The Greek sun beat down on the Mediterranean shore as I cast my eyes along the beach. The temperature had passed 40 degrees Centigrade and the place was a furnace. There was no wind to speak of and many people who had ventured from the hotel shade were seeking refuge from the heat in the sea. It was a small resort with just a small number of hotels and restaurants, no fantastic night-life to attract hordes of youngsters but just fine for me. This was the height of the summer season, the folks on holiday were a mixture of families, young couples and even a few pensioners. Most of the women were of course topless, a minority kept their tops on - like anyone cared about their modesty.
My wife was a fully signed up member of the minority and declined my efforts to reveal herself, keeping all of her bikini on at all times. This had been the subject of many a discussion between us over the years - why she always denied me an eyeful I could never work out. 'Bugger everyone else, give me a flash', I'd say. We were both recently turned thirty years of age, in my opinion past childish modesty and fast approaching that time of life where people should cease to care what others think of them on the beach.
However, to no avail, Sue was steadfastly shy of allowing anyone to see her uncovered. This was completely in character; years previously when we had started seeing each other it had had been several weeks before even I had been permitted to view her chest. She was quite embarrassed by her tiny proportions and more than once I caught her looking over the classified advertisements in the back pages of women's magazines where the cosmetic surgeons showed images of plastic ladies with smiles as fake as their man-made extras.
However I loved her pert nipples on those miniature, gentle soft swells of flesh set high on her rib-cage, which likely would never suffer the depressing effects of gravity. Those firm nubs would become erect at the slightest stimulation though and I'd often joke that she should be careful where she pointed them or she'd have my eyes out.
Sue really didn't believe that I was fond of her tiny tits and trim waist, together with those narrow hips and slim legs long enough to give her a slender, statuesque silhouette. So she kept her almost flat, empty bikini top firmly in place, whilst all around her women who really did need to cover themselves flaunted their massive rolls of floppy flesh with huge saucers of areolae. Some of them lay with their lumps of blubber falling sideways into their armpits, then strolling unashamed with their slack bellies hanging over their bikini bottoms, bulbous breasts drooping down to their navels.
There was some worthwhile eye candy passing however and little to prevent me from taking peeks at it. A constant line of holidaymakers were strolling in the shallows, right along the length of the beach. Many of the topless ladies were well worth taking a second look at and some were clearly basking in the sly glances from men. Sometimes you could see them breathing in to emphasise their breasts when they realised they were being watched. Now and then I'd see one take a cooling dip and then squeeze the water out of her hair, arms raised to improve the angle of dangle.
Sue read a novel as we rested in the shade of rented parasols, in a comfortable silence like many married couples. I was also reading a cheap thriller but taking the opportunity to cast periodic looks around, always on the look-out for a perfect pair of protuberances; headlights well above the horizon. Many of the men strolling past kept an endlessly steady gaze to the landward, as if intrigued by the hills and forestry in the distance. Not peeking at the sunbathing ladies, of course.
I watched a man walk past me towards the water's edge with stomach sucked in in a vain attempt to defy years of dedicated beer consumption but any illusion failed as he started hopping and running across the burning sand. When he reached the cool water he realised that his belly had collapsed and tried in vain to suck it back in over the top of his shorts.
In the distance I recognised a family group who were staying at the same hotel as ourselves. I idly watched as the man played with their daughter, a girl aged about three. They were trying to build a sandcastle but the sand refused to stay in the same shape. They resorted to digging a simple moat around a soggy sand hillock allowing the sea to fill the ditch. The wife looked on bored, modestly wearing an expensive looking pale blue one-piece bathing suit.
As it was the Mediterranean, there was little tide and no waves worthy of the name - just ripples lapping on the shore and relentlessly dissolving the miserable sandcastle.
The woman was the type that I'd describe as high-maintenance. Even on the beach she wore make-up and had her short hair tightly pinned back with a strange little feather woven in. She looked very elegant but out of place amongst the informality of a Greek island beach. When I had seen her previously in the hotel she was always immaculately presented with manicured nails and expensive looking clothes. She was about 30 years old, quite slim and to tell the truth strikingly good looking - if not classically pretty. She had a distinctive walk; a swaying strut with her head held high and shoulders back, hips and butt swivelling provocatively. Not afraid to show her cleavage, she usually wore slinky little dresses showing acres of back and shoulders.
As her glance wandered in my direction I returned to my book.
* * *
After a while I noticed that the mother and daughter had vanished; the husband remained alone, sitting with his legs being washed by the lapping sea. I idly checked out the parade of paddlers and eventually spotted the pair as tiny specks in the distance, right at the far end of the beach where the low cliff met the sea. They remained there for about an hour or so before returning, damp after a swim.
* * *
The next day my wife and I picked a spot at the end of the beach. We set down the towels and supplies for the day and sat down. The low cliff in that area was not actually made of rock but of a hard clay which was being eroded by the sea, causing chunks to fall onto the beach.
After a couple of hours of people-watching I saw the lady with the feather in her hair, with her daughter coming towards us. They didn't seem to recognise us but sat down amongst the fallen bits of clay.
The girl started playing in the shallows and her mother picked up some mud, wet from a pool. Intrigued, I watched as she squidged the substance between her fingers into a smooth paste which she then applied as a face-pack on them both, as if they were in a beauticians parlour.
She continued to smear it all over the exposed skin of the child. After the child was covered on her face, legs, arms and body, she lay down in the sun.
I saw the lady spread the grey cream over her own limbs. Trying to pretend to read my book, I watched out of the corners of my eyes as she swiftly peeled down her swim-suit to her waist and spread the mud over her belly and then over her breasts, which lifted and fell gently with a bounce as her hands moved hypnotically.
She was not what I'd call busty, and with her suit pulled down she had small perky boobs with brown nipples which were still pointing upwards, probably a B cup, I guessed. A bit more than my wife who has just a mouthful on each side and wears a 34AA bra. The woman was possibly a B cup, I thought. With some contorting, she also managed to smear herself on her back. I was briefly reminded of an Amazonian tree frog covering itself with its own poison. A very attractive and sexy frog with muddy breasts.
Both then lay down on a dry flat area, letting the relentlessly hot sun bake down on them. When the clay was hard and crumbling and nearly white in colour once more, the two got up and walked into the sea, letting it wash away in swirls of murky water. They then came back out onto the sand and the mother pulled her swimsuit back up. They then walked back along the beach.
