An hour later, she is the first to make her excuses. The empty glasses and bowls and remnants of the chicken Caesar salad that Sarah and Amina picked at together have been cleared. The umbrella is still useful, because the sun is so powerful, but Lauren wants a break and pretends that will be a nap. There are kisses, something she has given in to. Women like these kiss good-bye, it’s one of those when-in-Rome situations. She knots the towel around her body, a stab at modesty. Here, they can lie basically naked, but a hundred yards from here, the hallway seems to demand more decorum.
She shoves her sunglasses up onto her head, one hand keeping the towel in place, the other gripping the flimsy cotton bag, the promising weight of the not-much-read paperback inside. Up over the path, flip-flops in her bag, the grass underfoot. It’s a wonderful feeling. Inside, the hallway is air-conditioned, if not as arctic as she knows the room will be. Her flesh prickles. Her nipples tense. She should drop the flip-flops to the floor, step into them. She doesn’t, though, hurries past the equine paintings toward her room. And there is the waiter. He’s bearing a tray, gives a nod with that smile, a nod back, tipping his chin up high, holding his face up for her to study. A nod not of deference, of servility; a nod of hello, the nod of the man on the street. She knows this nod. Then he’s past her, rapping firmly on a door down the hall and announcing himself in a cheerful voice. No accent to speak of.
She fumbles into her room, tosses the bag onto the bed, so lush that the impact makes no sound. She drops the towel to the ground, kicks it out of the way. Absurdly she wants a hot shower. The mind-boggling waste of a hot shower on a hot day. She’s thirsty, too, ready for another eight-dollar bottle of water. A little shiver from the cold, or the heat, or the shock of the one after the other when, just as firmly as on the door down the hall, a knock. Actually, three. No explanation offered.
She doesn’t bother trying to hide behind the towel, actually kicks it out of the way so she can open the door.
“Miss,” he says. His voice a little softer. “Did you need something?”
His dick fits into her mouth much as she had hoped it might. Something familiar in the arc of it, and he’s so excited he pushes perhaps a hair too far—which tells her that he is young, after all—into her throat, into that spot where the pleasure turns into discomfort, but a discomfort she finds strangely comforting. She’s thirsty but her mouth finds the saliva.
His shirt still so white, and still all buttoned up. He picks her up off the floor, sets her down on top of the bed. They are quiet, they are focused, then, fourteen minutes later, they are finished. He pulls his clothes back on—his boxer briefs, what is it with men this age and boxer briefs?—grinning all the while. She doesn’t try to cover herself, moves about the room naked, halfheartedly righting the pillows, taking a bottle of water from the minibar, and accepting from him the condom—pathetic, spent, sticky—he’s peeled off his body. She wraps the thing in a fistful of toilet paper, but it still makes an unpleasant sound as it lands in the bathroom trash can. The immodesty, her nakedness, feels good. He says something, something unimportant, uninteresting, irrelevant.
She takes the damp towel from the floor, wraps it around herself just as he opens the door to leave. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction: The door across the hall opens at that moment, Meredith, still a bit green, catching Lauren’s eye. She seems on the verge of saying something, Meredith, as the waiter ducks out with a final nod. Lauren lets the door close, then stands for a moment, considering the back of the door, the helpful diagram showing the path to the nearest exit, in case of emergency. This is an emergency, of a sort. She lets the towel slip down once more, uses one corner to dab at the inside of her thigh. She goes into the bathroom. At least Meredith will have something new to talk about.
The French toast tastes different. Not as good. Even the little slice of papaya is less appetizing, seems to be grinning at her, menacingly. Lauren pushes the plate away after a couple of bites, where only yesterday she devoured the whole thing, and even briefly considered ordering something else, a side of potatoes, fried to crispness, a plate of bacon, pink and slimy.
There are hours until they leave, and she’s already packed, leaving aside the clothes she plans to wear on the plane, after one final shower, because suddenly the sand, omnipresent as sand tends to be, is starting to drive her mad. Her hair, which gets luxuriously wavy and full from the salt water, suddenly feels dirty, oily, a hindrance. She’ll miss this, she is sure, a few weeks from now, or even upon arrival: waiting in that taxi line at JFK, her breath visible in the evening chill. She’ll miss this when the sky grows dark at an hour when Britons could conceivably be taking tea.
Meredith settles in across from her. She’s dressed for the beach: a too-big white T-shirt she’s knotted at her midriff, a skirt fashioned from a long scarf. Her hair is pulled up into a high, girlish ponytail. She yawns, then smiles. It is early. “Good morning!”
Lauren’s never been good at remembering to say good morning. It seems like something people should just assume. She sips her coffee. It’s not as strong as she wants it to be. “Morning.”