cream and half a banana. It was her breakfast drink the first morning
at Hedonism. She hopes he hurries. She’s getting thirsty.
Quick, my buzz is wearing off! Do something!
That’s Shane’s joke of the week. Neither of them has yet been in
any danger of their buzz wearing off.
“You should check out my website.” Hal fingers a giant gold cross
hanging in his grey chest hair. It’s gaudy and fake but makes Vero
think of the delicate gold cross that always hangs at LiLi’s throat.
“Just Google my name. You’ll find me there, always counting down
to my next Hedonism trip. That ticker never stops running. Trip
thirty-seven we’re at this time.” He puts his foot up on the end of
his wife’s lawn chair, making Vero increasingly grateful for his tiny
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Speedo. “Thirty-seven years. That’s almost as long as the place has
existed.”
Vero sucks in her stomach, lifting her pelvic floor just as Roger
instructs at Bikram. Even the thought of Roger is incongruous here.
“Girls e-mail me there on my site,” Hal drawls, the cigar clenched in his
back teeth. “All kinds of questions I get from first-timers. How much
hair should they shave? Is everyone really totally naked? What’s the
proper etiquette for spouse-swapping? And everybody wants to know
what goes on in the wild tub. Hal’s got the answers. After thirty-seven
years, I would, wouldn’t I, Mother?” He nudges his wife with his toe.
She nods up at him with a vague expression—the one that head-
phoned teenagers wear when they nod at their parents.
“I stayed off the ’net on this one. Maybe my husband came across
your site.” Vero is aware of her own nudity, but only tangentially so.
After two days, she’s almost forgotten how to be self-conscious. The
constant supply of alcohol and THC coursing through her blood-
stream help. On day one, after the inaugural afternoon nap, she made
her first naked promenade down the pool deck, breath held, eyes on
the ocean. She headed straight for the water, got in up to her neck, and
stayed there until dinner, paddling around in the waves, warm as soup,
eyes diverted from the intertwined naked bodies that floated by her on
air mattresses shaped like cartoon sea creatures.
But Shane had been even more nervous than her.
“We’re going to do this?” He sat on the corner of the bed, a swan
towel in his lap, its long white neck pointing to the cracked ceiling.
“Really?”
Vero’s first walk felt familiar. She’d lived it before in recurring night-
mares. At the end of her naked march, she expected to find herself in
an exam room and out of time. But after the first few hours, the night-
marish quality of Hedonism dissipated, though the dreamy haze of the
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vacation did not. By day two, clothes seemed odd. In clothes, people
pose, draw attention to their bodies. Naked, there’s nothing to look at,
nothing to call, Hey, have a look down here! Without clothes, eyes stay
on eyes.
Hal’s Speedo flag invites Vero’s eyes to his crotch. Vero’s nudity
extends no such invitation. “I can give you my number-one piece of
advice now,” he says, “even though you missed my pre-trip tips.” He
holds his cigar out of his mouth for his announcement. “Stay away from
the Japanese restaurant. Where I live, we call sushi bait.” Hal’s laugh
rolls over like an old dog, phlegmy and slow at the bottom of his throat.
“No worries: I’m not eating anything raw at this place.” Vero lifts
her voice at the end of each word, forcing her sentences to turn up in a
smile. Hedonism is not the kind of place one wants to make enemies.
There’s a sign at either end of the beach:
NUDE BEACH ONLY
NO PHOTOGRAPHY
But disobeying a sign would be so easy in a place that builds its repu-
tation on disobedience. Vero promises her Sprucedale self that she will
be careful. Even as quickly as this place has become normal to her, she
knows she doesn’t want remnants of it showing up in her real life. She
cringes at the thought of explaining this place to Joss or the Schoemans
or Cheryl or Roger or, God forbid, to LiLi.
The resort offers a wide range of activities throughout the day, just
as the brochure promised. There’s topless volleyball in the tame pool
throughout the afternoon, and nude Twister just before dinner on the
wilder deck. On the beach, beautiful Jamaican girls offer body painting.
For the athletically inclined, there’s yoga on the upper deck, but Vero
and Shane opted out, knowing they couldn’t stomach all those naked
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downward dogs. The hot tub for the truly daring rages day and night,
and Vero and Shane have only got hints of what goes on there. They’re
working their way up to it.
“You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to here,” Shane
whispers as he steers Vero away from Hedonism Hal, who’s making a
joke about everyone eating raw at Hedonism eventually. “Forget man-
ners. We’ll never see these people again. Don’t do anything you don’t
want to do.”
Vero takes her breakfast shake from Shane as she plops onto the
sand, already hot against her bare ass. “I feel sorry for him, Shane. What
would bring someone like that to a place like this? Over and over again.
Thirty-seven times. What is he looking for?” They sit leg-to-leg, watch-
ing a young Jamaican woman in a bright red bikini painting onto the
skin of a pair of naked newlyweds.
“Don’t go growing on me now, honey,” the Jamaican woman says to
the groom. “I only have this little bottle of paint.” Her words are flirta-
tious, according to the script, but their tone is not. She sounds like any
worn-out waitress at any greasy spoon back home. A co-worker with
cornrows and long sharp red nails joins her to help paint the bride. This
painter wears a grass-green sarong and matching bikini top. The work-
ers wear clothes. All of them and always.
“What should we do for you, Missy? Some hearts for breasts? Or do
you like flowers? Maybe we should ask your man—you’re his now.” The
worker with cornrows dips her brush in red and starts to work on the
bride’s naval. “Yep, you’re all his now. And he’s yours.” She looks away
from her brush, runs her eyes up and down the groom, once, twice, and
then again. “That little bottle of paint gonna be enough for your man,
there?” She smiles. “I’m not so sure about that. Not so sure…” she sings
the words.
Shane and Vero are content to sit and watch, their legs braided
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together. The silence between them isn’t uncomfortable and angry as it
often is at home. It’s the silence of the sex-stoned. Shane occasionally
puts his fingers in Vero’s hair and gives
a soft tug. She watches the sun
and calculates the hours until their afternoon nap.
As the painters settle into their work, they lower their voices and
speak only to each other. They fall into a thick patois, and Vero has
difficulty making out their words, but she thinks she hears the one in
the red bikini say, “Some people smell, and they don’t even know they
smell.”
When the painting is done, the groom has a black-and-white tuxedo
with a bowtie covering his torso and a giant heart around his penis.
The bride wears two daisies for breasts and a red tulip growing out of
her vagina. They hold hands and smile shyly as Hedonism Hal and
the other geriatric nudists admire the art work. Eventually, the painted
newlyweds walk hand-in-hand into the ocean and giggle as the water
turns red around them.
The average age here surprises Vero. She and Shane are amongst the
youngest other than a few college kids whom Vero suspects have been
hired. Professional partiers. How could they afford this place? And why
would they want to be here? With people as old as their parents—their
grandparents—parading around nude. But thrill-seekers come to these
places expecting beauty, craving sex appeal. Both belong to the young.
The resort must provide.
Imena is the most obvious hire.
“Where are you from?” Vero asks her, shouting above the booming
bass as they lean into the bar, elbows touching.
“Where are any of us from? It doesn’t matter here. I could tell you,
but I’d be lying, just like you’re lying.” She pulls a lipstick from between
her breasts and reapplies. There’s an imprint of dark red lips on her
plastic cup when she holds it out for a refill.
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Imena has mastered the perfect mixture of black leather and skin:
her dark flesh peeking through slits along her muscled back and torso.
A long run of leg shows from ankle to hip bone. The outfit provides
a window glance at her firm strong buttock. At six feet, two inches,
Imena looks capable of bench-pressing any of the men at the resort, of
doing squats with them stretched overhead; her quads and biceps are
as big as Vince’s. The more Vero watches Imena, the surer she is that
she knows her. From TV. Maybe she’s an American track star? Vero
pictures her powering over hurdles, far out ahead of her opponents,
hair swinging wildly behind her. But her name was not Imena then,
not when she ran. Vero wants a photograph of Imena, to remember
her face when she gets home, needs to see her like that, legs pumping,
hair flying loose.
Imena never comes out until after dinner. At the dance club, two
skinny men attach themselves to her, humping her legs like dogs in
heat. Imena’s eyes glaze over, looking far into the distance, but she
stays planted on the dance floor, granting them access to her mountain
of a body. Done with her legs, the men take on her nipples, each one
flicking his tongue at the faux diamonds embedded in leather at the
dead centre of each of her breasts, as big as football helmets, cupped in
sturdy black. Imena allows the flicking tongue, the thrust of hips, but
when the men touch her, she pulls a long whip from its holster, points
it at their faces, her expression fierce. They giggle in delight, crossing
their legs like schoolboys who have to pee, but they back away.
“Let’s just take our time easing into this scene,” Shane advises. “Once
you pick your group, that’s your group. We want to pick carefully.”
At dinner, the hedonists wear clothes, but not normal clothes.
Togas are most popular. Vero imagines piles of suitcases arriving at
the Negril airport, all packed full of nothing but bed sheets.
“You live your fantasy here,” a woman tells them at dinner, leaning
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in close over her jerk chicken. “Save the boring clothes for home.”
She’s dressed in a gold cheerleading costume with a red lion’s head
painted across her chest. Folds of flab squeeze out over the too-tight
underarms. Vero thinks of Eliot pointing at her own underarms—
your skin doesn’t fit here, Mommy. It’s wiggly. Bikram has fixed that.
Vero’s skin fits perfectly now. A poster in the lobby at her yoga studio
reads:
Lose weight to look good in clothes.
Exercise to look good naked.
It’s true. Vero used to hate her short legs, her square box of a torso.
Now she sees power. Her quad muscles push against the skin at her
thighs, bulge protectively around her kneecaps. Distinct lines of mus-
cles run down her calves. Vero looks good naked. Cheryl once com-
plained, “Why shouldn’t these breasts be beautiful? They’ve survived a
pregnancy, they’ve nourished a baby. They show signs of that: why isn’t
that beautiful?” Vero couldn’t go that far, couldn’t bring herself to love
the stretch marks and the gnawed nipples, but Bikram has taught her
to appreciate the body’s work and the signs of that work. She lies back
in the sun throwing her own muscled leg over Shane’s. Shane spreads
his hand across her abdomen. “Almost nap time?”
“I think so,” she answers, though they just finished breakfast.
For the first few days, she and Shane spend a lot of time by them-
selves, which suits Vero fine. Their voyeurism fuels the fun in their
room during the late afternoon rainfall. They meet a man with a silver
know what that’s good for?” Vero asks, licking the salt off the rim
of her margarita. “It’s not just for looks.” Later, they see the couple
swinging in a hammock, putting the piercing to use.
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“How come you never pierced your tongue for me?” Vero teases,
back in the room.
“You don’t think I’m good enough au naturel?” Shane smiles. “I’ve
never noticed any complaints.” He grabs her pointer finger between
his front teeth, tickles its tip with his tongue.
“I’d need a point of comparison.” She traces her fingernail along the
outer cartilage of his ear, rounded and firm as a seashell, involuntarily
arching her back as he proves his point.
He slips off his wedding ring and slides it around his tongue, nib-
bling his way down her body.
“Stop! Stop!” she finally begs, laughing as she pushes him away
from her. He fights back, but she’s strong now too. She curls into fetal
position, pulling her knees protectively into her chest. “We can do
whatever you want today. Just don’t make me come anymore.”
“Did Vero Schanton just say enough?! ” He curls his body over hers,
kissing the back of her neck.
“It’s a muscle too,” she hears herself say as she drifts into sleep.
“There is such a thing as enough.”
In the evening, they phone home. It’s Shane’s idea. Vero doesn’t
want to. Eliot will just
miss them more, and Jamal only speaks gibber-
ish anyway. But these are things they have agreed not to talk about on
their holiday, especially Jamal’s speech. So Vero smiles and takes the
phone. “It’s me! It’s Mommy! I miss you!” She shouts her exclamations
of love across the ocean. “I’ll be home soon! Do you miss Mommy?”
LiLi assures her they are all doing fine but afterward she emails
them:
Eliot cry after yr call. He miss mommy so much. But I tak good care. You
enjoy fr yourselfs.
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That night, Vero goes to bed early, and in the morning they agree
not to call again. It’s a short holiday. She sends an email asking LiLi
to contact them only if there are problems.
Otherwise we’ll see you in a week. That’s probably easier for everyone.
Hugs for you and the boys. —V.N.
All day long, boats float out just past the roped-off swimming area.
“Mon! Mon!” old men yell when swimmers get close. “What do you
want? I got it. Coke, E, mushrooms, weed. I got it. Good price. Good
stuff.” Shane swims out and comes back with a stick of weed as big as
Vero’s Mother’s Day bouquets. He holds it high above his head in one
hand, stroking the water with the other.
“Are we staying for a year?” she asks as he shakes his hair dry, splat-
tering her with water and then holding his prize up to her nose. The
pungent sweet aroma takes her back twenty years. It’s true that smell is
the sense most closely linked to memory.
“We’ll have to make friends. They’ll help us polish this off in a week.
Some pretty girls, maybe?” He smiles, shaking a finger at her as if it’s
her idea.
Again with the friends and the girls. Vero wants to make a safe world
of just the two of them.
“Women envy what you have in Shane,” Joss said once when Vero
confided about a late-night fight, one of her barefooted forest fits. “The
way he looks at you. He would do anything to make you happy. He
would try anything. Hiring LiLi—that was one of his attempts. Maybe
he doesn’t always know. Maybe he never knows. But he tries.” Joss and
Ian have been talking again about Ian going off to work in the oil patch:
out one week, home one week. Their teenage boys are both still playing
hockey. Even with Joss’s job at the mine, they can’t keep up with costs.