Resort & Spa

For some reason, I remember noticing a scratch on my watch, that moment you sent me the text. “Pretty please?” with a kissy-face emoji, next to the blue-text URL of a “resort & spa” destination. Even the preview window sported the glorious view of blue sky and white sand by crystal waters.

I booked it. I may have sighed. Beforehand, afterhand, whatever. It was a little more than I would’ve liked to have spent and a little farther away than I would’ve liked to have gone. I’m a homebody, content to sit in a spot and relax, even if that spot is just a familiar imprint on the sofa or holed up in my office. You know this. I know you know this.

So you probably knew the look on my face that night, before you had to see it for yourself — me, on that familiar couch, beer in hand as you walked in. Maybe I wasn’t scowling outright, but I wasn’t exactly chipper. To your credit, you didn’t say a word. You disposed of your keys, your purse; your day, as it were.

Then you got on your knees.

You’ve always been good like that. I’ve long enjoyed your signature quiet service with a smile. I don’t even acknowledge you, this time. No fingers through the hair, no reassuring pats on the cheek, no errant fondling. Not even any eye contact, and I adore that shit.

Hell, I try to not even make any noise, but I’m pretty sure I slip up, there. It’s more fun to keep up the icy façade. Or try to, at least— I think by the fourth night in a row of this odd routine of cold shoulders and quiet blowjobs, it’s tough for me not to smirk or otherwise ‘tell.’ I know you know. You know I know you know. You’ve always been smart like that.

Then we’re on the plane.

You were right, of course: We’ve both been so busy. Instead of dreading the getaway, I find myself looking forward to it in earnest. This is good for us. I don’t mention this, of course. And by now, the silence is ridiculous. But other than the necessary questions and various figurings-out, I keep up the act. The game.

I’m not enthusiastic about the car we rent, but you have your ways of silent insistence. The way your teeth flash in a playful grin, the way your eyes light up like a younger flirt. You think I don’t notice the way your hips swung afterward? You always did have a really nice ass. You always did know just to catch my eye. My heart, as it were.

“Oh, honey,” you say, breathless and dismissive as you turn to me. Really? Right now? We’ve just pushed the door open, we’re almost in the suite. I feel the rigors of travel beginning to weigh on my bones, and here I am having to stop myself from tripping over you.

It’s the purse. You forgot it in the car. You try to say this as delicately and nicely as possible, a very polite request if anything, but your words sort of hang in a dark-gray fog over your head in my view. I just offer a curt nod, dropping my current handfuls of baggage, apparently off to retrieve one more.

A couple dozen floors down the elevator, a walk along the open-air pathway to the garage, another walk to the right level and there I am. I’m not in the same shape I used to be. You don’t seem to mind, but I know I could do better. I’m a lucky bastard, I guess.

Then again, I’m making the long walk back with a leather purse draped daintily over my shoulder. Not that I care for the appearances, but it’s not exactly the way I pictured our vacation going.

I take a few deep breaths in the elevator up. A few people file in, file out. I remember how many years it’s been, to get here. You and I. Us. We’ve made it work. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s taken effort and it hasn’t always been smooth, but together we’ve laid a foundation that makes it easy to forgive the occasional rescue mission for purses at large. You’re already forgiven. Just another thing on the list of what I’m going to forget this week as I kick back and finally let myself relax.

Key card. Door knob. Drop the purse. The suite is quiet. I frown, a little, expecting you to be a little more eager to have it back. Then again, I’ve been gone for several minutes. I would hardly expect you to wai —

And there you are, on the bed. You and that five-star ass of yours.

I could write poetry about the intimate details of the supple contours of your body. I have, actually. However, at my most honest, I’d have to say I’m more of a caveman than a poet. I’m a simple man with simple tastes. And when I see a body like that, laid out like a platter, I only have one thing on my mind.

One or two, anyway. You still have an effect on me, this intoxication that requires no small measure of willpower to quell an eagerness I feel for you and that feminine frame of yours. I’m unbuttoning my shirt and just staring, letting my aging eyes adopt a youthful rudeness in their appraisal. I try to clear my throat as quietly as possible.

“I’ll make you a deal, babe,” I say, in that casual, easygoing voice of a long-standing friendship, yet scuffed up just a bit at the ends. This is a business voice.

“Tonight, after we have a lovely evening of going out to dinner and catching the sunset over the ocean, we’re coming back here and I am going to eat that pussy out like you won some kind of sexual sweepstakes. But right now…”

I wonder if you can hear the telltale sound of my zipper lowering slowly. I wonder if your ears have attuned to that sound. I wonder if it has formed a positive association in your mind. I wonder if you react to it, physically, at all. I wonder how successfully I’ve brainwashed you, over the years, to meet this with such anticipation.

“… I’m just gonna finger you until you feel plenty wet, then I’m gonna pin you beneath me and fuck you like I’m trying to split you in half. Don’t worry, I’ll keep a hand clamped over your mouth so you don’t bother anyone in the room next door. You just wrap those long legs around me and take it. Got it?”

I can almost hear you grin.