Ellena Savage

The municipal pool promises a Modernist idyll – all kinds of bodies rejoicing together in the pleasures of the water – but in reality that pleasure is sanitised, demarcated and politicised in the pursuit of perfect forms and perfect health. On one hand, an elemental paradise – on the other, pure artifice.

Out here in the bush, nobody cares what you do; but alone with the inscrutable Matthew, desire and reticence blur together – and safety, she knows, is never guaranteed.