Anemone

You liked to pretend you were drowning.

Those endless nights we spent on that Brighton beach under the cover of darkness. The black water crashed into the shore, ran over our sticky bodies. I couldn’t stand how sticky and dry the saltwater made our lips but we still kissed hard enough to split them, make them sting. Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish the taste of the blood from that of the salt, not that we cared anyway. You were always below me. My knees always got raw in the wet sand. Sex in the surf is never like they make it out in pictures but it’s a remarkable experience nonetheless. You can gradually feel the tide pulling at your body and you keep having to crawl back over that rough wet sand, and your palms and knees get pink and raw. You liked it like that, though. And you liked the idea of the water splashing up over your toes, thighs, belly, lapping at your body like an ever-shifting lover, trying to pull you down, in, under. That’s where you wanted to be anyway, wasn’t it?

Trough the darkness I could see a stray piece of seaweed clutched between your toes. Thick darkness. Heavy, humid darkness like velvet cake. Heavy and delicious and nauseatingly sweet and rich. I lapped along with the water at your sticky, sea-salty belly, the pool of your navel, nuzzled the damp wiry hairs below until another wave crashed over us and dragged us in a bit more.

Sometimes I staggered up and wandered further inland to rummage through the pockets of my discarded pants for a cigarette. This was when you liked to let the tide pull you in completely, start to drag you out to sea, writhing against the sand until you finally disappeared under that infinite glassy black. The first time I panicked – you were tripping like you usually were when we came down here – thought that you didn’t know what you were doing. I ran in waist-deep, feeling around under the water frantically until your hair brushed against my thigh. I grabbed under the water blindly ‘til I felt your upper arm, then I hoisted you up and carried you back to shore, still terrified for you. I laid you out and prepared myself to give you mouth-to-mouth, only when I looked down at your face, you just smiled up at me. You’d only wanted me to rescue you, that was all…

I played into it for awhile. I’d watch as you let yourself be carried out and then I’d dutifully retrieve you like your knight in shining armor (your horrid spotty savior, I think you called me once.) Sometimes you’d cling to me so tightly I thought you’d crush the life out of me. You always smiled serenely. Then as time wore on and I began to tire of you, I finally just let go.

Fuck off, Syd. Save yourself.

As I walked away, cool sand caking my wet feet, I looked back to see you struggling out of the water by yourself, like a blinded monster. It was a sad sight to be honest – you were reaching out for me, begging me to save you from all that undulating Indian ink again, begging for me to lay my hands on you. Gasping and sobbing and choking as you staggered out on your own. I was a good ways away when I looked back for the last time, back into the rich velvet cake darkness. I could just barely make out your pale, naked body standing there, waiting for me to come back but I never did.
And the black abyss swallowed you up after all.