Laura Borrowdale

Night Swimming

The sea is a matt grey, the colour of disappointment, or mystery. The white tips of waves crash, reaching up then slowly folding over themselves. To the left, the cliffs rise darkly, their shape made up by the pin pricks of scattered house lights. To the right, the faint pink glow of smog over the city.

Alice and Jake walk down to the beach together, not touching, but close. There is a huge driftwood log and here they pause, stripping down to swim suits. The air is cool, and there is a mist, a dampness that she feels on her skin, one that goose-pimples her flesh.

She leaves Jake behind, running towards the water. Her legs stretch out, the air rushing against her. At the shallows, she picks her feet up neatly, striding out and leaping the small breakers. When the water levels with her calves, she has to swing her feet to the side to get above it, but she runs on. When it hits her thighs, Alice slows, and stops. The water tugs and pulls at her body, the undercurrent worrying at her. When she turns, Jake is still back there, still in the shallows, waiting. All she can see is his hazy outline against the misty lights.

The water is dark. Earlier in the day a friend had talked about the shark he’d seen near the pier. It had swum in and around the huge concrete pillars where the fishermen stood high above, throwing out fish and entrails. Two metres… a blue shark… and ahead of Alice, the water stretches and surges.

Somewhere out there, beyond Alice’s vision, where the waves don’t break and the night sky is indefinable from the sea, the shark moves, its body long and sinuous, gliding effortlessly through the water. Its predator’s eyes, black and emotionless, scan and its whole body is a nerve on the edge of attack.

The uncertainty, the danger, excites Alice, and so she dives, the water swallowing her. Her blonde hair spreads out in the dark, her body elongating as she stretches forward, her legs thrashing in the gloom. Her body warms, as though she’d been drinking, her guts contracting and her skin prickling. She swims under the crashing waves and when she surfaces, the salt stings her eyes and she blinks as the house lights in the distance move and glimmer.

Above the water, Jake moves forward, wading deeper in, and towards her. The pipis underfoot have dug hollows in the sand and the sharp edges of their shells cut into the soles of her feet as she struggles to stand. He reaches down, his arm disappearing into the dark sea and pulls one out to show her. The white muscle of the mollusc shows beyond the lips of the shell and it squirts a jet of salt in fear. Jake’s arm flexes as he tosses the shell into the waves breaking behind them.

He takes another step, then another and wraps his arms about her. From his body, real warmth comes and their mouths meet while the waves rock against them. Her legs rise up around him, pulling him closer to her and clamping their bodies together. They spin, slowly, in the water, and Alice faces the hills with their twinkling lights, then the glowing sky over the city, then the blackness of the ocean, each framed by the edge of his face and the feel of his mouth on her neck.

On the shore, she can feel the salt and sand on her body as she pulls her swim suit off. It rolls down and her nipples are tight knots of cold. For a moment, she feels exposed but she is shrouded in mist and night and the enveloping towel. Quickly they dress, suddenly shy. The glow of the cold and the fear and the excitement hidden under black sweatshirting.

At the car, they pause. A few spaces away, another car is parked. In the back window, a woman’s dark head of hair and bare back is visible, the shoulders pinched with pressure as she arches against the door. Outside, in the salty air and in her own body, Alice can feel the tug of excitement and uncertainty and she swells, hot with blood.

As they pull away, she turns her head to keep her gaze on the other vehicle, watching the shoulder blades twist against the glass, grey under the streetlights like the colour of mystery, or disappointment.

Jake jokes about having sex in the car and Alice turns towards him, willing him to take it seriously. She can feel her blood stir, and she wishes that he would pull over and put his weight against her. Her skin is still cold under her clothes, and she can imagine the rough graze of his facial hair warming her up, like the sandpaper brush of a shark’s skin.

But he just drives on. The car moves along the narrow road, in and out of pools of light. The blood in Alice’s body cools and stills and the shark is left behind in the black water, moving restlessly in the tide. The car turns into the drive, the engine growling, and Alice is diving back in the water, pulled towards him by their mutual need. Their mouths collide above the gear stick, their teeth clacking and Alice laughs and they are moving out of the car, out of the street light and into the house.

In her bedroom, Jake lifts her shirt over her head and pushes her back on the bed. He pulls her pants over her feet and lifts himself above her, his mouth moving and searching over her body. He kisses her neck and shivers run down her spine like electricity, arching her back. He moves lower, down her sternum, one hand grasping her breast. Alice runs her hands over his shoulders, smooth and brown. She thinks about the heat coming from him, and the heat from her own body. She thinks about the coldness of the water and the shark stirs in her depths.

Jake kisses the edge of her ribcage. His fingers grip her nipple, twisting and tugging. Alice feels the shark shake itself in the rippling waves of her body. Jake folds one arm around her thigh so that he can continue to move lower with that one hand still on her breast. He noses into the hollow beside her hip bone, runs his tongue down the crease of her leg. He moves quickly, tucking his other arm under her, and Alice is aware of his eyes watching her as he looks up.

She can see his hand pushing at her soft flesh, the fingers stretched dark against her pale skin. He pushes her leg further until it rests against her torso and he kisses lower, his tongue probing into her, then licking and pressing. Alice’s shark pushes forward, striking the water with its powerful tail, driving closer to her. Jake’s movement is deliberate and assured. She sinks lower into the bed, and into her own mind, under the flickering of his tongue. She feels his hand move and his fingers are inside her, pushing. She lets go and dives into the uncertainty again.

Alice’s body and mind speed up with Jake’s movement. There’s an elevation, a take-off. Her hips jerk up. The shark’s black eyes gaze into hers as it passes near and Alice smells salt water and blood. She pushes Jake away but his mouth clamps down on her, the tongue insistent. His arm tightens around her hips, and his fingers are beckoning her home. She rocks against Jake, his hair tangled in her automatic grasp, as the shark’s mouth gapes at her, its teeth white daggers in the darkness of its hunger. She calls out as the teeth close on her and the rush slows to utter stillness. His body slides up beside her, their skin touching along her length. He pulls her mouth up to his and she kisses him, the umami scent of her smeared over his face. Her mind is blank, her eyes closed, the warm blackness of her eyelids the colour of the shark’s mouth.