Blue Air Mattress in the Cove

I looked at the water melon seed, torn pineapple fiber, and indescrible brown goo. A handful of tropical warm ocean water lapped onto the blue air mattress and washed it all away. It was gone again. I heaved again. Only stringy, white spit came out of my mouth. Over the last hour, the fare had become less interesting. The sick pain in the gut had turned into searing pain of a muscle worked past the point of fatigue. I kind of like it. There was a sense of surrender. I was no longer thrown by the bouts of vomiting. I was a lifeless rag that let the bouts of pain and vomit reaction travel through the body.

The ocean and I had partnership. I gave her a spoonful. She cleared it out with little, soft leftover waves from the big six footers that crashed outside of the cove. There was a perfectly clear tropical sky above the sea stretching to the horizon. The water was a balmy 86 degrees, comforting actually, despite the dangerous trap. High tide had sprung up. The water had consumed the beach. The pounding break had moved closer until we had found refuge in the shelter of a little cove. A six foot patch of deep water that had me paddling and holding onto the air mattress was protected from the waves by a small sandbar.

While my body dipped up and down soothingly with the ocean, I watched the waves, powerful creatures. Their curves were so perfect. They stacked themselves high. The face built up. I could feel their angle ever so gently reach the tipping point. From hours of experience in the ocean, their power was palpable in my body memories of being lifted up by waves, pulled, torn, whacked around only for me to emerge victoriously with one hand stretched over head, riding that beast, shooting through the water and holding my breath. My lungs were being squeezed of oxygen, while the exhilaration of the ride fueled me. With every wave rising, I could feel exactly just how he would grab and exactly how I would body ride it.

If I had been by myself, I would have swum out. The beach party was only a twenty minute fight away. I looked at my lover's body unconscious on the mattress. I had told her that an air mattress wouldn't surf. It's too soft. I had told her that the surf had only yesterday killed someone at the party. I had told her that an untrained swimmer should stay in the hip deep water. She didn't listen. Her fist had shot out in anger to punch me in the belly.

She's a five foot tall, skinny exotic dancer whom I met in Vegas. Sure, she punches for shit, and I'm six foot and two inches. I don't like physical altercations. Call me uptight! Call me extreme! No matter how light, physical aggression should never be crossed. I take it from training the dogs at the shelter back home. Once a dog bites for the first time, it has to be put down. That one bite proves that the dog can cross the line of attacking a human. Any dog that can cross it is too dangerous. There is no way to predict what the next attack is. I know a lot of you love dogs a lot. Yet, in the shadows of the happy brunch puppy cuddling Instagram photos are the adult dogs that are left tied to the bus stop and the miscreants who tear up apartments out of frustration and boredom from being locked up all working day. There are not always happy situations. Someone has to deal with them responsibly. That plastic bag with the stiffened body is sometimes better than living an abandoned, lonely life in overcrowded shelters and depriving another dog with a chance of adoption off a shelter space.

I was going to break up with her once we returned home. Being dumped half way through a trip in Costa Rica is horrible. I simply wasn't going to be the husband who walks like a pussy to the police to explain them how a five foot, skinny girl had blackened his eyes and yellow-blue welts from a couple days ago.

For the time, I followed her into the surf.

"Honey, do you know what a rip current is?"

"I don't care. It's your job to know that. I want that big wave over there!"

"Sweetie, did you feel how the water got suddenly colder? That's the water change from stagnant ocean to the moving water of a rip current. Do you notice how the distance to the beach is growing quickly?"

"Good! I want into the middle of that mayhem of white water over there!"

She wasn't boring! The smile of a little boy broke through my teeth. The water was churned so hard that flakes of bubbles were pulled off the ocean surface by the breeze to float through the air. Each wave coming in was like a wall. It felt like we were in a room negotiating the spaces in between the spots where waves break. Sandbars push the waves higher. My sense of the ocean layout was that we were between the last two sandbars before the deep ocean. I let the wave lift my body up. At the last moment, I turned my face to the beach, so that the whip of the wave would hit me in the back of the head. Ah, that felt so familiar.

With joy, I looked at the little bunny fighting with the waves. Her eyes were full of joy. She was spitting ocean water in a big arc. Her hair was wet and matted. Her small arms fought with the water. That was the reason we were together. She was always gung-ho for adventure. She'd follow me into any adventure and one-up what was reasonably safe. Heck, I was often too logical and careful to do what was really fun. She pulled me into a life that was worth more living.

"I can't breathe!"

"Just hold onto the mattress and relax!"

"I want to go out!"

"Don't let go of the mattress! It's your flotation!"

"No, it's pulling me back!"

"That's because we are in a rip current. We have to exit it parallel to the beach. Or let us drift out. A few more yards and we clear the surf. We'll simply be bopping up and down on giant, yet soft waves."

Every progress she made toward the beach was negated by the next wave drinking up water from all directions to build its water mountain. She let go of the mattress. I could it. The next wave came. She couldn't keep up with the speed that the water rose up. Her head went under very quickly. I caught a hold of her body three feet under the water. I pulled her back up. She was no grateful to hold onto the mattress because she was completely exhausted.

Now in the cove, her lifeless body was lying on the air mattress. As far as I can tell, she didn't drown. I had pulled her out beyond the surf. That's where she passed out. Probably the combination of Dramamine and Ibogaine. The first she took to deal with her anxiety about traveling. The second she took because some street vendor had told her how it's a natural drug that the natives used for spiritual clarity. It's only a ground leaf! Yeah, well pit viper venom is all natural as well.

I checked the pulse next to her throat again. She was still breathing about 10 breaths a minute. Her pulse was soft and quick. Her body was so damn sexy. Her belly was smooth and flat. The bikini bottom had a gap between her thigh bones. I could peer down toward her crotch. Her breasts were big round balls, the size of a large grapefruit. I don't care about the lack of natural look. I trust in double blind studies proving that the perfectly round shape is lifting significantly more dicks. The male brain is programmed by instinct to salivate to certain curves, angles, and proportion. What if a computer designed saline pouch gets that more right than nature on its own?

Damn, even passed out, her body exuded, I'm ready for sex. The memories implanted that thought in my mind and groin. The memories were why I saw her body as a jizz rag. I had fucked her in every orifice in every way. After we both got tested and she went on the pill, we had sex without a condom. I had plastered her face, her boobs, and pulled out right before coming to splash on her belly. I had come countless times inside of her. The cum had dried partly inside of her and partly trickled out as we had fallen asleep entwined in an embrace in post coital happiness.

As despicable as it may seem to think of a passed out woman and sex, that view had changed during our relationship. She had asked me to make her dream of being skull fucked come true. With excitement, she had gotten the blindfold out of the nightstand. She lay back with her mouth wide open. Her mouth was so small that I had to be careful to avoid the teeth with my thick member. She had cooed me on to really use her. I carefully went to the boundaries of touching the back of her throat with the tip of my dick. I had gone faster to fulfill what felt most pleasurable to me. Feeling her enjoy the sensation of action in her mouth, I had gone rougher and rougher. My initial apprehension eased as I could tell from her body that she was enjoying it.

There was a sense of domination growing inside of me, having my way, unleashing anger without regard to her. That emotion was very scary because I would never want to hurt her. However, the voice of intuition told me that I was about to tap into a part of mine that I had repressed. In real life, I was being a pussy too often. I was timid and concerned about offending people. What I missed in real life was being a man, being a bit mean to get what I want rather than holding the bag for someone else to get what they want. Gingerly, I let that abrasive, self-centered part of me come out more and more as I had my way with my dick in her skull. Instead of pleading softly: "Is this okay? A little harder or softer?" I thrust in her mouth exactly how it felt best to me. I let confidence and going after what I really wanted come through.

We had power transfers frequently. She'd beg me to fuck her while she was sleeping. I never actually went through because I was concerned about getting her consent at the time. She had been raped before and gone through a long and public court battle. The strain of not being believed had caused her to attempt suicide. Obviously, I was concerned about triggering fears and anxiety in her. Though, I was also concerned for myself. She never told me the details. What I know is that she didn't remember the actual rape. And a few of her friends turned on her. She thought of it as a lack of loyalty. I wondered if perhaps they didn't believe her. The guy ended up in prison.

Though, she was good at getting her way. There was always a wonder about her. Why did her landlord decide to pay her rent? She says that's what a good landlord does. Why do random guys let her borrow their BMWs and private planes? She says that she hates them and would never have sex with them.

She has a way of taking what she wants. One weekend, we drove up the mountains to a little cabin next to a creek. I woke up to her ass fucking my morning boner. Talk about morning breath, have you tried morning ass? She hadn't gone to the restroom. There was no condom. She simply pushed her ass down my penis and went to town. I loved it. I love anal. Being in someone's dirtiest spot seems so intimate. There is a sense of giving up control. Holding the anal sphincter as kids is our first way to have a sense of control about life. Letting go off that and letting someone enter our core seems so intimate, like a meeting of souls. My morning boners are also ultra-hard. I loved getting taken like that.

My therapist had second thoughts about how she took things without asking. My therapist kept steering back the gentle suggestion that sex often happened instantly and before I even fully consented. We'd have a fight. My dick would be in her pussy before I could rebuttal her argument. To the untrained observer, there may be nothing wrong with it. I'll get a lot of flak for this. I believe a man cannot be raped by a hot woman. If he feels so, he shall be smacked on the head until he comes back to his senses. Obviously, if the man is gay that's a reasonable exception. I definitely didn't see anything wrong.

Yet, my therapist was seeing a pattern for something more subtle. Her sense of the line between herself and other people didn't exist. She saw everyone else as an extension of herself. Like one tells a hand to open a door without thank you or consideration, that's how she treated and viewed other people. That lack of sense expressed itself in other areas. Her professional life was a hodgepodge. She met a guy at a gas station who encouraged her to write a screenplay and bought it for an ungodly amount. Then, she did heart surgery for a while. She was very smart and had figured out what tests to take to do a very specialist procedure without having to have a full on medical degree.

There are three relationship stages with people diagnosed like her. The first stage is amazing adventure and sex. The second stage is manipulation with the premise of mind blowing sex that is never delivered anymore. The final stage is a loss of respect for being able to so easily manipulate the other person. Like with a drug, the sex is never as good anymore as the first time.

I looked over her gorgeous exotic dancer body again. She exuded sex, even unconscious in her sweet slumber. I always wondered when the last day would be when I'd get to enjoy her body and when the first day was that I'd only be allowed to look longing at her body to do her bidding.

She had let me pick out the bikini combination. I had picked the sexiest, slutiest one in the surf store. I had watched with my head over the curtain of the changing room how she changed. She had wanted to have sex in the changing room. I'd have loved to do it. But I had to be the voice of reason and tell her that the tiny surf store had the sales girl only four feet away behind the counter. "She won't mind. Maybe, I can ask her to join us," she had said. She actually talked to the girl about having a threesome. Then, she had suddenly started to break down sobbing. She said that her heart would break seeing my dick inside of another girl.

She was always so much in the moment. When we were at the party back at the beach, her face was glowing with joy. Her body was dancing with abandon. I was counting electrolytes, and protein counts in my head. Being away from my gym and optimum nutrition was messing up my training plan. When she stood at the top of the waterfall too afraid to jump, she burst out crying. A crowd of seventy people forty feet below cheered her on and thought of empathetic things to say:

"You know that you can do it!"

"You'll feel so confident doing it!"

I had stepped next to her and had done breathing exercises, "Where in your body do you feel the fear? What does it exactly feel like? If the fear were a little kid, what would it ask for?"

We ended up jumping hand in hand.

Another cramp in my belly put the lights out in my head. The thoughts stopped. Time itself stopped as the pain overpowered all my electrical circuits. I had already taken off the swim trunks, so that I could let the diarrhea freely shoot into the ocean. No struggle, simply let it go.

The abdominal cramps had grown worse during the time in the cove. Though, there had been a point of mental and emotional exhaustion where the pain nerves could no longer be really excited. It was a point of letting go, a point of complete surrender to let pain and muscles cramp however they wanted. I let the puke and diarrhea come out of either end however it wanted. My head was resting in ocean water vomit without a care. Wet shit caressed my inner thighs as it left. I didn't care anymore.

There was a peace. In that darkest moment, I could feel a kernel of my body healing. That kernel signaled my brain that I was getting better. I focused on that. I let that grow like a seed. The every cheery sun was a constant nudge to feel like in a Bacardi commercial.

There was a life lesson in that cove. Deep acceptance sets us free. Lots of travelers in Central America had told me of ungodly ordeals. Yet, acceptance, learning to be capable of such deep acceptance, had opened up a deeper happiness in their life.

Feeling the acceptance of my physical ordeal in the cave made me wonder if I should accept my lover with her disease. The answer of my therapist was clear no. The disease was very stubborn to improvement. People had to seek out therapy themselves. After that suicide attempt, she had been in mandatory counseling. None of the therapists could work with her. The head of the institute talked with her a few times and finally released her. When I told her that I was seeing a therapist myself, she looked at me very worried. She was very focused on finding out all that my therapist said about her. I never told her about the condition. I had the sense that she worried I would find out and leave her. Reading up on the Internet, the diagnosis is clear as the day. I even got an opinion from a second psychologist, who quickly narrowed in on it after ten minutes of talking.

If it were your garden variety of depression and anxiety, I could have supported her, even had known the pass through that labyrinth. Yet, in her case, all the literature said for loving bystanders to not even attempt to help them as it would be counterproductive. I had initiated hours of conversation about healthy boundaries. She'd always only get mad. We'd have sex.

A couple of my past lovers have told me that sex with me is awesome, yet as a human being, I'm a total bummer. Maybe, she is my only chance of finding someone who loves me so deeply. I shouldn't think such scarcity thoughts. I could now even continue thoughts though vomit and diarrhea bursts.

My eyes meandered across her bare skin, pausing on the face that looked so surrendered like a little kid after a long and fun adventure day. That was a big fight. I want a kid, she too. I'd let the kid get a tattoo as a teenager. I'd take our daughter to a few top tattoo studios to educate her and make a careful decision. When I told her about that, she said that she'd never talk to me my entire life anymore if I'd let our kid get a tattoo. She used to be a catholic nun for a year. That's part of her lack of clear identity: Being a stripper in Vegas and still holding onto strict conservative rules like absolutely no tattoos and piercings.

We were perfect for partying and adventures. Any time we had to deal with life, she'd yell or punch me. She hadn't done the punishment of silence, which she handed to friends, sometimes for months or years. Was there such a thing as acceptance in a relationship? Once you accept the pain of diarrhea, it becomes okay. Once you accept a relationship for what it is - the full deal of above and below the surface - does it get better? Is searching for a good relationship a recipe to stay lonely forever? Are those that accept a flawed relationship the people who learn relationships and get better at relationship skills?

I want to. I want to say yes. Yet, the pleading eyes of my therapist put caution in me. I can tell that my therapist doesn't want to tell me direct to stay away from her. It's like telling the alcoholic to gently consider if the sixth beer in the day may be on the boundary of unhealthy. We'll have two more days in the rain forest at the raving party. I'll try to make it our best time of our lives. She slowly stirred.