The Cove

The waters of the Mediterranean sparkled in the sunlight, deepest blue.

Thea put her bag down on the sand. She was all alone in a secluded corner of the island, far from the bustling crowds of the harbor. Nymphos was a beautiful place, she thought, but it could get a little busy sometimes.

It was her first visit. Thea, a fair-skinned English rose with fashionably short blonde hair, had decided she needed a holiday from her job as a publisher's assistant in London. She liked her work, but it could get a bit boring sometimes. Two weeks on a Greek island, far away from the cold rainy skies of England, was just what she needed.

She'd booked a room in a charming little hotel by the Nymphos waterfront, but after a couple of days it had begun to wear a little thin. The harbour was lovely, full of little fishing boats and charming old fisherman, its old stone piers extending far out into the water, but once she'd walked around it two or three times she felt like she'd seen everything.

Even Andromeda's Rock, the huge stone spear that jutted from the water in front of the esplanade, well within view of a dozen restaurants and comfortable tavernas, said to be the place where the legendary princess was chained up to await her fate, didn't hold her attention for long.

The fresh seafood was delicious, the old Greek chapel with its icons of saints was adorable, and she'd even been all the way up to the old lighthouse at the top of the hill behind the town, with its amazing view of the surrounding islands. But it was all just a little... conventional. There were too many tourists around, she decided, too many English and French and Italians, all here for the summer, doing the exact same things as her. She wanted something a little bit out of the ordinary.

And the bartender had given her just the thing.

He'd been a muscular young islander, all olive skin and dark curly hair, a big white smile on his face as he chatted to her. Thea fancied that, as a publisher's assistant, she was more interesting to talk to than the usual run of tourists. Though he didn't seem very interested in books. Still, he'd obviously enjoyed her company, so she must have done something right.

And he'd given her a hot tip. One he didn't share with just anyone.

It had taken her almost an hour to walk from Nymphos harbor to the cove, along the coastal path that ran almost the entire length of the island. Expensive villas overlooked the road, with decks out the front for men and women in elegant swimsuits to lounge and watch the world go by. At first the path was packed with tourists, posing for each other in front of interesting rock formations and even diving off the cliffs at swimming spots along the way.

But, as Thea walked, the crowds began to thin out. Finally, she was all alone. A single peasant shepherd watched her from high on a hillside, but as she kept going even he disappeared from view. It was just her and the waves, the rocks, the seagulls, the low sun-baked bushes and all the natural beauty of Greece.

This was what she'd come here, Thea thought.

A narrow stone staircase, overgrown and probably unused for years, led her down to a strip of brilliant white sand at the base of a cliff. There was a sign next to the end of the staircase, made from ancient wood and on the verge of falling apart, which Thea didn't pay any attention to. She was looking out at the cove. A lagoon of crystalline water, cupped between brilliant white rocks that seemed to hold it as gently as loving hands.

Out to sea, by the entrance of the cove, a buoy floated in the water. A flag had been attached to the top of the buoy, with symbols on it that Thea couldn't make out. She wondered what it was.

She put her bag down by the side of the wooden sign, began to unfasten the wrap she'd thrown on over her bikini, then stopped. Something had caught her attention. A splash of red paint on the side of the sign, that made Thea stop and actually read the words written on it.

NATURIST BEACH. CLOTHING PROHIBITED. PENALTIES APPLY.

Thea laughed. So this was an old nude beach, was it? Made sense. You couldn't ask for a better spot for privacy. The bartender hadn't mentioned it, but then he probably didn't even know. He said the cover hadn't been used as a swimming spot for years. Almost nobody went there except for locals. It was just too far away from the harbour, too well secluded, too mysterious.

He'd paused as he told her the next part, and even let his voice fall to a whisper. There were even rumours that smugglers used it sometimes, to pass on secret messages! He thought it wasn't true, but he couldn't be sure.

That had sealed the deal for Thea. She loved the idea of smugglers, of pirates, of highwaymen and bandits and masked desperadoes and anything mysterious and romantic like that. Her whole life she'd harbored a secret fantasy of being a girl detective, of unravelling whole rings of spies with just her wits and pluck and trusty pocketknife. She'd even published a few essays about it, although there was no way the bartender could possibly know that.

Of course she had to go. She'd told him she'd head out to the cove first thing next morning, and he'd laughed and told her in his adorably broken English to wait a few hours. The swimming would be best around one o'clock, when most people would be busy having lunch in the harborside restaurants or taking a stroll along the esplanade.

She slipped out of her wrap and stood on the sand, barefoot in her yellow bikini, already anticipating the feeling of the water on her skin. She was quite a curvy girl, Thea, tall and full-figured, with a pert round bottom that wiggled as she walked and full, creamy breasts, held together by the cups of her bikini top to create the deep valley of her cleavage. Her stomach was flat, though, the result of many productive hours in the gym, running down smoothly towards the junction of her white thighs.

She was glad she'd brought the wrap. It had been a long walk, and Thea wouldn't have liked to go the whole way in just a little bikini. She'd have turned far too many heads. She didn't mind wearing it on the beach, since everyone else was doing it, and you could always go in the water if too many people started looking your way. But walking along the path in just a bikini, with everyone else in yoga pants and tank tops and cargo shorts, would have been a little too much.

She tucked the wrap in the bag, paused, and stretched her arms high above her head, preparing to go in the water.

And had a thought.

After all, nobody else was around. People didn't know about this beach. There was essentially zero chance that anybody was going to come here.

She looked around, scanning the rocks suspiciously. She couldn't see a single place to hide. It was all bare stone, no cracks or crevices. The last thing you'd want at a nude beach was convenient little holes for peeping toms to lurk in.

After all, she'd wanted an adventure.

If I don't do it, Thea thought, I'll probably always regret it. Nobody has to know. In fact, I'll definitely never tell anyone for as long as I live. It can be my little secret forever.

She liked that idea a lot. Having a little secret. In some ways, Thea was quite a private person. She hated it when people knew things she didn't. And she enjoyed knowing things other people didn't know. It was why she'd always been so fascinated by spies.

She turned to look back up the way she'd come, making absolutely sure nobody was watching. The sun gleamed off the barren rocks. The shrubs nodded in the breeze. Not a soul was around.

She took a deep breath.

And undid her bikini top. The bottoms soon followed, going in the bag with the wrap. The bag was tucked away behind the sign, where nobody could stumble upon it by accident but where she couldn't possibly lose it. Thea's bare toes curled in the sand as she stood at the edge of the water, looking out at the gleaming, azure translucent sea.

She stepped in.

The water was pleasantly warm. Thea dived under, swam a few strokes, came up splashing with water streaming down her face. She looked back over her shoulder, a trifle nervous, just to make absolutely sure that her bag with all her things in it was still there. It had her hotel key, as well as her phone, her sunglasses and her book. Of course, it hadn't gone anywhere. How could it? It was just a bag.

She swam out into the centre of the lagoon and floated on her bag, looking up at the clear blue sky, her pink nipples bobbing just above the surface. The sea felt amazing on her bare skin.

She turned a few underwater somersaults, scattering a cloud of small fish, admiring herself in the crystal-clear water. Her pussy was a shell, she thought, its plump pink lips adorned by the finest and most delicate of golden hairs. The naughty thought made her grin. Maybe, if she was really really daring, she could come back here at night with that bartender...

It would have to be at night, though. Thea glanced up at the cliffs again, suddenly conscious of what a spectacle she was making of herself. She was, she had to admit to herself, a little too easily embarrassed. She'd even published a couple of pieces about it on her blog, about how she was just a bit too sensitive to social discomfort, about the deep red blush that could sweep over her fair skin at a moment's notice and make her tingle with heat at the slightest sense she'd overstepped herself. Anonymously, of course. All her friends back in London would tease her about it, tell her rude things just to see if her face really would change color.

But nobody here could know about that. In fact, her famous blush was one of the reasons Thea had decided to lose the bikini. She wanted to push herself, do things she wouldn't normally do. That was the point of an adventure! You couldn't let embarrassment hold you back from doing the things you really wanted to do, she thought to herself. And she really wanted to do this.

And it was safe. Unless the smugglers came and caught her, and hopefully that wouldn't happen.

Thea looked out at the floating buoy, between the two rocks that marked the edge of the cove. More rocks lay beyond, a whole tangle of spires and arches between Nymphos and the next island over. Perfect smuggler territory.

She wondered again what that flag on the top said. It was still too far away for her to make out.

Well. There was only one way to solve that problem.

The water beneath her was deep and dark, full of the wriggling shapes of fish, as Thea paddled out past the rocks. The buoy was a little further away than she thought, but not by much, and she was a strong swimmer. The sea was calm, but as she got closer she felt a tug beneath the surface of the water.

She frowned. That could be a problem. She'd heard that currents could do all kinds of strange things in this islands. It was sweeping away to the south, around the side of the island towards the harbor. But the buoy was only a little further away. The flag was fluttering in the breeze, but she could almost make out the words on it...

No. Time to turn back, Thea decided. She was eager for an adventure, but that didn't mean she had to be silly.

She looked back to shore, and realised she'd come further than she thought. The cove seemed quite far away all of a sudden. She began to swim back, arms sweeping in her powerful breaststroke, her pink pale nudity driving through the deep blue sea as she strove to return to shore.

After a minute or two, she realised with an uneasy feeling that she wasn't getting anywhere.

The buoy was to her north. Thea, just outside the mouth of the cove, looked at the twin rocks that guarded the entrance. She'd just swum through them. Only a few moments ago. Now she wanted to swim back. But swimming back was a little harder than swimming out. In fact, a lot harder.

She was drifting south.

Thea pulled with all her might, trying to fight against the current, legs kicking, arms straining to move her bare, streamlined body through the sea. She wished she was a fish, a mermaid, a submarine, anything able to move about the aqueous element as easily as it pleased. Propellers, fins, tentacles, anything would do. But she had none of those things. All she had was her body, her naked body, and that wasn't good enough.

The buoy was getting further and further away.

The current wasn't carrying her out to sea. That was good. Excellent, in fact. It was carrying her along the side of the island.

In fact, Thea realised, hadn't she heard something about this? How the Nymphos harbor, the busy, touristy Nymphos harbor, was located at the precise spot where all the currents in the islands converged? Schools of fish would be swept in, flotsam and wreckage and driftwood, shipwrecked sailors and maritime treasures, all channelled into the town for the fishermen to pick through at their leisure. You could drop something in the water anywhere among all these rocks, and it would end up there.

So she'd be rescued. All she had to do was wait.

Thea thought about it. Then, once more, she began to swim as hard as she could for the safety of the cove.

A few whistles caused her to turn her head. She was looking up at the coastal path, running high along the top of the cliff. A pair of German hikers were looking down at her, waving. They didn't seem at all concerned for her safety.

Thea considered this, and decided to change strategy. She wouldn't swim back to the cove. That was a lost cause. Instead, she'd swim to the foot of the cliff, climb up, run back along the path to the cove and get her bag back. The hikers were still watching her and she gave them a friendly wave back, keeping herself low in the water, hoping they didn't realise anything was amiss.

She began to swim for the cliff.

Calmly, as if it was explaining something to her, the current took her and pushed her back out to sea. She wasn't getting any closer. She wasn't getting any further, either. It had her firmly in its grip, bobbing her along, taking her exactly where it wanted her to go.

There was a sinking feeling in Thea's stomach.

She'd wanted adventure. But not this kind of adventure!

She was starting to wish she'd never listened to that post in the comments of her anonymous blog that had suggested Nymphos as an ideal holiday destination. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Nobody had told her about the currents! Of course, nobody had made her go for a swim with no clothes on, either.

She watched the island roll past her, keeping herself afloat as the barren hillsides gave way to fisherman's hats, small stubby windmills, small seafood restaurants with excellent views of the ocean. Villas. More expensive villas, closer to town. Lookout spots full of tourists with expensive cameras who took snaps of her as she drifted, just her blonde head bobbing above the surface as Thea kept the rest of her body well below the gleaming sea.

Maybe they thought she was doing it on purpose. Maybe people rode the currents like this all the time. The water, formerly so beautiful, was now far too transparent for Thea's liking. The cliffs rose high as she rounded a short headland, an old man sitting on a stone bench at the very top, and she caught the gleam of his binoculars as they were trained on her.

And Nymphos harbor, with its bustling promenade, its busy waterfront restaurants, its dozens of cute little fishing boats and fishermen both old and young working among them to tighten their rigging and fix their nets, came into view.

The current nudged Thea gently along, as if encouraging a recalcitrant mule. She was heading, she realised, straight for the tip of the longest stone pier, where a gleaming silver ladder ran down into the water for the benefit of anyone who might fancy a bit of a dip. A wooden fishing boat was moored at the side of the pier, and leaning over the side of the boat was the bartender, with ten or eleven of his friends. Obviously, they were planning an excursion. He was talking to the leader of a group of Korean tourists, all of them equipped with the very latest in photographic technology and occupying themselves by taking snaps of every single thing that moved.

There was a spot beside the headland, a sheltered little beach where a naked English blonde could haul herself ashore without even a single person seeing her. As she drifted past it, only the length of a swimming pool away, Thea saw a washing line set up by the shore with a dozen unguarded cotton dresses hanging from it, outside an empty hut. She swam towards it, legs kicking up a storm, straining every muscle in her body as she wrestled against the iron grip of the sea.

She was carried straight past it. The dresses fluttered in the breeze and faded from view, hidden behind a stout concealing rock that made the whole thing totally invisible from town. Thea turned, and saw the approaching pier.

The bartender had noticed her now. He was pointing.

Thea really, really hoped he was the chivalrous type. But she had met enough Greek boys to know that, as much fun as they could be, the first thing in their minds upon being presented with a naked woman was unlikely to be "How can I make her clothed again?"

The current was slowing down now.

Thea came to a stop in the pool of calm water at the end of the pier, a few feet from the silver ladder. There was a sandbar here, shallow enough for her to stand, in between two deep blue channels for the boats to go in and out. The water was clear as glass.

A curly-haired girl peeped down at her from the prow of the fishing boat. Her mouth went to her hand in shock, and she turned to one of her male companions, rattling away in rapid Greek.

Tiny fish flickered around her ankles.

Thea looked at the ladder, then back at the sea, then at the channels on either side of her. She looked down at her body, her lovely curvy pink body, with its full breasts, round bottom and complete and conspicuous absence of a bikini. Two boys had joined the curly-haired girl at the prow. They seemed to be wondering what she was going to do.

"Can I have a towel, please?" said Thea, hopelessly. There was no answer. Presumably they didn't speak English. Or they just didn't care.

Yep. That was the famous Thea blush, alright. She could feel the heat blooming in her cheeks, rolling over her face and neck like a tide, almost down to the slopes of her breasts, her fair skin changing color in an instant. There was no hiding it.

There was no hiding anything else, either. You had to use both hands to climb a ladder.

The Koreans were waiting as Thea's red face rose over the end of the pier. Followed by her pale shoulders, her rapidly pinkening cleavage and then her full, creamy, bouncing breasts, tipped with lovely rosy pink nipples that had been stiffened to points by her long immersion. They began to shoot almost immediately, cameras flashing in unison as they sought to methodically document every last inch of that gorgeous body.

Thea gasped, ducked down behind the pier. There was a pleading expression in her wide blue eyes as she peered over the top, silently begging them to go away.

The Koreans settled down to wait. It would be insane to leave now.

Thea gulped.

She swallowed her pride, took a deep breath, and heaved herself up onto the pier in one smooth motion. As soon as her feet hit the stone, her hands flew to her body, covering her nipples and her soft pink pussy with its neat triangle of delicate golden hair. Far too late, of course, to prevent the Koreans seeing everything. And making a permanent record of it.

The flashes bombarded her bare body, capturing her pretty wet skin, her tan lines, her struggle to shield her sex and contain the bouncing of her breasts as she fled shrieking down the pier. Her face, so red it was almost glowing, the uncontrollable blush coursing through her body and making every part of her full figure, from her ears to her nipples to her toes, tingle and twist and curl with overwhelming shame. And her bottom, of course, her plump round pale bottom, bare to the elements and the eyes of the inquisitive fishermen as the mortified girl streaked away.