Bungalow Seventeen

July 14th To the man in the charcoal linen shirt at the Sandbar— I am writing this on the back of a cocktail napkin because I am a coward, and because the ginger in this mojito has given me just enough misplaced confidence to be dangerous. I’ve spent the last decade of my life writing professional reviews of places like this—The Azure Reef Resort, five stars, infinity pools that bleed into the horizon, thread counts that feel like a prayer—but I have never encountered a landscape as devastating as the line of your jaw. You didn’t see me. You were looking out at the surf, watching the tide come in over the reef with an expression that looked like hunger, or grief, or perhaps just boredom. I was the woman three stools down, pretending to take notes on the 'vibe' of the lounge while actually cataloging the way your pulse moved in the hollow of your throat. It beat like a trapped bird. It made me want to reach out and steady you with my thumb. I am a travel blogger from Colorado. I am used to thin air and rugged peaks, to things that are cold and hard and honest. This island is too soft for me. The air is heavy, a wet wool blanket of humidity that smells of frangipani and rot. It makes my skin feel like it’s too small for my body. But looking at you, I felt a different kind of claustrophobia. A need to be closer that felt like a physical weight in my chest, more intense than the altitude sickness I once caught on a pass in the Andes. If you find this—if the bartender actually delivers it instead of tossing it in the bin—know that I am in Bungalow Seventeen. I am staying until the moon turns full, and I am tired of my own company. —M. *** July 16th Maren, I am Julian. And the bartender didn’t throw it away. He kept it under the counter for two days, waiting for me to return. He smiled when he handed it to me, a look that suggested he knew exactly what kind of trouble you were trying to start. You call yourself a coward, but you write with the precision of a surgeon. You didn't just notice my pulse; you described it back to me in a way that made my own blood feel heavy in my veins. You say you’re used to Colorado—to the cold and the honest. I am from London. I am used to grey skies and the polite, stifled desperation of a city that never stops apologizing for its own existence. This island isn't soft to me. It’s a cage of gold and turquoise. I saw you, by the way. At the bar. You were wearing a dress the color of a bruised plum, and your hair was damp from the sea. You looked like you wanted to pick a fight with the sunset. I didn't approach you because I didn't think I had the right words to survive the encounter. I’ve read your blog now. I found you. *High Country Nomad.* Your prose is like a mountain stream—clear, freezing, and capable of drowning a man if he isn't careful. You say you are in Seventeen. I am in Twelve. Between us is a grove of palms and a stretch of sand that feels like it’s vibrating with the heat of the day. I spent the afternoon thinking about that cocktail napkin. I have it tucked into the book I’m reading. The ink has blurred a little from the salt on my fingers. What do you want, Maren? Do you want a companion for dinner, or are you looking for the kind of catastrophe that doesn't make it into a travel brochure? —Julian *** July 19th Julian, I want the catastrophe. I think we both know that. I watched you today at the pool. I stayed behind the slatted blinds of my porch, watching you swim. You move through the water like you’re trying to conquer it. You don't splash; you cut. When you climbed out, the water ran off your shoulders in sheets, and I swear I could feel the coolness of it on my own skin. I watched you towel off, the muscles in your back shifting like tectonic plates under a map. You have a scar just above your hip, a jagged little white line. I spent twenty minutes wondering how it got there. I imagined tracing it with my tongue, tasting the salt and the sun-warmed skin. This is the part where I should be professional. Where I should talk about the 'extended tension' of our correspondence. But my God, Julian, I am past that. The air in this bungalow is so thick I can barely breathe, and it has nothing to do with the weather. It’s the thought of you in Twelve, just a few hundred yards away, probably reading this and knowing exactly what you’re doing to me. I am sitting on my bed right now. The sheets are cool, but I am not. I’m wearing a silk robe that feels like nothing, and my skin is humming. I’m thinking about your hands. They’re large, with long fingers and blunt nails. I want to know if they’re rough or smooth. I want to know how they’d feel wrapped around my wrists, pinning me to these expensive, high-thread-count pillows until I stop trying to be the woman who has everything under control. I am a woman who travels alone because I like the autonomy. I like being the observer. But right now, I want to be the subject. I want you to look at me the way you looked at the ocean—with that hunger that looks like grief. I want you to ruin the 'vibe' of my solitary vacation. Tonight, at midnight, the tide will be at its lowest. There is a path behind the palms that leads to a private stretch of beach where the resort lights don't reach. I’ll be there. Don't bring a book. Don't bring a charcoal shirt. Just bring yourself. —M. *** July 21st (A draft found in Julian’s journal, never sent) I didn't write back because there were no words left in the English language that didn't feel like a lie. I went to the beach. I saw her standing in the shadow of a sea grape tree, the moonlight hitting the curve of her shoulder like a blade. She looked like a ghost or a goddess, something too bright to be real. When I finally touched her, it wasn't a gentle thing. It was a collision. My hands found the silk of her robe, but they were looking for the heat of her skin. She smelled like coconut oil and sweat and something primal—the smell of a woman who has spent too much time in the sun and is finally ready to burn. I pushed her back against the trunk of the tree, the rough bark a contrast to the softness of her thighs. Her mouth was a fever. She kissed me like she was trying to steal the air from my lungs, her tongue sliding against mine with a desperation that broke me open. I reached down, my hand find the hem of that robe, sliding up the silk until I hit the damp, scorching reality of her. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. She was already wet, a slick, heavy heat that coated my fingers the moment I touched her. She let out a sound—not a moan, but a sharp, jagged intake of breath that sounded like a sob. Her head fell back against the tree, and she arched into my hand, her hips stuttering in a rhythm that was older than the island. "Julian," she whispered, and my name sounded like a confession. "Please." I didn't wait. I couldn't. I pulled her robe down, baring her breasts to the moonlight. They were pale and firm, the nipples dark and tight with the chill of the night air and the heat of her blood. I took one into my mouth, my teeth grazing the tip, and she screamed into the wind. I worked my fingers into her, two, then three, stretching her, feeling the way her internal muscles clamped around me, pulsing with a need that was rhythmic and violent. I wanted to devour her. I wanted to leave marks. I wanted her to go back to Colorado with the memory of my touch burned into her skin like a brand. *** July 23rd (Email from Maren to Julian) Subject: The Aftermath I can’t sit down properly. I hope you’re happy. I’m sitting on my porch, drinking a coffee that has gone cold, and I’m looking at the bruises on my inner thighs. They look like fingerprints. Your fingerprints. Every time I move, I feel the ghost of you inside me. The weight of you. The way you filled me so completely that I thought I might actually break, and the terrifying realization that I wanted you to. When we got back to Seventeen—when you pushed me onto that bed and finally took off your clothes—I realized that my descriptions of you had been woefully inadequate. You are not a landscape, Julian. You are a force of nature. Your body is all hard lines and lean muscle, a map of everywhere you’ve been and everything you’ve survived. Seeing you hard, seeing the way your cock looked in the dim light of the bedside lamp—thick, heavy, and weeping with the same need I felt—made the breath leave my body. I remember the way you held my legs back, your chest pressed against mine, the hair on your skin abrasive and perfect against my breasts. When you entered me, it wasn't the smooth glide of a travelogue. It was a stretch, a slow, agonizingly perfect invasion. I felt every ridge, every inch of you taking up space where I had been empty for so long. I remember the sound of our skin hitting, a wet, rhythmic slapping that drowned out the sound of the waves. I remember the way you gripped my hair, pulling my head back so you could look into my eyes while you drove yourself into me, harder and faster until the world narrowed down to just that point of contact. I’ve never been a 'loud' person, Julian. I like my silence. But you made me scream. You made me beg for it. I was a mess of tangled sheets and sweat and fluids, my legs shaking so hard I couldn't hold them up, and all I could do was wrap them around your waist and pull you deeper. When you finally came, the way you shook, the way you groaned my name into the crook of my neck—it felt like a victory. For both of us. I’m leaving tomorrow. My flight is at noon. I don't know how to go back to writing about boutique hotels and hidden gems. You’ve ruined the scenery for me. Nothing looks as good as you did when you were coming apart inside me. —M. *** August 5th Maren, I am back in London. It is raining. It is always raining. The streets are a dull, monotonous grey, and I find myself looking at every woman who passes, searching for the way you carry yourself—that Colorado stride, that sense that you are always five minutes away from a trail-head. I can still smell you. It’s on the charcoal shirt I wore that first night. I haven't washed it. I know that’s pathetic. I know it’s the kind of thing a Victorian poet would do, but I don't care. I pull it out of the drawer and I’m back in Seventeen. I’m back in the outdoor shower with you, the water turning to steam as it hit our bodies. I’m back to the feeling of your mouth on me, the way you knelt on the stone floor and took me into your throat until I thought I would pass out from the sheer, unadulterated sensation of it. You were so greedy, Maren. You looked up at me with those dark eyes, your hands wrapped around my thighs, and you worked me until I was a wreck. I miss the way you taste. Like salt and lime and something sweet. I miss the way your skin felt when it was damp with sweat. Most of all, I miss the way you looked at me after we were finished—like I was the first thing you’d ever really seen. You said I ruined the scenery. You did something worse. You made me realize that I’ve been sleepwalking. I’ve been living a five-star life that was hollow in the middle. I don't want the grey. I don't want the polite silence. I looked up flights to Denver. They’re expensive. They’re long. I don't care. Are there any 'hidden gems' in Colorado that need a Londoner to come and complicate things? —Julian *** August 12th Julian, There is a place called Black Canyon. It’s deep, it’s dark, and the walls are so steep they look like they’re closing in on you. It’s the most terrifying and beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It makes your heart race just standing on the edge. It feels like vertigo. It feels like you. If you come here, don't expect a resort. Don't expect infinity pools or charcoal shirts. Expect thin air that will make your lungs burn. Expect mountains that don't care if you’re tired. Expect me, in a cabin with a wood-burning stove and a bed that isn't nearly as fancy as the one in Seventeen, but is much, much sturdier. I’m not a coward anymore. I’m telling you exactly what I want. I want you here. I want to see you in the light of a mountain morning. I want to see how you look when the temperature drops and we have to stay under the blankets to keep warm. I want to feel you inside me while the wind howls outside, a different kind of storm than the one we found on the island. I’ve already told the bartender at the local pub that a man might be coming. I told him to keep an eye out for a Londoner who looks like he’s searching for a catastrophe. My address is attached. The door doesn't lock. —M. *** September 2nd (A note taped to the door of a cabin in Telluride) Julian— I’m down by the creek. Follow the sound of the water. I’ve been waiting for you since the moon went thin. I hope you brought your hunger. I’ve still got the fingerprints on my soul. —M.

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