Perfect summer

The sun skittered across the crystalline surface of the ocean in burning arcs of solder until Stephanie had to close her eyes and look away. The tantalising echo on her retinas staying with her through deep orange to a light, dissipating pink.

The heat played across her skin in warm breaths that made the hair on her arms stand on end and the flesh across her stomach and legs pucker up and glisten with sweat. She felt rivulets of moisture meander down her body and fought the urge to nip off the flow and scratch away the teasing tickles.

Through the small bikini Claire had dared her into wearing she could feel the aureole of her breasts tighten and flesh a little further down become tantalisingly engorged with languid blood until she was blushing and crossing her legs for decorum's sake.

Steph leant back, face to the sky and drank in the summer. 

'Does it get any better than this?' She idly thought to herself as some bronzed adonis grinned her way while fumbling to reach a volley ball before it rolled out on a wave.

Forget work. Forget home. Forget everything about your life. This is what a holiday was all about. The personification of simplicity. So perfect it defied her ability to describe it and really do it justice. So why bother.

It took Steph a few seconds to realise there was something intruding on her picture postcard moment. And a little longer still to recognise what it was.

A god damn phone.

Jeez. People just had to take them everywhere with them.

She tried to blot the persistent ringing out, but when no one answered and the bleating just continued, she found herself growing more and more irate.

And it was so damn close, that was the really annoying thing. Someone had obviously plonked themselves right behind her. Probably some creep trying to stare down her bikini. And that did it. Steph found her moment sullied and spun around to catch the perv in the act.

But there was no one behind her. Just a gentle sloping bed of golden grains in pristine condition, broken only by a solitary line of footprints from her hotel room terrace to where she was sitting.

The ringing continued. Shrill, but now Steph was actively listening to it, strangely muffled too.

"Oh my god!"

Steph slipped her hand into a little swell of sand off to her left and let out an involuntary gasp of surprise when she brought out a small black phone.

It was an old school, sturdy looking clamshell of the type she'd had back in college. Thinking of how many touch screen phones she'd gone through in the intervening years she'd forgotten how much she liked the compact feel of these little things. And it was certainly built to take some punishment.

She glanced up and down the beach hoping to spot a likely owner, a jogger, dog walker or some hot young guy in cargo shorts who could pass for Johnny Depp with the sufficient amount of tequila on board. But there wasn't really anyone that close by.

She tapped the hard carapace with the nail of her index finger, then more to stop the annoying ring than anything else Steph flipped the phone open and answered the call before she'd even thought about doing it.

"Hello?"

The clamshell had made a case-shredding grind of sand into plastic as it opened and Steph hoped to hell she wouldn't get the blame for any damage to the thing.

"Who the hell is this?"

Already Steph was regretting starting this. An angry woman on the other end of a phone is bad news for everyone.

"Hi. My name's Steph, I just..."

"I don't give a damn what your name is, put Jason on the phone now!"

Steph took a deep breath.

"Look. I'm trying to explain that I just picked this phone up and..."

"Where is he? Is he even there? What is it? Is he taking a shower? Too drunk to answer his own phone? Believe me you're welcome to him. Whatever line he's spun you I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for. Jesus. What an asshole! Tell him he's got his folks worried sick, no one's heard from him in three days. Three goddamn days! Christ. Telling everyone he's off fishing on his boat. Asshole! Tell him I hope he falls overboard and drowns..."

Even through the tinny speakers of the clamshell Steph could tell the phone on the other end had been slammed down, not just hung up.

She sat for a dazed moment just looking at the phone in her hand, half expecting the ringing to pick up again. Then she looked out at the sea, and a steady line of perfectly empty horizon. So still, so quiet, with a beautiful noon day sun cutting through the shards of cresting waves and sparkling up like burning arcs of solder.