Sharks and Mothers

Love-making in shark-infested waters

“Mother’s Beach?”

It was midnight, and behind them Sol Luna, the Marina del Rey restaurant, where they had eaten dinner and afterwards danced to a band called The Ebb Tides, was still packed. Several Silver Margaritas had gotten them pleasantly buzzed. The boats’ lights sparkled on the water and reflected off Setsuko’s glossy black hair as they passed under the sign and walked toward the darkened beach.

“Yeah, it’s just a little bay. Water’s shallow. No waves. No riptides. Safe as your bathtub. Mothers come here with their toddlers and can relax. Safe.” Hugh laughed. “It’s also known as Stretch Mark Beach.

“I don’t understand.”

Setsuko’s English was getting better, more advanced than Hugh’s Japanese, but she was helpless with idioms and wordplay. Hugh took her hand and puffed out his belly. He held her hand to his skin and separated her fingers. “Marks left when the woman’s skin stretches during pregnancy. Stretch marks.”

“Ah, sutoretchimāku.”

They wrapped their arms around each other and stepped on the still-warm sands. It was August and in Los Angeles it had been in the nineties during the day for the last two weeks. Setsuko was to return to Japan in two days and he would follow a week later.

At the water’s edge they took off their shoes and hand-in-hand walked in a few inches of water toward a shadowy bulkhead. Beyond the bulkhead was a dock which rented kayaks and sailboats. The bulkhead threw a darkness on the water. They sat under the dark pilings, bound against each other. He took off his shirt and lay it on the sand. He unpeeled Setsuko’s jeans. She trusted him implicitly. He held his hand against her, staring back across the beach at the dancers in the picture windows of the restaurant. On one of the docks, a boat was tying up.

“Let’s go for a swim,” said Hugh.

“All right.”

Hugh took off his jeans. Setsuko slipped off her T-shirt. They crept across the sands, staying in the bulkhead’s shadow. They slipped into the water like amphibious creatures tired of the obstinacy of land. The water was too shallow to swim in at first so they crawled, digging their fingers into the muddy bottom, their bodies still on the water’s surface, but finally the water became waist deep and they were free to swim. Setsuko was a strong swimmer. She had swum on her high school team. Hugh had to labor to keep up with her, but it was not long until they reached the rope and buoys that signaled the limits of the bathing area. They clung to the rope. Hugh held his hands up and let himself drop to the bottom. His feet touched in an instant. It was not even seven feet, but deep enough to drown in. With arms resting on the rope, they clung to each other, kissing hungrily, faces sinking into the sea until they remembered their breaths. The water had the faint smell of oil, and he tasted it on Setsuko’s lips. A pelican swooped down out of nowhere, skimming the surface, its huge whiteness unexpected. Setsuko stared into his eyes as he slipped off her panties. She wrapped her legs around him. His hand barely held the rope and later he could not have said if it happened above or below the water’s surface. The calculations that Setsuko would later make, put the conception of the twins At Mother’s Beach.

Hugh never mentioned the odd pulse of the water as they made love and he could not have guessed that its source was a hundred circling sharks.

Reviews

[Cherrie Palmer]

Short stories are a powerful tool. If told well they create a full-length, three-dimensional world. You give just enough information to complete and heighten the experience. You have a strong piece that can stand alone or be turned into something more.

[erik_nihil]

Tight and understated, the way flash fiction should be. Hemingwayesque, in that most of the content is largely implied. Just enough detail to brush-stroke the images to life, but nothing to weigh down the narrative. I find that flash fiction is often poetry with dialog. Good job.

[Samuel Dickens]

Now that was one dangerous sexual encounter. An excellent short story, Alex, told with great skill. Revealing too much, I admit that I did something like that long ago in a south Texas lake which was known to have aligators in it. I wonder....