Читать книгу All Inclusive - Farzana Doctor - Страница 14

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Five hours later, I was dressed in a fresh uniform and ready to assist eighty-three crocodile-seekers onto their buses. I stood by the resort’s driveway, inhaling the warming asphalt, checking off names and collecting excursion coupons. As I watched the buses drive down the road toward the Tonameca Lagoon, I realized that Serena and Sebastiano were not along for the ride. Interesting.

∆

I hadn’t expected Manuela to be at the tour desk when I arrived there later. She was a staunch believer in Sunday as a day of rest. For her, church was good for the soul, but more so a venue for meeting nice single men. She’ d offered to take me to the Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe for both purposes, but I’d declined. I hadn’t ventured into a Catholic church since my great-grandfather died over a decade earlier.

“I traded with Blythe. It’s okay — I’m getting four days off in exchange. Plus, it means I don’t have to go to Waves next week,” Manuela explained. She’ d been assigned Nancy’s duties — orientation and excursion sales — at the five-star fifteen kilometres away. We all filled in when needed at our sister resorts, where smaller numbers of Oceana guests stayed. But we preferred Atlantis, where our shifts passed more quickly.

“Really? Is she with Rhion today?” Blythe had met the Iowan surfer five months earlier in the lineup at Chito’s Juice Bar in La Crucecita. I didn’t think much of him; the few times we’ d met, he’ d made eye contact with my breasts.

In the beginning, Blythe shared details about her love life on an almost daily basis, and prodded me to reciprocate with news about mine, Come on, tell me everything! But I’d stopped doing that. Once, over two years earlier, I’d told her about a tourist I’d slept with, only to find out that my confession had circulated to the other tour reps, who teased me about it the following day. She apologized, but I remained wary around her ever since, which probably wasn’t fair. When I began to exclusively hook up with couples, I’d often confess a false crush on a resort worker to draw Blythe off my trail. I avoided bringing anyone back to my room. It wasn’t practical, anyway — my dates tended to have their own king-size beds, which worked better when there were three bodies and six legs.

“They’re going to a beach somewhere down the coast. She was excited. I guess things are getting serious between them?” Manuela asked.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Blythe had been left at the altar just before Huatulco. She told me this over drinks early on in our contract, her blue eyes growing wet as they often did when she grappled with big emotions. Three hundred guests witnessed her humiliation from the church pews. Like a convert to a new religion, Blythe was almost evangelical about the wonders of casual relationships. She spoke of her ability to separate emotions from sex as though it were a badge of honour she’ d pinned to her blouse. She lectured me about how to “turn off the girl-brain” and said she didn’t care that Rhion planned to return to the U.S. in two months.

“¿Verdad?” Manuela asked. “Come on, tell me what you know!”

“Don’t repeat this,” I said with only a minor twinge of guilt, “I heard her yell, ‘you cold-hearted asshole’ last week. And then there was the sound of a door slamming and Rhion’s flip-flops slapping down the corridor. And more yelling yesterday.”

“Veeerrry interesting.” Manuela stroked her chin.

“Yes. I asked her about it a few days ago, you know, to see if she was all right, but she denied anything was wrong.” Blythe’s eyes had been red, her skin pale and without its usual layer of foundation and blush. I’d felt like hugging her, but held back.

“Hmmm. And how are you today? You look tired.” Manuela’s eyes were wells of sympathy. She wore a new shade of eyeshadow, one that perfectly matched Oceana’s turquoise logo.

“Yeah, I slept badly last night.” I pushed back my shoulders and rubbed my eyes. “Where is everyone? It seems so quiet today.”

“You sent off two busloads on the croc trip this morning. And well,” she said, pointing to the recreation area, “Cardio Pump started a minute ago.” The class was offered at 10:00 a.m. and new guests flocked to the Sunday class, full of good intentions. By Tuesday, Maria, the instructor, would be grumbling about her dwindling numbers. She trolled the beach distributing brochures that extolled: IT’S NOT EXERCISE, IT’S A PARTY!

“Right. And after that is the first Spanish class.” I grinned at Manuela.

“They’ll all be saying, ‘olé Manuela, co-mo est-as’ afterward,” she said, with a clenched jaw.

“And they’ll feel so proud of themselves until you unceremoniously correct their errors. Like you do mine.”

“Escucha, I need a little fun. Hey, but you could teach that class, if you were not so shy and practised more with us. Ameera. Habla español,” Manuela teased.

“Si. Si. Una cerveza, por favor.” I rested my forehead against the desk.

“Aha, so it is a hangover then. La cruda, en español. Do we already have a Word of the Week?” Manuela poked my shoulder with a sharp purple fingernail. “So. Who did you go out with last night?”

“Si, la cruda. I stayed here, had a few drinks with las turistas at the bar.” Inside their room, Serena had pulled me close, her kiss surprisingly hard, like a man’s. But her skin was soft, her scent musky like sandalwood. Sebastiano closed in behind me, his arms encircling us, his belt buckle hard against the small of my back.

“Los turistas. Turistas is masculine,” Manuela corrected.

“Right, los turistas.” I knew that.

“I don’t understand why you party with them! We spend the whole day dealing with their stupid problems. ‘I ordered an ocean view room, but I can only see a partial ocean view!’ Manuela drawled in her best Canadian accent, which sounded Bostonion to me.

“I know, I know. But it’s easier than going all the way to town for a drink.”

“‘Why doesn’t everyone here speak English!’ ‘I want a king-size bed!’” Manuela mock-whined.

“They’re not so bad after they’ve had a couple of drinks. They become more human with booze.” I laughed and Manuela snorted. “But I should have paced myself better.”

The Cardio Pump ladies line-danced in the morning sunshine. Like flags on a windy day, their pale arms jerked to the rhythms of a salsa song. I considered how my usual vigilance seemed to be fraying. I’d gotten drunk with strangers and probably hadn’t been careful enough about hiding my flirtation at the bar, even after receiving Anita’s email the day before. And there had been other small, emotional accidents; I had a vague memory of disclosing too many personal details to Serena and Sebastiano and then I’d fallen asleep in their room.

Manuela sighed and shook her head, as though concurring with my silent thoughts. I turned my attention to the computer and saw that Anita had finally sent a reply.

Dear Ameera,

Thanks for your e-mail. I’ll print our correspondence and file it along with the complaint.

Best,

Anita

I sighed, long and loud, troubling over the terse brevity of the message. Was Anita truly bothered by the complaint, or had she just been in a hurry? Maybe I was reading too much into it.

“¿Qué pasó? Are you okay?” Manuela asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just exhausted.” I stood and tidied the information rack, making a show of looking industrious. I inhaled deeply, arranging the brochures into symmetrical rows.

It will be fine.

“Did you say something?” I turned to Manuela.

“No, I was humming along to the music.”

Once again the words rustled through my mind. It will be fine.

I briefly considered telling Manuela about the online complaint. She was my closest buddy in Huatulco, but there was so much I didn’t share with her. Like Blythe, I was trying on something new, experiencing sex as recreational, my own “girl-brain” reconfiguring itself, perhaps. Except I was doing it through threesomes. If I couldn’t explain that to Manuela, how would I talk about the complaint?

I stared out at the pool area. As usual, most of the chairs appeared to be occupied, but weren’t; tourists were “saving” them for when they returned later in the day. The resort had a rule against this practice (it was Rule Number Seven on the painted signboard near the pool) but it was mostly ignored by guests and not enforced by staff. I thought about Malika then, and wished she was nearby.

∆

“It’s scarcity thinking,” Malika grumbled as she searched for a pool lounger. She was one of my old friends from Hamilton, the only one who’d come to visit the previous year. The others had maintained a stony silence.

“Oh come on, Malika. You’re here to enjoy yourself. Don’t take it so seriously,” I scoffed.

“These people are jerks!”

By day three, Malika had frothed herself into an angry self-righteousness, and soon she was campaigning to sabotage the chair hoarders’ efforts. She deliberately chose a “saved” chair, even when another was available, and swept the offending books and towels to the ground. She incited others to join her campaign, but no one seemed very interested.

But we had fun, too. Over the week we drank too many mojitos and lazed on the beach. She asked about my sex life and I shared in fragments, offering an anecdote here and there, while I watched her face for signs of criticism or judgment. The opposite happened; Malika was enthralled by my sexual encounters, and wanted details about swingers.

“Are couples more fun than one person at a time?” Malika’s eyes were big with curiosity.

I pondered my preferences. I realized I hadn’t articulated them much. Before Huatulco, I had zero knowledge of the swinger set. I’d believed non-monogamy was emotionally difficult and bad for long-term relationships. And the furthest I’d ever strayed from what I’d assumed to be my mostly heterosexual nature were a few late-night, drunken party kisses with female friends. I hadn’t exactly been a prude, but I was comfortable with a pretty conventional sex life. Being far from home allowed me to travel outside the borders I’d once drawn for myself.

“It’s kind of like if you have coffee with two people instead of one. The conversation is different, more dynamic. It’s still intimate, but there are more ideas, more energy. ” I frowned at my analogy, which was almost apt, but not quite.

“But are the men creepy? Maybe it’s a stereotype about swingers, but that’s what I’d worry about.”

“I’ve had good luck. No creeps.” I flipped through a mental photo album of my past lovers. One or two borderline creeps came to mind, but I didn’t mention them.

“I’m impressed, girl! You seem happier now. Better than when you were with Gavin.”

I nodded, grateful that she didn’t mention that incident at the bar. Still, I flashed to the alleyway, the back door opening, Tamara’s livid expression, Gavin’s middle finger pulling out of me.

“I can’t manage to get it on with even one person!” She laughed. “How do you hook up with these people, anyway?”

“There aren’t a lot of them, but I kind of keep my eyes open. They seem to spot me as much as I do them. And then I find a way to make contact, flirt a little.” I demonstrated cruising eye contact for Malika, which made her blush and giggle.

“So now you’re biracial and bisexual,” Malika teased, her grin taking over her round face. She, too, was of mixed ancestry, but with a white mother and Jamaican father. It was our lengthy debates about race and identity in undergrad that had cemented our friendship.

“You know I hate labels.” And then, just to goad her I said, “You should try a threesome one day. You might like it.”

“Oh me? I couldn’t do that. I’m not as brave as you,” Malika said, fanning herself.

I have to admit I was glad when it was time for her to go home, because her complaints about Atlantis grew to include food and water wastage, and her general displeasure with the resort’s complete “walled-in-amusement park” experience. I was concerned that my friend might start an all-inclusive riot, given another week at the resort.

∆

“Why don’t you go take a nap and come back in an hour? Nothing’s happening here. If it gets busy I’ll text you,” Manuela offered.

I went for coffee instead. When I passed near the pool, I glimpsed Sebastiano and Serena, sunning themselves, their bronzed skin slick with oil. Sebastiano lay on his stomach, a strip of orange spandex stretching across his almost flat backside. Serena’s bikini top straps were pulled down low. I flashed to a moment from the night before when I’d lain on my side between them, Serena facing me, pressing a nipple into my mouth while Sebastiano entered me from behind. I’d rocked my pelvis back while pulling Serena’s hips forward. With the memory, my body responded, my back arching, my face flushing, warmth spreading between my thighs.

I continued to ogle them from afar. Perhaps they hadn’t planned to go on the crocodile trip in the first place and had spent ninety-five bucks to have me notice them. The thought made me even more aroused; the slightly sneaky and transactional nature of their strategy was kind of indecent.

With anyone else — like with the bodybuilders Marina and Mike — I might have felt manipulated by the fake excursion-buying. I blamed my poor judgment in bedding them on the three-week dry spell that had preceded them. I should’ve walked away when they asked me where I was from, and didn’t accept “Hamilton” as a valid answer. Instead, I’d ordered another Cuba Libre and listened to their detailed account of the trip they’d taken to India four years earlier. Oh, Ameera, you have to see the Taj Mahal. India is such a beautiful place, but oh my god, the poverty is astounding! I swallowed my envy and irritation and let my libido take over. I mean, who wouldn’t want to run their hands over biceps like theirs?

When they’d checked out of Atlantis on Friday morning, they’d left a note with the front desk clerk, thanking me for a “fantabulous” night and suggesting we hook up when I returned to Canada. The day after, a Facebook friend request and e-mail arrived. They’d look into a return trip to Atlantis at the end of April if they could get a sitter for their two bichon frise puppies. I’d discarded their note, deleted the message, and blocked them from my account.

Now at the far end of the pool, I considered stopping to say hello to Serena and Sebastiano, but hesitated. Couples were inconsistent with post-sex socializing. Some shied away from my glances the morning after, their flirtatious, sociable selves restricted to the night. Second dates were rare occurrences and a note like the bodybuilders’ was a first. Of course, I could only guess about my one-night lovers’ reactions and expectations; few made their feelings known directly. I assumed that things were different for swingers who had ongoing relationships. What might it be like to see Sebastiano and Serena again and again, I wondered. I’d read about long-term swinger relationships, or three lovers forming a kind of triad, and the idea appealed to me.

I ambled back from the staff cafeteria, carrying coffee and a plate of the butter cookies I knew Manuela favoured but rarely permitted herself. When I passed the pool again, the Italians had flipped onto their backs. Both wore sunglasses, so I couldn’t tell if they could see me. I waved, but neither waved back.