Raise Your Game

by Cassia Leo

  I let out a sigh of relief and plop down onto the sofa in the sitting area near the sliding glass door leading out to the balcony. “I’ll sleep on the sofa. I wouldn’t want to break any more of your rules.”

  “The rules are in place to keep us from messing this up,” Sophie says as she heads toward the bathroom.

  Before she can even touch the knob, the bathroom door swings inward and out walks a tiny Asian hotel maid. Both the lady and Sophie let out surprised gasps.

  “Oh, I am so, so sorry,” the maid apologizes profusely. “I was just finishing. Bathroom is clean now. Enjoy your stay. So sorry. I will leave now.”

  Sophie and I don’t say a word as the woman leaves the hotel room, letting the door fall closed behind her.

  Another gasp issues from Sophie’s wide open mouth as she spins around. “Do you think she heard us talking?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know, but does it really matter? It doesn’t seem like she speaks very good English. It’s not like she’ll be able to infer we’re here to spy on their celebrity guests by the simple mention of us having rules. Besides, she’s an employee of the resort. It’s her job to exercise discretion.”

  Sophie cocks an eyebrow. “Have you been paying attention at all?” she remarks incredulously. “We’re here as spies for a gossip magazine. Believe me when I say I’m an expert at these things. Do you know how easy it is to bribe hotel staff or a disgruntled employee to get confidential information on a celebrity?”

  I smile at her attempt to school me. “It’s a good thing neither of us are celebrities.”

  “You do realize saying that aloud doesn’t make it true? You’re definitely a celebrity. And I’m on a lot of celebrity hit lists.”

  I laugh, perhaps a bit too hard based on the scathing looks she shoots me. “You dyed your hair blonde, and you’re using the last name Pierce. Everyone at the office thinks you haven’t been to work this week because I put you on paid administrative leave when I called you into my office on Monday,” I say, rising from the sofa and slowly making my way toward her so I don’t have to shout across the room. “As for me, everyone thinks I’m on a ‘business trip’ in China. No one in New York is going to suspect we’re at a couples retreat in Honolulu together. No one is looking for us. So chill, okay?”

  She draws in a long, deep breath, then lets it out slowly, looking up at me as I step into her personal space. “You’d better be right, because if our cover is blown, the last bit of journalistic integrity I’ve managed to hold onto while working at Close-Up will slip through my fingers.”

  My smiles fades as I suddenly realize I hold this woman’s fate in my hands. “I won’t let that happen,” I say, my gaze locked on her striking blue eyes. “I promise.”

  She’s frozen for a moment, then she swallows hard and spins around. “I just need to freshen up, then we can go down and have dinner before the welcoming ceremony.”

  “Welcoming ceremony?” I remark, reaching for the resort brochure on the desk as the bathroom door closes behind her. “What exactly does that entail? Do we have to sacrifice our sex toys to a volcano or something?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie shouts through the door. “The description in the brochure and on the website is very vague.”

  I unfold the brochure and read the list of activities.

  * * *

  DAY ONE:

  8 p.m. - Welcoming Ceremony and first council meeting

  * * *

  DAY TWO:

  9 a.m. - 12 p.m. - One-on-one intake session

  2 p.m. - Exploring Tantric Intimacy

  8 p.m. - Council meeting

  * * *

  It appears we will be having a busy week. Days three, four, and five are packed with cringe-inducing activities, with day six culminating in something vaguely referred to as “declarations” followed by another council meeting. Looking at this itinerary, I doubt we’ll make it through the week without fucking or murdering each other.

  Sophie emerges from the bathroom looking fresh-faced and ready take on the world. Her shoulders are pulled back as she wears an expression of confidence and determination. Not to mention, she is fucking gorgeous in an understated way. It’s apparent she has no idea how beautiful she is, which is both sad and perfect. Because any woman who would agree to marry me would have to be out of their fucking mind or completely undervaluing themselves.

  I can’t help but look her up and down before I speak. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” I begin. “And it seems we have a few hours to kill before the welcoming ceremony. I say we go down and grab some dinner and drinks.”

  She shakes her head. “No drinks. I had enough of those on the plane. But I could use a giant steak.”

  “If it’s a big piece of meat you’re craving…” I laugh as she rolls her eyes. “Are you ready for our first council meeting, dear?”

  “I’m ready if you are, hubby.”

  At her words, a weird sensation of warmth floods my chest. The idea of marriage normally makes me sweat or cringe, or both. But hearing her say the word “hubby” fills me with a strange sense of pride, and I find myself grinning like a fucking idiot.

  “What?” she asks, glancing down at her outfit of white jean shorts and a turquoise T-shirt, which she’s tied at her waist.

  I chuckle as I tear my gaze away from her. “Nothing. You… You look good, Soph.”

  “Soph?” she replies.

  I shake my head as I reach for the door handle. “You look beautiful, dear.”

  She narrows her stunning hazel eyes at me as I hold the door open for her. “Yeah, well, you’d…you’d better keep those hands where I can see them at all times.”

  I lean in to whisper in her ear. “I’ll keep my hands to myself, as long as you know that I’m willing to put my hands wherever you want them…anytime.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The recreation area of the Hilton Hotel, used by the Paradise Tantra Resort for group activities and council meetings, is a large circular expanse of grass surrounded by paved pathways leading to and from the hotel and the beach. The edges of the grass are lined with palm trees and throngs of passing tourists. It looks like a park you’d find in your average sun-drenched American city, but the one-hundred-eighty-degree views of the sparkling blue Pacific Ocean sets it apart.

  A covered, wooden gazebo stands in the middle of the recreation area, which is probably used for ridiculously expensive weddings when it’s not being used by miserable married couples. It’s almost as if the resort is drumming up their own business. At least we’ll have shelter from the rain.

  The rest of the couples are gathered around and appear to be awkwardly introducing themselves to one another. One man with a ginger beard down to his chest looks downright pissed off. Most of the couples appear to be in their forties, fifties, and sixties. The only couple that seems to be as young as Sophie and me are Kitty and Jason.

  Kitty’s jet-black hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, and from a hundred feet away I can see her trademark bright-orange lipstick. Jason stands next to her, his enormous ex-NFL player body towering over Kitty protectively.

  Sophie whispers to me out the side of her mouth as we climb the gazebo steps up. “Crazy eyes incoming.”

  The wrinkly, tanned woman barreling toward us with the crazy eyes flashes us a warm smile. “Come, come. We’ve been waiting for you,” she declares, pushing us toward the gathering of couples in the center of the gazebo.

  I glance at the time on my wristwatch in confusion. “We’re five minutes early,” I whisper to Sophie.

  She holds her index finger in front of her shimmering lips to shush me. She nods to her right and I follow her lead as we slowly inch our way sideways until we’re closer to Kitty and Jason.

  “Aloha, couples,” crazy eyes begins. “As most of you probably already know, I am Dr. Sharon Mahoe. And I am very happy to have you all here with us today. This gorgeous man standing next to me is my husban
d, Bobby.”

  Next to Dr. Mahoe stands a man who looks like a seven-foot-tall leather-skinned Vin Diesel, but I recognize him from the Paradise Tantra Resort website, so I’m not too taken aback. Next to him, Dr. Mahoe looks like an overly-tanned, middle-aged munchkin with curly brown hair that is quickly reaching Afro status in the sticky Hawaiian humidity. The floral sarong she wears shows a large section of her bare leg, which is decorated with henna tattoos I assume are meant to accentuate her varicose veins.

  “Does everyone in Hawaii look like they’re made of leather?” I mutter to Sophie.

  “It’s pretty sunny down here,” she says, nodding toward Dr. Mahoe. “That woman is eleven years old.”

  Mahoe flashes me a severe look as I laugh out loud. “I know many of you are not exactly…enthusiastic about attending this retreat,” she continues. “It’s not easy to admit there’s a problem in your marriage. But when the problem is of a sexual nature, it is often even more difficult to acknowledge. You are all extremely brave for being here today and recommitting yourselves to making your marriage work. So give yourselves and your partners a pat on the back. Go on!”

  The couples awkwardly look around to see if anyone is actually doing anything, so I decide to take the lead. I pat myself on the back first, then I turn to Sophie and swat her gorgeous ass.

  Her hazel eyes widen for a split second before she seems to remember we’re supposed to be married. “Oh, you,” she says with a smile, then she pretends to give me a gentle punch in the arm, but it’s anything but gentle.

  I smile as I rub my tricep. “I’ll get you back for that…when you least expect it.”

  She shakes her head and nods toward Mahoe. “Pay attention, honey.”

  When I reluctantly turn my attention back to Dr. Mahoe, she’s explaining the two rectangular hay bales stacked up behind her and Bobby. Secured to the front of top hay bale is a wooden target painted with a red and white bull’s-eye. On the floor next to the hay are two woven baskets, one of which appears to be full of hatchets.

  Mahoe begins pacing in front of the target as she continues to speak. “You are all here because you are on a spiritual quest for sexual empowerment,” she begins. “I am going to guide you on your journey of discovery for the next six days, but it is you who must determine which path you will take when you return home to your looming mortgages and stressful careers and screaming children. Will you continue on the path to dissatisfaction and separateness? Or will you join me in taking the path to vulnerability, sensuality, and true intimacy?”

  I glance at Sophie, and I’m not surprised to see the skeptical look on her face.

  Mahoe reaches into the basket that doesn’t appear to contain hatchets and comes up with a metal bowl. She shakes it gently as she walks toward the nearest couple, a woman and man who appear to be in their fifties. The woman picks a folded piece of paper out of the bowl, and Mahoe quickly moves onto the next couple, leaving the husband with his hand hanging mid-air.

  “Here at the Paradise Tantra Resort, we have a motto,” Mahoe continues. “Find a little play in every day,” she says as the next couple takes a folded slip of paper and she moves on. “Studies show that a couple who plays together stays together. So I am going to show you not just how to improve your sex life, but how to play with your partner. I want to remind you that you are a team.”

  She holds out the bowl to the next couple. “To maintain the spirit of playfulness, each couple will be given a tribal name. This will help you to feel like a team. It will also promote the sense of competition and feeling you are fighting for something, you are fighting to win, you are fighting for your marriage.”

  Next, she holds the bowl out to Kitty and Jason, and Jason takes the folded piece of paper, leaving two extra slips in the bowl. As Mahoe steps in front of Sophie and me with a maniacal smile on her face, I allow Sophie to take the piece of paper for us. I figure this has to earn me some good-husband points.

  But Sophie doesn’t acknowledge my attempt at chivalry. Like a good little gossip columnist, Sophie immediately turns to Kitty to ask her what their piece of paper says.

  Kitty holds her up. “We got Ka’manu. It says it means the bird in Hawaiian,” she says, not at all the type of response I would expect from a so-called prima donna.

  Sophie stares at our slip of paper for a moment, looking like she suddenly regrets choosing this moment to engage Kitty. “We got…Ka’pipi. It says it means the cow.” She turns to me and hands me the slip of paper. “Is this a bad omen?”

  I stare at the words on the paper for a moment. “Honey, if you’re a cow, that makes me a bull,” I reply, using my index fingers to make fake horns on my head. “You’d better watch out tonight, or I might charge you with my big horns.”

  She shakes her head in dismay. “So now you have two horns? One for me and one for your mistress?”

  I have to keep myself from laughing at this jilted wife act, but inside I’m dying. This woman is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. Not being able to touch her for the next six days is going to be torture.

  Once we’ve all chosen our tribal names from the bowl, Dr. Mahoe hands out a few sheets of paper and a black marker to each couple. She asks us to write down the obstacles that are keeping us from achieving true intimacy in our marriages. Sophie makes me turn around so she can use my back as something hard to write on. When she’s finished writing on her piece of paper, I ask her to turn around so I can do the same.

  “You need something hard to write on?” she asks, then she reaches into the pocket of her shorts and pulls out a tube of lip balm.

  “What the hell is that?

  She grins. “Lip balm is very hard to write on.”

  I can’t help but chuckle at this ridiculously awful joke. “That was a terrible Dad-joke.”

  She shrugs. “It was one of my dad’s favs. Besides, she told us we have to play with each other. I’m just trying to follow Dr. Mahoe’s path.”

  I glance at the tiny sliver of her midriff that’s showing under the knot at the bottom of her T-shirt. “I can think of some funner ways we can play together.”

  She smiles. “Talented as you may be, in theory or reality, you know the rules,” she says, turning her back to me. “Go ahead, write rule number one on your paper.”

  I laugh as I lay my sheet of paper over the top of her back. “I should have seen that one coming,” I reply as I write in big block letters: DISINTEREST IN LOVEMAKING.

  When she turns around and reads the words on the paper, she scrunches up her nose as if she’s caught a whiff of something foul. “Lovemaking? You’re going to make us both look like prudes.”

  “What does your say?”

  She shows me the piece of paper where she wrote the word TRUST in letters twice the size of mine. “You know, because of your womanizing ways. I’m just so jealous.”

  Dr. Mahoe asks us one-by-one to attach the pieces of paper to the target. Each couple is supposed to throw their hatchets at the target to symbolize a declaration of war on “the barriers to true intimacy.”

  Mahoe stands behind the couples, while her seemingly mute husband stands on the grass — in the pouring rain — behind the area of the gazebo where the hay is stacked up. He has the important job of retrieving stray hatchets. He seems completely unfazed as hatchets fly by his head. He even catches one midair.

  Four other couples go first, with only Kitty and Jason behind us. When it’s our turn, it takes just one attempt for Sophie to land her hatchet on the first T in TRUST. The couples clap and cheer at her accuracy.

  Dr. Mahoe approaches her and places her hands on Sophie’s shoulders. “Good job, Ka’pipi!”

  I press my lips together to keep from laughing until Mahoe is out of earshot. “Good job, Ka’pipi,” I whisper to Sophie.

  Mahoe digs her hand into the basket from which she retrieved the metal bowl earlier. This time she comes up with a small clay pot no larger than her palm. She makes her way back to Sophie, and I can see now the pot is filled w
ith a black, glossy substance. She dips two fingers into it and swipes them across Sophie’s cheeks.

  War paint. This woman is brilliant.

  “You are now a warrior for the Ka’pipi tribe. You have declared war on your trust issues.”

  More like this entire resort has declared war on my Ka’pipi, I want to say.

  When it’s my turn to throw my hatchet at the words DISINTEREST IN LOVEMAKING, my second throw lands dead center on the word in. My accuracy elicits more cheers from the other couples as I walk toward the target to remove the hatchet.

  Arriving at the target, I wrap my fingers around the handle of the hatchet and hear a loud gasp, which is followed by a whoosh of air and a powerful thud between my legs. I glance downward and see a hatchet stuck in the hay bale just below my crotch.

  I take a step back and slowly turn around to see who threw it. Kitty is standing a few feet away from Sophie, her hands covering her mouth. Sophie on the other hand, seems to be trying very hard not to laugh.

  “I’m so sorry!” Kitty cries, racing toward me, with Jason right behind her. “I was just trying to aim, but it slipped from my grasp. I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you okay?” Jason asks.

  “I’m fine!” I assure them, plastering a big smile across my face. “Really, it didn’t even touch me.”

  After a few more profuse apologies from Kitty, I head back to join my tribe.

  Sophie smiles as I approach her with my piece of paper. “Will you be needing to downsize from a Magnum extra-large now?”

  “Very funny,” I reply, as Dr. Mahoe makes her way toward me with her pot of war paint. “My Magnum is safe and sound, but I think my balls may have crawled up inside me.”