Wheels-down in Cuba: Vacation in the sun reawakens dormant desires
Pressure on my eardrums wakes me. I dig in my purse for minty gum. Chewing and swallowing eases the pain, and I smile at my seatmate.
Everyone stares out the portholes as the packed jet descends, but light haze veils the ground. Loud bumps from beneath the floor and a sudden roar: landing gear locked.
Still nothing to see. Then dry hills materialize. Red earth veined with blue afternoon shadows.
The plane banks steeply. Lush green along a winding river. Patched asphalt roads. Shiny metal roofs, winking mirrors of sunlight amid tiny farm plots.
Palm trees off the wingtip. A double thump in the pit of our stomachs and the lap belts grab hold as the engines scream. The jet slows, them rumbles along the creased taxiway to the pale turquoise terminal. Cheers and applause up and down the aisle as seatbelts click off and passengers, some already in beach wear, jump to the overhead bins. Moist salty air whistles through the vents.
I'm back in Cuba!
At customs the unsmiling young man in a crisp uniform stares at my passport, at me, back to my passport. Flicks every page, examines every stamp. Eyes me appraisingly.
"Bienvenidos, señora."
I smile as he waves me through. Bet he's thinking I'm another of those middle-aged sex tourists, another frustrated North American broad down for a week frying on the beach by day and gorging on dark meat by night.
Well, let him enjoy his fantasies. My husband is coming on the same flight next week, by which time I'll be tanned and trim and ready to be turned on.
After the bumpy bus to the resort — free drinks to pass the time and get us all in the mood — there's the staff welcoming us with a song-and-dance more like summer camp than a four-star resort, then check-in and keys. I'm alone in my room just long enough to dive into my one-piece, throw on a beach wrap and head to the pool.
Swim-up bar: gotta love that. The bartender's a pretty girl till they realize the pool's mostly populated by women of a certain age, and send in the hunks. Warm air, a view of the dry hills tumbling to the Caribbean, better view when I ask for a mojito and Hunk One bends over to pick fresh mint in the little patch behind the bar, his Speedo stretched over a muscular gluteus maximus and the outline of obviously well-filled balls. Hunk Two runs the blender, flexing his forearms as he pours my drink. I sigh.
At dinner I chat with a few other new arrivals. The staff knows we're tired from the flight; there'll be time in the next few days for parties and bingo and lessons in salsa dancing, Spanish, riding, tennis, scuba diving. Tonight, though, everyone retires early.
There's a lot of privacy in an all-inclusive Cuban resort during the shoulder season, if you want it. Half the rooms are empty, and the throbbing beat of the late-night disco party at the beach bar fades early 'cuz most of the folks who hit their teens in the Eighties are still up north working for a living. The disco mamas'll descend in a few weeks.
I close the screens to the balcony to keep out the night critters, and inhale the palm-scented sea air. A gibbous moon rises out of the inky Caribbean to the east, like a big ole silver dollar someone's nibbled one side off. It'll be full when Bruce arrives next week, I think as I stretch languidly on the hard bed, enjoying the cool fragrance bathing my nude body. The thought of his taught form warms my belly and I run my fingernails lazily through the carefully waxed and pruned patch of brown hair at the top of my legs.
But it's been a long flight from home to Toronto, where I caught the three-hour charter down to the island's south coast, and after a few sighs, I doze. Sometime during the night a noise in the next room wakes me. A door slamming? Too tired to identify it, I'm asleep again in seconds.
The second day I wake early, hustle down to the dining room for my first sip of black Cuban
café como se toma en la cocina
. (Unless you prefer weak, watery, diner-style coffee — which someone has told the staff is how
turistas
like theirs — you ask for coffee "like they drink it in the kitchen" and savor the black, almost-espresso the Cubans drink.) I take it to a small table just outside, where the morning sun warms me and I can watch the staff and earlybirds get ready for the day.
A tall, thin man strides purposefully through the tile-floored breezeway leading to the beach. Cafe-au-lait skin, dark hair grizzled with gray at the temples, open-necked shirt under a pale tropical suit, shiny boots. He gives me a frank once-over and an open smile, raises an eyebrow in an unspoken question until I smile back. Then he's on about his business. I watch his even gait as he heads toward a distant building.
After a second coffee to accompany the omelette I pick up at the breakfast bar, I return to the table. There's more bustle now, some tourists a bit worse for wear after drinking too late after their flight. Bet they'll be imbibing hair of the dog before noon — and down for the count after lunch.
Planning a beach day, I head back to my breezy hilltop room. A woman exits cautiously from next door, shuffling past me on her way to a late breakfast, I guess. I get only a glimpse, but she's unlikely to be my new best friend. I don't want to sound overly critical, but she ... let's just say, to be discreet, she looks as if she's let herself go a bit. The unkempt, gray-streaked hair and shapeless blue housedress don't flatter her figure, much of which, from what I can see, had long since stopped fighting gravity.
I'm proud of my body. I'm careful what I eat — I don't subscribe to every fad diet that comes along, but I'm meticulous about healthy fats and what foods I eat and when: French women look sexy into their seventies and not because many of them smoke. They say it's all about combining foods, so I'll ride that bandwagon if I can look like them for the next few decades. I do several miles a week on the stationary bike, which helps the haunches, and try to fit Pilates classes into my busy schedule back home.
In the room I shower quickly, throw on a relatively conservative two-piece and an opaque white cover-up in case the shady loungers are all taken, and grab my beach towel, paperback and sun hat.
The ocean's calm, with a soporific swell sizzling up the sand and then retreating from the seawrack-strewn tide line. The novel intrigues me for the first hour, then I get sleepy and find a shady lounger and surrender to sleep. It's an incredible luxury to have a morning nap ... but I wake up with a start, momentarily disoriented until I realize that I was only dreaming that I was in the arms of a tall, handsome stranger. Nude. About to surrender myself willingly to his love machine. Phew ... I'm aroused and actually panting, and look around with relief that no one's nearby. I arrange my cover-up over my hard nipples and clench my legs to hide my moist, swollen pussy.
Once I've calmed down, I head to one of the beach bars for a seafood salad and a mojito. Hunk Two is on duty. I can't help it — my glance wanders down his tight red resort-logo T-shirt to his navy-blue Speedo. The thin nylon traces the outline of a weighty penis and a well-stuffed scrotum. He smiles knowingly. I blush. He refills my glass.
