Waving Not Drowning

Bursting at the seams, stretched tight over taut, voluptuous, well muscled thighs her tights sculpt and lift the frontal sweep of thick, heavy quads inserting high into the hip and wrapping around to a butt that rides high, like a bouncing rubber ball, hard as a rock but oh so tactile. She moves like an animal, primal, articulated, stealthy. Efficiency manifests in power and agility. She is extraordinarily feminine: graceful, confident, delightfully prepossessing. Covered in chalk. Her palms are scarred and ripped, callouses bleeding from repetitive lifting and high swings on an overhead horizontal bar. Flipping, dragging, thrusting, grunting. Sweating. Struggling. Surviving. Her legs contract and explode, flexing and extending, each fibre rippling and undulating under a sheath of unblemished skin. Her shoulders, perfect round globes perched atop astonishing arms, a horseshoe of triangulated sinew. Daunting to behold, but compelling to witness in action. Form meeting function of the hi...

All her heroes were boys. Men. By default, not choice. She grew up watching boys play sports, tried to hone in and keep up with the bullies. Eventually she found her place. She threw a ball better than most of them. Isla was coordinated, creative, and awkwardly tall for her age. By 11 years old she was 5'9" with a size 10 shoe. She hated basketball, though. Volleyball made more sense but her heart lay in baseball. Hardball not softball. At first they refused: no girls allowed. It's too dangerous. You can't get around on the ball fast enough. You're too slow, not strong enough. You're going to get hurt. They would let her practice in pick up games, bury her in right field on a day when the occasional ball might come her way. But when Devin tore his hamstring and they needed her on second, Isla rose to the occasion, beyond even her own expectations. Everything suddenly made sense. Kismet, maybe. Her spatial understanding of where to field, how to work the bag, jo...

She's sticking to herself like white on rice, that's how uncomfortably close this weather is. In a thin white dress shirt no less, soaked through from armpit to armpit so that the circles meet up across her chest. A boob circle of see-through cotton. It's so oppressively hot no one looks twice, for better or worse. Tara has forsaken any sense of modesty. Humping heavy plates in and out of a hotbox kitchen, nimbly skirting frantic chefs and melting busboys, elbow deep in dishpans, bodies slick with sweat, hair plastered to foreheads or bandanas dripping with moisture. A Dali painting come to life.  Order up! Bells clang, ceramic tableware clicks and clacks off the stainless countertops, three different languages weave in and out of the cacophony of sound, a constant hum of tension, like a bow being drawn across the highest fret of a violin, the hairs threatening to split and fray, coming undone like silk from the ear of a corn. It's amazing people can eat in this heat. T...

She is breathtakingly beautiful. That's not just a saying, Marinda really does take people's breath away. Men walk into telephone poles passing her on the street. Light standards- they bounce off and grapple for a moment to find equilibrium then follow her with their gaze until she's out of sight. Longing.  It's an ease, a quiet confidence coupled with stunning beauty; a grace and elegance married in strength and sexuality. Power. Potential. Men and women want to sleep with her. Marry her. Possess her, ingest her then travel the world with her, climbing mountains and rescuing malnourished orphan children while digging wells in Eritrea with her. She inspires that depth of devotion. A fascination and dedication known only by gurus and cult leaders. Except she's neither. Never practiced yoga a day in her life. Namaste what? As for cults, her parents escaped with the family when she was 3. Her brother and sister have made a relative go of things in the outside world. Be...

He brought the cigarette up to his lips. Du Maurier, king size. Squinting, he blew the smoke rings over her outstretched fingers. She hated the fact that he smoked but it was all about picking her battles. Yeah, he was 5 inches shorter than her, but it was kind of hot. Turned her on. Guys would hit on her when they walked down the street together, oblivious to the fact that his hand was entwined with hers. His biker boots gave him an extra 2 inches but it was all the same laying down, nudge nudge, wink wink. They both had alcoholics in their midst. His father, the self-made entrepreneurial terminal disaster. Always moving on to the next big thing, always leaving everyone else behind. Her entire family was off the rails. They ran a grow op out of the basement where she played tennis against the unfinished concrete wall. Broke two of the fluorescent lights once, and panicked that she'd be grounded. They were still kids themselves, eighteen, nineteen. Every breath was all consuming. T...

It starts in her groin. Flowing down her legs, all the way to her toes, and surging back up her spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, radiating like a hot molten core in her belly, throbbing in time to her pulse. It's like a stack of Marshalls welded to her sternum. Thunderous bass, screaming guitars, a cacophony of interwoven melodies. The sound shoots through her capillaries, bursting out like full-bloomed magnolias in an early spring storm. She starts to undulate in her chair, creating wave after full-body wave, slowly rocking her head back and forth, shoulder to shoulder, chin to her chest as her arms extend to the sky, fingers splayed, starfish reaching, clenching, unclenching until she propels herself up and out and onto her feet. This is what a volcano eruption feels like. This. Is. Loud. The sound emanates from every pore of her being, she is humming, every cell is pitch perfect. Two hundred and thirty eight seconds of a perfect storm of sound, a grand mal in motion with  a happy ...

If she keeps edging in, inch by inch, atom by atom, it won't feel so overwhelming. Head up, eyes on the horizon, breathing timed to her favourite waltz: in-two-three, out-two-three. She's up to her thighs now, that place where the curve opens up and wraps underneath her hip, as if asking to be caressed, enveloped by a pelvis from behind. Limbed Lego, locking into place. Her fingers immersed, the energy rising up her forearms, pooling in the crook of her bent elbows. Arms akimbo. She releases her shoulders and her heart opens to the sky as she leans back, arms wide, submerging her entire being, emptying her lungs. She is suspended in mid inhalation, pure potential, slowly expanding, ascending into wide open grace. Their bodies, entwined. Surrender.