the beach.”
“ That is very exciting,
Mike,” said Patience, exactly as excited about it as she was about
anything Mike suggested.
Mike spent the remainder of the evening
gathering together everything that they would need for a day at the
beach. Then he watched the news and joined Patience who was waiting
in bed for him. They spent a very enjoyable half hour together
there, and afterwards Mike had just enough awareness to note her
leaving him alone as he dozed off.
In the morning Mike loaded the beach chairs,
umbrellas, and towels into the car, along with the ice chest full
of food and drinks that Patience had prepared before he had gotten
up. They hopped in the car and drove west. Though they were in
California, Springdale was a good three hour drive from the coast.
The time went by quickly though. Mike listened to the radio.
Patience watched him with devotion in her eyes.
After three hours and eight minutes of
driving, Mike reached Oceanside, California. He pulled into a
filling station two blocks away from the beach and topped off the
car’s fuel.
“ Hydrogen?” he asked,
pointing the hose in Patience’s direction.
“ No, thank you.”
He noticed that across the street was a surf
shop. He sent Patience over to rent a boogie board. When she
arrived back, she not only had the boogie board, but a shopping bag
as well.
“ What did you buy?” he
asked.
“ Since I have a new swim
suit, I thought that it was only appropriate that you have one as
well.”
“ Oh shit,” said Mike. “Good
thinking. I didn’t even pack one. I don’t think I even have one
anymore. It’s been so long since I came to the beach. I hope you
remembered that I am a fat, old man.”
“ I don’t believe that you
are fat or old,” said Patience, with a frown. “The average lifespan
in the United States is seventy nine point three years for men, and
you already look healthier after only a few days of exercise and
nutritional eating.”
“ Talk about damning with
faint praise,” grumbled Mike.
They drove the two blocks to the beach, but
the public parking lot was completely full. Mike paid forty five
dollars to park his car for the day in a private lot. Normally, he
would have complained about having to pay so much just to park, but
nothing seemed to bother him anymore. After trucking the ice chest,
chairs, towels, umbrella, and boogie board down to the sand, and
finding a good spot just above the high tide line, the two of them
went to the public changing rooms.
Mike liked the swimsuit that Patience had
picked out for him. It was long, almost to his knees, and was
bright orange, yellow, and red. He thought it was the type of suit
that a young man would wear. It made his head swell a little to
think that Patience thought it was appropriate for him. When he
stepped out of the changing room and saw Patience in her suit, his
mouth fell open. Her suit was without a doubt, the smallest bikini
that he had ever seen. Even on the internet. The little patch of
material in the front could not have been more than an inch wide
and it stuck up only an inch and a half above the joining point of
her legs. The back had no patch of cloth at all. It was just
string. The top could have been custom made for her, in that the
two triangular cups so fit her round ripe breasts that there was
not a jot of material wasted. Wondering if she might be arrested
for indecent exposure, Mike looked around. He was shocked to find
that most of the young women at the beach were wearing suits very
similar. It had been a long time since he had been here.
Though there were plenty of women with small
sexy suits on the beach, Mike noted that almost every eye still
turned to Patience as they walked to the beach chairs. While he
sat, Patience rubbed SPF 210 sun block on all of his exposed
surfaces.
“ I suppose you don’t need
any sun block?” he asked.
“ I’m shielded against much
greater radiation that I am likely to be exposed to here, Mike.”
Patience
Colin Dexter
Margaret Duffy
Sophia Lynn
Kandy Shepherd
Vicki Hinze
Eduardo Sacheri
Jimmie Ruth Evans
Nancy Etchemendy
Beth Ciotta
Lisa Klein