Chapter 05: Vacation

With a resolute sigh, I applied my toe to the bottom of my bag, between the wheels. I shunted it forward a little more, as we waited for the special people's doors to open.

Celia's little left shoulder pressed into my right triceps comfortingly.

I was keeping my eyes down on my bag, to keep me from having a meltdown, just from watching the blatant fuckery going on in front of us.

At Celia's playful bump, I looked over and she giggled happily. My little ray of sunshine immediately lightened my mood, but I did not want to share that. So I made a face and stuck my tongue out at her.

Celia shouldered playfully into me, jostling my balance. The little woman carrying my child looked radiant and vivacious! Her rounding, firming womb beginning to show several weeks before, but still not enough to prevent a proper mating press fuck, where we could stare into each other's eyes.

I looked up at Ramona and my rage spiked.

She was mirroring Celia's claiming posture on Rico-Suave. She was not as obvious as Celia, with Juan in the middle, but Ramona was definitely standing closer to him on the left side, than Luna was on his right.

Juan was schlepping one of Ramona's excessive bags for her too.

That was her excuse, and she was sticking with it apparently.

Ramona on the left, brushed and grazed Juan's shoulder in the middle, while Luna's cute beautifully rounded cheerleader's ass filled out and strained her jeans magically! I traced those legs and ass, up her back, to her long flow of curly black hair, ending just above her lower back.

Luna's tits and ass had started bigger than Celia's, but now that Celia was carrying, Celia's once petite tits sure seemed to fill out larger, matching Luna's now!

Celia gently shoulder-checked me again, giggling some more.

I suddenly realized Luna's curly hair was not covering her face, and she was staring at me with her full lips pulled tight to the side as she gauged me.

The girl just caught me staring at her ass!

She ignored it though.

For the hundredth time, Luna asked, "So, explain to me again why we're suddenly going on a vacation?"

Juan and Ramona both turned their eyes to me too. They turned into each other to look back at me.

I held the eyes of both, deliberately coldly neutral for a full second each, before flicking my eyes back to Luna on the right side of their threesome in front of me.

Luna's amused eyes matched Celia's, her deep mysterious brown eyes youthful and playful for a change.

I was compelled to answer, and told the cluster, "I lost a bet!"

She sure as shit knew the answer, but Luna needled, "Who did you lose to?"

I growled in my throat.

Celia chirped happily, publicly stabbing me in the back in the process, "Me!"

I glanced down at the little traitor.

She shoulder-checked me again.

A flicker of shock and quickly dismissed awareness passed Ramona's eyes. She used a minuscule shake of her head, unconsciously, physically punctuating her disregard. It was like she deliberately did not want to see what was right in front of her.

It was like watching the denial phase of that grief system arrive and disappear in an instant.

That was interesting because she had been out on her adventures with Juan for months before anything happened between Celia and me. Long enough for Celia to notice the opportunity and make her moves. It was almost like Ramona was thinking that I was incapable of doing the same or better than her.

Truth be told, that thought was a little insulting and only served to harden my resolve. She thought so little of me that at first, I was below her notice, while she went out cheating. And now that I was moving independently of her she was rejecting what she was seeing because she did not like the answer that was in front of her face that I might be desirable to someone else.

Rico-Suave, looking away from Luna, his girlfriend, and over Ramona, my wife, finally dropped a pair of nuts and not only looked me in the eyes but finally spoke to me more than 'Hola' as he breezed into my house on his way to my wife's side. He hesitated and vacillated a little. I eyed him calmly while he finally asked, "So, umm, ya only say you lost a bet. Umm, what was the bet?"

I sighed and looked down at Celia.

Celia was infinitely amused and shoved my shoulder with her little left hand, knocking herself back, as I only jostled a little. She snapped, "Go on! Stop being such a wimp! Admit you were wrong, and lost to a girl!"

Careful to avoid direct statements of money amounts, I began carefully, "Celia and I have worked together for about three and a half months now."

I left out that was when we started fucking in earnest and slightly before she actually started making money with me.

I continued, "I taught her, and she kept telling me how good she was. The bet was about a month into things." I considered and added the slight needle, "I guess it was about two weeks after she landed in our front bedroom."

Celia interrupted, "I told Alex he could do really well with beauty stuff. He laughed and told me he was not going to sell anything he did not understand." Diving into her flirty gossip persona, she lunged forward, happily slipping her arm into mine. Celia bounced happily, effervescing her inexhaustible energy as she babbled to her friend, explaining Luna's question, while the others could listen if they wanted, "I told him I understand it! I came up with a plan, and we did the research. The next thing I knew, he had me building the offer, email scripts and ad copy."

Luna asked again, "So, why are we here? Standing in line for a cruise in Galveston?"

I sighed and filled in for Celia, "Because Luna, Galveston is down the street making departure easy. And, you're one of Celia's customers."

Luna jerked her head back like she was avoiding a grease popping hot stove, or blast of hot air from an oven. She demanded, "What do ya mean?"

Excited beyond measure, well into the point of bouncing happily on her toes, Celia asked Luna in answer, "Remember those pretty nails you bought? The one that was so cheap and such a great deal that you couldn't resist? The ones you showed me, and I just nodded that they were a really cool offer?"

Brow, curled in suspicion, Luna droned, "Yeah..."

Celia bounced half a dozen times, and exclaimed, "Those were mine!" Breathless, she belted out, "The nails are break-even, so I like, don't make anything on selling those. But that class you signed up for to go with them paid me a hundred dollars!"

Luna questioned, "How? It was a twenty-five dollar class."

I corrected Luna a little, "What it charges you as a customer doesn't matter. The offer pays more because that class is a loss-leader for someone else's business. They teach you in that first class and you like it. They make other offers later that make up the marketing expense of paying Celia to enroll you in the first class."

Ramona spoke to me for the first time today, "How much did she make?"

Nevermind that we woke up together the morning of the trip.

Nevermind that I kissed her gently this morning, wishing, hoping, that there was still something there.

Ramona pushed me away. She broke for the bathroom, showered and never returned to, or even glanced back to our bed, where I waited with her last chance, golden ticket waiting, begging, for her grasp.

Instead, Ramona wanted to know how much Celia's beauty campaign and funnel made.

I blinked a few times, burying my anger and hurt.

I shrugged and told the group, "Celia got enough young women, like Luna, interested enough to pick up the nails, so that the percent she pulled into the twenty-five dollar feeder class paid enough to satisfy our wager. Once Celia cheated and used my mailing lists to politely ask for mother, daughter, and girlfriend referral recommendations using a coupon code she blew up and beauty tips guide she made up. It pretty much took list members mentioning her nail price to friends and family, and she went off to the races."

Celia reminded me for the hundredth time, her dainty little finger under my nose as she warned, "You never said I couldn't use your mailing list. That was not a restriction on our wager!"

I growled, smarting from being taken in the wager. And I was supremely pleased that my cute little Celia not only learned, winning our wager, but cleared another upper to mid-five figures after expenses in her campaign's second month after she won.

I snarled and snapped my teeth at Celia, Iike I was going to bite her.

She recoiled giggling, but never released my arm.

Celia's expressed possession was clear to anyone with open eyes, a heartbeat, and functioning brain.

Staring at me long enough for me to hear the gears in his overly pretty head creaking in protest at the work, Don-Juan quested into the deep waters asking, "So, y'all got what, like what thousand in sales for Celia to win the bet?"

Celia was about to answer the brainless question.

I gently squeezed her shoulder, demanding her full halt.

The ask offended me for a number of reasons. First, he did not participate and there was no reason for him to receive that financial information. It would just spur jealousy and was not essential for anyone else but Celia and me. Second, that was not how my family played. We did not share money information with outsiders. And fuck me from Friday if the boyfriend cheating on my little Luna, with my very own wife, Luna's own mother, was gonna pry that kind of information out of me for his own advantage later! Third, because, well, fuck him and the horse he rode in on!

Celia complied, looking up at me. She remained stalwartly silent.

I informed the interlopers, "Celia did amazingly well assembling her campaign. She picked her audience perfectly. She provided an amazing offer. Then sewed in the perfect upsell into the process and the email follow up was so on point that she walked an amazing percentage of qualified leads across her upsell offer." I looked down at her happy starry eyes and admitted, staring into those deep brown pools, "I was amazed at how quickly Celia beat my ass and proved me totally wrong on her offer!"

Ramona got wise to my evasion and demanded, still leaning too close to Rico-Suave, "You never answered the question. How much was the bet for?"

Before Celia could answer for the wager amount I snapped, calm and cold, being the asshole I am and knowing full well that almost all people are shitty at comparing two or more conversions in a comparison, I riddled, "Look across the three people in the front row of our party. Add your combined monthly incomes. Then multiply by four. And that is what Celia made that first month with her newly started first campaign. Celia exceeded the wager floor by about thirty percent. Then as soon as we confirmed that money was in she found this vacation option. We booked with the profits and now here we are in the suite holder line."

I got three blank stares from the front row. Oblivious step-girl, Sancho the cheating Don-Juan, and my Sancho cheating adulterous wife, all stared quiet and questioning, with their brows raised, puzzling it out, while slowly looking between themselves.

They could have done the math, but it was like they were dismissing the numbers as too large.

They either did not trust their own math, or were rejecting the correct results as impossible.

Celia only had to sell about three hundred of her classes to break-even and win our bet. But she sold four-hundred and twenty of her classes in that first thirty day period, each one putting a hundred dollars into the pot.

It was really hard not to snap the answer at them.

It was really hard not to just snap at them all, and in the process ruin Celia's plans, whatever they were.

I promised to keep my mouth shut, and to let Celia run the sorting of wheat from chaff.

I was probably just bitchy because my balls were overfilled and painful, with too many people around the last twenty-four hours before our departure.

And overloaded balls always made me grumpy.

The private VIP entry door behind the dumbfounded trio opened.

The new action at the door saved me from making a mistake.

I nodded, pointing my chin at the door behind the interlopers into Celia's and my wager. I would have much rather just gone with Celia, but she insisted everyone else go too.

That turned heads, as the crew spilled out, politely bowing to and scooping up the bags piled in front of an ancient couple loitering between us and the door.

Good for them!

I was obviously on my second marriage, getting ready to turn number-two into a next-ex-wife scenario, and I just got to sit here smiling like an oblivious fucking idiot.

Acting was so fucking annoying!

I learned better in my first abasis of a marriage not to fuck around and stick around. And here we were dicking around with a woman, and her cheating buddy, literally a step and a half in front of me.

Celia's spider-like patience in this case was mind blowing!

Maybe I could wait until we were over some shark pit in the middle of the Caribbean, find a hole in the video coverage, and dump both the cheating fucks overboard to swim with the sharks for a few hours.

Celia pulled on my arm, gently urging me forward.

I kicked the back of my wheeled luggage, knocking it onto the wheels, with my garment bag containing one of my suits, longer pants and my tailored tux, over my left shoulder.

We plodded along the extremely truncated boarding customs line, basically a straight line past all the back and forth cattle guard channeling the rest of the passengers needed to endure.

I slipped my left hand into my pocket, pulling free my passport.

Celia caught my motion and duplicated the same. She eyed me until I looked at her and she winked up at me.

I smiled down at my secret little lover, mother to our unborn child.

Ramona, Don-Juan, and Luna struck the immigration desk unawares and looked completely stupid. They were culled into the Border Patrol naughty line for inspection.

Regardless of us being in the same group, Celia and I were pulled into a different unoccupied station, courtesy of that station being ready when not enough conventional passengers had passed the twisting cattle guards to reach the inspection point.

Celia and I skipped ahead of Ramona, Juan and Luna, and then with attending stewards patiently chatting with us, the three miscreants finally caught up.

The thing about being on a big boat, with five thousand tourists, and taking one of only four suites was that you got treated a little differently. You get that one in a thousand treatment everywhere you go.

As in, the butler in charge of your suite's staff met you at customs and ensured all your luggage ended up in the correct closet before you could manage to navigate the elevators on your own.

When the rest joined us, Celia chirped to Luna, but loud enough for the rest to hear, "About the vacation choices, I got lucky and found this one as a cancellation! It was only about twenty-two hundred per person for the trip. But we got the suite!"

Celia's infectious enthusiasm softened even my jaded exterior!

Luna quietly questioned her friend, while we were collectively led forward by our crew detail, "Celia! You spent ten-thousand dollars on a trip?"

I wanted to say it was more than eleven-thousand for the room, but Celia beat me to it.

Celia chewed her lip, glanced at me and then reluctantly answered, with one of my lines, "Actually, it was 'free' because we paid out of profit on the beauty campaign." Celia then happily chirped, "I got you all basic beverage and dining packages. I got," shouldering into me, "The boss and me the unlimited beverage and dining packages. So it was a little bit more."

Ramona snapped, "How did you pay for this? We can't afford this!" It seemed like her eyes flicked back and forth for support. Instead of my usual frugal acceptance of her demands, I just stared at her impassively, letting her tirade fall onto the ears of two other people in the 'freeloader' category. My little Celia who earned well enough in cash the month before she went shopping to easily support our excursion, and myself, who was by now the Rock of Gibraltar's concern for waves about Ramona's prattling.

Celia, looking momentarily uncertain at me, looked back at Ramona as we exited the gangplank onto the ship, and Celia told Ramona, "Actually, I really, just told you. I told you that I paid for all of this out of profits on my wager with Alex." There was only the briefest pause before Celia innocently asked, slipping the blade of insult into Ramona's back, with the question, "Didn't you listen when we talked about this bet, like, just now? And all the other times before when y'all asked?"

I clamped my teeth shut to keep from laughing.

Ramona was a beautiful woman, but here she was completely out of her depth and foundering.

Before Ramona could retort her venom, our elevator opened and our suite's butler ushered us in with his personal card, sealing and canceling all the other calls on the way, so we zipped straight up to the fourteenth floor, unmolested and unbothered by the rest of the boat's riff-raff.

Having cruised with my own parents going back more than thirty years, not only was this suite reservation great for my line's points acquisition, but the utility of the butler escort zeroing out other elevator requests became painfully apparent as I remembered the numerous times I got stuck on elevators that some kid, or drunk, or drunk kid had just triggered every single floor button. Myself only being sober enough to realize I was about to be trapped once the doors closed.

Once in the room, the children and plebs exploded into a true display of inexperience, darting around the suite, exploring, gawking, and pulling on everything. They were letting everyone who could have possibly passed by that four of the five of us were complete New-Bs!

I smiled at our Indian butler, shaking my head as every fixture and pillow was unnecessarily pulled at, picked up, turned, tested and / or stroked examining their perfection.

With his rhythmic Indian lilt he asked, "It is still a few hours before departure, Sir. Are there any beverages or reservations that you would like me to make? The Captain's dinner is in two day's time, the evening we depart Cosumel. Should I assist in placing garments into their proper places and laundering your best-ofs?"

I nodded at my own garment bag, and offered, "There is a tux and suit in there. They should be in good shape, but if you think you can improve them please give it a go."

Nodding sagely, the request was accepted. Then I was asked, "And a drink, Sir?"

I considered for half a second and then requested, "How about two old fashioned and a champaign?"

With a quick nod, our butler barked, "Of course, Sir. I will return momentarily."

After only a few moments glancing at his staff shunting things into shelves, our Indian ghost scared the crap out of me with three drinks in his hand. Two old fashioned balanced on left hand and wrist, and then a flute of champagne in his right.

Uselessly indicating that he should cover his ears, I barked, "Ramona! Celia! Come for good stuff!"

Celia arrived first, bright and chipper as usual, our passenger barely visible in her clothing as she stood.

I plucked the champagne and handed it off to Celia.

Concerned, she whispered, "Baby!"

Shaking my head, I discarded her protest, and told her, "One's not gonna hurt."

Reluctantly Celia accepted, as Ramona finally arrived, grumbling about this and that.

Expecting the reaction, I plucked the Old Fashioned from the wrist and offered it to Ramona, and sure enough got the rejection, "Augh! You know that's too strong for me!"

I sighed.

She was full of shit.