Prologue
The worshipped sun peered forth the golden window of the east. The desolation of the sea, which I admired with such passion, lay under my feet as the power of the cruise ship pushed it through the swells. This is the other side of the famed "Christmas Cruise." True, my heart was still very much in love with a girl back home who did not return my love, but in the drunken days that would follow, both my mind and heart were far from her. Leaving behind my heart and mind for the very first time, allowed me to toss off the guilt and shame and dry up those painful tears of fancy.
In celebration of the few good things in life, my grandparents arranged for me to accompany them on a cruise over the ocean blue. We set out with my godparents and three of my cousins, one of whom I had grown close to in our childhood.
Anyway, as I was saying, the cruise was arranged, and we were to be gone during the second-to-last week of December 1987. Now, years later, I have come to realize how these seven short days would come to shape my life, and more so, how the emotions I felt and misadventures I had would mold me into who I am. And here, today, I offer the events to your worthy eyes, the fortunate, kind, caring (is that flattery I hear?) souls who are taking the time to feel the emotions and read these words.
So, as you read this, let me simply remind you of the emotions and intellect of a thirteen year-old boy.
The Morning Came Too Soon
It was the middle of my seventh grade year at Willis H. Warner Junior High School and I was looking forward to Christmas vacation this year. My grandparents, who I often traveled with, had decided that this Christmas, we would be taking a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. Needless to say, I was very excited when Christmas was at hand and we were preparing for our trip. Joining us on our seven day trip would be my godparents and my three second-cousins. I was quite happy to learn that they would be accompanying us because I had spent many crazy nights with my cousins, partying and getting wild. Being as I was thirteen years old, going on twenty-one, I was greatly excited about doing things that I considered crazy and wild.
One of my cousins, Ross, was my age. He and I had spent a good deal of time partying in the past. I was also looking forward to this trip because my cousin Ross and I had heard from our friends about some of the insane things that happened on cruises. I only hoped that the days of revelry would pull me out of the spiraling collapse of my heart and save it from the all-too-obvious fact that I was infatuation with a girl who did not return my love.
The first day of our cruise was spent mostly unpacking and exploring the ship and what it had to offer Ross and me. We mapped out all of the hot spots, the dark, cold, quiet spots, and of course, one of our number one priorities as 13-year-olds was to find out where to get the alcohol. Sure, I was only in seventh grade, but I was already well on my way with the wonders of alcohol.
The third night of the cruise, Ross and I began the evening by having dinner with the family at the fancy Riviera Restaurant. After appeasing our family with a dinner appearance, Ross and I headed straight for the night show at the Tropicana Lounge.
The shows on the ship were, in a simple description, "A la Las Vegas." We had quite a time watching the beautiful women dancing in nearly nothing. While we were sitting at the lounge table, watching the show intently, my eyes strayed over to the corner of the lounge. It was a little dark during the show, but my instincts quickly led my eyes to the four young girls that were sitting in the corner booth. I could only see one of the girls, but she was enough to keep my gaze attached to her. The girl who had captured the full attention of my eye was just a shadow in the dim light, however, the heir about her peeked my interest. After completing my look-over of the situation, I tapped Ross on the shoulder and made him aware that there were four young ladies of interest in the corner.
Throughout the duration of the show, both Ross and I were straining our necks, trying to get a better look. During a short intermission, Ross and I were conversing with our waitress and were distracted so we did not see the girls get up and leave. When our waitress walked away to another table, my interest returned to the famed corner booth, but the girls were gone. Needless to say, once the show had finished, Ross and I began a search of the ship for them that took us two hours. Our search landed us on the main deck by the pool under a warm, starry sky. By the time Ross and I caught up to the girl I saw in the shadows that I was admiring from afar, the group of four had dwindled down to only two, but since there were only two of us, Ross and I were pleased with the balance.
Ross and I tried to be as debonair as possible, calling out to the two girls and walking after them. The girls stopped, waited for us, and the introductions yielded that the dark-haired girl I had been admiring was named Stephanie and the very attractive blond girl with her was Angela. In the first few seconds of speaking with Stephanie, I came to realize just how attractive she was. She had a pale tone to her skin, accented with bright red lips, long curly dark strands and eyes bluer than the purest seas. She was dressed so casually in a black leather skirt, heels and a green sweater, yet she carried herself so elegantly.
Ross and I sat with the two girls at one of the dark tables, making small talk about school and home and family. I was amazed to find out that Stephanie was only a year older than me, for she looked and acted so much older. Also, I came to realize that Ross and Angela were hitting it off as well as Stephanie and me. It was not long after that Angela proposed for her and Ross to take a walk together. Stephanie and I decided to return to the lounge for a drink.
The wind rattled the windows that lay before my eyes. I stared blankly out, grasping in desperation, the frayed ends of sanity. My mind was lost in a world of the extreme pain which had been inflicted upon my heart during the past few months. A full moon cast a blanket of white light over the mysterious ocean. My heart was free. The swaying of the ship that lay under my feet seemed to be sailing to a world that did not exist for me -- a world of insanity that plagued my every thought with perversion, and my only dream, a portrait of a girl I hardly knew, yet felt a great deal of passion for.
"What's the matter?" she said in a soft voice.
"Nothing," I mumbled under my breath.
"Tell me what’s wrong?" she demanded. "I'm not blind!"
"I don't know," I said, looking down to the small amount of alcohol left in the bottle that sat beside me. "I guess that I'm just a little nervous."
"Nervous about what?" she asked.
As I stared hopelessly out the window, I felt a soft grip on my shoulder.
Without looking back, I said, "Life."
"What about life?" she asked, as she moved in close and kissed my ear lobe.
"It's all a joke," I said with a sarcastic laugh. "Here I am on a cruise ship, in this lounge, drowning my sorrow with a girl I don't even know, yet, caught up in the spontaneity of it all. It means the world to me."
"You know me," she said confidently.
Slowly, I raised the neck of the bottle, tossed my head back, and drank what little liquor remained and set the empty bottle gently on the chair at my side. I was drunker than I ever had been before, and with each second that passed, Stephanie looked more and more appealing. "What could possibly come out of this?" I asked.
I felt her soft dark hair caress my cheek and her hand slowly slide over my chest. "Anything you want to make it," she said, kissing my ear again. "We can make this whatever you want it to be."
"I don't know what I want," I said, turning and looking into her eager eyes. "What I want is a long-term relationship."
She sighed, her breath laced with the same taste as mine. "A lasting relationship, I can’t give you, but I can make both of us happy for the short time we have to spend together."
I didn't want a short term happiness, but eternal happiness. Well, that's what was going through my mind, yet my drunken heart was yearning for what little love it could find. Staring into my eyes was a girl who I could very easily pretend to love. Little did I know what a few short minutes of pleasure could fall into.
Without hesitating, I bent slightly over to touch my lips against hers and felt my hand slowly reaching down past her elbow and her hip. As my lips gently touched hers, my life flashed before my eyes, and I remembered the cold days I had spent dreaming of the ever-lasting love now passing through my thawing blood. Slowly, I pulled my lips away from hers and looked down to her eyes.
Before my mind could perceive what had already happened, Stephanie and I were in each other's arms, locked in a passionate embrace. Our lips danced closely with a lusty gait. Our hot breath and loud pounding hearts were our only music. I tried vainly to resist, but instinct seemed to take over. I had no choice but to yield to the desires of my body. I thought of the love I wanted, the true love I needed -- so distant from what I was allowing to occur.
"Let's go to my room," she suggested, already walking away from me.
I followed Stephanie as well as I could, for my vision blurred as I tried to focus on the shadow fading into a dark ante-chamber. I walked behind her into a bright hall and though the overhead fluorescent lights blinded me, they weren't bright enough to reveal to me the gravity of my situation. We descended down a few flights of stairs -- practically stumbling on each step. Finally, we arrived at the ever infamous Room 135, which to the best of my understanding, she was sharing with an older brother who had apparently been as lucky as I, and was not in need of his own room tonight.
She switched on a light as we walked in, but my blood-shot eyes still couldn’t see clearly. My heart skipped a beat in my nervousness as I heard the door close. Sharply, I turned only to find Stephanie standing, leaning against the door, her right foot raised and pressed against it, her knee bent, and the soft skin pressed tightly against the leather skirt. As I stood, staring blindly at a girl I hardly knew, but was falling more deeply infatuated with as every second passed. She tossed her head back, her lips, a bright red, as, parted, her dark strands fell loosely over her shoulders and behind her back, and the tantalizing flesh of her pale-white neck beckoned me towards her, inch by inch, my willpower to resist growing weaker and weaker.
Slowly, I walked over, my pulse pounding against the tension in my neck. I rested my left hand against the warm leather over her waist and brought my right hand up to her cheek. She tilted her head forward and looked into my eyes with a passion I had never felt before. "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.
For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to talk. Without a word, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against hers again. I felt her lean forward and stand up straight, our lips still together, as her hands reached to my waist. As our tongue-tangled kiss fell deeper and deeper, she slightly pushed me away and took off my shirt.
As the night grew later, and my intoxication grew deeper, I soon found myself in the comfort of her warm arms, tangled within her web. I looked down to her bright countenance and the pillow that lay beneath her head as I felt her fingernails slicing into my back, draining the last bit of innocence that lay between our bodies. The soft sighs of satisfaction that emitted from our lips seemed to echo through my ears as I still fought, just minutes before it all ended, to resist, but it was far too late.
Loosely, I fell down to her side in the bed, my eyes still blurred and my body beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. As I lay there, motionless, I felt her warm hand upon my cheek, and her finger rub over my lips.
"You never answered my question," she said softly, moving closer to me.
My head began to spin and I felt my stomach turning. "What question?" I asked, rather impatiently.
"Do you think I am pretty?" she asked in a soft tone of voice.
I looked to her fair face, still illuminated in the dark. Her blue eyes looked even more beautiful that they had an hour before, but now, at this moment, all in the world seemed more beautiful than before, and even death would have been shrouded in grandeur and grace. "Would I be here, with you, if I didn't?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, smiling
I sighed and reached down my side, taking her hand in mine. "Well," I said, nervously - I know not why I was nervous at this point in the night - "I think you're very pretty."
Stephanie smiled and stared up to the ceiling. She knew she was beautiful. I lay back, still holding her hand, and again asked my still pounding heart why I was there. I thought of so many things, my mind fogged by the spur of desire that had torn me from my morality. Thoughts of the ever-lasting relationship I so desired filled my conscience as I felt a cutting pain in my soul.
"You know," Stephanie said softly, "the cruise is almost over and we live so far from each other, and--"
I sat up and gazed into her eyes. They no longer seemed as warm, and now, much more empty. "And what?" I asked, already knowing the answer. I can’t recall why I was upset. It was not as if I did not know the line was coming.
I'm not sure why, but Stephanie chose not to answer me, but simply wrapped her arms around me and fell asleep. When the morning came, my heart was oh so empty as we exchanged very few words; all small talk, nothing important. I walked silently back to my room, realizing just how empty an act I had committed the night before. She and I never spoke again.
One Year Later...
My heart fell suddenly as I remember her eyes. The notions had passed, my mind was long last, and I sat to write upon the paper of life. Why was I falling so deep again? I couldn’t even answer my own questions anymore, let alone the constant battery of events that continued to plague my breath every day and weaken my knees. So few were the joyous moments that I had forgotten what it was like to smile. For some reason, I kept living in the past, holding the hand of past beauty and fearing the future. It all got to a point where I could no longer hear the scent of soft skin as it rested against mine, the taste of beauty under my breath seemed to leave a bitter shock more often than not. And still, with all of the precious love in my heart, no beauty wanted it, nor my plain face, but each beauty passed me with her nose strung into the wind, her heart walled, and her feet pounding viciously upon my heart as it lay upon the pavement.
What would make this occasion different? I could only hope it would be. I could only long to fall deep within my heart again...
No comments:
Post a Comment