From the moment when Luke’s eyes met the girl’s from the opposite side of the beach party, they both knew. Immediately, he cut a course towards her, wading through the revellers who danced trance-like in the warm twilight of their Greek island, floating on the waves of bass, buoyed by quantities of retsina.
Her name was Jade, he remembered. A friend of a friend, very pretty. They tried to talk above the music, their heads pressed together, mouth-to-ear. Her hair smelled newly washed, he thought, as he rested his hand lightly on her hip.
She knew she’d seen him somewhere before. She tucked a thumb into his belt as they danced and she noticed his frame was firm and lean. He would do.
After a while she led him away from the crowd, along the shoreline into the dusk, where the party lights faded into the distance. They kissed, their hands exploring each other’s bodies. Without the din she could feel her heart pounding … was it his too?
Almost as one, they began pulling off their clothes, attacking belts, kicking off shoes.
“Do you have any protection?” she asked.
He silently thanked his friend for lending him a condom, which he quickly retrieved from his discarded jeans. Then, moments later, he began to wonder whether he had it the right way around—it wasn’t going on right. He swore lightly.
“Wait,” she said, going down to explore the situation. There was a pause, then she snorted with laughter. “Oh my God, it’s luminous green!”
Blushing in the dark, he replied “you could call it my light sabre.”
Jade dissolved into helpless giggles, stood up and staggered down the beach, weak with laughter. Luke bounded after her, hoping to regain the moment, his faintly glowing appendage bobbing in the gloom.
In celebration of the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Photo credit: John Parris
Tom Dawn 