Ocho Rios

Jamaica, March 2007

They drink Cristal by the pool at noon. They flirt with the waiters. Scottish, maybe, most likely Irish. A lot of Paddies have made the trip, equally as aged and affluent. Louche as a swinger meet.

She's thick, base-tanned, a pixie-cut brunette. In spite of her ostentatious shades, I know she's watching me as I shower off after swimming. I see her as if through a compound eye. The sun makes points of light of her bones. Aloof-seeming, like she's stoned.

The rain comes instantly, huge and warm as tears. They squeal as they run for the terrace. Something falls from her bag. I retrieve it casually. A hard case, grubby with fingerprints. A tan chamois within, faint with musk.

She's wary at first. Sharp, nobody's fool. She's well-maintained, politely spoken, cream and sugar in her tone of voice. She asks me where I'm from, what's my line. She believes in eye contact. She compliments my accent. She's interested.

I won't take the money she tries to press on me but I let her buy me a drink. Her nails are burgundy, stark upon the glass she hands me. I've already clocked the rings.

Malcolm and Mel...It sounds like a cancelled sitcom. He got to go to the Ryder Cup and she got to come here. That was the deal. She talks of him and their boy with genuine affection. She tries way too hard.

Gin warms her. She asks me to explain the rules of cricket to her. Team sports bore her. Tennis is her game. I tell her it wasn't a thing where I grew up, much less cricket. Her line of questioning is thoughtful, a convent girl's. She thinks it's wonderful I got out of Dodge. I thank her kindly.

I bring my notebook down to the poolside with me with the best of intentions, but the humidity is brutal. I order coffee and whiskey. I have until noon to file. Quint will get it in some shape or form.

She waves from the opposite side of the pool and calls me over. She's alone. Her friends have gone to the beach. She's feeling a bit rough, so she's passed.

I assure her she isn't interrupting. She's slick with oil and sweat, even her hair. Wraparound shades, a pink bikini...I like her scars, her mottled substance up close. She has an easiness about her, a promise of hygiene and diligence. She's reliable. She's someone who always does the right thing.

I tell her my copy is about England's selection dilemmas. It means nothing to her. She asks me if I ever write fiction. Not since college, I tell her. She's a BA as well. UCD, Class of '75. The holiday is by way of a reunion. They hadn't even known the World Cup was on.

She asks me if I want a pill. The vial is already open, rattling. I wash it down with her water, tasting her on the mouth of her bottle. She watches my lips, like every other white bitch.

I file at 11.49. Quint has been sending me passive-aggressive e-mails. The next time I'll be later again. With what they're paying me? Little man can go fuck himself.

Her lounger is empty but now I know where her room is. I drop off my things and head up to the sanitised stretch of jungle to the north of the complex. The site of the old plantation's slave quarters, according to the porter. White matrons want privacy in which to fuck black boys. It's as if white matrons are ashamed.

The air among the trees is a smog of weed fumes drifting from terraces and open windows. I catch glimpses beyond shutters of porn playing on wide screens; the ying and yang of abandoned bodies in motion. I've supplemented the pill she's given me with one of my own. I'm starting to feel it.

I jump behind a palm when I see her up ahead. She dismounts from the golf cart and tips the driver. She's wearing a black vest, a peacock butterfly sarong. She's on the phone to Malcolm. She has that attitude; terse, familiar. Her mouth is tight. She doesn't need it, whatever it is. He goes and ruins everything.

She doesn't let on she sees me but she knows I'm following her. She knows what my hobbled tread means. Her hips roll like an ocean swell amongst the shadows of the colonnade. She enters the second door from last.

The door is open on an empty lounge. I close it behind me. Cinnamon gutters from a scented candle wick. CNN plays on mute. She has the shutters closed. She wants me to track her down.

I creep towards the back, touching bottles, swimwear, a fat novel splayed face down on the sofa. A roach has been dogged in a used teabag. I follow a thickening funk of her. She's close. Anxious. She's never done anything like this before.

The bedroom is rapt with light. She's out on the balcony with her back to me, gripping the rail like a plaintiff. Her shoulder blades are bright with oil, sharp with resolve. She's not for turning. She's waiting.

I touch her throat, her armpits, her belly. She smells of mouthwash, of vinegar and brass. It's wonderful to feel her start to move. She has such potential grace; such smothered rage.

Her neck tastes of salt. Her face is tilted back, looking peeved, almost, derisive. Her palm is damp against my chin, her fingers tightening. Her mouth is a tease. She's buzzing. She's doing it. It comes so naturally to her.

We freeze, breath-held. There are voices nearby. Country music and a woman laughing. Her eyes are sidecast, watchful. She gestures at the wall and says a name I don't catch. Says boy. Her cheek is hollow with disapproval.

She's backing up into me, moving in time to the music. Her inner thighs are smooth, potentially lethal. No compromise in those hips. No tolerance for anything less than an A game. Her gut had told her it was to be me. It never fails her.

I mark her out with my hands. Breast, haunch, midriff. She's country people, good stock. Fine skin slackening, her breasts soft as turning fruit. She bites my fingers, spits on them. I trail them down her belly to the knots at her hips. She reaches back for my cock, her touch a little forlorn, as if in search of a lost illusion. It happens.

She takes my wrist. She's introducing me. She's afraid it will hurt. She needs a picklock's dexterity, a priest's devotion. This is her body. She trusts me, or just about. She wants the goodness of a man for once, no thuggery or impotent spite. She wants art, reverence, the harmony of bodies in perfect accord. She wants the dark of a dark continent.

We step backwards into the room, neither of us missing a beat. She's light on her feet, mindful of the shocking intimacy of slow dances. She likes to bear witness to authority, the master's tools in the master's hands. It's proper order. It's how she was reared.

Her mouth craves sweet things. Her lust for their comfort is bottomless. A kiss ought to be as luscious. Her lips are deft, drunk on novelty. She's up to the change of pace. She's a bad bitch. She can take it.

I mouth the down of her cheek, her fingers cool and proprietary upon my balls. Her cunt is pure craving, a mare sweating hippomanes. She digs how hard she's made me. She touches it in vindication to the wet flesh of her belly.

The shouting next door peters out into silence broken by a lone wheedling gasp and a creaking as of maritime boards. I let her undress me, unable to contend with the sureness of her hands. She places them flat on either pec when she's done and sighs. She steps back, as in a gallery.

Her naked flesh is grubby as a barefoot sole against the whiteness of new bedlinen. She composes herself, opens herself to me with a gleeful lack of shame. Such artistry in self-love speaks of a long and lonely apprenticeship. Who knows why a man loses interest? Who can reckon with the insult of it?

I keep pace with her. She watches my hand's impudent leisure, my breed's aesthetic. She has an eye for the quality of stock. She'll have learned from childhood visits to cattle marts with her father; from the thunder and punished horseflesh of Point to Point. No room for error when there's money at stake.

She's annoyed at my intervention no less than pleased. How dare I? She's accustomed to the deference due a middle manager, the serviceability of lesser grades. She has never considered the true nature of defiance or how she might handle the crisis. I let her know I believe in her. I know the stuff she's made of.

She holds my courting wrist, her gaze steady, warming to a strange touch. One by one, she drops her veils. This is who she is, the real her. She just wants to be held. Nor am I to spare the whip if needs be. She welcomes candour. She craves a moment of pure sincerity.

She speaks her pleasure and guidance to my open mouth, pouring into me like tongues of flame. She pays in kind the raciness of my frigging. Our bodies hum like forks sounding at the same frequency. Neither of us had thought the harmony possible. Neither of us had stopped hoping.

I lick down the bloom and pathos of her flesh, a dying anchorite at a succulent. I feed on the meat of her underbreast, the relish of her sweat. Her hands are resolute, steering my head ever south, ever closer. She's curious nonetheless. She'd have it done right for once.

The hinterland of her cunt is scalped raw, dark as a jaded eye. The lips are an Easter lily, perpetually aggrieved. She smiles down at me from panda eyes, warning me not to stop. Her tension is of a measure longing for resolution. She's counting on me.

She's like good liquor. I guzzle her, get fucked up, maudlin, sloppy, unstable. I make a show of myself. I'm shameless. She moves so sparingly but with such candour. She squeezes the hand I raise to her breast. She lays a celebrant's palm upon my head.

She's close, violence mustering in her hindquarters. I urge her on. I want it as much as she does. She throws her ringing phone across the room where it shatters on the floor. There's a gratified and incredulous moan from beyond the wall. It's true, everything they've heard. Everything that porn and romance promised.

I coax her over the line with my fingers. I make her look at me. She's transformed. She runs through the phases of herself as in a zoetrope -- promising child, masqued teenager, unconvinced bride, uneasy helpmeet. I want to shower her ecstasy in gold leaf and watch it cling to her flesh. To be as close and to long to be closer yet.

There are Durex in the bedside locker. She's all thumbs, glazed as a subject newly exorcised. Still capable, though. To watch her defy uncertainty is beautiful. This is her last chance. I want it to be memorable. She deserves it. She's fucking earned it.

I lie back and roll her towards me. We touch and it's enough. Face to face, motionless, our breathing is hothouse close, a well rendered duet. Yet I can feel impatience in her grip. She's been hurt and disappointed so many times. She anticipates a man's fickleness. She can't help but take it personally.

She climbs astride and pins me. I'm hard enough to slip into her unassisted. She's tight, easy, wincing as she grinds back and down. Her honey oozes unconstrained, as from an ecstatic's mouth. I take both her hands, moving my hips to the cat's tail languor of her contractions. She's alive.

Her face is full of reproach but also of sorrow for what might have been; of terror for the boy she's reared and of the senescence that awaits her; of self-disgust at her complicity. She'd be a vicious fighter. It's in her stare, the sharpness of her bones. She could hate just as deeply.

I picture her stabbing my chest relentlessly as she comes, blood amongst the blue glitter of her eyelids. The loosening of her hips picks up pace. Her dead weight becomes lighter than air to me. She doesn't make a sound.

She wilts to the crook of my neck and I take up the slack. Her mouth savages my cheek in search of mine. The lady gets what she wants - discipline, stamina, a field hand's work ethic. I won't let her down. I know exactly what she's thinking. She can't hide from me now.

She comes harder again, gaping, spastic. I envy that total body hit. I own it. Our bodies roll into lotus, my hands restless throughout the slick of her flesh. I don't want to leave an inch of her overlooked. I don't want to miss something crucial.

Her breathing is full of refractory whispers. She's slaked, arch. It's done for now. She and I are realists. The love we make was never an option. The very notion makes both of us smile.

I catch her hopeful glance at a water bottle and oblige her. She asks me to fetch her a Solpadeine from the bathroom. I flush the shredded rubber and finish myself off while I'm in there. My reflection is slack-jawed, blue-balled body and soul.

I check out the meds in the cabinet. Alprazolam. Centrum. Black Snakeroot. You have to laugh.

She's sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing my shirt. She eyes me as she might a gifted child from above the rim of her glass. I hate that look. If she offers me money, I'll take it. It won't be the first time. And she can clearly afford it.