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“Fancy a swim?”
We head down to the water’s edge. As we walk deeper into the sea, the water becomes crystal clear and we can see small fish swimming around our legs. The sea is cool and refreshing and, after swimming around for a bit, Toby and I turn on our backs to float.
“This is a nicer place to be than either of the hotel swimming pools,” he says. “If I were on holiday, I’d come down here rather than stay up at the hotel, wouldn’t you?”
“Mmm,” I reply. “The problem is that, if you’ve booked all-inclusive, you might baulk at the prospect of having to shell out each day to hire the loungers here.”
“Fair point,” he concedes, “but five Euros per day is hardly bank-breaking, is it?”
After a while, we walk back to our little area and towel ourselves dry, before taking up position on the loungers. I make some notes on my notepad and then take out my book. I don’t actually read much of it, but it’s a useful prop to allow me to observe the other beach users candidly from behind my sunglasses. There must be other hotels in the area, because a lot of the other people on the beach are families with children of varying ages, and the Bellavista is adult only. I listen carefully and hear a mix of languages; there are a few other English people, but mostly Italians and Germans.
I watch a girl and a boy to our right for a little while. They are obviously brother and sister as they both have blonde hair and similar facial features. They’re building a sandcastle and have dug out a moat around it. They take turns running down to the sea to fill up their bucket, before carefully pouring the water into the moat. It drains away instantly, of course, but they don’t seem to mind. Their mother is toasting herself in the sun, and their father is keeping an eye on them from his position in the shade a little further away.
To our left there is another family with older children. The elder daughter must be sixteen or seventeen; she’s lying on her back, wearing the skimpiest bikini that barely preserves her modesty and reading a magazine while she sunbathes. The boy is probably in his early teens; I can hear that his voice has broken when he speaks, but he’s got that slightly awkward, beanpole look that teenaged boys have when they’re going through a growth spurt. He’s playing frisbee with the younger daughter, who I reckon is about ten. She’s wearing a black, one-piece swimsuit and is very slightly chubby, as if someone has attached an air hose to her and inflated her a little. I remember when I was like that, just before I hit puberty and shot up. ‘Puppy fat’, my mum used to call it.
Movement from the teenager draws my eye back to her. She’s turning over to tan her back. As she does so she unties the top of her bikini to ensure an even tan with no white marks. Another young woman in an equally skimpy bikini wanders past, with a man I imagine is her boyfriend in tow.
“Have you ever wondered,” Toby remarks, “why it is that people feel quite happy wandering around in public wearing next to nothing when it’s called swimwear, when they’d be terribly embarrassed if they were wearing underwear that covered up the exact same amount?”
“What do you mean?” I ask him.
“Well, take that girl over there,” he says, indicating the teenager. “I bet she’d feel unbelievably embarrassed if someone asked her to walk into a room full of strangers wearing just her underwear. But, because we’re calling that tiny piece of cloth a bikini, she’s quite happy to be parading around in it, even though she’s probably more exposed.”
I consider his point for a moment.
“What about your ‘Boudoir brides’?” I ask him. “They obviously don’t have a problem getting their kit off in front of a stranger.”
“They do, actually. Very occasionally they’re OK from the beginning, but with most of them I have to start fairly modest and work up. I never shoot anything tacky, but it has to be sexy, you know? It takes a while to build up their confidence and get them to trust me. They aren’t like models, who are used to being told what to wear and do, and often they’ll have body image issues that I have to work around. It can be a real challenge, but it’s worth it to see their faces when they see the pictures. For many of them it’s a real achievement, and it gives them a hell of a confidence boost.”
“I think I’m lucky,” I reflect. “I’m not wild about my ears, because they stick out, but at least I can hide them under my hair. Other than that, I think I’m fairly happy with my body. I guess slightly bigger boobs wouldn’t go amiss, but I’m not especially anxious about them. Do men have issues like that?”
He thinks for a while. “I think a lot of men are probably anxious about their penis size. At the gym I go to there are two types of bloke. The first type goes into the changing rooms and strips down, waving their tackle for all to see, but I’ve always suspected they partially arouse themselves first to make themselves look more impressive. The second type, which is me by the way, faces into a corner and gets changed under a towel, so we don’t get judged as inadequate by the willy wavers.”
“But Toby, not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve seen your penis several times now and there’s nothing wrong with it. It looks perfectly serviceable to me.”
He blushes profusely. “You’re very kind, I’m sure. I’m still not going to be waving it around at the gym.”
“It’s not surprising that so many women suffer with body image issues,” I continue, “given the way we’re objectified and told we have to be perfect, otherwise nobody will ever fancy us. It’s definitely much worse for women than men, don’t you think? Men don’t seem to have the same hang-ups. Take Aldo, for example. Deeply unattractive, but still somehow convinced he was God’s gift. There are an awful lot of men like him out there, and I’ve been unlucky enough to meet quite a few of them.”
As if on cue, a man walks past carrying a couple of beers. Even though he’s probably in his fifties, and old enough to be her father, I see his eyes roam appreciatively over the prone body of the teenage girl. After he’s checked her over, he shifts his gaze to me, but looks away quickly when he sees that I’m watching him. He is not attractive. His shoulders and face are pink with sunburn and sweat is beading on his forehead. His most prominent feature is his belly, which stands out proudly, as if he’s swallowed a beach ball. Underneath the belly I can just make out a very small, tight pair of swimming trunks, which leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. I don’t want to be cruel but, if he ever went to the gym, he’d definitely want to get changed facing the wall. Despite his obvious shortcomings, he strides confidently across the sand, eyeing up the females as if he’s an alpha male trying to decide which of us will be lucky enough to be chosen to mate with him.
Toby sees him too, and I laugh quietly. “I rest my case, your honour,” I say to him.
