Digressions Into Erotica

watch the aftershocks twitching through you.

I want more…but this isn’t about me, so rest your hand on my head as my signal to leave, and I’ll rise, slowly back away, and disappear into the shadows.

Life’s a Beach

Being a single mother is no day at the beach. Sandy finds an unexpected treasureon her trip to the shore.

My bare thighs peeled from the hot, sticky car seat, and my children tumbled out the passenger door. Clutched in their sweaty hands were pails stuffed with shovels, rakes, goggles, floaties, and nose plugs. A day at the beach: what a concept. I checked the contents of my bag, making sure I had everything a mother would possibly need in any given scenario-which, as it turned out, boiled down to fluorescent bandages, sunscreen, juice boxes, and peanut butter crackers. Fine.

Now I only needed Mommy’s bag. This one contained the latest wisecracking female detective novel, sunscreen that didn’t smell like bubblegum, a large blanket, and a few icy cold beers tucked into a miniature soft- sided cooler. Scoff if you will, but Mommy needed a break. And there wasn’t nearly enough alcohol in those three cans of brew to numb my super-refined Mommy senses; adrenaline can do wonders for a buzz.

I slung both bags over my shoulder, grabbed my boom box and bumped the car door shut with my hip. I could see the kids running headlong at the water, and prayed they already heard my voice in their heads screaming, Stop!

I chuckled when both screeched to a cartoonish halt at the water’s edge and peered over their shoulders, willing me to Hurry up, Mom! Good boys. I’ll be there when I get there.

I stumbled through the sand, trying to look languid and effortless like they do in the commercials. I saw a few heads turn my way. It’s fun to pretend they’re noticing me-for maybe a second.

My boys dumped a good deal of their belongings in a heap at the foot of the Life Guard…er…super-tall chair thingy. Not exactly the spot I would have chosen, but it was hot, and my back already hurt from leaning to the side to counterbalance the thousand pounds of beach paraphernalia. So I dumped my burdens in an equally unceremonious heap and began the preparation stage of relaxation.

As I snapped my blanket in the breeze and let it fall to the sand, my attention wandered toward the splintery, whitewashed ladder to my immediate left. My gaze hit the top of the ladder and kept going, and oh, my goodness. Some very tanned toes hung over the edge of the platform. Above those sprawled miles of very tanned shins, which led to knees that were resting so far apart I could see right up the leg of the baggy red swim shorts. Oh!

It was suddenly very loud inside my head, what with the blood rushing to my face and all, and I realized my attention had been fixed for an unnecessarily long time. I realized there was an entire person attached to ‘that very spot’, and my gaze snapped to a very tanned face and into very green eyes, which were looking directly at me. There was a bemused smile beneath. It made me feel ‘oogie’, as my eight-year-old would say.

In an attempt to save a tiny bit of dignity, I busied myself preparing my little oasis, wishing it wouldn’t be obvious if I were to pack up my stuff and lug it to another location far, far away. But it really would, so I grabbed my book, spread out on the blanket, and turned my music on, nice and low. My gaze flicked over the top of the book every so often, to see my boys obediently staying in the shallows, splashing and giggling and running. I smiled to myself. What good boys-and what a nice early bedtime it will be tonight!

The sun was so brilliant that for a moment I closed my eyes. Okay, it ended up being for a couple of moments. And while I was soaking the sun through my eyelids, a shadow loomed over me. Expecting it to be a passing fellow beach goer, I didn’t pay the shadow or the shooshing noise of the approaching footsteps much attention, aside from wishing the shadow’s owner would get the heck out of my sun. But the footsteps stopped right next to me, and the shadow loomed closer.

I cracked open my left eye and squinted attractively at the offending menace. Oh.

Directly in front of my face was a very tanned knee. And, again, from my angle, I could see right up the baggy red swim shorts. Oh, my. Again my gaze snapped to the face, and the very green eyes, and that damned bemused smile. What’s so funny? The fact that my eyes are the size of saucers? Or is it my flaming red cheeks that bear a startling resemblance to those baggy red swim shorts?

“Sandy, right?” the bemused smile said.

Wait. What?

“Do I know you?” I asked. I casually scrambled into an upright position, all the while averting my gaze from the ‘spot’.

He angled his bottom so that it landed on my blanket in front of me. A raised eyebrow capped one green eye. “I’m Seth. Sheryl’s brother? You know, from work?” I needed one of those icy cold beers. I rummaged around in the little cooler and pulled one out. I held it to my forehead for a second. That did it.

“Hey! You’re Seth! Sheryl-from-work’s brother! I know you!” Because I’m smooth,that’s why. Shut up.

The bemused smile turned into a chuckle, and he nodded his head in agreement. Yes, he was in fact Sheryl- from-work’s brother. And I had certainly noticed him before, but at the time, he’d had more clothes on, and was just Sheryl-from-work’s brother-you know what I mean.

“Yeah. So, how’s it going?”

Oh, good, small talk. What better way to make an uncomfortable situation unbearably mortifying?

“Oh, you know. The usual-neglect the children, work a bunch, get paid very little for my troubles and, um, go to the beach…” Best to just trail off before you swallow your tongue from all the smooth rolling off, I always say.

“Huh. Yeah. I hear ya. Those your kids?” He indicated with his head, since his arms were too busy being draped over his knees.

“Yup. Well, two of them are mine. The two that look like me.” He laughed again and shook his head.

“You’re kinda nuts, you know that?” Pfft! Kinda. Before I could dazzle him with any more brilliant conversation, he asked the most peculiar question. “So, did Sheryl talk to you?”

“Seth. Sheryl talks to me every day. We sit right next to each other.” He shook his head again. “No, I mean, about me.” Huh?

“Huh?” I felt the need to remove my sunglasses so he could see that my eyes were clear, perhaps dismiss the idea that I was in a drug-induced haze. Yes, I realized this might show him how clearly borderline I was, but I preferred him to think I was slightly erratic, rather than drugged up at the beach with my kids.

So, he was chuckling at me again, but looking right at my face-right into my eyes, actually. And he looked sort of…disturbed, himself. “So, I’ve been thinking…I mean, I was wondering-do you want to do something, sometime?” Did that just happen? Let’s rewind. Yadda, yadda, thinking…yadda, yadda, do something? Okay, I’m a divorced mother of two bouncing boys, and you’re a…well…a very tanned individual. And I’ve already seen your package-twice.

“Sure.” Hey! Had I just said that? “That’d be nice.” Wow! I was really thinking on the fly. Smooth. Yup. That’s me.

Seth seemed to be examining his fingernails really closely all of a sudden. Alarms went off in my head.

“Well, um…how soon can you get a babysitter?” He mumbled into his cuticles.

“How soon do I need one?” I have to admit, it had been a long time for me. Since the divorce. I hadn’t wanted to deal with anything else, and I hadn’t wanted my kids to either.

“Tonight? Say, sevenish?” He said the last part as he chewed on his nail and scanned the beach with Life Guard eyes.

“Okay, yeah! So…okay.” I am too smooth. Everything in me wanted to jump up, grab a boy under each arm and squeal the tires on my way out of the parking lot, just to make it seven sooner.

“Cool.” He pulled out his cell phone. “What’s your number?” I rattled it off, all the while amazed that he was actually saving it in his phone. “Okay, I gotta get back up there. Keep the beaches safe and stuff…”