Free Love Unbound by Evelyn Adams Page B

felt
awful. This was her life – the one she got, her gift from God, and
she wasn’t living it the way she wanted to. Her eyes drifted closed
and she breathed in the still night, praying with each exhale. Please God. Please God. Please God. Unsure of what to ask
for but absolutely certain she did not want to feel like this for
one minute more.
    She heard a noise behind her and felt the
dock move. Opening her eyes and shifting on the rough boards, she
could make out Max barely visible as he stepped onto the dock. As
she watched, he stripped off his t-shirt. Even his olive skin
looked pale in the moonlight as he shucked off his jeans and
briefs. By the time he reached her he was completely naked.
    “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded small
in the darkness.
    “Come swim with me, Jules. Like we used
to.”
    The “no” sat on the tip of her tongue ready
to reject him, but in the stillness a small quiet voice inside her
said “why not?” Why shouldn’t she? It was so dark. She wouldn’t
have to worry about how she looked, and she used to love to swim at
night, floating under the stars. She nodded, unable to squeeze a
response past the tightness in her throat and stood.
    “Good.” Max grabbed some of the kids’
Styrofoam noodles from the boat house and tossed them into the
water. He planted a smacking kiss on top of her head, let out a
whoop and dove in after them. He came up spluttering and gasping
for air. “Holy Christ, it’s cold!” Laughter bubbled out of her and
some of the tension between them dissolved. “Come on in. The water
is fine,” he said doing his best Delmar from O Brother Where Art
Thou .
    “I can tell.” She laughed. Still grinning,
she shimmied out of her jeans and panties. Without giving herself a
chance for second thoughts, she stripped off her shirt and
unclasped her bra, freeing her full breasts. Her nipples pebbled to
tight buds in the cool night air and she shivered both from the
cold and the shock of standing naked under the stars.
    Unable to bring herself to dive into the
dark, she climbed down the ladder, gasping as she slid into the
water.
    “Over here, baby.” Max waved a noodle at her,
and with swift smooth strokes, she swam the short distance to him.
He pushed two noodles at her, and she wiggled one under her butt,
making herself a floating chair. The second one went around her
back and under her arms. She leaned back buoyed by the noodles and
the smooth dark water and sighed completely content for the first
time in as long as she could remember.
    Her breasts floated, pale orbs in the dark
water. She could just make out the shapes of her feet deep in the
water below her. Letting her head fall back, she stared up at the
stars. Max floated over to her in his own improvised chair and
touched her fingertips with his.
    “Look at how many there are,” he said, his
voice filled with the awe she felt. “They go on forever.”
    “Yep.” They bobbed side by side in the
stillness of the night barely touching yet somehow more connected
than they’d been in months. Her body had adjusted to the water
temperature and only the tops of her shoulders and tips of her
breasts felt the chill of the night air. The cool air on her
nipples was deliciously arousing. Every so often she’d shift to
lower her breasts under what now felt like warm water and shiver as
she let them break the surface again, the contrast in temperature
tightening her nipples to hard points and sending tremors through
her body.
    “I love you, Jules.” Max slid behind her,
letting his arms circle her. The extra buoyancy of him underneath
her lifted her breasts slightly out of the water. Achingly slowly
with feather light touches, his fingers played along the curves off
her breasts. When they grazed her nipples, her head fell back to
rest on his chest.
    They floated weightless in the dark while he
stroked her breasts. The hard length of him nestled in the crease
of her bottom, but he didn’t rush. They listened to