Page 40 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“I do, some,” he said. “September. November. D-D-December. Ember. Juember. Ju-uly.”
A chortle wriggled out of me. Not because listening to him struggle was funny, but because of how July had clunked up the roll he’d been on with the ‘ember months.
One of those things was not like the other. Although “Juember” had a nice ring to it.
“May,” Alistair concluded, either not noticing my laugh, or choosing not to comment on it. “What are the words for the others?”
I rattled them off.
He slowly repeated each one. And once I’d gone through the whole list, he recited all twelve months on his own, brimming with pride when he made it all the way back to December.
“That was—” I started to congratulate him but ended up biting the words off with a squawk when a big clap of thunder exploded overhead.
“You’re s-safe.” Alistair’s voice twined around me, easing my galloping heart. “We’re nearly there.”
Nearly there. He’d been swimming for several minutes, and he wasn’t a slowpoke, but we were only “nearly there.”
I swallowed. Or tried to. But my mouth had gone so dry, the lump in my throat had gotten so big, it was hard to swallow. “The ocean took me out far, didn’t it?”
A hum vibrated through Alistair. “The waters are s-strong…est. Strongestbefore a storm. But I wouldn’t test their strength. Even when there’s no storm.”
“Well, no worries there. It’s like the saying: fuck me once, shame on you. Fuck me twice, shame on me. Or, well, that’s the Jackson version of that saying, at least. He didn’t think ‘fool me’ packed the same punch, so he added some flavor. Y’know?”
“I’m not sure…”
“Means if something bites me once, I don’t generally give it a chance to bite again.”
He said nothing to that, just romped up and down, bobbing through the cantankerous waters.
I wondered if it was hard for him to swim with his head held up. It had to be the equivalent of a person walking with their chin pointing at the sky. And I knew from experience—usually from my trips to cities with stunning architecture to gawp at—that my upper back would scream if I had to carry that posture for any length of time. I couldn’t imagine walking like that while trying to balance something on my forehead. Something that moved. And talked incessantly. And shivered so hard, its teeth madeclick-click-clicksounds.
Bless him. Truly. I started to say that—another babbling thank you—but he belatedly responded to my last statement.
“Fuck,”he drizzled the word out, “doesn’t mean bite.”
I choked.
“It means s-s-s…” He sighed.
Oh no. I knew exactly what he was trying to sound out. “Sex?”
“Yes.Sex.It means sex. Unless I have the word wrong. I sometimes confuse them…”
“Oh, no, we’re on the same word page here.” My choke turned into a giggle. And then a full-fledged laugh. The kind that tickled your insides, left your belly muscles aching, and had the world looking a little brighter than it had a few seconds before. “Like…Yes, generally, fuck means sex. Not alwaysgoodsex though, sometimes it’s the bad sort, the kind that’s forced on you when you don’t want it. That’s why it’s used in the saying. I just said ‘bite’ because…well, most bites are also unwanted. Except the ones that are.So there’s good fucking and bad, and good biting and bad, y’know?”
Stars help me…I was talking sex with theflipping Loch Ness Monster.What a vacation this was. One for the freaking books.
“Ah,” Alistair said.
A zap of frustration hit me then—hisfrustration.
The kind of exasperation I usually got first thing in the morning when I was trying to make sense of a complicated email before the coffee kick-started my brain.
He knew the words. But was aggravated that they kept muddling on him.
“Where did you learn to speak?” I asked. “Your English is great, by the way.Impeccable.I’m just a little curious where, or how, orwhyyou’ve learned to speak it.”
“I don’t speak,” Alistair said. “Not anymore.”
