Lake Manitoba

My lover wants to go to the sea. – Which sea, I ask. – Don’t be so literal, she says. – Don’t be so quick to tell me what I shouldn't do, I say. – Oh, stop it, she says. I am tired and you are just looking for a fight. – Fine, let’s go to the fucking sea, I say. After an hour in the car we are laughing again, listening to Simon and Garfunkel. And we even stop somewhere along the way and eat Greek salads and then drive to a rest stop and have sex in the back seat. – I love you, I say. – Yes, she says. We get to a brown murky lake where there are a few trailer cabins and a closed down ice cream shop. – I thought she said there was a beach, she says. (The woman who charged us two dollars to drive through the park said that.) – Yes. Well, maybe it will be nice. But it is not nice. It is gross and dirty and we skip stones for a while and it is overcast and there is no one but us. – I’m going swimming, I say. – Oh Christ, she says. This annoys me. I don’t know why. I take off all my clothes. – Are you crazy? She asks. I shake my hips back and forth so that my penis slaps against each side of my leg. – Dinky, dinky, dinky, I say. I bet you wish you could do that. – I sure do, she says, lighting a cigarette. I run into the water, as though to make a point. It is freezing, and I run back out. I sit beside her. The wind picks up. I put on my shirt. I can’t get on my underwear. I’m covered in sand and dead bugs. – Fuck, I say, and wait for her to respond. She doesn’t. I open a beer and it explodes. – Did you shake it, I ask. She says nothing, smoking. She’s reading Harlan Coben. It’s my book. – We need chairs, I say, trying to get the sand out from my toes. The beer is warm. A few gulls go by. – How was your swim? She asks. – Ha ha, I say. She says nothing. – Well it was rotten, I say. The sun breaks through the clouds, just for a moment. - But I'm glad I came, I say. – Yes, she says.