About Last Night
Rubulad, 2007
Half way through taking a piss I remembered I’d brought my camera.
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Epilogue: Everyone Wants to Be Naked (and Famous)
I get the news I need on the weather report
Oh, I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile
And here I am
The only living boy in New York
-Simon and Garfunkel, “The Only Living Boy in New York”
The morning is bright and beautiful, the sky spattered with benign white clouds. Les and I climb the stairs to the rooftop, where we snap nude portraits of each other. An employee is kind enough to take a few shots of the two of us together. My girl giggles. We won’t be naked again for a long time — at least not like this.
We swim in the ocean and then take our last tour of the grounds, happening upon the Oklahomans by the pool. I tell them I’m surprised they didn’t sleep in after last night’s drunken debauchery. We say our goodbyes. Before turning away, I leave them with a final thought: “It’s up to you to keep things interesting around here.”
***
I step out of the hired car, tossing an empty beer can into the trash and squinting at my surroundings — this is our first contact with the civilian world in eight days. Only now, at the airport, do I appreciate the state of preternatural relaxation that came over me that first night in the jacuzzi and never left. I don’t bother putting my shoes back on after walking through the metal detector. Instead I stand in the terminal and smile as a Mariachi band plays.
I cannot get over the feeling that people must be able to sense there is something different about us. As we meander toward our gate Leslie and I play a little game, picking attractive couples out of the crowd and imagining how they’d fare if they spent a night or two in paradise.
I wonder whether there is such a thing as gaydar for swingers.
***
Overhead, multiple LCD screens unfold, the servomotors emitting a high-pitched mechanical whir. I am strapped in, unable to escape. This is unfair: I’ve felt so much better since I went on a media diet. A music video plays. Porn lite. It is a sad reminder that I am returning to a nation of voyeurs — to a land of people who are obsessed with sex and repulsed by it in equal measure.
***
New York. You can’t come home again — I never thought about what this meant until now. We may as well be returning from Mars, and if that Mexico feeling stays with us I’m quite sure we’ll frighten the natives. Drifting over the Triborough, my eyes fixed upon the gleaming lights of Spaceship Manhattan, I almost feel ashamed, as if I’ve cheated on my first love and the day of reckoning is upon me.
***
No sooner do we step over the threshold than my fiancée asks, “Do you want to get a drink?”
“Mos def,” is my reply.
A yellow cab takes us to Morningside Heights, where we claim a couple of stools at one of our regular bars. We run into a few people we know and regale them with tales of our adventures in paradise. I hear my own words tumble out and I barely believe them. Standing here, in a small watering hole in Manhattan, it is hard for me to believe a place like Desire even exists.
Overhearing us, a comely young woman approaches. When she smiles I see that she has lopsided dimples. The three of us talk for awhile. “Here, let me give you my number,” she insists.
I turn to Leslie. “The more things change the more they stay the same, eh?”
“Yeah. Too bad there’s no jacuzzi here.”
More: The Mexico Diaries | Travel | Mexico | Swingers
Chapter Eight: The Last of the Mohicans
The jacuzzi
Everything is quiet
Everyone’s gone to sleep
I’m wide awake but these memories
These memories can’t wait
-Talking Heads via Living Colour, “Memories Can’t Wait”
We sleep in this morning, and as afternoon approaches it is only with great effort that we manage to open our eyes. Leslie is sore, as am I. My throat, however, is much improved. We lie in bed, cuddling and inspecting the damage. As I prop myself, frowning, over Leslie’s puffy red labia I solemnly inform her she’s going to have to go easy for a few days.
“We should have gotten married,” my fiancée announces as she stares at the ceiling, glassy eyed.
“What, here?”
“Yes.”
“Surely you jest.”
“Surely not. A few days ago I asked them whether they perform ceremonies here. They do.”
“Call me a card-carrying member of the Christian Coalition but don’t you think it would be a little strange to get hitched at a swingers resort? Isn’t that like saying your vows at an orgy?”
“It’s just—I feel like this is a part of who we are now. And why should we deny who we are?”
Like the social smoker or the straight guy who trolls Craigslist in search of cock, perhaps I have been in denial. I cling to convenient fallacies. I am not a swinger, I tell myself, because the orgies always seem to find me. I’d be a one-woman man were it not for the predatory vixens who throw themselves at me. What some might refer to as my lifestyle is simply a series of improbable events. When it comes to non-monogamy I have commitment issues.
I’m soaking in the jacuzzi, sitting hip-to-hip with Tony the Tiger’s girl. She’s telling me about the conditions under which they swing—namely the ideal conditions—and I strongly suspect Tony’s conditions are significantly less stringent than hers. I remember being like her not too long ago. Picky. Apprehensive. I thought I could tame the beast. An inebriated older woman approaches me, placing her hands on my legs, and I reflexively draw my knees to my chest in a defensive posture. She congratulates me on my victory in last night’s cock-size contest. When she withdraws I exhale; I’ve heard stories this week about young men being torn apart by roving packs of wild cougars. “I’m going to need a bodyguard,” I tell Delilah. The skinny girl laughs, then excuses herself for a bathroom break, and as she climbs out of the tub she bends over, affording me a perfect view of her shaven cunt and tiny asshole.
It’s a shame, really, that I’m too damned lazy to do anything about seducing her.
Our friends leave. Soon afterward we are joined by the Latin couples, including the greybeard and his impossibly busty wife (after some time it dawns on me that none of these people appear to be swingers). The busty babe offers to translate bits and pieces of the conversation. “No, you don’t have to,” I tell her. “I understand what she said—they have three children and the eldest is going through a rebellious phase.” She smiles, and when she does so she’s devastatingly pretty. I turn to Les. “How is it that I suddenly understand Spanish?” Time passes. When the sun sets on yet another perfect day Les and I toast to our last night in paradise.
When I return from taking a leak, wading through the bubbling waters of the jacuzzi, I hesitate when I see that the beautiful Latin girl partially blocks the entrance to our cul-de-sac. Her back is to me, and as I admire her cello figure I find myself channeling Tyler Durden: Do I give her the ass or the crotch? On a plane this is an amusing afterthought. At a nude resort, however, it is a question of great significance. She turns her head sharply as I begin to inch past her, her wide brown eyes fixed upon my junk, her glossy lips parted ever so slightly. She catches herself seconds later, returning abruptly to the conversation. I wonder whether she had the same thought. What if?
Flush from a karaoke performance and one too many shots of tequila, Anne greets me in the courtyard with a broad smile. I shift uncomfortably in my shoes and pull at my shirt, my clothes having become a terrible burden. “Are you going to strip tonight?” I ask her.
“But I can’t dance!” she protests, her charming southern lilt drawing out the vowels. This is what she told me yesterday, when she mused about participating in this weekend’s strip contest.
“You can fuck,” I intone, “therefore you can dance. Don’t worry—Leslie is here to help.”
As I shoulder my way through the crowded disco I am surprised to hear the MC call both Anne and Leslie to the stage. Who put their names in? Raj? Doug? I turn to Les, beaming. “You’re going to strip too?”
She laughs. “I guess so.”
My New York doll takes the stage; she is poised, graceful, taking hold of a brass pole and expertly propelling her curvaceous frame around it. She deftly flings her blouse aside, then her skirt, and finally her thong. Oh my. I’d nearly forgotten she’d done this for six months (stripping must be like riding a bicycle). How many hours have I spent gazing upon her naked flesh? How many times have I been inside her? And yet I as watch her undulate under the spotlights—this mysterious seductress—I ache for her like an awkward adolescent. There may be one hundred odd souls in the room. Leslie’s performance is for me alone.
I am a little nervous for Anne; having assured her everything will turn out alright, I feel responsible for the outcome. The slender brunette removes all of her clothing at the start of her song, unceremoniously, as if she’s doing nothing more unusual than hopping into the shower at home. Applause and laughter erupt from the crowd. After shaking her ass and dancing around for a short while she runs to the side of the stage and conferences with Les. My girl then joins Anne, the two of them kissing and pawing at each other before collapsing to the floor in a sixty-nine configuration. I take shallow breaths, afraid to fill my lungs lest I break the tension. Beads of sweat well up from the pores in my forehead. Anne concludes her performance by hopping up and down in the laps of the three male judges sitting in a semicircle at the periphery of the action.
Leslie approaches me, naked, slick, her curly hair disheveled and sexy. “I’m so proud of you baby!” I tell her.
She peers up at me with doleful eyes. “But I didn’t win.”
I take her in my arms. “Apples and oranges dear. You did the best striptease, but you were competing against your own girl-on-girl show—a show I’m quite sure every guy in here will be jerking off to for years to come.”
My fiancée smiles again. “That’s true.”
“And um, well, she was humping the judges.”
The two of us burst out laughing, not only at tonight’s show but at the absurdity of the entire week.
Out in the courtyard, Anne frolics naked in one of the box-shaped fountains, causing a torrent of water to spill over the fountain’s edge and onto the tiles. Raj sits nearby, looking vaguely distressed. I scratch my head and make a funny face at Doug. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“Yup.”
A mop-wielding employee emerges from the sliding glass doors of the lobby, waving Anne out of the fountain and then sopping up the spill. The newly-minted stripper curls up in her husband’s lap and falls asleep.
The resort is eerily quiet tonight—the playroom is empty, the beach unpopulated, the courtyard bar devoid of revelers. Even the jacuzzi, that last refuge of the late-night hedonist, has taken on an air of lassitude. Were it not for my recent memories I’d think we were back among the civilians. I suppose I should be grateful; it’s easier to say goodbye this way. As Les and I relax in the jacuzzi I lie back, studying the constellations, pondering the question everyone’s been asking us. Will you come back? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know. There is something to be said for not attempting to relive what happened in paradise. Some time later Les and I return to the courtyard, naked, arm-in-arm, hoping to have a chat with our favorite bartender before turning in. We are happy to spy friends at the bar, namely the Latin couple from Florida. The husband, in his accented but precise English, poses the question that’s been on our minds all night: “Where are the swingers?”
I take a sip of my margarita and run a hand through my hair. I’m grinning—and a little sad the adventure has to end. “I think we’re the last of the Mohicans.”
More: The Mexico Diaries | Travel | Mexico | Cancun | Desire Resort | Swingers | Voyeurism | Marriage
Chapter Seven: A Good Old-Fashioned Cock-Size Contest (Part Three)
The boundless energy of the preceding days is slowly fading, radiating into the night sky like the blood-red coals of a dying bonfire. My throat is ragged (I am hoping the Mexican antibiotics will kick in by tomorrow, but for all I know the cure will be worse that the disease). My next hardon, I’m sure, will be accompanied by that familiar dull ache of the erectile tissue. As much as it terrifies me to admit this to myself, I might be all fucked out. Yet even in my diminished condition I still carry a sexual charge, and so I persevere, even at the risk of winding up in traction.
Anne’s magnificent breasts are coated in chocolate sauce. Closing my eyes, I carefully, meticulously lap up the spill with my tongue. I furrow my brow when I finally observe the results of my labor and say to her, “I missed a spot.” The naked woman giggles as I return to my task. This is what I wanted, and though scenes like this might be commonplace here, I am no less awed by fantasy becoming reality. Anne’s shapely posterior sways in my face as we climb the stairs to the passion suites. “I knew you’d come out of your shell,” I say, firmly grasping her buttocks with both hands.
Eight of us squeeze into the hot tub—Tammy, James, Doug and Sheree (the couple that offered us lube and dildos this afternoon), Raj, Anne, Les and I—each one of us sandwiched by two members of the opposite sex. I’m fondling Anne with my submerged left hand and Leslie with my right. Raj is asking us all about our sexual proclivities. “So you’ve all heard of the Kinsey Scale, right?” inquires Raj. People nod. “So, on a scale of zero to six—zero being completely straight and six being completely gay—where would you place yourselves?”
People’s answers are about what I’ve come to expect in swinger circles, the girls clustering around the middle of the range and the boys around the low end. James insists he rates a solid zero. “Aw come on,” I say, chuckling. “All swingers are at least a little bi.”
“No fucking way,” he protests.
“Look if you’re comfortable even being in the same room as another man’s hard cock you’re not exactly what I’d call straight.”
A grinning Raj raises his eyebrows thoughtfully. “He does have a point.”
Anne leans out of the tub to grab a champagne bottle for us. I seize this opportunity to run a couple fingers along the smooth furrow between her ass cheeks.
“Was that your leg that just brushed against mine?” Doug asks James.
“Uh oh,” sez Raj. “Looks like James is at least a two!”
James smiles and splashes his own face. “Okay now you guys are just picking on me.”
Tammy giggles and pinches her mate’s cheek. “Poor baby.”
The conversation turns to less controversial subjects, and as we fluff about our lives in the outside world I learn, much to my stupefaction, that both Doug and Sheree are in their fifties. The years have been particularly kind to Sheree, as I’m fairly certain I could bounce a quarter off the lithe brunette’s ass. Sadly, I neglected to bring any change. “What’s your secret, then?” I ask.
“We’re both vegan,” answers Doug, “and we don’t drink or smoke or use hard drugs.”
“I knew there was a catch.”
Shivering a bit in the breeze that’s blowing in from the balcony, I towel myself dry, stealing a glance at the porno playing on the television and chuckling inwardly, thinking to myself: What’s the point? Tammy passes by me with a look of determination on her face and a large banana in her hand. I watch, jaw unhinged, as she carefully unrolls a condom over the phallic fruit, and before I can ask her whether she’s really about to do what I think she’s about to do, the girl eases the banana into her cunt. Standing there with her legs parted, smiling at me, she works her makeshift dildo in and out. There’s a knock at the door and the bartender from the courtyard enters the room bearing a bucket of ice. Tammy continues, unfazed. Everyone laughs.
I decide Tammy is the most remarkable woman I’ve met all week.
Les and I are outdoors with Raj and Anne, lounging on the massive shared balcony that faces the black expanse of the ocean. Lightning crackles on the horizon but the storm is so far away that nothing but the white noise of the gentle surf reaches our ears. The women lie stretched out upon the balcony’s ledge, touching each other and then turning their attention to the men. Something about this scene is both beautiful and apocalyptic. The wind picks up, driving the four of us back indoors, and upon entering the room I note with approval that Doug is on his knees before Tammy, his face pressed between the Cali blonde’s thighs. I’m floating above myself, watching myself drift aimlessly from person to person—watch me kiss my fiancée; watch me fondle Tammy’s left breast; watch me place my hand between Sheree’s legs. When Tammy announces her imminent departure (“We have an early flight,” she says. “I put my contact information in your pants.”) I press my lips to hers for awhile, and I tell her: “It’s going to be awfully dull around here without you.”
The six of us who remain pair off. Over the distant din of the surf I can only hear soft moans, creaking furniture and the electronic synthesizer of a throwaway porn soundtrack. Les and I find it difficult to get properly settled—we try a spot on the couch next to Raj and Anne, then an ottoman next to Doug and Sheree, before finally tumbling onto the large four-poster bed. I smile at the sight of Anne hopping about enthusiastically in her husband’s lap, having correctly surmised that this otherwise-shy woman would be a firecracker in the sack. I am on top of my girl. Les and I are straining, aching, sweating, both of us tired and broken at the end of what feels like the longest week anyone’s ever had. When my orgasm arrives I collapse into Leslie’s arms, panting, my head throbbing and my heart pounding. I always come hardest when I’m in pain.
More: The Mexico Diaries | Travel | Mexico | Cancun | Desire Resort | Swingers | Orgy | Voyeurism
