Over the years, my husband and I have experienced sexual quirks I suppose you could call them. I imagine most couples have to one degree or another. We confessed and discussed most of them including three infidelities (one on my part and two on his) and love each other more because of our frailties. One indiscretion, however, is known to me alone. Given the time that's passed and the nature of my behavior, it will likely remain that way.
Rarely these days do my thoughts take that long, two-and-a-half decade journey back to that magical week on Bali. I'm not proud of my solitary, undisclosed betrayal but, in truth, just thinking about what happened can still bring me a pleasure unlike any other.
Our marriage was in the glow of its honeymoon then. I was a blue-eyed, pretty-faced, long legged Canadian whose hair was more naturally blonde and, as now, crazy in love with my husband Jeremy. At the time I was still accepting overseas assignments but our desire to start a family meant the trip to Jakarta would be my last. My husband would join me for a week at the conclusion of the assignment where conception would, perhaps, occur. Unfortunately, his work interfered at the last minute and baby-making coitus was put on hold.
The animus I directed at my husband for spoiling our idyllic plans was admittedly immature but the result had me spending that week, our week, on my own in paradise. Despite my disappointment with Jeremy's choice, I looked forward to a week of topless sunbathing and intoxicating drinks.
~ * ~
I fell in with a group of ex-pats I met at the hotel on Bali, mostly single and mostly European, with a sprinkling of Aussies, Americans and other Canadians. We all headed to the beach together.
"Where's Blaine?" one of the girls asked as soon as our troupe deposited its beach apparel and apparatus on the sand.
"I thought he left last week," someone said.
"He told me he's been extended a week," one of the German guys reported, "but that just meant he had to work extra shifts to get the work done. That is why he has not been around, but he did say he would be here today."
While others debated the location of an erstwhile companion I'd yet to meet, my ears perked up at the enthusiasm being exhibited.
Forget where, who's Blaine?
I wondered silently.
"Great!" a Swedish wife bubbled. "Janey, have you met Blaine yet? He'll absolutely love you!" My name is Jane and everyone calls me that, but this group had re-christened me with the added "y" and its accompanying syllable at the start of the week and it stuck.
I didn't ponder why someone I didn't know would "absolutely love" me because my mind immediately began forming a mental picture of the absent Blaine in whose welfare everyone seemed so concerned: handsome, mid-twenties, Swiss or German, probably less than six feet tall, blonde mane, unruly but perfectly suited to his personality, fit, bronzed, excellent posture, impossible-not-to-notice angular jaw, offset by soft lips and smile, and blue eyes as deep and disarming as the azure sea lapping against the beach twenty strides from where we now congregated.
"Why are you girls always so interested in what Blaine is doing anyway?" the French guy asked, but his grin indicated his question had been rhetorical. In addition to an answer being unnecessary (except for me), there was no time for one as the blonde Australian let out an ear piercing shriek.
"Blaine!!" she yelled (rhyming his name with wine) and my head snapped around to follow the direction of her eyes and then her sprinting feet. She quickly reached the young man that had been the entire focus of the conversation to that point and embraced him warmly.
Her naked breasts mashed against his abdomen and, even on tiptoe, she needed to crane her neck to offer a kiss. Just as her lips might meet his, he moved his face aligning her mouth with his cheek instead. I couldn't tell if it was done deliberately or accidentally. What was clear was that, after the initial contact, Blaine didn't move his lips back to establish the greater intimacy she clearly sought.
Blaine was nothing like I had imagined moments earlier. In the two most immediately visible ways, he was as direct an opposite as was possible. His hair wasn't blonde and unruly; it simply wasn't. And his skin wasn't bronzed by the sun; it was black by birth. Coal black. Black as night. Black as soot. Black as the ace of spades.
I stared at the young man whose body oozed sexuality and commanded attention. I felt myself both softening and stiffening. My insides turned slick and flowing while my nipples became so rigid I briefly worried they might bleed if touched. I was embarrassed by my obvious physical reaction but was also strangely proud as well.
In truth, I recognized the black youth as someone I'd already seen on the island. I was headed out to dinner alone. The restaurant was first class and I was dressed more formally than at anytime since my project had begun to wind down.
I could hear the click of my stiletto heels echoing against the pavement as I walked. I liked the shoes because they promoted a natural wiggle in my bottom that made me feel sexy. I felt good because the micro dress and tall heels I wore drew attention to my legs, my best feature.
It was impossible not to notice the young man I would come to know as Blaine as he approached. His handsome blackness took my breath away. He was easily a head taller than anyone else in the crowded street. The narrowness of his waist and hips emphasized the breadth of his shoulders and musculature of his bare forearms.
He was wearing long pants and long, albeit rolled up, shirt sleeves. The loose fitting clothes billowed in the evening breezes. The cloth was so thin the darkness of his skin bled through. Even though his pants weren't designed to reveal, the wind pushed the fabric in ways that displayed Blaine more fully than he may have intended.
I could see that Blaine noticed me too. I exaggerated my walk to show a suppleness of form. Pretending to window shop, Blaine made a quarter turn as I walked by. He turned again when I was past him and I could tell by the faces of the women approaching that he watched me continue down the sidewalk.
I was pleased that his eyes had followed me and wondered if we shared the same thought. 'I wish he were coming with me,' I told myself as we both continued our separate ways.
Despite any regret I felt at that missed opportunity, on the beach with Blaine that afternoon, I seemed determined to let a second chance pass me by as well. While the others chatted and laughed animatedly, I withdrew into a protective shell. Perhaps it was the strength of the magnetism pulling at me that had me scared. Forces that strong usually require hazard labels.
Blaine, too, seemed content to ignore whatever had flickered briefly between us. Was his indifference the result of the aloofness I often project? I wasn't accustomed to male rejection, just the opposite in fact, and could leave the impression I was too good for them.
With Blaine I felt strangely different, bewildered. I was a respected member-in-good-standing of the staid community of scientists. I didn't deal well with the unexplained. I didn't know what to make of the young black man that was causing me such confusion. Yet my attraction was real. And it had been immediate, the most dangerous kind.
So, while the guys tossed a Frisbee and romped in the surf, I sunned topless with the other girls. I learned that Blaine was only twenty-one but already a university graduate. He was in the middle of a two-year hiatus in his education, experiencing the world and saving money for law school by working as an international auditor.
Occasionally, the other women would venture out to sea where they would join the game of catch or clamber aboard strong young shoulders and try to unseat one another in a game that used to be called "cock fighting" back in the community swimming pools of my youth. I felt a hot flash of jealousy as it rushed up my neck and face when I saw the dark-haired French girl's thighs straddling Blaine's thick neck.
Another couple was flailing harmlessly away at the "undefeated" mahogany Blaine and creamy Camilla when a finger caught in the string securing her bikini bottom. It became untied. The barely-a-garment-anyway separated at her right hip at the very moment he lurched one way and she the other.
It all happed in a split second but to me it unfolded in the slowest of motions. Camilla's bikini bottom came apart as her hips swung left and Blaine's face jerked right. That picture, that moment in time became frozen in my consciousness. His puffy lips pressed against her bald, pale pubis two full inches below her perfect tan line.
Camilla squirmed awkwardly as she tried to reclaim a greater degree of personal decorum than her current dishelvement permitted. Consequences of the unintended variety flipped the struggling Frenchwoman off Blaine's shoulders and onto her back in the shallow water. Flailing legs had dislodged the bikini bottom and it settled around one knee as she lay, pretty gash grinning at the world, in the water laughing.
Sexual emotions became too heated for me and I was already packing up when the group staggered wetly up from the water's edge. It had become all too obvious Blaine wasn't thinking of me in the same way I had been thinking of him, a way that made me wetter than any of those that stood dripping salt water onto their towels.
"Are you coming tonight Janey?" they asked as they too gathered their belongings. I shook my head. There hadn't been any specific plans but there was always something happening with a loosely knit group of strangers on holiday. I was about five years older than most of them (and nine older than Blaine). Suddenly I felt as if a generational shift had taken place and I no longer belonged. I couldn't face a night of flirtations that wouldn't extend to me.
