[F4F] Chasing Down a Dream

"That'll be eight seventy-nine."

I hand the young man a crisp ten, taking the sandwich from him and his cart, planted somewhat unsteadily at the entrance to the beach.

"Keep the change."

I can feel his eyes on me as I turn. It's the end of the season, and there isn't a sea of younger women to look at, I tell myself. It's flattering, another voice speaks as I continue my walk down the sand. Out of sight.

Because it isn't his gaze I want.

Taking a seat beneath my umbrella, I look out, watching the foam of the sea collect on the beach. Basil, tomato, mozzarella fill my senses as I remember what this place was like twenty years ago. When I was younger. When I met \*her\*.

Amalia, she'd said her name was. Visiting from Argentina. I watched her with the same intensity that young man did. Soaked in how her bathing suit carried her figure. How her hair looked like reeds in the breeze.

Luckily. I saw more. Much more. But then she was gone.

She lit a spark in me, though. I found I couldn't help but write, compose, create. Though lesbian romance isn't exactly mainstream, my work found it's way onto enough Kindles and other such things to keep me fed. And keep me going.

But every late summer, I return here. To this sleepy Atlantic vacation town. I'm probably as old as Amalia was when she showed me there was more to the world. I've long since given up looking for her. Perhaps at my age, it's my turn to be that sapphic inspiration, a fling that lets a young woman know she should expect more from the world.