Thank you for all the cool comments, and the links to the surfing vids. I think I'm gonna have fun with this one… and Hawke, there's a little something in there for you ;-)

For Cat, as ever…

3. All At Sea

Naomi

The first thought that entered my semi-conscious brain when I woke up the next morning was her. Before I even knew what I was doing I'd turned my pillow sideways and snuggled into it, imagining I was wrapped around that gorgeous body instead. The levels of detail I conjured up were amazing considering I had only seen her for about a minute or so at most. I have a pretty good photographic memory. I can memorise maps and still see them in my head when I need to get somewhere. I can memorise entire tables of figures and remember every number down to the last decimal place. And I used every last ounce of that skill as I recreated a map of her body to facilitate my fantasies. I imagined my head resting against one of those strong shoulders. I imagined how her stomach would feel as I traced my fingers slowly and luxuriously across it. I imagined the gentle pressure of her thighs wrapped around my own. Oh God, why hadn't I spoken to her? Why, why, why?

I knew we had arranged to meet the guy with the boat this morning, but I was struggling to tear myself away from the comfort of my bed every bit as much as I would have done if she had been there for real. I made up a dozen names for her, none of which satisfied me that I had captured her essence. I imagined a multitude of scenarios where I happened to bump into her casually at the beach. Scenarios where I would manage to be all cool and interesting and immediately gain her attention, instead of being the incoherent fool I knew I would be if I ever saw her again.

If I ever saw her again. Oh God, the thought of not seeing her again actually made my heart ache. What the fuck was happening to me? Yesterday I had actually counted to a hundred before I'd allowed myself to turn around and look at her retreating form. I was immediately mesmerised by her perfectly tight bum, and the way it moved from side to side in that magnificently revealing bikini. And her back. Oh fuck my life, her back. Those incredible shoulders, the power in her obviously well used muscles, and the tattoo… Shit, I actually felt the moisture begin to gather between my thighs when I thought about that tattoo. She had been too far away for me to work out what it was, but it started between her shoulder blades and snaked its way down her spine. Oh Jesus Naomi, you are such a ridiculous pervert, I told myself, as my slutty little brain decided to treat me to a vision of myself unzipping the sea goddess out of a dress and kissing my way down that tattoo. Except that I wasn't. A pervert that is. I never usually thought of girls like this, even the ones that I was seeing. It was as if the redhead had enchanted me, and I was completely in her thrall.

"Sort it out bitch," I told myself out loud, tearing myself away from the pillow that had become my temporary lover. "She's just a girl."

Ok, she was an insanely fit girl, but still just a girl. I pulled myself together and threw back the covers, determined to get on with the business of the day. I didn't get very far. Showering was a disaster, my rebellious brain filling my head with lurid shower fantasies, and even when I managed to escape that torture, I immediately found myself daydreaming again as I sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee growing cold as I cradled it untouched in my hands.

"Naomi, Naomi, Naomi."

I think it must have been the third or fourth time he'd said it before I finally realised Thomas was calling my name. I shook my head to clear it, and looked up at him.

"What's wrong?" he asked me. "You were miles away."

"Nothing," I lied. "Just thinking about the project."

"What about the project?" he said.

"Um, just… you know…. Stuff," I mumbled uselessly.

It was a dead giveaway. Thomas knew me too well. He would know that if I really had been thinking about the project, I would have been able to come out with some precise scientific detail I had been musing on.

"Ah, I see," he smiled slowly. "The other project."

"What other project?" I frowned.

"The one with the big brown eyes and the most perfectly shaped shoulders known to womankind," he laughed openly at me. "Project Redhead."

"Fuck you, Thomas," I scowled, taking a swig of my coffee and immediately spitting it back into the cup. It was stone cold. Fuck's sake, how long had I been sitting there? I looked back up to see Thomas's smile had grown more gentle. He sat down opposite me and took my hand in his.

"It's ok to like her Naomi," he said.

"How do you know I like her?" I said defensively.

"Because I haven't seen you look at anyone like that since Stacey Mathiesson."

He really did know me too well.

"Stacey who?" I sighed, admitting defeat.

"Wow," said Thomas. "That bad?"

"That bad," I confessed. "I can't stop thinking about her."

He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.

"It's a small place," he said, attempting to comfort me. "Maybe we'll find her again."

"We better bloody had do, Exploro Boy," I said.

Thomas held up his hands in apology. He was one of life's natural explorers. It was his fault we'd decided to find our way back to the cottage across the dunes at the back of the beach. Why we hadn't gone back the way we had come. Back up the cliff path where my eyes had followed my goddess until all that I could make out of her was a tiny flash of red. Back past the lecherous boy in the ticket shed. Back to the grassy car park where a fabulous redhead might just be having a picnic by her car. No, we had to stomp around in the middle of some grassy wilderness, disturbing the wildlife and not finding any beautiful girls at all.

"Come on," said Thomas. "She looked like she does a lot of swimming. We can go to the beach again tomorrow. Now we have to go and meet Bob."

Bob was the guy who was going to take us out in his boat so we could conduct our study. He was more than a little bit scary. He was in his late fifties and sported the most amazingly ineffective comb over it had ever been my misfortune to witness. His face was brown and weathered as befitted a man who had lived his life on the sea, and his thick Welsh accent meant that I could barely understand a word he said. Thomas had no chance. He was forced to smile and nod with his charming smile, and then look at me behind Bob's back for a translation. But Bob did hold one major advantage. He was cheap, and he was pretty much all we could afford.

I almost changed my mind when I saw the boat. We'd gone down to the harbour at Port Eynon, a little fishing town around the headland from Rhossili. We met Bob at the pub, which was a little alarming as he looked like the pint he was nursing wasn't his first. And then he led us down to the moorings. Lurking between the traditional fishing boats and a few more modern pleasure craft lay Bob's pride and joy, the Rosie Malone, named after a hooker he'd met in Dublin, he reliably informed us. To say that Rosie was looking a little past her prime would have been kind, and I reiterated to Bob that we were going to have to go out into the open sea, and try to stick to our schedule regardless of the weather conditions.

"Oh don't you worry there. Blondie," he grinned at me, patting me on the head. "Rosie'll look after you good and proper."

I looked at Thomas, who merely shrugged in response. What other choice did we have? I had been my usual thorough self when researching our options, and financially Bob was pretty much it.

"So, students is it?" he said, once we had cast off and were sailing out of the harbour. "You'll be after a bit of the old wacky baccy then. I can do you a lovely deal, so."

Oh God. Our drunken boat captain was now trying to deal us drugs.

"Um, no thanks Bob, we're sorted," I told him.

"Oh you don't want to be smoking that rubbish they sell you in the big city. Ours is pure quality. Tell you what, why don't I skin one up for us now? Try before you buy sort of thing."

I looked at Thomas in horror. What the fuck were we supposed to do with this guy? I was glad I had brought my own copies of the sea charts and GPS with me. I wouldn't put it past him to take us to completely the wrong place.

"Unfortunately, we do have to work today," smiled Thomas, saving the day. "So we had better keep our minds clear. Thank you for your kind offer. Maybe on the way back."

"He's a lovely polite boy isn't he?" said Bob, winking at me. "You've done alright for yourself there Missy, so you have."

I was about to correct him in his assumption that Thomas and I were a couple, but then I thought better of it. During our first meeting in the pub, Bob's eyes had been firmly rooted to my tits. Fuck me, this was going to be a long day.

Thankfully, Bob settled down once we had reached our destination, which somewhat amazingly he managed to get us to, without seeming to consult any instruments.

"Know these waters like the back of my hand," he assured me. "Human GPS, they call me."

Fortunately, my actual GPS agreed with him and we could set about our work. To be fair it wasn't exactly a strenuous business, the real slog would come about in the analysis. We were taking water samples at various depths, and at various times of the day in the currents that we knew flowed between the refineries and the feeding grounds for the whales. We also had our pride and joy, a device that we could lower into the water with motion sensors and a live video feed to the surface, so that we could identify and catalogue any sea life that passed through its field of vision. It had been specially built for us by a friend of ours at the university. Such a thing would normally have cost thousands, but JJ had managed to knock it together for only a few hundred quid.

But most of the day involved just waiting, and though I frantically busied myself fussing over a few initial figures and results, I knew in my heart that we had far too little data for my fussing to mean anything at all, and I was inevitably left with time on my hands. Time to think. And that meant…

I groaned internally the first time she invaded my senses again. Could you try and cut me a break here, Red? But there was no resisting her. No matter how much I struggled she returned to haunt me. As if she'd actually managed to plant herself into my neural pathways, and I could almost sense her as much as I imagined her. Eventually I gave in, and just sat back and enjoyed it. To be fair, I could think of worse ways to spend a day than drifting about on a boat with my best friend and a crazy old man, thinking about a beautiful girl.

Thomas had to wake Bob up from a peaceful snooze when it was time to go back. About halfway back to shore, he started banging on about the bloody drugs again.

"Done all your measuring, have you love?" he asked when I shut the lid of my Macbook. I nodded in assent.

"Well you can have a little bifter then, can't you girlie?" he said. "I can promise you, you won't regret it."

Somehow I knew he wasn't going to let it lie. So I gave in. Better to have a toke on whatever shit weed he was trying to fob us off with. Then we could say we didn't like it and have done. But instead of some crappy bag of green, Bob pulled out what looked like some extremely high quality resin, the like of which we hadn't seen round uni for quite a while.

"This'll blow your head off, sweetheart," smirked Bob, handing me the lit spliff.

Yeah right, I though cynically. Probably cut to fuck.

I couldn't have been more wrong. From the first toke I realised that for once, Bob had not been spinning us a yarn. This shit was seriously fucking strong, and after a couple more drags I was well on my way to being high.

"Wow," I said as I passed the joint to Thomas. "That is some seriously good shit."

It was a beautiful high, very light and giggly without ever giving you that heavy feeling in your limbs. Bob seemed to make a lot more sense once I was stoned, and by the time we pulled back into the harbour, the three of us were laughing and swapping stories like we'd known each other all our lives. Bob's 'try before you buy' had been a definite winner, and I stumbled off the boat with an eighth in my pocket and a really fucking stupid grin on my face.

A grin that was soon to be plastered rigidly in place through sheer terror, when I realised who exactly had been sitting on the harbour wall reading a book. That was until she had the pleasure of witnessing mine and Thomas's entire stumbling, giggling and ridiculous walk of shame down the jetty.

"Hi there, nice to see you again," she said with a friendly smile, that was so sweet it could make me weep for joy. "I'm Emily."