An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (17 page)

              ‘You make these?’ Melissa wondered.

              ‘My mother did,’ I replied, rather embarrassed.

              Melissa smiled cheekily above a bitten triangle of sandwich.

              Further down the beach a couple of blobs had broken away from the group and seemed to be coming our way. I pointed them out to Melissa; she turned, shrugged and then looked back at the sea.

              ‘Probably swingers,’ she said calmly. ‘Come to ask us if we want to join in.’

              ‘How do they know we’re a couple?’ I wondered.

              ‘Are we?’ Melissa asked.

              I hesitated, dislodging a chunk of bread from my throat. ‘I meant a couple as in a man and a woman. Two people, not, you know.’

              Melissa stared at me for a fleeting moment, studying my face, then she shrugged it off. ‘They probably don’t care. Two dicks, two vaginas, one of each. I don’t think they mind. More the merrier for them. Just ignore them and they’ll leave us alone.’

              I did as Melissa instructed, and turned my attention to the sea instead, staying close to her and enjoying her warmth; listening to the soft sounds of her eating as her jaw worked through my mother’s cucumber sandwiches.

              ‘This is nice,’ she said after a while.

              She turned to me with a broad smile. I pulled away to look at her, and only then did I see that the approaching blobs had moved to within fifteen feet of the blanket. Three of them in total, two men and a woman, and as it turned out the black patches around their groins weren’t Speedos. It was pubic hair.

              All of them were naked.

              ‘Oh my god,’ I said softly.

              Melissa bolted upright and turned to see what had startled me. I heard a soft sound escape her lips when she saw them, it began as startled horror and faded into amusement.

              The two male nudists, their scrotums cradling small penises and swinging with the movement of their pudgy, hairy bodies, looked to be in their sixties. The woman appeared to be a lot younger. Her breasts hung down to her bulbous stomach like saggy pendulums, but her face was wrinkle free.

              Melissa turned to face me; her hand was covering her mouth suppressing a giggle.

              ‘Hello there,’ one of the men called, waving a hand which seemed to move in step with his wandering ball-sack.

              ‘Hi,’ I offered in reply, my voice far too soft for them to hear. ‘Hello!’ I tried again, too loudly this time. I cursed myself under my breath and then realised that if anyone here had the right to feel embarrassed it shouldn’t be the guy whose greeting was too loud.

              They were upon us now. The woman drifted around the top of the blanket, closer to me. The two men hovered behind Melissa. Now I couldn’t even look at her for fear of the flesh-sacks that hovered above and behind her head.

              One of the men -- the one who hadn’t spoken yet -- began to stretch, smiling out to sea as he did so, breathing deep the sea air. “
Lovely day isn’t it?”
his mannerisms seemed to say, as his twisting, bending torso exposed his hairy crack.

              ‘Do you know where you are?’ the woman asked politely.

             
The Twilight Zone?
I thought.

              ‘The beach?’ I said aloud, feeling that the pendulum effect of the two scrotums had hypnotised me.             

              The woman looked from Melissa -- now trying to hide her giggles behind a scrunched up face -- to me. ‘I can’t help noticing you’re not nude,’ she said.

              ‘I noticed that too,’ Melissa replied, looking like she was going to explode.

              ‘But this is a
nude
beach, the woman pushed, elongating the word
nude
and seeming to look at my crotch as she did so, perhaps expecting my penis to pop out at her command.             

              ‘We just thought we’d come over and tell you,’ the non-stretching man said.

              ‘You
have
to be nude to be on this beach,’ the woman added.

              ‘It took three of you to tell us that?’ I wondered, suddenly snapping out of the trance now that things had stopped jingling.

              They all exchanged glances, then the woman added, ‘We just wanted to make sure you weren’t here to...’ she paused and looked away awkwardly. I found myself momentarily amazed that a woman who walked around naked staring at penises had any sense of shame.

              ‘-To spectate,’ the stretcher said, his eyes bearing down on me.

              ‘To spectate?’ I returned his fierce gaze, I didn’t know where else to look.              His penis was calling to me like a car-wreck.

              The woman nodded knowingly. ‘There are a lot of perverts around here.’

              Melissa’s restraint broke and she exploded into a fit of laughter.

              They looked offended. I didn’t blame them. But her laugh was contagious; it took a great effort not to join in.

              ‘Please leave the beach,’ the woman said, maintaining a polite tone.

              ‘We don’t want to have to call the police,’ the stretcher added.

              Melissa forced a hand to her mouth. I watched her bright eyes sparkle with amusement above the compressed flesh of her palm.

              She raised her free hand to the nudist, held their attention until the laughter was stifled, and then told them: ‘We just got here, we’re not leaving.’

              ‘We’re not bothering you,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go back over there, we’ll stay--’

              The woman interrupted me: ‘If you’re not nude you can’t stay,’ the politeness had now completely gone from her tone. She looked annoyed and flustered; a visible red colour had fused into her cheeks.             

              I was about to concede defeat when Melissa stopped me in my tracks.

              ‘Fine!’ she shouted. She bolted upright, just avoiding stepping on the remaining sandwiches. ‘Naked it is!’ she exclaimed.

              She began to strip. I saw the eyes of the two men light up, even the woman seemed happy with the prospect of Melissa’s naked young body.

              ‘Melissa,’ I began. ‘You don’t have to--’

              ‘It’s okay Kieran,’ she turned to look at me. I noticed a maddening sense of eccentric adventure on her face. ‘I don’t mind.’

              After tearing off her jacket and stepping out of her shoes, she peeled off her blouse, exposing a red bra and a flat stomach. She dropped her trousers with one swift movement. I thought she would stop there, leaving her bra and matching underwear exposed to the elements, but she kept going.

              Naked, her clothes discarded on the floor, the eyes of four admiring spectators on her, she threw her arms into the air and took in a deep and exhilarating breath.

              I had restrained my curiosities when looking at the nudists, but couldn’t do so with Melissa, my eyes refused to peel away.

              I was staring at her lustfully when I realised everyone was now looking at me in expectation.

              ‘Well?’ said the woman with the saggy boobs.

              ‘Now who’re the perverts?’ Melissa snapped. ‘I undressed; I gave you what you wanted. Now go back to your area and leave us alone, Kieran will undress when he is ready. And he’ll do so for
me
, for
my
eyes,
not
for yours.’

              The woman looked humbled. She paused for a moment to work out a reason to object, but eventually she sulked off, dragging her friends with her.

              ‘That was amazing,’ I told Melissa when the saggy backsides of the three nudists were bouncing away.

              Melissa grinned widely. ‘Thank you,’ she closed her eyes and stretched, I drank in more of the beauty of her slim, naked body. ‘I enjoyed it,’ she said. She noticed me staring and then promptly averting my eyes, but she didn’t comment, nor did she hurry to dress.

              ‘Do I have to undress now?’ I wondered.

              She laughed and shook her head. ‘I’ll put my clothes back on soon, they won’t come back,’ she smiled at me, then looked reflective. ‘Do you think that was a dumb thing to do?’ she wondered.

              Sitting down slowly, using her previously discarded jacket to conceal some of her dignity, the exposure seemed to dawn on her.

              ‘Not at all,’ I said truthfully. ‘I thought it was amazing.’

              I leant in to kiss her. She seemed unsure at first, still feeling vulnerable in her nakedness, but when our lips locked she softened.

11

Melissa, Jessie and Everyone Else

              I was still with Melissa a few months down the line, things were going well.

              At the end of our unorthodox second date I took her back to my hastily tidied flat where we shared some insightful conversation over a couple of bottles of wine and then spent the night together. She stayed over for the rest of the weekend.

              The following weekend we repeated the date, without the cold beach and awkward nudity.

              For the first time in my adult life I had a girlfriend. I took her to meet my parents (who she loved) I brought her along to share a drink with Matthew (who she thought was insane) and I tried to spend as much of my free time with her as I could.

              She was beautiful, funny, loveable, generous and sweet. She was everything I wanted, but after two months she began to transform.

              It began on the night of our three month anniversary. I had noted the date on my calendar and had been planning for it all week. A quarter of a year, twelve weeks; it was a big deal.

              I cleaned my flat and loaded it with candles and cushions I borrowed from my mother. When I had finished it looked like a feminine paradise. It was a little on the tacky side, the vibrant cushions juxtaposed against the bleak backdrop of the flat made it look like a schizophrenic had been allowed to redecorate his cell, but I was sure she would like it.

              I played some soft classical music in the background; cooked a heavy pasta meal for two; bought in a few bottles of wine and laid a table in the centre of the flat, away from the corners where I had piled most of the junk that previously covered the flat.

              I was riddled with nervous energy, unable to stand still or sit down. But Melissa was distant, from the moment I let her into the flat she was despondent.

              I thought maybe I was imagining things, transferring the stress of a heavy day onto her. So I ignored my paranoia and pushed on with the night.

              After sitting her down and offering her a bottle of wine, I gave her some of her presents: a large cuddly toy, a single rose and a box of chocolates. Then I sat down opposite her and watched as she cradled the objects awkwardly.             

              ‘What’s all this for?’ she wondered.

              I assumed she knew about the anniversary, how could she not? But she didn’t know I had planned all this in aid of it. She had been invited around on the rouse of ordering a pizza and watching a film, an event that had become almost daily over the last few weeks.

              ‘It’s a big night,’ I told her, staring deep into her eyes and not breaking contact when she looked away. ‘I wanted to make it special.’

              We ate dinner in relative silence. I slopped creamy sauce down my top twice, the first time I disappeared to change my shirt, the second time I didn’t bother. I didn’t want to let my dinner get cold.

              After a dessert of shop-bought pastries and cheesecake, I told her I had something special to give her and I disappeared into the bedroom.

              I returned with a key to the flat. The main thought behind the meal had been to ask her if she would move in with me, taking advantage of an anniversary to extend our relationship even further. The flat was small and fairly dilapidated, but she still lived with her parents and often complained about them. I had been thinking about asking her to move in for a few weeks, she was around the flat most nights anyway. Tonight was the perfect time to spring the question.

              I cupped the key in my palm, walked to her side and placed a hand on her shoulder. When she looked at me I saw despondency in her eyes, and I thought I noticed something else: fear, anxiety, distress.

              I fell onto my knee by the side of her chair and looked into her curiously ambivalent eyes. She spoke before I had the chance to.

              ‘Oh my god!’ she threw her hands up and sprang out of the chair.

              I had run the scenario over and over in my head, and on more than one conception she said those exact words. In my imaginings they were said with ecstasy, possibly with a small tear bubbling in the corner of her eye, or a look of deep and unbreakable love on her face.

              ‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ she continued. There was no tears, no ecstasy, no love. She seemed infuriated. ‘I can’t do this.’ She backed away from the table as she spoke. ‘This is getting out of hand, you’re going too far.’

              ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, still on one knee, the key still held behind my back.

              ‘First the phone-calls and text messages. Then the visits. The
pizza
nights. The
movie
nights. The weekends at your parents,
my
parents, the
cinema
, the
zoo
,’ she threw her hands up exasperatedly. ‘It’s all too much Kieran. And now, what? You’re going to ask me to marry you?’

              I hesitated, gripped the key tighter. ‘Well, I--I--’ I stuttered.

              ‘You’re smothering me Kieran,’ she was breathless, beaten. ‘I can’t take it anymore, I’m sorry,’ she spoke with a touch of sincerity but she looked more exhausted than sorry.