"Say yes to what?" Kelly asked, tablet in hand. I leaned in to see what they were looking at.
"What you see here," Dad explained as he scrolled up on the touchscreen, "are four tickets to the Dominican Republic, four you, Kyle, your mom, and me. All you have to do is say yes to complete the order."
He had barely finished his last sentence when my sister's finger hit the "Confirm" button. When she did, a wall of text popped up.
"What's this?"
"Feronia's terms and conditions," Dad replied. "You know, all that BS you gotta agree to when you buy anything online."
"Looks fine," I said. Kelly concurred and tapped "I agree". The first line on the next screen read "Your order has been sent." Kelly gave the tablet back to Dad, then threw her arms around him.
Over dinner, our mom had one more condition for Kelly and me:
"I know you two are excited to go to Feronia with us, and I get it, we're excited too. But please don't brag about it to all of your friends, or plaster it all over Facebook. You can tell people we're going on vacation this summer, just don't brag about how we're going to this fancy resort on a tropical island, et cetera et cetera. I hate it when I am fitting customers for a pair of sunglasses, and they have to tell me all about how they are going to wear them to this years ski trip or whatever. What I mean is, I don't want my kids to be like those people."
She made a good point, so we assured her we would keep it on the down low. And in case you wondered, Mom works as an optician.
February 2013
Kelly and I did a pretty good job of keeping it on the down low. Not that it was really that difficult anyway. I for my part barely needed to convince my boss to give me the days off In July. I said the words "family vacation", and that was that. I help out at a library for minimum wage, so it's not like my absence would tear the whole business asunder. To my surprise, our friends did not ask a lot of questions, either. We told them that we'd be going to the Caribbean with our parents, and the most common reaction was "Sounds cool. Have fun!" As somebody who was in his late teens at the time ,I had no idea people our age could be this...uncomplicated.
We set up another video chat with Judy and Manu to tell them the good news, and their reaction was pretty much what I had expected, and more. For those of you who have never been prompted to fist bump somebody over Skype, let me tell you that there is no satisfactory way to do it.
Having been to Florida several times, my sister and I had a fairly good grasp on how to prepare for a trip to a sunny tropical paradise. We knew what to get, and where to get it. Except for one thing. Since Feronia Resort is in the Dominican Republic, and the Dominican Republic is a Spanish-speaking country, I felt a little ill-equipped in that respect. I had taken Spanish lessons in middle school, but after four years of not using it, "Me llamo Kyle" was the full extent of what I still knew. Despite its sexy, Mexican-sounding name, Santa Fe is like 95 percent white, so I didn't really know a lot of people around town to practice with. Instead of looking for a tutor, the solution came in the form of a free language app I found on the internet. Good job, smartphones; making people less social since 2006.
June 2013
When June came around, Kelly and I invested a good chunk of our salaries from May in a trip to the mall in League City. We loaded up on everything we thought we would need: sun block, disposable razors, micro-SD-cards for our phones and cameras, those nifty tooth brushes that close like switchblades, various other personal grooming supplies, and some new threads for the beach. For the last one, we had to split up, because the first clothing outlet we got too had some good shorts, but the bikinis were "ass-ugly", at least according to Kelly. Or, you know what, they were ass-ugly. Can't argue with that.
It didn't take her long to find an alternative; I had barely pulled the curtain to my change room shut when she shot me a message. Still holding my first selection of clothes in one hand, I used the other hand to flip my phone's cover open and awkwardly draw the unlock pattern. Instead of a text, Kelly had sent me a photo of herself posing in a white summer dress. Or rather her reflection in a mirror. One hand held her phone, the other pulled down the brim of a wide hat to the point that it obscured her eyes. I expressed my approval with a little thumbs up emoji and went to trying on clothes. I felt my pasty white ass looked particularly sharp in a green pair of bermudas, so I took a selfie and sent it to Kelly for appraisal. I barely had to wait for a response.
"Damn little bro is chiseled." I go to the gym and have below-average body fat by default, but an underwear model I am not.
"Skinny gene FTW," I responded. I tried some button-down shirts for size and left the stall to put back all the stuff I didn't want. Out of curiosity, I looked if the store had some hats as well. Just as I reached out for a Panama hat, my phone vibrated. It was Kelly again, with another picture. This time she was posing in a bikini, jokingly flexing the biceps of her free arm. Much like me, Kelly ain't no runway model either, not because she is fat, but because she is shaped like a normal person. A normal person who takes care of herself. The bikini of her choice was relatively plain in color and fit her well. I was about to give my approval, when I noticed a little detail.
"You're supposed to wear panties when trying on swimsuits, you know that."
Her response was a single word: "Thong."
I was going to take her word for it, but she immediately followed it up with another picture. This one only showed her hips and midsection in the mirror. One hand held her phone, the other pulled down the bikini's bottoms to give me a good look at the tiniest blue thong I ever done seen on a woman. This picture captured my attention much longer than it should have. I followed the string going from her hip to the small triangle on her mound, the sheer fabric betraying the outlines of her pubic hair, some of it peeking out the sides. It must have taken thirty seconds for me to realize that I was standing in front of a hat of racks like an idiot, staring at a photo of my sister's crotch. I responded with "Okay then", grabbed the Panama hat and went back to trying on clothes.
On the ride home I was glad that Kelly was driving, because no matter how hard I tried to think normal things, my mind would drift away to that small blue triangle. To that patch of red hair pressed down against her pale skin. It's not like I had never seen her pubes before, quite the contrary. I saw her naked at the nudist beach in Florida. And at home we shared a bathroom. If one of us caught the other taking a shower, nobody cared. My point is, the sight of Kelly's body was not new to me. But for her to present herself to me like that, for something to deliberately draw attention to her femininity, I can't remember that happening before that day. At least Kelly didn't suspect anything; we are both a bit introverted, so it wasn't unusual that we didn't talk much in the car.
It wasn't until we got home and unloaded our stuff that Kelly broke the silence.
"By the way, I googled Feronia. Apparently there are a bunch of companies with that name, so I didn't care to dig through all of them. There was a Wikipedia page about Feronia, too."
"Feronia has its own Wikipedia entry?" I was somewhat impressed.
"Not the resort, no. Feronia is also the name of a Roman goddess. Of fertility and freedom and flowers and shit."
"And what about Indulgence II? Did you google that?"
"Nope. How about you do that, tell me what you find?"
I agreed to do that, but I wasn't going to do it right away. I still had some studying to do, and I knew that the instant I started researching some resort in the Caribbean, I would get sidetracked for at least an hour or two. The number II made it sound like a movie sequel. So what was Indulgence I? Why was only the second one interesting enough for Dad to bring it up? I was getting sidetracked already, so I got out my phone, set a reminder to look it up, and then forgot all about it. And by that I mean I COMPLETELY forgot about it, because I set it for the wrong day, as I would find out.
