Greetings from the Vodka Sea by Chris Gudgeon

the mirror with panties on and panties off and panties on and panties off just to get the hang of it. She felt so free without out them, but did she dare? It’s not the kind of thing a nice woman, a decent woman such as herself, did, walk around in a crepe sundress (it hardly hid anything, and in any case, concealed only as a roundabout way of revealing) with no panties and no bra (her nipples were clearly visible, if she looked hard enough) in broad daylight. But every time she made up her mind to go with them, she slipped them off again, the soft fabric brushing her soft skin, bikini-waxed at Mercury Spa not four days before, just to see if she could dare go without them. It wasn’t a matter of comfort, because she felt more comfortable with her panties on. It just seemed different, like something she would never do and may never do again.
    â€œAnd the tides? Our friend here,” McGuffan nodded toward Bruce, “was wondering about the tides. What about the tides?”
    John shrugged. “The tides are still a matter of some debate.” The tour guide had a vaguely Oxfordian accent. Perhaps he’d studied there. Perhaps he was the son of a local potentate and had been afforded the advantage of a British education.
    Monica continued twisting one ankle and raised her knee and looked expectantly at Bruce. She could feel the fabric of her crepe dress drop below her (just as she knew it would, as if the fabric was now part of her), although the top of it still lay respectably on her knee. She felt the breeze move up her skirt and across her trimmed pubis, and with one more minor adjustment — there! — she awaited Bruce’s reaction.
    He caught her gaze and was smiling back at her now. She rather dramatically ran the back of her hand across her brow, then slowly lowered it to rest on her knee. She drew her sun-dress up another inch and watched her husband’s eyes widen. He seemed at first to panic, to signal her with urgent nods that something was amiss. But she only drew her hem up, discreetly, another notch, and slowly let her hand fall onto the pocket of fabric that tented her crotch. A finger lazy brushed the skin along the inner thigh, and Bruce’s signals became more frantic. The other passengers were engrossed in the tour and paid no attention as she casually let her hand drop to her thigh, and slipped two fingers along her smoothed skin until they lightly brushed the ruffled, raised flesh. Bruce crossed his legs and tried to look away. Was he angry? She couldn’t tell.
    â€œThe Bolen’s whale, then, is it related to the humpback?”
    â€œExactly right, sir. This whale is a close relative of the humpback. Scientists believe that the Vodka Sea was once part of a vast oceanic corridor that stretched from pole to pole. Way back, as the oceans receded, a pod of humpbacks may have become landlocked. They practiced the elementary rule of evolution: adapt or die.”
    â€œWhat about the marauders?” It was Bruce’s turn to ask the question. John hesitated. This was not the kind of question he normally faced. Bruce watched the guide scan his memory bank for a moment. John had one of those ageless foreign faces; he could have been anywhere from fourteen to forty. (Bruce thought of a story Anthony had told him about how his sister-in-law, ex-sister-in-law now, had once befriended an orphan during some South American getaway and decided to take him home and adopt him. They’d done all the paper-work, at least they thought they’d done the paperwork, but as they were entering the airport the chief of police stopped them. Turned out their orphan was a twenty-six-year-old midget with a wife and children of his own. The kicker to the story, as Anthony told it, was when his now-ex-sister-in-law lamented, “What’s the world coming to, when you can’t even trust a midget?”)
    John cleared his throat, suitably recovered.
    â€œEveryone has heard