About five years ago the company I worked for at the time, a big multi-national corporation, had just finished a large IT project. We integrated the computer systems of three companies that had been purchased and got all of our offices in Europe and the U.S. on the same software.
As a reward for getting the project done on time and under budget (a rarity in the IT world), the company was flying the key participants and their spouses (or significant others) to Hawaii for a week long "debriefing" session. It was really meant as a reward and much needed rest and relaxation, but we had to hold some "business meetings" to get it past the bean counters.
My wife, Ann, and I arrived mid-morning in Honolulu on a direct flight from San Francisco. Many of the people who were traveling from Europe must have arrived the previous day to give themselves time to get over the jet lag. We took a shuttle van from the airport to the small resort that had been rented out exclusively for the event. It was on the outskirts of the main city, away from the crowds of tourists, and had its own private beach.
As soon as we checked in, we changed into swimsuits and rushed down to the beach. We had always made it a contest when we went somewhere tropical to see how quickly we could get into the water after touching down. This time didn't set a record but it felt great to be in the relatively warm water that was so different from the beaches at home.
For me, unfortunately, it was a brief dip, because we had our first meeting that afternoon. It was an informal meet and greet mixer to kick things off. One of the unique things about this project was that much of it was done via e-mail and teleconferences, so many of the participants had never met each other even though we worked very closely on the task at hand. So this would be a chance to get to know each other on a social basis.
Before I went back to the room to clean up, Ann and I made plans to meet up for dinner after the meeting. She headed off to the pool to continue working on her tan. Business trips are always like that: the employee has to work and the spouse gets to play. But this trip promised to be light on the work aspects so we would both have plenty of fun.
I dressed in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that the company had provided for all participants. The shirt had the company logo and some of our products mixed into the design with the typical palm trees and surfers. The dress code for the week was very casual. When I walked into the conference room with everyone wearing the same thing, I knew I was in the right place. I picked up a name tag from the table near the door and began mingling.
There were two people in particular I looked forward to meeting. Birte was an IT tech in the Stockholm office and Michelle worked as a business analyst in Paris. Both of them had impressed me with their knowledge and had very pleasant phone personalities. We all shared the same sense of humor and our conversations once we got done with business were loaded with double entendres. I remember in particular one conference call with just the two of them which went on late into the night (at least for them, in European time).
So I kept looking at name tags as I wandered about and after about five minutes I ran into Birte. She looked just like I had pictured her: a beautiful, tall, blonde Swede with a nice tan and a bright white smile. As soon as we made eye contact and she realized who I was, she came over, gave me a big hug and kissed me on both cheeks. We were soon catching up on each other's business and personal lives since the project ended.
After about ten minutes, we heard someone calling out Birte's name from across the room. We looked and there was a beautiful, light skinned black woman coming toward us. I had no idea who it was until I heard Birte respond "Michelle!" They had previously met at a European IT meeting. I was surprised that Michelle was black because all I had to go on was her delightful French accent. I had assumed she was a native Parisian. After the women had exchanged hugs, Birte introduced us. I think Michelle was almost as surprised as I had been, but that didn't stop her from giving me a great big hug and kisses on both cheeks. I could really get to like the European style of greeting, particularly when they were as beautiful as these two women.
We talked for a while longer and I found out that Michelle had been born in a former French colony in Africa. Her mother was a native of Africa and her father was white. He had been there on diplomatic service after they gained their independence. Her parents had divorced when she was only seven. After her mother died while Michelle was in high school, she moved to Paris to live with her father while she finished her education there and got her first job with our company right out of the Sorbonne.
Both Birte and Michelle had their husbands with them, so we made plans to all have dinner together that evening. Before the "formal" part of the session began, I used a house phone to make reservations in the dining room for a party of six at 8 p.m. The rest of the meeting was a series of self congratulatory speeches from management and passing out a lot of awards. The best part was the humorous awards that we worker bees came up with ourselves.
After the meeting broke up, we agreed to meet in the lobby with our respective spouses at 7:45 p.m. I went back up to the room to get ready and see how Ann's day had gone. She was relaxing on the bed with the television on, not really paying attention to it as she paged through one of the tourist magazines that was in the room. She was positively glowing from the sun she had gotten and I couldn't resist. I started undressing her as she told me about her day. She had met a couple of men at the pool whose wives were here for the conference. As I removed her top, I was delighted to see her tan lines already prominent. Normally we sunbathe nude whenever possible, either on our private ten acres at home or at one of the many clothing optional beaches in California. It was very sexy to see the contrast created by the necessity of wearing a swimsuit at the resort.
After we finished our lovemaking, Ann said she and the two guys and made plans to have dinner together with their spouses. I told her that I had done the same with Birte and Michelle. So before I jumped in the shower I called down to the dining room and changed our reservation to a party of ten.
At the appointed hour, Ann and I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked towards the dining room. I saw Birte and Michelle were already there with their respective husbands. I was surprised to see Ann run over and give both men hugs and kisses. Then it dawned on all of us at once what had happened and we all burst out laughing at the coincidence. Birte introduced Sven to me and Michelle did the same with Leon. Then it was my turn to introduce them to Ann. As we checked in with the hostess, I sheepishly informed her that it would be a party of six after all. She must have thought I was crazy.
The six of us all hit it off very well. Everybody took part in the lively banter during the two-hour dinner and later when we adjourned to the bar for drinks. By the end of the evening, when we said our goodbyes and went up to our rooms, it was as if we had been friends all our lives. The differences in our cultures and backgrounds didn't seem to matter. In fact, they just provided that much more interesting topics to discuss.
For the next few days, we made a habit of dining together. Ann spent much of her free time with the guys and the ladies and I sat together during all our meetings. We did a few touristy things together and took a nice hike through the rain forest to a waterfall on the north shore of Oahu.
We had almost the entire fourth day to ourselves aside from a one-hour meeting in the morning. So we had the kitchen pack us a lunch, grabbed some beach towels and borrowed one of the resort's vans to drive to a beach on the other side of Diamond Head.
We walked down the beach a while to put some distance between us and other people. We had a couple of king size sheets we had gotten from the resort and spread them out on the sand. I plopped down in the middle while the ladies removed the sarong type beach wraps they had worn on the way there. All of them were wearing very skimpy thong style bikinis. Leon and Sven removed their shorts to reveal their small, Speedo type swimsuits that are so popular in Europe. I wore more typical American baggy trunks.
After we'd been there a while, Michelle out the blue said, "You know, I really like Hawaii. The weather and the water are perfect. But one thing I miss is the more open atmosphere in Europe. In France, women can go topless on all the beaches and it's no big deal. If I tried doing that here, it would create a real scene with all the tourists and I might even get arrested."
Birte chimed in, "Yes, I know what you mean. In Sweden it is even more relaxed. Almost all of the beaches have an FKK section, where you can go completely nude. In most places nobody is concerned where the boundaries are. Sometimes on more secluded beaches, you can even see couples fooling around and even making love right out in the open."