“Stop trying to put words in my mouth!” she teased.
“What would you like me to put in your mouth?”
“You are an evil person!” I was pushed away and Marilyn stood up and tied her robe around her again.
I stood and pulled my swim trunks back up. Then, holding hands, we went back up to La Valencia. As we got closer, we could see Mrs. Wilkes standing out on the veranda waiting for us. I whispered to Marilyn, “I think I like your outfit. Why don’t you keep it on?”
“Because I need a shower! You got me all sweaty.”
“And that’s my fault?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes, it’s your fault!” she answered in her most superior tone.
I just laughed and waved Marilyn off to the bedroom while I went over to Mrs. Wilkes. “Good morning, Mrs. Wilkes. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
“Yah, chief, dat it is,” she answered in her sing song accent.
We talked briefly, and I got the distinct impression that without Mr. Finch around, she spoke in a much heavier dialect. On some things she needed subtitles! Still, I told her that tea and some fruit would be good for me, and that Marilyn preferred coffee and maybe some cereal. I stuck my head inside our room and yelled into the bathroom confirming this. Mrs. Wilkes said it would be in the dining room when we came out.
I thanked her and went inside. Marilyn was just getting out of the shower, and refused to be enticed back in, saying she was hungry. I slipped off my trunks and took a quick shower and then shaved, before slipping my trunks back on, along with a polo shirt. When I came out of the bathroom, Marilyn had left the bedroom, so I tracked her down in the dining room. She was sitting there in a lacy beach cover-up that I could see a swimsuit through, and was having Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and orange juice along with her coffee.
“I told Mrs. Wilkes that if she had any fruit salad, you’d probably like that,” said my wife.
“Yes, thank you.” I nodded to Mrs. Wilkes and thanked her as well, and she went back into the kitchen. There was a large bowl of fruit salad on the table, and a serving bowl, so I helped myself to a large helping, along with some juice.
I turned my attention back to Marilyn. “I like your dress. Too bad you had to bring underwear along.”
Marilyn looked at me with considerable confusion, before looking down and seeing what I was referring to. Then she gave me an exasperated look. “This is not a dress, this is a beach cover-up, and this is a swimsuit, not underwear!”
“Oh. Well, it would be an interesting dress, too,” I said with a leer.
“For a hooker!”
“Do you charge by the act or by the hour?” I asked.
“In your case, it’ll be cheaper if I charge by the inch!”
Marilyn doesn’t zing on me all that often, but when she does, it’s memorable. I spluttered out my juice all across the table and started coughing. She laughed uproariously as I got my breathing under control. “That is cold, lady, cold!” I protested.
“That’ll teach you!”
“I think you’ve earned yourself a spanking!”
“You’ll never be able to catch me, Gimpy!”
I tossed my napkin to the table and Marilyn shrieked and ran out of the room, heading towards the bedroom. I caught up to her and captured her before she could make it outside through the patio door. The pounding I gave her had nothing whatsoever to do with a spanking!
Afterwards, as we were both trying to catch our breath, I rolled off her and Marilyn rolled onto me. “Was that supposed to be a punishment?” she asked. “If it was, I plan on being very, very bad!”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe the real punishment will be that I don’t punish you that way!” I sat up and grabbed for my trunks. “Come on, Mrs. Wilkes must think we’re barbarians!”
We collected ourselves and headed out to the dining room, but Mrs. Wilkes was much too efficient; the table had been cleaned off, even where I had sprayed out my juice. Marilyn even noticed Mrs. Wilkes smiling at us from the kitchen, and turned beet red in embarrassment. I just laughed and sent her off to the bedroom to dig out the sunscreen and beach towels.
We went down to the beach and I spread out our towels on the beach. I had my sunglasses on now and it looked truly deserted. Marilyn stripped off her cover-up and I got my first glimpse at her swimsuit. “Is that new?” I asked.
“You noticed!”
“I’m a guy! We always notice women in swimsuits. We try and figure out how hard it would be to take it off.”
“And how hard do you think it would be?” she giggled.
“Not very!” I think this was Marilyn’s first string bikini, and the bottoms had ties on the side. It still wasn’t as extreme as what they would become in another twenty years (it had a back, for instance) but it looked pretty good on her. “I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think you got advice on that one from your mother.”
“Tessa, actually.”
I thought of Tusker’s little blonde honey of a wife and had to smile. “It must drive him crazy when she wears something like that at the beach!”
“She says it does, and she likes it that way!”
I laughed at that, and started rubbing the suntan lotion on. I tossed the bottle to Marilyn and she did the same. Then we oiled each other’s backs and ran down to the ocean. The water was warm and clear and calm. I limited my exercise regimen to floating around and slowly chasing after my wife as she floated in the water. Eventually we got waterlogged and headed back to the beach, where we put some more lotion on. We both agreed that the sun would probably broil us otherwise!
Before lunch time, we were both feeling well done, and we gathered our stuff and headed back to the house. Mrs. Wilkes offered to make us some sandwiches, and we got her to do grilled cheese. Mrs. Wilkes spiced it up with some hot pepper and something else I couldn’t place, and then she took off. We were on our own again. I cleaned up and then Marilyn and I made love again in our bedroom.
About an hour later, while Marilyn dozed, I just wasn’t feeling sleepy. What I was feeling was thirsty, and not just for orange juice. I stirred myself upright and smiled as I looked down on her rump, now starting to show some color from the sun. I slapped her on the ass and woke her up. “What?” she grumbled.
I stood and tossed my trunks to the side. “Come on, get up. We need to go shopping.”
Marilyn rolled over and looked at me. “Shopping!?”
“Shopping! In a couple of days we are going to be on our own for the weekend and will need to fend for ourselves. That and I could do with a drink, and I don’t mean more orange juice! There must be a liquor store somewhere on this island!” I headed off to the bathroom for a quick shower.
When I came out, Marilyn was still lazing in bed, so I slapped her on the ass again. “Come on, up and at ‘em!” I ordered. “Time’s a’wasting!”
Marilyn grumbled and called me several names, none of which were printable, so I slapped her on the ass again and got out of the way while she started swinging. After a moment she crawled out of bed and hit the shower, too. By the time she got out, I was in cutoffs and a Hawaiian shirt.
Marilyn found me in the kitchen, looking through the pantry and the fridge and writing down a grocery list. She had pulled on a pair of shorts and a halter top, and was in her flip flops. “Ready?”
“Almost. Give me a second and then we can go.” I jotted down a couple of things and then went back to the bedroom, where I slipped into my deck shoes. I grabbed the car keys and said, “Okay, let’s go!” I slipped on my sunglasses and led the way to the front door.
We drove up to Governors Harbor and spent the next couple of hours shopping. Aside from some food and snacks for the weekend, we also needed some liquor, beer, and wine. It’s not like we were being drunks and alcoholics, but I knew from experience that laying in the sun for an afternoon, it was easy to go through a six pack or more between us without getting drunk. Likewise, Marilyn and I enjoyed a bottle of wine in the evening, so I picked up several bottles of red and white. As for liquor, rum was pretty cheap, and there was even a local rum, produced by a branch of Bacardi, made on one of the other islands. While I’ve never been a big rum drinker, Marilyn liked it, so we picked up a bottle and some Coke to mix with it. After a couple, they start tasting better to me.