Chapter 27 Wild Kiss #2
No one had ever accused Catherine of that before. Penny was funny; Jules was funny. Catherine was poised and stoic, and really no fun at all. Or perhaps she’d never let herself go enough for anyone to really see her because, admittedly, she was hilarious in her own head.
“What’s the saying — never gin before a swim?”
Catherine grinned. “That’s not a thing.”
“Well, it should be.” Jules stood and started stripping off her clothes.
Catherine gulped, trying and failing to avert her eyes as Jules peeled off her layers until she was in nothing but a bright red swimming costume.
Her body was taut under the tight material, leaving little left for Catherine’s imagination to fill in.
Shit. Why didn’t I wear my costume under my clothes?
“Are you coming in?” Jules smiled down at her before taking long strides back towards the lake; her smooth, tanned legs seemed to go all the way up to her armpits. Catherine wasn’t a prude by any stretch, but sometimes being in her own awkward skin was exhausting.
She stood, slowly stripped off her own clothes and folded them into a neat pile.
She turned away from the lake, flinging the Dryrobe over her shoulders as she removed her underwear and shimmied into the black costume.
Not that Jules was looking anyway, perhaps she’d sensed Catherine’s awkwardness and given her space.
Or perhaps she’s just not interested in you like that?
Jules looked absorbed in the moment as Catherine stepped up alongside her. She didn’t want to startle her or shatter her peace, so she curled her toes into the mossy bank. Patterns of light skipped over the water.
Jules let out a hearty laugh. “Are you trying to summon the courage too?”
“Ha! No, I do this all the time, and often on much colder days. It’ll be lovely once we’re in.”
“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?”
“I thought you Scots were meant to be made of hardy stuff.”
“Ach! I’m a city lass. I didn’t grow up frolicking in freezing lochs!”
Catherine chuckled. “It shouldn’t be too cold.”
“Says the Ice-Bath Queen!”
“Think of it like a wild kiss.” Catherine inhaled, and Jules turned to look at her, a questioning eyebrow arched. “It might take your breath away, but I can guarantee it’ll leave you wanting more.”
Jules stared at her for a moment, her lips slightly parted before they split into a grin. “Right, er, yeah… it sounds a bit like you’re romanticising hypothermia.”
“I’ll go first,” Catherine said, enjoying the opportunity to show a little bravado. Hyper-aware of Jules’s gaze, she squared her shoulders and moved with confidence, and, she hoped, a little grace.
The shallow water warmed her toes, her ankles, then her calves as she waded in.
By the time it reached her thighs, the water was colder, but at this point the coolness was a welcome relief against her hot skin, flushed from the proximity of Jules and how brazen she’d just been with that kiss analogy.
What has gotten into me? But it had been worth it to win that look on Jules’s face.
The lake lapped higher. Catherine restrained her gasp as the water swallowed her waist.
“What’s it like?” Jules called out.
Catherine took a second to steady her breath before answering. “It’s perfect. Come on.” And before her rational brain could kick in, she pushed off from the bottom and surrendered her weight to the water. Her nipples pebbled under the thin fabric of her swimsuit.
“If I die, I’m going to haunt you.” Jules dipped a toe in.
“You won’t die!” Catherine smiled to herself as Jules picked her way into the water with a distinct lack of grace, muttering expletives with every step and splash.
Like Penny, Jules was unapologetically herself — a perfect blend of rough and smooth — and it was as refreshing as the cool water.
Then with a splash that echoed around the lake, Jules was gone, the mirrored surface rippling in her wake.
A long moment passed, and Catherine stilled. “Jules?”
Shit. Catherine thrust her feet down to reach the bottom, but she still couldn’t see any sign of her.
“Jules?” Panic made her voice hitch as she called out, louder this time, with frantic eyes scanning the surface until Jules emerged with a whoosh, her hair slicked back and cheeks flushed.
“Wow, that was—” Jules finished her sentence with a triumphant whoop and swiped the water from her face.
Catherine clutched her chest and drew a long breath into her lungs. “Oh my God, I thought —”
Jules swam over with a confident stroke, and Catherine realised it was the cold she’d feared, not the water.
“Were you worried I was going to haunt you?” Her lip curled into a half-smile, and she gave Catherine a little splash.
“No. I just wasn’t expecting you to put your head under.”
“You’ve just got to take the plunge sometimes, haven’t you?… All or nothing,” Jules said with a look so intense Catherine almost forgot her own name.
So much for that bravado.
“It’s not too cold for you?” Catherine asked, treading water and trying to defy the heat rising within her again.
“No, it’s lovely. You were right; once you get over the initial shock, you realise it’s exactly what you needed.”
Are we still talking about the lake? she wanted to ask, but Jules had drifted so close she could feel the warmth of her; so close she could see the droplets clinging to her lashes. Surrounded by nature, her eyes looked more green than hazel, and her gaze flitted down to Catherine’s lips.
“I don’t want to make things awkward between us,” Jules began, “but I—”
A loud rustling and the low hum of voices stole the moment.
They whipped around to see a small huddle of women dressed like they were on safari, not a woodland hike.
The squat woman at the front of the group held out her arms when she spotted them.
She turned and said something to the others, who hung back chatting between themselves as the squat woman lurched towards the shoreline and stood with her hands on her hips.
“Ladies! I hope we’re not disturbing anything.” She held up her right hand and splayed her fingers into a Vulcan salute. “We come in peace.” A large carabiner loaded with keys swung from her belt loop.
“The name’s Parker. I’m the group lead for the West Warwickshire Women’s Wild Swim Chapter, or as we like to call ourselves, ‘The Blue Tits’.
” She splayed her hands at her chest and her face rumpled in laughter.
“We’ve hiked over eight kilometres to get here.
Most of us are from Leek Wootton, apart from Glenda, she lives in Dorridge, but that’s a…
” She continued on, but Catherine’s attention drifted to the women behind Parker, who were now sat on the ground tugging off hiking boots and stuffing them with their socks.
“They’re not coming in here with us, are they?” Jules muttered out of the side of her mouth.
“It looks a bit that way,” Catherine whispered back, disappointment dropping like a stone in her stomach, as the women continued to strip down to their underwear — God, no!
— strip out of their underwear. Catherine’s eyes doubled in size, as she tried to look anywhere but at the unholy amount of flesh revealing itself in front of them, lumps and bumps in every size.
The water rippled as Jules convulsed with barely restrained laughter.
“What do we do?”
Jules’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Do you speak any other languages?”
“Sorry, what?”
“Never mind. Just stay quiet, I’ve got this,” Jules winked before calling out across the lake.
“Guten Tag,” she said with an enthusiastic wave. “Ich verstehe nicht. Was haben Sie gesagt?”
“What are you doing?” Catherine hissed.
Parker stepped back, hands dropping from her waist. “Oh, you’re German? Or was that Dutch?”
Jules yelled back, “Konnen Sie das ein bisschen langsamer wiederholen, bitte? Oder sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Er, sorry I don’t, er…” Parker turned to the other women, arms flapping as, presumably, she tried to establish whether there was a German speaker amongst them. In the meantime, one of the women, maybe Glenda of Dorridge, let out a roar as she ran splashing into the lake with reckless abandon.
“C’mon, girls,” bellowed Maybe-Glenda, and the others followed like a full-frontal flash mob.
Clearly conceding her quest to communicate, Parker shrugged and stripped off her own clothes to join her shrieking sisters.
Jules gave Catherine a shrug. “I’d hoped it might scare them off, but nope.”
With an unspoken consensus, Catherine and Jules swam back to the edge, trying and failing to contain their laughter as Parker splashed by, mustering an “Entschuldigung,” as she passed.
They scooped up their things and ran, giggling into the woods, Jules’s hair hanging in red ribbons, water coiling down her back as she charged ahead.
“Ouch, shit!” Jules hopped on one foot after treading on something.
“Wait,” Catherine puffed through her laughter. “Let’s get some shoes on at least.”
Jules leaned against a tree, catching her breath as Catherine pulled out her Dryrobe and chucked it on a tree stump, where she sat to dry her feet and pull on her boots. She looked up at Jules, who was staring at her with an odd smile.
“Here, sit on this while you get yours on.”
Jules pushed off from the tree. Her mouth twisted into a grin when Catherine stood. “That’s a good look on you.”
Catherine glanced down at herself. She looked like she’d stumbled out of a wrestling ring. But rather than shying away from it, she put her hands on her waist and owned it. “If you’re lucky, I’ll wear my robe like a cape. Now get your shoes on; we’ve got a new picnic spot to find.”
They hiked through the woods, putting plenty of distance between them and the Warwickshire Wild Women or whatever they were called, Catherine with the Dryrobe draped around her shoulders, and Jules who’d just pulled her white T-shirt over her wet swimming costume.
Catherine tried not to notice the two round puddles soaking through.
She also tried not to think about how see-through the T-shirt would be when Jules took her swimming costume off, or how cool the skin of her breasts would feel on Catherine’s lips. Stop it, she scolded her dirty mind.
“What about here?” Jules stepped off the worn path and into a small sun-drenched clearing. She stretched out her arms and turned a full circle. “We can dry off in the sun.”
“Yeah, looks perfect.”
Between them, they draped the picnic blanket over the ground. Jules flung a towel over her shoulder and gathered up her strewn clothes. “Just nipping off for a wild wee.”
While she was gone, Catherine set out the picnic. The ice-packs had done a good job of keeping everything cool. She cracked a can of pink G&T and gulped down a mouthful, trying to work out whether pink was meant to be a flavour or a colour.
Jules returned, dressed, her wet hair still hanging loose but tousled and slightly drier. Those round wet patches were pulling far too much of Catherine’s attention than was decent. Jules’s lips twitched as if she’d noticed, but she said nothing.
“Here, have a gin.” Catherine passed Jules a can, and for some reason announced, “It’s pink.”
“Thanks,” Jules cracked the can and took a sip. “And thanks for all this. What a lovely way to spend the day.”
Catherine reached to open the olives.
“Although if I’d known you were going to try initiating me into a naturist colony, I never would’ve agreed.”
Catherine laughed. “I had no idea we’d be swarmed by bloody naturists. I didn’t know where to look. Outside of an art gallery, I’ve never seen so many boobs at once.”
“Ha! The look on your face was hilarious.”
“I’m pleased my discomfort amused you so.” Catherine tried to suppress her smile by popping an olive in her mouth. “So, are you fluent in German, or just subterfuge?”
“I know my way around a few languages. It was handy for work. And that little trick got me out of a few situations over the years. It’s only backfired the once so far.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“A couple of years ago I pretended to be French to avoid the advances of a sleazebag at a bar, except he overheard me later on ordering drinks in English. The cheeky bastard called me a lying bitch and threw my drink over me.”
“Oh God, that’s awful.”
Jules shrugged. “Nah, it was fine. He got chucked out, and the owner felt so bad about it he let me off my bar bill at the end of the night.”
“Still, what an awful way to behave.”
“I’ve had worse at work. From the rude and entitled, right through to drunks who can’t keep their hands to themselves… and that’s not just the passengers!”
“Blimey! I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Occupational hazard. See, I told you it wasn’t at all glamorous. But don’t worry, I usually got my own back.” Jules scooped up some dip with a tortilla chip.
Catherine’s eyes widened, but she dared not ask. Instead she said, “Well, here’s to your fresh start. Hopefully, there’ll be less groping and more glamour!”
Jules tapped her can to Catherine’s. “Ha, yeah. Cheers to that.”