the red imprint of her diving mask. When we reached the van, she pressed me against it, simultaneously trying to pull open the zipper on my back. I pushed her away from me; it was impossible to get out of a diving suit that way. We stood facing each other and peeled the neoprene off our skins. In her haste, Jola wound up hopping on one foot and nearly fell. Then she was naked. She braced both hands on the side of the van and turned her backside to me. I seized her hips. Her breasts swung free, and her wet hair stuck to her back.
It was good. It would have been good. But something waswrong. It was the way Jola had turned her back to me. Her questioning look, sexy and provocative. What are you waiting for? When she did that, she looked like an actress. I rubbed my cock between her thighs. She wasn’t particularly wet, but she nevertheless threw her head back immediately and forcefully. She groaned in time with my movements. As if we were playing the leads in some vacation porn movie. I could have penetrated her and gone at it hot and heavy, and we could have finished in a minute. But what would have been the point of that?
Maybe the problem was that out of the water, we were humans. Deep inside me was a dead silence. The intense feelings of a short while ago were hushed. I saw the two of us as though from the outside. The Volkswagen van, the equipment strewn on the ground. A female student and her male diving instructor, on the verge of forgetting his principles. Sex represented a powerful form of involvement. The error of thinking he could enjoy a quickie and emerge from it scot-free had undone many a man before me.
I drew back, patted Jola’s ass, and murmured an apology. Then I slipped into my jeans and set about loading the equipment. I’d have to write off the dive site at Mala as currently jinxed. When I settled in behind the steering wheel, Jola was already in the passenger seat. She didn’t seem angry. Rather a little absent. She stared straight ahead, as if an important idea had just occurred to her. I briefly put my hand on her knee. Then I needed that hand to shift.
In the course of a man’s life, he grows used to the fact that women, with few exceptions, do not wish to go to bed with him. A woman, on the other hand, can take it for granted that theoreticallyevery man wants to go to bed with her. Today I wonder what it must have meant to a woman like Jola to be rejected. Can it really be that fate had required me, at that moment, to bring matters to an end? Unanswerable questions are those best suited to being asked over and over.
JOLA’S DIARY, FOURTH DAY
[pages torn out and pasted back in]
Tuesday, November 15. Afternoon .
Algae produce 80 percent of our oxygen. According to my iPhone. It also says that whole mountains of limestone were formed from marine organisms. Humans use it to make concrete. We build cities out of snail shells and conches. The image appeals to the old man. Maybe he can use it in one of his stories .
A happy mood works just the way a bad one does. You have to take it out on someone. Since there’s no one else here, the old man gets to enjoy himself. He lies on the sofa and uses up tissues. I make him some tea, plump his pillows, and acknowledge his suffering as the most tragic in the universe. I read him pearls of wisdom from the Internet. So a good time with one turns into tenderness for the other. Note: a good time, not a guilty conscience .
What I’d most like to do is to tell the old man a completely different story. To give him a detailed account of how Sven, who usually talks the whole time we’re in the van—describes the upcoming dive, points out the few sights the island offers, relates anecdotes from his underwater life—suddenly found himself speechless. Instead of talking, he kept turning his head every twenty seconds to look at me. Why don’t I tell Theo that? Because he’d go berserk, that’s why. Because he’d beat the daylights out of me, maybe even kill
It was good. It would have been good. But something waswrong. It was the way Jola had turned her back to me. Her questioning look, sexy and provocative. What are you waiting for? When she did that, she looked like an actress. I rubbed my cock between her thighs. She wasn’t particularly wet, but she nevertheless threw her head back immediately and forcefully. She groaned in time with my movements. As if we were playing the leads in some vacation porn movie. I could have penetrated her and gone at it hot and heavy, and we could have finished in a minute. But what would have been the point of that?
Maybe the problem was that out of the water, we were humans. Deep inside me was a dead silence. The intense feelings of a short while ago were hushed. I saw the two of us as though from the outside. The Volkswagen van, the equipment strewn on the ground. A female student and her male diving instructor, on the verge of forgetting his principles. Sex represented a powerful form of involvement. The error of thinking he could enjoy a quickie and emerge from it scot-free had undone many a man before me.
I drew back, patted Jola’s ass, and murmured an apology. Then I slipped into my jeans and set about loading the equipment. I’d have to write off the dive site at Mala as currently jinxed. When I settled in behind the steering wheel, Jola was already in the passenger seat. She didn’t seem angry. Rather a little absent. She stared straight ahead, as if an important idea had just occurred to her. I briefly put my hand on her knee. Then I needed that hand to shift.
In the course of a man’s life, he grows used to the fact that women, with few exceptions, do not wish to go to bed with him. A woman, on the other hand, can take it for granted that theoreticallyevery man wants to go to bed with her. Today I wonder what it must have meant to a woman like Jola to be rejected. Can it really be that fate had required me, at that moment, to bring matters to an end? Unanswerable questions are those best suited to being asked over and over.
JOLA’S DIARY, FOURTH DAY
[pages torn out and pasted back in]
Tuesday, November 15. Afternoon .
Algae produce 80 percent of our oxygen. According to my iPhone. It also says that whole mountains of limestone were formed from marine organisms. Humans use it to make concrete. We build cities out of snail shells and conches. The image appeals to the old man. Maybe he can use it in one of his stories .
A happy mood works just the way a bad one does. You have to take it out on someone. Since there’s no one else here, the old man gets to enjoy himself. He lies on the sofa and uses up tissues. I make him some tea, plump his pillows, and acknowledge his suffering as the most tragic in the universe. I read him pearls of wisdom from the Internet. So a good time with one turns into tenderness for the other. Note: a good time, not a guilty conscience .
What I’d most like to do is to tell the old man a completely different story. To give him a detailed account of how Sven, who usually talks the whole time we’re in the van—describes the upcoming dive, points out the few sights the island offers, relates anecdotes from his underwater life—suddenly found himself speechless. Instead of talking, he kept turning his head every twenty seconds to look at me. Why don’t I tell Theo that? Because he’d go berserk, that’s why. Because he’d beat the daylights out of me, maybe even kill
Similar Books
