Papak’s Midwinter Kiss
by John Haymaker
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
Ryan wrenched his mouth. “Oh, yes. The incomparable Marco, fire-breather, girl-stealer, world-class a-hole...” He downed his beer, stood and ran to hurl the bottle with all his might as far out to sea as he could. “May Marco burn in hell!” he screamed, needing to be heard over the pounding surf.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned him again. Sorry,” Papak said, handing Ryan another beer. “This seems like kind of a bad night for you.”
Pain winced across Ryan’s face, but he shrugged it off. “His job looks dangerous as hell, actually.”
“It is. I saw him on another island a couple weeks ago. He got burned bad on one arm. This hotel was lucky to book him tonight. I heard hotel staff talking. Another venue cancelled his gig there at the last minute. Fire code violations,” he said and sprinkled reefer into rolling paper.
The sea crashed, and wind blew through Papak’s hair. He regarded the stars and sea again as he gave a dovetail twist to each end of the joint he’d just rolled. He lipped one end and held the lighter horizontal, clicked it once. The wind touched the flame to the tip in one try.
“How do you do that in the wind?” Ryan asked.
“I just go with the flow and let the wind do all the work.”
Ryan took a hit off the joint, then stood to piss. He kicked a trench in the sand a few feet away and turned his back. His stream splattered and splashed, churning up sand as it filled the trench with a bubbling, frothy pool of urine. He watched his puddle retreat into the beach and kicked sand over it once more. He went back to take his chair, but slipped and earned a seat on the beach.
Papak fell back laughing and rolled off his chair next to Ryan. They huddled there against the wind, shoulder to shoulder sharing the joint. As they savored the last bit of roach, their hands close and their heads close, their lips touched.
Ryan was unsure who kissed whom first or if it even was a kiss or more of a gaffe, but Ryan didn’t pull away and breathed in Papak’s scent, a mix of apricot and almond. As he leaned in, Papak let the last of the roach fly on the wind, trailed by a torpedo of sparks.
Ryan leaned back in the sand, then realized his fly was open. He reached to fix himself, but Papak pushed Ryan’s hand away. Ryan seemed to have no real strength to resist, then finally pressed Papak’s hand down over his open fly. To Ryan, it was just another sensation, another effect of being high. Waves broke against the shore like cannon fire as high tide rolled in.
Afterward, Ryan sat up and saw Papak standing before him naked, his penis as large and dark as a beer bottle. Papak finished a beer and hurled the bottle far into the bay. Ryan stood and chugged his down before maddeningly hurling the bottle even further. He stripped, carelessly casting his shirt and shorts aside. The wind blew suddenly cold.
Ryan hunched his shoulders and stiffened his body to keep warm while Papak lifted his jeans from the beach chair. His belt buckle jangled as he pulled out a string of condom packs and held one out toward Ryan. Ryan tore it open at one corner and rolled the condom over his erection. Papak turned around, and pressed Ryan’s cheek forward, guiding Ryan until he was fully in.
Ryan breathed deep at Papak’s neck, buried his nose deep in his curls, tasted salt on his neck, the way the ocean might taste snails or corals. He told himself he didn’t know what he was doing. He told himself he was drunk. He told himself it was okay. He watched the sea break against the shore, almost lashing with anger. He watched the tide recede, rejected by the sand. Then the sea rose once more and replied with fury and vengeance. Ryan felt the fury, the anger, the rejection, revenge and release.
Papak gathered his clothes in his arms and headed toward his hotel room. He turned back to Ryan. “You room with me tonight if you need to, I mean that was your girlfriend I saw you with at the bar, am I right?”
“Yes. Was is the operative word.”
“Was? That sounds bad. Honestly, if Marco hadn’t moved on her I might have myself, and then maybe you’d be out here now with Marco.” Papak laughed. Ryan shrugged. As they neared the hotel, they stumbled and hopped, putting on their clothes one leg at a time.
Ryan left early morning. The tide was low, winds weak but steady. Low hanging clouds hung over the bay, turning the water gray. Ryan sat on a table for a while. The beach prep team raked over two gold foil Trojan packs, collected them into the refuse bin. A seagull perhaps mistook a latex sheath for entrails, picked at it, turned it over, eyed it closely, then flew a few skipping-hops toward the surf and dropped it in favor of seaweed. A ghost crab crawled over the other condom, straddle it with translucent spindly, spidery legs, raised a claw momentarily, worked its pincers and moved off as the sea lapped closer and the condom floated out to sea, filled with water and sank.
Ryan combed the beach for an hour, but locals had already claimed whatever the sea offered. He found a secluded spot on a bluff and sat with his feet on driftwood, knees drawn up to his chest, an arm wrapped around the ankles, chin on knees, watching the sea, the birds, the midday sun burn off the clouds. He pulled out his cellphone frequently, scrolled the screen with his thumb, responded to work emails and waited.
Late afternoon, Ryan finally texted Kendra: “Need 2 talk w/ U.”
“K. I’m listening”
“In person.”
“K. Where R U?”
“Behind the pump house.”
He wouldn’t go to their room, not after Kendra took Marco there. So Kendra had to come out. Before leaving, she packed a satchel with a few of Ryan’s things, then left the room wearing shades and a wide-brimmed sun hat pulled low over her eyes. Kendra didn’t know for sure whether anyone else knew what she’d done, but she felt like all eyes were on her; every passing conversation seemed a whisper about her.
Ryan waited behind the pump house in a gazebo surrounded by date palms, fig and banana trees and the shrills of flittering birds. He was smoking when Kendra arrived, a collection of tamped out filters lay at his feet, the blackened ash of each ground into the fruit and leaf stained concrete. He glanced up at her briefly as she seated herself.
Her lip quivered; she cried and spoke in soft voice, “I can’t believe what I’ve done.” She breathed in deep. “It’s like I have multiple personalities all of a sudden.” She brushed tear-moistened hair from her face. “What was I even thinking?” She pulled a date off a nearby branch and wrestled it between fingers.
“We just had too much to drink,” is all Ryan said.
“You can’t blame alcohol.”
“Marco, then. He’s an entertainer here; he shouldn’t be hitting on hotel guests,” he said and flicked his cigarette at the base of a palm.
“I can’t blame Marco, either. It’s just fucking me. Don’t you get it?” she said looking at him, red-faced, tears leaking beneath her shades. “I can’t even forgive myself,” she said and started to look away.
Ryan threw out a hand to stop her. “Or it’s just fucking me. Did you think of that? Maybe I don’t satisfy you. Maybe that’s why I didn’t bother trying to stop you last night. If you really want to know, I followed you both back to the room. Marco had just shut the door, and I was out there fumbling for my keycard. I was half ready to kick the door down and kill you both. But that party boy passed by carrying a six-pack. Then I just thought, you do what you want; we’re not hitched.”
“Yeah, Kwan said he saw you together.”
“So? He saw what he saw.”
“Huh? Just that you two were throwing beer bottles into the bay.”
Ryan gnawed his lip and lit another cigarette. “Look, I had a few more shots than you last night. The party boy and I were sitting on the beach, downing beers and smoking reefer. When he started giving me head, I just let him do it.”
“What are you telling me? You’re gay now?” she asked, nearly coughing out the words and throwing up a hand to balance the guy she knew, or thought she knew, with what he’d just revealed.
“Just because I did it with another guy, does that make me gay? I had to do something, anything to get back at you,” he said, flicking his cigarette butt toward a palm. Kendra looked down, then away. “But it was just sex,” he said.
“So what I did with Marco was just sex? Is that what you think?”
Ryan squinted, looked past Kendra. “Yeah. Basically. What else? Just sex.”
Kendra bit a lip, folded arms over her gut and sighed. She had to hide her anger, revulsion that he’d slept with a guy, maybe even madder that he scored with the party boy. But of course she couldn’t say that. After a moment she asked, “Did you like it with another guy?”
“We did it twice, so yeah, I guess I did,” Ryan said, looking at her hard and direct, snarling the last word.
“Are you seeing him again?”
“I doubt it. He’s on Abercrombie’s payroll. His name’s Papak. He’s like a trendsetter, causing a stir in hotel bars is his job. He gave me this change of clothes yesterday,” he said, motioning toward his outfit.
Through her tears and sun glasses, Kendra hadn’t noticed until then, but Ryan was wearing Abercrombie jeans and a t-shirt like the party boy wore.
“Anyway, he said he’s bi. He gave me a short wave in passing this morning, kind of felt like he was blowing me off. Maybe I’m just not that good at doing it... with anybody,” Ryan said, admitting he knew his fault with Kendra.
Ryan stood up and looked down at her, shaking his head, gnawing his lower lip. “I’ll walk you back to the room.”
“Here, I packed a few things for you,” she said, leaning to pick up the satchel, and handed it to Ryan.
The walk was easier than sitting. They both felt lighter, unburdened. Kendra stood at the hotel door a moment. Neither of them knew what to say or where to go from there.
Ryan had already turned to leave when Kendra pressed her keycard against the lock. Perhaps not hearing the door close shut, Ryan hesitated, then turned back to see she’d left the door ajar. He tentatively pushed the door open before stepping inside, pushing the door wide-open as he did. They sat for a time in silence: Kendra in a chair, Ryan at the foot of the bed.
Of course, he smelled Marco there, the lingering scent of coal oil and smoke, snuffed-out wick, or he imagined he could. He imagined Marco breathing fire into Kendra that night, and Ryan drew in a deep breath, wishing he might.
Just then Papak came up the walk, carrying a Crown six-pack and a boombox, shrill with Caribbean tunes. “Knock, knock,” he said, sticking his head into the room tentatively. Then seeing Kendra and Ryan look up said, “I’m looking for a party, how ’bout you guys?” His presence and the music changed the mood in the room. “You have a nice room here,” he said having a look around, “honor bar, sunken whirlpool, balcony overlooking the shoreline.” He offered Ryan and Kendra each a Crown beer.
Kendra eyed Papak while sipping hers. “I loved watching you dance last night.”
“I saw you out there, too,” he said. “You’re alright.”
Embarrassed, Kendra looked away as Papak set his boombox down on a dresser, turned up the volume and grabbed Kendra’s hands, pulling her up. “Don’t be modest,” he said as she tried to follow his lead to the throbbing boombox beat as they sipped beer.
Ryan danced behind them for a time. Kendra watched Ryan in the mirror, noticing he really had the moves down, the two-step, confident, cool, letting the low-rise waist of his jeans slink below the branding of his white underwear. All the activity made the room suddenly seem a little warm. Ryan pulled his t-shirt over his head and threw it aside onto a rattan nightstand.
Kendra examined the AC, toggling the switch, but it was already on low. She shook her head, saying, “It must be broken.”
“No worries,” Papak said and slid the patio door open a little to let in a breeze from the bay below. A small bird, a finch or wren, swooped in and fluttered about the coffee service, about as deft as a humming bird. It pecked between packets, snatched a brown one in its beak and fluttered precariously, lifting a packet about the same weight as its missile-shaped body. Kendra jumped up, unsure whether to close the door or chase the bird.
Papak laughed aloud as another bird flew in and snatched a packet for itself. Kendra chased it, saying, “That’s not good for you. You can’t have that.” She slid the door closed, then thought better of it and opened it wider. “As if I know what a bird needs,” she said looking out over the balcony.
“Exactly,” Ryan said, taking Kendra and Papak each by one hand, pulling to get them dancing again.
“The breeze is nice, but a couple of cold drinks will cool us down even more,” Papak said, “unless the birds say it’s not good for us.”
Kendra smiled. “They got their sugar—”
Ryan retrieved bottles of rum and Coke from the honor bar. Humming and swaying to the music tracks, Kendra started jets on the pool, sprinkling in a measure of pink, sandalwood-scented bath salts. Papak stripped and entered the pool. Kendra followed, already reclining in the small whirlpool next to Papak when Ryan waded into the bubbling water naked, carrying three tall drinks dripping with condensation wedged between two hands.
Kendra relieved him of one, Papak another as Ryan sipped from his own and seated himself across from them. Above the hum of the jets and the boombox beats, winds picked up and set waves crashing against the shore below, filling the room with the sea breeze, lifting the fiery scent of Marco one last time.
Copyright © 2022 by John Haymaker
