This entry is one of nine that I wrote in roughly 8 hours and over a 28 hour period. I apologise for the quality of writing, but had to type furiously to get it all out before I collapsed. I preferred you read it in order:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 The next morning was a lazy one. I spent most of it lazing around in a bed, watching TV, and waiting for breakfast. Zodiac called me out to talk that morning, and he said to me that he would be his normal jolly self because he made a promise – essentially that he was under an obligation to maintain a pleasant disposition for our trip in Tobago – but he did not know what would happen after that.Me, after a sigh: “You do whatever you have to do. Just tell me what you are going to do so I know what to expect.”
He might have nodded. Or he might have just stared into the trees in front of us. And then he walked off. I stayed there, sitting on the couch, staring at the trees, the way Zodiac might have been, waiting for the burning sensation in my eyes to go away. They did after 5 minutes but before 10. Then I got back up and went back to the room with the kitchen.
The morning waxed away into the afternoon. It was spent in a daze, and I forget how we spent it all. I do remember Kerri, Candy, Zodiac, and I going out in search of hot peppers and coconut water. Other things as well, perhaps. And Zodiac kept his promise. He was right back to his friendly self that day. Some of my friends commented on how friendly he was, and as many of these comments came before the incident at Shade as those that came after.
We did not hit the beach until the sun began reaching towards the horizon – sometime after 5pm. Zodiac and I took the first shift of watching our bags under the umbrellas and on the recline chairs we rented for TTD 30 (less than USD 5 and GBP 3). We sat there silently for a few minutes, eating chennette – little green balls that you punched through the skin of to get at the meaty orange layers that you would suck off of the seeds. Then we began talking, about nothing much in particular – his dad, his ambitions, the usual. Things were back to normal, it seemed.
Second shift began after the first bunch of chennete was nothing but seeds and skin, and we took to the waters. It was there we frolicked until someone yelled jelly fish. Out of the water, the life guards took over, and the first jelly fish was dragged onto the beach. It was a huge thing that felt like jell-o packed tightly into a clear plastic bag. Harry and Rum showed us the red welts on their back from where the tentacles had groped them. Kris could not show us his welts because they were in the vicinity of his ball sacks.
We sat under the umbrella as the sun went down and the people on the beach amused themselves by pulling several jelly fish out of the water. We watched the massive jelly fish slaughter with slightly annoyed amusement (well, at least, I did) and waited for someone to fall face first into the exposed tentacles of a snagged jelly fish. Unfortunately, it did not happen, but we did pick out the stars who would play the main roles in a movie we intended to produce in the coming year. It’s called “Jelly Fish on a Beach”, not quite as catchy as “Snakes on a Plane”, but it’s just a working title.
At some point, Zodiac disappeared and returned with a bracelet made of plastic beads and stones. He said it would match the chain I had purchased in Tobago a few months ago, and the blue and silver watch that everyone mistook for a bracelet because it was so pretty. I said thank you and I put it on. I have not taken it off since.
We took pictures and Harry took a video of Mae and I doing the “dutty wine”. That is something I would leave you guys to research yourselves. We stopped doing the “dutty wine” when Kris realised that a gang of guntas (hard-core niggers) were gathering around us.
Eventually we left there and went back to the resort, because a reliable source had informed us that there were not any jelly fish in the pool. When we got there some of the guys went almost immediately to the pool. I went to the room with the kitchen to wait for food and to watch “The Island”. Zodiac came in search of me, and found me watching TV and eating fries, which he found totally unacceptable. He tried to take me over his shoulder, but I fought back. I thought I was doing pretty well to stave off his attack, but everyone knew that Zodiac, who was about three times my size (standing at six feet seven inches, and carrying on him a weight no one would venture to guess) could very easily pick me up and carry me if he wanted to.
But he did want to, and soon he was carrying me, fries in hand, to the pool. He did not throw me in; it was more of gently putting me down, until my feet were about a foot from the bottom, and then letting me fall in the rest of the way. Zodiac then went for some very expensive wine he had bought for the occasion (one bottle of alcohol among several he had purchased for the trip), and we toasted to Tobago.
That might have been when I saw him. A lean white guy with hair just past the nape of his neck, walking shirtless to and from his room. My eyes followed his path.
“Is he coming in the pool?” I asked Mae. “I hope so.”
I might have made some cat calls – watching him slyly as I spoke loud enough to know I might be speaking about him, but not clearly enough for him to understand what I was saying. He seemed to be dutifully ignoring me, not even turning his head while he passed. I figured he might have been annoyed with the volume of fun we were having and was having absolutely nothing to do with us.
Kerri, Candy, and Tami were nowhere to be seen because they were all the way over in the room with the kitchen cooking us some food. Zodiac and I carried our drinks to them, and I stole the opportunity to stay over in their room to watch TV, and pilfer more fries. Zodiac soon realised I was missing and came for me again. This time, he passed the pool straight and went to the exposed shower where he blasted me with cold water, and rubbed my skin to make sure it was clean. Then, he threw himself into the pool, with me wrapped around him. Now I cannot swim in deep water – I can swim, but deep water scares the fuck out of me – so I had to hold on to him for dear life. I think he liked that.
He eventually carried me to the shallows. As a group we talked and laughed. Zodiac took out more alcohol – vodka this time and we were drinking screwdrivers. After one screwdriver, I became lucid. I felt the urge to dive. I kept going to the deep end of the pool, diving in, and then swimming underwater to the other end of the pool. I told you I could swim – it’s just that if I’m at the surface of the water, and my toes can’t graze the bottom, I freak. When I’m just swimming underwater, I come up when I can no longer breathe, and luckily, I hold my breath fairly long. I think all those blow jobs helped me. The number of times I dove and swam, dove and swam, eluded me. Perhaps I was exhibiting myself to the White guy I saw earlier. He, and an older gentleman were sitting on chairs about three doors away from our room. Perhaps the alcohol had me lucid – during the Tobago trip I realised that when I drink, and am near water, I feel the need to put my head underwater for a very long time.
Another piece of clarity presented itself during the trip – there was sexual tension between Mae, and Kris, Kerri’s brother. Prior to the trip, Kerri vowed to chain herself to Mae and keep Kris in a separate room. This is why Kerri being in the room with the kitchen all the way on the other side of the compound, and Mae and I being in the same room – right next to the Penis room where Kris stayed – was important.
In the pool on Sunday night, the sexual tension began blossoming. Slowly. Mae began simulating a blow job on Kris, in a joking way of course, laughing and saying she had to show Kerri. When Kerri came, Kris and Mae began demonstrating the sexual positions they had come up with. That’s when Harry pulled out the most dangerous piece of equipment in the modern world – a camera/video phone. He took videos of the simulated sexual positions. He took videos of me doing the dutty wine on Zodiac’s shoulders. He took pictures of Mae and I, each of us perched on each of Zodiac’s shoulders. He took pictures of my (bikini clad) boobs pressed together. He took pictures of Rum with Mae and I’s butts at either side of his face. He took videos of me jiggling my arse on top of the railing that led to the swimming pool. I can make it clap. *raucous laughter*
Slowly, people began leaving the pool, basically turned off by what we were doing. I was too lucid to care. Soon, it was just Rum, Harry, Kris, Mae and I. Even Zodiac was gone. He was sitting down talking to the White guy and his older friend.
Eventually Kerri came to us, and said something to Kris, her brother. I was too lucid to listen. Later Kerri explained that it was something to the effect of not liking what we were doing, and being upset that her brother was involved in such slackness. Kris had a look on his face, as if he had been caught doing something despicable and felt ashamed that doing what he did had ever crossed his mind, and he came out of the pool. I exited as well.
I went to Zodiac who was still with the foreigners, and sat on his lap. The two were from Syria and were on business. Let’s call the one I was eyeing since in the pool The Syrian for simplicity. For further simplicity, let’s not call the other Syrian anything at all because I could not care less about what he had to say with The Syrian in my sights. Okay fine. Let’s call him The Other Syrian. I bet I won’t have to mention that name any more than I already did.
The Syrian, The Other Syrian, Zodiac and I spoke about Syria, America, Lebanon, Tobago, and politics. Other things as well, but mainly those things. Up close I realised how good looking he was, and how difficult it was to understand what he was saying.
“He sounds like Michele,” I whispered to Zodiac. That was my Italian fuck friend of old.
I got up from Zodiac’s lap on occasion – once for Pringles, another time for white chocolate fingers, a third time for pelau. The Other Syrian (fuck! I mentioned his name again) eventually left to go bathe in the pool – he considered it safe to go in since all of us had gotten out. The rest of us continued talking. My attention peaked at this point in the conversation:
“I had a Trinidadian girlfriend, yes…” The Syrian was saying.
Zodiac was the one who asked the question that played in my mind.
“What was she? Indian, White, Black…”
“She was half Indian, half Chinese.”
Inwardly, my hopes dropped, but I still spoke up.
“Oh, a Chindian!”
Zodiac: “Yeah, we call them Chindians.”
Then Zodiac made some comment about White women that was neither here nor there – but it did what I suspected it intended to do – it solicited The Syrian’s opinion of White women.
“No, I don’t like White women,” he said, making a face.
Zodiac: “Yeah, I guess you’re fed up of what you’re accustomed to.”
The Syrian: “No, I am not accustomed to them. I never really liked them that much. I prefer girls her colour.” And he pointed to me, sprawled on Zodiac’s lap, my colour clearly exposed in that tiny purple bikini (the third I wore for the trip).
I took a mental note, and changed the topic.