CHASING NEPTUNE'S DAUGHTER (JOHN C. MANNONE)
I tried not to stare at her. But I’m sure the goddess was watching me. I felt masculine. Muscles tensed.
My bare toes gripped the beach sand. On a slow run, I felt the undulating dunes roll under my feet; scorch my soles. I accelerated, hoping the forced air would cool them just a little. Every step flung sand and pelted my adolescent calves. The beach transformed to cool, but uncomfortable clumps when dampened by the sea spray. Closer to the ebb, the sand compacted smooth to a wet coolness. Then, I encountered a new resistance as I stomped at the foot of waves, kerplunking until knee deep. Headlong, I catapulted into the green surf, as if I was the predator, screaming, Shark attack!
My hot skin seemed to peel under the wet ice-blade teeth of the salted ocean-bay sharking all of me. The waves gushed up my nose, in my mouth; flushed my eyes, even through the eyelids, or so it seemed. In mockery, the mouth of ocean spat me out and I tumble back to the bank as a flip-flopped fish ready to be gutted.
I lay dazed on the beach; beads of water shed down my arms and back. I hoped she wasn’t looking. Humiliation trickled down my face. What is it about being thirteen and trying to impress the chicks that were way too old for me?
Her smell mixed with the suntan oil and salt and the wind beat it into my face. Gulls hovered with their taunting caws, You dummy!
An insane sense of calm washed over me; I strutted down the beach, quietly slipped into the water and faked a feeble doggy-paddle finessed as a Weissmuller move—a Tarzan-after-Jane type of swim. Way offshore, the waves were more sedate. I could barely see her blue bikini dotting the shore.
My eyes now were focused on a floating platform twenty feet away. It slapped the Chesapeake, silly at times. Bass tone gurgled louder as I approached. It seemed to beckon me.
The burlap mat, its tight weave, was stapled flush to the wood. Its wetness glinted with sun-steamed water. I wondered what her name was. The one with the long legs silking out from her emerald green swimsuit still shimmering as she lunged into the bay. The raft had sprung off the water, recoiling under her feet. She disappeared beneath the waves, sleek as a mermaid, prettier than Neptune’s daughter.