Status: Re-uploaded 1/12/2012
Salt
Prologue
The sea looked the way it did in silver-plate photographs- tumultuous, black and oily, with waves that curled like Christian’s salt-licked ringlets. It raced over smooth rocks, frothing rabidly, and battered the pale, upturned cheek of the beach. It was wanton and selfish, violent and passionate, whispering in the ears of the all the shore’s hollows, and caressing her softer places.
Then, the tide changed, and the sea turned its back on the land. The long, exposed stretches of sand were bone-white, bleached by the sun and the waves. The beach was bloodless in the cold, stark and naked as Victoria’s white legs beneath her soaked petticoats. The salt stung it and laid it bare.
Victoria gasped and spluttered as the last wave crashed and rolled its broken body back into its ocean bed.
She hadn’t even realised she was crying.
Then, the tide changed, and the sea turned its back on the land. The long, exposed stretches of sand were bone-white, bleached by the sun and the waves. The beach was bloodless in the cold, stark and naked as Victoria’s white legs beneath her soaked petticoats. The salt stung it and laid it bare.
Victoria gasped and spluttered as the last wave crashed and rolled its broken body back into its ocean bed.
She hadn’t even realised she was crying.