She was with Sam for five years, and she broke up with him to leave for Portugal. In the last years of her dad’s life, CJ had felt more adrift than ever. Unmoored. Outwardly so sure of herself but on the inside screaming for more. Her relationship with Sam hadn’t been a healthy one. He was jealous, she was withholding. She wanted to be told he’d never leave; he’d go out with the boys and not come home all weekend. And then her dad died and the inheritance came and suddenly she had choices. Sam had gone berserk. Trashed his flat, put all her stuff in bin bags and thrown them out of the window onto the street, the whole big show. But he never said he loved her, never asked if he could come too. And CJ couldn’t blame him, because she hadn’t really loved him either. They were just two unhappy people, holding on to each other in order to not be unhappy alone.
CJ watches the video. Sam is at some sort of party, lots of people on the dance floor until a record scratch from the DJ makes everybody freeze. All the guests look confused, and at the exact same moment clear out, leaving Sam behind with a pretty blonde with bangs. A Bruno Mars song starts and Sam begins a choreographed dance, much to the girl’s delight. By the end everyone is whooping and hollering and he’s pulled out a ring and she has said yes and then they hug and the video is over.
Wow. In a way, good for him? But also, god, something changed him for the better. Sam was never that happy with CJ, never that romantic or upbeat. CJ locks her phone and puts it away, stares out at the sea. She never wanted that from Sam, but it sits funny in her gut that she’s seen him that way. The timestamp under the video was six years ago, so it wasn’t recent. He could have been married and divorced and married again by now, or kept it going strong and have a bevy of kids. Huh. Huh, huh, huh. Strange how things work out, how we become different versions of ourselves as we grow older, and depending on who we are with. CJ looks across to Luis, organising his plastic boxes of supplies. It was nice that they talked earlier, properly talked. Luis sees her as she is, accepts her, and that is no mean feat. To be accepted is to be loved. The thought shocks her. Outside of Jorge and her cousins, Luis is the only person in her life who has made a decision to accept CJ, to love her. She’s never thought of it like that before.
She watches as he spots Ash across the sand, waving to her to make her laugh. She hates the jealousy it invokes,can’t stand the prickle of heat that flares in her neck. Ash is an interloper, and Ash does not understand what Luis and CJ mean to one another. They might have settled on a truce, but, CJ thinks to herself, that doesn’t mean she won’t still fight for what is rightfully hers, however unconventional it might seem to anybody else.
10
Ash
Not even CJ reverting to being a stand-offish cow can subdue Ash’s tremendously good mood today. She got fucked six ways to heaven last night, came three times, and every cell in her body feels alive, primed, switched on. Maybe this is what life is, maybe this is what she has come here to understand:youget to choose your own vibration. Some people aren’t here to evolve themselves, they’re here to be their unevolved asshat selves to help prime the ones actually ready for personal growth. CJ is a test, and to pass it Ash has to learn not to be ruffled by her mercurial moods, not to take anything personally – how can it be personal, after all, when they’re not even friends? Ash is an island, floating in the sea, and islands that float in the sea do not let their weather be determined by outside factors. Ash can be her own sunshine. Or something like that, whatever, she’s working on the similes and metaphors. The point is: CJ can get to fuck. Nothing is going to spoil Ash’s ability to treat cloud nine as her own personal hammock.
‘You look beautiful today,’ Luis says with a sly grin anda cheeky wink, as Ash sets herself up on a Turkish hammam towel Willow gave her as a ‘travel safe and well’ gift. She’s got her book, her sunglasses, her AirPods and a good playlist … today is a day for just being. And also for perving on the T-shirt-free fine specimen of a man that Luis is, of course. He’s a dirty, glorious shag, and Ash has every intention of making sure it happens again, and again. The sooner the better, if right now this second isn’t an option.
‘Ifeelbeautiful today,’ Ash smiles. ‘Last night was …’
Luis bites down on the corner of his bottom lip, tips his head to the side to look at her, eager to hear the adjectives spoken in his name.
‘I had a good time,’ he tells her, when Ash fails to sum up exactly what last night was.
It makes her happy, chew on her own lip, smile with her eyes. She’s never had much of a poker face. Time stops then. Suspends itself so these two people who have only just come to learn what the other tastes like might exist in their own small world just long enough for memories of slapping and biting and nibbling and licking to course through them. Ash feels her nipples harden, body ripe for Luis’s touch. She could drag him behind a rock right here, right now, to sate her appetite for him.
‘Would you mind helping me with my sun lotion?’ she asks, quite obviously totally unconcerned about UV protection. She wants his hands on her, that’s all, craves his touch. There was a point, last night, after they’d had sex for the first time but before they did it for the second, where they lay in their own mess, talking, saying nothing, really, just beingtogether, whispering how hot and sexy the other was, fingertips tracing sweaty skin, and Luis began to ask after Ash’s ability to follow instruction. It wasn’t pervy, didn’t feel gross, it felt sexy and bold and provocative.
‘What do you mean?’ Ash asked, her breathing getting deeper. What was he asking her to do, exactly? How far was he wanting her to go?
‘If I tell you to sit up, for example, will you sit up?’
Ash furrowed her brow. ‘Sit up?’ she repeated. ‘OK …’
She put her back against the headboard, legs in front of her and crossed at the ankle.
‘Good,’ Luis said. ‘And now bend your legs for me. At the knee.’
Ash froze slightly at this, taking a second to make sure she understood.
‘Yes,’ he encouraged. ‘So I can see you.’
Ash isn’t shy about her body, or about sex – she’s had two long-term relationships, and to keep the magic alive she considers herself to have thrown herself into satisfying several sexual proclivities: threesomes, foursomes, sex parties, the Kama Sutra, whatever it took to make her exes believe she was a cool girl and up for anything. She thought that’s what men wanted, the type of girlfriend who’d give anything a go, a lady in the streets and a freak in the bed. She had a good enough time doing so, although really, one-on-one is more her thing. Luis asking to see her, to see her body, for her to expose herself to him, asking with so much tenderness and curiosity … well. It was by far the most intimate sexual thing she’d ever been faced with.
Ash coyly bent her legs, and let Luis push apart her knees so that the most delicate part of her was on full display. He leaned right in, smelt her, and then used his fingers to spread her apart whilst looking at what she revealed.
‘Your pussy is beautiful,’ he told her, not looking up, and she believed him. She believed him when he said he was looking for a wife, too. That might have been the sexiest thing of all.
Her recollection swims around them both as Luis paws at her skin, spreading the chilly sun lotion across her back and massaging it into her shoulders. He leans so close to her that she can feel the heat of him, his breath in her ear hot and heavy as he says, ‘Is this OK?’
‘Mmmm,’ she murmurs. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ he repeats, and she cocks her head, looks up and over her shoulder.
They could kiss, if they wanted to, but Ash senses that isn’t appropriate today, not in front of everyone else from CoLab. Instead, they get to have their little secret together, stoke its flames so that tonight, perhaps, when they get back, they can do it all again.
‘Could somebody do me, too?’
Ash looks up to see who is blocking her sun. It’s Miss Give-Me-My-Space herself, CJ. Luis pauses his stroking motion on Ash’s back, and Ash hates that she’s a) cross they’ve been interrupted, and b) cross it’s by CJ, who Ash has a sudden thought about, clear as a bell: she has a crush on Luis. CJ has a crush on Luis! Oh god, how did Ash not see it before? CJ hated Luis laughing and joking with Ash,has a face like a slapped arse any time she gets wind of Luis and Ash spending time together … it’s all falling into place with startling clarity. Luis must be agonising to work with – he really is handsome, and charming, and funny. To think that CJ seemed so happy with her boyfriend the other day, so in lust, if not in love, and they have a child together! Yet she still wants more, still wants Luis – or at the very least doesn’t want Luis to have anybody else, doesn’t want Luis to have Ash.
Luis motions for CJ to sit down beside Ash and says, ‘Sure. One moment please, lovely CJ. I must attend to beautiful Ash, first.’
