Killing Them Softly (3 page)

When the Captain made the call to board the ship, I got my gear and followed the other men onto the ship for a day of deep-sea fishing.

As the ship headed out to sea, I took a moment to marvel at the fact that things had played out exactly the way I hoped they wouldn’t. As soon as we got to the hotel and checked into our room, Taye started trippin’.

The bellman opened the door, brought in our bags, and put them down. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, everything is fine," I said, and handed the guy a tip.

Taye stood in the doorway. "This is totally unacceptable," she said, looking at the queen-sized bed.

"What’s wrong, baby?"

"The bed. I requested a king-sized bed."

The bellman apologized and left the room promising to do what he could to rectify the situation. After thirty minutes, I wished that I had left the room with him. Taye spent all of that time complaining about everything: from the size of the room to the color of the drapes; from the view from the balcony to the fact that we hadn’t seen any other black people since we got off the plane. "And what the hell is taking them so long to find another room," she fussed. She immediately picked up the phone and started blasting the front desk clerk.

As for me, I sat quietly in a chair by the sliding glass door to the balcony. I thought the view, which overlooked the pool, was excellent. And I enjoyed watching all of the well-tanned female bodies lounging by the pool.

Before I left New York, I had resolved myself not to buy into Taye’s mood swings, and to have a good time regardless of what was going on with her. However, my hope was that Taye would let go of some of the things that seemed to constantly stress her out, and relax for change. She was always so uptight. In my mind, I pictured us having fun at the beach. Holding hands while we took long, romantic walks together. We would once again share little jokes that nobody understood but us. I really hoped that we would rekindle that magic that we once shared.

I looked at my wife as she wandered around the room, bitching and moaning about everything, including the fact that she should have gotten a pedicure before she left. And I knew in my heart, that was not going to be the case. I needed this vacation, and I be damned if I was going to allow Taye to ruin it for me.

Once we were taken to our new room with a king-sized bed, things got no better. At dinner that evening, she complained about the service and that her food was cold when it arrived, and kept it up throughout the meal.

"Really, baby? My food is fine," I said with a smile.

"What are you smiling about? I don’t see anything funny here," Taye answered.

I put down my knife and fork, and then wiped my mouth with the napkin before placing it gently on the table. "Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, if you hadn’t given the waiter such a hard time, that he might have taken the time to re-warm your food before he brought it out?"

"Devin James, if that isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is."

"Trust me, Taye. I worked my way through law school waiting tables. And believe me, people like you get bad service on purpose."

With that, Taye stood up, slammed her napkin down on the table, and walked away.

"Taye! Taye!" I said loudly, and watched Taye walk out of the restaurant.

I signaled for the waiter and paid the check, but when I got outside, Taye was nowhere in sight. I walked around the area for a few minutes looking for her, before finally saying, "Fuck it." I got in a cab and went back to the hotel.

When I got back to the room, I found Taye in bed with her sleeping pill bottle and a half-empty glass of water on the nightstand. "God-damn sleeping pills," I said softly, as I looked at my watch. "It’s too fuckin’ early to go to bed."

I walked out of the room slamming the door behind me, and went downstairs to the hotel bar and got quietly drunk.

The next day wasn’t any better for us. When I woke up, she was already gone and stayed gone, until well past nine that night. When she came back in the room, Taye had an armful of bags.

"Where were you all day?"

"I did some shopping, and then I went sightseeing," Taye said.

"You could have waited for me. Did you ever think that maybe I wanted to go sightseeing?"

"If that were the case, you wouldn’t have gone out last night and gotten so drunk that you couldn’t get up. And don’t even try to say that you didn’t. I could smell the liquor on you a mile away."

"Baby, why does it have to be like this? All I want is for us to have a good time. I didn’t come here with you for us to take separate vacations."

"Then maybe you should take some time and think about somebody other than yourself," she shouted, and went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

When she came out of the bathroom thirty minutes later, with nothing on but a towel, I was stretched out on the bed watching television. As Taye dropped the towel, I looked at my wife’s beautiful body, and felt a twinge in my manhood.

Thoughts of making love to her ran through my mind. I thought if I apologized for being inconsiderate and sounded sincere doing it, if I spent some time and talked real nice to her, maybe she would allow me to make love to her. But those thoughts quickly flew out the sliding glass door when she reached for her sleeping pills.

At that moment, I considered going back downstairs to the bar and getting drunk again. I remembered hearing about a deep-sea fishing cruise I wanted to go on, but I knew Taye wouldn’t be interested in anything like that, so I put the thought out of my mind. I had other ideas as I watched my wife put on her nightgown, slide under the covers, and turn her back to me with her ass poked out for me to kiss.

The cruise was scheduled to leave at seven in the morning, so I set the alarm for five-thirty and turned out the lights, mentally preparing for my twelve-hour cruise.

It was four hours out, four hours at sea, and four hours back, so by the time I finished telling big fish stories with the guys, and returned the fishing gear I had rented, it was almost ten.

When I stepped in the hotel lobby, I saw a very pretty lady walking barefoot, wearing a white-and-black thong bikini, turning men’s heads—and some women’s—in her wake. As I watched her walk, I thought about Taye’s refusal to let me play on her playground. From where I stood, that woman had the kind of playground that I could get used to.

I started to follow her out to the pool to talk to her—she was just that fine. But then I looked at how I was dressed, and how I smelled after a day of fishing in the hot sun.
You smell like you work in a sushi bar,
I thought. I walked as quickly as I could to the elevator, and went back to my room.

When I got to the room, much to my surprise, and disappointment, Taye was still awake. "Where have you been all day?" Taye asked.

"Hello, Taye," I said. "I went on a deep-sea fishing cruise. How was your day?"

"Fine," was her single word answer, and then she returned her eyes and attention to the movie she was watching.

Without another word, I quickly retrieved my swimming trunks from my suitcase, and headed for the shower. Once I was showered and dressed, I grabbed a towel and headed for the door. "I’m going to take a dip in the pool. You wanna join me?" I asked, knowing what her answer would be.

"No, I’m watching a movie."

"Okay babe. You enjoy." And with that, I was out the door. I ran down the hall to the elevator, hoping that the woman wouldn’t be gone when I got to there. But if she was gone, I would take a dip. And since Taye was still up and appeared to be in a good mood, I would go back to the room and try to make nice with the wife.

When I arrived at the pool, I looked around for her. "Damn!" I said out loud, disappointed that she was gone. I turned around to put my towel on a chair near the swallow end of the pool. As I turned to get in the water, she literally exploded from the water like Halle Berry did in that Bond movie.

Her head drifted back, and she ran her fingers through her wet hair, before opening her eyes. The beauty had the prettiest set of tits I had ever seen. Her nipples were protruding through the material like they were begging to get sucked. When she got to the steps, I was standing on the edge of the pool, directly in front of her. "Hello," I said.

"Hi," she said excitedly.

"How’s the water?" I asked, and noticed the ring on her finger.

"Absolutely wonderful; but don’t take my word for it. I think you should get in the water and see for yourself," she said with the prettiest smile.

"I think I will," I said, and laughed a little.

"So what are you waiting for?"

"Nothing," I said, and made my way to the steps.

"Coward," the beauty said. "Just get in," she challenged.

With that, I walked down to the deep end and tried to do the perfect dive. The water was cold at first, but I quickly got use to it and swam to the shallow end where the beauty was still standing.

"What do you think? Is this water wonderful or not?" Avonte asked.

"Yes, it is."

"I wouldn’t steer you wrong," the beauty said, then went underwater. Then she came up for air, closed her eyes, and ran her fingers through her wet hair. I felt my dick getting hard. Damn, she was fine as hell. "My name is Avonte Petrocelli."

"Devin James," I said, and held out my hand.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Avonte asked as she made her way back to me.

"Yeah," I answered slowly, "I’m having a good time."

"Hmm. Then why don’t I believe you?"

"I don’t know. Why don’t you believe me?"

"Something about the look on your face, and the totally unconvincing way you said yeah." Avonte licked her lips.

I had to laugh a little, but chose not to comment on her statement; especially since it was the truth. "What about you, Avonte; are you having a good time?" I asked, and hoped she would lick her lips like that again.

"Oh, yeah, I’m having a great time. Mostly, I’ve been out here working on my tan."

"You tan well. Like a bronze goddess, Avonte."

"Well, thank you," Avonte said and smiled. That was nice, too, but not as nice as her tongue floating over her lips.

I took a step back from Avonte and went under the water. When I opened my eyes in the pool, I got an eyeful of Avonte’s wide hips, and the luscious mound between her legs. When I came back up for air, Avonte was walking away from me. As she got out of the pool, Avonte turned her head and winked at me.

"I’m sure I’ll see you around, Devin," she said, as she walked off dripping wet.

"Oh, yeah, Ms. Avonte, I’m sure that you’ll see me around."

I wasn’t ready to go back to the room after Avonte left, so I swam around in the pool, thinking how peaceful it was. I thought about how I wanted to be in there with Taye. She used to love the water. Weekend trips to the beach was our thing; or at least one of them. Now, the way things were looking, she wouldn’t even go to the beach with me.

The longer I swam, I slowly came to the conclusion that if I was going to have a good time on my vacation, it would be by myself. It wasn’t how I wanted it to be, but like I said, I would be damned if I let her ruin things for me. But then I thought maybe I was overreacting. Maybe when I get back to the room, Taye and I could go out and experience nightlife in San Juan. Maybe she’d even go to the casino with me, but that would be pushing it. Taye hated smoke-filled casinos, even before everything happened.

With a brand new attitude, I got out of the pool, dried off, and headed back to the room. Dancing.
Taye used to like dancing to Latin music,
I thought as I put my keycard in the door. "Taye," I called as walked in, and immediately knew that salsa dancing the night away wasn’t gonna happen.

Taye was fast asleep. The movie she was watching was now watching her. I went and sat down on the bed next to her. "Taye," I said, and shook her gently. "Wake up, baby. Let’s go do something."

But she didn’t answer. Taye was dead to the world, and the reason was there on the nightstand: her bottle of sleeping pills. Once she popped a couple of them, Taye could sleep through an earthquake. I got up from the bed and went and sat out on the balcony for a while. It was a beautiful night, and I wasn’t about to spend it in the room watching Taye sleep. I got up and got in the shower, got dressed, and got out of there.

I went to the concierge’s desk and asked for a cab. Once I was in the cab and the driver asked me where I wanted to go, I told him I didn’t know. "I was hoping that you could tell me."

"What do you want to do,
señor
?" he asked in better English than I expected. "You look for
mujeres
?"

"
Mujeres
?"

"Women,
señor
," he smiled, and cupped his hands in front of his chest.

"No, no. Where’s a good place to go dancing?" I asked.

"Rumba."

"Yeah, rumba," I said, thinking he was talking about the dance.

"No, no,
señor.
Rumba is a club in old San Juan."

"Oh." I felt stupid, but fuck it, I’m on vacation.

"I tell you,
señor
, the club is small and it gets crowded, but it’s known in San Juan’s underground nightlife circuit as one of the places to go. They film many crowd scenes for
Dirty Dancing:
Havana Nights
there
.
"

"Really?"

"
Sí, señor
."

"That’s where I want to go," I told him. And before long, I was at Rumba. It was packed just as my driver said it would be. I looked around the spot, wishing one more time that Taye had been awake to come with me. I went to the bar and ordered a drink. "Barcardi 151," I called out to the bartender. When he handed it to me, I quickly drained the glass, grabbed the first woman that walked by, and took her out on the dance floor.

While I was out there doing my thing, I happened to look around and became excited when I saw Avonte dancing her ass off. She was wearing a flowing white sleeveless dress that tied around the neck, and fell right into those tits I had admired earlier.