Fire and salt

The season here smells of flowers and dust but no salt though we're close to the ocean. Miramar was very different, at least in that sense.

My neighbors, the young French couple, leave with lightly packed bags every weekend, early in the morning or just before lunch. They'll return tomorrow and I'll be the first thing they see when they do. I always loved playing these little games with others, not in spite of them getting me in to trouble but because of it. Chloe is the only person that ever understood that side of me.

She never came to our summer house even though I asked her to a hundred times. It was always just us and Belle and her family, and later Carl. The three of us would sneak out at late as we could and go in to the woods, each time a little further than the last. The moon would guide us to the perfect places, but nothing made me shiver more than discovering that old empty house. I knew from the first time I saw it what was going to happen there. What I was going to do to him.

Homework

The young couple next door. Teasing him is too easy but I don't do it for him. It teases her too but this is strictly for myself, so I'll remember what holding back when I want something really felt like. I've done it before but not as of lately, so I definitely need the practice.

They pass by my patio in the afternoon and every time I feel them glancing at me in the corners of their eyes, laying flat on my back on a bath sheet. How they both pretend like they're not watching. Her: not with envy but to make sure I don't follow him for too long. Him: with a subtle hint of desperation ever since he noticed that my bikini isn't a bikini but matching powder pink underwear from Marlies Dekkers.

I know by the way she squeezes his hand as they pass that she's seen it too, it's the finest part of my day since I cut the 3 o'clock glass of Champagne. My frustration afterwards would be easily cured but instead I wait for them to return an hour later, hands still firmly gripped around my thighs. It's painless torture for all of us but I need it, if I ever want to learn.

 

Our honeymoon

I have two neighbors here, an elderly lady and a French couple in their late twenties. The boy is handsome, he could do better than her but holds her hand and calls her chéri as if he's really in love.

He came by one day asking for a screwdriver (not the drink), I answered the door in my underwear and acted embarrassed when he stared at my plum colored balconette bra. Since then I know he wants to fuck me but I'm not here to make friends. I stay away from temptations even when I think that she might want it too.

Meanwhile, S tells me that Henry left Paris and went back to LA. "A friend saw him at Wilshire Boulevard" she says, "he looked heartbroken". She calls me on a landline phone in the kitchen, I sit with my legs crossed on the wooden floor and listen to her talk och breathe and laugh. She's the only person I'd want to see right now.