Wet, Wild, and Kraken-Curious

After Caylor had finally mustered the courage
to kick Ben’s lying adulterous ass out of her flat,
her best friends Iphigenia and Louise
had proposed a girls’ weekend on the Costa del Sol.

“A celebratory weekend,” said Iphigenia,
who had always taken a dim view of Ben.
They could dance until three in the morning
and drown their sorrows in cheap alcohol,
said Louise. When Caylor ventured to suggest
that a parade of leering men and endless mojitos
might not really be the best solution to her woes,
they had exchanged increduous glances
and a day later presented her
with the fait accompli
of a hotel booking and flight tickets.

Alas, as Robbie Burns once observed,
even the best-laid plans of mice and men
often go awry; and the same is true,
perhaps even more so,
of their poor- to moderately-laid counterparts.
In the case of the girls’ weekend,
it had turned into a girl’s weekend:
at the last minute,
a virulent stomach bug had taken out Iphigenia
and Louise had broken her leg,
thus leaving Caylor to travel alone
as a sad singleton.

Nothing about this weekend jaunt
had impressed her much so far.
She had no idea how she’d manage to squeeze
on to the Ryanair flight (two hours delayed!)
without the extra room of a bulkhead row,
but somehow she’d managed to survive
like a sardine between her seatmates
as her giant breasts nudged the tray table.
The woman sitting in front of her, however,
had tried to recline her seat,
and, failing to manage it, turned around
to discover the source of her difficulty.
She had taken one glance at Caylor, shot her a dirty look
and spent the rest of the flight
making loud comments about indecent people
on public transport.

A body-shamer and idiot to boot. A plane wasn’t public transport.
Caylor had wished that her breasts were big enough
to smother that woman’s sour face over the seat back.

Upon landing in Spain,
she’d said a prayer of thanks
for the fact that, with only a small carry-on suitcase,
she need not wait a certain eternity
at the baggage claim.
Courtesy of a road accident, however,
the cab took a circuitous route back to her hotel—
arriving too late for dinner,
but the young man on duty at the desk
had taken one look at her heaving bosom
and arranged to send up a plate of fruit and cheese
with half a bottle of red wine;

and after she’d scarfed it down,
she set out for the hotel’s private beach.
A swim would do her good,
she told herself. It always helped
to get into the water at the end of the day.

Her blue bikini strained at the seams.
She’d chosen this one for the colour,
a lovely blue that matched her hair,
but, she admitted as she strolled
down the stone steps to the sand,
she probably would have done better to leave it on the rack.
The tiny scraps of fabric constantly slipped out of place,
exposing her nipples and generally doing very little
to provide any modesty.

As soon as she reached the foot of the stairs
and a quick glance about the darkened sand
told her that she was alone,
she cast off her bikini. Top and bottom—
she deserved it, after that miserable flight
and missed dinner.

Caylor lay on her back, drifting on the waves
and staring up at the stars,
until the tide carried her back to shore.
In the light of the gibbous moon,
she turned to collect her towel and bikini,
then looked back at the beach one last time.

She squinted. The darkness made it hard
to see anything, but surely something—yes,
there it was! A patch of the sea
was frothing and churning
just where she’d been floating only moments ago.

Frowning, she went back to the water’s edge
and waded in.