Bahama Mama

I met him on the last day of my holiday to Nassau that year. He was lying on a sun lounger – sorry, the sun lounger; the one by the pool, but furthest from the nuisance of the DJ-booth, with good access to the bar and the beach. The perfect spot, in other words, which is why I’d wake up early every morning to get it. An unbroken ritual of some four years of holidaying on the same island at the same resort with the same parents.

So anyway, there he lay with his fancy RayBans covering his eyes, arms flung lazily above his head, legs crossed at the ankles. An iPad rested on his t-shirt-clad torso, rising and falling with his breathing. Asleep, I thought to myself, irritated. Couldn’t he sleep somewhere else? In my annoyance, I appraised him, an old habit from childhood where I’d pick out the faults of my bullies from behind a silent but safe scowl, and now, there, I took in this gangly-limbed boy with a mess of black curls on his head and matching armpit tufts peaking out his sleeves. It struck me how the copper skin of his legs contrasted with the vibrant red of his swimming shorts, where the sweep of my gaze slowed, and I couldn’t help but notice how muscular his calves were and how his thighs – so thick – strained against the seams of said swimming shorts.

“You’re blocking the sun,” he said abruptly, making me jump, which in turn made the rolled-up towel nestled under my arm come loose and unravel. He laughed as I scrambled to bundle it back up.

“Sorry,” I said, flustered. “It’s just this… this is irregular.”

“Irregular?” he said, sitting up and cupping his iPad. He pulled off his RayBans and pinned me with a bright, hazel stare.

“I, um…” I hoisted my tote bag up my shoulder. “Yes. I normally sit here you see.”

“You do?”

“Yes, but really it doesn’t matter. I’ll find another lounger,” I said, at which point I would’ve moved along but he truly had me rooted to the spot.

“I didn’t mean to inconvenience you,” he said. “It looked free to me.” And that’s when his accent hit me, like a dart in the ribs: the musical flow of Brazilian Portuguese-English, though I didn't know it at the time. He leaned back on his haunches then and said, “This one’s free.” To my horror, he jutted his chin towards the lounger right beside him.

Oh no, I wanted to say. Thanks, but I’m a ‘read all day with my earphones in’ kind of guy. My nerves sizzled with the need to say it, but instead, as if he really had taken control of my mind and body, I closed the distance between us and propped myself on the very edge of the sun lounger he’d offered. The morning sun was peering over a jagged mountain on the horizon and I remember having to fix my gaze on the long, dappled shadow the volleyball net cast over the shimmering ripples of the pool.

“You never told me your name,” he said, bringing me back. “I’m Vitor.”

“Marc,” I said. “With a C.”

“Hello Marc-with-a-C.” The words slid off his tongue as if they’d been slightly welded together in the tropical heat, as if that were really my full name. It made my chest glow warm. He scooched forward and offered a large hand that was almost bulbous with prominent knuckles and plump veins, and when I shook it, its marked warmth seemed to absorb right through my palm.

“Are you going to lie down?” he asked, his eyes sweeping from me to the emptiness of the lounger behind me.

“Yes,” I said, my pulse moving to below my ears.

I laid out my towel, painstakingly avoiding looking back in his direction, even though my skin prickled with the certainty he wasn’t doing the same. Once I’d ironed out the creases and pinned the top corners of the towel to the lounger with clothes pegs, I sat back and plucked my book from my bag and picked up where I’d left off. Through my periphery I noticed him break his gaze away from me, my skin instantly cooling, and pick up his iPad.

Silence ballooned between us, save for the soft babbling of the pool, and instead of reading the now-jumbled words on the page I plotted how I’d make my escape without seeming rude. My parents would’ve come sauntering by after breakfast and the very last thing I needed was them seeing me there, with him, and all the questions that would’ve garnered. My plan? Wait ten minutes then tell him I was going to get breakfast, despite the fact I don’t eat breakfast.

But he called over. “What are you reading?”

“Oh, um…” I had only meant to glance over at him but his eyes caught me again, genuine interest flecked within the hazel. He had one hand behind his head, bulging his bicep, and his iPad was propped against his thigh. I cleared my throat and said, “A Little Life, by Hanya Yanigihara.” I caught myself then and snapped my focus back to the shadows on the pool. “It’s boring,” I lied, “but I have no choice. My professor gave us reading to do over the summer.”

“You thought it was boring?” He clasped his chest, miming a wounding.

“Well, no.” Why oh why did I lie? Heat crept up my neck, to my cheeks. “Long maybe, but…”

“Oh yes, she loves a doorstopper. I’ve just started reading To Paradise, another whopper.” He brandished his iPad and indeed there were pages from a book on the screen.

“You read?”

Vitor’s eyebrows shot up then. “Don’t I look like the type?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean…” My stomach coiled. “It’s just... I know of lots of readers, mainly on my English Lit course, so I just guessed…”

His full lips curled into a smile and his teeth slid into view. “Marc-with-a-C, I’m pulling at your leg. Is that how the saying goes?”

My cheeks were ablaze. “Yes. Well, just pulling your leg, not at your leg. A small distinction.” I scratched my head and squinted at something in the distance.

Vitor went to say something else just as a buzzing chatter began sharpening into focus. From behind the towel hut a line of arm-banded children came filtering out, waddling around the perimeter of the pool in single file like ducklings.

“Give me strength,” I muttered to myself.

“What is it?”

“Swimming class,” I said, rooting around in my bag and gesturing vaguely at the children now lined up at the edge of the pool. “It tends to get pretty noisy.” I closed my hand around my AirPods and pulled them out. “Not being rude, hope you don't mind.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, with a roll of his shoulders. I was just putting the second bud in my ear when he said, “We could go somewhere else?”

Somewhere else? I shifted uncomfortably in the lounger. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged again. “The beach?” And all at once he was on his feet. It was quite impressive actually – one deft move, almost as if it were in reverse. He stretched then, fingers interlocked and reaching for the cloudless sky, making his t-shirt rise up and exposing a smattering of dark curly hair beneath his navel. Even now I cringe at how I must’ve been gawking at him standing over me, how I blinked at his outstretched hand until, resignedly, I took it and let him pull me to my feet with ease. I got my first whiff of him then and it was wonderful – a heady, earthy musk underscored by the scent of overripe coconuts from his sunscreen that made my pulse deepen. Nothing like the dull soapiness of the boys at uni for whom I’d harboured secret crushes.

“Don’t forget your bag,” he called over his shoulder. I stuffed my book and my towel into it and, apprehensively, trailed after him, just as the row of children jumped into the pool in a cacophony of yelps and splashes.

The steps down to the beach were just a few strides from our loungers. We descended them in silence, Vitor opting to slide down the handrail for the last few. He kicked off his sandals by the showers and stepped onto the sand.

“Hey,” I called over to him. He spun around, wide-eyed and expectant. “You’re leaving them there?”

“And why not?” he said, planting his hands on his hips, a smirk playing on his lips.

I snorted. “Because they could get stolen?”

He waved me away. “That’ll never happen.”

“Until it does.”

“Two days–” holding up two fingers – “I’ve played frisbee down the far side of the beach and leave my shoes here. Nobody takes them.”

I folded my arms, my own smirk tugging at the corners of my lips. “It only needs to happen once.”

He rolled his shoulders – so easy, as if the joints had been oiled. “If it happens, I’ll go without.” There was a glint of mischief in those eyes.

I scooped up his sandals – they were huge, what was he, a size 12? – and slotted them into the empty spaces of my bag. “You’ll thank me when you don’t burn the soles of your feet on the baked pool decking.”

We traipsed across jewel-encrusted golden-white sand; past cabanas and leaning coconut trees and sweat-slick runners. The ocean licked gently at the shore, its colour darkening on a gradient from pastel to brilliant blue, where a couple of boats bobbed listlessly. The smell of sea-salt hung sharp in the breeze, overhead a seagull squawked.

Vitor veered towards the sea, leaving defined footprints in the wet sand before they were swallowed by the surf. He splashed around in the waves as they came up to his ankles and I remember marvelling at how carefree he looked, how easily he controlled his body, even in such an imprecise action as clowning around in the sea. I could just tell he had no chance of falling over or accidentally making a fool of himself. Every foot planted in exactly the way he intended, even if not by conscious effort.

I, on the other hand, could not relate. Even the largely innocuous act of walking past a group of people caused signals to my brain to haywire. Every movement feeling clumsy, my mind telling me all eyes were on me.

“Come on, the water is like a bath,” Vitor called over.

“Oh no,” I said, stuffing my hands under my arms. “Better not.”

“Why not? You afraid of the water?”

“No, but there’s jellyfish in there.” Which was true, or so I’d heard, except this was only my second reason. The first being I wasn’t about to embarrass myself.

“A rumour,” he said, walking backwards now. “Not true.”

“And how can you be so sure?”

“Because I went to check,” he said, which was no surprise. Of course he was the type to go and verify jellyfish claims instead of steering clear like a normal person.

“The water will dry out my skin,” I called over the roar of a rogue wave that swept almost up to my feet. “I’ve already moisturised.” I brandished my bare arms.

“Me too,” he said, laughing and lifting the front of his t-shirt revealing a sheened, copper torso with a trail of hair that meandered through a good set of abs.

A light bubble of lust opened up inside me then and I’d begun to feel abashed by how effortlessly he was drawing these physical reactions from me, when a wall of water rose up and slapped me in the face. Spluttering, I scrubbed at my eyes, blinked back into focus, and there he was, giggling like a trickster. Even now I can’t quite articulate what came over me then – perhaps a mixture of the growing easiness between us, how good the water felt on my skin, and quite frankly the audacity of him – but a surge of mischief shot through me and I kicked off my sliders and launched an even bigger wave over him, soaking him completely. He laughed hard at that, the most endearing music. A warm bloom of joy settled in my chest at his little chortle.

He loped over the wave that followed, back to dry safety, and turned to me, his wet t-shirt clinging to his lean frame and accentuating two plump nipples. “Come, I want to show you something,” he said. “Don’t forget those,” he added with a wink, nodding at my sliders. I kept my eye on him as I scooped them up and had to roll my lips to keep the smile from pushing through.

A short walk across the beach brought us to a hut with a pyramidal thatched roof. Beneath the thicket was a bar, stools against its four sides. Vitor vaulted onto one on the beach-facing side and I sidled up beside him, dropping my sliders onto the decking with a splat. Soft-bumping reggae oozed from some speakers, drifting down and swirling about us like mist, and just as soothing.

The bartender – tall, jacked and dreadlocked – slid two glasses of neon-green liquid towards a couple seated at the adjacent side, then beamed a full-watted smile at Vitor when he saw him. “My man!” he exclaimed; I caught the Bahamian-American twang in his accent. “Everyting cool?”

“My friend, I’m here in paradise,” Vitor said, “what could be better!” He swung out his arm and they performed some sort of bro-handshake.

“The usual?” The bartender asked, already pulling bottles from an overhead shelf.

“Yes, but two. This is my friend Marc-with-a-C.”

“Hello,” I said, gingerly offering my palm, which the bartender curtly clapped.

“Yes yes Marc-with-a-C. Hope you’re enjoying your stay with us. Two Bahama Mamas coming right up.”

As he made our drinks I swivelled on my stool towards Vitor. “What’s a Bahama Mama?”

“A surprise, I think you’ll like it.”

“Refreshing I hope,” I said, wiping a prickle of sweat from the back of my neck.

And there was something in the way he said Something like that that made me glance over at the bartender, despite Vitor telling me not to, and notice him glugging white rum into our cups with abandon.

“Oh no, I can’t…”

He made a strangled sound then, flinging his head back. “Why not?”

“Because,” I said. And then when not even a flicker passed through those hazel eyes I added, “It’s-” I checked my watch - “not even midday!”

“Gah!" he flicked his wrist, dismissing. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Too young to worry about such things, especially in paradise. Besides, it’s twelve o’clock somewhere, right?”

I wanted to tell him the saying is 'It’s five o’ clock somewhere', but quite suddenly, he leaned forward and gently cupped my knee.

“Do you drink?” he asked me.

“Y-yes but-” my knee burned gloriously beneath his touch - “only with meals usually, l-like a glass of wine with dinner or something?"

“So long as you do actually drink,” he said, still scorching me, “and if not for religion or health, I’d like you to have just one Bahama Mama with me. Please.”

As if on cue, the bartender brought our drinks over and slid them across the bar towards us - sun orange in colour with cute, paper flamingos on the straws. Vitor freed me and I released a breath I didn’t even realise I was holding. He grabbed his cocktail, held it between us, looked at me from beneath his long eyelashes - and that’s when I knew it was useless. My resolve evaporated from me, sublimed from solid straight to gas.

“Fine,” I said, grabbing my own glass and clinking it against his. “It is my last day after all. And I guess it’s past twelve o’clock in the UK.”

“Aht-aht!” he called abruptly as I went to take a sip. “You must look me in the eyes otherwise seven years bad sex.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” I said, just as a wolfish grin slid onto his face, so contagious I had no hope of holding back my own this time.

~*~

So, one Bahama Mama turned into three, and by the time we were halfway through the fourth, the sun had crawled over our canopy and was making its descent towards the ocean, its rays tingling our sandy legs. And, I was tipsy. In that time, I’d learned Vitor was twenty-two and Brazilian – Carioca, he corrected me, as he was from Rio. He was island-hopping the Caribbean, on his own, on a very-nebulous-sounding career break that he wouldn’t delve into, despite my probing. Oh, and he was a massive “soccer” fan (I tried telling him the correct term was football, to no avail), and he preferred watching English football, and supported Liverpool, which he seemed proud of but meant absolutely nothing to me. All of that - plus the fact he’d been playing frisbee on the beach for the past two days, not to mention the general athleticism of his body and his gait - put me in a fit of giggles when he told me the reason he was travelling – in the Caribbean – was to read.

“What’s so funny?” he said, his accent now streaked with humour and inebriation.

“I’m sorry,” I said, choking out the last of the giggles, “but I’ve literally spent my entire life around people who love to read and nowhere have I met anyone like you.”

“Why, what am I like?”

I deadpanned and jutted my head forward. “Vitor, you’re like a model… but nice.”

“A model?” he said, face quirked in amused disbelief. “Nice?” He swivelled to face me and lifted a bare foot onto his stool, rested his ear on his knee, and hit me with a full beam of those hazel eyes. “Are you flirting with me?”

I swallowed and traced a vein down his dangling leg.

A potent concoction of the sun kissing my skin, the gentle lapping of the waves in the distance – and yes, the Bahama Mamas! – had my inhibitions slipping away from me. I was there, after all, having spent hours with this boy, and the last time I’d felt I wanted to run away, to protect myself, was when we were by the pool. But the question came as though it were a bucket of ice dumped over me whilst sleeping, wrenching me from a dream.

“I’ve never flirted with anyone,” I said, which was true. I knew I was equivocating, but it was the best I could do.

“So you’re not sure?” he asked. All I could do was blink at him as the moisture was drawn from my mouth. “Well, would you flirt with me?”

“Vitor, be for real,” I ended up saying, because really? If I was the type of guy boys liked, flirting would be the very least I’d do. The thought made me take a sip of my cocktail to put up a barrier between us.

“Are girls your thing?”

My scalp tingled, the standard reaction whenever conversations edged near my sexuality. But with all those Bahama Mamas coursing through my veins, I found myself saying, “No, not girls.” I looked up, met his eyes, expecting his face to twist with disgust...

...but it never came. He only turned up the corner of his mouth in an inscrutable smile, or was it a grimace?

“Maybe not your type then,” he said.

“I would,” I said, sincerely, startling myself. “Flirt with you, I mean. I am – have been.”

“OK,” he said, and with that he swivelled away to face the sea, elbows propped against the bar.

Silence stretched between us.

Was... that it? Did he just want the ego boost of knowing I would flirt him, outing myself in the process? The gathering tide of excitement began to recede, leaving the jagged rocks of shame in its wake. I felt like a complete idiot, a deluded fool. What on earth would a carefree, well-travelled, beautiful, affable boy like Vitor want with me? I’d already written off any chance of finding happiness in this way and so was furious with myself for believing it might have been about to happen.

“I’m going to go,” I said eventually.

“Go where?” he said, wearing a look of boyish confusion.

I hopped off the stool, feeling the vertiginous swirl of drunkenness, and stepped into my sliders. “Back to the pool, maybe my room.” I looped my arm through my tote bag. “Probably finish reading.” Vitor got to his feet then and stepped towards me, that wonderful scent rising off him, but I stepped away. “Nice to meet you.”

“My room is near here,” he said as I stepped off the bar decking. I turned to face him. “Maybe we could read there?”

“Oh,” I said. My body went light beneath his gaze. “OK.”

~*~

Vitor wasn’t lying about his room being nearby. We had to walk further along the beach until we reached a pastel-pink block of villas.

“Wow. Ocean view,” I said.

“And ground floor too,” he replied, planting his hand on the wall and vaulting over into his patio. He turned back and offered his hand. I took it in mine, feeling its homely warmth, and allowed him to help me over. I stumbled into him on the other side and pressed against the firm, sinewy muscle of his pecs. We grinned sheepishly at each other.

Inside, the room was spotless, the acerbic smell of cleaning products told me housekeeping had not long visited. Over his bed, the ceiling fan spun idly.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked me. “A Bahama Mama?” That grin.

“You know how to make those?”

“It’s my favourite.” In this low light, his face was all sharp angles and lines, chiselled from stone.

“Don’t think I’ll do much reading if I have another of those,” I said. “Have you got water?”

“Sure.”

Anxiety kept rising and receding in my stomach. To distract myself, I went and perused his desk where three tall stacks of books were sitting. A range of genres – fantasy, horror, contemporary – and I felt a pang of guilt for clowning him earlier. Atop one of the stacks was a jumble of medals. I picked one up: 'Player of the Season' and an outline of a man about to kick a football were embossed on the gold.

“My job you were so interested in,” he said, coming up beside me and handing me a bottle of water. “I'm a soccer player, semi-pro.”

“Football,” I teased. He grinned, and for the first time his cheeks rouged. “Why the career break?”

“My heart wasn't in it. It was my father’s dream really.”

“What was your dream?”

“Books. Reading, writing. I wanted to go to university but…” he smiled ruefully.

In a distant, hazy way, I understood.

I stared at him, a coal of lust smouldering behind my navel. We locked eyes and a crackle of static sparkled between us. Vitor pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it to the side and I’d never seen anything quite so perfect: his hairy chest, his defined shoulders, the way his torso tapered down to his waist. An improbable paradise, for me.

He stepped towards me, a breath caught in my throat. His scent rose strong off his bare skin as his eyes flicked between mine and my mouth, mere inches away. My eyelids fluttered closed as our lips pressed together, my synapses exploding like fireworks.

He pulled away, my face trailed after his. “This OK?” he breathed.

I nodded, my heart fluttering wildly, then a thought struck me. “I’ve never…”

“Shh...” He stroked the nape of my neck with his thumb, I bristled with heat. “I’ll show you.”