Bikini Beach Quotes

Now, back to my vacation idea.” Finn grinned, showing off his perfect white teeth. “Just think about it. You, Owen, me, and Bria, all happily ensconced in a swanky hotel by a beautiful beach. Bria in a bikini. You and Owen doing your own thing, Bria in a bikini. Did I mention Bria in a bikini?

My clothes melted away and were replaced by a hot-pink string bikini and a gold belly chain adorned with fiery stones. The beach was deserted. I had no idea if there were no people left or if V'lane had sent them away for privacy. "What's with the belly chain " He seemed to have a fondness for them. ‎"When I have sex with you from behind I will use it to pull you from behind I will use it to pull you closer push in deeper." I opened my mouth and closed it again. I was the idiot that had asked. "And now whenever you see the gold of it glinting in the sun you will think about fucking me.

It is a very pretty beach. We're not really beach people, and obviously no one wants to see this in a bikini!" She made a face of pure loathing and gestured at her perfectly ordinary body, which Madeline judged to be about the same size as her own. "I don't see why not," said Madeline. She had no patience for this sort of talk. It drove her to distraction the way women wanted to bond over self-hatred.

You caught me, I was definitely dreaming of you. If I remember correctly, you were frolicking on a beach, wearing a pretty skimpy red bikini and some kind of flower in your hair. Gotta say that was the best dream I’ve ever had.” ~Bryan

You’re seriously not joking?” – Sundown “Really? How many more times are you going to ask me that? I could be on a beach right now with my wife, son, and daughter, baking in the sun while they frolic and play. Am I? No. I’m here, and I want nothing more than to yank you around with bullshit ’cause this gets me off more than my wife running in a bikini.” – Zarek

You were on the fucking beach in my bikini with him. I just assumed something was going on.” Her eyes widened. “Your bikini?” Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but I owned up to it. “Yes. My fucking bikini.” In that moment, it was like my inhibitions just snapped. Running my thumb along the slightly burned skin below her neck, I said exactly what I was thinking. “It’s my bikini because every inch of the body inside of it belongs to me, whether you want that to be the case or not. I know how that struggle feels because it’s no different for me. As much as I would give anything to want someone else right now, my body only wants you. And quite frankly, Bridget, it’s not going to rest until it has you.

From morning until sunset — and sometimes by moonlight — the surfer dudes ride waves onto shore worried about nothing more than impressing the gorgeous girls watching them. Sometimes those bikini-clad California sweethearts let a boy get to second base to a romantic Leslie Gore or Connie Francis song. If she's really in-love, and trusts him not to tell his buddies, she'll let him round third and wave him home. When that happens, it usually isn't long before Nautica is all abuzz about an impending beach wedding.

I got into the express line behind a middle-aged man in a T-shirt. I never saw the front of it, but the back pictured a Labrador retriever standing on the beach with a bikini top in his mouth. Below him were the words GOOD DOG. Some people, I thought, opening the wet wipes so I could wash the tumor off my hands before I touched my wallet.

The dawn is killing me off, the fog is on the windows, the [ra]coons have robbed the cans, and down in Rio its 8 a.m. and the whores who missed last night are already out on the beach in their fine little bikinis and if I could get my hands on just one of them I would be God's happiest man. But that's not likely tonight, so I'll get some sleep and wake up tomorrow with a fix on the Hell's Angels. - to Angus Cameron in a letter dated 06/28/1965

What's Toraf's favorite color?" She shrugs. "Whatever I tell him it is." I raise a brow at her. "Don't know, huh?" She crosses her arms. "Who cares anyway? We're not painting his toenails." "I think what's she's trying to say, honey bunches, is that maybe you should paint your nails his favorite color, to show him you're thinking about him," Rachel says, seasoning her words with tact. Rayna sets her chin. "Emma doesn't paint her nails Galen's favorite color." Startled that Galen has a favorite color and I don't know it, I say, "Uh, well, he doesn't like nail polish." That is to say, he's never mentioned it before. When a brilliant smile lights up her whole face, I know I've been busted. "You don't know his favorite color!" she says, actually pointing at me. "Yes, I do," I say, searching Rachel's face for the answer. She shrugs. Rayna's smirk is the epitome of I know something you don't know. Smacking it off her face is my first reflex, but I hold back, as I always do, because of the kiss I shared with Toraf and the way it hurt her. Sometimes I catch her looking at me with that same expression she had on the beach, and I feel like fungus, even though she deserved it at the time. Refusing to fold, I eye the buffet of nail polish scattered before me. Letting my fingers roam over the bottles, I shop the paints, hoping one of them stands out to me. To save my life, I can't think of any one color he wears more often. He doesn't have a favorite sport, so team colors are a no-go. Rachel picked his cars for him, so that's no help either. Biting my lip, I decide on an ocean blue. "Emma! Now I'm just ashamed of myself," he says from the doorway. "How could you not know my favorite color?" Startled, I drop the bottle back on the table. Since he's back so soon, I have to assume he didn't find what or who he wanted-and that he didn't hunt them for very long. Toraf materializes behind him, but Galen's shoulders are too broad to allow them both to stand in the doorway. Clearing my throat, I say, "I was just moving that bottle to get to the color I wanted." Rayna is all but doing a victory dance with her eyes. "Which is?" she asks, full of vicious glee. Toraf pushes past Galen and plops down next to his tiny mate. She leans into him, eager for his kiss. "I missed you," she whispers. "Not as much as I missed you," he tells her. Galen and I exchange eye rolls as he walks around to prop himself on the table beside me, his wet shorts making a butt-shaped puddle on the expensive wood. "Go ahead, angelfish," he says, nodding toward the pile of polish. If he's trying to give me a clue, he sucks at it. "Go" could mean green, I guess. "Ahead" could mean...I have no idea what that could mean. And angelfish come in all sorts of colors. Deciding he didn't encode any messages for me, I sigh and push away from the table to stand. "I don't know. We've never talked about it before." Rayna slaps her knee in triumph. "Ha!" Before I can pass by him, Galen grabs my wrist and pulls me to him, corralling me between his legs. Crushing his mouth to mine, he moves his hand to the small of my back and presses me into him. Since he's still shirtless and I'm in my bikini, there's a lot of bare flesh touching, which is a little more intimate than I'm used to with an audience. Still, the fire sears through me, scorching a path to the furthest, deepest parts of me. It takes every bit of grit I have not to wrap my arms around his neck. Gently, I push my hands against his chest to end the kiss, which is something I never thought I'd do. Giving him a look that I hope conveys "inappropriate," I step back. I've spent enough time in their company to know without looking that Rayna's eyes are bugging out of their sockets and Toraf is grinning like a nutcracker doll. With any luck, Rachel didn't even see the kiss. Stealing a peek at her, she meets my gaze with openmouthed shock. Okay, it looked as bad as I thought it did.

My friends were thin, pretty, naturally bronzed and accessorized with bug-eyed sunglasses. They slurped vodka straight from the bottle while they drove. They roamed the streets in bikinis by day and by night, skimpy dresses short enough to bare their ass cheeks when they bent over. They pushed up their breasts and snorted coke in the bathrooms of clubs before grinding their crotches into strangers until last call. And when the night came to an end, they romped through the filthy, gum-stained streets barefoot because they were too hammered to feel the glass shards beneath their soles. The PB girls were wild, edgy, and dangerously carefree.

He knew the pills were expensive, too. The VA was supposed to cover part of the cost, and his insurance was supposed to cover another part. But they covered about as much as a string bikini covered a hot girl on the beach. Technically it was coverage, but there was still a lot left over. And unlike a bikini, what was left wasn’t fun.

Remember what the fashion big mouths were saying about Jessica Simpson? Looking at her magazine pictures, sucking their teeth, going, "Oh, look at her in her 'mom jeans.'" Know what? That is an unnecessarily cheap shot at her and kinda lousy to moms at the same time. Who the hell are they to say that? What gratification does it give them to be mean at someone's expense? People made nasty comments like that about President Obama. They made an issue of his jeans when he threw out the first ball at the All-Star game in St. Louis. Why? Who was he bothering? Come on. The tabloids, celebrity mags, and TV entertainment shows do fashion critiques all the time. But it's not about fashion, it's about trashin'. Their specialty is "Celebrity Cellulite!"--running unflattering pictures of stars at the beach and saying who should give up the bikini and go for the one-piece. And this is acceptable? This is a mark of journalism in a civil society, to take ambush pictures of people at the beach? And if the camera was turned around and pointed the other way, what would that look like?

Maybe we should go on a holiday. What do you think? Can we go on a holiday next summer? Go away together? Greece, like some of those musty philosophers you write about? You get to see all those crumbling things from the past. And I get sun, beaches, bikinis, cocktails.” “Greece is a bit far. What about Wales?” “Wales!” “I’ve never been abroad. I need to start slowly.

There’s something different about her. I realize it’s her breasts—they’re huge. I see that she’s stuffed her bikini top with wet balls of sand. “What is that?” I say. “Scottie. Your suit.” She shields her eyes with her hand and looks down at her chest. “Beach boobs,” she says. “Take that out of there,” I say. “Alex. Why’d you let her do that?” Alex is on her stomach, with the straps of her top untied. She lifts her head toward Scottie. “I didn’t know. Take them out, stupid.” Sid lifts his head. “Honestly,” he says, “big boobs look kind of fatty.” “As Bebe says, boobs suck,” Alex says, “and Sid’s full of shit. He loves big boobs.” “Who’s Bebe?” Scottie lets the sand fall out of her top. “Character from South Park,” Sid says. “And I love small boobs, too, Alex. I’m an equal-opportunity employer.

The few things I’d sacrificed, or put on hold, to be with my husband and baby were worth it. That broken boy on the beach seemed like a lifetime ago. Years had passed, college and the NFL, marriage and a baby, but every once in a while, when Jude looked over at me and gave me that slow, knowing smile of his, I was that girl in a black string bikini all over again, longing for a boy I never thought could be mine.

George liked it so, that this island was uncompromising and hard for tourists to negotiate. Not all welcome smiles and black men in Hawaiian shirts, playing pan by the poolside. No flat, crystal beaches, no boutique hotels. Trinidad was oil-rich, didn't need tourism. Trinidadians openly sniggered at the sunburnt American women who wandered down the pavement in shorts and bikini top. Trinidad was itself; take it or leave it.

The summer my daughters were six and four, we were at the beach one day and went for a long walk. It was astonishingly hot, and the sun, bouncing off a clear sea and blinding sand, was relentless. Wearing bikini bottoms but no tops, my children alternated between making sandpiles and running into the sea to cool off. The beach was empty. Eventually a woman and her son appeared in the distance, moving lazily in our direction. The boy seemed to be around the same age. Eventually the children came together, playing in the water with on another but not talking. His mother and I, farther back in each direction, waved and smiled. I thought we would just keep walking, but when we got close to the children, she said loudly, 'You really should put tops on them.' At first, I didn't understand her. 'Thanks,' I replied. 'They're covered in sunscreen.' 'They're girls,' she said. It wasn't until she was near my daughters that she'd realized this. I was dumbfounded. She might have been equally dumbfounded if I had taken the time to explain that her statement was an overtly sexist sexualization. The four children were physically indistinguishable, physically active on a hot beach. When I made no move toward shielding her son from the girls' scary, tempting, and corrupting bodies, she pulled him out of the water by the arm. They rushed down the beach before it crossed my mind to whip off my own top. Aggression takes many forms.

When they got back in the Corvette, Gretel fished around in her shopping bad. "What is this?" She had chosen a black tank suit, but somehow a pink bikini had wound up among her purchases. "Don't be mad," Margot pleaded. "I'm not wearing this." Gretel tossed the bikini back in the bag. All the same, she couldn't help but notice the fabric was the same exact shade as the palest climbing roses. The tint of seashells on a deserted beach, or the mouth of someone you might want to kiss.

I want to show you where I grew up,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Take you to a new corner of the world to explore. I want you to meet my nan and I want my mum to babysit our child. I want to introduce my friends from uni to the girl of my dreams, so they can see what a lovesick idiot you’ve made me. I want to show you off and hold your hand. I want to take you to the beach and ogle you in a bikini. I want to take you camping and make love to you under the stars. I want to hand over all my old memories because I only want new ones with you.

Subject: Some boat Alex, I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched The X-Files. She says it was because she liked the creepy store lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried Californication, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music,too, but God help anyone who gets between her and American Idol. The fuzzy whale was very nice, it a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No,no. I have to ask. I won't ask. My mother loves his wife's suits. I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf-badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too. I'll save you some cannoli. -Ella Subject: Shh Fiorella, Yes,Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you? I won't touch the uncomfortable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ella in a bikini under any circumstanes. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?). Okay. Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is European. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasional glass. Or four. Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits. Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there. You'd better burn this after reading. -Alexai Subect: Happy Thanksgiving Alexei, Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course. Well,I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great,even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles han't been playing the Jets.My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian. She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back. -F/E

Limpid water lapped at her legs, and Georgia wriggled her tocsin the silky sand beneath her feet. If she squinted hard enough, she swore she could make out the African coast shimmering in the distance- Tunisia? Algeria? She swished her hands through the water, startling a school of yellow fish who darted past her knee. A cerulean sky loomed above her, a blanket of white-sand beach stretched behind her. The scene had all the trappings of a Harlequin novel: the exotic Sicilian locale, the deserted beach, the bikini-clad heroine. All that was missing was the hunky stud who would stride out of the water Fabio-style, pecs rippling, long hair cascading down his back.

When you live in Jersey a beach isn’t enough. People have energy in Jersey. They need things to do. They need a beach with a boardwalk. And the boardwalk has to be filled with rides and games and crappy food. Add some miniature golf. Throw in a bunch of stores selling T-shirts with offensive pictures. Life doesn’t get much better than this. And the best part is the smell. I’ve been told there are places where the ocean smells wild and briny. In Jersey the ocean smells of coconut-scented suntan lotion and Italian sausage smothered in fried onions and peppers. It smells like deep-fried zeppoles and chili hot dogs. The scent is intoxicating and exotic as it expands in the heat rising from crowds of sun-baked bodies strolling the boardwalk. Surf surges onto the beach and the sound is mingled with the rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the spinning game wheels and the highpitched Eeeeeeee of thrill seekers being hurtled down the log flume. Rock stars, pickpockets, homies, pimps, pushers, pregnant women in bikinis, future astronauts, politicians, geeks, ghouls, and droves of families who buy American and eat Italian all come to the Jersey shore.

If you could travel anywhere in the US for a vacation, where would you go?" He reached up with his free hand and rubbed his jaw, two creases forming between his eyebrows. She wanted to take over for him, brush her fingers across his whiskers, make him groan the way she had earlier. But she decided to behave herself. For now. "I've always wanted to go to Yellowstone," he said. "See all the wildlife. Maybe go fishing.".... "I'd pick a beach, Florida or California. Where I could be in my bikini more than not, rarely wear shoes, and wake up to the sound of the ocean." "Well, if you're gonna be wearing a bikini, I'm switching to a beach vacation with you.".... "Okay, so foreign vacation," she said, snuggling against him. "Then where would you go?".... "Let's just cut to the chase and say wherever you'd go.

Breathe, man, just breathe,” I told myself and had to think of old women at the beach in bikinis. When that didn’t help, I had to go a little further and picture them in thongs. Voila! No more stiffy.

they’re just scars, Audrey. Nothing more. And if you think for a second that I wouldn’t stand proudly on a beach anywhere with you in a bikini, then you haven’t learned anything about me or the kind of man I am at all these last few days.

In 2012, the conservancy managed to outrage many of its female staffers by partnering with the online luxury goods retailer Gilt to promote the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition (the magazine explained that “whether you decide to buy a bikini, surfboards or tickets to celebrate at our parties, any money you spend … will help The Nature Conservancy ensure we have beaches to shoot Swimsuit on for another half-century”). * Interestingly, before Nilsson got into the carbon

The style of bathing suit we now know as the bikini existed before then, but got its name only when the designer Louis Réard chose to use it to draw attention to a collection he was showing a few days after the bomb test. Bikini, we might argue, should have become a word to sum up the devastation that a nuclear weapon can cause; instead it became a word for a skimpy piece of beach attire. One

Both Salih and bin Laden wanted to erase all traces of the past. The bikini beaches were closed and the beer gardens wiped away by sweaty men with guns and beards. It was time for a new start.

1 The Boy Who Died Death lived up to Jacob’s expectations. The day he died was sunny, as it was most days on the island of Oahu where he lived. Only a few miles away, bikini-clad tourists stretched out on the sand of Waikiki beach. While they toasted themselves golden brown, Jacob lay on a steel surgical table, broken and bleeding. He’d heard that when a person died they saw a tunnel that ended in a bright light. If the person moved toward the light, God or some already deceased loved one like a great-grandmother would meet them on the other side. Jacob didn’t believe it. He’d accepted that everything would end in black nothingness and, for him, it did. What

Images of white, semi clad women in colour would be very conspicuous in an otherwise unintelligible newspaper to Nanaki. It was somewhat incongruous to see little pictures, sourced from foreign news agencies, of white women in bikinis, sun tanning on a beach in Zakynthos or a procession of revellers in Sao Paulo complete with exotic costume regalia: trailing pheasant feathers for tails, operatic masks tantalisingly revealing pouty red lips, breasts protruding out of sequinned two pieces, women’s toned derrieres jutting out of glitzy g-strings vibrating animalistically to the samba, shapely legs fitting snugly into gold stilettos. Others showed women walking down the ramp in skimpy lingerie at a Missoni fashion show in Milan. At times these sights would intrigue Nanaki. For her, Urdu was unintelligible, just black marks on paper. Who reads this newspaper? And who are these pictures for? Whose reality is this?

No, I mean also the department-store sales in January and the interest-charging credit cards used at them; and the vacations spent at the beach driven by the bizarre urge to darken one’s skin; and the shrill perfect fifths of a violin; and the notion that running a piece of toilet paper along your anus is enough to keep you clean; and the discomfort of working with a blade of cloth tied to your neck so tightly you can barely breathe; and the bikinis and knee-high skirts; and, of course, the needlessly happy ending to every story. I don’t think we were exactly wrong to see things as we did.

pays, they open a bottle of gin and take turns drinking from it while they drive, screaming and cheering, back to Cocoa Beach where they park in front of Ron Jon’s surf-shop, which is also open 24/7. Yelling and visibly intoxicated, they storm inside with Billy and take the elevator to the second floor. They run through the aisles of bikinis and pull down one after another. “I always wanted yellow

This ebook contains 28 photos of 4 Brazilian girlfriends of mine: Mariana, Eva, Tereza and Angela. All beautiful women wearing bikinis on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro.

In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth---the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren't the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond all joy to be bikini-ready and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of cesareaen sections, chattering companionably in a language I don't understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It's a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I've suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique. We don't know ourselves in context. But there is evidence of wintering here, freely shared like an exchange of precious gifts.

Hard to do that and get home to take you to dinner,” he noted. “Hawk, your jet is supersonic,” I reminded him. He burst out laughing and I smiled a relieved smile into the phone and listened. When he was done laughing, he said, “Babe, I had a supersonic jet, your ass would be in it, I’d take you to a hot, humid, tropical nation but only so you could spend the days in a bikini and I could fuck you on the beach.” Oh. Wow. “Your daydreams are way better than mine,” I breathed. “This shit gets done, Gwen, that won’t be a dream,” he replied, I sucked in another breath and then got dead air.

All a man really wants, is a girl who looks good in a bikini.

Inside the Galleria it was dark and dank, with fountains and foliage unchanged from the 1980s. I instantly knew it—an old friend—despite having never stepped foot inside, and the loneliness that had been haunting me all day lifted in an instant. Even though I was two thousand miles from it, I was home. I had just moved from Philly, and I didn’t know a soul. My new life was feeling so empty, I needed cheap stuff to fill it up, and there was something particularly alluring that drew me to the Galleria that day—a store I had heard about that was becoming ubiquitous in Los Angeles, popping up faster than a rash of Starbucks in the cityscape. It was a fast-fashion empire to rule them all—pitch-perfect knockoffs of designer styles on an endlessly rotating trend carousel that changed out daily. If you couldn’t afford a Murakami Louis Vuitton monogram bag or the Miu Miu pleated micro mini, you could pacify yourself with their bogus cousins for a fraction of the price, and not feel bad tossing them when the trends shifted in a month or two. I spotted the store’s golden logo overhead. Forever 21. The name alone was pure poetry written in the California sand. Forever 21—like the spirit of a roller-skating bikini girl riding into the Venice Beach dusk. Forever 21—like Madonna, like Angelyne—faces and bodies sculpted into youthful approximations of their aging corporal forms. Forever 21—the true spirit of Los Angeles. I felt it enter me, I was possessed.

Our metabolic engines were not crafted by millions of years of evolution to guarantee a beach-ready bikini body, to keep us fit, or even necessarily to keep us healthy. Instead, our metabolism has been shaped by the Darwinian directive to survive and reproduce. Rather than keeping us trim (as the armchair engineer’s model of metabolism predicts), our faster metabolism has led to an evolved tendency to pack on more fat than any other ape.

It didn’t take me long to settle into my new life as a beach bar owner in paradise. Truthfully, it wasn’t a demanding career. Trust me when I say that serving rum drinks to girls in tiny bikinis isn’t that big of a chore.

at John in shock. “You told him and not me?” “Yes, there’s a cabin down this driveway,” John said quickly, trying to avoid her last question. “And there’s a lake, too.” “A lake?” “Yeah. I told you to pack your bikini and some beach towels.” “I did, but I wasn’t sure …” Veronica stared at John. “Whose place is this?” “It’s actually Fran’s cabin,” John said as he pushed the gate all the way open, shoving it back into the brush so they could get their Explorer through. Veronica looked at Fran. Drew panned the camera from Veronica to Fran. Fran gave them a

I sat up. Terese Collins. Imagery flooded in—her Class-B-felony bikini, that private island, the sun-kissed beach, her gaze that could melt teeth, her Class-B-felony bikini. It’s worth mentioning the bikini twice.

they were saying. And with the tricky steps, she was hesitant to turn around to find out. About halfway down, she saw a college-age girl walking up the stairs, wearing only a bikini and flip-flops, with a beach bag flung over her shoulder. Her hair was still wet from the water and beads of sweat were trickling down her exposed, tan skin. Her curves were impressive and the swimsuit barely contained them. She looked like she might burst out at various places any second. Jessie tried not to stare as they passed and wondered if Kyle was doing the same. “Damn fine ass on that one,” she heard Teddy say a few seconds later. Jessie stiffened involuntarily, not just at the crudeness but because the girl would have almost certainly been close enough to hear it. She was tempted to turn around and give him a scowl when she heard Kyle’s voice. “Right?” he added, snickering like a schoolboy. She stopped in her tracks. As Kyle reached her, she grabbed his forearm. Teddy stopped too, a surprised look on his face. “Go ahead, Teddy,” she said, putting a plastic smile on her face.

Ciao, ragazzi!” Paige is saying to a couple of smooth-skinned, darkly tanned boys who’ve got up the courage to approach her. “Ciao, bella!” one says back eagerly. Oh, I think wistfully, if we could all be as light and easygoing as Paige, the world would be a much happier place! Paige wouldn’t have thought twice about it if she’d spotted a portrait that looked just like her in a museum! She’d have said “Cool,” taken a photo, made it her Facebook profile for a few weeks, and then forgotten about it completely. She’s not only the queen of this beach, she’s the queen of living in the moment, not worrying about things she can’t control. That’s what you should be doing, Violet, I tell myself. Live in the moment, okay? Stop looking over at your phone on the lounger, wondering if Mum’s about to ring or text. You’re in Venice on the beach in the summer sunshine! Enjoy it! Paige and her new friends are throwing around a big stripy ball, the boys’ lean bodies jumping and twisting in the air like slim brown dolphins, Paige’s boobs jiggling in a way the boys doubtless intended when they produced the ball. The lifeguard’s attention is so focused on the contents of her bikini top that a whole family could be eaten by sharks, screaming for help, without his having the faintest idea. Live in the moment. “Hey,” I yell. “Chuck it to me!” And I run up the wet sand toward them.

Alex stood and stretched. “You know it’s required that when you go on a beach vacation, you have to wear a bikini, right?” She came to her feet and considered him for a moment. “I did not know that. But I’m not sure that’s the right look on you.

In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth—the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond all joy to be bikini-ready and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of cesareaen sections, chattering companionably in a language I don’t understand. They are a glimpse of life yet to come: a message of survival, passed on through the generations. It’s a message I rarely find in my buttoned-up home country, and I think about the times I’ve suffered silent furies at the treacheries of my own body, imagining them to be unique. We don’t know ourselves in context. But there is evidence of wintering here, freely shared like an exchange of precious gifts. That’s what you learn in winter: there is a past, a present, and a future. There is a time after the aftermath.