Moondogs - Alexander Yates [85]
Benicio didn’t say anything. He sat on the edge of the bed, and then stood again. From the bathroom came the downy, frictive sound of a towel on skin.
“Quit fuming,” she said after a moment of silence. “I didn’t touch anything, you big baby. But next time, I will. Next time you’re not here when you’re supposed to be, I’ll rob you blind.” She laughed at this. A moment later she emerged from the bathroom, wearing a towel around her bust. She was, indeed, the woman from the night before. Water still beaded her dark shoulders, making her skin look sequined. Her fingers rested as lightly on the doorframe as the towel rested on her.
“Howard’s not here,” he said.
She was startled to see him there, but not as startled as he felt she should be. “Who are you?” she asked without so much as shifting her weight.
“I’m his son,” Benicio said. He watched her collarbones rise and fall as she breathed. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Solita.” She let go the doorframe and took a step toward him. “When does Howard come back?”
“I don’t know. When he does I’ll tell him you were here.”
Solita took another step toward him. Her wet feet left prints on the carpet. “I know you,” she said.
“No, you don’t. You haven’t met me. I’d like you to leave now, please.”
“Last night,” she said, “you were with Bobby. You bought me a drink.” Then, without the kind of announcement that he felt himself entitled to, Solita lowered the towel down below her waist. Her skin was the same color all over and smooth save a long scar below her belly button and a little tattoo that sat low on her right hip. It was a black sun, dipping below the nubby towel like a horizon.
She reached out for his hand and placed it on one of her small breasts, his palm first grazing her dark nipple and then pressing hard against it. He was used to girls with heft—even Alice had a soft weight in his hands. Solita’s breast felt firmer, like a muscle after stretching. He forced his hand back to his side and she laughed at him. “You want me to stay,” she said.
“I don’t.”
She grabbed hold of the khaki just beneath his belt buckle. “You’re a liar.”
He stepped back. “Get out of here, please.”
Solita’s face stayed soft but her top lip curled just a bit. She dropped the towel completely and stepped back into her crumpled green dress. “Howard didn’t say his son was a faggot.”
“That’s fine.” He took her by the wrist and started to walk her to the door. Her pace quickened, so much so that it felt for a moment like he was holding her back.
“Fuck you,” she said as he pushed her out of the room. He closed the door on her and locked it. He left his father’s suite, closed the adjoining door to his own and locked that as well.
FINDING A WOMAN in his father’s room was no surprise. This was the second time it had happened. The first was on the last day of the father and son dive trip they’d taken five years back, a trip to celebrate his graduation and impending move to college in Virginia. Benicio was supposed to be out all day on a resort boat in the Murcielagos, but the corroded purge valve on his regulator got jammed and the boat crew had been unable to fix it or swap it for a spare. So they headed back a few hours early.
Benicio didn’t knock—why should he have?—before returning to the room he shared with his father. His first thought upon opening the door was that he’d walked in on strangers. The two twin beds had been pushed together to make a king-size with a crack in it. On his knees on the left bed was a nude man draped in fat like fabric. A woman was in front of him, halfway between kneeling and lying on her belly. Her knees made deep indentations in the mattress, her backside bucking up against his looming weight. Both of them looked up at Benicio as soon as he opened the door and surprisingly enough he recognized the woman first. It was the dive instructor with the mannish jaw—the woman he’d been flirting with and dreaming about fucking on the concrete floor of the tank room