Rolling in the Deep

Camy needed to feel the water on her feet, she impulsively decided. She ran quickly down the smooth, sand-coated steps. She was amazingly sure-footed, as if her body already knew the way. As she reached the bottom, she leapt down over the last two steps to land softly below. Crossing to the firmer, wet sand, Camy spared a glance or two at the wealth of shells and smooth stones, avoiding the seaweed. She stood where the returning surf would reach her feet; they barely sank at all into the packed wet sand. A breaking wave sent the thin sheet of surf curling up, up, until it rolled over and past her feet. Camy loved the gentle pull as it ebbed back into the sea, watching as her feet became partially buried in the cool moist sand that it briefly lifted, then set down and left behind.

The wind rushing through the rocks and the breaking waves roared soothingly in her ears, broken only occasionally by a gull's scream. Camy could feel and hear the blood pounding in her veins. She walked up the beach to the jetty and climbed up, carefully stepping from rock to rock, until she was near the point where it was submerged. As small waves broke against it, their spray splashed across her, coating her skin in a fine mist of salt. Running her hands across her bare arms, the texture felt so "real" to Camy -- as if the sea was leaving its trace on her. The beauty of the scene filled her up with such joy she thought she might actually burst. With barely a conscious thought, she started to sing, completely uninhibitedly, into the crepuscular display.

"Stars when you shine, you know how I feel.

Scent of the pine, you know how I feel.

Yeah, freedom is mine, and I know how I feel.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life

For me. And I'm feeling good...."

She threaded her fingers into her wild locks, shaking her heavy mane of hair to keep it from tangling in the wind. She used to keep her dark hair in a sleek blunt cut a few inches above her shoulders, routinely straightening it, because her ex-husband preferred it that way. Since the divorce, though, she'd stopped the straightening treatments and added several golden highlights. She let it grow unchecked. It was now was well past her shoulders, curling into the point between her shoulder blades. Her hair was not something she had been particularly vain about -- she thought that brown wavy hair was rather ordinary. But now, as it blew behind her and caressed her bare shoulders and neck, she was very happy that she'd stopped trying to tame it. It, too, deserved to be free.

The air was cooling off now that the sun was sinking beneath the horizon. Camy watched in awe as the lightshow that began earlier kicked into high gear. The sky was magnificent. Vivid purples, crimsons, yellows and oranges streaked upward, creating their mirror image at the point where the sea met the heavens. Camy could only stare in wonder, feeling weightless. Gooseflesh arose on her exposed flesh and she wrapped her arms protectively around herself. Her nipples were poking through the thin cotton of her dress. She rubbed her arms across the hard, sensitive little points and shivered slightly, but not just from the cold. Loathe to go in and miss any of this wonderful sunset, though, she stayed where she was until the orange light had dissipated and the first of the night stars began to twinkle in the growing dark blue sky.

Stretching, she reached her arms upward toward Alpha Centauri, enjoying the formation and the release of tension in her muscles. But it was time to go back inside and finish the champagne -- and maybe get a fire going as she made dinner. So Camy spun about, moving quickly and lightly, as she skipped across the rocks and back along the beach. She paused at the top of the stairs to look back at the darkening water once more before running up the path to her adoptive home.

As she rinsed the sand off her feet using the spicket at the edge of the deck, Camy caught sight of her reflection in the windows. She was momentarily shocked. Who was this lovely, wild thing? She looked in this light to be at least ten years younger. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders and her dark shining eyes looked huge in her angular face. Camy laughed aloud again at the incredible feeling of lightness and well being she felt. Maybe she should buy this house, she thought.

Friday, 7:50PM

Trip sailed past the cottage on his way to the marina. He wondered if the two renters had arrived yet -- they were supposed to be due in today. The late evening sun reflected blindingly from the rows of windows facing the sea. The place positively glowed. He fought down an irrational bubble of envy. He vastly preferred staying in the cottage, rather than the main house. But Molly had arranged for the rental a couple of months ago, having no idea that he might want to take refuge there this month. She, Stewart and the twins were spending the summer in Provence with Stew's parents, so she would be away until at least mid September.

His proper name was Jonathan, but his family always called him "Trip", short for triple, because he was Jonathan Tobias Miller, III. Using a pet name minimized confusion when multiple generations were present, as they often were. His grandfather had been Jonathan, his father was JT, and so he got a numerical designation.

Trip would sorely miss his bossy and lovable little sister this season, but at least he had Barnaby. Looking to port at his goofy, lovable Golden Lab, Trip asked for confirmation from the sweet-tempered monster. "Don't I have you, Barns?" He asked. Barnaby yapped in response and skittered across the deck to push his large head against Trip's thigh. The dog looked like the lead character in a children's movie, strangely comfortable in his bright yellow canine lifejacket. His big brown cow eyes gazed adoringly at his master as his tail slapped to and fro. He was a pretty good boat dog, all things considered. Trip tacked slightly in order to get between the buoys for his approach to the marina. Their local caretaker, Douglas, would be waiting at the dock with the Jeep to run him and Barnaby to the house.

Trip allowed himself to get lost in the tactical details of radioing the harbormaster and docking the boat. These mundane details were sometimes a blessing. They didn't exactly fill up the empty spaces in his mind and heart, but they were gratifyingly distracting.

Everyone told him, after Sarah died, that he'd eventually find a place where the memories didn't hurt so much. Trip supposed they were referring to the final stage of grief people grotesquely called "Acceptance". It was a word he detested. It was a word that typified the kind of passive surrender that went precisely against his nature. As if there were some great cosmic plan that we were powerless to contest, to which we were better off just yielding. And then everything would be okay. Yeah, right.

Sarah had been his prep school sweetheart. They married, much against their parents' advice, right out of college. They lived blissfully together for years, or so he thought, until the day he found out she was sleeping with his Best Man and Fraternity brother. Things went south, they began to hate each other, and they finally divorced. But being from the same social circle, with a shared group of family and friends, avoidance was nearly impossible. They were thrown together time and again. A few years later, after a particularly wild New Year's Eve party hookup, they got back together. It was fine for a while, just like the early days. Then Sarah again started disappearing for weeks on end. Trip didn't bother to find out for whom, this time. They grew to once again hate each other, and they separated a second time. Fifteen years had come and gone in the blink of an eye. Just when Trip was finally ready to give up on the whole thing, Sarah got diagnosed. Cancer. The illness resulted in a dizzying rollercoaster of treatments, remissions, and relapses -- dramatic ups and downs for four long years. Her lovers and even many family members disappeared from her sick room, one by one. Trip stayed by her, nursing her and just holding her hand, all the way.

The worst times were when Sarah was in a confessing mood. Things he never wanted to know were divulged as she sought to purify herself. Trip actually did forgive her, because her contrition was genuine, but the cuts to him went deep, nonetheless. Sarah told him, toward the end, that one of her great regrets was not having been more worthy of his loyalty. She once asked Trip, under the influence of a morphine drip, if he'd ever been loved enough. He didn't have an answer. He tried to bury the question away, but lately it kept resurfacing again, and again.

Finally, completely spent and no longer even communicative, Sarah left him for the last time. That was two years ago.

Most people only knew the love story of Trip and Sarah. There was no need to sully her memory with the ugly reality that ran in parallel. But it made their well-meant condolences that much harder to take. The hollowness that Trip felt after it was over was hard for him to fathom. He should have felt relief, shouldn't he? He should have been able to put his relationship with his ex-wife into perspective and move on. But he felt debilitated. As if something in him had died long before Sarah did.

Since love was an elusive mystery to Trip, he did what many men in his circumstance might do: he sought to distract himself with sex. It was all too easy, because he was gifted with great looks, a fair degree of charm, old money, and a complete disinterest in sleeping with someone more than once, much less in developing any kind of relationship. In the two years since Sarah died, Trip had gone on a sexual rampage. Intercourse became a strange kind of emotional short-circuit. He collected sexual experiences, treating the whole process rather like a chess match played with his own conscience.

He had a few rules: strictly safe sex, no cameras, no married women, and no one his family knew socially. These rules were not so much moral in nature, they were simply pragmatic: Trip was pathologically averse to risking his heart again. He therefore didn't want to stumble into any liaisons that were likely to precipitate ties, lawsuits, publicity or any form of obligation.

There was just one problem: after a while, he felt soul-sick. Trip wasn't even sure he believed in such a thing as a soul -- but if he had one, it was pretty unwell. The emptiness burned, like acid reflux in his psyche. As the summer approached, he'd finally realized that enough was enough. He was done sampling the garden of earthly delights, as it were. He needed to be alone and try to cleanse himself. Get his head right. Plan his next move.

What he really wanted was to escape to his idea of heaven on earth: his grandmother's cottage on Cape Cod, accompanied only by Barnaby, who never judged. There was just one problem: his favorite place in the entire world had been rented out for half the month by two single career women, according to Molly.

Yikes. Trip could just see them now: two brittle, habitually starved, designer-clad alpha women. They'd probably stride through the cottage and bemoan the fact that it didn't have a treadmill or yoga studio. They'd invade his sanctuary, insensitive to its charms, lugging home shopping bags of crap they didn't need from the local outlet malls and tourist traps. Trip was willing to bet that these harpies wouldn't appreciate the stillness or the sensual beauty of the place. Not the way he did. He'd be willing to bet that they wouldn't look upon the compass rose in the foyer, for example, appreciating the craftsmanship his grandfather had put into that lyrical tribute to the love of his life.

Would these Botoxed, freeze dried cougars stand, rapt, on the balcony just listening to the sounds of the sea, or revel in the poetic beauty of the sunsets over the Sound? Would they feel the joy of the place wash over them, reawakening their senses? Not bloody likely.

It rankled Trip that one of these stiletto-wearing philistines would get to sleep in his favorite bedroom on earth, while he had to rattle around in the massive family compound that carried so many unwelcome memories of the past. Trip almost didn't come to the Cape at all, but Manhattan had that grimy, malodorous haze of August descending upon it. He felt disgusted with himself. He needed to reboot. At least he'd be at the beach -- and maybe when those witches left he could retake his sanctuary. The month might not be a total loss.

So it was with this pessimistic outlook that Trip arrived at his family home. Only Barnaby seemed delighted. Douglas gave Trip a look that went right through him -- as if he could read his mood and understand why he'd decided to escape, alone, to the beach. With a barely perceptible change of expression, Douglas managed to convey his compassion, his desire to be helpful and his acknowledgement and respect for the fact that Trip was not in a sharing mood. Trip was impressed that the older man could accomplish this with a subtle lift of just one eyebrow. And then the moment was over.

Shaking his hand, Douglas murmured something incoherent about being available if needed. Trip responded in a non-committal way with false cheerfulness -- a clear signal that it was okay for Douglas to take his leave.

He didn't even bother to unpack. He needed fresh air. Calling to Barnaby, Trip took him down to the beach so they could play some fetch. He needed that even more than the dog did. Wouldn't it be nice if everything in life were like this? If when you threw something to someone, they not only made a mighty effort to catch it, they also willingly returned it to you. If only things could be so easy with humans.

Trip had just thrown the stick up the beach for what had to have been the thirtieth time, when he felt a funny tickle down the back of his neck, as if there were eyes on him. He turned, looking toward his grandmother's cottage. The sun glinted briefly off of a French door as it was being closed.

Ah, he thought, the princesses are in residence. Fabulous. Barnaby had just returned, proudly, with the stick, which he dropped at Trip's feet. The dog impatiently whimpered as Trip looked up at the house on the cliff.

"I know what you mean, buddy." Trip said grimly. "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up -- you're a mess." It was true; Barnaby's fur was caked with wet sand. Trip led him to the outdoor shower area and hosed him down with warm water, before squirting shampoo over his yellow coat and lathering it in. This was a ritual that the dog absolutely loved. The trick was to rinse him off thoroughly and wrap him in a towel quickly enough before he shook the water everywhere -- drenching everything in range. The thing about tricks is that they are usually easy to know, but hard to do. Trip wasn't fast enough and he got soaked. The man and beast went back into the house via the mudroom, so that Trip could remove his sandy shoes, remove his wet shirt and do a better job of drying off the overgrown puppy.

Satisfied that the dog was mostly dry, he filled Barnaby's food bowl in the kitchen and proceeded, clad now just in his jeans and a tee shirt, to the wet bar to pour himself a single malt, neat. Trip took his Scotch with him as he stepped out on the terrace. The sunset was in its final blaze of glory. He leaned on the railing and allowed the noise in his head to subside. As he savored the smoky iodine flavor of the whiskey, he felt himself begin to relax for the first time in many months. When he closed his eyes, the black spot the setting sun created behind his eyelids became a sort of meditative focal point. The roar of the surf filled his ears.

After a moment, Trip opened his eyes, straightening up. He wasn't sure if the wind was playing tricks on him. He listened harder. There it was again! He could hear the sound of someone singing. His heart started to pound -- the voice was almost otherworldly -- like an angel's voice. It was a tad too sexy for an angel, perhaps, but hauntingly beautiful. The way the wind was blowing, he could not tell what direction it was coming from. He leapt off the terrace and began to walk across the sand, toward the water, scanning north and southward. Just as suddenly, the singing stopped. He stood still, listening as hard as he could, hoping it would begin again.

What the hell was that?! He wondered. Whatever it was, he wasn't ready for it to stop. In his peripheral vision he caught a glimpse of something moving down the beach, about 500 yards away, past the jetty that bordered the cottage beach. He spun to the right just in time to see a slender woman with long dark hair leap off of the rocks to the sandy beach beyond, where she disappeared from view behind the rocky cliff edge.

He ran down to just to the water's edge so that he might have a better angle to see her. It was getting dark already, but he could just barely make out her white dress moving through the shadows to the stairs.

Trip was reminded of the stories his grandmother used to tell him about the Selkies. Back in the Ireland of her youth, romantic and terrible legends surrounding these magical shape shifters were renowned. A Selkie was a seal in the water, but could shed his or her skin and live as a human on land. They were very beautiful and seductive as humans. His grandmother claimed that they could sing like sirens or mermaids, luring their lovers out to sea. A smile had formed on Trip's handsome mouth -- he knew, of course, that all of this was impossible fancy. But at some level it was as if his grandmother were back with him, if only for moment, spinning a delicious fairy tale to soothe his wounded heart.

The Selkie suddenly appeared again at the top of the stairs. The light of the early moon shone down on her as she paused, looking out to sea. Then, quick as a sprite, she ran back along the cliff path toward the cottage. Trip could scarcely believe it. His Selkie was one of those city women who had displaced him! He realized he was going to have to reassess them -- well, one at least.

Maybe being neighborly is the right thing to do, he wondered. Shouldn't he stop in on them to say welcome?

"No!" he said aloud, shaking his head. "Enough now." He told himself. He'd come there to stop philandering. Not to immediately bed down one of his tenants.

Trip looked down at his feet. The tide had been rolling back and forth over his bare feet and the cuffs of his jeans for the last several minutes, and he hadn't even noticed. Sighing, he pulled his feet out of the wet sand and began to trudge back up to the house. He didn't remember what he'd done with that single malt. In the morning, he'd have to come back out to search for the glass. His mother would tan his hide if he'd lost one of the Baccarat.

Friday, 10:30 PM

Trip stood under the spray of the shower, his hands braced against the wall in front of him. It felt good to wash off the salt and sand, and the water pressure was helping to work out the kink he had in his right shoulder. He hadn't been particularly hungry, so had just picked at the burger he'd had delivered for dinner. The second Scotch was working, though. He straightened up, leaning his head back to make sure all the shampoo had been rinsed out. Without really meaning to, his hand had drifted down to his cock.

He couldn't get the image of that dark-haired girl out of his head. Several times during the evening, he'd walked past the windows that gave him a view of the cottage. Lights were on and smoke was coming from the chimney -- they had lit a fire. They sure did, he thought, smirking.

Trip's right hand had curled around his thickening penis as he remembered the look of her leaping off the rocks and running on the beach in the semi-darkness. He started to stroke, his hand twisting to the right a bit as it slid down his wet length. He was instantaneously hard.