bodies on the beach

I am on St Pete's beach in south Florida. Today the temp reaches 80 with gusts of wind that bring the number down to say, 74, off and on. I settle myself on a cabana and tune into the humanity around me.

Two cabanas to my left are a man and woman who are not young, fairly lean and very brown. The man wears a black thong which is little more than a shoe-lace with a drooping wasp nest hanging down the front. He often stands up and rearranges himself in the most private of ways, publicly. His cabana mate is a woman wearing a similar thong, and nothing else. She has remarkably perky boobs for a woman of age - I will not presume to know how they manage to perk - which for all their perkiness still point west and east and south at the same time. I admire their freedom and confidence. (The people, not the boobs.) I don't admire their brown skin (cancer alert!) I see both the beautiful and the not so beautiful sides of their nakedness. I excuse them in my mind, figuring they must be french.

I notice, while I am aware of them, that men walking the beach are also aware and rubber neck as they pass. One man begins to walk in a clumsy almost backwards way after he passes them. (Now it could be that these men are looking at me, since I am also in their view line, but it seems unlikely.)

Three girls plunk down about 30 feet ahead of me right by the waves. They bring music, snacks, tan cream, blankets, books, and stuff I can't identify. Two of them have swinging blond hair that they tie up in recklessly beautiful top knots. The third has dark short hair and a curvy body clad in a red bikini. They are beautiful to me. I can hear them chatter and one of the blonds offers harsh commentary speckled with course explitives. I watch them and wonder if they know how lovely they are with their imperfect smooth skin and soft curves.

A 30ish man just ahead and to my right is pulling off his shorts, arranging himself on his back in his speedo, and laying out his muscles with pilates-style tension. He arranges his manhood several times, perhaps desiring to make a mountain out of a molehill, to be crude, and finally settles down to brown his attractive self.

Other than that I see a wide variety of old bodies - some round and some lean, but all showing the effects of time. Oh, and of course, the older man who arranges my cabana and comes over to tell me to be sure to let him know if I leave and am not coming back. Interestingly, he has pierced nipples, a charm I would have thought would be reserved for someone a little younger.

I take my can of 70 spf and spray my legs and settle back into the shade.