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Aisha’s stomach fluttered, and she laughed. The sea would be deep, and she worried about what lurked beneath the surface. The couple who had been basking in the sun were now splashing about with the water up to their waist. They looked like they were having fun. Fear gave way to excitement. “Maybe,” she said.
They headed back to the spot on the beach they’d claimed as theirs, and Gabi handed Aisha a bathing costume. “I didn’t know if you had one,” she said. “I’m ready.”
Heat expanded in Aisha’s chest as she thought about getting changed in the open, even though she couldn’t be seen by other people. She inhaled deeply, wrapped a towel around herself, and removed her skirt.
Gabi watched her and grinned while searching blindly for something in the rucksack. “Would you like me to hold the towel in case it—”
Aisha gasped as the towel fell to the sand. She grabbed it quickly and wrapped it around her lower half again. Her heart raced.
Gabi laughed. “I’m enjoying the view, and no one else can see us.”
Aisha held the towel in one hand and removed her knickers. She stepped through the leg holes of the costume but couldn’t put it on without revealing herself. Whether anyone else was looking or not, there was comfort in having a shield around her.
“Here,” Gabi said and took the ends of the towel. She stood in front of Aisha and held the towel around Aisha’s back to protect her from the eyes of the sea.
Aisha wrestled the elastic material over her lower half. Gabi’s perfume, proximity, and steady gaze made the task even more challenging, and her breaths became shallow and fast, and her heart raced.
Gabi pulled the towel towards her, bringing their bodies together.
Aisha’s breath faltered with the desire she saw reflected in Gabi’s eyes. Her kiss was firm and deep, and Aisha wrapped her arms around Gabi’s neck. The towel fell again, but she didn’t care. She might dream of being with Gabi, but if she only had this day with her, she wanted to understand what it was to enjoy the freedom to love someone openly. Delight expanded inside her. It was as vast and deep as the ocean and the sky above it, and seemingly indestructible. The euphoric feeling was the reason for her heart to beat and her soul’s purpose. Without this, she would float like an empty vessel tossed around at sea, aimlessly grabbing snippets of fulfilment through her work but always feeling incomplete. This was love. And this was the life she wanted.
“I don’t want to stop kissing you,” Gabi whispered.
The warmth against Aisha’s ear sent a shiver down her neck that spoke to her core in a language she now knew intimately. “Then don’t,” she said and allowed Gabi to coax her to lie down on the matting. She opened her legs a little so that Gabi could lay on top of her and connect with her.
She’d never imagined not being able to get enough of someone. The deeper Gabi kissed her, and the more completely Gabi’s body covered hers in warmth, the more she craved her intimate touch. She groaned at the sensation that spiralled low in her stomach when Gabi caressed her covered breast, and she arched as Gabi tweaked her nipple. Tiny sparks of electricity and heat moved through her in waves and still, it wasn’t enough.
She held Gabi’s waist and tugged her closer, arched into her, and kissed her harder. The sweet salty taste more delicious than wine. “I want you,” she whispered, intoxicated.
Gabi unbuttoned Aisha’s blouse to halfway as she kissed her, and when she lifted the cup of her bra and took Aisha’s nipple into her mouth, Aisha put her hand at the back of Gabi’s head and pressed her closer, urging her to take more. Another shower of stars, another surge of heat burning at her sex, and Aisha tensed and gasped as the feeling eclipsed all her senses. Gabi kissed her tenderly while gentle waves rolled through her, and still she wanted more. “Will it always be like this?” she asked.
Gabi lay on her front now, resting on her elbows, and smiled. “It can be.”
Aisha lay on her side and ran her fingers across the back of Gabi’s neck. She loved stroking her short hair, the way the hairs sprang back though her fingers, and tracing the shape of her head. “But people change. Things like this, good things, come to an end.” She was sure that was the case because so many poems were about loss, and death, and longing. It was just the bad things, like waiting for her parents to accept that she wasn’t going to marry, that seemed to persist.
Gabi faced Aisha. “People change, and we can change together, and we can deal with stuff together. You said that I could do anything if I wanted. Well, anything is possible if we want it enough.”
“You’re so beautiful.” She loved Gabi even more for the way she blushed and lowered her head a little. “I could lay here with you all day.”
Gabi smiled. “We have all day.”
Aisha sat up. “After you teach me how to swim.”
Gabi laughed. “Okay, that may not happen in a day.”
Aisha stood. “We’ll have to come back again. For as many days as it takes.” She could dream.
“Deal,” Gabi said.
As Gabi headed towards the sea, Aisha thought of other things she’d rather be doing with her than learning to swim. Maybe later, as the sun set and they gazed at the stars under the cover of darkness. Maybe then she would be even more adventurous, and she wouldn’t rush back for the last bus home.
23.
GABI STUDIED HERSELF IN the mirror. She looked older, though she wasn’t really. Maybe it was just that she felt older, and in a good way. Spending time with Aisha, she’d realised two things. One, that she really did love her, and two, the scale of challenge they faced to be together was bigger than she had realised. She hadn’t talked to Aisha yet, but she would have to soon, because snatching moments whenever Aisha came to the city, whenever she could escape from her mama, wouldn’t be enough for Gabi.
Gabi had stayed out of sight for the band’s Saturday evening performances, because Aisha had asked her to. But she’d watched from a distance. Aisha worked around the clock, whereas apart from working in Matías’s workshop, which she thoroughly enjoyed, Gabi’s days ticked by slowly. She’d asked Aisha to go out with her again, to Màlaga or to the theatre, but Aisha had said it would be tricky. Getting home late after their beach day hadn’t gone down well with her mama, and she needed to tread carefully. It was an impossible situation, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
And now she had to go to the bloody fiesta in Sacromonte and face Aisha’s mama and family. Gabi’s stomach churned. She wanted to like Aisha’s parents for Aisha’s sake, but she didn’t, and there was only one thing that would change her opinion of them: accepting Aisha for who she was.
