It almost works, though I know it’s not how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to go further down, but whenever I try loads of water goes in my tube and by the time I’ve managed to sort that out I’m bobbing back up to the surface.
Apparently, it’s really hard to stay down – which seems like the opposite problem to the one everyone else has. Other people sink the minute they step into the water, and then have to paddle frantically to remain afloat. Whereas I appear to be so naturally buoyant I’m surprised gravity is able to hold me down. I should shoot off into the atmosphere the moment I leave the house.
All of which is embarrassing enough on its own, without Steven seeing me do it. Despite his massive size, he’s become really stealthy. He’s gotten creeping up on me down to a fine art, and this is no exception. I stop staring down at my toes and some random things that could possibly be fish, and am greeted by the sight of him, somehow suddenly in the water with me.
I didn’t even hear a splash. Possibly he’s a champion diver, and I just didn’t know it – after all, there are a ton of other things I didn’t know about him before this holiday. I didn’t know he could be sensitive, and apologetic. I hadn’t realised that he enjoys having conversations with me, or at least is getting good at pretending he does.
And most of all, I never knew that he had such a hairy chest.
Because he does. It’s utterly and completely hairy in a way I’ve never imagined before – even though I haven’t been imagining, honest to God. It’s just that in most of my totally innocent mind wanderings, his chest is usually completely smooth. As though men as muscular as he is can’t possibly have body fur.
They have to be waxed. It’s in the Mr Universe handbook.
Only Steven doesn’t abide by the Mr Universe handbook. He’s not even into his body in that way – he just enjoys doing stuff that makes him all massive, like extreme rock climbing or doing that long walk Stephen King talked about. So I’m not sure why I assumed he was down the waxing place daily, getting stripped and buffed and coated in fake tan. He’s actually pretty pale.
And very manly. Extraordinarily manly. Oh Jesus, he’s so manly I’ve lost the ability to greet him in a normal fashion. I just bob there for a long, long time, instead, thinking about his personal grooming regimen. Then, once everything’s turned weird and the silence is like a gong going off between us, the pressure to say something just overwhelms me.
I can’t speak because I didn’t speak before. I’m relying on him, but he’s not speaking either. We’re just floating around in the brilliant blue Mediterranean, staring at each other in a way that’s starting to make my face heat, again. The cool water should be keeping me at an even temperature, but apparently it has no control over my disobedient cheeks.
I’m so relieved when he finally breaks this bizarre tension and speaks.
Even though he says the following:
‘I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit before.’
Now I’m not only aware of this weird heaviness between us, but how bare my body is too. I thought I’d be safe because he was still sleeping when I got up, and I assumed he’d never come looking for me in the water.
But I can see now how stupid that assumption was. I based it on the old feeling of Steven isn’t interested in me. Instead of the new feeling of Jesus Christ, he’s interested in me all the fucking time. He’s so interested that he’s bobbing about a foot from me at six in the morning, and the first thing he chooses to say is about something I’m wearing.
And then he looks at the thing I’m wearing. He’s looking at me everywhere, in fact. His eyes feel like hands, slowly discovering my cheeks and my lips and my shoulders, in tiny sections. As though he’s somehow gone blind and needs to feel me out, despite the fact that his sight is perfectly operational.
He can see me. It’s just that I’ve never been seen like this, before.
This is intense. I want to tell him to stop, but he isn’t actually doing anything wrong. I can’t tell him to stop when he isn’t doing anything wrong. It will only draw attention to something that’s only in my imagination, as with the spider in my hair and the boob-looking and the feeling that I’m being crushed by a sexual tension that doesn’t actually exist.
It’s best to just keep avoiding it. Keep avoiding it. Here, look at me, avoiding it!
‘I was just snorkelling.’
‘Is that what you call the thing you were doing? Huh.’
‘Don’t insult the thing I was doing! Making a dangling hook of your body is really hard, OK? As is barely touching the water with your goggles.’
He laughs for that, and I’m grateful. Until I remember that spontaneous laughter and bantering like this has all the hallmarks of flirting. Dear God, are we flirting?
‘How are you even holding your body like that? I’m betting you have secret muscles in your boobs. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Dude, that’s you. You have boob muscles. Look at them: you could model a Wonderbra with those things. They could double for pillows.’
Yeah, this is definitely flirting. I can tell, because it’s the opposite to whatever me and Frank used to do. Once, we had a conversation about whether or not peanuts are really legumes. It seems hard to believe, now, as I fall down some internal stairs and into the mess of Steven Stark.
Did I just talk about his boob pillows?
I think I did.
‘I genuinely can’t tell if that’s a compliment, an insult, or a by-product of your manboob terror. Either way, I’m probably going to smush them against your face, now.’
‘No you’re not.’
Oh my God, I think he is.
‘Just hold still. You’ll barely feel a thing.’
‘Is that what you told your last one-night stand?’
‘OK, you’re seriously going to get it, now.’
‘No, don’t. Don’t, I take it back. I take it back!’ I say, but it’s too late. My efforts at deflecting him with semi-insults only make him more determined – as though I enraged a bull. I questioned his manliness and now he’s going to get me in a kind of headlock.
No, really. That’s what he does. He jumps on me and gets me in a headlock, like he used to do when I was 12 and deserving of noogies. I almost expect him to start knuckling my hair, even though I know this version of playground antics is not quite as innocent as it should be. I can’t really tell myself otherwise, when he’s practically humping my cheek with his gigantic chest muscles. A nipple nearly pokes me in the eye. Below the surface, our legs tangle briefly.
And then after a while he’s just kind of – hugging me. Only it’s a strange, breathless sort of hug. I can feel his chest rising and falling, and deeper down, the crazy thud of his heartbeat. Of course, I’ve no clue why it’s crazily thudding – I don’t think he wrestled with me that hard. But it’s an oddly comforting sound, either way.
It makes my own rattling heartbeat feel less insane.
‘Yeah, you like my chest now,’ he says, and then I realise what I’m doing: I’m just sort of resting on him, even though we’re both upright. And even stranger – I don’t really care all that much. He started it, anyway.
‘I did admit that your pecs are like pillows. What do you expect me to do?’
‘Nothing. I’m glad you’re doing this.’
He sounds so excruciatingly sincere for a second that I almost ask “are you really?” Before I catch myself, and throttle back. “Are you really?” is a much too timid question to go with. It sounds so full of daft hope, in my head.
I can’t do it.
But I can at least remain where I am, which is definitely progress. It’s not flinging a pizza at people, or shaking his hand as though I’m a T-Rex. And I don’t feel weird when he does some other nice thing.
‘Want me to help you snorkel?’ he asks – which is lovely of him, even if I now have to explain that the problem isn’t exactly snorkelling.
‘It’s not that I can’t do the breathing stuff. It’s the diving I
have trouble with. I don’t seem to want to go down.’
‘Oh, that’s so disappointing,’ he says, and at first I don’t get it. It’s only after he’s laughed and swiftly changed the subject that my face burns and my body turns to goo – he meant the other implication of going down. He made a euphemistic sex joke in my presence, even though he has to know how little I’m built to cope with that.
I think I go stiff in his arms, about a second before he rushes on:
‘I mean, uh, yeah. That’s not a problem,’ he says, then in a way that suggests he can’t stop himself, ‘I’ll help you go down.’
Of course, he hesitates for a while before he goes with it. He obviously felt me get all nervous, and thought I needed a grace period. But in the end I’m kind of glad he decides to keep this euphemism stuff up. It means, at the very least, that he thinks I can take it. And maybe eventually it will start to be more fun, and light hearted – like we’re becoming friends again.
Only now we’re adult friends, who tell risqué, adult jokes.
Jokes that make me tingle, in place I shouldn’t be tingling.
‘Here, climb on my back.’
Did he just say “climb on my back”? I really wish he’d stop with the stuff I can hardly believe he’s letting out. It’s like he’s talking another language. I can’t possibly obey him, because I don’t understand Stevenish. I just have to rely on him guiding me into whatever he wants, though that’s hard enough on its own.
He sort of … slides me around his body, as though I’m a hula hoop. A really clingy hula hoop. And once he’s finished rubbing me all over himself – because that’s essentially what this manoeuvre amounts to – he takes hold of both my hands, and makes me link them around his neck.
And yes, I realise that none of this should be sexy. My nether parts shouldn’t be tingling again, because he’s now holding me to his back like a slippery, fleshy rucksack. Yet somehow, it’s happening anyway. I’m very aware of various parts of myself that keep rubbing against various parts of him – like my nipples over his shoulder blades. And there’s something about his hips being between my thighs, even though we’re the wrong way around for that sort of thought.
I mean, it’s not like I’m going to pound him.
Or that the idea of pounding him gets me even more excited.
‘OK, link your legs around me.’
He can’t be serious with this stuff.
‘Why do I need my legs linked around you?’
‘Because I get off on feeling your vagina pressing into my lower back … Come on, Jude. So I can dive without you falling off.’
‘You’re going to dive with me on your back?’ I actually let out a little incredulous laugh, in spite of my current stupefied state of arousal. ‘I don’t think that’s going to work out.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘You holding on?’
‘Well, yeah, but –’
‘Take a deep breath.’
‘What? Steven –’
‘Deep breath!’
Of course I do it, but even as I’m gulping down air I don’t really expect him to succeed. I’m pretty sure I’ll get my face splashed and maybe thrash around in the water with him for a second, before he realises it’s impossible – though I’m not exactly averse to this scenario. He can thrash me any time, and especially after actually mentioning my unmentionables.
I mean, he did say vagina, didn’t he? And if he did, then how come it sounded so exciting? Vagina is pretty much the least exciting word in the world. It’s something your doctor says to you shortly before he invades it with what looks like a weapon from our robotic future.
It’s not sexy.
I’ve just gone insane. And I go more insane when he strikes into the water like a seal, towing me with him. He just does it as though it’s nothing, while I marvel over everything like a moron. I can feel his muscles working against my body, and see his arms making these great, muscular arcs through the water. I’m not even paying attention to the things I’m supposed to – such as fish, and other aquatic wonders – because watching him is almost hypnotic. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’d notice a fish, if it floated by.
The lesser spotted Steve Stark has my undivided attention.
And though I know I should feel weird about that, for the first time I actually don’t. The cement seal over my crush has cracked and given way, a little, but I don’t mind. He’s the one letting me put my arms around him. He’s the one diving with me like this. I’m allowed to show a crumb of affection towards him, when that’s the case.
Aren’t I?
At the very least, he doesn’t seem bothered by my excitement. In fact, he’s the opposite of bothered. When we break the surface and I let out a little giddy yelp, he briefly puts his hands behind himself, so he can give me a squeeze. And he laughs too. He laughs and tells me “ready to go again”, in a way that reminds me keenly of the fun we used to have. A pang goes through my body to hear it, a second before he plunges us into the water again.
But it’s a good pang. And it gets easier as we wile away this time, talking in the same way we used to – like friends, I think, like good friends. We’ll never be anything more – I know that now – but I’m happy with nothing at all if nothing at all is this. For a good few hours it’s akin to being in a movie, swimming through water as blue as Steven’s eyes, with him as my own personal merman.
He dives down deeper when I ask him to, to the point where his fingers almost graze the rolling hills of sand below. And when I pat him he surges back up again, through streams of suddenly startled fish and onward, to the surface. Then once we’ve broken through, the first thing he always does is ask me, ‘You OK? You still breathing?’
Like it matters to him.
‘Just let me know when you want to stop,’ he says, and I answer him in my head:
Never. Never never never. Just let me stay in the movie Splash, for ever.
Chapter Three
I can’t deny that, from this point on, the holiday is awesome. It was already going that way around the time he touched my hair, but after the gender-switched version of a Tom Hanks film, I’m practically stuffed full of happiness. I feel as light as he made me seem, while diving through the Mediterranean waters. A weight I wasn’t aware of has been lifted.
We’re friends again, I think. I have my buddy back. I don’t have to worry that he’s going to say something cruel, because now he’s aware that I have feelings. And I’m not in any danger of touching him in a way that screams something other than friendship, because he keeps touching me like that first.
He can hardly make fun of me for having a crush on him, when he’s busy grabbing my hand and giving me piggyback rides. By this point, I’d pretty much have to climb on his dick to meet the criteria for unusually affectionate behaviour. I’m safe, I think. I’m totally safe. I get to hang out with him without fear of reprisals, secure in our friendship.
It’s wonderful.
If somewhat confusing, on occasion. Like now, when he comes up behind me as I’m stood making drinks. Kimberley wants a Screwdriver and Jason is after some whisky on the rocks, and I’m thinking I’ll have something chockfull of fruit with 17 umbrellas, and right in the middle of all of this normality Steven is suddenly really, really close to me in a darkened room.
Because now he’s here, it does seem very darkened. There’s only a bit of sunset light coming in through the porthole over my bed, and everything else is practically pitch black. I’m not even sure why I was attempting to make drinks in this gloom – though I accept that his presence is making everything a bit more shadowy and fraught.
Why is he just stood there? Why hasn’t he said anything? He usually says something to announce himself, like “hey, look at me being all massive and funny!” But right now he’s very quiet, and even closer than I initially imagined. It’s just that he’s behind me so I couldn’t quite see, but now that I’m paying attention I can feel the ma
terial of his T-shirt brushing my bare shoulder blades.
I wish I hadn’t allowed my shoulder blades to go bare. I went with this little light sundress due to no longer being afraid of what he might say – but it seems like a hideous mistake, at the moment. It’s putting me on high alert, even though he probably means nothing by this sudden closeness. He just came down to help me with the drinks, I think.
And then he puts his hands on my waist.
He puts his hands on my waist.
Suddenly, that rational voice in my head is speaking in a panicked squeak. He’s just being super friendly, it cries. Don’t read anything into this. You’re friends, now, best friends for ever no take backs oh God please no take backs.
But I think it might be wrong.
I mean, granted. The sundress is very thin, and is probably making his touch far ruder than it should feel. The fine, near-slippery material rubs against my over-heated skin with very little movement from him, at all. Plus his hands are really massive, so when he touches you in one place, it kind of feels like he’s touching you everywhere.
It could just be my sex-starved imagination, working overtime.
And yet somehow, I know it isn’t.
Something is weird and different here, in a way I shouldn’t be able to recognise. I’ve never had someone just spontaneously make a pass at me like this, and I’m not used to the feeling. There’s all of this strange tension, to the point where my hair is actually bristling on the back of my neck. I’m excited before I’m sure I should be excited.
But that’s OK. Because a second later he makes it really, really clear. He simply slides one of those big hands right up to cup one of my breasts, and just when I’m able to process that little move, he tugs at the material until the buttons pop open, and pushes his hand inside.
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