Young glossy men, soaked in olive oil. Fingernails long, black jeans hug tight asses. They look at my male friend, not me every morning when we go to drink the thick gunk, Turkish coffee. Show themselves on shiny white motor bikes, flash smiles even shinier.

Also Today Pushing the envelope "In Search of Adventure," a new anthology, is like any trip: a mix of sleepless nights and epiphanies.

Ruins older than my own country, caves, temples, churches dedicated to Her. Windy narrow paths for streets with no names to trick the soldiers. And of course, the beach.

Missed the ferry each day to go to a different island. How long have we been here? My ticket home is expired and this, in a land of foreign light and smells, comforts me.

The same bus, hot, smelly, jammed-packed, drops us off at the end of the road; it can go no further. We forgot our shoes, do we have shoes? We walk anyway, leaving all of the other passengers behind with their cameras, straw mats, sunscreen, bathing suits. We walk for hours and hours, lost in a muddy pit. Towering dry plants scratch at my face, at my legs; I am bleeding all over. But alas, someone calls us; our names crack the still air. She invites us to come and sit by her from now on.

We sit on our bums, slide down the steep dune, land on a golden floor. He pulls my ripped dress over my head, stares at my naked body and smiles. He has already kicked off his shorts and we grab hands and run into the sea like a wet rainbow. The fairies twinkle above us and I can see them flying over the surface as I come up for air.

Thank you, we tell her. Thank you for soothing us with your cool fingertips. Thank you for letting us taste your salty blood.

We slither back on to the beach. The sand fine and sweet; I roll around in it, sugar coating myself.

Yum, he tells me he wants to taste me.

"Taste me then, tell me if I am sweet or salty." Starting at my ankles, he drags his pointy tongue all the way across my body until it slips between my lips. Without saying anything, his mouth tells me that I am both sweet and salty, but he does not know that I can taste bitter yet.

We make love on the beach, all day and the next and the next. Each day until the sun goes down and we start to walk back through the mud pit and mean plants to catch a meager dinner at the hostel we are staying at. Finally, we decide never to leave the beach. From now on, we will sleep here, I say.

The next morning we are shocked by the site of another human. How did that creature find us? We wait anxiously until we can see the man, long hair the color of clay braided down his back, sage eyes I've never seen since.

He tells us he is from France. He speaks English very well and says he does not dislike Canadians. But we are Americans and know better than to make the correction our passports disclose so often.

"I come here every year," he says. "How did you two find this place? The bus stops nearly five kilometers back."

"We walked through a sinking pit with plants as sharp as blades," my friend says. "Sharper," I say, pointing to a particularly ghastly looking cut on my left forearm. "Plants as sharp as witches' tongues."

The Frenchman lightly touches the skin around my cut and says, "Since you young lovers have already discovered this beach and suffered for its beauty, I find no harm in showing you the easy way in and out."

"But we are never leaving," I say. "We decided this yesterday."

"Nonsense. How can you stay here forever? How will you eat, how will you butter your bread, cork your wine?"

My friend and I look at each other for an answer, both of us having never considered the Frenchman's obstacles before.

He continues, "Ah, you are young and in love, so you think you can just feed off of each other. But if you do that for too long, you will become shells. You cannot isolate yourselves forever."

We remain silent.

"You two look like you need a good meal, a place to get out of the sun for a while. Come, I'll show you to my small house where I will offer you wine as light as," he pauses and lifts his head and arms up to the jagged sun. "As light as le soleil."

We follow him down the beach for about two miles and none of us talk because we are all listening to the sea speak to us in her different voices.

Next page | Into the bungalow, into the bedroom