Sluttern's Hollow

It’s Daniel’s fault. He left the doors open for the cool sea breeze. That's why she found the waves whispering her name, and that's why she’s naked, now, on the terrace under the warm black sky, being serenaded by the ocean.

“Or….Laa… Or…. Laa…”

The sea, at least, seems happy Orla’s here, joining Dan to start a new life. Unlike everyone else. Including, debatably, Dan himself. It’s 4:30 AM and she is wide awake on a cocktail of jet-lag and sexual-tension, while her husband — having lived on the Greek island for months already — sleeps on.

Her sleeplessness isn’t helped by the fact that every time she closes her eyes she sees Dan and his waitress. The slut’s perfect body is still burnt into her vision. Its petite bounce makes Orla want to curl up and groan. On a flight home. And as for the way Dan gawped at the girl…

Welcome to your new life, Orla.

“Or… Laa… Or… Laa”

Staring out at the inky sea, she seeks, and finds, a thin wash of sunrise over the horizon. She wants this awful night to end. She nurses her bruised ego by recalling men who’ve gone silly over her big, pale eyes. How one wrote a song — entitled ‘Cavegirl-Blonde’ — just about her hair. How another erupted in his jeans when she pressed her plump, pink lips to his fingers.

She growls. Is it really that bad now that she defines her worth by the man who came in his pants? She takes a deep lungful of cleansing, salty air.

Phosphorescent waves caress the beach and the breeze is a tentative breath on her bare skin. The problem at the heart of everything is sex. Or lack of it. It’s been months since she and her husband have touched. Properly touched. His frustration might have manifested in a lecherous stare, but her horn, right here, right now, is out of all sensible proportion.

Before she knows better, her toes are dipped in the water. She shivers, not because she’s cold but because the water is warm as skin on skin. Wavelets eddy about her ankles, sucking the sand from beneath her feet as if to pull the ground from under her. Each receding wave is a gentle, but firm, pull deeper.

Orla is an excellent swimmer, and in very good shape. She decides a pre-dawn swim will distract her until Dan wakes. She stretches out her limbs, touches her toes and lunges long splits. She relishes the cheekiness of doing this naked and outdoors, even though her husband is the only person for miles and he’s flat out.

The water swills around her knees, then up her legs and — just as choppy waves lap eagerly between her thighs — she dives. It’s like plunging into the dreams that refused to take her while she lay in her bed. Submerged and swooping slowly through the liquid blackness, she has a sense that anything might happen today.

However, the sea does little to distract her libido. If anything, it stimulates her. The thick slide of warm water over her skin is like being licked all over, all at once, by a mischievous god. She delights at having recently waxed. The rhythmic gush over her sensitive areas, as her legs frog her powerfully away from the shore, gives her stroke an extra kick.

Orla swims as fast as she can toward the fledgling sunrise, just for the sensuous joy of it, every now and then diving deep to feel the weight of the ocean’s body on top of her. Soon, the beach is far behind. She follows a range of cliffs around a promontory and, finally tiring, decides to turn back. Maybe give Daniel a soggy surprise. But a strange, soft shaping to an outcrop of cliff catches her eye. Two long hills slope from the sea like spread thighs thrusting hips above the surface, a dome of rock perched between. Is this the infamously mistranslated, ‘Sluttern’s Hollow’?

One Poseidon myth has this island formed, not by a volcano, but when the sea-god’s wife discovered him with a beautiful human lover. She turned the girl to stone and tossed her into the Aegean, prostrate, to forever taunt her flagrantly promiscuous husband.

Heartbroken, Poseidon struck his trident so hard on the island’s tallest peak that a volcano burst out, honouring his lover for eternity with its constant eruption. In response, the stone girl’s most secret place, Sluttern’s Hollow, drips forever into his sea.

It’s said that Greeks jealously guard the location of this magical place, they will never even admit to its existence, yet many have visited as it’s believed to increase both virility and fertility. Orla wonders how exactly that's supposed to work, but still, she's curious.

She swims around the first slope of rock, between the strange thigh-like cliffs to find, lit in silvery moonlight and the dim blue of the morning sky, a cave in the exact shape of a florid vulva.

The only naked undercarriage Orla has ever seen up close and in the flesh is her own, in the mirror, on long lonely afternoons. But however limited her experience, or how horn-coloured her viewpoint is right now, the likeness is so exact that she blushes.

A huge slot runs a rippling line through a mound of cliff, the top peppered with scrub. The anatomy is detailed even to the apparent petals of inner lips curling from a clitoral hood the size of a large man. The slot is rudely spread, opening to a cave just above the surface of the water. Ruder still, a mountain stream trickles out of the interior to mingle fresh water with the surf.

She swims closer, panting, and floats at the cave entrance where its water spills into the sea. Her head spins with an illicit — if symbolic — thrill of dirtiness as she curls her tongue out to the sweet stream, slaking her salty thirst.

She peers into the shallow cave. The floor is smooth and large enough for two people to lie down, albeit either side of a groove worn by the spring. She pushes up onto the rock and finds it warm as a bed still from yesterday’s fierce sun. She climbs in, and lays herself out on the alter-like tongue of stone.

Her heart hammers from the swim, quivering her breast, while the breeze raises goosebumps on her wet skin. The sun will rise in a few minutes. This would be an idyllic place to rest for a while and watch the day begin.

From here, the vista is wrap-around wide: the sea stretches out before her and, immediately opposite, the dawn is a violet swathe of light on the horizon. She leans back on blood-warm rock and grins. The sea and the sky are almost absorbent in their peacefulness. It’s just her and the ocean and the cave. She couldn't be in a more open, yet private place.

The dim, underwater dreaminess of her surroundings have her hands wandering. She runs tickling fingertips up the underside of her breasts, peaking her nipples to the spreading flush of dawn. She pictures Daniel’s packhorse body asleep back at the villa and wonders if, like most mornings, he’s flushed, too; his cock tenting the light white sheet. When she gets back she's going to yank that cover off him and chuck it away like yesterday's worries. She's going to enjoy her husband’s body for the first time in months. Especially that stiff part. She wants it in her. In her hands, in her mouth, in her own Sluttern’s Hollow. He might not have the biggest cock she’s ever seen, but he’s by far the best lay. In fact, knowing him, he will insist on taking her in hand first. Or on tongue.

She claws her breast and curses him again for last night, even though it wasn’t really his fault.

Dan owns a bar on the beach. He employs a bouncy little beach-babe — Bambi, no lie — to take drinks to loungers and generally entice more customers with her fabulously perky beach-bottom.

Last night, Orla arrived early. Dan wasn’t at the villa, so she assumed he’s gone for his post-shift swim. When she still couldn’t find him she went looking at the bar and heard his raised voice in a storeroom.

“I warned you Bam-Bam—” like her name could be any more ridiculous “— you pull this shit again…“

Orla was about to burst in and surprise him when she was stopped by a pair of red bikini bottoms hung on the door handle. She peeked through louvered slats to find Bambi’s rear. Literally. Standing in front of Dan, her lower-half completely nude. Worse, Dan had nothing on at all, and scrunched his trunks to his bits. The girl swung her hips, mewling huskily, “Please Daniel… you need it on your tongue…”

Daniel slid a slow, hooded gaze over the woman’s display. He chucked away his trunks, and pointed to the door. His cock was rigid.

Orla marched straight back to the villa, boiling with fury; head full of the woman's slutty flirtation and her husband’s unequivocal reaction. Is that what Dan did while he was here? Munched on Bambi? He rejected the simpering little wretch at least, but the look he gave the woman, wondering up and down her nakedness, eating her up. Erect.

And what was that shit about needing ‘it on his tongue’?

Orla tortured herself with that phrase, breaking it down to its two most painful parts and picking at each.

‘It’: The meaning of that was obvious. But did Bambi mean her ‘it’ or ‘it’ in general? It was an important distinction. Did Dan need just Bambi on his tongue, or all-takers? And now Orla thought about ‘it’, the slut could have been talking about anything from her slutty clit to something way more hardcore; something that he always craved and Orla rarely provided. Maybe Bambi was dripping for him. Right there in the store room. Right down to her knees. Reminding him how much he needs a juicy sex-kitten. Not a hard-to-please woman. Were they that intimate, that Bambi would know her husband’s secret craving? Something only Orla knew?

‘On’: On Dan’s tongue. English might not be Bambi’s first language, but that was still a strange way to put it. So she meant what, like sitting on his tongue? Squatting on it? Orla whimpered. That was their thing, Orla’s and Dan’s. Their guiltiest, filthiest pleasure. Did bimbo Bambi do that for him? For herself? Orla covered her mouth at the image, swallowing back tears.

So. As far as Orla could work out, Slut-Bambi could have meant anything from a sensual dab of Daniel’s tongue on her chaste love-bud, to a full-on, hardcore, squat-and-gobble dribblefest.

When Dan came home he mentioned nothing. He clearly didn't know what Orla had seen. Orla didn't say a word. Literally not a word. She stood stiff as a pole as he tried to greet her with hugs and kisses, and tried not to let the tears pop out or to kick him in the nuts when he tore off his clothes. But when her husband removed his shorts and was still fully hard… Orla couldn't help herself. She told him everything she’d seen and everything she’d imagined, while his happy hard-on hung its guilty head.

They drank beer on the terrace and he explained. How Bambi had a crush on him, how she’d tried it on before and that she was on a formal warning. How he'd made the mistake of getting drunk with the girl last week, admitting how excited he was about Orla’s visit. She’d probed him for all the things they would do and, drunk and getting off on the descriptions, he accidentally rekindled her infatuation.

Orla had no reason not to believe him. Dan could not hold his tongue, or his booze, but he was faithful as a puppy. She forgave him, but not enough for make-up sex. They slept back to back. Or Dan slept, Orla stressed.

Bambi wouldn’t disport herself to Dan if she didn't think she had a chance to win him. Also, Orla saw how he looked at the girl. Really looked, with the dark camera-eye he uses if Orla performs for him; spreading or fingering or sucking. The ‘saving this for later’ look. Fuel for fantasies.

But fantasy is want. Reality is need. And at this moment every hollow in Orla’s body is actually haunted with real need. For him. She is even excited that he’s shamelessly desired by predatory beauties like Slut-Bambi.

She lets her legs fall open to the ocean view, watching it ebb and flow between her knees. Her hand wanders between her thighs and squeezes. She's shockingly puffy. Orla frowns down at herself. Her rude lips have always been as ample as her polite lips, but today they are in a plumped up world of their own. She pats them playfully to watch the wobble, catches her breath at the little pump of pleasure it gives her fat spot, and then stirs. She adds her gasp to the surf. A kiss of moisture begs her to slip between.

Wet fingertips rub her itch. She butterflies her knees and reckons she'll just have a quickie. Take the edge off. But the tension building in her abdomen doesn’t agree. The sea and fresh, warm wind are swelling her release into something much larger than that. A heat blooms from her hips. Her fingers quicken. Any moment now. Any—

Then she sees the swimmer.

A strong, deep-dug crawl propels a figure scudding across the surface. Orla freezes and slides back to the darkest part of the cave, but there is no hiding, here. She’s more framed than concealed. The swimmer, no more than a brown stripe at the tip of of a wake, looks like it will swim by. Even at this moment of embarrassment, her climax is so insistent and so close, her stomach and legs tremble with it. She clasps hands and knees tight over her pulsing, holding the orgasm back, but the squeezing makes her want it more.

Her hot-and-bothered senses decide that, if the irritating person is just swimming by and quite distant, maybe she should quickly finish off. Her fingers blur at her slot. She cackles at the absurdity of her situation.

But the swimmer swings a long arc. Toward her. And now she can make out the broad musculature of a man, and worse, it seems from the uninterrupted line of him, he’s also naked.

With a rush she realises. It's Dan! He's the only man for miles, is a great swimmer and knows these waters. He's looking for her! She leaps to her feet, waving like a castaway marooned on horn island.

But… he looks huge in the water. Much larger than usual. Is that an optical illusion? And Dan’s a good swimmer but not that easeful or powerful.

By the time she sees it’s not her husband it's too late. He's two strokes away.

“Fuck.” Orla drops, trying to wrap her entire body in her arms. “Fuck-fuck-fuck.” She should jump out of the cave, she should swim off, but all she wants to do is hide. A feverish panic locks her in place for a few crucial seconds. And then the swimmer is there, at her feet.

But her fight-or-flight hardens. Why should she leave? She was here first. If he’s a gentleman he should move on, and if he's not, escape is just a leap away.

She pretends she is on some Scandinavian nudist beach from her childhood and forces herself to unfold, stretch out, and claim her place. Albeit with crossed legs and carefully placed hands.

The man shakes water of his shaggy black hair and beard, like a dog. He blinks at her. His eyes widen. He's like a bearded Brando or a hipster Elvis.

Go away. Orla screams inside, twitching her feet and covering herself like Botticelli’s Venus. Go. away.

The man is dark and gigantic, his head at her feet makes her look like a pale child and she's Amazonian compared to most men, including Daniel. The stranger doesn’t smile but his face still exudes a disarming friendliness.

He doesn’t go away. He gabbles something at her, his voice so deep it trembles the cave. He dips his head into the freshwater stream and laps noisily. Her sexed-up state has her wringing her feet together at the suggestive liquid flowing off his broad tongue. She narrows her eyes. She should let him drink at her cave. He seems a kind soul. He’ll move on.

But he points to the rock beside her, and gabbles again.

Orla has grown up well-tuned to the subtlest of lecherous gazes. She finds that, even when she's fully clothed, most men – and a surprising number of women – can't resist a surreptitious glance at her body. But this man looks her straight in the eye, as if she isn't naked at all. It puts her at ease. In fact, she feels so intuitively safe with this gentle giant that she slides over to make space for him, even though doing so means she has to remove her covering hands.

The man sloshes out of the water and Orla attempts to treat his nudity with the same respect he pays hers. She stares beyond him to the horizon. Just two random people, come to see the sunrise.

Nevertheless, the corner of her eye is not so polite, and an expert in taking in detail. The man is a mountain. He must be nearly seven foot tall and built like a mythic sculpture, like a god. Massive shoulders, chest and arms. Not an ounce of fat on him and golden brown all over, no tan lines at all. Public nudity might be illegal in these, very religious, parts but the guy looks like he's never worn clothes. She wonders if this is explains his mature, and comforting, attitude to nudity.

Oblivious to Orla, the man raises his arms and grips a ledge at the top of the cave opening. He pulls himself up like gravity doesn’t exist and plants a lingering kiss to Sluttern Hollow’s stone clitoris. While he’s occupied, Orla’s eyes dart over his dangling meat and his great pendulous balls. She stifles the urge to titter. She's seen full on erections that were smaller. What must that monster look like hard?

She decides this is all wrong. The man’s proportions intimidate her, and as he drops from his worshipful kiss she feels she's trespassing on a sacred place. It's not meant for her. As the golden stranger settles fluidly beside her, she slides toward the water.

Thick, leathery fingers rest lightly on her forearm. She spins a frown at him, but he smiles, glittering behind his dishevelled curls. He points to her eyes, then to the brightening horizon. His smile is so infectious it ignites hers, despite herself. The skin of her arm tingles. She changes her mind. For now.

Orla watches the horizon brighten but her senses are full of the stranger. His sonorous breath is long and slow. The skin of her side warms from his heat and he steams a musky, ozone scent. Breathing him in is weirdly relaxing, like a fragrant bath.

All innocent observations, she tells herself. Not like Dan and Slut-Bambi.

He leans back and hums and, accidentally, so does Orla. The synchronicity makes them both chuckle. Her position, leaning back on her elbows, pushes up her bald mound. Something she is very aware of, even if her companion isn’t. Half of her wishes she still had her butterscotch curls there to conceal some detail, or that she had a neat model’s pussy with less prominent hood and inner lips. Then the other half of her… Well, the other half thinks she looks sexy as hell, even if the giant doesn't seem to care.

A drop of molten metal pops up on the horizon and in an almost sudden burst, the cave ceiling shines liquid gold. Orla gasps and the giant tosses her a childlike look of wonder. The light drips slowly down the cavern walls as the sun swings up until, by degrees, it spills over their bodies.

The sun is palpable already. They stretch and squirm under its golden velvet heat like basking sea-creatures.

But this isn’t what drops Orla’s jaw.

Every remaining droplet of water on their skin suddenly sparkles, flaring up as if ignited. They become jewelled by the sunrise. When Orla laughs, so does the giant, a resonant bassy chuckle that rings the cave like bell, even vibrating the bed of stone beneath her bottom.

Politeness banished by magic, they gawp at each other’s glittering bodies. They’ve become faeries. Sea gods. He’s almost too bright to take in, but — now she properly looks — Orla notices he’s missing a navel. She wonders how that’s possible. Then the giant cups his palm into the stream and pours rivulets of water-light on his stomach. She fixates on the fiery quicksilver flowing off his form, pooling between his muscles. Someone like Slut-Bambi would dip her head right now. Run her tongue through those pools. Lick cold water off his hot skin.

Orla is still bedazzled by the notion when he cups more water and holds his dripping hand up to her. He gestures at her belly. She bites her lip. This is just fun, she decides, childish fun. She nods.