The Water Nymphs

Legend had it that George V, wasting away on his regal deathbed, when told by his doctor that he'd seen be well enough to return to the seaside resort of Bognor, replied only with, "bugger Bognor." These, it is claimed, would be his last words. Bognor, however, took it in stride, and petitioned to have their name changed to reflect this questionable royal connection. Their wish was granted and so it came to pass that Bognor became Bognor Regis.

Poppy had long sympathised with the King's sentiment. This was a truly dreadful place quite a lot of the time, just another in a long list of holiday towns which had moved past 'decaying' and were firmly planted in 'decayed,' as tourists embraced package holidays and thought guaranteed sun and all-inclusives a better option that the 'maybe there'll be sun, but we can't promise anything' of somewhere like Bognor. Those who did come were mostly the advanced in years, who'd wander aimlessly about the streets and cram into Poppy's restaurant and complain about everything put in front of them.

Heh, "Poppy's restaurant." The Beach Grill wasn't hers -- even if it were a cooperative, it wouldn't be hers. It was someone's, some distant, invisible, anonymous owner, and Poppy just a humble kitchen porter. Lowest of the low, scrubbing dishes and occasionally scrambling across the hot kitchen to make desserts and get yelled at that they "looked like shit," thinking about the article she'd read telling how KP's in some fancy restaurants were treated like the vital cogs they actually were. Not here -- but it was what was available, it had the decency to pay a living wage, and Poppy needed money if she was going to be ready for university. Dentistry degrees were no joke. Exhaustion might yet tear her down but her parents were back to the "not on speaking terms" phase, again, and there was no money to pay her rent or buy her textbooks except what she earned herself. She couldn't complain -- just feel jealous that Toby, her boyfriend for now, was getting it all paid for. Even the fees.

And yet... right now, at this particular moment, Bognor Regis did have something to it. It was late, past midnight, and Poppy was sat on the seafront, coarse sand between her fingers, the silhouette of the pier's infinitely complex wooden frame looming from the darkness, the sea lapping closer and closer. It was a strangely warm evening, the type you spend all summer hoping for, and it was silent. Nobody else was here -- almost nobody. Once the Beach Grill was closed and cleaned down and the tips distributed, the drinks had flowed and the staff had a little party all of their own. Seven of them ended up on the beach -- by now, almost an hour in, that had whittled down to four. Charlie had stumbled off into the darkness, already drunk out of his mind and probably fine, and the head chef and one of the waitresses had responsibilities to get back to. That left these four -- Poppy, Sophia, Charlotte, and Victoria.

It was a colourful bunch -- and Poppy, of course, was the odd one out. Naturally quiet -- which suited a KP, whose only real need to speak was when stammer ing the reply "yes, chef!" -- she wasn't one for these types of interactions and she'd been clutching her bottle of Heineken for so long it was growing warm between her fingers. Her feet were sore, her joints were sore, and her back was sore. The joys of an eleven hour shift. She wondered if the other three felt the same way -- probably. They'd just learned to deal with it. Sophia, the Greek waitress who'd started only last week, even alleged she nearly played field hockey for Greece at the last Olympics. Nothing on the Internet backed up that passionately defended assertion -- but she had the body for it, Poppy supposed, slim and athletic and, to be honest, intimidatingly pretty. They all were -- Sophia for her tan and full lips and flowing black hair and that resting expression that said "I don't even know you're there, but if I did I wouldn't care." You wouldn't expect, looking at her, what a life of the party she was.

Then there was Charlotte, the sous chef, short and curvy with smooth, chocolate coloured skin, a silver ring through her nose, and curly black hair, whose rivalry with the head chef was legendary. Shouting matches were more common than orders. On more than one occasion, Poppy had been sure her boobs were going to burst out of her top -- either it was too small or they were too big. If "too big" was even a real thing -- one glance at her own chest, Poppy always felt, told her only that "too small" certainly was.

Victoria was, undoubtedly, Poppy's least favourite of the three, and, she felt, probably the thing pushing her fastest towards an early exit. Some shop selling dreadful tat, like fake seashells and mugs shaped like bulldogs, would at least not involve working with Victoria. She was the head waitress and, from the way Poppy overheard her speaking to the subordinates, what her mum would refer to as "a right bitch." She was slim and tall, her long blonde hair wrapped into a tight ponytail which fell to her shoulder blades, complex henna art daubed on her hands even though she was from Essex, her narrow eyes always full of judgement, her thin lips always pursed, and she was usually caked in so much makeup she could look halfway through an embalming. Even the kitchen, hot as a sauna, seemed to get colder whenever she walked in to bark that an order was wrong, as if it wasn't her who wrote it wrong in the first place.

All in all, this wasn't Poppy's scene, and she was the only one spending it essentially in self-imposed silence. It was best this way. She wasn't the type to talk; not even when spoken to. Even her clothes were meh -- while the others looked good, she just wore a shirt, a thick white hoodie, and blue jeans. The kind of thing you change into at the end of a long shift when you just want to go home, only to be reminded of the staff party you ought to show up for if you want to maintain appearances. The rest all looked ready for a party -- Sophia had changed into a pink cocktail dress, for God's sake.

Yet, as the drinks had flowed, Victoria, out of her waitressing outfit and in a sickly parakeet-green cardigan and tight black jeans, had loosened up, and the scene had shifted to becoming actually enjoyable. Victoria was becoming, dare Poppy think it, amiable. Poppy even felt herself open up -- no doubt led along by the bottles she was downing, which she'd lost count of a while ago, but she felt proud of herself. It might have been the most she'd ever drunk -- the other occasions could be counted on one hand and, whether it was her prom after-party or Maggie's eighteenth, Poppy had always been the sensible one, usually holding Maggie's hair after one too many vanilla vodka shots. Now, with Bognor Regis spinning and Poppy gladly spinning with it, she could dare to enjoy herself. Even with sand down the back of her trousers.

"Poppy?" Someone was talking to her. Wrenching herself from her alcohol-fuelled daydreams, Poppy blinked and looked at Charlotte.

"Yeah?" she asked, the bottle already back to her lips.

"Where did you say you were going?"

"Going?" Poppy looked around -- everybody was looking at her. It felt weird. Wrong, almost. "I don't know. I didn't know I was going anywhere...?"

"For university, love," Victoria laughed, slapping her shoulder just a bit too hard.

"Oh, um, St Andrew's," Poppy said. She still wasn't quite used to conversation with this lot. The age gap wasn't much -- barely a few years separated Poppy from Charlotte, with Victoria being the eldest at the advanced age of thirty-three -- but, being the youngest and the quietest, it felt much more dramatic to her.

"In Scotland?" asked Charlotte, and Poppy nodded. "That one's a pretty big deal, innit?"

"I don't know," Poppy replied, not wanting to make a song and dance of herself. Everyone was still looking at her -- she was disappointed to find that, despite her tipsiness, she continued to dislike it. The acne splattering her cheeks still hadn't gone down despite all her useless dermatologist's promises and her short red hair was still greasy from the kitchen and still messy from never being styled in any way whatsoever. At least, when lit only by the wandering Moon and the lights from the nearby pier, she wasn't as visible as she was beneath the Beach Grill's kitchen's powerful industrial lights.

"I think it's up there with Oxford, right?" asked Victoria, her voice accusing despite her friendly face. Maybe it was just in her nature to sound that way, Poppy thought.

"No, Oxford's in the south," Poppy said, stupidly.

"I know!" squawked Victoria, to laughter, as Poppy cringed at her idiocy. "I mean on, like, rankings. Honestly, I'm not a complete chav, you know."

"Sorry," Poppy mumbled. Victoria was smiling -- but her eyes weren't. They never really did.

"I haven't been to Scotland," Sophia said, in her sing-song accent. "Is it nice?"

"I liked it on the open day," Poppy said, quietly.

"I have heard of St Andrew's," Sophia continued. "At the end of the year, the students go skinny dipping."

"Don't tease the poor girl," Charlotte laughed.

"I'm serious!" insisted Sophia, grinning.

"That is true, actually," Poppy murmured. "But it's not compulsory."

"Well I should hope not!" cackled Victoria. "So you won't be going then?"

"I'd rather die."

"Bit dramatic," sniggered Charlotte, itching her face -- her hands were decorated with the legacy of burns and cuts which chefdom inevitably gifts you. "But I agree."

"Skinny dipping is fun!" Sophia cried.

"Oh, for goodness sake," sighed Victoria, sharply. "Tell me you haven't been going skinny dipping in bloody Bognor."

"Of course no!" Sophia laughed, before sighing. "I remember when I was a teenager. In Crete. I worked at a cafe and every night after work, we'd have the whole beach to ourselves and would all get naked and run into the sea."

"Bloody hell," remarked Victoria. "Brave of you."

"They know how to live, the Greeks," laughed Charlotte, and Sophia laughed, too.

"It's where gay sex was invented," Sophia added, eliciting more laughs, even from Poppy, "of course we're that kind of people."

"There's no nudist beaches round near here, are there?" asked Charlotte, and Poppy hoped she was just asking and not coming up with ideas for their next staff party.

"There's one on the Solent, I think," Poppy said, for reasons unknown to her, the words forced out by the drink. "But there's probably closer ones."

"Someone's an expert," teased Victoria.

"I'm not!" Poppy insisted, almost wanting to stamp her foot, but her voice soon went back to the meekness it was used to. "I just heard about it. You don't want to go to any, ever, anyway. It'll all be full of old men watching you."

"That's true," said Charlotte. "You can't hear yourself think over the camera shutters." Everyone laughed.

"All the beaches in Greece are titties-out," Sophia said, sagely. "I suppose it's not how you do things here. People are very stuffy. Not very liberated."

"I'm liberated," sniggered Charlotte. "I once flashed my tits at an intercity train." Everyone laughed.

"I've flashed so many bouncers and taxi drivers," contributed Victoria. "Honestly -- it must have saved me thousands. My friend mooned a busker in Newport once. Dunno what she was trying to accomplish."

"What did he do?" asked Sophia.

"Nothing. Just kept singing Hey, Jude." Sophia roared with laughter, falling backwards onto the sand, cackling at the starlit sky, and the others laughed along, mostly at her.

"Aw, shit," Sophia moaned, once she'd sufficiently recovered and sat up, "I've got sand all over my back, now. This dress is new!"

"You'll live," said Victoria.

"What about you, Poppy?" asked Charlotte, turning to her with a glint in her dark eyes. "Got much of an exhibitionist streak in you?"

"No, of course not," insisted Poppy, biting her tongue in her haste to get the answer out. It wasn't true -- not really, anyway. In school she'd enjoyed sitting with her knees up, making it easy to see up her skirt, but only when nobody was able to actually see. She'd quickly readjust when that changed -- it had never occurred to her as anything more than just mucking about.

"You're not one for going mad, are you?" asked Victoria.

"Not really," said Poppy, then, lured out by the drink, again, came more. "My sister's the mad one."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah... she got off with some girl on her flight back from Montreal last month."

"No shit?" asked Victoria, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah -- she's the cool one."

"Wow," said Charlotte, "well, Poppy gets points for having a sister in the mile high club!"

"You're cool too, love," said Victoria, putting a hand on Poppy's shoulder. "You don't have to be an exhibitionist to be cool."

"It's not exhibitionism," protested Sophia, "a nude beach. It's just... being completely yourself. It feels so freeing especially when it's removed of all sexuality. Like no other feeling on Earth, non-sexual nudity. It's just... this thing."

"Well, I'll take your word for it," Charlotte sniggered. "Didn't realise you had a whole philosophy on nakedness." Sophia gave her a wry look.

"So you're telling me you don't feel a little tempted when you look at the sea?" she asked.

"I'm not Greek," said Charlotte, shrugging. "I'm very much a clothes-on sort of gal."

"And," added Victoria, her voice gurgling as she'd just downed half a bottle, "we're not in Crete -- we're in shitty Bognor."

"That is true," admitted Sophia, looking around. "But there's beauty in all places."

"Where?" asked Charlotte. "Where is it?" Sophia grinned.

"It's a shame. You might never know the fun of skinny dipping."

"If you think it's so good, then why don't you go do it?" asked Poppy -- and then, quite suddenly, a lump appeared in her throat. Everyone looked at her. "Um... I don't mean-"

"I know what you mean, my pet," sniggered Sophia. A jolt of lightning went through Poppy's body. "She makes a good point, though," said Victoria. "Why don't you?" Sophia stared at her.

"What... right now?"

"Yeah, go on," Victoria teased. "Or do you not have the guts?" Sophia's stare turned to a glare.

"Oh, I will fucking show you," she snapped, grinning, and she pushed herself up to her feet.

"Lord..." said Charlotte, a hand on her mouth as she laughed. "She's really doing it!"

It was your idea," Victoria giggled at Poppy.

"I don't..." Poppy mumbled, staring at Sophia as she wrestled her dress off and threw it down onto the sand, her tanned, athletic body covered only by a strapless scarlet bra, much of the cups given over to lace, and tanga underwear matching in colour, her slender legs going on forever. "...think it was."

"Let's not fight, guys," said Sophia, as she reached behind herself, her fingers fiddling to unfasten her bra. Alarm bells erupted in Poppy's brain.

"Wait..." Victoria mumbled, as Sophia's bra came off, and she stood there, mostly bare, her breasts unfairly perky, a blatant hickey on one of them.

"What?" asked Sophia. "Don't you know what 'naked' means?"

"I think we all thought you'd keep your bra and pants on," said Charlotte. Poppy nodded, weakly.

"Well, you thought wrong," Sophia laughed, tossing her bra onto the pile of clothes.

"But you're gonna keep your underwear on..." asked Poppy, slowly, "...right?"

"I can't hear you," Sophia replied, answering the question by hooking her thumbs beneath her underwear and peeling them down her thighs. Poppy, acting on instinct, looked away.

"Oh." said Victoria, staring. "Well... alright, then. You... uh, you go, girl." Sophia, stood with hands on bony hips, which Poppy knew because she'd inevitably gone back to staring, giggled.

"You guys look like deer in headlights," she laughed, completely unabashed, and Poppy glanced between her legs -- Sophia's girlhood was fuzzy with light hair, its lips invisible in the half-light.

"You're gonna get yourself in so much trouble!" cried Victoria.

"Nobody's here."

"You do realise I have to look you in the eye next time we're at work, right?" giggled Charlotte, who couldn't look at Sophia for more than a moment at a time before looking away again, laughing all the time. Sophia shrugged.

"That's your problem. Now, if you'll excuse me..." She took in a deep, dramatic breath. "The ocean calls!" She turned, showing everyone her pretty, pale rear, and ran down the beach towards the water. She soon vanished into the darkness, the only sound to come from her being the splashes of this naked Greek girl wading into the Channel.

"She is mental..." Victoria sighed in wonder. "How am I gonna explain this tomorrow? 'Yeah, guys, you missed a trick by leaving. Sophia got her fanny out like ten minutes later.' They'll be so pissed!" Poppy said nothing, just stared into the darkness which Sophia had vanished into, holding her bottle so tightly it might break.

"Can't pretend it's not tempting," muttered Charlotte, looking away. "But I don't think it's worth getting arrested."

"I mean..." Victoria looked around. "She is right. Nobody's here."

"Please tell me you're not seriously considering..." Charlotte burst into fresh laughter at the sight of Victoria's expression. "This is madness. This is madness. You're my colleagues!"

"Nah, we're your friends!" Victoria laughed. She was definitely drunk -- she proved it when she had to make three attempts at standing up, and was still wobbly on her feet once she succeeded.

"What is going on..." Charlotte mumbled.

"Come on," said Victoria, holding out her hand to Charlotte, who stared up at her. "Dare you."

"Uh..." Charlotte broke into a nervous laugh, glancing from Victoria to Poppy and back again, and Poppy thought she saw her eyes light up. "Oh, frig it, go on, then." Charlotte took Victoria's hand and let herself be hauled up. "Oh, Christ, I'm so drunk. I'm gonna regret this so hard."

"What about you, Pops?" asked Victoria. "You joining us?"

"I don't know," Poppy mumbled, looking down at the ground, her face burning. "They'd judge me!" she thought. "I'm disgusting. I'm fat and I'm ugly and I don't want them to look at me."

"Not even a bit tempted?"

"I work with you guys," she replied, voice barely a whisper.

"Suit yourself," Victoria said, tugging her shirt up and over her head, showing her toned stomach, her pierced navel, and her small breasts, snugly held by a lacy white bra, "but we're going. Ain't we?"

"Seems that way," said Charlotte, her voice all giggly, pulling her cardigan off her body. Poppy tried not to stare but it was a tall order -- she had a soft, attractively chubby belly, pretty stretch marks like tiger stripes on her dark skin, her plump breasts barely contained in a straining black bra. Victoria's bra was already gone, joining her shirt on the sand, and Poppy, desperate to avoid being seen as a voyeur, could only look through her periphery at Victoria's pale, pink nipples, hard in the cool summer air.

"Jeepers," Victoria said, holding her arms out to let the night air wash over her, ribs pressing against her skin, "it's actually alright, you know."

"It's decent," Charlotte agreed.

Poppy was, in a strange way, starting to feel like the naked one, still wrapped up and hidden away. She was certainly exposed -- sure, she now knew what her colleagues' nipples looked like, but they knew how lame she was. Which was worse?

"Right, I need to get in there," Victoria said. "Better get my knickers off." She unbuttoned her jeans and yanked them down -- her underwear came down with it, a bright red thong which turned inside out as it reached her knees, revealing a thin gap between her smooth thighs, and Poppy found herself very unsurprised to see in the gloom that Victoria's vulva was waxed to high heaven. She was a bit more surprised, though, by the metal glint of her pierced clit.