“They wouldn’t, OK?” Ben sounds a tad impatient. “We’ve tried. Which is why I’m asking you.”
“Fifty quid.” The husband puts down his crossword, frowning thoughtfully as though this is a new clue. “What—cash?”
“Cash, check, whatever you like. A credit on your room bill. Don’t care.”
“Wait a minute.” The husband jabs his finger at Ben as if he’s suddenly worked it all out. “Is this a scam? You run up hundreds of pounds on my phone bill and give me fifty quid for the pleasure?”
“No! I just want your room!”
“But there are so many other spaces.” The wife looks puzzled. “Why do you want our room? Why not a corner of the lobby? Why not—”
“Because I want to have sex in it, OK?” Ben explodes. I can see heads popping up everywhere under umbrellas. “I want to have sex,” he repeats more calmly. “With my wife. On my honeymoon. Is that too much to ask?”
“You want to have sex?” The wife draws herself away from Ben as though she might catch a disease. “On our bed?”
“It’s not your bed!” says Ben impatiently. “It’s a hotel bed. We can have the sheets changed. Or use the floor.” He turns to me as though for confirmation. “The floor would be OK, right?”
My entire face is prickling. I can’t believe he’s dragging me into this. I can’t believe he’s telling the whole beach we’re going to do it on the floor.
“Andrew!” The wife turns to her husband. “Say something!”
Andrew is silent, frowning for a moment—then looks up.
“Five hundred and not a penny less.”
“What?” Now it’s the wife’s turn to explode. “You have to be joking! Andrew, that’s our room and this is our honeymoon and we’re not having some strange couple going in it to do … anything.” She grabs the room card, which is lying on Andrew’s sun bed, and stuffs it down her swimsuit defiantly. “You’re sick.” She glowers at Ben. “You and your wife.”
Heads have turned all over the beach. 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 drag Ben’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.
