The Freediver

My first two dive iterations will be practice runs. The third iteration will be the final one. But, all three iterations will be recorded so that Rick has the flexibility to choose the best footage.

After my solo dive, there will be a breather. Rick will then outline the couple dive details.

"Oh, Soph, before I leave you and Seb here to go to my office where my video control console is, would you like me to close the café viewing window? This is for your solo dive. We can decide again later for the couple dive."

I look at Seb neutrally, then smile, "Rick, I don't want you to go through any trouble. What was good for the other free diver earlier is good for me."

I chuckle, "For once, I will be a spectator sport."

"Seb, you can stay poolside and help Soph with the bath robe before and after her dive session."

I make my way to the water edge. In an act of modesty, Seb takes the bath robe from my back as I slip into the water.

I adjust to the water a little. For a minute, I mull over the stark realisation that, here I am, a mature woman, nude before the gleaming eyes of a young man, a total stranger Rick, and assorted whoever looking at the café viewing window. Barely an hour ago, nobody has seen me in my full glory aside from my husband.

I wonder how I will present myself in the water. Will my breasts undulate as I propel through the water? Is my slit visible despite Seb's best grooming efforts? Will my vigorous finning open and close my slit like breathing fish gills? Will my inners see watery light of day?

I fin to the starting point of the planned dive pattern in the middle of the pool. I can feel the cable guide. I give a thumbs up signal so that Rick may see me through the video cam.

I take a scrutinising look at the depth of pale pastel blue. Ploosh! I duck dive, breaking the frothing barrier as the burbling of water covers my ears. I am segued into another world. A world I am so familiar with, and yet, not of my own. I enter it by grace of invitation, and I can only sojourn so long.

I fin vertically down as guided by my touch sense of the tendril of cable. There is a second graceful young woman inside me bursting to get out. I am a teen competitive swimmer all over again, except that I am older and more powerful now with my fins. This is so liberating. I am a free spirit mermaid. I fin vigorously. I can feel the power pulse through me. My arse orbs are marching rhythmically, clenching, relaxing, clenching, relaxing, to the silky flow of water. I feel the caress of water on my contours. This is the first iteration of my solo dive, but already, I feel I have been doing this all my life.

The water is cold. I can feel it wrap around my face. Peering through my crystal clear mask as the radiance of the skylight permeates the pool floor, I can see underwater as clear as the morning sky. A couple of delicate strokes and my fins propel me toward the bottom. The water is a large living structure. Stark aesthetic scenery.

I fin past the café viewing window. Is that a mother and her son looking at me? They are about Seb's and my age. They must know that I am a mum from my mature form. What must they be thinking?

I arc my torso, execute a rip curl into cartwheel. I fin horizontally for a distance, then porpoise obliquely to the far top corner of the pool. I do not feel naked. I am clothed by water.

I fin past the café viewing window again. The son is now behind the mum, pressed against her.

I ascend with a dolphin motion toward the rippling surface. I watch the sunbeam from the skylight amuse itself on the water. I have never seen light cast so clean and pure. I want to cry with joy. But, one cannot cry underwater.

I leave my body. The pool. The planet. I step through time. Enter a void. Inside the void now. But, I am also the void. I am looking at the void. All at the same time. Is this the high water mark of transcendence in as far as humans can ascend?

Strangely, prose from Charles Kingsley's "Water Babies" flow to mind from a subconscious crevice: "The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see."

And just when I remember that the protagonist drowned, I break the surface and sucked the sweetest air ever.

***

Chapter 10

Couple

I warp all sense of spacetime. That space is water, and the water is compressing time out of dimension.

Seb the gentleman wraps me in the bath robe as I emerge sprightly from the pool.

Rick outlines the dive plan for the couple dive.

"The concept is to repeat the solo dive, but now as a couple. That way, there is continuity and a symmetry across the solo and couple dives. When the two footages are grafted together in the video editing, the footages will appear seamlessly unified."

He adds, "Different couples have different ideas on how they wish to render themselves as an artistic dive unit."

I ask, "Can you give us some ideas based on your past customers' preferences."

"Some do it with ballroom dancing-like body engagement. Others like a more intimate rendition, bodies melded, surging through the water as one."

Rick pauses.

"I find that the most inventive couples have no particular design plan. They just do what comes naturally with jazz-like invention. The video footages for those tend to pan out well because they capture, in essence, the natural impulses and expressions of the couple. Most couples who choose this laissez faire option feel comfortable in water. Divers, swimmers, watersports fanatics."

I wink at Seb, "We know who we are, don't we?"

"Soph, I've seen you move in the water. A water babe. I'm sure ditto for Seb. I'll leave you both to it. Give me a thumbs up signal when you're ready to rock and roll."

Rick adds, "Oh, I almost forgot. One last admin detail. How do you want the café viewing window?"

Seb casts an oblique glance at me, then smiles, "As it is is fine."

Rick smiles an internal smile and saunters back to his room.

"Seb, let's just go with the flow."

Seb appears a little lost in his own interior. I can almost hear his noisy thoughts.

***

First dive iteration.

In an act of socially conditioned modesty, Seb turns away as I drop my bath robe to enter the pool. Seb then drops his, and joins me in the filmy water.

Seb flashes Rick the thumbs up signal.

We swim to the starting point of our dive path, in the middle of the pool. I detect an unease in Seb. I decide to take the lead as I have experience from the solo dive.

"Seb, we'll just meld our bodies as one, front-to-front, feel the guide cable, and fin together. We've 3 dive iterations to perfect this, so we'll take the first one as a familiarisation practice run."

Seb nods, somewhat relieved that we have agreed on a way forward.

We begin our descent. My right hand is on the guide cable. Seb's right hand is over mine. This becomes a sort of unified pivot point for us.

We fin. Seb's torso awkwardly bumps mine every other fin stroke. My nipples poke him repeatedly like one testing a pudding. My pliant breasts compress then release against his chest repeatedly.

After awhile, we get into our groove of flow. We meld comfortably. He brings his mid-body into an anxious, tense alliance with mine.

I feel Seb's mounting excitement. It is pressing urgently against my belly, below my navel. As we fin more vigorously, his penis drifts. He is lodged in the juncture below my mound and my upper thighs. I instinctively tighten my thighs, thus slowing down my finning a little. It sends a shower of shudders through me in many directions. I muse. This is, perversely, a wet dry hump.

We reach the bottom of the pool. We arc our torsos in harmony and in unison, execute a rip curl into a cartwheel. I feel the soft nudge, just short of dig, of a swollen helmet head. Its underside ridge slides along the edge of my petals, one way, then the other, in synchrony with our arcing movement. Like a train on rails, going one way, then the other, in confused commute.

Seb's finning goes a little awry for a time. But he gets back in groove after a bit of self-calibration.

What might Seb be thinking right now? Can Rick see all this? What will this video scene look like? And the Big Question! Have we crossed a line?

We fin horizontally for a distance, then porpoise obliquely to the far top corner of the pool. We break the surface with dramatic gasps.

Oh! This is the sweetest air I have ever drawn. And I share it with Seb.

A breather. I take off my mask, and then Seb's. I lean in to kiss Seb on his forehead. I feel a poke at my mound. Seb recoils.

"It's OK. The exhilaration of the dive. Enjoy it as part of the experience."

I kiss Seb again, and then give him a long hug. He feels good. As I do. I relish the moment. I feel a rising forbidden attraction to this young man. Perhaps it is yet another one of the great trials of the human experiment.

Seb nervously, "We're in the pool. The video cams. Can Rick see us?"

"He sees us as lovers."

"Oh!"

"If you're worried that Rick can see your boner, here, I will obscure you."

I nudge Seb to the corner of the pool, then draw closer to him. Seb has drawn level to my navel now. Quite a male feat considering that the water is clammy cold, even on this summer day.

"Seb, in the next dive iteration, I want my top to look stand out good. Can you help?"

I bring Seb's hand to me.

"Yessss!"

***

Second dive iteration.

From the get-go, I clamp Seb's arousal below my mound in an uncompromising vice grip. This is the centre from which our dive revolves.

We fin more slowly this way, but our bodies are seamlessly unified. I can just see it, it will look good in the video optics. Two heavenly bodies as one tunneling the watery blue.

It is increasingly easier to grip Seb as our dive progresses, as his excitement is mounting. The traction is quite pleasurable. It must be more so for Seb because as I fin, my hold on him tightens, loosens, tightens, loosens. Is he getting a little harder and bigger with each fin cycle? My thighs seem to think so.

***

Third dive iteration.

We are in a bit of a state from the exhilaration of the first two dive iterations.

We begin the dive in earnest. Seb is in high arousal. As we arc at the bottom of the pool, I feel Seb slipping away. I instinctively tighten my grip. Maybe it is the angle of it?

I feel him in me. I let this sink into me for a moment as I take this all in. This young man is making carnal acquaintance with me.

Is this an accident? Is Seb even aware of what is happening? Have we crossed a line? Does this amount to copulation? Have I indulged in adultery? Can Rick see this?

Seb's helmet head rim nicks my lip in its hasty retreat. The contact sears my delicate feminine edges.

The moment passed. Even though it didn't happen.

I wrestle my emotions to the ground. Curiously, my mind ranges back to the romance novels I devoured in my teens. I see in my mind's eye Seb and I running hand-in-hand through golden meadows at twilight.

They like to say in the novels, "I've taken a lover."

Have I? I am teeming with need. I don't want to be ushered back to my own small borders, my own mortal confines. I can't imagine how I had crammed myself into a puny box of identity when I could experience infinitude instead.

We surface rapturously. As I brush my last strand of hair from my eyes, Seb is in my face. He is so nice. Exactly the kind of lover to frolic in the water with, like they do in classic romance movies.

I experience an inexplicable and random sense of complete bliss, unrelated to anything that is happening in the world. Swollen with wonder. Overflowing with bliss. Everything, for no good reason whatsoever, is perfect.

***

"Soph, Seb, It has been my pleasure shooting you. You're the most competent freediving customers I ever had in my professional life. Naturals. In your element."

"Rick, thank you. Water people dealing with water people. That's what we are. Such a rare pleasure."

"I'll email the 3 edited videos to you in 3 days time. Enjoy the rest of your vacation here."

I look at Rick, likely for the last time. He embodies that additive masculine bit of devilish monstrosity in his mien. Humour sharp and sly. A look that knows things, and a laugh that doesn't give a damn. This profile appeals to women who are longing for something more, but don't know it. Beasts with brains.

He will be video editing my most private charms shortly. This thought sends a twitch, just short of an itch, to my loins. But, I flatter myself. He probably video edits miles of enthralling footages in his work, and I'm just another cloud of pixels.

***

I feel a little sad that the dive is, all too soon, over. Maybe Rick will contact us later that the video footage is a washout, he forgot to hit the record button, and has to reshoot?

Oftentimes, the journey is the destination. And the destination is not the end-point. The destination is the point of no return, because the rest of it is incidental.

I don't know if Seb feels the same.

These thoughts... They play gentle on my mind.

***

Chapter 11

Fire

Seb and I go down the valley to the cove. We have a few hours before the cove disappears into the tide.

The protrusion of cliff towers over the cove. A massive erection. We are at the top of the cliff. An open abyss staring down the sea. An austere drop.

For some inexplicable reason, I feel tempted to step off the edge.

I sing to Seb, "Stand by me."

My right hand is entwined in Seb's. I am right-footed. I raise my left foot and stop short of stepping off the edge.

I think of Kierkegaard's "fear of falling". Anxiety, dread and angst are unfocused fear. When the person looks over the edge, she experiences a focused fear of falling. But at the same time, she feels a terrifying impulse to throw herself intentionally off the edge. That experience is anxiety or dread because of her complete freedom to choose to either throw herself off, or to stay put. The mere fact that she has the possibility and freedom to do something, even the most terrifying of possibilities, triggers immense feelings of dread. The dizziness of freedom.

I feel compelled to peer down the edge just once more. I want my fear to be whole, to be all of it.

I think back to the blindfold game I once played with my neighbour on his treehouse, at the bottom of his garden. I was ten, and he, twelve. All the while, I was fearful of falling off the treehouse. And yet, I did not wish the game to end. And when at last I thought I fell, I did not. And here I am now, on a cliff top, only higher and older.

Seb holds my hand as we wind down the dizzy cliff path to the beach. My feet, in my sneakers, count their way down the hewn steps. He doesn't let go when we land on the sand. I lean on him a little. My hair brushes his face.

The dusk sky is letting the early night in. A blazing sky that could have been rented from Universal Pictures for our pleasure. And then, we enter a twilight zone.

***

We sit by the sea. I can hear small lapping sounds beside me, as if a kindly sea monster is taking discreet sips of water from a large goblet.

Seb tends a bonfire of driftwood, meticulously assembled into a pyramid form. It is getting chilly.

I watch the dance of flames intently.

I squeeze Seb's hand, "We drifted into uncharted terrain today, didn't we? Not where two people who have just known each other would normally traipse."

Seb pensively, "We did."

I wonder aloud, "Tell me, when you see the shapes that the bonfire makes, do you feel kinda strange?"

"How so?"

"I don't know, Seb. It's like all of a sudden, I get very clear about things. Watching the fire now, I get this deep, quiet kind of feeling."

Seb the budding creative writer, "You know, a fire can be any shape it wants to be. It is free. So, it can look like anything at all depending on what is inside you. If you get this deep, quiet kind of feeling when you look at a fire, that is because it is showing you the deep, quiet kind of feeling you have inside yourself. You know what I mean?"

His words are like night air.

"I guess so..."

"But, it doesn't happen with just any fire. It won't happen with a gas stove, or a cigarette lighter fire. It won't even happen with an ordinary bonfire. For a fire to be free, you've to make it in the right kind of place. Which isn't easy."

His voice comes out in the cool smooth tones of a late-night jazz radio DJ.

"But, you can do it?"

"Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. Most of the time, I can. If I really put my mind to it. Freedom is a bonfire. Try toasting marshmallows on a gas stove. And then on a bonfire. There is something going on. In you."

"And this bonfire, Seb?"

"There are degrees of fire. Gas stove fire. Placid beauty in symmetry. Order and discipline. This fire is functional, purposeful, useful. Boils your water. Cooks your food. Predictably well-behaved too. Best of all, you get to control it. Cut the fuel, and you conveniently snuff it out."

Seb pauses.

"At the other end of the firelight latitude, there are houses on fire, forest fires. Wild, combustive, raging, ranging firestorms. Poetry gone rogue."

Seb tosses a twig into the bonfire. It crackles.

"And then, there is the bonfire at the campsite, or by the beach. You are moved by kindling captivation in watching its hissing, dancing flames. It warms you even on a balmy night. That you do not experience from a gas stove fire. And when you douse the bonfire at the first light of dawn, its embers have a lingering stubborn persistence that defy the new light of day."

"Penny for your thoughts, Soph. What're you thinking?"

"Fire"

"Tell me..."

"I was on a business trip in an authoritarian country. One night, I went for a walk near my hotel. There were some people, men and women, burning books in the park. A scene right out of a political thriller movie. Chilling, and yet cheesy. They must've poured gasoline, because the flames shot high. They began dumping books and magazines, from boxes. Not too many at a time. Some of them were chanting. Onlookers gathered. Their faces were happy. Ecstatic almost. Fire can do that. A large woman, with a soot smear down her cheek, turned to me and asked, "You want to throw one on, dear?" Like throwing a steak onto a barbecue. She didn't wait for me to answer. She thrust a magazine into my hands. It had a pretty woman on it, naked, hanging from the ceiling by a chain wound around her hands. I threw the magazine into the flames. It flapped open in the wind of its burning. I saw big flakes of paper came loose, sailed into the air, on fire, parts of women's naked bodies, turning to black ash, in the air before my eyes."

"How did you feel?"

"An absurd happiness. Ecstatic almost. For the briefest moment, I shared their passion, but not their cause. Fire can do that."

***

We talk no more, enjoying the hush that is just short of silence. The quality of a conversation is in its comfortable quietude. Quiet is not peace. But, this is.

***

Dusk is dimming. Assuming if you just rise from a fairy tale long deep slumber, there is this moment in time when it is impossible to tell if it is dusk or dawn. And then, you know.

A downpouring of darkness. Nothing it seems, can resist the flood of darkness. It creeps past the clouds, over the far horizon, through the valley, seeps through keyholes and crevices, and devours entire landscapes.

Why is it that night falls, instead of rising like the dawn? Yet, if you look east at sunset, which I am doing now, you can see night rising, not falling. Darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun. Like smoke from an unseen line of fire just below the horizon.

The night has come. The way is dark. The moon is the only light we see.