She came up. The breeze shifted the mist. I saw her breasts above the water, the flash of her smile. She teased me with a long, slow backstroke toward the shallow end of the pool.
She was challenging me.
I stepped up onto the board. It had been a long time. I wasn’t in shape for it. I considered a simple jump. It might be less humiliating than a failed dive in front of her.
Forgotten pride rose and took hold of my mind.
When she dove, I’d felt the board rebound. I knew the bounce. I knew I could manage something simple, something that at least showed some control, some training.
I stepped out to my mark. I checked the water. She was there. Steam rose off the surface around her. She was watching, treading water, waiting.
I locked my eyes on the snow peaks. I took my breath. I let it go. The breeze was cool, the mountains silent. In the distance a hawk circled, sun glinting off its red tail.
One step. The board bent.
Two. The rhythm of the flex.
Three. Lift the knee and rise.
My body remembered. In the moment I touched down on the board to take my full bounce, I knew my new body would give me its full measure. I was, in that moment, fully in myself for the first time in over a year. I felt the grit of the board, the bend in fibreglass and knees, and I knew I had what I needed to make the otter woman laugh. Safe was no longer part of the dive. In my rise, I rolled my shoulder inward and crossed an arm over my belly. I had a full rotation with a full spin as I passed the level of the board. I carried the momentum into my second flip and spin. I nailed a double double and sliced the warm water toes-on.
I slipped deep through the silken water. My feet touched the bottom of the pool. I let myself fold downward through the caressing warmth. For a long, silent moment I hovered, fetal, near the bottom. Above me, liquid blue rippled and soothed. Tears cooled the warm water on my eyes.
The moment was forever, and it was less than the time it takes for breath to call for the next breath. I pulled my feet under me and pushed against the concrete floor. I broke the surface, took air, and looked for the otter woman.
At the shallow end of the pool, she climbed an aluminum ladder. I kicked into a breaststroke, not daring to dip my head into the water, not wanting to lose sight of her.
She stopped near a deck chair and picked up a hotel towel. She began drying her hair. She glanced my way. Her eyes flashed. Her smile played hide-and-seek behind the dabbing towel.
I kicked harder.
She turned away and padded across the concrete.
“Otter!” I called.
She disappeared into the shadows of the hotel.
I followed as far as the first shadowy intersection of corridors, but she was gone.
I returned to the pool and did several more dives. They were adequate, even skilled. My time in the gym had given me a new kind of flexibility and strength. Even so, without her watching, none of the dives held the magic of the first.
I fantasized that I might see her at dinner in the restaurant. I let myself linger there for hours, but she didn’t appear. Later, in bed, I imagined us together in a tract house in Illinois, or in a cabin in Oregon, or in any of half-a-dozen fantasy homes where I thought her strength and smile might fit.
It was near 1 a.m. when moonlight slipped into my room and bathed my face. I decided it was ridiculous to stare at the ceiling wishing for the touch of a stranger with an otter’s smile. I got out of bed, splashed cold water on my face, put on my suit and headed for the pool.
I ignored the hours signs and climbed over the damp wrought-iron railing. Thick mist blanketed the water, tendrils snaked upward, tickling the belly of the cool night. Moon-silvered ripples invited me to swim with them beneath the teasing mist.
I dropped my towel and climbed the tower to the board. I looked up to the moon and thanked it for the stranger’s smile and the dive earlier in the day.
One.
Two.
Knee high.
Flex and stretch. Spin and tuck. Extend and reach for warm and wet. Penetrate, slip deep, smooth and slick. I slowed and smiled in the warm deeps. I snapped my hips to spin myself in the warm wetness. The silky mineral water kissed every inch of exposed skin. One long stroke. Another, and I was moving slow and weightless beneath the misty surface.
I broke surface and rolled onto my back. The board above me still shook from my dive.
She appeared there, tall and silvered in the moonlight.
One step.
Two.
Knee high, and she flew, stretched upward, arms out. Long, arched, sensual, and simple – she dove.
In the shallower end of the pool, my toes found the grit of the concrete bottom. She surfaced three feet from me. Through mist and moonlight, nose just above the surface, she pulled herself effortlessly toward me.
I backed away. She was too close. I was suddenly unsure, afraid. I was sick. No. I’d been sick.
She reached. One hand touched my chest.
I remembered Andrea and Danni. I remembered my failure.
Her other hand slid along the ridges of my belly. The root of my spine thrilled to her touch. My suit suddenly felt tight. I wanted her touch, knew she was what I had come to Glenwood to find. As certainly as my body had known how to dive in the afternoon sun, I knew I could reach out to her. I knew how to fold her into my arms, how to bring my lips to hers and how to slide thigh along thigh in the silken warmth of the pool.
We kissed. She tasted of the lime and sulphur of the pool. She tasted of heat and hunger. We parted to breathe. The mists surrounded us. She ran her hand up my thigh, across my bulging suit and up my belly to my neck. “Lean, sky dancer,” she whispered.
“Otter smile,” I said.
“I like that,” she said. We kissed again, turning slowly in the water.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
I slipped the strap of her suit from her shoulder and put my lips to the pulse at her neck. The mineral slickness, the warm water, her arching and her tiny moan all filled me. I bit lightly. I teased at her pearl earring with my tongue.
She laughed and twisted in my arms. Her hand slipped behind my thigh, slid upward, and gripped my ass. She pulled herself against me, and we fell back into the water, sinking slowly, kissing, rolling in the water and molding flesh to flesh.
She slid my suit off. I helped her with hers. Somehow, we knew when the other needed air. Like dolphins, we sank, surfaced, breathed, and let ourselves sink into the embrace of the healing waters again.
Slowly, we danced our wet dance. My mouth found her lips, her fingertips, her breasts, her belly. We touched bottom and rose again to breathe.
Sinking, her lips found my ear, the nape of my neck. Her fingers wrapped themselves in my hair. I dove deeper and bit at her thigh and traced my tongue along the mineral slickness of her outer lips, then the otter-musk sweetness within. I stayed there, tasting her, searching her for deeper mysteries, for watery pleasure. Her fingernails caught in my scalp. She writhed and shook. I plunged my tongue deeper, driving inward to taste her primal wetness fully.
She bucked against me and pulled at my head.
I broke away, and we rose to the surface to breathe.
In mist and moonlight, we kissed. Her hunger matched mine. Her soft hand pulled at my hardness. For a moment, I was surprised I was hard. It had been so long. Then she guided me to her, guided me from warm mineral water into her deep, healing wetness. She clasped her legs around mine and our hips found a rhythm that rotated us in the water, spun us one around the other, slowly sinking and rising and sinking again.
For minutes or for hours, we were one body, one soul writhing in primal waters, surging forward toward an epiphany of life. Our rhythms grew urgent. We sank deep into the silvery warmth. We pulled at one another, spinning faster, sharing what breath we had. We both knew we needed to rise for air. Instead, we pulled together tighter, harder, and we spun in liquid darkness one last time, separating our lips, screaming underwater, freeing joy and precious air in rising torrents of bubbles.