He woke up feeling that something was missing. Cathy. He reached his arm for her.

Empty.

He opened his eyes. Cathy was not there.

He heard a noise, probably coming from the bathroom. So she was up already. He lazily raised from the bed. The sheets were uncomfortably hot, he couldn't stay in bed another second. Through the blinds, strips of sun fell in.

The morning sun was already scalding. The sea waves broke every now and then, inconstantly. There was no wind, and the empty beach was practically desert. And quiet. The few people there improved their tans, lying under the sun like lizards, motionless. From somewhere that seemed very distant under that heat, came the sound of recorded music.

He stood up, slowly, feeling the sweat in his skin, and walked towards the sea, hating the hot sand beneath his feet. He didn't want to run, or jump from one feet to another, preferring the heat, hoping that this walk over fire could somehow be good for him. He arrived to the wet sand and felt relieved, and continued to walk into the sea. He jumped over a wave that would reach his waist, and dived under the next one. Soon he was far from the beach, where the waves were to him but imperceptible undulations.

He floated for a moment, belly up, but the hot and bright sun bothered him. He started to swim, in slow but constant strokes, swinging his legs only slightly, for balance and not thrust. He could feel the water, pushed back by his hands. The pleasant water hid the hot day, and the sea buzz in his ears, broken by the hypnotic splash of his strokes pleased him. He took a long time to reach the crag, swimming around, and only taking his head out of the water to see if he was going in the right direction.

He was disappointed when he reached the crag, feeling that he should have taken an even longer path. He could have swum for hours, lost in his thoughts and the green-blue water that burned his eyes.

He held to the rock for a moment, looking back at the beach, that was as static as he had left it. Using his hands, he climbed the crag with a little effort, resting on the sea washed rock, waiting for the sun to dry him, before he dived again and swam back. He noticed he was panting, and a little tired, avoiding any other thoughts in that direction.

He saw somebody else was swimming towards the crag. Resting against the rock, he considered if he should go back before the inevitable meeting, but he didn't want to go back. The crag, isolated from land, a tiny island almost surreal, was so inviting. And he was still panting a little. He decided to stay and meet the swimmer.

She arrived to the crag, and looked for some way to climb it up. The smooth rock was difficult to grab, and he held his arm for her, pulling her up as strongly as he could. She was light, he noticed, as she smiled, thanking him, panting. Her long blonde hair was darkened by the water, dripping profusely. He sat again, just smiling back. She turned to the beach, trying to find somebody there, he guessed. At last she waved, both arms shaking in front of her, happy. Then she waved again, just one hand, and, then, turned around.

The crag was not special. Big enough for perhaps half a dozen people to lie on. She walked to the side opposed to the beach, admiring the blue horizon, almost impossible to know where the sea ended and the sky started. Her hair was still dripping, bright.

She looked back at him, smiling again, and sat, looking at the beach.

"The sun is so hot today."

He smiled back.

"Yes, it is. By noon it will be impossible to be outside."

She stretched her body, looking for a comfortable spot. The rock was hot. She had the tanned skin acquired after days and days doing nothing but enjoying a beach. He had seen her before, it would have been difficult not to. He had seen her at the beach, tanning, and at the restaurant, where she was eating a small bowl of wind and drinking something cold, talking to someone else.

"Have you been here long?"

She turned her face to him, furrowing her brows against the bright sun, using her hand to block it and open her eyes just a little.

"Yeah. Let's see. What day is today?"

He was surprised by her complete alienation, but realized he didn't know the day either. Probably Thursday. He laughed.

"I don't know. Who cares?"

"Right. I like to enjoy my vacations as much as I can, forget about everything else."

He wondered if she had any worries or things to remember. She was still looking at him, the tiny slits of her blue eyes. He didn't think she had any concerns other than lunch with friends, parties to go to, the beauty parlor appointment. Perhaps he was wrong.

"So do I," he agreed.

After a short silence, she rested her head against the rock. He did the same, but heard her voice shortly after.

"You tan easily. You have a tan better than mine, and you arrived after, didn't you?"

He contemplated his body. Under the bright light, it was hard to say how well tanned he was, but that morning, changing into the bathing suit, he had seen the white skin it covered, contrasted against the dark brown of the rest of his body. Her wife hated to get a tan, and lied under a big umbrella and half a gallon of sun block. He gazed lustily at the blonde's tanned body.

"I have a dark skin. I always tanned quickly."

"Well, I'm blonde, so I usually turn into a tomato the first day. I have to use a strong sun block, and take days tanning only for a few minutes."

He remembered his childhood, the skin burns on the first day of the annual summer vacations, spent with his family on the beach. His mother applied some cold lotion, which felt good against the sensitive skin, while she said "Every year it's the same thing" over and over again, and made him wear a t-shirt to go to the beach the next day, and he hated that. After two or three days he was fine again, his skin already darker and insensitive to the long days under the sun. He told her this story, while thinking how good would be to apply the sun block to her body. She laughed, amused by the story.