Steven Hunley
09-05-2011, 11:39 AM
Holding Back the Tide
by
Steven Hunley
"Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey." ----King Canute
Every modern man is Canute when he makes love to a beautiful woman. A woman, due to her nature, is free to express climax after climax, a complete trusting and vulnerable surrender of her body and soul. That’s why it’s easy to be a woman.
A man, due to his nature, must know his limitations and be more measured. A man must learn to control his tides of love. That’s why it’s hard to be a man.
She was blond, a surfer girl, and married at nineteen. A wicked combination. Besides those three things, I could completely describe her with only five more words. They are, as Nickleback once sang,
“Are we having fun yet?”
So, as the Beatles once crooned,
“I shoulda known better with a girl like you.”
But I didn’t.
‘Cause I was a chump, the thick and blunt end of anything.
I met her through a mutual friend Marc, when he said,
“You wanna go over to Jim’s house and smoke a joint? He’s got a wife named Tina and kid now.”
“Wow,” I thought, “We’re only a year out of high school.”
So, like the right-guy-smoker I was, I answered “Yes,” and my fate was sealed.
When we got to the door, I tripped on the rug walking in. But instead of having an embarrassed kind of feeling, I felt like I stepped on a roller coaster that was already moving.
Was that weird or what?
So here was the dude I hadn’t seen in over a year, his attractive blond wife, their baby upstairs asleep, all real domestic-like. Just the kind of situation you don’t mess with outta respect.
We smoked a few, laughed a bit, and said goodnight. The next week we were over playing board games far into the night. Jim had to work; he was a mailman, went to sleep early.
Uh-oh, now I was trouble. I shoulda seen it coming. Someone shoulda hollered,
“Red flag!”
But we didn’t have that phrase back in the days of yore.
She had a girlfriend, that was good; it made someone for my friend Marc to hook up with. But after her old man crashed, that left me with her. I had every intent to keep my distance. So we made it a foursome.
One night we crawled into a storm drain to smoke a joint. It was the hippie days. We smoked joints in the hippie days. And it wasn’t legal. Outlaw hippies anyway. Another night it was the beach. By this time we’d been partying for weeks and were pretty close.
We drove to the jetty at Ocean Beach, O.B. Jetty. It was deserted, but we searched for an even more remote spot to smoke. Police were tough in those days. Finally Marc and friend wandered off leaving us sitting on the sand alone. She sat real close, ‘cause there was an on-shore breeze, and cuddled up for warmth. The fog and darkness were conspiring to hand us an invitation to exchange secrets.
Our confessions were freely exchanged using doublespeak and innuendos, but the meanings slipped out when nobody was looking.
“I can’t understand,” she said, “why you don’t get close.”
“It’s just that…” but words failed me, like a toddler, I stumbled.
The moon appeared from behind the gathering clouds, a luminous silver disc.
I had a stick in my hand, nervously drawing a circle in the sand like a four year old child.
.
“It’s just that you’re…”
She grabbed the stick from me, and scratched a jagged line through the ring, breaking it in two. Grasping me by the collar with both hands, she drew me closer, only a heartbeat away.
“That’s just it,” she said with serious longing in her eyes. “It’s not working out.”
I had good news in my life and recognized it when I saw it.
At this point her lips crossed into my danger zone, so close I couldn’t resist.
I believe what happened next was the best kiss on the beach I’d ever had. After that …let’s just say sex and a moonlit beach… there was nothing like it.
The summer night worked its magic. Black velvet darkness gently caressed and enveloped her breasts. Sudden moonlight, ice-blue moonlight, revealed both her smooth white belly and her secret dark-shadowed clefts. She felt pounding surf effortlessly invading her freely abandoned southern shores, leaving my hard-earned pearls scattered carelessly on the sand, puddling the tide-pool depression of her naval. Crashing waves broke over her, provided deafening white noise, and allowed Kristina to concentrate on what really mattered; herself.
Let’s face it; there was nothing artificial or false here. It was Hemingway’s Moment of Truth.
There is nothing as precious as our secrets, nor anything so terrible.
Two weeks later she moved to an apartment, filed for divorce, and was on her own. That put a whole different spin on the situation.
But that was O.K. My gyroscope was already turning. I wasn't about to lose my balance. To quote Pete Townsend, I had gained “A Heart to Hang Onto.”
©Steven Hunley2011
by
Steven Hunley
"Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey." ----King Canute
Every modern man is Canute when he makes love to a beautiful woman. A woman, due to her nature, is free to express climax after climax, a complete trusting and vulnerable surrender of her body and soul. That’s why it’s easy to be a woman.
A man, due to his nature, must know his limitations and be more measured. A man must learn to control his tides of love. That’s why it’s hard to be a man.
She was blond, a surfer girl, and married at nineteen. A wicked combination. Besides those three things, I could completely describe her with only five more words. They are, as Nickleback once sang,
“Are we having fun yet?”
So, as the Beatles once crooned,
“I shoulda known better with a girl like you.”
But I didn’t.
‘Cause I was a chump, the thick and blunt end of anything.
I met her through a mutual friend Marc, when he said,
“You wanna go over to Jim’s house and smoke a joint? He’s got a wife named Tina and kid now.”
“Wow,” I thought, “We’re only a year out of high school.”
So, like the right-guy-smoker I was, I answered “Yes,” and my fate was sealed.
When we got to the door, I tripped on the rug walking in. But instead of having an embarrassed kind of feeling, I felt like I stepped on a roller coaster that was already moving.
Was that weird or what?
So here was the dude I hadn’t seen in over a year, his attractive blond wife, their baby upstairs asleep, all real domestic-like. Just the kind of situation you don’t mess with outta respect.
We smoked a few, laughed a bit, and said goodnight. The next week we were over playing board games far into the night. Jim had to work; he was a mailman, went to sleep early.
Uh-oh, now I was trouble. I shoulda seen it coming. Someone shoulda hollered,
“Red flag!”
But we didn’t have that phrase back in the days of yore.
She had a girlfriend, that was good; it made someone for my friend Marc to hook up with. But after her old man crashed, that left me with her. I had every intent to keep my distance. So we made it a foursome.
One night we crawled into a storm drain to smoke a joint. It was the hippie days. We smoked joints in the hippie days. And it wasn’t legal. Outlaw hippies anyway. Another night it was the beach. By this time we’d been partying for weeks and were pretty close.
We drove to the jetty at Ocean Beach, O.B. Jetty. It was deserted, but we searched for an even more remote spot to smoke. Police were tough in those days. Finally Marc and friend wandered off leaving us sitting on the sand alone. She sat real close, ‘cause there was an on-shore breeze, and cuddled up for warmth. The fog and darkness were conspiring to hand us an invitation to exchange secrets.
Our confessions were freely exchanged using doublespeak and innuendos, but the meanings slipped out when nobody was looking.
“I can’t understand,” she said, “why you don’t get close.”
“It’s just that…” but words failed me, like a toddler, I stumbled.
The moon appeared from behind the gathering clouds, a luminous silver disc.
I had a stick in my hand, nervously drawing a circle in the sand like a four year old child.
.
“It’s just that you’re…”
She grabbed the stick from me, and scratched a jagged line through the ring, breaking it in two. Grasping me by the collar with both hands, she drew me closer, only a heartbeat away.
“That’s just it,” she said with serious longing in her eyes. “It’s not working out.”
I had good news in my life and recognized it when I saw it.
At this point her lips crossed into my danger zone, so close I couldn’t resist.
I believe what happened next was the best kiss on the beach I’d ever had. After that …let’s just say sex and a moonlit beach… there was nothing like it.
The summer night worked its magic. Black velvet darkness gently caressed and enveloped her breasts. Sudden moonlight, ice-blue moonlight, revealed both her smooth white belly and her secret dark-shadowed clefts. She felt pounding surf effortlessly invading her freely abandoned southern shores, leaving my hard-earned pearls scattered carelessly on the sand, puddling the tide-pool depression of her naval. Crashing waves broke over her, provided deafening white noise, and allowed Kristina to concentrate on what really mattered; herself.
Let’s face it; there was nothing artificial or false here. It was Hemingway’s Moment of Truth.
There is nothing as precious as our secrets, nor anything so terrible.
Two weeks later she moved to an apartment, filed for divorce, and was on her own. That put a whole different spin on the situation.
But that was O.K. My gyroscope was already turning. I wasn't about to lose my balance. To quote Pete Townsend, I had gained “A Heart to Hang Onto.”
©Steven Hunley2011