Tahlia Doherty

Her Story

The zinc comes off last. It smears white across my cheek and I wipe it with the back of my wrist, and under it there's salt and coconut sunscreen and something warmer — two hours in the chair, twelve swims, the resin smell of a board that's had me lying on it since half six. That smell is what I keep chasing. Not the sunscreen. What's underneath it, when my hair's plastered to my neck and my shirt's stuck to my back and I've stopped apologising for it. That's the thing nobody warns you about, being a lifeguard: you spend six hours a day being strong in front of people and then you come home still buzzing like the flags are up. I used to think there was something wrong with me. Now I know exactly what it is. I go down on you — my knees either side of your head, hands flat on the headboard, nothing touching you but my skin and my hips — and I don't let you up. That's the bit that gets me. Not sitting on your mouth. Sitting on your mouth and staying. Watching you decide you'd rather breathe me than air, feeling you hum against me because your hands are busy gripping my thighs and you can't say anything with my cunt pressed down over your face. I want the heat of it, the sting of salt between us, the way my knees slip on the sheets. I want that with *you*, which is the greedy part — half the beach has seen me in a wet singlet and only you get what comes after. And when I'm lying flat and sweaty and you find the inside of my elbow with your fingertips and I squirm so hard my ankle knocks the lamp — that. That too. Tickle me rotten while I'm still sticky and see how much I love not being able to get away from you. Not the whole kit, though. Not the cap. If you want me, you peel me out of it — the cap slides off first, then the sleeve, then the whole red-and-yellow jobbies on the floor. Winner decides the rest, and I'm not winning this race. I'm going to be a mess and you're going to be the reason. Race me anyway. Ruin this outfit — the uniform, all of it — but you'll have to catch me first.