You had picked the lounger farthest from the pool bar because you did not want to talk to anyone. Kasper had told you to enjoy the afternoon and had gone off to the second half of the meeting alone. The tile under your feet was hot enough to make you keep them on the deck of the chair. You laid the towel out flat and stretched onto it face-up. Your swim shorts stuck to the backs of your thighs. The sun had been on the deck since ten.
You closed your eyes because the sun was in them. When you opened them the sky was the same and the pool was the same and the color of your right forearm across your chest was not. The hair on it was gone. The skin was smoother. It had tanned in the ten minutes since you last looked. You pushed up on your elbow to look and the movement took less effort than you remembered. The elbow itself was smaller. Someone at the bar laughed.
The band across your chest was tight now, and it was above where the fabric had been before, and there was more chest under it than there had been an hour ago. You reached up and the hair that met your fingers was long. Wet. Not sweat. Wet from the pool you had not gone in yet. The strand you pulled forward was blonde. You had never been blonde. The strap on your shoulder slid off it as you moved and you did not put it back.
Your calves had drawn up. Shorter. Softer. The toes at the end of them were painted. Blue, like the bottom of the bikini you were now wearing. You did not remember getting into the bikini. You did not remember taking the shorts off. You laid one hand flat on your stomach. There was oil there. It was warm. Your hand skidded on it. You smelled the coconut of it and there was no denying whose stomach it was.
A shadow fell across your legs. You did not open your eyes yet. The shadow was tall and it stayed there. Waiting for something. You knew you were going to have to open your eyes and look up at whoever the shadow belonged to. You knew you were going to do it slowly, because you wanted to see the face when it saw yours.
You opened them.
He was maybe forty. Salt-and-pepper stubble. Linen shirt half unbuttoned. A hotel wristband on the same wrist that held the drink.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi."
"You alone?"
"For now."
He waited a beat. Then he tilted his head toward the elevators behind him.
"I'm two floors up. Corner. It's cooler."
You sat up. The chair creaked. The oil on your stomach caught the sun. You did not answer with your mouth. You picked up the towel and stood. He led. You followed.
His suite door closed behind you and the air-conditioning hit your bare skin all at once. The balcony was open. The pool was directly below, a bright cutout of blue. He set his drink down on the table by the door and did not go back for it.
You untied the top yourself because his hands were busy with the tie at your hip. The blue triangle fell onto the carpet. He walked you backward until the backs of your knees hit the bed and you sat down onto it.
He kicked the linen pants off. He was already ready. He knelt at the foot of the bed and put his hands on the insides of your knees and pushed them apart. His mouth went there first and stayed a long minute. You lay back and put both hands flat on the mattress and made a sound that traveled up out of you before you could catch it.
He stood up between your knees. He hooked his hands under them and lifted, and you felt him at you a second before he pushed in. It was slow, the whole way. He watched your face while he did it. He stopped when he was against you.
He held there. Then he started to move. He worked at a rhythm steady enough to make you close your eyes. The mattress rocked with the pace of it. The bikini bottom was still hooked around one ankle. You could feel the elastic of it against his hip.
He got faster and then slower and then faster again. He shifted you higher up his hips. The angle changed and the ceiling above you went white behind your eyelids. He put his hand at your throat, thumb along the line of your jaw, no pressure — just there. You came around him with your knees pressed against his ribs and your fingers dug into the sheet.
He kept going. His pace broke. He said something you did not catch. He pulled out and finished on your stomach where the oil was and it was warm too and mixed in with it.
Afterward he lay down beside you on the bed with one arm across his eyes. His breathing evened out. You stayed on your back and looked up at the ceiling. The A/C had a red light on it in one corner. The vent moved a piece of your own blonde hair against your cheek.