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.”
”
