The Backpacking Housewife

by Janice Horton

  He makes it look so easy but as soon as I try to do it, I get water in my eyes and make straight for the surface in a panic. Jack comes up after me, gently explaining why I must not do that again.

  ‘Lori, we gotta come up nice and slow and in control. Because we’re breathin’ compressed air from a tank, comin’ up too quick, even in a shallow pool, can be dangerous.’

  ‘You mean, I could burst my lungs?’ I say to him in horror and new understanding.

  ‘Sure. It’s possible. That’s why, if we learn a few skills in the confined space of the pool, we can be safe out there in the open sea. Remember, today’s just an introduction. I’m only gonna show you the basics so we can go out divin’ this afternoon and have some fun together.’

  His words ‘have some fun together’ take away any fears and reservations I have. Once I’d practiced tipping back my mask and popping my breathing regulator in and out my mouth a few times, I find I can do it easily, and it’s not so hard after all.

  We swim up and down the pool together, Jack by my side, with his hand supporting the weight of my air tank, while guiding me through the water. His breathing and his bubbles are as loud in my ears as my own. I can’t wait to get to the sea and for the fun together to begin.

  ‘Well done. You got it!’ he says to me at the surface, taking out his regulator. ‘Fantastic!’

  I watch him run his hand through his shiny dark wet hair and slick it back from his forehead.

  I see glistening drops of water clinging to his eyelashes until he blinks them away in the bright sunshine. I realise I have a crushing desire to kiss away those tiny droplets of water trapped in the cupid’s curve of his perfect upper lip…

  But of course, instead, I just wave my arms in the air and grin at him like an idiot.

  ‘All thanks to you Jack. You are a great teacher!’

  ‘No problem. And you, Lori, are a fast learner!’

  At lunchtime, Jack disappears for an hour. I think he might have gone back to the Driftwood Bar. I’m relieved because being with Jack is making me breathless, even with a tank full of air, because I can’t stop myself from fancying the neoprene pants off him. It’s exhausting.

  While we were underwater, he maintained constant eye contact and gave me hand signals for ‘watch me’ for whenever I was supposed to be paying careful attention to him. But I didn’t need telling.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. I’m captivated.

  I buy a sandwich and a bottle of water and sit at a picnic bench outside in the shade of palm trees with all the divers who’ve just come in from the morning dive boat. They’re a welcoming and chatty bunch who are full of enthusiastic dive talk. It feels cool to be amongst them. It’s fun to be one of them. A real diver. A mermaid amongst other mermaids and mermen.

  ‘Did you see that sea snake on the rocks at Koh Haa dive site?’ one of them asks another.

  ‘Yeah, a banded sea krait – highly venomous!’ comes the reply.

  I almost choke on my sandwich. Then, they start making fun of one of the divers called Eric, who had apparently been attacked by a Trigger fish that morning. They’ve captured the whole thing on a GoPro underwater camera and they’re playing back the video over and over again and are laughing so hard that they’re all creased up. They play the video with the volume up high so that everyone can hear Eric’s underwater squeals.

  ‘Haha – you squeal like a little girl!’ Poor Eric.

  Luckily, Eric thinks it’s hilarious too. I don’t. I didn’t think there was such a thing as snakes in the sea and the thought of a fish attack terrifies me just as much as a shark attack. ‘Where did it bite you?’ I ask Eric, once he has stopped giggling.

  ‘Nowhere. It didn’t get me. It just chased me away from where it was nesting. I got a scare because it was such a big fish. I didn’t know triggers could get that big!’

  He holds his hands apart like the proverbial fisherman to show me how big it was.

  I gawp at him in horror. Five minutes later, I’m supposed to be in the equipment room with everyone else getting my gear together for the afternoon dive but instead I’m still outside like a jabbering wreck, wringing my hands until Jack comes back.

  ‘Erm, I don’t think I’ll go diving after all. I feel a bit queasy,’ I tell him.

  ‘What’d you have for lunch?’ Jack asks me with concern.

  ‘A tall tale of attacking trigger fish and poisonous sea snakes…’ comes a voice from behind me. It was Carly. She then continues to tell Jack all the details of what she had seen and overheard from her office at lunchtime. ‘I saw poor Lori’s face going paler and paler while she was listening to those goons. Pay no attention, Lori. Any snakes you’ll see out there are beautiful and totally non-aggressive. They have far too small a mouth to bite anything more than a pinkie finger and would even turn it down if you offered it to them. As for the trigger fish – well, they all knew she was there, they’d been pre-warned in their dive briefing. It’s the breeding season and Eric got too close to her. He got chased off, not attacked, because he’s an idiot and for no other reason.’

  Jack is standing with his hands on his narrow hips looking at me with an expression of concern. I feel bad for him. He’s probably thinking that he’s just wasted his whole morning trying to teach me to dive and I’m now too afraid to go into the sea.

  ‘Okay. I’ll do it,’ I relent. ‘But promise you’ll keep me away from snakes or trigger fish?’

  Jack gives me a big smile. ‘I promise. Come on. Let’s go divin’!’

  As we head out to sea on the dive boat, I stand on the open sun deck to work on my tan and to watch Koh Lanta’s pretty coastline getting further away and the scattering of islands on the horizon getting closer. The dive boat is large and impressive. It’s a traditionally built wooden boat with two decks and with a mostly Thai crew. On board, working for the instructors are the teams of dive masters, whose job it is to look after the customers and the equipment and the air tanks that are secured on racks, until everyone is ready to gear up.

  As I’m the only one doing a try-diving course rather than a certification course, I decide to keep well out of the way of the hustle and bustle going on downstairs until we are at the dive site, and all the divers who are training are in the water with their instructors.

  I strip down to my bikini and start applying lots of sunscreen because the afternoon sun is beating down intensely, and I can feel my shoulders starting to burn already. I didn’t expect Jack to come up to the top deck as he’d been busy downstairs chatting with the other instructors since we’d left, but suddenly he appears, with a bottle of water and a book on fish identification, both for me. He’s still in his wetsuit, which has been pulled down off his torso.

  I can hardly take my eyes off him.

  ‘Hey, Lori, ya need some help?’ he asks, indicating to the tube of sunscreen.

  I gulp and take the bottle of water from him. ‘Thanks. Yes, that would be great.’

  I’m suddenly excruciatingly aware of how much flesh I have on show. Other than a few triangles of fabric and lengths of string, I’m basically standing naked in front of him.

  I know my skin is glistening with perspiration and I feel awkward and exposed.

  My face is glowing with embarrassment.

  He gives me a wink and a boyish grin. ‘No problemo! It’s one of the perks of my job.’

  I hand him the sunscreen and turn my back on him. I lift my hair off my shoulders and reason with myself not to be so stupid. He must be so used to seeing women in bikinis every single day. This is normal to him. Like a gynaecologist sees lots of lady parts every day and thinks it’s normal too. I hold my breath as my body anticipates his touch.

  I realise if I had a spray sunscreen, he wouldn’t have to touch me at all but this is a cream in a tube and so he’ll have to rub it in really well. All the nerve endings in my entire body are now tingling in expectation. I feel him gently picking up a few loose strands of my hair from the sensitive nape of my neck and
from my shoulders and move them aside. I shiver, eager for his touch but also reticent, because I know from the churning feeling in my stomach and the throbbing heat in my pulsating groin, that I’m highly aroused.

  I haven’t felt like this since I was in my twenties.

  His long fingers work in circles on my shoulders. I bite my lip to stop myself moaning.

  He dabs the cream down my back, along my spine, and then he starts to massage it in.

  I want to cry out in pleasure.

  But instead I wince in pain. ‘Ouch!’

  He jumps back in alarm. ‘Oh sorry, Lori. Did I press too hard?’

  I explain about the monstrous Thai massage I’d suffered the night before and while he sympathises he also finds it incredibly funny. ‘Yeah, most people have tales to tell about a Thai massage. I’ve had one or two like that myself. So, that would explain why you didn’t come to the bar last night. I was waitin’ for you. I was gonna mix you my special sundowner.’

  I laugh to hide my aching disappointment at not being there.

  ‘And, I imagine, it would have been the best goddamn sundowner I’ve ever tasted.’

  He continues to rub the cream into my shoulders, so gently and so carefully now, that his fingers feel like a trail of kisses across my shoulders and down my back. I have to stop myself from gasping when they sweep along under the border of my bikini bottoms.

  I grip tightly onto the handrail on the side of the boat and I’m actually dizzy with desire.

  Isn’t he the least bit aware of what he’s doing to me?

  ‘There, all done. You have protection.’

  Excuse me? Was that a question?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake – what am I thinking? Have I lost my freaking mind?

  He puts the top back on the tube for me and sits down on the bench seat, opening up his book on fish identification. I hurry to compose myself and then I turn to face him. It’s in that fraction of a second – when his face is level with my chest – that he looks up from the book.

  For what seems to be an indiscernible amount of time, his eyes gaze appreciatively at my breasts which, being on the sizable side, were bulging out of my triangular bikini top.

  I gasp. And, when he realises he’s been caught, he quickly turns away.

  I see that he’s still smiling but that he also looks a little flustered.

  Feeling flustered too, I sit down next to him and try to pay attention to the book on his lap but realise that what I’m actually staring at is his bulging neoprene covered groin.

  Jack taps a finger on a picture of a brightly coloured fish. ‘On this page, are the kinds of fish we might see today, if we’re lucky. Sweetlips…’

  I look up from the book, at him. Our lips are so close, and I realise that if I lean forward just a little, I could steal a kiss from him. I can’t help but imagine what that might feel like. When he speaks, I can feel his warm breath on my face. He smells minty. I nervously lick my own lips before I avert my gaze from his mouth, up and into the deep blue sizzling depths of his dilated eyes to see an unfamiliar – yet quite unmistakable – look in them.

  It’s a look I haven’t seen in a man for a very long time but my memory still serves me well.

  I’m left in no doubt that the frisson between us is real and also mutually acknowledged.

  ‘I like the way you look at me, Lori. It makes me feel real good,’ he says in a low voice.

  My heart leaps and panic fizzles through me. I don’t know what to say. What have I done?

  He quickly puts his hand onto my bare leg and he squeezes my thigh gently.

  Then he removes his hand just as quickly in order to point at another fish in the book.

  Did I imagine what happened just then? Was it my imagination playing a trick?

  ‘Erm, did you just call me sweetlips?’ I ask him, using humour to defuse the tension.

  Jack laughs. ‘I promise it’s the name of the fish. Look, here’s an Oriental sweetlips and a clownfish and a batfish and a grouper. They are all very common in this area.’

  Having just been groped myself I say, ‘A groper fish? Ooh, well, I’ll have to watch out!’

  He creases up laughing. ‘No. It’s called a grouper, Lori, and the sweetlips thing – oh my that’s so funny. You’re so funny!’

  Our laughter slices through the heavy sexual tension in the salty air and we both breathe a sigh of relief. We go downstairs and Jack helps me gear up.

  The diving experience is great. We go down to a shallow cove that has a stunningly beautiful coral garden. He stays by my side every moment, guiding me, keeping one hand on my air tank and pointing out interesting colourful fish in the waving corals and the scuttling crabs in the sand and even an ugly looking eel poking its head out from the rocks. The dive is supposed to last around forty minutes but the time passes so quickly. I’m so in the moment and I love every single minute of being underwater. I love every single minute of being with Jack.

  ‘Do you think you’ll wanna do a dive qualification now?’ he asks me afterwards.

  ‘Yes. Absolutely,’ I tell him. ‘I want to get my Open Water certification.’

  ‘Great. Cos I know Carly has an Open Water group starting tomorrow, if you feel ready?’

  I’m suddenly and heart wrenchingly disappointed. ‘But Carly told me that I could go with a group or I could have private one-to-one tuition. I’d really like to continue with you as my private instructor, Jack. Will you teach me?’

  He looks at me and, for moment at least, I see something else in his eyes.

  Hesitation?

  ‘Sure. It’ll be my pleasure. Will I see you tonight at the bar – for happy hour?’

  I reach Driftwood Bar just as the sun is setting. I’m still high on happiness from the wonderful day that I’ve just spent with Jack and I’m excited over having had my first diving experience. I’m still tingling from his fingers on my skin. I’m still basking in the glow of the unmistakable way he looked at me on the boat and the way he squeezed my thigh, sending zaps of carnal lust and errant longing straight to every erogenous zone in my body. He’s woken me from my long sexual coma and sent me into a lightheaded tizzy spin of reckless thoughts.

  I suddenly feel like a teenager again. I feel like a very naughty and sexy minx.

  Oh my … I’m so out of control!

  The night is warm and balmy, there’s a thin sharp slice of moon tonight and an inky sky full of stars. I’m wearing a loose cotton dress and I’ve taken some time over my hair, washing out the salty seawater and teasing a slick of coconut oil through the length of it with my fingers, so that it dries in long tousled waves down my back. My only accessories are my sacred string bracelets and a beaded anklet that jangles as I walk, my only make-up a slick of strawberry lip balm. I dearly wish I had a fragrance to wear. I wonder why I hadn’t thought to treat myself to a bottle of Chanel or something nice in duty-free on the way out here?

  It’s this simple nonchalant thought about perfume that stirs something inside me.

  That something is a rather bitchy reprimand. A sharp reminder that I hadn’t bought any perfume at the airport because I’d been in a completely distraught state over finding out about my husband’s affair with my best friend. That my shopping at that time had been about frantically grabbing whatever might be suitable because I was running away from my adulterous husband – not flitting off on holiday on my own in a cloud of fragrance, in the hope of having a quickie with another man!

  I’m totally shocked at how my own consciousness could slap me down so viciously.

  What’s this all about? What am I doing?

  Do I have a need for revenge? Is that what this is?

  Am I looking for a quick fling to make things right? A romp for retribution?

  A quick affair to get payback at Charles?

  An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Sex for sex?

  As I approach the bar from the beach, I can see there are lots more mats and beanbags laid out on the sand. All are o
ccupied by couples, laughing, chatting, clinking glasses, sipping beer or cocktails and sitting under colourful paper lanterns and twinkly lights that are strung up high or wrapped around the trunks of the surrounding palm trees.

  There is live reggae music floating on the air. A Bob Marley lookalike with long dreadlocks is strumming a guitar and crooning One Love, One Heart into a microphone.

  I make my way up the steps to the bar where Hey Joe is sitting. When the little dog sees me, he beats his tail on the deck in welcome. I slip onto an empty bar stool. To my surprise, there is someone else serving behind the bar tonight. It’s a woman.

  She’s immediately friendly and asks me what I’d like to drink. I detect from her accent that she too is an American like Jack. She’s attractive. Blonde. In her late thirties?

  I’m not sure why I’m suddenly into guessing other people’s ages.

  I’m just about to tell her that I’ll have a beer, when Jack appears from the kitchen.

  ‘Hi Lori!’ he says immediately. His blue eyes and his smile light up when he sees me.

  And for some reason, instead of just saying hello like a normal person, I wave my fingertips at him and giggle, which looks ridiculous and girly and comes out sounding like a strange purr.

  ‘This is Jules. Jules this is Lori,’ Jack continues, happily introducing us.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Jules,’ I say.

  I can see by the amused look on Jules’s face that she’s already clocked my crush on Jack.

  ‘Nice to meet you too, Lori. We’ve got two for one in our happy hour just now.’

  Jack points to a driftwood sign on the bar: Cocktail of the Day: The best goddamn vodka martini you’ve ever tasted!

  Jules rolls her heavily mascaraed eyes. ‘Oh, an’ they truly are the goddamn best!’

  ‘Okay. I’ll try your goddamn martinis!’ I laugh, trying desperately to pull myself together.

  Jules mixes my first cocktail while, to my disappointment, Jack disappears back into his kitchen. I watch Jules reach for the vodka bottle from the shelf at the back of the bar where all the spirits are in a tidy row and then I notice, propped up on this shelf, there is a certificate of thanks for money raised for an animal charity on the island.