by Cara McKenna
By then it was approaching noon, and the hike and fishing lesson had burned away the memory of the oatmeal.
“Picnic time?” Merry asked.
Rob was crouched at the water’s edge, rinsing scales from his palms. “In a bit, I thought, if you can wait.”
She pouted. “Not ages, but fine. A little while longer.”
“I fancy a swim first.”
She hesitated, ages-old insecurities surfacing. She’d swam naked plenty on this trip, but never with a witness. And the sun wasn’t nearly as forgiving as the golden glow of an oil lantern. “I’m keeping my underwear on,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t name her a prude for this. “In case any hikers turn up.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you like.”
“Good.” If she was doing this, the quicker the better—the quicker she was stripped, the less time she’d spend on land with the sun highlighting every imperfection and stretch mark.
You’re too old to have these stupid hang-ups, she scolded herself. But she did have them, and might always have them. What mattered was that she had them, but she no longer let them keep her from doing things. They poked her still, but their bullying didn’t keep her in hiding anymore. She hadn’t ever thought about it like that, and the realization made her smile. Yes, I’ll probably feel this shit forever. But the difference is, now I can say, “Fuck you, feelings. I’ve got a life to live.”
She unrolled her pants and laid them over a big rock so the sun might dry them. The sound of splashing turned her head—Rob was wading with purpose out into the water, wearing only his shorts. She could read in his knotted back muscles how cold it was, but he dove in heedlessly, resurfacing with a shake of his head. He swam for the middle of the loch, giving Merry a chance to strip to her athletic bra in relative privacy, then dodge the sharper rocks en route to the water’s edge.
“Oh, fuck me.” Cold. Cold cold cold. She sloshed forward, quick as her quaking legs could carry her, and took the plunge. The water enveloped her in a shock of sensation, and in its wake came the predictable adjustment.
“Hooo . . .” She breathed deep, waiting as the racking shivers subsided, blinking water from her eyes. “Okay. Okay.” She’d made such a dunk a dozen times on this trip, but after these few days by the comfort of Rob’s stove . . . It was funny how quickly standards recalibrated themselves.
Rob was treading water some ways off, and she dog-paddled to him. She wasn’t a strong swimmer. She’d been plump since she was a little kid, and she hadn’t been seen at a beach or pool without at least a long tee covering her, not since puberty and its attending self-consciousness had arrived. Hadn’t ventured into the water for nearly as long. Sad but true—it had taken only a single mean boy’s taunt of “Thar she blows!” to ruin swimming for her for the next twenty years.
That poor little girl. With twenty years’ distance, Merry could view her kid-self with detachment, and her heart ached for that child, and for a zillion others just like her. Why did the cruelest words have the sharpest barbs? Why did they stick, while the kind ones fell away so quickly?
Rob’s smile pulled her out of the sad thoughts. The sun was high, casting his features in dramatic contrast, making him look all the more wild and handsome and interesting.
That’s my lover. Who I met on my big adventure with my hard-earned new body.
The angst drifted off behind her, forgotten. Surely she’d never have been able to appreciate these changes if she hadn’t been that scared girl for so long. Be thankful for that. You’ll never take these things for granted.
“That’s quite a technique you’ve got,” Rob teased. “Didn’t you grow up on the ocean?”
“Shush. I dog-paddle at an Olympic level.”
He drew closer to tread water a couple feet from her. The rope around his wrist flashed with every rolling stroke, and Merry smiled to herself, nerves abandoned. You make this man helpless. Don’t forget that.
“You look pretty with your hair wet,” he said. “And your eyelashes all spiky.”
“So do you.”
He smiled, broad enough to showcase those nice teeth. Rob’s secret wolf-smile. A little closer he came, closer, until their pumping arms bumped playfully, knees brushing. He hazarded a kiss, their mouths managing to meet for erratic, fervent moments, leaving them both giggling.
“I want to kiss you properly,” he said. “Let’s head toward the shallow end.”
They paddled until Merry’s feet found a weedless patch of pebbles. The water lapped at their shoulders, Rob crouching to keep their faces level. She felt his hands on her waist, then his thighs as he came near. Her eyes closed, and then it was his mouth on hers, so warm.
A perfect kiss, its heat trickling through her chest and middle, lighting a bright and crackling fire to spite the cold water.
Leaving her lips, he nuzzled her neck, teeth gently nipping. One of his arms breached the surface, his hand holding her shoulder tightly. Possessively. Cool drips slipped from their wet hair to dot her exposed skin, but Merry shivered from so much more.
“You’re supposed to be the incapacitated one,” she breathed, toying with the sodden, braided hemp at his wrist.
His voice scalded her skin. “Rope’s wet. It’s lost its power.” A strong hand moved down her back, along her waist, around her hip. She did as it asked, widening her stance, and he cupped her sex.
“Oh.” The heat of his hand grew with each second, and her blood flooded eagerly to the spot. For long moments he did nothing more than hold his palm to her. Then the length of one finger pressed along her lips, then drew back, glancing her clit. She shivered, shocked by the contact and by the cold that palmed her in Rob’s stead. The air prickled as she looped her arms around his neck, every sensation electrified. His touch was soft, slow, subtle, but it stoked her excitement as readily as the most brazen friction.
He abandoned her sex to tug at her waistband. “Can I . . . ?”
She did it for him, pushing her panties down and letting them float around her feet, tethered to one ankle. Then, she shocked herself—she grasped her bra’s band and peeled the thing up and over her head. Without a thought. Without scanning for witnesses. Without fear. She gave the thing a mighty lassoing twirl and flung it to shore, laughing. Rob smiled, and she wondered if he knew how significant that act was; if it had an equivalent in his own collection of worries, so many of which he’d already bared to her.
Again, that unfinished question. “Can I . . . ?”
She nodded, and gently, so gently, his hands moved, cradling her defenseless flesh, anchoring it with firm reassurance. Her eyes shut once more and she held him tightly, nails digging at his back. His lips coaxed hers to part, and his kisses were reverent, exploratory, curious. She met his eyes as he broke away. Blue as the sky, it seemed.
“I’ve never done this,” he murmured. “Kissed anyone in the water.”
“Me, neither.”
“I never did a million things, it feels like, until I met you.”
His words made her sinuses sting. “Me, neither.”
Her breasts were warm from his palms, the rest of her held in the loch’s cool thrall.
“Rob.”
His name seemed to spur something, snap him out of spacey admiration. Cold water caught her flesh as his hands drifted—one to her back, the other between her legs. Merry felt the rope brush between her thighs, its scratchiness dulled but no less exotic. The locked muscle of his arm glanced her breast as his fingers stroked her, and for once she didn’t shy from the contact.
His touch was a flame in the darkness, a single point of heat in this chilly sea. Two points, when his warm mouth brushed hers, moving back and forth, back and forth, not a kiss so much as a grazing of lips and noses and chins. The sweetest seduction, mirrored by the baser caresses he gave her beneath the surface, locked in a muted, alien i
ntimacy. Those caresses flashed on and off, hot and cold, hot and cold, and stole the breath from her lungs.
It was building. Pleasure. Never in the water, never standing up, never outside, never so naked . . . but she felt it growing, the need and heat, an inevitable thing. A promise his fingertips whispered against her clit, again, again, again.
His mouth was at her temple, words like a summer breeze on her skin. “I want to make you feel good.”
Her head was spinning. “You are.”
“Tell me how to . . . to make you come.”
“Just keep doing what you are.”
He did, and the pleasure grew in steady strokes, leaving her dizzy. She clutched his hard, fidgeting arm, needing an anchor.
“Please, Merry.”
“I will. Don’t stop.” Her eyes opened and closed, seeking a glimpse of his face or stubble or blue eyes, then shutting, overwhelmed by the intensity she found burning there.
“Oh . . .”
The climax was like nothing she’d felt before—a physical, living thing, coaxed and lured by Rob’s touch until it surfaced, bursting open in a flash of heat and electricity.
“Oh my.” She found her hands on his shoulders, knuckles bleached white. They flushed pink as she softened her grip, the effect like magic in her delightfully addled state.
He wasn’t crouching anymore, but smiling down at her, lips level with her forehead, hands at her hips. The water lapped icy-cold against her fevered clit. Fascinating. She let her hands slide down Rob’s chest and belly, but he caught her wrists before she could return the favor.
“Don’t.”
“You sure?”
A sharp edge glinted along his smile now. “Make me wait.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Sure as this rope is driving me insane,” he said and planted a kiss at her hairline.
“As you wish.” After another minute’s soft kisses, the water gripped her tight in its cold fist. She shivered, the change not lost on Rob.
He stepped back a pace. “Better get you dried off and warmed up.”
“Hungry yet?”
“In far more ways than one.”
Merry scanned the perimeter, but found it as isolated as ever. She pulled her bottoms back up her legs and resisted the urge to cover her breasts as they splashed ashore. Rob stole a couple glances at her, and she let him. His admiration felt like sunshine on her naked skin, and her heart broke for the woman she’d been for so long, always running for the shadows.
She wrestled her wet bra on, almost sad to cover up. But her dry, warm clothes felt good, the way they stuck to her damp skin. A sensation she’d forgotten before this trip, buried with a million other childhood memories.
Once dressed, Rob stowed his flies and unscrewed the fishing pole at its joints. With his hair dripping dark patches down his shirt, still-rolled-up jeans showcasing those muscular calves . . . He looked like a page out of an outdoor gear catalog. The kind Merry had perused while preparing for this trip, mentally dog-earing fantasy flings from some life she’d hoped to one day live—and, miraculously, currently was living. Weird.
She uncinched her bag, pulled out the fleece throw she’d packed, and found a flat patch of sandy ground.
Rob joined her with the Thermos, and they sat facing the water. Nice as the sun was, it didn’t feel half as pure and warm as this man’s nearness, Merry decided.
“Worked up an appetite, I trust?” His sidelong smile was wicked.
“However did you guess?”
“I have my sources. What’s for lunch?”
“I’ve brought a selection of delicacies, including . . .” She pulled out a bag of cashews and tossed it between them on the blanket, followed by jerky, fruit leather, trail mix, and her very last little sack of coveted macadamias.
Rob’s gaze moved over the collection. “Five-course meal—you spoil me.”
“Not very thrilling, I know.”
“Are you mad?” He picked up a packet. “Have you any idea how long it’s been since I’ve tasted a macadamia nut?”
“Oh, well. We’ll save those for last, then.”
“And I might get lucky and bag a pheasant now and then, but certainly not . . .” He picked up another bag. “Hot and spicy turkey jerky. Very exotic, trust me.” He opened the zipper seal and took a deep sniff, eyes closing like he was visited by a powerful memory. “Yes. That’ll do.”
“I figured you’d be sick to death of hiking snacks . . . though I didn’t spot much of this stuff in your cupboards, now that I think about it. Does that go along with your do-everything-the-hard-way philosophy?”
“As I said, I like the hassle.” He tried a piece of jerky, chewing thoughtfully, then blinking quite a lot.
“Too spicy?”
His cheeks went pink, but he didn’t cough or tear up. “Nearly. Hoo. I’m afraid any spice tolerance I ever built up has abandoned me.”
She stole the bag and selected a thick strip for herself. “My grandma—on my dad’s side—grew up outside Guadalajara. I was weaned onto hot foods at a young age.”
Rob unscrewed the Thermos and poured coffee into the cap, passing it over. He took a slug straight from the mouth, squinting thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think you’ve even told me your surname.”
“It’s Murray.”
“Ah. Your mum’s name, I take it.”
“Yeah. Merry Murray.”
“Oh, right. That’s very . . .”
“Perky?”
He smiled. “Yes, very.”
“Merry Murray. And Rob Rush,” she added. “We sound like cartoon characters. Are you a Robert?”
“I am.”
“Middle name?”
“Don’t have one. Does yours begin with M?”
“No, it’s Lucia. My mom let my dad pick it. That was his grandma’s name.”
“Merry Lucia. That’s quite nice.”
“Thanks.”
“Your dad’s gay, you said?”
She nodded, sipping her coffee.
“Is he married, or done one of those civil ceremonies, or is that not yet . . . I haven’t kept up, obviously.”
“He’s actually getting married next weekend. It’s been such a shambles in California, he and his partner are going up to Seattle.”
“They’ve been together a long time?”
“Oh God, ages. Since before I was born. I’m pretty much flying home, taking a shower, swapping all my hiking gear for dresses and heels, then hopping back on a plane for their wedding.”
“And your mom never married?”
“No. And she never intended to. I think she had her share of boyfriends in her wild, bohemian youth, but she never dated anyone after I showed up. Not as far as I know.”
“Huh.”
“I think she wrote men off in her twenties. I have a suspicion she was in an abusive relationship at some point.”
Rob frowned. “Must have been nasty, to make her swear off men the whole rest of her life.”
She stared at the rippling water. “I wonder sometimes if I should’ve asked her about it, before she died . . . but she was so strong and self-sufficient. I thought maybe she’d prefer to have the world believe she just didn’t have any use for men. And maybe that was the case. Though I kind of doubt it.” She looked to Rob, finding his eyes aimed at the coffee he held. He looked sad, and Merry remembered too late that he’d proclaimed himself a terrible partner in his last relationship. Oops.
Her mother surely would’ve demanded the details of why Rob felt this way about himself. She’d always been quick to cross-examine a man, and slow to trust one. But the Rob that Merry had met . . . He’d been grumpy, sure, and a touch cold, to start. But now he’d proven himself thoughtful and kind and shy, certain
ly gentle. And in bed? Yeah, no threat there, Mom. In bed, Merry was the villain.
One fault Rob did possess, however, was that he was quite tough on himself. She made a choice in that moment to believe that whatever shortcomings he saw in his character, they were likely magnified.
Plus I used to be a self-sabotaging coward, living in massive denial. And she wasn’t anymore, and didn’t want the world to see her as that person.
So whoever Rob used to be, perceived or not . . . he was gone. She’d never meet him. And the man sharing this blanket and this Thermos and this lunch with her was lovely, and he’d earned every benefit of the doubt she was prepared to give him.
Good-bye, old Merry. Good-bye, old Rob.
They were far away now. Farther than Leeds or even San Francisco. And good riddance.
They found a more cheerful conversational thread for the remainder of lunch, and packed everything up as the sun rose high overhead. The rays warmed Merry’s damp hair, and it was shaping up to be a gorgeous final day of her unplanned layover.
As they began their hike back, she asked, “Can we do more target practice this afternoon?”
“We may.” Rob smiled tightly, a private sort of gesture.
“What?”
He held the thought in for a very long time, until she gave him a couple pokes in the shoulder. “C’mon. What?”
“Do you . . . Do you think you might ever visit Scotland again?”
“Oh.” She felt her face heat, a rushing tide of . . . not embarrassment. Flattery? Something awesome and thrilling, if he was hinting at what she suspected. “I hadn’t given it any thought . . . But I’ve certainly had a nice time.” With you. And if he invited her to come stay with him again? Could she bow out of the dating game back home for the next year, keep herself strategically unattached? She’d only just earned her new body and fostered all this confidence, after wanting it for so long. Could she really put it on the back burner, leaving herself free for the next time she and Rob might cross paths? It was a lot to ask.
But then she tried to imagine herself on a date with some other man. Kissing another man. Kissing the handsomest guy from her gym, the one she’d crushed on for nearly a year.