WWW.Wednesday: Books Read In The Sub Zero Midwest

What are you currently reading?

This book came highly recommended from a friend who has a great pulse on what I like to read. I was concerned because it had a slow-ish start and I couldn’t get into a rhythm with Messud’s writing style (probably because I went right from Stoner to it.) I am all in and so hooked. It is extremely intriguing.

What have you recently finished?

This book is beautifully written love story (of people and academia) and sad and tender. So simple yet lovely in every sense of the word. I can’t say enough about it. It’s set at the University of Missouri and spans the course of 50 years of one man’s life.

What will you read next?

This one, if my husband finishes soon. Otherwise, I’ll have to choose something else.

Check out more book lovers’ lists at Should Be Reading.

Nipple Rings

It’s the glint that catches my eye. The way the small silver sphere captures the sun’s ray and throws it back at the corner of my eye. It dangles there so casually, too, swinging to and fro as he arranges himself on the sun lounger in front of me. I blink to make sure I’m seeing clearly.

It’s like a train wreck, or an accident; something weird and strange that you shouldn’t find scintillating but you do and you can’t help it. And I can’t stop staring at it hanging simply from his left nipple like a delicate horseshoe.

Am I turned on? Or revolted? It’s not like I haven’t seen one before. Both, maybe, but fascinated and stirred are befitting descriptions too. He completely owns my attention.

Dutch, most likely, because this is a Dutch island. Definitely exudes European though. Early 40’s, I’m guessing, with a pleasantly attractive face that's slightly craggy in a Tommy Lee Jones way. Artificial blond highlights grasp at the tips of his brown hair. Hazel eyes, probably. His body is fit as a swimmer's with long muscles, narrow waist, broad-shoulders.   

And a nipple ring.

Of course, I’m watching as he applies lotion. Though he lays facedown when finished, which somehow disappoints me but then tugs at his short, plaid swim trunks until the first curve of his muscular ass is exposed. Minimization of tan lines, I get it. 

It won’t take long before the sun bakes anything it touches on an island close to the equator. And it doesn’t.

Wiping at his brow with tanned fingers, he slips into the ocean. My eyes squint to see his body’s reflection cut smooth stokes through its crisp brightness. Cooling off from the sun’s merciless intensity before slowly ascending the wood steps directly in front of me.

My daughter wakes from her nap on an adjacent chair and asks,

“Mom, what do you keep looking at?”

“Whatever,” I reply, flipping my hand as if it were nothing.

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33-333 words for the 3rd definition of the word WHATEVER:
3.   (adverb) Used to show that something is not important