Skin Dipping

Bowdlerize = to edit or modify parts of a text that are considered indelicate and offensive

Last night we went skinny dipping. The decision came out of the blue (no pun, no pun) over Japanese food that was cooked in front of us. Or was it in the car, before the food and during the hunger? Either way. We went skinny dipping. It's funny that it's called that and not 'skin dipping' since 'skinny' has a meaning all of its own. 'Skinny dipping' conjures up images of a bunch of starved models running on the sand, barefoot, while they pretend they don't see the paparazzi. They run to the water with the humblest of splashes, because they're about 300 pounds all put together (there's seven of them). They giggle, tiny boobies perking up and down, they throw water on each other and spread their arms but they're nowhere as free as I was last night.

So we got to the beach at midnight. Talking went on but I was mostly preoccupied with how to make this as least an uncomfortable experience for me as possible. How to find the darkest, darkest patch of sand that the lamp posts didn't touch. How to arrange my body into immaculacy. How to hug my knees without getting folds of flab on my tummy. The little worries. Because he'd never seen me naked. He's touched me between the legs but had never seen me naked.

I wouldn't mind it if he did, overall, except for my breasts. They're hateful little things, tiny bumps really, with tiny cherries of brown nipple skin perched on top; dirty things. They look like they were too lazy to fully form. I'd promised skinny dipping, or skin dipping, but was too shy to stand in front of him in just my skin, my sand-dotted skin. He can see my butt, he can see my thighs, he can see my calves, my knees, my back, my belly, but I hate the idea of him examining--when he looks, he examines--my breasts.

The night before I'd gone skin dipping with other people, friends, not lovers, and when we stripped I kept my arms crossed in front of my chest, like I was cradling it. I walked around like that, protecting the shyest part of my body with a mother's love and a foe's abhorring. My body delved in the water and the black sea wrapped around it like a cloak, like a guard. Nobody could see much, and I felt free, and it was all okay.

But the water wasn't black yesterday. Some lights still brightened the beach far away, and there was also one stark source of light standing on the water, something like a lighthouse. It didn't let the sea grow black, so I was guardless.

So I went in with my underwear.

This post has got me thinking so I'm getting up and walking to the bathroom. I lift my shirt and I stare, I examine.

It came off eventually. The underwear, I mean. There was no stopping it once we started kissing and touching, and once he clenched my breasts and scooped them against each other, in his passion. It didn't feel ridiculous like it should have, he with his giant's palms, me with my smurfette breasts. Something about the kissing and how it made my chest muscle constrict, something about the cool gray water filling every gap between us and around us, touching us where we didn't have enough fingers and lips to touch each other, made regular thoughts vaporize and spiral away and away. Thoughts about tummy flab, and unsatisfying breasts, and beach people watching us--there were late-night beachers everywhere!--these were suddenly the only dirty thoughts! And the thoughts that remained, those were the clean ones...The pure, good, healthy ones:

Such as the stirring thought that his member felt a lot bigger than I remembered. It had a lovely curvature.

Such as the surprising thought that I liked the hard tips of my breast caressing his wide chest.

Such as the compulsive thought that I wanted to drink every single drop of salty water from his shoulders.

Such were the clean thoughts while we skin dipped. There I was, not only naked in front of him but also against him. Not simply comfortable, but also right where I belong, in his bearish, wet hug. There in the hug, naked or not, I feel free, and it is all okay.

To be dirty is to be free. That's the point of this blog.