My trunks are floating away from us. Oh, yes. I just chucked them and ran.
‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘So much for spontaneity.’
‘You’re a novice. You’ll learn how to do it right.’ Flavia is properly giggling now.
We’re still in the water.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’m going for it. I’m suddenly feeling a lot less brave about the whole naked thing.’ She sprints out of the water and, with her back to the crowds, which gives me an excellent full-frontal view, she shakes herself and then pulls her pants onto her wet body, before putting her bra on and reaching for her dress.
I’m still in the water, now holding my sodden trunks.
‘Are you going wet pants on or off?’ Flavia asks.
‘I have literally never gone commando before,’ I say. ‘And I really don’t want to start.’
‘Looks like you’re going to have a super-wet bottom then.’ Flavia starts giggling again. ‘Or, wear your wet pants and your shirt, and just carry your trousers.’ She gestures towards the group. ‘There’s a lot of undressing going on. And a lot of people wearing some properly outrageous outfits.’
And that’s what I do.
When, hands linked, me with my trousers over my shoulder, we rejoin the main group, they’re all doing the conga. We join in at the end, with me holding on to Flavia’s hips, and it is of course a lot of fun.
The conga goes on for alongtime – these people are very focused congo-ers – but eventually, as all congas do, it breaks up as the music changes, and then everyone starts dancing wherever they are at that point.
Flavia and I dance together for I don’t know how long. Through ballads, high tempo, Latin, rap, you name it, we just dance and dance, sometimes laughing (Gangnam together is a lot of fun), sometimes in each other’s arms.
Eventually, Flavia begins to yawn and I suggest that we return to the hotel, and we begin to weave our way back along the beach.
Our conversation as we walk is mundane, comfortable stuff – about the views, the architecture that we see, comments on things that happened with our dinner and other people during the evening – the kind of chat people who know each other very well, and are very at ease with each other, have.
As we walk, I purposely push away any thoughts about the night ahead. I think – I imagine – we will spend the night very much together.
I think… I might be falling irrevocably in love with Flavia.
And I know that I am not the right person for her. Maybe no-one is right now: she’s had a huge year and maybe she needs a break from relationships. Maybe she was very serious when she said that this was just about no-strings sex.
I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it tonight.
We begin kissing in the lift, and nearly fall out of the doors when they open on our floor. We kiss all the way along the corridor until we stumble into our room and over to the bed, where we make glorious, glorious love.
I love her. And I don’t want to hurt her.
* * *
I’m woken in the morning by the sun streaming right onto our pillows because we didn’t close the curtains last night.
Flavia is sound, sound asleep, in her very Flavia way, spooned in my arms amid a lot of bed linen chaos.
I move slightly, because her (beautiful) curls are tickling my chin. She stirs and then resumes her sleep.
I allow myself to just lie there, hugging her into me. Her softness feels as though it was made exactly to match my body; she fits perfectly against me.
I really want to kiss her awake, but, also, it’s only 8a.m. and we can’t have gone to sleep until well after five and don’t need to be up for a while, and she’s a woman who definitely likes her sleep, so it would be selfish.
And, actually, it’s very nice just lying like this.
A little later, I reawaken, to the noise of a ringing phone, and realise that I must – very unusually – have gone back to sleep.
We both do a bit of arm flailing trying to locate the phone. I get there first, mainly because I wake up a lot faster than Flavia does.
