X had fallen in love with the sea as a girl in her mid twenties, years ago... her sleek black one piece, in the bright summer sun. She felt the eyes of people watching her, as her soft feet crunched on the small rocks, bringing pain to her untried feet. She stepped cautiously, watching for stray pieces of glass, but knew her feet would eventually toughen up. Her body was young and soft, not quite as firm, as it would grow to be. She felt their eyes, laughing, admiring, sizing her up, wondering, lusting and dismissing her as trivial. As she edged close to the water, her feet cautiously stepping in, she searched the water around for creatures, jellyfish. Children were screaming next to her and splashing each other. She felt vulnerable, moved in deeper until sight of her feet became obscure by a shaken snowscene of milky sand. She thought of crabs, sea spiders and other Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner slimy things, and longed to lift up her feet and swim for the safety of the deep water.

She had grown old, was near and far sighted, and never let them fix her eyes. She peered through her distance enhancing/all purpose E-shades directly into the setting sun. It would be dark in an hour. The sea is calm, but with a dangerous tension that makes X smile inwardly. They’ll worry when she doesn’t make it home, and would send Margie to the docks to check on the sailboat. She’s positive they’ve planted another locater on her boat, if not on her person, so they’d be able to watch her above like some old TV show if they’d want, but they probably just gave their machine instructions to check up on her e-self from time to time and make sure that she was still breathing. They love, respect, are thankful and even admire her still, but she’s not really an important force in their lives. A light breeze brushed at her arm, suggesting at a wind for her sails. She motored noiselessly out of the harbor. Old Drew smiles and waving to her from his sonic fishing craft.

"Drew, "she waves.

He looks over quizzically.

"I’m a lesbian."

He looks as if he doesn’t understand.

"A LESBIAN!!!" She cups at her crotch and pulls up.

A wash of shame, or understanding, he waves less enthusiastically. Poor old Drew always had an older women thing for her. X was the only old women he’d spy on as they walked away, while she’d spy on his eyeing any young sexy thing much in the way she would. He always seemed to know that they sheared a kind of kinship, but he never knew the dirty old man she had been turning into.

Thigh deep now, the gentle waves began wetting the bottom of her suit, and she shivered involuntarily, feeling peoples eyes on her, fearing the unseen things clinging underneath to her feet, she dove in with a great shock, closed her eyes and swam hard.

One too many times X had seen a fat, drained, quietly cynical tough man, seated next

[memory of her and her granddaughter]

She remembered being in the supermarket with her granddaughter. Herself pushing the cart absently, while sizing up the bodies of the mothers and young women around her, and how Margie had said how she wished to be a princess.

"I wanted the same thing when I was a girl. I used to dream of a world where everybody thought I was wonderful. On the school bus, I’d be given a special compartment away from the other children, in the classroom, I’d have a special room, with a window that looked out on the class, there’d be a stereo-

"What’s a stereo?"

"There’d be music and servants working in the fields to bring me my favorite things, toys, TV's, all and any of the food I’d want. They’d take the shells from all the nuts, so I wouldn’t have to crack them open. They’d entertain me for free and sing to me. A person could live many lives like this and never be happy."

The supermarket sat a utopia of choices, college of music, a futuristic dream of plenty washing around her. People