Chapter 5

In the morning, the Greers were up before the Kollaths, a state of affairs Amanda found startling—when had this happened^%before? Normally it was Kerri who was the early riser. But today they had time for a shower, and Amanda a chance to (try to) use the coffee maker (she had never been the greatest at unfamiliar kitchen appliances), before Winston and Kerri emerged, smiling, from their side of the suite. "Good morning," Amanda said. "Had a good night?"

"It was ... good, yeah," said Winston, with an ear-to-ear grin that suggested 'good' was a mighty understatement.

"Look, Kerri, I'm really sorry about last night. I don't know what came over me, I just—"

"Water under the bridge," Kerri said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. "I know you meant well, and that's all that matters, really. Besides, it ended up working out better for us."

"So you had your talk?"

"We did indeed," Kerri said, beaming. "We still want to hit you up for suggestions, but, I think we have reached an understanding."

"Which, I should add, we might not have reached if not for that well-timed glass of water," Winston said, smiling. "So, maybe we ought to thank you."

"Now hold on, let's not go too far," Amanda protested.

"Yeah, if you thank her she'll start lobbing ice water at everybody," Patrick chortled.

"Did you get your food, by the way?" Amanda said. "We brought it home in boxes and put it in the fridge."

"Yes, we did, and thank you," said Kerri. "That was very thoughtful of you, and we certainly benefited from the midnight snack."

"And much more convenient than room service," Winston said. "We were scared if we ordered, they'd ring the doorbell and wake you up. So we thought we'd try the mini-fridge before doing something drastic. And, thank god..."

"Good. Glad I did something right last night," Amanda grumbled.

"Oh, hon." Kerri disengaged from her husband and moved across the room to entwine Amanda in a hug. "You do a lot of stuff right. You're the best sister a girl could ask for."

Winston, evidently remembering their conversation from yesterday, sent Patrick an eyebrow-waggle behind their wives' backs. Patrick returned an ostentatious eye-roll, though he (once again) could not quite keep a return smile from his face.

They did call room service for breakfast that morning. Kerri and Winston were in pajamas, and didn't intend to get dressed that day—"We're cashing in our stay-in-bed-all-day card, the one we got from letting you do it"—and it would be easier to pick the Greers' brains in the privacy of their own room. Besides, Winston wanted to try the room service. "It's something I do at every hotel I go to," he said. "It's just a tradition. And this seems as good a time as any."

So they ordered their eggs and bacon and pancakes and hash browns and fruit and toast, and then sat down to have their conversation.

"So, you guys worked out your communication problem?"

Kerri and Winston looked at each other. "Umm ... By and large," said Kerri. "Not completely. But we're getting there."

"We talked after we got back," Winston said. "You probably guessed it by now, but Kerri told me that she wished I were like that more often."

"Why aren't you?" Patrick asked.

"Well, there was a ... misunderstanding," said Winston, "back when we first started dating. We were in a situation where being wildly affectionate wasn't a smart idea, and Kerri told me so in no uncertain terms. The problem is, because of the way she phrased it..."

"And it took you this long to notice?" Amanda said.

"Well, remember, we had sex in the equation too," said Kerri. "I like snuggling as much as the next person, and sex went a long way towards satisfying that. It wasn't until ... Well, I don't even know. But, like ... Every action has an emotional meaning. You know? And when you're in love with someone, it's all equal. You kiss him or you fuck him—they both mean, 'I love you.' But, because sex is so physical, the ... the balance is different. Whereas a kiss, or a hug ... It means more, because there's so much less to it. You know?"

" ... Err, no, actually, I'm not sure I do," Amanda said, "but it's your life and your equation, so as long as it makes sense in your head..." She laughed. Kerri smiled back.

"So, we realized that there was a misunderstanding," said Winston. "But it's also that ... My mind just doesn't work that way. I don't feel like I need to hug her and kiss her at every opportunity to make her feel loved."

"You give gifts," Amanda said. "And you tell her that she has beautiful eyes."

"Umm ... Yeah," said Winston, agog. "How did you know?"

Kerri elbowed him and rolled her eyes.

" ... Oh," said Winston.

"So, what's wrong with doing that?" said Patrick.

"Well, I wouldn't say that's wrong, per se," said Kerri. "It's just that ... It's not really what I'm looking for. You know?"

"Well, isn't that sort of compromise part of being married?" Patrick asked. "You get yourself accustomed to the way he expresses affection."

"Yeah, it is, and that's part of what we were hoping to get some help on," Kerri said. "But at the same time, he does know how to be cuddly and stuff. And, since I look for that anyway, it's more efficient if..." She laughed.

"Did you get your other stuff straightened out?" said Amanda. "The love-versus-fucking stuff?"

"Yeah, umm," said Winston. "Actually, we ... Ha. It was interesting."

"Oh?"

"Well, Kerri probably told you that, the way we normally do it, it's more self-centered, right? She works on herself, I work on myself, and we both get to cum really hard." Amanda nodded. "Well, we took a step back and we looked at it that way. Kerri was seeing it as being kind of selfish, which to a certain extent it was. But I was seeing it as being in pursuit of our ultimate goal—which was the orgasm—and being the best way to do that."

"Which it is," said Kerri, "as we discovered once we started experimenting."

"Part of it was that she said she wanted you to be more involved in her orgasm," Amanda said.

"Speaking only for myself, I'd want to be," said Patrick. "I'd want to be involved in Amanda's, and have her involved in mine. Otherwise it's basically just masturbating. I mean, I'm masturbating using someone else's body, instead of my hand, but there's no ... There's no emotional intercourse. Just, you know, sexual."

"Well, we tried that," said Winston, "and we found out—rather to our embarrassment, I might add—that we aren't very good at pleasing each other. Only at using each other to please ourselves."

"Which, again, works," said Kerri, "but isn't what we always want."

"How'd you fall into that rut, then?" Amanda asked.

Winston shrugged. "It was ... The best I could offer."

"And I think that was a big step for me," Kerri said. "I had been taking it for granted that he was doing what he could to make my experience pleasurable. Sure, it was the same thing over and over, but ... I remembered back in the beginning, how good it was that I could just focus on my pleasure, and actually climax during sex. We overused it, but that doesn't make it bad."

Patrick said, "Did you guys experiment with making love instead of just ... Ooh, hold on, that must be the room service." It was, so they had to wait until the food had been handed out before they he could finish the question. "Anyway: did you guys try making love instead of just fucking?"

Kerri and Winston looked at each other with identical shy smiles.

"Well, I think that answers our question," said Amanda, grinning. And when Kerri and Winston didn't answer, but just kept gazing at each other, she sneaked a grin at Patrick and took his hand.

It went on for a little, so eventually Patrick, grinning, dropped his fork onto a plate with a loud clank. It broke the moment, and Kerri and Winston looked around. "Sorry, where were we?" said Kerri, fumbling for silverware with red cheeks.

"We were asking if you managed to try to get at the emotional side of sex," said Amanda, grinning. "We got our answer."

"Yeah..." said Kerri, with a dreamy smile on her face.

Winston, at least, was keeping his head about him. "It's kind of funny, but we basically just forgot that we could do sex like that. Because that's the thing about us—both of us keep our emotions under the surface."

"I do not!" Kerri exclaimed.

"No, you do," Patrick said. "Not, like ... I mean, you wear them on your sleeve, you let everybody know what they are. But you don't expect them to matter, to you or to anyone. In any given situation, your first instinct is to ask what you can do to improve the situation. You're a helper. It's part of who you are, and your emotions come second. Close, but second."

"And I'm more intellectual," Winston said. "I sit back and try to figure out what to do about it. I'm logical that way."

"It's a good combination," Amanda said. "You come up with the best logical response, and Kerri, you come up with the best emotional response. There are worse combinations to have."

"But that means neither of you think of your own needs first," Patrick said. "In fact, maybe your own needs don't even enter into it."

Kerri blinked at them. "Wow. I never thought about it that way before."

"Well, it's how we approach things," said Winston. "Actually, it's one of the things I love most about her—that she's so selfless." He hooked an arm around his wife and drew her in.

Kerri gave him a giggle and a kiss on the cheek. "And it's one of the things I love most about him—that he doesn't get overwhelmed and thinks things through."

"Awww," said Patrick, and everyone laughed.

"But, it carried over to your sex lives," said Amanda.

"Yeah," said Kerri, "we just ... I figured the best thing I could do was make him climax really hard—you know?—since guys don't go in for the emotional side as much. And he figured the best thing he could do was make it so I could climax at all—since that's hard for women to achieve. And ... I mean, it really does work out. But ... We just sort of drifted in that direction, and ... We forgot about the other stuff."

"Until Kerri mentioned it last night," Winston said. "And we found out..." He laughed. "We found out that we really had forgotten how to do it. We'd just find ourselves falling back into the old patterns. It was kind of funny."

"Which is part of what we need the help on," Kerri said. "How do you make love?"

Patrick and Amanda looked at each other. She saw the same open-mouthed dismay on his face as she felt on hers.

"Well, ummm," said Patrick.

"It's not ... It's not really something you can teach," said Amanda.

"I mean, don't get us wrong, there's ideas," said Patrick, "but, you have to experiment."

"It's very personal," Amanda said. "We can tell you what works for us, but that doesn't mean it'll work for you or, for that matter, anyone else."

"Because it's so personal," Patrick said.

Kerri and Winston looked at each other, and then sprouted identical predatory grins. "Ooh, more to explore," said Kerri.

"Ahh, well," said Amanda, "I can see you won't have problems with that."

"But, guys, beware that attitude," said Patrick. "I mean, I know you're looking forward to it, but when you're trying to do, like, emotional and loving sex, it's not a surgical strike. It's not targeted. You have to be willing to wander and get distracted."

Amanda caught a flash of inspiration: "Fucking is about the destination. Making love is about the journey."

Winston and Kerri looked at each other. "Thaaaat ... May be a difficult mindset for us," said Winston.

Amanda and Patrick looked at each other. How were they supposed to teach a mindset?

"Well, it ... It's more about ... You just have to keep an open mind," Patrick said. "Don't go into it with any assumptions. It's not like, 'Okay, this is what I want.' You want ... Anything."

"Maybe you should start how we did," Amanda said.

Kerri laughed. "What, with plumbing hiccups?"

"No, actually, that might be a good idea," said Patrick, clearly seized with some inspiration. "Instead of working at it from a sex angle, don't even. Keep clothes on. Explore everything else first."

Kerri looked intrigued, and Winston's eyebrows were up as though receiving some brainstorm.

Amanda looked at Patrick. "What, like we did, because we were waiting?"

"Yes," said Patrick, "exactly. Winston and I were talking yesterday and I realized I learned a lot about you through those limitations. About your body and about your heart. It's made us both better lovers because, number one, we know each other's bodies better, and number two, we're used to making the best of a limited situation. We can get more mileage out of whatever's at hand."

"And we're not ashamed to experiment, or try something silly," said Amanda.

"So, maybe that's a good way to start," Patrick said. "With clothes on, and with clothes staying on."

Kerri and Winston looked at them with identical perplexed expressions. "But..." said Kerri. "But ... What do we play with?"

"Back rub," said Amanda.

"Neck rub," said Patrick.

"Hands and feet."

"Hair. Scalp. Both."

"He liked playing with my ears," Amanda said. "But he never liked having it done in return. Now I realize that it's because he was preparing me for oral sex!"

"Likewise, sucking on fingers," Patrick said. "Never did much for her. Because she doesn't have a penis."

"And it was good practice for me, too," Amanda said. "Some of what worked there crossed over to when I started going down on him. You know, five days ago."

"There are a lot of erogenous zones on the human body that don't involve genitals or breasts," Patrick said. "And it's not just that those places are only good for sex; it also helps you relax. I mean, back rub for heaven's sake."

"And what you said about the balance," said Amanda. "Earlier, Kerri? About the balance between the emotional content of an action versus the physical content? Well, all these spots are more emotional, because the arousal aspect isn't as strong. It's a chance for you to express love in a platonic fashion, if you so desire."

"Well... Kind of platonic," said Patrick. "More platonic than, say, grabbing a breast."

"So why don't you start there and see where things evolve," said Amanda.

"And let them evolve, don't try to control it," Patrick said. "It doesn't have to go the way you intended it. It doesn't have to anything. That's the point."

"One suggestion, though, for actual sex, if you actually get to it," Amanda said.

"When," Patrick corrected, smiling.

"Try and stay so that you can kiss at all times," Amanda said. "That changes the dynamic, and that changes the emphasis. My guess is that you guys set things up so you can really go to town when you fuck." She got their confirming nods. "Well, my experience is that those positions rarely leave you face-to-face. So try to retain that element. It'll force you to slow down, and change your emphasis."

"Boy," Winston said, "that's a lot of advice. Can I, um, go grab a piece of paper and ask you to repeat it?"

Amanda laughed and stood up. "I'm sure you guys will remember most of it." She reached out her hand to Patrick, who took it and stood up.

"And where are you guys going?" said Kerri.

"Well, we finished eating," said Patrick, "so I figure we'd best give you two lovebirds some privacy."

"It'll be a nice change," said Amanda, smiling. "Most of the time we're out in boy-boy and girl-girl pairs. I think this is the first time I've gone anywhere with just my husband."

"But ... But what if we need help?" Kerri asked, looking worried.

"You know our cell phone numbers," Patrick said.

"Besides, you're two of the most capable people I know. You be fine. Just ... Do what feels natural."

"I know, but ... I wanna get this right." Kerri dithered with her hands, twisting a ring around her finger—her engagement ring, Amanda realized. "This is too important to mess up."

Amanda gave her a kiss on the cheek. "And that's why you won't."

She and Patrick evaluated all the tourist brochures in the lobby without conclusion; perhaps Kerri would have had some destination in mind, but they just wanted to spend the time together. So Patrick, who loved to drive, rented a convertible for the day so that they could just drive around the island, doing whatever they wanted and stopping wherever they felt like. They didn't know if they could find anything fun, but—as Patrick jokingly mentioned—"It's the journey that's important, not the destination."

Amanda relaxed into the bucket seat with a sigh. "My god. I think this is the first chance I've had to relax in ... Oh, about a year?"

"Oh, come on," said Patrick, "you've been having fun."

"I have, I have," she said. "But just ... Ugh. Ever since you put that ring on my finger, we were going full steam to plan this wedding. And then, once we got here ... Well, I've had my share of pressures. And plus, Kerri isn't the casual type. She's so goal-oriented."

"As we just discussed."

"So the idea of just ... Wandering ... That's not something she does, really."

"Well, we get to wander now," he said with a smile.

"Yeah. But my point is, we've been married a whole week and finally I get to relax. So forgive me if I fall asleep. Like I said, it's the first time I've been stress-free in more than a year."

A nostalgic smile crept over his face. "I remember the first time you fell asleep while I was driving. We were coming home from that lake—remember, when your friend June invited us up to that cabin? And you'd been splashing around all day and you were exhausted. And I just ... I was glad you felt comfortable enough in my presence to fall asleep." He touched her hand.

She turned hers palm up; their fingers interlaced. "We should've gotten something with bench seats. Then I can cuddle with you as you drive."

"Yeah, but then we've had had to get an automatic."

She smiled. "Well, we couldn't have that now could we," she said.

"Course not," he said, grinning, "that would be a travesty." And with that he started up the engine, and they were off.

It was fun—driving wherever they pleased, stopping wherever they wished. They found a curbside market and browsed the produce—homemade ornaments, cloth, the sort of things they might find at a farmer's market back home. The produce, however, was completely different; they showed each other examples of fruit they'd never seen before. There were pinkish things with green spines all over it and another more like a football, with a hard spiky shell and rather pungent odor. Patrick liked it, but Amanda forbade him from buying one. "If it smells like this now," she said, "imagine what it'll smell like in the toilet." Patrick put the thing down in a hurry.

They ate lunch at a greasy diner, whose customers looked a bit surprised to see two white tourists step in, and then Patrick asked for directions for a road up the mountainside, preferably a twisty, turny one: he wanted to put their car through its paces. Thankfully, a couple of wrong turns and some photo opportunities gave Amanda time to settle her stomach before things really got started. The road was narrow and twisty, but Patrick had things under control, and she knew—in that deep place in her bones far below conscious thought—that he would never put her in danger.

Besides, the view from the top was spectacular.

They stood together, arm in arm, the wind flapping through their hair. Below them sprawled the cities and jungles of the island, hotels and beaches, houses and office buildings, golf courses and parks, and beyond it an expanse of deep blue water, churned by countless boats, that leapt towards the azure horizon. They pointed out their resort—or at least what they thought was their resort; there were too many of them to be sure. Amanda wondered if this was what God might feel like: watching from some immense altitude, majestic in glory and secure in His power ... and yet buffeted by a lonely wind, with no one at His side. She tucked herself further into her husband's sheltering arms. If the choice was between the power of a god or the love of an equal, I might choose the equal.

"We are so lucky," she said.

"I know," he said. "How many people get to be here? How many people get to see this?"

"Well ... that too," she said. "But I meant that ... That we had found each other. Think of all the people who go through life without ... without ever knowing real love, or getting to be happy. Think of the people who go to thankless jobs in chilly office buildings and then come home to scream at their kids. Think of the people who have to join gangs to stay alive, whose lives are cut short in a hail of bullets, who fuck women but never love them. Think of all the things ... we don't have to go through." She turned to him, put her arms around him, buried her face in his chest. "Because we have each other."

She felt his warm breath in his hair, the strength of his muscles around her. He was her fortress. She remembered what Kerri had said about the idea of marrying someone else. Who else could I have married? And how could I have been happy? Everything about him is perfect for me.

"Remember what we were talking about with Kerri and Winston," he said. "About how people show affection to each other?" "Yeah."

"Well, I just noticed something. They don't say 'I love you' very often. And neither do we."

She looked up at him. "Well, we don't need to. I know you love me, and you know I love you. We don't have to say it."

"I know," he said, "but I just wanted to say it anyway." He gazed down at her. "I love you." His eyes were solemn, and she realized suddenly just how much she meant it.

She gazed into his eyes, letting the same solemnity pass in her own voice. "I love you."

She felt a shiver pass through her. They had traded the rings a week ago, been in the church, heard the organ thunder as they walked down the aisle—almost exactly a week ago, she realized, it must be nearly three o'clock by now. And yet it was now—this moment, here, now, on this windswept mountain a mile closer to the eyes of God—that she felt they had truly become one.

When, finally, they relinquished each other, she noticed that his eyes were on her breasts. And when she looked down and saw her nipples pointing through, she understood why. She met his eyes and they laughed.

"It's probably the cold," she said.

"Well, that and pent-up frustration, maybe," he said. "I mean, we didn't last night."

"True." For all the sweet noises coming from the Kollaths' bedroom, her nerves hadn't been assuaged. "Well ... We have some time. And there's no one else up here." She smiled.

To her surprise, he shook his head. "No. It ... Not in this place. You'd freeze, and the car isn't big enough, and..." He grimaced with the effort of trying to put his thoughts into words. "It's not enough for you. I don't wanna ... I don't wanna waste that moment on a tawdry shag up here."

She leaned up to kiss him.

"Though, maybe ... on the hood of a car one day," he said, grinning.

She rolled his eyes and led him back to the driver's seat.

It took a couple hours to get back down to sea level, interrupted in part by more photo opportunities—the views down to the ground, and once the road itself. Clearly, no one had been along to maintain the road in some time; either that or the crew had been drunk: the double yellow line at the center was veering around like crazy, and in some cases broken and reshuffled, as though someone had chopped it up and tossed it around. It made an appealing composition (and was funny as hell besides). "Only out here," said Patrick. "On the mainland you'd be sued if you did this, but here, where everything's so laid-back..."

They found a beach to romp on, with Amanda protesting at first that they hadn't brought swim suits. Patrick just smiled at her and said, "So?" and she decided he had a point. But Patrick wanted to relax a little after the hours of hard driving he'd put in, so he reclined his chair back and stretched out a little. And Amanda, thankful they hadn't brought the top back down yet after their descent from the mountain, leaned over and unzipped him. She knew that if anyone came by, they'd see her, but she decided she didn't care; besides, there didn't seem to be anyone around. (Why? Shouldn't the beaches be full of tourists, or at least locals? She didn't know; and after a moment, she decided not to question their magic luck.) She was still new at this, but it didn't take long before he was coming, his seed going down her throat. It was a tricky angle, but she locked eyes with him the entire time, intensely conscious of his body (she could feel nothing else but his hands on her hair, the tension in his legs, that warm shaft in her mouth) but focused on his face, on the love in his eyes, the pleasure in his mouth, and knew that, once again, they were one.

Back in the suite, they found that the remains of breakfast were still out on the table, suggesting that Kerri and Winston had gone straight back to their room after being left alone. Laughing, they started stacking the dishes for return to the room-service people, and the clatter brought their friends out. Winston was wearing shorts, Kerri one of his button-downs, and both of them had returned to their disgustingly chipper selves.

"Did you guys have fun at ... wherever you went?" Kerri asked.

"We just wandered around," said Patrick with a shrug. "It was good to have some time alone." He smiled. "And you two?"

"We-elll..." said Kerri, grinning.

Winston wasn't so reticent. "You were right," he chortled, "there were tons of things we didn't know about each other. Like, I found that if you tickle her in—"

"Winnie!" Kerri exclaimed, giving him a slap on the arm. To Amanda's surprise, she had gone bright red.

"I guess you guys had fun, then," Amanda said, not bothering to hide a smile. "And got some of your problems worked out?"

"Well, some of them," Kerri said. "I mean, it's hard to just change direction entirely after years, you know? But we found out we can change direction, and we weren't sure about that at all, so ... Win!" She grinned.

"Well, good, 'cuz, you realize that our flight home leaves tomorrow," Patrick said.

Kerri and Winston gaped at him. So did Amanda. Wait, seriously?! It's been a week already? We got married on ... Oh, right, Friday. A week ago today. So that means that...

"Aww, man!" Kerri said. "Party-pooper. God, I feel like we wasted this entire honeymoon."

"I don't," said Amanda.

"Seriously?" said Kerri. "I mean ... Jeez. Isn't it supposed to be like this wonderland snuggle fest where you're just drunk on love and life and sex and, and everything's perfect? Instead, we kept having all these problems."

"Yes," Amanda said, "and that's why I don't feel like we wasted it. Kerri, think for a minute. The problems you had with Winston, and the problems Patrick and I had: they would've happened eventually. No matter what. Right?"

"Oh, I see where you're going with this," said Winston, smiling.

"So I'm glad they happened now," Amanda said. "Now, when we had plenty of time to focus on them and to really get things right. I learned what it's like to be married to Patrick, and how to be married to Patrick. And I'm glad I got to do that here, where there was nothing else we had to focus on. Imagine if I had to do this after we all got home and were working 8 hours a day! We'd still be sexless!"

"Which would suck," said Winston.

"It would suck," Amanda agreed. "So I'm glad that we had this chance to get our marriage off on the right foot. I mean, isn't that basically what the honeymoon's for?"

Kerri looked at her husband. "How come she's giving us advice? What happened to the girl who needed so much help a week ago?"

Winston grinned. "Well, what goes around comes around, or so they say. Clearly, the kindness we did her has come back to us."

"And that begs another question, too," Kerri said. "What are we gonna do with our remaining ... eighteen hours here?"

"You mean, besides eat and sleep?" said Winston. "It's 5 PM, you know."

"What do people do on the one-week anniversary of their wedding?" Kerri asked. "Amanda?"

"W-what?" said Amanda. "Me?"

"Well, you seem to have all the other answers," Kerri said with an ingenious giggle. "I thought you might be able to help here too."

"I ... Not with this," Amanda said. "I know that for the one-year anniversary you're supposed to take that bit of cake down and eat it, but it hasn't been a year and we don't have it here anyway."