The air vibrated around her. Thick waves of heat escaped from the slats of the deck. The wooden planks swelled with heat – creaking, bursting embers. Perhaps single handedly responsible for the sweat cascading down her temples and pooling between her breasts.
She’d never sunbathed naked before. The heat from the sun felt welcoming and corrupting on the untouched skin of her nipples and beneath her pubic hair. She imagined the sun burning a hole through the deck. Her naked body plummeting onto the dried, coarse, tall grass, the dusty earth coating her sweaty body, her shining skin matte and earthy. Bugs crawled across the desert of her stomach – ants, crickets, spiders; tiny snakes encircling and covering her until her body was absorbed. Her breasts, the last thing that could identify her as human, would soon become the beginning of two small ant hills, her hair now fallen pieces of golden grass.
