The cigarette burned to his fingertips without him noticing. He dropped the rest in the sand and looked at his fingers, touched his forefinger and thumb together to test them. He spat and his gaze shifted up the beach.

Her body was splayed on the shore, her legs slightly askew. Waves lapped her hair and pulled the thick strands outward. One hand rested near her head covered by hair. The other wasn’t visible.

He stood at a distance and watched. He had an angular view: a bare foot, long leg, her hand and fingers nestled in the sand. He edged toward open water and saw her arm moving slightly with the waves. He shifted, pulled up his collar, and waited.

It was late November, bitter. The days were short and angry, the sky always grey. He shoved his hands in his pockets and sucked in his cheeks. It was deep in the off-season. The beach was deserted this time of year, the summer homes locked and boarded. No tourists, no work. The locals almost had to leave, there was so little to sustain them.

She was facedown, hadn’t moved. He had been walking the beach in the twilight. He liked the grey of sky and water, everything turning bland and colorless. The sand slipping into his shoe. He had moved his way down the slope from the line of summer houses up to the fishing docks to find his father. And then, she.

She didn’t match, didn’t flow. Her body interrupted the sand and water and sky. Her presence surprised him, her awkward form, her improper dress. Her stillness.

She wore a black dress, damp and clinging to her legs, ridden up to her knees. A black shawl was draped over her back and tucked under her ribs which kept it from blowing away.

He glanced up the beach toward the fishing docks, kept far away from the tourists spots. They didn’t want to see that, smell the rotting fish and the not rotting fish, the darkly tanned men hauling nets and slinging fish into crates to be shipped. The sickly smell of fish and sweat that lingered on them, the sun dried salt on their skin. The boats would be in for the night, the fishing not that good this time of year anyway. No one would be up there.

He wasn’t a fisherman like his father, his brother. He couldn’t handle the smell, the pitching of the boat on the waves. Twenty-four fucking years of this shit, his father would say when he refused to go. I didn’t raise a goddamn sissy. As a child, he’d seen his father come home with a giant hook gouged through the fleshy part of his hand, the part between the thumb and forefinger. His father couldn’t get it free. Goddammit, his father yelled. Just pull the fucking thing out!. His mother wasn’t home and his brother too young to do it, and he cried, which annoyed his father. His father was going to hit him, his fingers were opening and he started to pull his hand back, so he grabbed the hook and pulled as hard as he could. All remembered was the blood and how he vomited as it came out.

This didn’t make sense. He took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together slightly as he thought. A lone woman, lying on the shore, barefoot, off-season. He pinched his face toward open water. No work. This woman. He swayed slightly and looked behind him, back up the beach. No one would be there, he knew that. Not even the local teenagers came out here now. They were alone.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his lips. He’d given her enough time, she hadn’t moved. He struck a match, exhaled, and squinted toward the last moments of sunlight. There would be a frost tonight. He could feel it.

Her body seemed to shift as he got closer, the angle of her legs increasingly awkward. The hem of her dress whipped in the whipped in the wind, the skirt billowing and descending. He crouched low and took in her legs and knees. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and glowing blue. Her legs were slender and smooth. The dress flashed upwards. Underneath, she was naked. He stood and flicked the embers of his cigarette. Wondered if he should speak. He crept around her body and knelt again near her head. He took the last drag off his cigarette and threw it in the water. Her hair was a mass of wet, black curls. The water tugged them back and forth, her head rolling slightly with the waves. He reached forward, toward her hand, and stopped. Her nails were short and painted clear, fingers long. Piano hands. He carefully slipped his fingers under her hair and pulled it back over her head.

Her eyes were closed, her mouth slightly open. Her lips were blue-pink. He hunched over and put his face in front of her, his breath exhaling onto her cold skin. She didn’t move.

She was far too beautiful to be a local. Her whole body was slender, the features of her face dainty. She wore tiny silver hoop earrings and smears of black around her eyes. Her hands were callous-free and her face unlined. She was young, he could see that, probably barely twenty, and hadn’t seen a day of work in her life. The kind of girl he couldn’t bring home, even if he could afford to live on his own.

He stared over his shoulder at the bank of grass leading up in to town. At home, his mother would be boiling fish and potatoes for supper, his father stopping at the bar for a drink on his way home. The whole bar would be filled with fisherman, quiet and angry. No one was catching much lately. The place would be rank with the smell of fish and water.

He touched her bare shoulder at the crest of her collarbone. He stood, hooked his hands underneath her arms, and turned. Her arm caught beneath her body, and he propped her on his knee to pull it back up. As he turned, the hem of her dress ripped, the already low neckline pulled even lower. He unwrapped the shawl from her arm and tossed it away.

He pulled her slightly up out of the water and laid her in the sand, the dress knotted around her limbs. Her skin still had a touch of warmth, although damp and growing clammy. She hadn’t been in the water long, he thought. He burrowed his shoe into the sand and reached for another cigarette. His eyes scanned the now dark horizon as he struck a match. He exhaled and glanced at his watch.

The bar would be emptying soon, the men staggering back to their wives and their crumbling homes. His father parting from his brother on the street, his brother going to his own house and his own wife. And he, on the beach with an unknown woman.

He knelt over her. Her beauty annoyed him, her dress and perfect hands. These kinds of girls didn’t look at him, the summer girls who came out here and laid on the beach in their little bathing suits and laughed as he walked by with his tools. And in the evenings, their little dresses and long legs and their hair down and shiny soft. The click of their shoes on the sidewalk. He watched them as they danced in the tourist bars, their honey-colored skin flushed with heat. They never danced with the local boys, with repairmen like him, but hurried past them in the street. Ain’t you ever gonna meet a girl, boy?

It was these kinds of girls he thought of in bed at night, while his father drank in the kitchen and his brother was fucking his wife. He thought of their legs and their hair and the swells in their dresses. He thought of what it would be like to touch them. He would find himself getting hard and getting mad because there was nothing he could do, no girl to call and whisper suggestively over the phone Why don’t you come over here tonight?

He thought of these things while he stared at the girl lying in the sand beside him, and he was getting angry and getting hard. His fingers tightened. He imagined her opening her eyes and laughing and him and the bulge in his pants and that he actually thought she would touch him. His hand opened wide and he almost thought she opened her eyes and her mouth opening wider with mockery. He slapped her, hard. Her head whipped to the side and her mouth fell open further. He slapped her again with the other hand, then again, her face getting tangled in her hair.

He stood, grabbed and ripped her dress, clawed the neckline and pulled from her, her limp body falling back into the sand. He pulled it down over her hips and thighs, and he didn’t know if he should fuck her or beat her. He kicked her, stomped on her breasts and thighs, and kicked her into the water. Her hair was wrapped around her face and her body blue and naked. He stopped, panting, still holding bits of the dress in his hands. He looked around behind him. No one.

He hung his head and spit, dropped the dress. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, lit it, and stared up the beach. His father would be home now, the soft glow of alcohol in his veins. He flicked his cigarette and stared at the tide coming in, her body shifting with the waves.