Sand Castles
The sand was hot under Jane’s feet and the beach packed with people. It was the end of summer and the sky was cloudless. A perfect day then, for a splash in the cool water and then, if you could find a space for your towel, a doze in the sun, all the while doing your best to ignore the yells of excited children and corralling parents. Fun, if you liked that kind of thing, she thought.
Jane looked across at Glenn who shuffled through the sand beside her. With each step he wiggled his toes into the fine white grains luxuriating in the texture. He seemed impervious to the sand’s heat while she could feel her feet retaining more and more of the warmth with each step. Jane liked the ocean but not the beach, or to be more accurate the sand. The sand she could definitely do without. If only thick green grass could grow down to the water’s edge, Jane thought.
They had slept in, then made love and hadn’t left their holiday apartment until after 3.00pm.The afternoon was warm and she could imagine how hot the sand would have been earlier. They planned to stay on the beach till evening when they would return across its wide expense for burgers, fries and a drink. Or at least she hoped so. Glenn was vain about his striking and desirable athletic physique and had started a campaign before they left for the break to have them eat better while they were away. Jane did not like the idea. Holidays were for fun and for Jane that included ice cream and wine.
Glenn had been looking out to the inviting ocean and as if he read her mind, he turned and smiled that big wattage grin that he seemed to reserve just for her.
They had made love only an hour ago but when he smiled at her like that Jane felt that she could pull him down to the sand right there and then, mount him and ride him in time to the crashing waves. The surrounding men, women and children could cheer her on for all she would care.
They had met at an engineering conference. Jane was on the organising team, Glenn an attendee. He was a civil engineer and he walked up to her early on the last day as she was sourcing with the venue manager a better lectern for the keynote address. Jane had seen him a few minutes earlier taking a seat in the front row of the middle of the otherwise empty room. As the first session of the day was still two hours away Jane had presumed he was just very punctual, something that a number of the attendees were proving to be. That and a little bit sexist, not horribly, but it just seemed to Jane that these were men, and they were almost all men, who spent little time in female company. Thinking about it now Jane realised she had been judgemental and guilty of pigeonholing but stereotypes exist for a reason.
When he smiled and introduced himself Jane felt something, a bit of buzz cut through the twenty other things occupying her frazzled brain. When Glenn praised the event’s organisation and enthused over the morning’s upcoming address she felt buoyed by his sheer exuberance, calmed by his praise. It had been a long couple of days but the end was in sight. Plus when he asked for her number he was just awkward enough to add to the appeal. That had been two months ago and the relationship had developed quickly but this stay at the beach was the first time they had been away and together for a long period of time.
Their apartment on the 10th floor looked south to the marina and the enclosing breakwater. It was nice enough but truth be told most of their time so far had been spent in the bedroom. This morning despite both of them showering after they came up from the beach the night before, there had been sand in the bed. During sex some grains had been introduced in and around Jane’s vagina. At first it had been ok but soon there was a scratch that became a sting. By the last few strokes the pain was outweighing the pleasure but Jane didn’t say anything. It hadn’t worried Glenn although it must have been scratching him too.
Jane wondered how much further he would drag her across the hot sand and reconsidered. She would never mount him on the beach. The last spot she would ever screw anyone would be on sand.
“Gee it’s busy. What about over there beside that blue umbrella?”
He pointed towards a patch of sand, then grabbed her free hand again and began to pull her that way.
Glenn set up the beach umbrella, screwing the shaft into the sand with elaborate care, almost reverence. Jane took off her shirt and cut off denim shorts and stood self-consciously in her simple black bikini. Glenn stood and pulled off his t-shirt with an extravagant stretch revealing his V shaped torso and six pack stomach. Jane noticed that two mothers nearby surrounded by small children and beach toys were captivated by the view. She felt jealous and proud and when Glenn asked if she would rub sunscreen on to his back and shoulders she didn’t rush, she took her time rubbing the lotion into his ropy back muscles.
“Shall we go and get wet?” Glenn asked.
Really he was like a puppy sometimes, she thought, full of energy, only happy if he was on the move.
“Can we wait a bit first? I want to get nice and hot.”
“Fair enough,” he answered and they lay down on their towels, side by side on their stomachs. She turned towards him, leant over and kissed his lips. There was the taste of toothpaste and a little sweat from his upper lip. Glenn sighed and gently extended his fingers and begun to stroke the side of her breast beside the seam of the bikini cup. But there was sand on his fingers and the strokes failed to dislodge the sand so soon she felt it scratching her skin. She reached with her hand and stopped him whispering, “The sand is scratching my boob.”
He stopped and she felt his muscles tense for a second before he relaxed, “Sorry. I will kiss it better later. It’s the beach honey, it is hard not to get a bit of sand on you.”
They lapsed into silence and when she felt sweat forming in her hair line she reached over, grabbed his hand and said, ‘Lets swim.”
Holding hands they strode towards the surf. The waves were big enough to be churning up the sand, turning the water brown when they broke in the impact zone. Jane was a strong and confident swimmer, but Glenn despite his wiry strength was not. Still they went out further and dove under the oncoming swells and occasionally tried to ride some of the smaller waves into shore.
There was a lull and they half floated, half stood on the bottom. Glenn wrapped his arms around her and ran his hands down her back before gently squeezing the cheeks of her bottom. Irritatingly even in the water his fingers still felt covered in sand as they ran down her skin. Jane decided to say nothing though and instead she stroked her fingernails down the front of his short leg Lycra swimmers. His penis was a half erect and she gently pinched the thickness between fingers and thumb and was startled when it seemed to suddenly melt away so that her fingers and thumb came together. They both gasped. But as soon as Jane thought she had felt the weird sensation it was gone and the thickness firm but yielding to pressure was back.
Jane had been resting her head on his shoulder and was looking out to sea when she saw another set of waves coming. These waves were much bigger than previous so she moved out of Glenn’s grasp and took his scratchy hand to turn him around to face them. She caught a look of fear on Glenn’s face.
Jane reached out for Glenn and thought she felt the hard muscles of his trunk go soft and give before her fingers just before the first wave broke on them. The wave dumped her and Jane ended up being held down and then rolled across the sandy bottom before she could come up for air. She turned and looked for Glenn. He popped up beside her looking shaken. There was sand in his hair; she could see that the water running out of his black curls was brown with grains.
“Shit, we really wore that one!” Jane exclaimed, putting on a deep male voice in fun. She felt invigorated and a little superior.
Glenn looked shaken. He grimaced and spat out a mouthful of sandy water.
“That was heavy, a little too heavy for me. Let’s go in and rest.”
They returned to their towels and beach umbrella and collapsed on the sand. Even with the morning sleep-in, the combination of the pounding of the waves and their lovemaking on top of last night’s boozy dinner had sapped Jane’s strength. She thought how nice a daybed under an umbrella by a resort pool would be right now and fell asleep.
When Jane awoke she was stunned to see that it was twilight. Jane rose up on her elbows and looked for Glenn. Jane was completely bewildered by the passing of time and her deep sleep; a feeling further compounded by Glenn’s absence, in fact everyone’s absence. The beach that had been packed seemed completely empty now. To the east a full moon peeped above the horizon.
She turned to face the other way and her astonishment was complete. A metre away was a sand castle. Actually not a sand castle, it was more a sand sculpture of a castle that looked a lot like Buckingham Palace. The facade was about two metres long. It wasn’t perfect; one corner had begun to crumble. Perhaps the sea water used to bind the sand had dried out or perhaps it had been clipped by a careless or malicious foot. Some of the battlements were at different heights and one of the towers looked to have a lean but as far as she could see in the fading light it was an impressive achievement. She had no doubt that Glenn had built it. But where was he now?
Then Jane noticed a spray of sand fly through the air from behind the façade. While the façade was as long as a man it was only about 45 centimetres high. It was just high enough so that as she rested on her bottom and elbows she could not see who or what was behind.
Jane sat up, rose to her feet and walked over to the sand castle. Behind the façade was a shallow trench. It might have been a moat if it had been in front of the battlements. She thought it might be a temporary bed, scooped out to make a comfortable place to lie if one was happy to lie in the sand and not on it. Although how anyone could lie directly on sand was beyond her understanding.
Glenn was on his stomach and was absorbed with piling and moulding sand. He seemed to be building a new wing of his sand castle that ran at right angles from the main façade. Now Jane really understood the meaning of discombobulated. For some reason that she could not understand she was becoming annoyed.
“You’ve been busy,” she ventured.
He looked up and in even in the dusk she saw his beaming smile.
“Do you like it? Did I ever tell you that I used to build sand sculptures at the beach during University breaks? Good pocket money actually. I got a little bored waiting for you to wake up and I guess I got carried away”
He sounded so excited and proud that she regretted the sarcasm in her comment. It didn’t matter, as he hadn’t noticed anyway.
“It must be after five thirty. Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Sorry Hon, like I said, I got a bit carried away. I’d forgotten how relaxing I find this. Anyway I’m almost finished, just a few more minutes more.”
Just as Glenn finished talking the sun slid behind the beachfront towers and it became night. The street lights on the Esplanade lit up the first twenty metres of sand in a strip beside the footpath but thirty metres further, down a lot closer to the ocean where they were, it was now quite dark.
Jane realised that she was hungry and cold standing in the sea breeze in her bikini.
“Shit Glenn, its night time. Let’s go back and have a shower and get some dinner.”
Glenn’s smile faded, “You don’t like it? I built it for you.”
Jane knew he could get a good sulk on if he wanted so she bit back her rising annoyance. He had put a lot of work into it and as sand sculptures go, given the tools he had to work with, it was impressive.
Jane went around behind the façade and with a grimace joined him on her hands and knees in the slightly damp but warm sand.
Glenn turned to her and she kissed him. There was sand on his top lip and she felt it transfer to her as their mouths met.
She said, “I love it. No one has ever built anything for me before.”
Glenn looked at her, his smile restored. His eyes were bright.
“Here let me bury you in sand, it feels really good.”
Jane couldn’t think of anything worse but the sand was warm and Glenn seemed so excited so she reluctantly agreed. Besides if every kid on the beach could do it surely she could get through it.
He indicated for her to lie in the small hollow and so she reluctantly laid on her back in the shallow depression. Glenn asked her to starfish so she spread her legs and arms wide and he started to pile the sand up and over her limbs. The more sand he piled the sand on her arms the more she relaxed. The sand as a mass was far less irritating than a few individual grains and it retained warmth from the sun so she did not feel cold. In fact the warm weight over her arms was soothing.
Looking from side to side Jane saw her arms enveloped in sand. They were just mounds vague in the moonlight. Glenn started on her legs. He covered her feet first and then moved upwards piling the sand over her shins and then her knees. He advanced up each leg in turn stopping just below her crotch.
The crash of the waves had softened and the moon was higher. In the comparative silence she heard Glenn’s breath quicken and even in the semi darkness she thought she saw a bulge in the brightly patterned fabric of his swimmers. She tried to move her arms but the sand was heavy and Glen kneeling between her legs reached forward and pinned her down with his hands on the sand where her elbows were. Glenn moved forward, laid down on her and began to dry hump her in the dim light.
Jane was surprised. This was a side of Glenn she had not seen and for the first few seconds she was amused. She thought he would stop after a few jokey exaggerated pumps but he didn’t. If anything his movements became less ribald comic and more hard-core porn. Once he started groaning and gasping with each forward thrust Jane changed her mind.
“Glenn stop, it’s not funny anymore,” Jane whispered.
Embarrassed, an image had popped into Jane’s mind of a group of people gathered around them, filming and uploading their behaviour to the Internet.
Glenn said nothing. He just strengthened his grip on her elbows. The first waves of anger and a little fear washed through her.
She bucked against him and lifted her legs. They reluctantly broke free from the sand but as she struggled it seemed that the beach fell away from beneath her.
Glenn kept rubbing and thrusting; everywhere her bare skin was being scratched and bloodied by the sand all over his body. She dropped down further; the shallow hollow in the sand now felt a foot deep. Glenn’s head showered sand down on her face. She turned her face left and right and she saw the hollow was now a trench and she fell deeper and deeper with each of Glenn’s thrusts.
She tried to stop his movement with her ankles, lifted her feet over his buttocks and then pressed down in ghastly parody of lustful surrender. But as she tried to grip his thighs all she felt was sand. She screamed then and some of the people on the breakwater who were walking back to their hotels after watching the sunset turned towards them. One of them thought he saw some of the beach move as if there had been a hole that had suddenly caved in.
Glenn leaned forward and before she could scream again he kissed her deeply. His tongue darted into her mouth. Sand poured in.
There was now nothing solid about Glenn and when she looked up one last time through scratched burning eyes at Glenn’s face there was no face just a shimmering mass of sand iridescent in the twilight.
In the end the sand covered every inch of her, sand was inside every orifice, her nerves spewed pain signals till the receptors abraded away. Finally her skin and the subcutaneous fat sloughed off and then the beach closed over them.
By the next morning a high tide had washed away the sand castle and filled the depression in the beach. An observant lifesaver collected the scattered belongings, towels and umbrella and reported the situation to the police.
A day later when one of the hotel cleaners stripped the sheets from their bed she was astonished by the avalanche of sand that poured from the sheets on to the hotel room carpet. She shook her head and wondered how people could lie in a bed filled with so much sand.
THE END
Photo by Emmanuel Acua on Unsplash
