It has been a while since I last posted on this page, for that I apologise. Unlike many politicians, I am not going to say ‘but’ rather I wish I had posted more often.
I have been busy writing though. I have published three new novellas and a short story.
The short story, “Melissa. More or Less” was originally published in a Christmas special collection. Where it got a good reception, hence it being republished as a standalone short story.
Here is another Short story from the “Twisted” collection.
Surfer Girl
© Ted Bun Dec 2021
The sun is glinting off the undulating surface of the sea all around me. I am maybe fifty metres offshore laying on my surfboard. On the shore, I can see the late afternoon breeze starting to pick up little squalls of sand. Soon the wind will gather strength and the squalls will turn into an abrasive, blinding blizzard of sand.
A nicely formed wave rises behind me, I kick the board forward and paddle hard. The wave rises behind me and I start to rush towards the shore. Twisting and turning the board I accelerate along the face of the wave for several seconds before turning towards the beach. The tail of my board drops and the wave breaks around me. I continue to ride the foaming surge through the shallows until the water starts to stream back out, leaving me stranded, my board beached.
I hurry to my feet, pick up my fibreglass bodyboard and waded through the ebbing streams before the next wave could wash over me. I walked up the slope of the beach pulling the scrunchie out of my hair, shaking it loose. I am a few years older and a couple of kilos heavier than the Beach Boy’s Surfer Girl, but I’m here by the ocean’s roar, with saltwater dripping from my long blondish hair.
I reach the spot where my bag and towel were waiting for me as the first blast of stinging sandblasts around my ankles.
I turn back to check on my unofficial surf buddy, it is always safer to have someone keeping an eye on you, the sea is a dangerous animal. Calm and peaceful one minute and seconds later, capable of tearing ships apart and spitting out the broken bits.
The guy in the baggy blue shorts has drifted along the beach earlier in the afternoon. We hadn’t spoken but I knew he was watching out for me and I kept an eye on him.
When I took a break from the surf to have a drink and a bit of time in the sun resting my muscles, he had disappeared along the beach. He returned half an hour later carrying his pack, which he dumped on the beach a polite distance away from me.
I had just ridden my last wave of the day, I bent down and picked up my towel. No way was I going to sit down and get my tanned, salty, skin scoured by the wind-blasted sand. I started to roughly towel my hair dry as buddy-boy got up on a big wave. He was going well when the wind got into the wave. It stopped dead and dropped, dumping all of its weight straight down, pitching him and his board headfirst into the shallows.
That was the sort of wipeout that causes broken collar bones, dislocated shoulders and concussions. The ones that kill unless someone is there to keep you safe.
I was relieved to see him break the surface, trying to wipe his dark hair from his face, pull his sand and water-filled shorts up and all the while groping for his board before the next wave smashed into him, knocking him down into the water again.
He failed and was sent sprawling by the next wave. This time he managed to gather his board up and started for the shore.
“Nice body!” I thought as I finger-combed my hair into a rough ponytail. He had a lean athletic build, with a slim waist and good pecs. “Only a year or two younger than my twenty-nine summers too!” I secured my hair with the bright pink scrunchie taken from my wrist.
From the way he was walking, he was not physically injured. The way he threw his board down next to his pack suggested that his pride had taken a battering. He pulled his towel from his pack and started to dry himself.
The tightening of my skin suggested that the sun and wind had already dried all the droplets of briny water from my body, leaving a thin coating of salt. Relucantly, I reached down into my bag and pulled out my sundress. which I slipped on, fastening just a couple of the buttons. I rolled up my damp towel tucking it into the bag. Picked up my board and with it clamped firmly under my arm I set off towards my car.
“Au revoir, a demain! See you tomorrow!” I called I was well aware that the increasingly orange glow of the slowly setting sun was highlighting the depth of golden colour of my tanned limbs as I walked past, He smiled in response and went to wave but he had both hands full. I watched as he blushed struggling with his towel and the baggies. He went to say something. I had him, I’d made his heart come all undone.
I put my fingers to my lips to silence him. “Tomorrow!”
He would have to wait until then, there was no way he could complete the Modesty Dance and catch me before I reached the car. No matter how much I wanted him to.
I had learnt patience, the words of the song and images of me, would echo through his dreams all through the night. Surfer girl, surfer girl, my little surfer girl! In the morning I will make his dreams come true.
I know that tomorrow he will be dressed for a quick getaway, ready to take me everywhere I go. I smiled a self-satisfied little smirk. For that, he’d need to be attired to avoid the self-conscious towel shuffle. The one I remember all too well from the time before my death. From before I returned to the surf. From my life before I became the Naked Siren of the Surf!
“Do you love me, do you, surfer girl?” he will plead, while, naked, we ride the surf together.
Forever.
© Ted Bun Dec 2021
