Snowy's Visit Ch. 02

Author's note:

This is the sequel to the first chapter of the "Snowy's Visit" trilogy (last chapter to be published soon). To fully understand everything that is happening in this story, it is highly recommended to read the previous chapter before taking this one into your hands.

Also, unlike the first chapter, this one and the final, third chapter are (i.e. will be) only partly non-fictional -- but I won't go into which part(s) are just a product of my imagination, I'll just say that they are not those you might think of at first. Enjoy!

*

I opened my backpack for the umpth time, realizing again that I forgot to pack something. Of course, the thing I forgot to pack was fragile, so it wasn't that I could simply ram it on the top of the heap. It needed to be set dead center, wrapped in as many layers of clothing as possible. It was my bathroom necessities purse, which included a fragile, glass bottle of perfume. Naturally, it took some more precious minutes to rearrange everything. Minutes we probably did have to spare, but the tension was there, and it took its toll on us.

"Jesus Christ, Mark, what's taking you so long?" Lydia asked nervously as I was trying to fold a couple of t-shirts around my toiletry purse.

"Oh, nothing," I smirked. "Just decided it would be awesome to be late for the flight."

"Idiot," Lydia commented and rolled her eyes at me, sitting down on the sofa and picking up her phone to disinterestedly browse Facebook, Instagram or whatever social network was providing her comfort these days.

Last year was, for some reason, seeing a significant decline in quality of our relationship. Physically, we were still two young, good-looking (OK, Lydia was beautiful) specimens of humans of opposite sexes. Mentally -- I couldn't point my finger at anything directly, but things started to become less and less perfect in every sense. Looking backward in time, the magical evening we shared with Snowy was a pinnacle of our love and understanding, and from that moment things seemed to stop clicking as they were supposed to.

Even though I expected that Snowy would start being a more regular visitor to our sex life, it never happened again. For the reasons I couldn't understand, she hadn't decided to pay us another visit of that sort. Sure, she would meet Lydia for a couple of times here and there, but it was always in public and strictly on friendly terms. I haven't seen the woman since, except in some social occasions. Even then, Snowy seemed to act kind of awkward around me, as if our night together was a deal-breaker and not the deal-maker. Naturally, it got me to be disappointed. I asked Lydia about it, but she refused to give any sort of clear answers about the matter, even to the point where she accused me of asking too much about Snowy and if Lydia alone stopped being enough for me. So, I decided to stop asking.

A few months ago, Lydia told me, out of the blue, that Snowy found a new boyfriend. I said it was great and kept doing whatever I was doing at the moment, actively avoiding any conversation about the subject. Yes, I was still using Snowy as one of my fantasies while jerking off -- even more so since I had a pretty vivid picture of how she looked like naked and what she acted like while having sex. Unfortunately, as fights between Lydia and me were becoming more and more frequent, my decision to note the fact of Snowy's fresh relationship and not to show any curiosity became another reason for her to start a fight.

All that fighting, for one reason or another, began to affect our sex life (or was caused by changes in our sex life, I have no idea). Instead of relaxing completely after having finally and successfully dwelled into having sex with other people, it kind of stalled our development as a couple. Anyway, to make a long story short, we had our share of troubles in paradise.

Despite all that, we decided to go on a summer vacation together. We chose Croatia as it seemed absolutely beautiful and had its fair share of music festivals, old towns, natural wonders and a ton of islands to hop about, each more amazing than the other.

Our first stop was supposed to be Peljesac peninsula -- a long, narrow and mountainous stretch of land attached to the Croatian mainland by a thin junction at its eastern end. On its southern shore, in a small bay just around the midpoint between both ends of the peninsula, was a beautiful little village called Zuljana, which had no more than two hundred inhabitants. The selling point was the fact that the place had numerous small, pebbly beaches in the nearest vicinity, and some of those were barely approachable by foot. A few of those, from the images we found on the Internet, were just big enough for a couple or a small group of people to occupy.

Since we took three weeks to go around the place, we decided to take the first week easy and to try and work on our relationship. We would chill on the beach and take day-trips to Dubrovnik (it was an hour away by car), Mljet National park (just across the channel from Zuljana, visible with the naked eye) or do whatever else we felt like doing. After that, our plan was to visit one or two of the famous Croatian music festivals, see a few more recommended sights, and then take the last two days to chill and relax before flying back home.

We even had a contingency plan - If we realized that the two of us simply couldn't function as a couple anymore, we would split up for the remainder of the trip -- I would try to connect with some of my mates who were cruising the popular party spots, and Lydia -- well, she said she had some ideas what to do, whatever that was supposed mean. I didn't press the issue - not really wanting to find out that, for example, she had a rebound guy waiting somewhere in the line.

Getting back to the story and Lydia's comment -- I decided to ignore it. Name-calling became somewhat casual between us. Not the cute one, but the nasty, derogatory kind. Neither of us actually meant what we said to each other, but being two impulsive, young people, we simply blurted out what was on our mind at the moment, selfishly not caring about the other one's feelings. So sweet and lovable 'stupid' became ugly and belittling 'stupid,' etc. To counter it meant another fight of epic proportions, ending in mutual apologies, and only rarely a great make-up sex. To ignore it and turn the other cheek usually calmed the situation down and brought the future conversation to a normal, polite level.

Anyway, we successfully packed up, got into Uber and took a long flight to Croatia, which included one domestic, one long-haul and one final connecting flight to the Dubrovnik airport -- almost 20 hours in all. Tired from our busy schedules and, probably, fighting and bickering, we slept most of the time, filling up the rest with watching movies, eating and talking about what we expected from our final destination. And once we got out of the airport, we quickly realized that our imagination was nowhere near as colorful as the real thing was. Even from the plane's window, it was visible that nature was amazing. Rolling hills around the airport were covered in savannah-like vegetation, changing in color from clear-white of the bare rocks, through yellow of the tall grass burned by the summer heat into the dark green of the forests positioned on the slopes that were mostly in the shade in the late afternoon. The sky was completely clear and incredibly blue, and even though I was tired and cramped from the hours spent in the various airplane and airport seats, I felt a rush of positive energy and surge of that unique holiday mood. I smiled instinctively, feeling that these three weeks simply couldn't turn out to be anything but epic.

After resolving the immigration and luggage, and waiting for some time in line at the rental car counter, we finally took off towards our final destination in a small European hatchback with a stick shift. Normally, we would use the public transport to move about, but there was no railroad in that part of Croatia, the buses towards Peljesac (especially Zuljana) were scarce, and either taxi or Uber would cost us one-way as much as did a week of renting this car. On the downside, Lydia had no clue on how to drive a stick, so I was stuck with being the only driver for the trip. If the worst-case-scenario played out and we decided to call it quits on ourselves, I had no idea what would she do -- well, OK, with her looks she probably wouldn't have a lot of problems in hitching a ride to wherever.

The traffic was dense on the only major road, so we were moving slowly in a never-ending column of vehicles milling towards Dubrovnik and then further northward. The good thing was that, once we were just above Dubrovnik, we had enough time to see for ourselves what an indescribably beautiful town it was. We knew that the Game of Thrones was filmed there, and some other recent major movie productions used it as a historical set, but seeing that picture-perfect old walled town, surrounded by perfect blue sea from three sides and a steep hill on the remaining bank was like seeing a dreamland.

"Oh my god! This is so beautiful! This can't be real!" Lydia exclaimed as she tried to take photos with her phone reaching over me and even partially blocking my view while I navigated the two-lane two-way bypass full of curves, cut into the rugged terrain that seemed to be a constant in this part of the World.

"Hey! Watch it! I'll crash us!" I barked at her, quickly moving her hands that were turning my field of view into a thin line.

"Oh, sorry. I just... It's so amazing!" Lydia apologized. It stunned me for a moment since the apologies usually came out of her mouth only when things got so overheated that there was a reasonable chance I would be breaking up with her for good.

"Yeah, no problem. We'll go here for a day trip, and we'll have a chance to make thousands of snaps from every angle," I replied, surprising myself in the process. My normal response a week ago would be somewhere in line with 'Jesus, were you born so dumb that you can't understand what driving a car is or did it come to you gradually?'

As we cleared the city limits and crossed the big suspension bridge over the river mouth, the traffic picked up some pace, but it was still not moving over thirty miles an hour on average. All in all, it took us almost two and a half hours to reach our destination, much more than the proclaimed hour and forty minutes. I took a mental note of that fact.

Still, it was worth every minute. The village was in every way as pretty as it was in the pictures. Steep mountains, covered with lush green pine forests, descended directly into the crystal clear waters of the bay from the northern side, and the village itself was at the end of a small valley reaching some half a mile eastward from the shore. The Sun was setting directly in front of us, descending slowly into the open sea and making everything glimmer in a magnificent gold hue. I glanced at Lydia, who was once again making dozens of photos, overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of it all.

According to our AirBnb map, our accommodation was set just at the junction of the mountainous part of the bay and the valley, no more than a hundred feet from the shoreline. As we approached, Lydia texted our host, Anna, and soon a tanned, young woman, maybe in her early thirties, with short curly hair and big hazelnut eyes, wearing only a thin summer dress, waved us into the small parking spot just above the house.

"Hiiiii! So good to see you!" said Anna in a very good, but still heavily accented English. She hugged Lydia without any hesitation, and Lydia somewhat awkwardly returned the hug. She repeated the procedure with me. If everyone in Croatia was as welcoming as our host, we were probably in for a lot of hugs.

"You must be Mark," she said to me, knowing my name from the AirBnB, "and this beautiful lady is..."

"Hi, Anna. Very nice to meet you," I said. "This is Lydia, my girlfriend. I have to say, this place looks even more beautiful in real life."

"Of course it does! This is the best place in the Adriatic. This is the place of love and serenity, and you are already feeling the energy," Anna said patriotically and with a huge smile, revealing a set of bright white teeth. "But you must be tired from all the traveling, let me show you to your apartment!"

She turned on her heels and headed down a few stairs. Lydia and I followed in step. We walked onto a tidy terrace, containing one wooden table and two benches, enough to seat six people comfortably. Entrance into the apartment was through the big glass doors on the terrace. The apartment was actually really big -- almost double the size of our studio apartment at home. It was clean and obviously recently refurbished, as everything inside felt new and almost unused. The place had a living space with sofa, coffee table, a wall-mounted TV, a small dining table for four people and a complete kitchen. At the opposite end from the entrance were the doors that led into a bathroom all the amenities. The master bedroom was at the other end of the bathroom, which meant that the bathroom was also serving as a corridor. Kind of strange, but since it was only two of us, we had no problem with that.

Anna, as if sensing our slight wonder over the layout, replied: "Oh, I know you're worried about the bathroom location. This is only temporary. We wanted to relocate it, but our bureaucracy is horrible. We applied for the building permit two months before we started to remodel the place, and we still didn't get it. They are insane. I hope this won't be a problem? If yes, I can move you to a bigger apartment next door in three days, when the current guests leave."

"No, it's OK," I replied. "We don't have a problem." I looked at Lydia, and she also gave an 'I don't mind' face.

This made Anna smile again, as her fear of us complaining about the apartment probably made her a bit nervous up to that point. "Also, this sofa can be turned into a double bed, so you can sleep here if you want," she pointed at the sofa in the living room. "Or if your friends come, they can sleep over. It's no problem, but if they stay more than one night, please call me so I can register them. No extra cost, of course." We nodded politely, neither of us having any idea who else that we know would even be near this place at the moment.

After completing the subject on the apartment, she looked at us, shook her head a bit, and said: "You poor things, you must be very, very tired. Now, just to tell you a few things and I will leave you alone. First of all -- I get up very early, so I go to the bakery every morning, and I will leave you a fresh loaf of bread on your door. Also, if you need anything else from the bakery or from the shop, just write it on the paper and leave it on the table on the terrace. Don't forget to put a small stone on the paper, or the wind will blow it away," she said, chuckling a bit. We just nodded in appreciation.

"OK. Now, this is a small village. It has one bakery, one small shop and one kiosk with newspapers, cigarettes and stuff like that. We have no restaurants, only a couple of cafes, a small pastry shop and a homemade fast food place," she continued with her introduction to Zuljana. "Oh, remember, most of the people here don't speak good English -- mostly only Croatian or a bit of Italian and German -- so try to learn some basic Croatian words to avoid confusion."

"Fast food?" I asked, almost disregarding the language barrier warning. "Like, hamburgers and stuff?"

"Um, well... Don't eat that here. They are awful," she replied sincerely and with a face of slight disgust. "But you have, um, I don't know the English term for it -- like, very small fish that are fried and then you eat them like chips. They are always fresh, and everyone eats them here. We call them girice or gavuni if they are really small, or srdela if they are a bit bigger."

Anna noticed our confused looks, so she decided to elaborate some more on the apparently local delicacy: "The gavuni are this big," she showed no more than two inches of size with her fingers, "and srdele are maybe this big." The bigger ones were maybe a double in size.

"Oh, you mean smelt and sardines," Lydia suddenly came forward. I glanced at her in surprise, and she shrugged.

"Yes. OK, if you call them that. Anyway, they are really great, and you should try them," Anna concluded the matter, to which we both nodded.

"And how about the beaches?" I asked. "We saw there are a lot of lovely small beaches around here, how do we get to those?"

"Ah, yes, yes! We have the best small beaches on Peljesac," Anna said with some pride in her voice. "Well, you can only get to the best ones by boat. Any of you know how to sail a small boat?"

We both shook our heads. I mean, I had some theoretical idea on how to do it, but I've never tried it.

"OK, no problem. There are more beaches where you can get on foot. Come with me," she said, exiting the apartment and heading back up the stairs towards the parking lot. She stopped at the fence gate marking the property boundary.

"Now, see this road," she said, pointing at the only road passing through, "If you go right, you get to the village in three minutes. But, if you go left, the road goes maybe ten meters above the shore, and you have a small beach every fifty meters or so. Now, the first couple of them could be taken as early as nine in the morning. But, the third one, which is about three minutes of walking, is usually empty until the afternoon. That third one is a bit hidden, so not all tourists know about it. First, you see a crooked pine tree that is growing towards the sea, and then you have to walk almost to the edge of the rock to see the beach underneath. If you just look from the road, you may miss it since it looks just like as small cliff falling into the sea. And the best thing is, if you get there first, no one else will come to bother you because it is too small for two groups of people. It has room for maybe four or five people if you put towels together."

"Wow, great! Thanks for the information!" I said gratefully and smiled at her.

"OK. Dear people - Lydia, Mark -- I will repeat your names some more to remember them forever, you know, heh heh," Anna chuckled, "I will leave you to be now. Have fun, enjoy and don't be afraid to ask me anything you need. I live just down the road, feel free to visit and have a glass of wine with my husband and me."

"Oh, so you live here in a village?" Lydia asked.

"Noooo..." Anna waved her hand. "We have a holiday house here, and some apartments and rooms, so we rent out during the summer. We actually live in Dubrovnik, and have a place there, which we also rent for the season. My husband is an officer on a big freighter ship, and he gets to be home for a couple of months at a time. But it is much better here than in Dubrovnik now -- way too many tourists. Way, way too many."

"That's so cool," Lydia said as if the woman said she and her husband were adventurers.

"Yes, you can say that..." Anna said, her smile not vanishing. "Oh, if you want, I can ask my husband to take you to one of those beaches you can't reach on foot. We have a small boat. It won't be a problem."

"Thank you, Anna. You are really kind," I said. "We'll consider it if that won't be a trouble to your husband."

"Oh, come on," Anna dismissed the notion. "He sails the oceans for weeks; this is a ten-minute boat ride. He takes you there, leaves you on the beach and picks you up later. No problem. Now, go and get some rest, people. You're on vacation. See you tomorrow!" She hugged us both quickly, even gave Lydia a small peck on the cheek, and headed down the road towards the village.