[6]
She let Sirma and Spartacus swim out and calmly began paddling along the beach, from time to time simply relaxing onto the water, it would look bad if all three of them rushed out to sea, while Elena’s dad had to sit there and wait for them, and he was clearly worried, actually his attempt to play the fatherly role was pretty laughable, it didn’t fit him, he seemed too nice to be their father, he was a musician, maybe in the business world he had learned to act older than he was, and surely it had strained his nerves, but he was interesting, not only because of his secret, which they had quickly figured out, despite the fact that he didn’t want to talk about it, yes, it would be pretty absurd to pick up three hitchhikers and tell them: My wife just died. Sirma had brought it up on the ferryboat while he was gone, Maya had also noticed that he was wearing his wedding ring on his left hand, only Spartacus hadn’t paid attention, as was to be expected. And now Sirma had once again put her, put them all in an awkward position with her decision to romp around the beach topless; while she was getting ready, Maya wondered what to wear, she usually went topless, too, she almost laughed out loud in the water, remembering how, the first time the two of them had come out of their tents topless, Spartacus, at the height of his testosterone-drenched teenage years, had helplessly gotten a hard-on and had tried to hide it by burying himself in the sand, but since he was so thin and bony, it was painfully obvious, it was cute, of course, he was already used to it, but now it wasn’t just the three of them, they were with Elena’s dad, after all, when there’s an outsider they should at least take that into consideration a little, or else maybe Sirma had gotten it in her head to hook up with him, despite the fact that he was Elena’s father, or precisely because of it; but her breasts were nicer than Sirma’s, Maya was quite sure of this — just as firm, but still significantly larger, weren’t they, no, they weren’t gigantic knockers, of course, and thank goodness for that, but they were larger.
She got out of the water a little dazed and lay down on her towel, she loved that feeling, coming out of the sea wet and letting the sun suck the moisture from your skin, drop by drop, leaving only the salt, the salty sun on her skin, but the exact nuances of that sensation had changed over the years, it had been one thing then, when she was little, she would sink onto the sand, spilling out over it, losing herself amid the countless grains, then that red shiver had appeared, the goose bumps, that warmth behind the eyelids that gradually washed over your whole body and hid between your thighs, even now it wasn’t bad at all, yes, the wind was blowing, licking her moist, salty skin, then from somewhere close by she heard the rhythmic bouncing of a ball, accompanied by a shout from time to time, Maya turned over onto her stomach and lifted her head, a little way down the beach there was a volleyball court and four young men were playing, their dark, sweaty bodies glistened in the sun as if smeared with honey, she stared at their flinching, carved muscles, why not, last year on the Black Sea there’d been that cutie with the blue eyes from Serdika, she again dropped her head onto the towel and closed her eyes, the salty sun behind her eyelids, she heard footsteps nearby and sensed someone’s shadow on her body. Toasting a bit, eh, said Spartacus, you didn’t swim much at all, we went all the way to the buoy, where’s Sirma she asked and Spartacus pointed at the sea over his shoulder, still in the water, she thinks she’s a fish. Move, you’re blocking my sun, she said. Spartacus toweled himself off thoroughly, but afterwards sat down right on the sand, scooped up a handful and watched the grains pouring out between his fingers. Elena’s father also showed up, walking slowly with his arms crossed over his chest, his round face had lost some of its anxiousness. They had to think up something to distract him, the three of them never got tired of being together, but he would surely get bored. With a reflex already honed from communicating with men old enough for the purpose, Maya tried to imagine Boril Krustev in the role of her father. Perhaps he’d do a better job than her real one. Her parents had gotten divorced when she was fifteen, inhabiting the twilight of the