Two men were sitting on a wooden picnic table that served as the room’s only desk. Behind them were two rows of shoddy looking bunk beds, some backpacks, and a few carelessly hung clothes.
“So I’m trekking through India with this nutso religious chick from Ireland, met her at a hostel in Calcutta, and we’re trying to find out where the hell you rent elephants when suddenly she’s holding my hand. I’m doing nothing, didn’t hit on her, nothing. And she’s holding my hand. I was like, what the fuck?”
“She knew you were married, right?”
“Sure, sure she did. I mean, there are two kinds of guys, those who take off the ring and guys who don’t, and I’m the latter. If a girl wants to mess around, that’s fine with me but I’m not going to pretend I’m available. She knew who I was. But get this: She’d been going on and on about God and her church for three fucking days. How ‘He sees’ everything and how she feels good that ‘He’s up there watching.’ I was sick of it, but we were the only two foreigners there and I was kind of worried something’d happen to her if she went off on her own. I mean, she was sweet. Batshit crazy, but sweet. I’d have felt responsible if she woke up in a bathtub with her kidneys harvested or something. Not to mention she had a pair of tits so perfect they could pull homosexuals back to the home team. All my life I’ve never seen a pair that beautiful. And believe me, I’ve seen a lot of tits.”
Reed’s eyes adjusted to the light. The men were sitting near a small window that let in a lone shaft of sunshine as solid and tangible as a pillar of alabaster. Between them was a bottle of tequila balanced on the surface of a the table; inches away, a bowl was filled with limes. One of the two men was thin and dark, his skin an odd greenish color, with a finely trimmed pencil-thin mustache that seemed out of place until Reed decided he must be European.
The one talking was built like a Marine, with wide shoulders that seemed ready to split open the fabric of his shirt and a scalp that was shaved to a shine. He had piercing gray-blue eyes and a scar in his upper lip that pulled it into a slight sneer. Reed guessed the man was in his mid- to late twenties. Thirty at the oldest.
“Anyway, I ask her about it and she says she just likes holding my hand. So we hold hands the whole day. Then that night she knocks on my room door and wants to watch television. I’m still thinking that she’s there to steal my camera, so I’m watching her like a hawk, but as soon as she’s inside my room she strips off her shirt and instead of CSI:Miami I’m watching her sweet set of Irish casabas. She wants a massage. So I give her a massage—” The man paused, then raised a hand at Reed. “You trying to check in? Marisol’s out back. There’s a bell somewhere there on the counter.”
Reed blinked. “I’m actually looking for…something else. Someone. I think she’s a guest here.”
“Well,” the bald guy said. “I don’t know who she is or where she is but I know where she isn’t and that’s here in the men’s dorm. Not that I’d mind if she was!”
“Sorry to intrude.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. You can wait for her. Here, want a drink?”
“Thanks, but tequila and I have never really gotten along.”
“You ever tried really good tequila? This is smooth shit, man. Like sipping cognac. We’re not talking the rotgut crap they export for gringos. I got this just outside Guadalajara. Small batches, privately bottled. Can’t get this anywhere but here.”
Reed walked across the room and sat down on a nearby bed, the mattress bowing under his weight.
“I’m Lance,” said the heavyset one. “Lance Canyon. I know, I know, sounds like a porn star name. But I never got that lucky.”
“From the story you’re telling it sounds like you’re getting close.”
Lance laughed. “I haven’t even gotten to the juicy part, man. Stick around. It gets better.”
“I’m Ambrose,” said the other guy, interrupting. “From Amsterdam.”
“I call him Styles,” Lance said. “He’s got a vitamin deficiency. Makes his skin glow in the dark.”
“He’s joking.”
“You glow like a Pemex sign.”
“Reed Haflinger.”
Lance put his shot glass on the table and filled it, then held it out to Reed. “Lime?”
Reed shook his head, no, then tipped the shot into his mouth and let the warm liquid slide down. Hints of caramel on the tongue, and a finish of faint, perfect pineapple and, what was it? Clove? Lance was right. It was closer to cognac than he ever imagined.
“Wow.”
“Good stuff, right?”
Reed nodded. His stomach felt warm, a heat that moved gradually upward, flushing his face, his cheeks, his ears.
Lance held out the bottle. “Another?”
Reed shook his head. “Sorry, I’ve got a bus ride back north this afternoon.”
Lance shrugged. “Suit yourself. All the more for us.”
“So what happened with the Irish girl?” Ambrose asked, pouring a new shot.
Lance leaned back. “No way I’m gonna keep my fingers off her perfect pair o’ papayas. First chance we get we start heading around the bases, and she’s just loving every minute of it. Moaning and arching her back and all that crap, so I think what the hell, let’s go for the whole hog. Home base. And I’m getting her underwear off and suddenly she draws a line with her hand across her waist. Pulls the underwear up. I couldn’t fucking believe it. Like she was in grade school or something. Off limits. A line,” Lance’s palm swept across his stomach.
“And?”
“I’m as blue-balled as a guy can be, but I’m not going where a girl don’t want me to go. I whacked off in the men’s room and we slept together. Slept as in ‘in the same bed’ together. Sleep. Biggest disappointment of my life.”
Ambrose nodded. “Story of my life.”
“It gets better.” Lance held up the bottle. Reed shook his head. Ambrose snapped his shot glass onto the table like a poker player asking for a hit.
“The neeeeext night,” Lance continued, “she basically does the same damn thing. Except this time, she tells me it’s okay if I do her in the ass.”
“Get out.”
“Would I shit you? Why the hell would I shit you?”
“So you…?”
“So I slap on a rubber and dive into her mud. I’m digging through her like I’m a fucking coal miner, and she’s moaning and shrieking and grabbing the sheets, and the whole time I’m hearing her voice in my head talking about how God is watching everything, and I’m thinking how that all fits—is it like God watches everything? Because jeez, if I was God, I’d have been trying to find anything to watch instead of watching that.”
