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Message-ID: <33004asstr$1003511402@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: "Chas Tanet" <chas_tanet@lycos.com>
Reply-To: chas_tanet@lycos.com
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Subject: {ASSM} "The Reef" (MF, rom, no sex) - by Chas Tanet
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 13:10:02 -0400
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 Please see attached .txt file.

-  Chas  -



Make a difference, help support the relief efforts in the U.S.
http://clubs.lycos.com/live/events/september11.asp

<1st attachment, "reef.txt" begin>

This story was written in the fierce grip of post vacation blues. It
is also the first time I've tried second person present tense
narrative. I hope you enjoy it.

The usual legal and copyright stuff applies.

- Chas Tanet -
	
*******

The Reef

   You wake just before six. Your wife lies sleeping beside you; your
young daughter is snoring gently and cutely in the cot beyond. You ease
yourself out of bed. The hotel room is dark. The air-conditioner hums
and its breeze is cool on your body. You pull on the swimming shorts
you left on the chair last night and go towards the window. A brief
burst of intense light fills the room as you push aside the heavy
curtain and slide open the patio door. You slip outside, making sure
the curtain closes fully behind you. Picking up the black mesh bag, you
head for the beach.

   You skirt the two large oval swimming pools, crystal blue and
sparkling. The route leads down a set of brick steps, past two more
pools, then along a long sloping paved path with walls either side,
already hot from the morning sun. You pass the beach bar, deserted
except for a man in baggy white shirt and grey trousers sweeping the
floor. The sea ahead is deep blue, speckled with tiny white horses. The
sky above is paler, hazy but cloudless. You carefully descend the
thirty or so rough stone steps to the sand.

   You glance up and down the beach. The wooden sun loungers with
their faded cushions are empty, shaded by umbrellas of woven straw. You
put the bag down on the nearest lounger and take out your snorkel, mask
and fins. You walk to the water's edge and wade in. The warm waves lap
against your shins. Sitting down in the shallows, you put on your fins,
then rinse your mask before placing the strap over your head and
checking the seal. You blow through the snorkel to clear it. You lean
forwards and launch yourself, face down.

   There is coral, white and sharp looking, inches beneath you. You
flip your fins and head out. Small fish, mostly sergeant majors and
batfish, swim ahead of you, passing in and out of your vision,
searching for food. The reef shelf passes beneath with even smaller
fish, strange growths of green and purple, small clams with vividly
blue lips, all hiding in its crevices. Then ahead you see a darkness
and a second later you are off the shelf and floating twenty feet above
the sandy seabed, surrounded by hundreds of fish of every shape, size,
colour and pattern.

   But all you can hear is your breathing, amplified by the snorkel
tube next to your ear, and the occasional susurration of a wave as it
breaks over your head. It is your tenth visit to the reef, and your
wonder at the variety and movement of the life there increases every
time. You turn left and fin slowly along, parallel to the shelf. A huge
parrotfish, iridescent purple and green, nibbles at the coral wall with
its beak-like teeth. A pair of striped angelfish hang motionless above
a huge golden sea fan. From almost every cranny in the coral peers a
pair of eyes, hiding or waiting. A shoal of glassfish, thousands
strong, flashes past your right shoulder, almost transparent against
the sun.

   And so you drift along, your mind free of anything but the sensuous
embrace of the sea and the marvels it contains.

   Then your shoulder bumps something firm but yielding. Never a
strong swimmer, you panic. You turn onto your side to see what you have
hit, but too quickly. The snorkel fills with water and you inhale
water, choking. You fight your way upright, dislodge the mouthpiece and
lift your mask, gasping for air, trying to clear the stinging salt
water from your nose and sinuses. Finning hard to keep your head as far
above the waves as you can, you wipe your streaming eyes and see, only
a couple of feet away...

   ... a vision of total beauty. Her hair is blond, pulled back in a
tight bun. Her eyes are the colour of the sea. Her cheekbones are high
and prominent, her nose retrousse, her mouth a perfect rosebud. She can
be no older than eighteen. Her mask is pulled up onto her forehead and
she is smiling radiantly.

   "Ketrzyn," she says, or something like that, in a language you do
not recognise. "Putasjarvi," she adds. Polish? Czech? Finnish? There
are plenty of all these in your hotel, as well as more obscure
nationalities.
   "Pardon?" you say. "Don't understand."
   "Aah," she says. "English." She laughs. You like the sound of her
voice. "Sorry. Very sorry."
   "No, no, it's my fault," you say, always English even when
threatened by drowning. She obviously does not understand you, but
smiles nonetheless.
   "Ordzonikidze blagodatnoe," she says, enthusiastically.
   "What?"
   She rolls her eyes at your incomprehension and points along the
coast, then downwards.
   "Blagodatnoe," she repeats. "Come. Look." 

   She replaces her mask and snorkel. You do likewise. To your
surprise, she takes your hand and you swim along side by side. You take
quick looks to see if the rest of the girl matches the loveliness of
her face. You can see a slim, athletic body and a very small turquoise
bikini. You are further along the reef than you have been before: the
coral wall is steeper and the seabed scarily distant and dark. She
squeezes your hand and points. You look down intently, see nothing for
a few seconds, then glimpse movement. A turtle, four or five feet long,
is slowly making its way across a low coral outcrop. It is bulky,
graceful and strangely comic. It moves with a casual elegance in the
water that would be denied to it on land.

   The girl takes both your hands and you float, heads occasionally
touching, watching the creature grazing the pale green vegetation.
After perhaps ten minutes, the turtle turns to face the open sea and
glides into the opaque depths. You feel a tug. The girl is pulling you
towards the reef shelf. She lets go of your hands, and you follow her
across the shallows, through the shoals of sergeant majors to a small
sandy beach you have not seen before. It lies between two rocky
outcrops, separated from the hotel beaches on either side. You sit up
and look around as you take off your gear. You notice, briefly, the
ramshackle umbrellas and loungers and the unraked sand; but your
attention is soon focussed on the girl walking ahead of you up the
beach. 

   The first impression is of flawless golden skin. Her shoulders are
unexpectedly wide, but taper down to a slim waist. The thin straps of
her bikini top only serve to emphasise her rich tan. And her bottom -
more curvaceous and luscious than the proverbial peach, its glorious
shape enhanced by the turquoise thong. She turns to face you and
unfastens her bikini top. Her breasts are - you grope for the right
word - young. Not large or small, but young: upward tilting, firm. The
nipples are pert stubs, the surrounding areolae surprisingly wide and
dark. She lies down, stretching out on the lounger, the hot sun making
her body gleam. You go over and sit by her side; you cannot do
otherwise.
   "Ngorny karabash," she whispers.

+++++++

   You lie naked on the sunbed, barely conscious. The circuits in your
brain are tripped, the fuses blown. You open your eyes and look around.
There is no girl; she has left not a trace behind. You sit up, head in
hands, blinking in the strong light. You put on your shorts, grab your
gear and head for the water. There is no sign of a solitary snorkeller.
You get into the water and push out into the deep, heading back along
the bay. You beach yourself exactly where you had first entered the sea
and put your mask, snorkel and fins back in the black mesh bag. There
are a few people on the beach now, but no nymph in blue. But then, you
knew that was a vain hope, didn't you? You head up the hill, back to
your room, your wife, your daughter; and in a very few days, the rain,
the job, the credit cards, the dentist's appointment. You stop dead in
your tracks, turn round and gaze out to sea. You want to run back down,
to launch yourself into that other world of infinite blue. Your vision
is blurred, and it is hard to breath. You turn round again and carry on
up the hill.

   "Daddy! Daddy! It's Daddy! Hello, Daddy!" Your daughter is standing
in the cot, one hand clutching a bottle of milk, the other her teddy
bear.
   "Hello, love," you say. 
   "You were gone a long time," says your wife. "Was it good?"
   "Ngorny karabash!" you reply.

*******
<1st attachment end>


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