There was an argument out in the hall. We listened for a half-minute, the masseuse and I, her fingers frozen on my back. Then she excused herself herself and slipped out the door. Spanish shouting turned to whispers, provenance unknown. I remained facedown on the table, stomach still doggy-paddling from $12 drinks, too much sun, fruit flies in the POG. Wife Myrna was in another room, getting felt up by that slab of overcooked beef in chinos, the same man we\u2019d spotted on the nude beach a day before, stalking the shoreline, feather in hand, occasionally bending to splash seawater on his chest. And his manhood, horrifying majestic, knocking between his knees like the belt of an untied robe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d Myrna had said, \u201cif the sight doesn\u2019t get him some company, he could tie it into a lasso.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was topless, smiling, brilliant. I stood opposite: unfaithful, and more than once, but also jealous, a little drunk\u2014a killjoy in cargo shorts and tennies, flip-flops forgotten at the foot of our bed, 2,200 miles away (the journey\u2019s first jinx).<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d she said, smile suspended.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing. This ain\u2019t my scene, hon,\u201d I said, swirling the tequila lemonade, mixed in a Pepsi bottle. \u201cLet\u2019s go find some mole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out in the hall, the whisper fight continued, a man and a woman. Then it went quiet. The door opened and I woke to hands battering my back again. But something had changed. The scent, for one: before, the air had been foggy with perfume, splashed on to cover the smack of cooking, garlic, onions in oil; but now, it smelled like a man \u2013 aftershave and unwashed hair, maybe a beer or three. Fingers calloused like a weightlifter\u2019s. Sometime later, the hands receded, the door opened and closed. I stood, dressed, scalded a finger on a candle during my escape. Another bad omen, surely.<\/p>\n
Back in the room, the sun barely set, we poured into bed early\u2014one of us deliberately over-served, the other sunburned and scared. We were on the edge of something big or awful but couldn\u2019t see it, a canyon or impassable peak, the map mis-folded.<\/p>\n
Myrna whispered in the dark, somewhere on the other end of the king size bed: \u201cWhat\u2019s happening to us? What about the girls, Halsey? What will they do?\u201d<\/p>\n
I feigned sleep. I did not like myself and I couldn\u2019t answer. This was all I knew.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want this,\u201d she said as she dozed. \u201cI don\u2019t want this. I don\u2019t want this. Not this…\u201d<\/p>\n
We slept poorly, the massages a wash. Dear god: what\u2019s the opposite of a honeymoon?<\/p>\n
\u201cCall for a late checkout,\u201d she croaked, hours later, the sky still dark.<\/p>\n
The sun rose and we went through the old routine, raking dirty clothes into a pile for packing, avoiding eye contact, wake of a trip gone bad. Myrna disappeared into the bathroom. Then she shouted and I ran in. Her butt was pressed against the sink and she pointed at the oversized tub, spent water brimming at the lip. There was sand along the bottom, black hair, sunflower seeds, and a lone fake nail, dancing around the sides. Neither of us had taken a bath the night before. I looked at Myrna and she squinted at me, cocking her head. Then she tightened, all of her, and accused without saying a word, as if I\u2019d called room service and requested a ghost, preferably brunette:\u00a0Who is she, fucker?<\/em> But I just stared right back. I didn\u2019t know anything; this was all I knew.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t ask for late checkout, and it was the last trip we took before the separation that fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Drunk and jealous in an exotic locale, he wonders: “What’s the opposite of a honeymoon?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[702,92,1882,260,719,707,105,14,81],"class_list":["post-15060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-alcohol","tag-drinking","tag-honeymoon","tag-jealousy","tag-marriage","tag-mexico","tag-relationships","tag-sex","tag-travel","writer-joel-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15060"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15127,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15060\/revisions\/15127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}