Smut by the Sea Read online

  “It affected me, that night,” she said softly. “I know it was nothing to you. But it really affected me.”

  “So I do have something to apologise for?”

  “No, not like that. I knew you wouldn’t stay. I knew it was a one-night stand. And all the papers were full of you seeing that soap star anyway.”

  “That was a PR stunt, mainly,” he said, grinning ruefully in reminiscence. “She was a horror.”

  “Was she?” Chrissie’s eyes lit up with illicit delight.

  “Christ, you can’t imagine. Diva about covers it. Made Diana Ross look like an amateur. And she couldn’t fuck for toffee either.”

  Chrissie’s laugh warmed the air, softening the stiff breeze that blew in from the sea.

  “I was so jealous of her,” she confessed.

  “Don’t be. You’ve got a lot more going for you than she ever did.”

  “I wish you’d said so at the time,” said Chrissie wistfully.

  They looked at the sea, at the patterns of white and silver light on its surface, undulating endlessly.

  “I should have done. I should have given you my number. But I was such an arrogant, over-entitled prick. You’re more forgiving than I deserve.”

  “I guess fame went to your head. You aren’t the first.”

  “No, but it’s cringeworthy anyway.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, clenching his fists, wishing he could crush the memories with them.

  “You’re different now. Not so glittery and gleaming. A bit more rugged, more human.”

  “That’s what failure does for you.”

  “Oh, Mark.”

  She squeezed his arm and he covered her fingers with a hand, holding them there.

  “You haven’t changed much,” he said.

  “Yes I have. You wouldn’t know.”

  “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

  Chrissie laid her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her.

  “You sounded sad just then,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m really pleased to see you. I’m happy.” After a few beats of silence, she asked, “Do you want to go for a walk along the beach?”

  “My God, are you trying to seduce me?”

  She was mischievous again, pinching at his jacket sleeve.

  “It’s nothing to do with me. It’s the sand. There’s something in it.”

  “You think? An aphrodisiac?”

  “Could be.”

  He led her to the nearest steps, linked her arm with his and made the descent on to the firm, flat sands. The beach was dotted with other late-night walkers and wooers, but its vastness ensured that nobody would be bumping into each other.

  “Are you going to sing to me?” asked Chrissie.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Of course.”

  He looked up at the sky, found his inspiration there, and started crooning Moon River. When he finished, he saw that her cheeks were wet.

  “Oh, Chrissie,” he said, brushing the tears off with his knuckles. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “You didn’t. The song did. It’s so nostalgic, isn’t it? All those youthful hopes and all that. Don’t fuss. Let’s go down to the water’s edge. I’ll race you.”

  She wrenched her arm out of his and started running.

  “You can’t win this,” he called after her, taking to his heels in pursuit.

  Ahead of him, her hair flew and her long skirt billowed about under the hem of her denim jacket.

  He caught up with her rapidly, lunging for her while she shrieked with exhilaration and dodged his grabbing hands.

  At the foaming lip of the tide, he caught her and they fell into a glorious struggle, he holding her tight while she tried to wriggle free.

  “No,” she cried. “Get off, you bastard!”

  He loved the tension of her, her wrists flexing like fury in his hand, bits of her all over him, knees, elbows, shoulders, all in desperate opposition to his will.

  She found a fatal weakness and tripped him, screaming with shock and laughter as he tipped over backwards into the briny.

  “Oh my God, you bitch!” But he was laughing, a shivering kind of laugh but a genuine one, as he lay back on his elbows watching her clap her hands over her mouth in guilty glee. “Now you’re in real trouble, young lady.”

  She hopped up and down and started to run again when he rose from the waters.

  His clothes were heavy, impeding his progress, but he ran through the slap-slapping of his wet trousers on his legs and the weighty sucking of his shoes, having only one object in mind.

  By the esplanade wall, he reached her, pulling her against his dripping chest while she struggled, less forcefully this time, just a token effort.

  “Oh no, you’re really soaked,” she said. “Ugh. You’re freezing.”

  “Look, I’m going to have to go back to the hotel,” he said. “Or I’ll catch cold and have to cancel the tour and then my name will be mud in Minehead.”

  “And that would never do.”

  “No. So…” He looked up at the façade of the biggest, and only really decent, hotel in Goldsands.

  She was looking up at him and he saw that thing in her eye again. Adoration. Something he hadn’t seen in some years now. Except this time it was tempered with a drop of experience.

  “You should be punching me in the face and leaving me for dead by rights, but I’d really like it if…” he faltered.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You know what I’m going to say.”

  “Yes. That’s my answer. Come on, let’s get you out of those wet things.”

  He was almost ashamed to let her into his room.

  “Not the most expensive suite this time,” he mumbled, removing his dripping shoes. “No hot tub, or champagne mini-bar.”

  “I don’t care about that,” she said, moving over to the window. “You still get a sea view.”

  “And a decent bathroom. Speaking of which, I’m going to shower all this salt water off me.”

  She turned and he saw her lip curl upwards, brazenly. It emboldened him.

  “I wonder if you’d like to…?”

  “I was just thinking I could do with a shower,” she said.

  “Be my guest.”

  “I am your guest.”

  “Be my guest even more.”

  He was in such a hurry to remove the waterlogged trousers that the material chafed his thighs, but he didn’t care. She leaned on the towel rail, watching him undress, running a finger slowly along her neckline in a way that had him halfway to caveman already. When her fingers dipped inside and stroked her cleavage, he paused in the removal of his shirt.

  “Get over here,” he said.

  “Or what?” she teased, catching her bottom lip in her two front teeth, letting it slowly slide back.

  “I think we’ve established that you’re in some pretty deep trouble, girl. Do you want to make it worse?”

  She shook her head, grinning, and held out her arms. He seized her by both wrists and pulled her hard against him.

  She felt so good, so pliable and warm and soft, that he forgot that he was cold and wet. He forgot everything except his need to kiss her, touch her, hold her.

  His salty lips met her soft ones. At first he held back a little, half-expecting her to change her mind and knee him in the groin, but once it became clear that nothing like that was going to happen, he allowed his reservations to dissolve and threw all of himself into the embrace. First gentle lips, then teasing tongues, then a depth and hunger that surprised him as they clung tighter and pushed further inside each other’s mouths. He wanted his hands all over her, on her face, in her hair, the small of her back, her waist. At last, when the kiss was at its most savage, teeth now involved, he cupped her bottom and shoved her into his erection.

  She made a little mewl of protest and he released her mouth, frowning with concern.

  “What, love?”

 
“Your underpants are soaking wet,” she complained.

  “Ah. Best get them off then.”

  “What about that shower you mentioned?”

  “Oh yeah. That.”

  He opened the cubicle door and set the water running, then took off the rest of his clothes. Chrissie had only got as far as removing her shoes and jacket by the time he was naked.

  She screamed when he took her hand and dragged her after him, into the spray.

  “I’m not ready!” But it was too late. The water stuck her clothes to her, outlining her hips and breasts to perfection.

  “Too late,” he gloated, pressing his wet face to hers for another probing kiss.

  He helped her take off the soaked clothes, slowly and with relish, peeling them from her skin until it was bare. He threw each garment out on to the mat in turn. When it came to her bra, he took things extra carefully, rubbing the wet lace against her stiff nipples until she pinched his hands and demanded that he take it off completely.

  He lowered the cups, then bent his head and sucked reverently at the hard round buds, swirling his tongue in lavish circles. While he did this, he realised that she was washing his hair, lathering it in shampoo. There’s multi-tasking, he thought foggily, trying to get more of her breast into his mouth. His hands rested on her bum, the knickers now so wet they were transparent. When he patted his palm against them they made a glorious smacking sound.

  He released her breast, dropped to his knees on the slippery tiles and began to lower the knickers. As they inched slowly over her pubic triangle, he kissed each little new area of skin while she kept her fingers in his hair. He had the feeling she needed to hold on to him or her legs might buckle and fall. This was even more the case when he slipped his tongue between her labia and gave her clit a good and thorough licking, letting the knickers drop lower and lower, slower and slower, past her knees, over her calves… Oh, she tasted so lovely, so perfumed and juicy, with the rivulets of warm water running through the grooves and dripping on to his tongue every now and then.

  While he ate her out, she squirted shower gel from above, splodges of it landing on his back and legs. She tried to reach down and wash him, but after a while it became clear that she could do no more than stand, thighs trembling, and cling to him while he gave her pussy the attention it cried out for.

  “Oh no,” she panted. “I’m close.”

  He pushed his face further in, until his whole world was her quivering, swollen clit, and inserted two fingers inside her. He rocked them back and forth until she began bucking into his face, keening like a siren, pulling his hair as if she meant to tear it out at the roots.

  Well, that was a start, he thought, licking up the last few drops.

  He knelt back on his haunches and smiled up at her, then laughed as she slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap opposite him.

  “You didn’t do that before,” she gasped.

  “I was selfish in those days. Not that you didn’t get your orgasms. I saw to that. How many was it?”

  She flicked water at him.

  “Six,” she said, blushing even redder.

  “Six? Nice work. Ever bettered?”

  “No,” she said, shoving her toe into his calf.

  “This is like ego repair. And God knows I need it.”

  “You need more than ego repair,” she said, one hand creeping up his thigh towards his cock.

  He sat back and watched her, the painted nails, the way she made her hair fall over her eyes, the inexorable lowering of her spine.

  She pouted with her lips, cupped his balls in wet, wrinkly hands and then, ah yes, that moment. He was in her mouth. Melting in her mouth.

  He shut his eyes but not for too long because he wanted to see her head bob and her breasts bounce.

  She was kind to him, too kind, and a rush of tenderness swept over him. He should have given her his number fifteen years ago instead of dallying with plastic people who wanted him to get them into Heat magazine.

  He reached under her chin and made her raise her eyes to him.

  “Thanks,” he said. “But I think I’ve warmed up now. Let’s go to bed.”

  They made their way to the bed in a kissing, drying, rubbing, grabbing tumble and fell upon the mattress entwined.

  He got his knee between her legs and pinned her down with his hands on her shoulders, dropping little dive bomb kisses all over her breasts, neck and shoulders. She wriggled delightedly beneath him, hooking a leg over his, grinding into him.

  “Let’s see if I can beat six,” he said, nipping at her earlobe.

  “Oh God,” she said. “What have I let myself in for?”

  “Spread your legs and I’ll give you a clue.”

  She snorted with laughter. “A clue? Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

  “Hold on.” He stretched over to the bedside cabinet, opened the drawer and retrieved the pack of condoms he’d packed in a burst of optimism. So far he’d used one, in Skegness, on a slightly-tipsy warm-up act.

  She put a hand on the side of his neck and dug under his ear with her fingertips. God, she remembered what that did to him.

  “Much more of that, girl, and I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he growled.

  He sat up straight, straddling her, and bit the corner off the condom wrapper. Looking down at her from this angle made him feel like a god. That matador of sex again, just for a moment, and minus the zing of cocaine in his brain.

  “I’m going to put this on,” he said, his voice low and measured, the instrument he used to seduce as well as to sing. “And then I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before. And then I’m going to do it all over again. Multiple times. Do you think you can take it?”

  “I know you can do it,” she said, a little fearfully. “I know what you were capable of.”

  “I’ve still got it, Chrissie. Just watch me.”

  The condom on, he took a hold of her hips and lifted them towards him, butting her entrance with the tip of his cock. She seemed taut in his hands, braced for impact, but he took it slowly, rocking gently forwards. She swallowed up his bulbous cock head in her cunt and he smiled down at her.

  “Feel that?” he whispered.

  “More,” she replied. “Give me more.”

  He sank deeper, clasped in her hot, tight sheath, the pleasure rising high, perhaps too high, perhaps he should hold back a little.

  But she dug her fingernails into his buttocks and the idea of holding back became academic. He was on her, in her, all over her and she was going to feel every moment of this. He wanted every inch of her in his hand or his mouth, he wanted her to feel completely his.

  He pounded into her, sucking her neck, pinching her nipples, twiddling her clit until vapour hung in the air around them, a heat haze.

  “I want you to come again,” he said, each word expelled directly into her ear. “By the time I’m done with you, your pussy will be burning.”

  Moments later, he sensed victory with the first tremulous spasms around his thrusting cock.

  “Yes, yes,” he hissed, fucking her through her second orgasm of the night. “Good, give it to me.”

  Underneath him she was pink and damp, hairs sticking to her everywhere, her eyes heavy, drugged with sex. He was going to pour himself into her, once, twice, however many times he could. Electric sensation flooded his loins and he let himself be taken up and flung around by the force of his orgasm.

  When he fell in a slump on her chest, she stroked his hair.

  They did it again, and then again, and after that his memory grew hazy, but there may well have been another bout.

  When the sun came up, his cock was raw and he thought he might have melted a good percentage of his body weight off, but he had never felt better.

  “I haven’t had that many encores since I played Blackpool in ‘99,” he said.

  “If I throw a bouquet at you, will you give me another?”

  “Christ, I think I’ll need an in
terval first.”

  He propped himself on an elbow, giving her his serious face.

  “Come to Minehead. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”

  She touched his lips.

  “I’ve got work, Mark.”

  “Work?” He realised with a pang that he knew next to nothing about this woman. “What do you do?”

  “Run a gift shop. Just a little place. Painted shells and whatnot.”

  “Goldsands rock?”

  “I’m not going to make the obvious joke about sticks of rock, thank you?”

  He laughed guiltily. “You know all my best feed lines. But I don’t know anything about you.”

  “Well, what a lot of fun you’re going to have finding out,” she said, rolling towards him and kissing him.

  “You know, it’s funny,” he said. “Just when you think things are over for you…”

  “Things are never over until they’re over. I haven’t heard any fat ladies singing. Just a well-proportioned man.”

  “Well-proportioned, eh?” He preened. “I like that.” He dropped lower, his lips at her ear again. “Shut up the shop. Come to Minehead.”

  “Stop it, you tempter. There’s a lot I’d do for you, but I won’t lose my business. But…maybe when your tour is over…?”

  “I’ll give you my number. Promise you’ll call.”

  “I’ll call.”

  He went to the window and looked out at the sea and the rising autumn sun over the wrecked leads of the Winter Garden roof. Tonight he would tell Bryan to shove his velvet jacket and bow tie. Tonight he would sing My Way and he would mean it.

  Everything was new.

  Against the Current

  By Heidi Champa

  I knew I had made a mistake as soon as my feet hit the sand. It was hot out, I was coated in neoprene and I was still shivering. The waves crashed in front of me, each one bigger than the last. The brochure was right, it was the best surfing in Victoria. Surfing twice in California had done nothing to prepare me for the waves in Australia. The pro tour stopped here, for Christ’s sake. I had no business even dipping a toe in. Bells Beach was for people who could surf. I was not one of those people.

  A steady stream of guys and a few girls ran past me, throwing themselves onto their boards with abandon, paddling out past the breakers. When I saw the six year old with his board strapped to his pencil thin ankle run by and wave, I knew I had no choice but to try. My buddy Greg was long gone, having caught several waves already. He was out in the calm, sitting on his board, talking to a girl who was also taking a break. He wasted no time. This entire trip had been his idea. After all, he was the one who could surf. I was just along for the ride.