Authors: Beckie
“Lakes are usually warmer and anyway, the sea gets colder as the sun goes down.”
She nods and takes my hand. As I feel her fingers weave in between my own, I feel guilty that I
haven’t told her the full story. She doesn’t know everything about me. We walk in silence along the beach until we’re so far away from the diner that it’s just a dot in the distance. She suddenly stops.
My eyes dart around the beach, wondering why she’s stopped so suddenly.
“What are you doing?” I ask curiously.
She starts to pull her dress up her body. I see her smooth thighs, her red silky knickers, and
then I’m staring at her bare, toned stomach and then her large, round breasts that are encased in a matching red, half-lace bra. My eyes linger there for what feels like forever before she pulls the dress over her head and drops it on the sand beside us.
“I wanna go swimming,” she says.
I snap my eyes back to her face. I want to stare at her body and watch the way it gleams in
the moonlight. She’s something else. Anastasia has a good figure, but it’s nothing compared to what I’m looking at right now. I wouldn’t even be able to describe her to Mike or George. She’s like
nothing any of us has ever seen before, well, unless you count the DVDs that Mike has stashed under his bed. I look around, making sure no one else can see her because
I
don’t want anyone else’s eyes on her body. She feels like she’s mine.
She stands up straight and stares at the sea as she begins to unclasp her bra. The thought of
seeing her breasts this close makes me feel giggly and excited. I don’t know why I’m acting like a little boy who hasn’t seen a pair before, but I’m desperate to see them. I’ve been fantasising about what her nipples and the skin around them look like all day long. And all day long, I’ve had to remind myself that Serena isn’t like the other girls. I shouldn’t be thinking about her in this way and I certainly shouldn’t be waiting with my tongue hanging out for a quick flash of her tits, so I do the gentlemanly thing and hold her arm, forcing her to stop.
“Serena, you’re not supposed to just get naked in front of people,” I tell her.
She laughs and tugs her arm free, pulling her bra off in one swift movement. “You’re not just
anyone though, are you Kaiden?”
I don’t care if she’s supposed to do that or not anymore. I just stare unashamedly at them as
they bounce into place. They’re pert and round and look like they wouldn’t move if she lay down flat on her back. I want to touch and kiss her in places that I know no man has ever touched or kissed her before. I look at her hard nipples and the tiny goose bumps that surround them. Oh God, I want to put them in my mouth. I want to flick my tongue over them and feel her body convulsing from
pleasure as I do it.
As I watch her bend down and peel her knickers down her legs, I think about how much fun I’d
have teaching her everything. I look away. I feel bad for thinking about those things. This is the other reason why I’m no good for her. I’m no virgin, and the fact that she is…well, it’s the biggest reason I have to stay away from her. She needs someone who’ll treat her right and take things slowly.
When she starts to walk into the water, I stand stock still, watching her firm backside as she
walks. There’s no way I’d be able to take it slowly with her. Touching her alone would drive me
crazy. Eventually, I come back to my senses and remove all of my clothing except my boxers.
We swim together in the water for nearly an hour. I’d forgotten what a good swimmer she
is. She leads me further away from the shore than I’ve ever been before in my life. The water is so deep its black underneath and even colder than it was when we were at the shore.
I think about sharks. I think about currents pulling us under and no one knowing where we
were until they’d found our clothes. I think about the promise I made to Angela about bringing
Serena back in one piece. Before I have a chance to make myself look like a wimpy boy in front of her again, she turns around and suggests that we go back to shore. Sighing with relief, I nod at her and swim beside her as we make our way back through the waves.
When I can finally reach the bottom, Serena swims towards me. She’s too fast for me to
swim away, so I turn away from her. But before I can tell her to not touch me, her slippery arms slide smoothly around my neck and her hands fall on my chest. I freeze when I feel her breasts press
against my bare back. I close my eyes.
Give me strength
, I think.
I’m so tempted to turn around so that I can feel every part of her on me that I have to fold my
arms across my chest to stop myself from doing it. Her skin feels silky smooth and as soft as peaches as she wraps herself around me. I can feel her legs, her hips, her stomach, and everything else. I can hear my own breaths coming in quick shallow spurts. I can feel my heart pumping furiously in my
chest and then I
feel
in the other obvious way just how much I want her. I swear I can feel my pulse down there.
“What’s the matter?” she whispers into my ear.
I know that she doesn’t know that this is a sexual kind of thing to do. I know she’s not doing
it to tease me like some girls would. She’s so innocent, which, if I’m honest with myself, is probably half the reason why I want her so badly. To Serena, this is just her being friendly.
“Nothing,” I whisper. I hate the way my voice sounds. I hate the fact that she’s done this to
me and that my body has reacted to her, even though I know it’s wrong.
She leans her face closer towards my ear. I can feel her hot cheeks against the back of my
neck, forcing goose bumps to erupt all over my skin. “Are you sure? You’re acting a bit strange.”
I shudder. I have to get away from her, but I can’t seem to move.
“Yes,” I breathe. “I’m fine.”
She sighs deeply and untangles herself from me as if she’s detected the pained tone of my
voice. She swims around until she’s directly in front of me and stands up, but because she’s shorter than me, only her head comes out of the water. I’ve never been more grateful to not see a pair of breasts before in my entire life.
I’ve been good. I’ve not kissed her or touched her breasts or backside. I’ve shown absolute
control, but it’s getting to be too much now. I feel like I’m going to burst. I need to do something.
This is killing me. It’s literally all I can think about.
I reach out with my hand and my fingers brush her cheek. I watch her eyes lock onto mine and
notice the blackness of her irises that bob around in the middle of her swollen eyes. As I push her wet hair back from off her face, I notice how puffy and kissable her lips look. It must be from the salt in the sea. She bites down gently on her lips and stares at me so intently that I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing. My hand has frozen by her face.
She leans in ever so slightly, surprising me. She wants me to kiss her. Serena Scott, the girl
who was abducted and led a life of lies and betrayal, wants me to kiss her. She’s going to let me be her first kiss. I want to. I really want to feel her lips against mine and taste her, but I can’t. Not when I have a girlfriend that I’ve not told her about. I can’t let her first kiss be with someone who is acting unfaithfully whilst doing it. Can I?
She leans in further and in response, I automatically lean toward her. My other hand comes up
to cradle her head in my hands.
I can’t. I can. I want to. I shouldn’t.
Her eyes fall down to my lips and then back up again to meet my eyes. I notice for the first
time that she seems confident, and not like how girls normally are when they’re about to do
something with a boy for the first time. I can feel her breaths as they burst quickly over my face. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take how her eyes are burning into mine, silently urging me to kiss her.
“Stop,” I blurt. She frowns at me, but doesn’t ask any questions or demand any answers.
“Don’t, Serena.”
She simply shrugs. “Shall we go back now?” she asks, not sounding hurt or annoyed.
I stagger back, struggling to breathe as a burning feeling begins to crawl around in my chest.
I glance towards the beach and nod. She looks at me again and it’s then that I see the unanswered questions that dance around in her moonlit eyes. She doesn’t understand, but she obviously feels
like this is something she can’t talk to me about. I feel bad. There’s only me that she can talk to, and I’ve almost just ruined everything.
“Yeah, let’s go back,” I finally say.
She swims off in front of me, but she doesn’t swim so fast that I can’t keep up with her.
When we reach the shore, she stands for a moment but turns her back to me and picks up her
clothes. It makes me wonder if she knew exactly what she was doing when she stripped down in
front of me earlier.
Serena
I pick up a flaky croissant and smooth the chocolate sauce over it. The Aunty that I met in the salon when I first came back has come over, bringing my Uncle and my three cousins with her for
breakfast. I didn’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect my three cousins to come in and stare at me before sitting and playing on their phones the whole time.
“So, I hear you went to the zoo at the beginning of the week, Serena?” Aunty Carol asks.
Being asked about the zoo makes me think about Kaiden. I’m not sure what exactly went
wrong with us when we were out, but I know something wasn’t right. There was an awkwardness
between us in the car when we drove back home that hasn’t ever been there before. I think it had
something to do with what happened in the sea, but I can’t be sure. I know I felt something strange after he cupped my head in his hands. Kaiden didn’t act the same with me after that, and I wonder if it’s because he changed his mind and decided he didn’t like me after all.
I look across the table at Carol, who’s sitting next to my Mother. “Yes, Kaiden took me there
on Monday.”
She smiles. “Did you have a nice time?”
I nod. “It was amazing. I’d read about the zoo and seen pictures of the animals in my books,
but I’d never seen them in real life before.”
My cousins glance up and frown at me.
“So what plans have you got today?”
I look up but realise my Mother is asking my Aunty that question and not me. I shove a huge
piece of croissant into my mouth and chew. I’ve talked so much this morning that I’m starting to get bored of the sound of my own voice. I don’t mind people asking questions, not even when they’re
questions that people have already asked me loads of times before, but I don’t really like talking about myself. I can give them the facts, but when they ask me how I feel about something, I’m never sure how much or little I should be saying. I should probably ask Angela about that. Do I tell
everyone exactly what I’m thinking or feeling or should I be keeping some things to myself?
My Aunty tells Angela that it’s the first Saturday in eight weeks that they don’t have any
plans. She says they normally go out for the day, swimming or hiking, but today they’re doing
nothing except coming to our house to eat breakfast with us.
“What was your favourite animal that you saw, Serena?”
This time it’s my Uncle Gary that’s decided to question me. He’s a kind-looking man with
tired blue eyes and a spattering of brown hair on the bottom of his face. The colour of the hair on his head doesn’t match the colour of the hair on his face, and I wonder if that’s natural or if he’s done that on purpose. I take a sip of my pure orange juice and swallow before answering.
I remember the big orange and black striped cat and the power I sensed from it. “It was the
tiger, I think.”
He nods. “That’s a lot of people’s favourite. It used to be my favourite zoo animal too.”
“What’s your favourite one now?” I ask.
He blinks. “I guess it’s still the tiger.”
That confuses me. Why did he say that it ‘used to be my favourite’ if it’s still his favourite?
People say the strangest things.
“Where is the camera that I gave you, Serena?” Angela asks me.
I nod towards the shoe cupboard underneath the stairs. “It’s in the drawer in the cupboard.”
She pushes her chair back, making it screech across the floor and retrieves the camera from
where I said it was.
“I think we should have a big family photograph after we’ve eaten breakfast,” she says
cheerily.
No one says anything and as I look around, I see my cousins making faces. I don’t really like
my cousins and think that it’s rude the way they sit at the table and play on their phones, instead of joining in the conversation. I know their names are Jonny, Bethany, and Will, and I know that they’re nineteen, seventeen, and fifteen, but apart from the girl, I don’t know who is who. Glancing quickly at them, I’m guessing the taller boy is the oldest and the smaller boy is the youngest out of the three of them.
“Have I got any grandparents?” I ask.
The adults all stop eating and talking and turn to look at me. Angela glances at Auden and
clears her throat.
“Both of my, erm, parents are dead, Serena. They died six years ago in a car accident.”
Angela squeezes my Auntie’s hand. “Your Father’s parents are both alive, but live in a retirement village in Florida. They’re planning on coming to see you in the next few weeks.”
I smile at her, feeling bad that she’s lost her parents.
“Kaiden is in my year at school.”
Everyone, including me, turns to stare at Bethany. She’s obviously decided to change the
subject.
“What’s he like?” I ask, feeling curious about the boy that I can’t stop thinking about. When
he told me he was a fighter and that he’d hurt people, I didn’t really believe him because he’s so nice to me. I’m still not sure I believe that he can act like two completely different people.