He sat on the beach. The same beach he’d spent so much time on. The remnants of her taste and scent was still on him in addition to the jet lag and hangover. His greying beard and his lips tasted of her and a set of bruises from her fingers on the top of his bicep and shoulder as he turned to his right to watch the falling sun approach the far off hills in Malibu. In far off cities choked by grey winter skies and even greyer people he imagined this place countless times but he was home now and in a place where he could breath again. The sign ‘Leave no trace’ a warning to beach goers was his mantra in life. He’d found solace in being anonymous, casting no shadow, being nothing to anyone and asking to be left that way by those he encountered. He’d left those people long behind, his mind clearer and happier than ever before in this place. The palm trees behind him strong but supple, swaying in the eternal summer wind, watching over this place and the people. Their images famous across the world, they’d stood strong through everything nature could throw at them because of their ability to simply bend and adapt. The people below, they walked, they skated, they rode their bikes. All together on this journey, this ride. It’s not anything more meaningful than that. How many waking each morning to the reality that they are not who they portray each and every day to those they endear themselves to ? How many waking each morning to the reality that they are trapped in a life that they never wanted ? Indebted to another ? trapped physically and mentally by ‘one day’ or ‘maybe’ or those wonderful words ‘hope’ and ‘love’ ? How many waking each morning to the reality that their memories of what was, what might have been are all that will keep them warm as the chill of regret shakes them or the bitter after taste of jealousy nauseates them ? This world and its residents scream to be heard, to distract, to rip our senses to watch, to listen, to feel … but there is nothing to say. The overwhelming fear of death that has consumed humanity for all eternity wasn’t his to carry any longer. He was content. He was living a life so he could die a good death. There was no waiting. There was no hope. There was no love. Now was good enough for him. She understood the rules. She played the game. No ties, no commitments, nothing but respect and a desire to connect at every level were the observed guidelines for their dalliances. Nothing new but strangely rare in this world, within this tribe they found themselves in. Too many people holding on, not letting go, needy of others to carry on the pretence, to indulge them, to allow them to be something they always wanted to be but couldn’t. When people are truly capable of listening, of pausing and allowing the silence between the words grow, to watch, touch and taste, to wait before feeding their desires …. that is when we are in synch with one another and the world and universe as it guides us along. We are not bound to another, we are bound with another to a moment, an existential moment in time so brief that we should hold our breaths and savour it with all our senses. Stripped naked, she knelt on the bed for him to take in. Her eyes on him, her head lowered, offering all of her to him. He moved and lay his face close to hers. Their eyes connected, their smiles and kisses bestowed and shared. The warm evening meant their bodies were wet with sweat and as he moved he walked with a bottle of water to his lips. Cupping his hand he poured and dropped cooling ice and water over her back. She cried out laughing as it ran from the bottom of her spine down towards her neck and head. His hand cupped once again, he swept the water onto and over her raised body and it flowed between the cheeks of her bum covering her sex and running down to her ankles below. He then poured some once again to his hand before rubbing his head and neck and shoulders. The feel of her tender body on his fingers was to be savoured. He knew what his touch could do to her. He felt for the lips of her warm labia, enjoying the rich texture of the moisture now running from between her legs down her thighs. She groaned and pushed her body back, wanting his fingers to stop edging her give her the release she craved. Stroking up and down his fingers played. She could hear him still drinking from the bottle of water as he did so before feeling the ice cold water again on her back that he now released from his mouth whilst kissing her lower back and ass. The strokes got harder and more rhythmic and she found her hips moving with him, moving side to side to take his fingers inside her. The ice cube that he now ran along her back was entirely insignificant since her cliteroris was pulsing and her mind was consumed by his fingers and her climax. He could play all he wanted with ice, she wanted her climax and she reached and pushed his fingers insider her, groaning as she did in satisfaction. He complied merrily, only pausing to allow his tongue to join his fingers briefly in order to feed on her desire, allowing his soaking wet hands to cover and stroke the shaft of his engorged sex that was now pulsing and slapping against her periodically as she pushed back on him. The depth of his fingers and the force of him above her, inside her now was what she craved, her mind wrapped itself around the image and feelings of his movements and she settled into the rhythm he now set. For these moments, locked in this place that was theres she was his, her climax his to take and he knew this. He gave himself to her, he was hers, his body, his fingers, his mind and creativity and she felt that in the intensity that they shared. Moments … respectful and shared, given and taken with laughter, with connections and with no expectations … the simplicity of it all. Alone in the evening sun, her scent for company and his memory basking in every detail, he watched as the silhouettes of the surfers lifted and fell on the break, the shapes and shadows of their movements projected against the backdrop of the pier they toyed with as they twisted, turned and pumped their boards across the wave of water carrying time. The wooden structure than had stood there since he was a boy. It was always there for him, as each wave came and went. The boy within him, still very much alive, sparked and smiled as he picked up his board and ran towards the ocean. The board cast forward through the surf as he freed himself from the confines of this place and its people.