You have this way of holding a cocktail umbrella like it’s a lethal weapon, and frankly, I’m waiting for you to use it on me.
8 min read·1,535 words·3 views
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You’re staring at the tiki bar as if it’s a crime scene, which, given the amount of neon-blue curacao being poured, it probably is. I’m sitting three stools down, nursing a drink that’s mostly ice and regret, and I can’t help but notice the way your fingers drum a restless 4/4 time against the mahogany. It’s the rhythm of someone who wants to be anywhere but here, which makes two of us. The air in this place is thick, a humid blanket that smells like overpriced coconut oil and desperation. You turn your head, just a fraction, and your eyes find mine. They aren’t friendly. They’re observant, sharp enough to cut glass, and for a second, I forget that I’m supposed to be a jaded poet on a forced sabbatical. You look at my hands—the callouses on my fingertips from years of fighting with acoustic strings—and then you look back at my face. You don’t smile. You just raise an eyebrow, a silent question that I don't have the answer to yet. I decide to be the idiot who speaks first. I ask you if the drink is as bad as it looks. You tell me it tastes like a highlighter pen had a midlife crisis. That’s when I know I’m in trouble. Three days later, I find you in the 'Adults Only' grotto, a place that sounds like the title of a film we’d both mock. You’re wearing a swimsuit that costs more than my first amplifier, and you’re looking at the infinity pool as if it’s an actual threat to your dignity. I sit on the edge of your lounge chair, and for a second, I think you’re going to tell me to get lost. Instead, you move your legs. Just a few inches. A silent concession of territory. Your skin is hot under my palm when I reach out to check the title of the book you aren't reading. You tell me I look like a man who has lost his guitar. I tell you I’ve found something better to play. You laugh, and it’s a low, resonant sound that vibrates right in my solar plexus. I reach out and touch the skin of your inner wrist, where the pulse is jumping like a startled bird. I want to see if the rest of you is this warm. You don't pull away. You just watch me, your eyes narrowing, and I can feel the tension between us like a G-string that’s been wound a half-turn too tight. By the end of the first week, we’ve abandoned the pretense of the buffet. I’m in your suite, and the air conditioner is humming a drone that I want to write a song to. You’re standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, the moonlight turning your skin into something ethereal and silver. You’ve ditched the dry wit for a moment, replaced by a gaze that’s heavy and unblinking. I want you on the bed, I say, my voice sounding like it’s been dragged through the gravel of a Tennessee driveway. You don't argue. You just move. The way you walk is a cadence I’ve been trying to write for a decade—all hip and heat and a terrifying sort of grace. I follow you, and before you can even turn around, I’ve got my hands on your waist. Your skin is electric. I slide the straps of that dress down, and it falls away like a minor chord resolving into something beautiful. You’re naked, and you’re perfect, and you’re looking at me like I’m the only thing that matters in this whole manufactured paradise. I press you back against the pillows, my hands exploring the curve of your thighs. I find the center of you, that slick, heavy warmth that tells me you’re as gone for this as I am. My fingers slide into your pussy, and you let out a sound—a high, sharp note that vibrates right against my ribs. I want more. I want to taste you. I move down, my face between your legs, breathing in the scent of you—salt and skin and something that’s just you. I use my tongue, circling your clitoris, watching the way your stomach muscles ripple with every stroke. You’re bucking against me now, your hands gripping the sheets, and I don't stop until you’re shaking, until you’re sobbing my name into the empty air of the room. You’re snoring now, or something close to it—a soft, rhythmic huff that sounds like a brush on a snare drum. I’m lying here watching the ceiling fan spin, wondering when I became the person who has a vacation fling. It feels cliché, yet the way you held my ankles last night felt like anything but a trope. You were thorough. You were a technician of the highest order. My thighs are still shaking a little, a residual hum from when you buried your face between them and didn't come up for air. I look at your hands—large and capable. I imagine them back in my world, and for the first time in years, I find myself wishing I knew what the humidity felt like where you live. You wake up and look at me, and that wry smile is back. You tell me I have the look of a man who’s overthinking his lyrics again. I tell you the lyrics are fine, it’s the bridge I’m worried about. You pull me back down, your mouth finding mine, and suddenly the bridge doesn't matter. We spend the second week avoiding the group excursions. The catamaran sunset cruise can happen without us. We’re in the shower, the water hitting the glass with a percussive slap. You’re behind me, your chest pressed against my back, your cock hard and insistent against my glutes. You reach around, soaping my breasts, your thumbs catching on my nipples until they’re aching points of heat. You’re whispering things that would get a poet kicked out of the library. Filthy, beautiful things about what you want to do to me. You turn me around, lift my legs, and slide into me while the water turns to steam. It’s a tight, frantic fit, the kind that leaves bruises and memories. We’re both gasping, the tile slick under my hands as I cling to you. You hit that spot deep inside me and the world just stops. No more wry commentary. No more self-awareness. Just the friction and the weight of you. Your pulse is a syncopated mess under my thumb, an erratic rhythm that I want to spend the next ten years trying to transcribe. The suitcases are the only honest things in the room now. They say the show is over. You’re standing by the door, looking like a man who’s about to catch a flight back to a life that doesn't include 4:00 AM room service and sand in the bedsheets. We don’t do the exchange numbers dance immediately. We’re too smart for that. We wait until the very last second. You hand me a scrap of paper—a lyric, or maybe just a promise. Check the lock when you get home, you say, a ghost of a smile on your face. I might have left something behind. I know what you left. You left the version of me that was bored with the world. I watch you walk away, and for once, the tropical heat feels like home. I think about the way your skin tasted, like copper and salt, and how you looked when the light hit the sweat on your collarbone. This whole trip was supposed to be a reset, a way to find the meter I lost somewhere between Nashville and Memphis. I didn't expect to find it in the way you arch your back when I bite your shoulder. I didn't expect the poetry to be written in the red marks my fingers left on your hips. The flight back is going to be long, and the air will be recycled and thin, but I have the memory of your hands on my throat, pulling me down for one last, desperate kiss before the taxi came. You told me once that you don't believe in lasting things. I think I’d like to prove you wrong. I’d like to see if this rhythm of ours works when there isn't a palm tree in sight. I’d like to see if your voice still sounds like a cello when the sun is coming up over a Tennessee ridge instead of a turquoise bay. You’re already gone, probably halfway through security by now, but the scent of you is still on my shirt. It’s a mix of that expensive sunblock and the raw, heavy smell of sex. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I realize I’m still holding that cocktail umbrella from the first night, the one you played with like a toy. It’s broken and faded, but I put it in my pocket anyway. A souvenir of the moment I stopped looking for the right word and started feeling the right person. I close the curtains on the empty suite, the light disappearing in a slow, dramatic fade, and I walk toward the door without looking back.
