around semi-regularly, just to have some conversation and camaraderie. That day, as I strolled down the sand and saw the smattering of raised hands and friendly waves, I simply raised my book in return, the universal symbol of "I-am-caught-up-in-my-reading-and-don't-want-to-be-seen-as-rude-but-also-am-not-going-to-sit-with-anyone-because-I-need-to-get-through-the-climax-of-my-story," and received a second smattering of waves and thumbs-up in acknowledgement.
It was at the height of the literary action when I caught the group of young women start to set up their base-camp out of the corner of my eye and their movement and conversation was nothing more than white-noise as I barrelled through the final pages of the story, my head unable to spare the mental capacity to process anything about them.
When I finally slammed the book shut, a resounding clap followed by a satisfied sigh from me, they all spun their faces toward me, seemingly shocked that I was even there.
"Sorry about that," I said, somewhat embarrassed. "It was a really good book."
A couple of them giggled and they otherwise went back about their business, sunning and chatting and taking in the fantastic day we had been given.
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It was quite a bit later when I heard hushed conversation coming from the women, enough to draw my attention. I saw that they were each taking swigs out of the same water bottle and wincing at each turn - the obvious sign of contraband alcohol - and the scene made me grin.
When the park rangers had banned alcohol on the beach a couple years prior it was due to large parties - and their associated fallout - becoming the norm. Instead of coming onto the beach with one or two drinks or a bottle of wine to be shared among a group, those who decided to push the envelope were bringing cases of beer and many bottles of hard liquor, inevitably ending with passed-out revelers, illegal public sexual acts and an abundance of polluting trash. It was a shame, really, that an unruly minority had to ruin a good thing for so many others, as I could admit that I really enjoyed having a drink on the beach some days myself.
A couple of the group noticed my gaze and I responded with an exaggerated wink and a raised finger over my pursed lips, an obvious sign that I knew what was going on but would keep quiet about it. Their wide-eyed reactions, each of their faces' initially draining white but then turning bright red, were truly entertaining to me and my smile grew wider. But when one of the women turned and held the plastic bottle in my direction - a peace offering gesture - I felt the smile drift away from my face and replace itself with one of misplacement.
I knew that face.
But, how?
The look on my face must have been obvious, and the focus of my attention, the lovely young woman with the bottle, returned the look of confusion... only for a second... before herself going wide-eyed, yanking the bottle back and practically curling herself up into a little ball, hushed whispers of excited conversation then starting up among her and her friends.
She obviously knew me as well.
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It was for quite some time that I couldn't focus. At least I couldn't focus on anything other than trying to access the far reaches of my memory to determine where I knew her from. I found my eyes darting back and forth between the water and their group, where I inevitably found her, or one of her friends, returning my glances. Of course I wanted to just walk up to her and ask where we knew each other from but it somehow felt wrong.
Maybe it was because I was a single, middle-aged man and they were a group of young, vibrant women.
Maybe it was because I had an inkling of worry that our previous shared life experiences were somehow negative and her memory of me was not pleasant.
Maybe it was because I was suddenly embarrassed about all of us being nude.
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I started coming to the nude beach with my late wife after our daughter had moved out of the house and we were searching for things to do as empty-nester's. At first it was a novelty, something we had never dared to do in our younger years but had been on each of our bucket lists. I still remember the first walk, from the parking lot to the sand, each of us nervous about the prospect of being nude and out in the open, yet by the end of the day we were hooked. Not only was the experience wonderful by itself - the heat of the sun, the warmth of the breeze, the friendliness of the atmosphere - but we also realized that our fears were unfounded. The shared experience of the nudity meant that there was anonymity in it. We weren't the oddballs stripped and on display, everyone was just living their normal lives as they would on any other beach, just without the burden of clothing.
When she got sick we came less. Not because we didn't want to, in fact she begged me to bring her to her "happy place," but because she became so weak that, even in the special beach wheelchair we got her, she couldn't tolerate being out in any sort of element.
Thankfully, the place that she loved so much did not end up being an emotional burden for me after she passed, rather a loving support. The friends we had made over the years ended up being a wonderful asset to have and reminded me of the positives, not the loss.
So, a few years moved on, the pain and loss no longer quite as sharp, I found myself on the beach as often as possible. The aforementioned cliche... or stereotype... or caricature... of the random dude on the beach with not a care in the world. It was my happy place too, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Well, not every minute.
Not then at least.
Not while I was wracking my brain, not being able to place my on-the-sand neighbor.
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It turned out each of us was spending the entire day on the beach and, for that entire day, we were checking each other out. When I went in the water, I was checking them out from different angles on my way to and from. When I was in my chair I was practically staring at them from a 4-o'clock position. When they took the same actions it was all in reverse.
For me, my focus was singular, one in a group of five. A dirty blonde with hazel eyes and soft facial features. For them, it was 5 pairs of eyes that I caught when my own gaze would dart up-and-down from the sand to wherever it could find them, their own attempts to be conspicuous about as unsuccessful as my own.
At a certain point I actually started laughing, an action that probably made me look insane, and of course immediately drew focus of all 10 individual eyeballs, though somehow felt appropriate as I legitimately thought I was going nuts.
But, the strangest thing about the entire day? Neither of us left or moved. Both of us stayed on the beach, soaking in the sun, breathing in the salty air, staying true to the vision we had crafted for it when we got out of our vehicles in the parking lot earlier that day.
