Wedding Night

Great.
    “Fine,” says Ben at last. “Well, thank you for your time.”
    As Ben is heading back to me, a large, hairy guy in tight swimming trunks leaps up from a nearby sun bed and taps Ben on the shoulder. Even from here I can smell his aftershave.
    “Hey,” he says in a heavy Russian accent. “I have a room.”
    “Oh, really?” Ben turns, interested.
    “You, me, your wife, my new wife, Natalya—you want to make some fun?”
    There’s a pause—then Ben swivels to meet my gaze, eyebrows raised. I stare back in slight shock. Is he actually
asking me
? I shake my head violently, mouthing, “No, no, no.”
    “Not today,” says Ben, in what sound like genuinely regretful tones. “Another time.”
    “No worries.” The Russian guy claps him on the shoulder, and Ben comes back over to his sun bed. He slides onto it and stares savagely out to sea.
    “Well, so much for that bright idea. Bloody frigid cow.”
    I lean over and poke him hard in the chest. “Hey, what was that? Did you want to take him up on his offer? That Russian?”
    “At least it would have been something.”
    Something?
I stare at him incredulously, till he looks up.
    “What?” he says defensively. “It
would
have been something.”
    “Well, excuse me for not wanting to share my wedding night with a gorilla and a girl with rubber boobs,” I say sarcastically. “Sorry to spoil your fun.”
    “Not rubber,” says Ben.
    “You’ve looked, have you?”
    “Silicone.”
    I can’t help snorting. Meanwhile, Ben is deftly flinging a couple of towels up over our parasol. What’s he doing?
    “Just creating a bit of privacy,” he says with a wink, and squeezes next to me on my sun bed, his hands all over me like an octopus. “God, you’re hot. You haven’t got a crotchless bikini on, have you?”
    Is he serious?
    Actually, a crotchless bikini would have been handy.
    “I don’t think they even exist—” I suddenly notice two children watching us in curiosity. “Stop!” I hiss, and dragBen’s hand out of my bikini bottoms. “We’re
not
doing it on a sun bed! We’ll get arrested!”
    “Shaved ice, madame? Lemon flavor?” We both jump about a million miles as Hermes ducks his head under the towels and proffers a tray bearing two cones. I am honestly going to have a heart attack before I leave this place.
    For a while we sit in silence, slurping at our shaved ice and listening to the low hum of beach chatter and waves lapping the sand.
    “Look,” I say at last. “It’s a shit situation, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Either we sit here, boiling with frustration and getting ratty with each other, or we go and do something till the room’s ready.”
    “Like what?”
    “You know.” I try to sound optimistic. “Fun holiday activities. Tennis, sailing, canoeing. Ping-Pong. Whatever they’ve got.”
    “Sounds riveting,” says Ben moodily.
    “Let’s go for a walk, anyway, and see what we can find.”
    I want to get away from this beach. Everyone keeps turning to look at us while they whisper behind their paperbacks, and the Russian guy keeps winking at me.
    Ben finishes his shaved ice and leans over to kiss me, his icy lips parting mine with a delicious lemony, salty taste.
    “We
can’t
,” I say as his hand automatically finds my bikini top. “Look, stop.” I wrench his hand away. “It makes it too hard. No touching. Not till our room’s ready.”
    “No touching?” He stares at me incredulously.
    “No touching.” I nod resolutely. “Come on. Let’s walk through the hotel and whatever activity we find first, we’ll do. Yes? Deal?”
    I wait for Ben to get to his feet and slip into his flip-flops.Georgios is heading toward us down the path from the hotel, and to my disbelief he’s actually holding a salver bearing a glass of orange juice and a dish of brown M&M’s.
    “Madame.”
    “Wow!” I drain the orange juice in one gulp and crunch a couple of M&M’s. “That’s wonderful.”
    “Is our room ready yet?” demands Ben abruptly. “It must be.”
    “I believe not, sir.” Georgios’s gloomy expression descends yet further. “I believe a problem has arisen with the fire alarm.”
    “The fire alarm?” Ben echoes incredulously. “What do you mean, the fire alarm?”
    “A sensor was knocked as the beds were moved. Unfortunately, this must be fixed before we can allow you back into the room. It is for your own safety. My deepest apologies, sir.”
    Ben has both his hands to his head.