Undertow: A compilation of short beach stories

by Patricia A. Knight

  “Hell, no.”

  He grunts. “Told Patty I’d keep an eye on Holiday. Make life hard for her girl and you’ll be seeing more of me.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Chapter Eight

  At 6:30 a.m. Monday, the ocean looks still looks rough, and I walk around all sorts of oddities cast up by the storm three days ago—a tennis shoe for the left foot, a toilet seat and a life vest, among other things. I can see the shoe and the life vest, but how do you lose a toilet seat? I missed Max and Snafu. Oh, who am I kidding? Mostly I missed Max. It’s a little scary how much I missed him. Max had texted over the weekend, thank God.

  Max: Only Saturday morning and I miss U. R U wearing Cookie Monster?

  Me: LOL Miss U 2. LOL Yeah, Cookie Monster. Did Fred come?

  Max: Yes. Van will B ready Monday.

  Me: $$$??

  Max: Just a battery cable.

  Me. Phew!

  Max: What’s next on the bucket list?

  Me: LOL you have it. U tell me.

  Max: Lap dance/strip tease

  Me: Gulp

  Max: Only if you want to.

  Me: I want to! Gotta go. Carlos is here. Later! XXOO

  Max: !! Who is Carlos?

  Me: LOL No worries. My catering boss.

  Max: Tell him UR taken.

  Me: I am?

  Max: U R

  Me: 

  I’m taken? I throw my arms in the air and spin in circles, laughing. I’m taken! Carlos watches me through the windshield like I’ve lost my mind. I’m in full possession of my senses. My heart is what I’ve lost.

  As usual, when I get within sight of the estate’s gate, I see the tall profile of Max and the small dark shadow of Snafu and wave. I smile to myself. I’m determined to make this lap dance/strip tease epic to make up for my misplaced knee and over-eager teeth. For inspiration and courage, I’m wearing my Wonder Woman panties. Ha! Max won’t know what hit him.

  This time, Max and Snafu meet me half way and Max carefully braces himself and lifts me off my feet in a big hug.

  “Missed you, Miss Jones.” His hazel eyes twinkle in the early dawn.

  “Missed you, Mr. Harper.” I grin back. My legs wrap around his waist. My arms hug his neck. “The storm washed up some interesting stuff. Want to walk the beach this morning?” Snafu leaps around us, woofing. When Max puts me down, I kneel, hug Snaf’s neck and try to avoid his doggie kisses. I’m not successful and resign myself to a dog-slobber facial. Max chuckles and picks up the tennis ball chucker he’d laid in the sand before he caught me up in an unsteady hug.

  “Sure. Let’s make this interesting. A kiss for every man-made thing we find that isn’t trash.”

  I laugh. “Can I collect on a shoe, a life-vest and a toilet seat I saw on the way here?”

  Max pulls me to him. “Yeah.”

  By the time Max returns me to earth, Miss Kitty is high-stepping it down the middle of I-95, waving a banner that says, “Do me.” I remind myself to check the mail when I get home. The free clinic should be sending my labs any day now.

  ***

  This weekend was an effing endurance contest. I’ve never missed someone so bad in my life. Fuck. I’m waving the white flag, here. Either I’m in love or my PCS has sent me round the bend. All that stupid shit I gave my buddies hell for…the mooning over a picture of their girl or wife, the hours of waiting to get online for ten minutes of Skype, the reading and re-reading of the last letter she sent, the tears, the laughter…I get it. The capper is Holiday’s reference to some Carlos dude. Shit. I want to get in the face of a total stranger.

  Late Sunday, Fred finishes what he can do on the VW. He’s a good guy. If he helps Holiday, I like him. He hands me his bill and I eyeball the list. It comes to $3,381.62. I give him $4,500.

  “That’s for the times you didn’t charge Holiday.”

  Fred stares at my check for a minute. “She know who you are—Maxwell Carlton Harper, III?”

  “No, and Fred, I would like to be the one to tell her.”

  I stand for a good thirty seconds while Fred squints at me. “Word to the wise, son. Tell her before you get in her pants.” His chin jerks in a nod and he gets on his Vespa and pulls out of the drive.

  I stuff my bill in my pocket along with Holiday’s for $12.99. Shit. He’s right. I gotta tell her.

  Holiday and I spend Monday morning walking the beach and throwing the tennis ball for Snafu. My leg hurts like fucking hell the whole time. My knee and ankle hate the shifting sand. By the time we get back to the house, it’s all I can do to hide the pain. I want her attention, her company…not her care. Call it pride…whatever. I’m effing over being seen as damaged. Besides, I’d put up with a whole hell of a lot more to watch her and Snaf play like two puppies. It’s a tossup who loves Holiday more, me or my dog. While we are eating, I pop a pill. I’ve been weaning myself off the Oxys and haven’t taken any in months. But, I’m looking forward to after lunch and I want nothing to spoil the moment.

  Holiday puts the last of the food in the refrigerator and sashays up to me with a sassy quirk of her mouth. “So Mr. Harper, are you ready to let me entertain you?”

  I grab her by her waist and pull her to me. “I believe I’ve been ready for the last half-an-hour, Miss Jones.” She laughs, all sexy and wicked. I get harder.

  “Well, parts of you are ready.” She bats her eyes at me. “I need you to do one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get on Amazon Prime Music and create a playlist of these songs.” She then lists a bunch of songs like Ginuwine’s Pony and Weeknd’s Earned It. They have one theme in common—grinding sex to a heavy bass beat.

  “I can do that.” I smile. “Background music for this afternoon’s entertainment?”

  She bites her lip in a flirty smile and nods.

  “You got it, babe. So…where do you want me?” With a wiggle of her eyebrows, Holiday leads me into the living room and points to the couch.

  “There.” She looks over her shoulder at me as she disappears into my bedroom. “Music, please,” she calls.

  I hook us up with the music she’s asked for. The slow, deep, bass beat reverberates through the Bluetooth speakers and I sit on the sofa where she indicated. I shift several times before I can get the thin cotton of my cargo shorts to stop binding “Rex”. I chuckle to myself. She’s got me using “Rex”.

  Holy fuck. Holiday slinks out of my bedroom in time to the beat of the music. She wears nothing but one of my white, long-sleeve, dress shirts and some shiny, black, sky-high heels that make her legs look a runway to fucking nirvana. I can see her erect nipples through the Egyptian cotton. The message in her eyes pulls a low groan from me. The flirty, bubbly Holiday has disappeared. A full on, come-fuck-me-now woman has replaced her. “Shit, Holiday.”

  “Spread your arms on the back of the couch, Max.” She saunters up to stand between my parted knees. Her body undulates gently to the music. The outside of her thighs brush the inside of mine. Even through the cotton, the electric sensation drives straight to my dick. “Good boy. Now…” she bumps my legs “…spread.” She notices my reaction and grins, a momentary peek at the playful Holiday before the sex goddess reappears. She holds my gaze and runs her clawed hand down the front of my shorts, splitting her fingers around my erection. I groan and shift. She leans forward and tickles her nose along my jaw while below, her body taunts mine with here-then-gone-again pressure. “We have some rules for this game.”

  “Shit, babe.”

  Her low chuckle competes with the pulsing bass for sexy. She pauses by my ear and whispers, “You don’t touch, don’t move from the couch. You don’t talk—no moans, no groans, no sounds, nothing. You initiate nada. Got it, Max?”

  “Shhiiit…”

  She placed a finger across my lips. “That’s the last sound you make until I’m through. Got it, stud?” I nod. “Good. This is going to be epic.” She grins. Her knees straddle one of my legs as she dips and grinds her cro
tch up my thigh to graze my chest with her breasts. Swinging her leg over mine, she reverses position and bends at the waist. My eyes are a foot from the juncture of her thighs and a seriously sexy ass covered in thin blue cotton. She grabs my attention with a sultry look over her shoulder and slips her hands along the inside of her thighs. One hand pauses in the middle of her crotch and fans out as she dips lower from her waist. My eyes follow her hand as she draws her fingers forward, caressing her pussy.

  Ah, fuck. Her panties have a wet spot. Ah shit. I’m dying here but I don’t make a sound. She casts another glance over her shoulder and backs up until she’s almost sitting in my lap. My eyes devour her as she writhes to the music, her ass cheeks and parts between, pressing on my dick and balls. Were we naked, I could grab her waist and fuck her just like this. I fist the couch cushions to keep from moving my hands.

  “You get me so hot, Max.” Holiday holds my gaze over her shoulder and unbuttons the shirt. It slips down her slender back before she pulls it off and drops it on the floor. Her hands run up her sides and cradle her breasts and she turns to face me. God…I want to tell her how pretty she is, instead I smile and put all that I’m feeling into my eyes—which I close promptly when Holiday leans forward and nuzzles her breasts into my face. “I’d love to have your mouth here, Max, sucking on my nipples. Mmm.”

  Oh, fuck, Holiday…me, too.

  Holding my hand in hers, she slithers down the front of me. Her torso pauses immediately over my dick, which raises hell about being confined to base. She rubs ole Rex with her breasts while she slides my middle finger between her lips and mouth fucks it.

  I pretty much lose it right there.

  Arching up, I try to grab her. Holiday springs back, wagging her finger. “Naughty, naughty, Max. I told you. No touching.” Her hips bump to the music. Backing away from me in a sexy slither, Holiday hooks the sides of her panties—oh god, Wonder Woman, how appropriate—and skims them down her legs. I blame my preoccupation with a gloriously flushed and clean-shaven Miss Kitty for not preventing what comes next.

  As she slowly slips one high-heeled shoe out of her panties, holding me in a smoldering gaze, Snafu ambles out of the kitchen and gooses her bare crotch. Holiday yelps. With the heel of one foot caught in Wonder Woman, she loses her balance and tumbles backward over the dog. She lands hard on her right butt cheek and then the back of her head audibly whacks the marble floor. She doesn’t move.

  Ah, fuck. That's not good.

  ***

  “Ouch…owie, owie, owie,” I whisper when the black spots fade and I gingerly feel the back of my head. I’m naked, flat on my back on Max’s marble floor, with four-inch patent leather pumps on my feet and my Wonder Woman panties around one ankle. Sade’s The Sweetest Taboo fills the room. I vaguely remember how I got here. Max’s concerned face fills my vision. To his left is Snafu. “Bad dog,” I croak.

  I defy anyone to remain balanced flamingo-like on one stiletto when a dog sticks their cold nose up their bare nether regions. Nevertheless, I blink back tears of disappointment mixed with frustration. This isn’t how I visualized my strip tease ending. I was killing it. I know I was. A forlorn trickle escapes the corner of my eye and wanders down my temple.

  “Aww, babe. Does it hurt that bad?” I let him think I’m crying because of pain. Max leans in and feathers a kiss on my lips. “Come on…sit up slowly and let me see the back of your head.” His arms surround me and gently sit me up.

  “Could you hand me your shirt, please? The one I took off?”

  “If you insist.” Max grins at me then helps me into his dress shirt. He buttons the front up to my chin and rolls the cuffs up to my wrists. His fingers separate my hair and he peers at the back of my head. “You have a quite a lump, but no broken skin. Come on, let’s get you to the sofa.” Max helps me to my feet. Actually, Max puts me on my feet. I didn’t help much. “Put your arms around my waist, Hol, and I’ll help you into your panties. I get another one of his grins. “Love the Wonder Woman, babe. Let’s get those killer shoes off before you go down again.”

  I lift my leg. Pain streaks up my spine. It’s all I can do to hold each foot up while Max pulls my shoes off. “Max, I think I broke my ass.”

  Max slips my foot through the leg hole in Wonder Woman and pulls her up with a little snap of the waistband. “Yeah. You came down hard on your fourth point of contact.”

  I wrinkle my brow. “What’s a fourth point of contact?”

  “The fourth point of contact is your ass. In Jump School you land a parachute drop on five possible points of contact; one, the balls of your feet; two, the heels of your feet; three, your thighs; four, your ass; and five, your shoulder blades.”

  “What number is your head?”

  Max holds my face between his hands and kisses me again. “No number. The Army discourages using your head as a point of contact. That gets you dead. Okay, let’s try for the sofa.”

  I whimper when I attempt to sit and Max lowers me the last foot. Nausea roils in my stomach from the pounding in my head. “Max, I’m going to be sick.”

  “I’ll get you a waste basket. Don’t move.”

  I’d rather not remember the details of the next couple of hours. After I empty my stomach of everything I’ve consumed today, Max picks me up, carries me into the bedroom and after swapping the dress shirt I’m wearing for a well-worn undershirt, he snugs me into bed.

  “I’m something of an expert on concussions, and you have a concussion. I want you to stay here tonight so I can keep an eye on you. Is there anyone I need to call, like your catering boss?”

  “No.” My head pounds, my butt aches, and my nausea is under only tenuous control. “I just want to close my eyes and sleep.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t let you sleep. I need to make sure you don’t slip into a coma, so I’m going to get in bed and hold you, and you’re going to satisfy my curiosity about everything Holiday Jones for the next twelve hours.”

  Max was as good as his word. He stripped off his cargo shorts, slipped into a pair of sweat pants and crawled into bed with me. I wish I’d been in a better position to appreciate his naked body and to further my acquaintance with Rex.

  “Okay, Miss Jones. What’s your favorite color?”

  “Hot pink.”

  “Favorite flower?”

  “Gardenia. I like the waxy white petals and the smell.”

  “Favorite flavor of popsicle?”

  “Cherry.” I settle next to Max’s body and decide it is almost worth the concussion. Throughout the late afternoon, evening and well into the early morning hours of Tuesday, Max jostles me periodically and asks some random question. I don’t know how he stayed awake. From time to time, Snafu places his head on the side of the bed and snuffles, then goes back and flops down on his dog bed.

  Weak rays of the early morning sun slip through the shutters on the bedroom windows and I realize it is Tuesday. The clock reads 6:05 a.m.—late for me. My head has finally responded to the aspirin Max gave me every four hours and I feel almost human—until I try to move. I yelp softly.

  Max’s sleepy voice resonates in my ear. “Morning. Sore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hmm. What hurts the worst?”

  I move cautiously and inventory my body’s feedback. “Pretty much everything from my shoulders down hates me.” I slooowly roll to my back. “Oh, back of the head is a lot tender.” I peer up at Max’s heavy-eyed, beard-scruffed face. He’s got bad bed-head. One half is flat to his skull and the rest sticks out wildly. He’s so handsome. It’s not fair. I shudder to think what I look like, and surreptitiously, I exhale into my cupped hand and sniff. Not too bad. Max laughs at me. Guess I wasn’t sneaky enough. He leans over, kisses me on the forehead and then rolls out of bed.

  “Let me spend a few minutes in the bathroom, and then it’s all yours.”

  “Okay.” I roll to my side and snuggle back into the covers happy not to move.

  I guess I must have fallen asleep
, because the next time I wake up, I smell coffee. I prop up carefully and glance at the clock. It reads 11:30. “Oh wow…I gotta get up,” I mutter.

  “If you want to stay in bed all day, that’s fine with me.” I hadn’t noticed Max sitting in a chaise lounge in the corner of the bedroom. He’s reading the paper and drinking coffee. Snafu is lying next to him with a hopeful look on his face.

  “Nope. I’m getting up.” I smile. “The bathroom is calling.” I ooze from the bed and Max is there immediately. He helps me gimp to the bathroom. I stop at the door. “Thanks, I can take it from here.”

  “Feel like eating anything?”

  “Oh…coffee would be heaven.”

  “Coffee it is.” He places a quick kiss on my nose. “I’ll be back.”

  On the granite counter by the sink, a toothbrush, still in its package, and a travel size tube of toothpaste stick out of a tumbler. Next to the glass rests a towel and clean washcloth with one of those guest soaps in the shape of a seashell. I hold it to my nose. Gardenia. Awww…how thoughtful. I sigh. I love you, Max. As soon as I have the thought, the truth of it hits me. I do love Max Harper. I smile to myself in the mirror as I brush my teeth. I’m in love with Max Harper, and I’m very hopeful he likes me more than a little.

  After taking care of my immediate needs, I wander out of the bathroom in search of my backpack. It has a change of clothes. I shouldn’t spend the day wearing only Max’s t-shirt and my Wonder Woman panties. I shouldn’t spend the day with him, period. I’m sure Max has work he’s put off, and the last thing I want is to get him in trouble with his employer. I should get The Wombat, go home, feed Rover and check my mail. I don’t want to…but I should.

  I pad into the kitchen. Max is standing with both arms outstretched against the kitchen counter watching the coffee maker as if it will cease to exist if he takes his eyes off it.

  He looks up and smiles but doesn’t move. “Hey. Making you a fresh pot.”