He yelled at her, We must beat the curl and his voice was far away and
almost lost in the roar of water, but obediently she went forward on her
board until all her bare toes were curled over the leading edge.
For long moments they held their own, then slowly they began to gain,
and at last they shot out through the open mouth of the tunnel into the
sunlight again, and she laughed wildly, still high on the exultation of
fresh terror.
Then they were past the reef and the wave firmed up, leaving the white
water like lace on the surface far behind.
Let's go. right! Samantha sang out to stay within the good structure
of the wave, and they turned and went back, swinging across the steep
face. The splatter of flung water sparkled on her belly and thighs, and
the plait of her hair stood out behind her head like the tail of an
angry lioness, her arms were extended and her hands held open,
unconsciously making the delicate finger gestures of a Balinese temple
dancer as she balanced; and miraculously the porpoise swam, fill up,
beside her, following like a trained dog.
Then at last, the wave felt the beach and ran berserk, tumbling wildly
upon itself, booming angrily, and churning the sand like gruel, and they
kicked out of the wave, falling back over the crest and dropping into
the sea beside the bobbing boards, laughing and panting at each other
with the excitement and terror and the joy of it.
Samantha was a sea-creature with a huge appetite for the fruits of the
sea, cracking open the crayfish legs in her fingers and sucking the
white sticks of flesh into her mouth with a noisy sensuality, while her
lips were polished with butter sauce, not taking her eyes from his face
as she ate.
Samantha in the candlelight gulping those huge Knysna oysters, and then
slurping the juice out of the shells.
You're talking with your mouth full. It's just that I've still got so
much to tell you, she explained.
Samantha was laughter, laughter in fifty different tones and
intensities, from the sleepy morning chortle when she awoke and found
him beside her, to the wild laughter yelled from the crest of a racing
wave.
Samantha was loving. With a face of thundering innocence and the
virginal, guileless green eyes of a child, she combined hands and a
mouth whose wiles and wicked cunning left Nick stunned and disbelieving.
The reason I ran away without a word was that I did not want to have
your ravishment and violation on my conscience/ he shook his head at her
disbelievingly.
I wrote my PhD thesis in those subjects/ she told him blithely, using
her forefinger to twist spit-curls in his sweat-dampened chest hairs.
And what's more, buster, that was just the introductory offer - now we
sign you up for a full course of treatment. Her delight in his body was
endless, she must touch and examine every inch of it, exclaiming and
revelling in it without a trace of self-consciousness, holding his hand
in her lap and bending her head studiously over it, tracing the lines of
his palm with her fingernail.
