Body Surfing Read Online Free PDF

carry her along at tremendous speed. She has never felt so frightened, so exhilarated.
    She flails, arches her back, and takes a breath. She is beached, the sand giving way beneath her. She tries to stand.
    "My god," she says, wiping the water from her eyes.
    "You okay?" Ben asks, apparently beached as well.
    "That was unbelievable."
    And then Ben is gone, eager for another ride. Sydney searches for Jeff but cannot see him. It occurs to her that drowning here would be easier than anyone has let on. A certain death with no hope of rescue.
    Sydney learns the night topography of the ocean as a hunter might the night woods. She rides a second wave and a third and then too many to count. Occasionally, she calls out and receives a reassuring response.
    "I'm staggering," Sydney cries after a time. Her legs barely keep her upright. She wants to sink to her knees and let the waves wash over her. Crawl out onto dry land and sleep there.
    "One more," someone yells.
    Sydney faces the ocean. A sense of mild competition, perhaps of pride, pushes her forward. She will not be the first to quit. She shivers in a sudden east wind (now the east wind) and hugs her arms. She propels herself forward. She swings her legs and body from side to side, trying to make headway. Again, she waits for what she thinks will be a good wave. In the distance, she can see it coming, the white lace. She points her arms and stands poised. When it is just upon her, she sails onto its crest.
    Again, the blackness all around her, the sense of speed. She feels a shape, flesh, beneath her. The flesh slithers the length of her body, touching her, feeling her. She tries to force herself out of the surge, but she can't. She would scream if she could.
    She fights to get up onto her knees. There is water in her mouth and nose. She rises, then stumbles. She has to crawl out of the water.
    Was it a fish? she wonders, her heart pumping hard. A shark?
    She replays the touch in her mind. She remembers the slither along her right breast, her stomach, her pubic bone, her thigh. The touch fleeting, and yet deliberate. She is certain now that it was a hand. She plays the memory again. The touch would have been difficult to accomplish and was thus intentional.
    She stands on the beach, unwilling to call out. Her arms are gooseflesh, the feathers recently plucked. She doesn't know where her clothes are, how far the swells have pushed the three of them along the beach. There are lighted windows to her left and right as far as she can see. She could walk up to the seawall and hug it to the Edwardses' cottage. But then she would have to step onto the porch without her clothes, her suit and hair wet, her feet sandy.
    It might have been a fish, she thinks.
    "Hey," a voice calls. "Sydney?"
    "I'm here," she answers, and then clears her throat. "I'm here," she calls again.
    She waits until she sees a shape walking toward her.
    She could ask: Was it you?
    The touch, she is certain now, a stolen one. Not meant to be identified.
    She waits for the shape to announce itself. Ben is staggering, too.
    "Wow," he says. "That was fantastic."
    "Where's Jeff?" Sydney asks.
    Ben calls for his brother, waits an interval, and calls again. Jeff returns the call, but faintly, his ship beached quite a bit farther along the shore than Sydney's.
    "You're cold," Ben says, reaching out an arm.
    "No, I'm fine," Sydney says, slipping out from under him.
    Ben, then, Sydney guesses. Jeff is simply too far away.
    The next morning, the fog imprisons. Vigorous wisps rush through posts in the railing, sentries surrounding the house. The mist drips off the screen in rivulets, the air itself turning liquid. An asthmatic could be forgiven for thinking he might drown. In less than ten minutes the shoreline disappears. The entire Atlantic Ocean disappears. Sydney can hear the surf but not see it. A visitor coming to the house would have to take the view on faith.
    Sydney feels sorry for the family that lives just a quarter mile