Tati & Jule go for a swim

It was a mild fall afternoon at Hazel Grove, and Tati had just finished cleaning Lovers Loft. The busyness of late summer was beginning to slow down, which meant her favorite time of year had arrived. School was back in session, the orchard harvest was ramping up, and two whole months of warm, dry weather stretched out promisingly ahead. Sun came down through the tree ferns at the edge of the forest and glinted off the old Airstreams arranged in a circle. Tati took off her gloves and stood with her hands on her hips, appreciating the calm of the afternoon.

Jule came in through the gate beside the lodge pulling a wagon full of tools. She was wearing a pair of overalls muddy at the knees and a threadbare t-shirt underneath. She had her long blonde hair tied up in a loose topknot, and her forehead was smudged with dirt from planting bilberries in the front beds.

“Join me for a dip in the river?” Tati asked.

“Oh my god, yes please,” Jule replied, hanging her tools in the shed.

On the other side of the river, up the hill toward where narrow cobblestone streets give way to orchards, Ash stood up from her desk in front of the window. She tidied the books she had been reading and stacked her papers, shaking a small pile of pencil shavings into the wastebasket. Another long day of research. She walked over to the dresser and pulled off her t-shirt.

From the next room over, her landlady’s office, she could hear one side of a phone conversation. “I hear you, Mari, but I don’t write lesbian stories.” She must be talking to her editor, Ash thought. Her landlady, Eva, was a well know (albeit pseudonymous) and prolific writer of romance novels. “Yes. Sure, I’ll give you that.”

Ash pulled a sheer black bra out of the top drawer and looped it over her shoulders, reaching around to clasp it at the back. “Honestly Mari, I just wouldn’t know where to start.” She pulled the bra down over her breasts and reached in to adjust each in its cup. “And certainly not where to finish.” Ash smiled at the thought of her elderly landlady, seemingly versed in the ways of erotic roleplay, orgies and pegging (among many other things, judging from her books), nonetheless mystified by the rhythm of sex between two women. She pulled a thin mauve cashmere sweater over her head.

Downstairs, Ash put on her sandals and retrieved a pair of binoculars from the closet, which Eva had told her to borrow for birdwatching whenever. Really she just enjoyed watching the human goings-on along the river. She left the house and set off down the hill.

Tati & Jule parked their bikes at the edge of the sand. Despite the beautiful weather, there was no one along the stretch of beach leading off past the Glade toward the Preserve. “I hope you don’t mind of I go nude,” said Tati, smiling at Jule over her shoulder.

“Not at all, that actually sounds lovely.”

Tati unbuttoned her linen shirt and stepped out of her cutoff shorts. As she was taking off her bra, she watched Jule drop her overalls and pull the thin t-shirt over her head, which got stuck on a bobby pin in her hair. As Jule stood with her arms raised, working to get untangled, Tati glanced at her bare breasts swaying firmly beneath the hem of her shirt. She had seen Jule naked before, of course, but still appreciated the sight of the young woman’s graceful body.

Jule freed herself and folded her clothes, which she placed in the basket on her bike. The two women set off naked along the shore.

This was the first summer Jule had worked at the resort, but she and Tati had a slightly longer history than that. When she first came to town, Jule had camped for a week at the resort while looking for more permanent lodging. One night, after a long conversation around the fire, after the other guests had turned in, Tati invited Jule up to her apartment for a cup of tea. They never got to the tea, but instead made out on the couch for an hour before falling asleep together, fully clothed, on top of the blankets in Tati’s bed. It only happened once, and when Jule started working part time at the resort, they laughed about it a few times before moving on. Still, being naked together held some of the charge of that night. Jule could remember clearly the feeling of Tati’s strong tongue exploring her mouth, and Tati had no trouble calling to mind Jule’s nipples firm against her palms through the cloth.

Ash arrived at her familiar spot by the river and sat on a bench beside a huge willow. Just a few weeks ago she was still swimming daily among the trailing branches, but the water had since taken a chilly turn. She pulled the binoculars from her bag and looked downstream toward town. A ketch was sailing for the market dock, probably carrying grain from farms up the valley. Sappho, she read across the stern. On the hillsides above, she could see tiny figures working in the apple orchards; a woman carrying a wooden ladder over her shoulder, a young man stacking baskets. She turned the binoculars to the shore directly across from her and scanned the beach. She stopped short when two naked women came into view, walking together at the water’s edge.

It was an idyllic scene to glimpse from over the water, Ash thought. The women looked so natural and self-possessed, completely naked, talking and laughing as they walked. She put down the binoculars, mildly conflicted about continuing to look. The women were beautiful, one older than the other, and both in excellent shape. She raised them again. The women had stopped in front of a big piece of driftwood. The younger woman was quite tall, with her blonde hair tied up in a bun on top of her head leaving her long neck bare. The older woman was a bit shorter, with olive skin and an admirably even suntan all over her body. Ash admired the contrasts between them: high collarbones over large breasts, thighs smooth to strong calves, bronze upturned nipples, flat stomach, arched lower back, the smooth curve of a bottom.

Tati stepped over to feel the water with her foot. “Shall we? It’s not too cold, and besides, you look like you could use a bath.”

Jule, who still had dirt on her face from gardening, dipped her toes into the water and exaggerated a shiver. “Oh boy, I suppose. After you?”

Tati waded out into the river and dove headfirst without hesitating. She came up with a grin and swam a few strokes out into the current, turning back to Jule standing with her arms crossed at shore. “You won’t regret it!”

After a bit of waffling and a few deep breaths, Jule lowered herself into the shallows and shoved out into the river to meet Tati. The two women laughed and paddled in the current, which slowly carried them back the way they had walked.

“The water feels so good,” Jule said, scrubbing the dirt from her forehead and lifting her arms to rinse her armpits. “I love being naked in the water, it’s so sensual.”

Tati smiled, looking at the way the young woman’s body danced beneath the surface. “Oh I agree.”

Ash followed the bobbing heads downstream through the binoculars. As they neared two bikes leaned either side of a big fan palm, the women slowly waded out of the river. She watched as their shoulders and backs emerged, their bottoms, their legs. The women stood dripping on the sand, squeezing water from their hair and shaking droplets from their arms and legs. The younger woman shivered, and her companion wrapped her arms around her in a friendly embrace. Ash could see the young woman’s large breasts press atop the older woman’s smaller ones, which pressed against her companion’s stomach. It was a lovely thing to see, in its bare simplicity.

She felt a familiar yearning move through her body. A yearning on one level for the simple freedom and connection in the women’s shared nakedness, but also for the natural intimacy in their embrace. She felt her own body beneath her clothes, and decided to visit the opposite shore on the next warm day for a stroll of her own.

The women walked back up the sand to their bikes and stepped back into their clothes. They disappeared off among the trees.