Promises

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental. All characters depicted in sexual situations are at least eighteen years old.

As always, any political, social or religious views in this story are those of the characters and their circumstances, and don’t necessarily reflect those of the author.

SPECIAL NOTE: Be aware that part of this installment includes a character’s recounting of a disturbing and nonconsensual situation in her past. It’s necessary because a large part of the story’s plot revolves around it and its effects on the character. I’ve edited it a bit to make it less graphic than in its first publication, but it’s still not pretty.

* * * * *

PART THREE — Disturbing Secrets are Revealed

“Hey Kira,” I say, keeping my voice mild and casual despite my inner agitation, “I need to visit the boy’s room. I’ll be back in a bit.” Then, a little louder, “I’m sure no one will bother you while I’m gone.” Several male heads casually turn away.

“‘Kay.”

I feel bad about not telling Kira what I’m up to, but if she acts the least bit suspicious, I probably won’t be able to pull this off. I walk to the restrooms, set at the back of the beach area against the overgrowth, but I don’t go in. Instead, I go around the far side and melt into the jungle. I have to circle around because there are a group of twelve bungalows situated just inside the foliage.

Walking through the jungle in the nude is a strange experience. Just me and the wilderness. I’m feeling like a true primitive, but I’m careful about where I step, both to protect my bare feet and to stay as quiet as possible.

I approach him from behind. He’s got his towel spread at the back of the beach, almost in the trees, and nowhere near anyone else, which makes what he’s doing possible, but also works well for me. He looks to be in his late fifties, quite short, and thin to the point of being bony, but with a large potbelly. He’s winter pale and wearing a ridiculous little Speedo.

At the last second, my foot comes down on a dried leaf and makes just a small sound. The guy’s head whips around. When he sees me, he’s off like a shot, leaving everything behind. The fact that he knows to run should be proof enough. I start after him, but after a few steps I pull up. There’s no need to run him down. I walk over to where his stuff is spread on his towel.

His beach bag has the Hidden Springs logo on it, and all it’s got in it is his shorts, sandals and shirt. No ID or anything like that, but it’s the expensive item he’s left behind that I really want. I feel very little guilt about wrapping it in his shirt and taking it with me as I walk back across the beach.

Kira is still on her back as I approach. Her face is pointing the other direction, perhaps watching for my return. I startle her a little when I sit down on my towel.

Her head whips around to look at me. “Where did you come from?”

“I stopped to visit a friend and picked this up along the way,” I say, indicating the wrapped item in my hand.

“What is it?”

“Let’s check it out together.”

I glance over at where I’ve just come from. The towel and beach bag are gone. We reassemble our makeshift sunshade, then put our heads together.

Digital SLR’s have come a long way, and this one is top of the line, with an ungodly number of megapixels and a very large telephoto lens. “Who exactly did you get this from?” Kira asks.

“The nice fellow up in the trees who was taking pictures of us. He decided to take off when I showed up, so I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.”

“You stole this?”

“I borrowed it. Depending on what’s on it, I might even return it.”

I’m fiddling with the controls. My cheaper camera at home is the same brand and works pretty much the same way, so we’re reviewing the pictures within seconds, beginning with the oldest.

The first shots are of random women on the beach, most of them still in suits. Then there’s one of Kira spreading her towel, one where she’s pushing her suit down over her knees, and another of the two of us standing face to face with Kira staring at my erection. Again, I marvel at the magnitude of our size difference.

“Why was he taking pictures of us?” Kira murmurs.

“Because you’re by far the most beautiful woman on the beach.”

“Harrumph.”

There are a bunch of long-range pictures of Kira and me running out into the surf, then one of her high in the air, a shocked look on her face. This is followed by a couple of pictures of me holding her in my arms out beyond the surf line.

Next, there are quite a few pictures of other nude and topless women walking around or lounging on their towels. Then there are several amazingly clear shots of Kira and me out at the buoy, especially from when I was holding her to my chest. Our expressions clearly show we were having a serious discussion.

He took some more pictures of women who were evidently shedding their suits as we were swimming in, but then the focus is back on Kira as I carry her back up onto the beach on my shoulders. There are a ton of pictures of us applying sunscreen to each other. After that come pictures of Kira all by herself on the towel. The last shot is a blurred image of the jungle. He must have pressed the shutter as he dropped the camera and ran.

“He’s got a serious crush on you,” I say.

I glance over at Kira, expecting her to be a bit embarrassed, but she’s seriously upset to the point of being near tears. “Hey, Kira, it’s just pictures. And I’m going to erase them.”

“What am I going to do?” she asks, her voice cracking. “I think I may have screwed up royally, coming here. I should have known that Angelo wouldn’t just let me walk away.”

“Wait, you’re not saying that the creep has something to do with your husband, are you?”

“It’s all right there on the camera. He knows I’m here and he hired a private detective to get some dirt on me.”

“How could he know you’re here?”

“I don’t know, but he has a lot of resources at his disposal,” Kira says. “And that guy is still out there. He could be watching us.” She ducks out from under the towel and reaches into her bag for her suit.

“Okay,” I say. “We’ve probably had enough sun for one day in any case.”

Our freewheeling vacation mood destroyed now, we pull on our suits and gather our things, then troop back toward the hotel. We’re gritty with sand, goopy with sunblock, and chafing from the salt water, so when we get back to our room, we take turns in the shower.

Kira goes first, so I take the opportunity to call the front desk. A male voice answers with a New York accent of all things, so I know it’s not Raul.

“I’m calling to let you know about a serious lack of security at your resort,” I say, sounding quite concerned, but not quite belligerent. I peek around the corner into the bathroom and see that Kira is still in the shower, so I walk in and noisily go through my Dopp kit by way of an excuse to be on the other side of the curtain from her. I want Kira to hear this conversation.

“I’m sorry to hear that sir. What seems to be the problem?”

“Your brochure said that the clothing optional beach was ‘discreet and private.’ Explain to me just how discreet and private it is if some creep is out there waving a huge camera around and taking nude photos of my wife?”

Kira snorts loudly from the other side of the curtain.

“Sir, I’m very sorry to hear that,” he sputters. “We normally have at least one member of security on the beach at all times. I’ll check into it and find out where the slip-up occurred.”

“Well, it will be quite unfortunate for the resort if those photos ever see the light of day, because in that event I will contact my legal staff and sue this resort for the kind of money that will forever encourage its management to make damn certain that their guests’ privacy is protected.”

“Sir, I will immediately alert management to the issue. You can rest assured that the beach will be properly patrolled in the future.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll expect to see uniformed security out there henceforth.”

“I’ll see to it personally, sir,” he says, sounding quite sincere.

“Please do,” I say, then hang up.

“Wife?” Kira asks, sticking her head around the edge of the curtain. She seems to be amused, but also grateful that I’m taking this seriously.

“Hey, that’s what it says on the registration.”

“Touché.”

* * * * *

When I’m done, I sit on the bed, leaning back against the big, padded headboard. Kira gets up from her computer and surprises me by snuggling up against my side. I’m already dressed in what I intend to wear to the restaurant tonight, but she’s in a bathrobe. I wrap an arm around her, as always liking the feel of her against me.

I’ve promised to be a gentleman and that our vacation would be platonic, but what’s on my mind right now is how much I want to kiss her. Somehow, this little slip of a girl has wedged her way into my heart in a manner that no other woman has even begun to do. After dating as much as I have, I thought that any long-term relationship I eventually formed would consist of me keeping up my front long-term. But with Kira, my heart is open for the first time. I want so much more from her. I want to ask her… but I promised.

“Can you tell me more about the situation with your husband?” I ask instead.

“Yeah, but it’ll make a lot more sense if I tell you the story from the beginning,” she says.

“That’s always the best place to start.”

“See, it kind of begins with my size. I was normal at birth and for the first few months, but then I started to grow much more slowly than average. My parents were concerned, but my pediatrician said I was fairly normal and that eventually I’d get a growth spurt and catch up. Unfortunately, it took my parents a long time to realize that he had no clue what he was talking about.

“They finally took me to a specialist who diagnosed me with Growth Hormone Deficiency. With hormone therapy, I gained four inches the year I was eleven, but then I stopped growing altogether not long after I turned twelve. Four foot five is what I’m stuck with.

“I got teased a lot for being so small, so I kind of just retreated into my own world of books and writing. At least with no outside activities, I had time to write and study. I was too timid to go off to college, so I enrolled in an online degree program, but when my parents died near the end of my freshmen year, I was so devastated that I gave up on it. I was an only child and had no other close relatives, so I felt totally alone in the world.

“It turned out that my folks had been in debt up to their eyeballs and didn’t leave me much of anything. I was making money by doing editing for a publishing house, but it wasn’t enough to make payments on the house and the mortgage was underwater anyway, so I turned it over to the bank.

“My friend Bethany Kozlowski was three years older than me and had just graduated from Berkeley. She was moving back to Minneapolis to get her master’s locally, so we got an apartment together that summer. Her dad was an attorney and he got me an interview for a file clerk job with his firm. I got the job and he was kind enough to drive me to work and back with him. I was too timid to get a driver’s license.

“I’d only been working at Hopkins, Peterson and Chen for a few weeks when one of the associates began to stop and chat with me every now and then. Angelo was barely five foot one and thin as a rail. He was reasonably good looking, though, and not terribly intimidating to talk to, especially in a professional setting. After a couple months of that, he asked me out. It was my very first date.

“Angelo took me to a really nice restaurant and seemed like a perfect gentleman. He admitted that he’d done very little dating himself. I think he was almost as nervous as I was. He was a decade older than me, but we seemed to have a lot in common. I felt that I had to be honest with him, though, so I told him about my condition.”

“Condition?”

She looks up and meets my eyes. “Peter, I’m going to be just as honest with you as I was with Angelo, even though it’s… well… embarrassing.” She takes a deep breath. “I have Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome.”

That’s a mouthful, and doesn’t sound good. “I’m not familiar with that one.”

Her voice is nearly inaudible. “It’s a woman’s disorder. Basically, it means that I was born without a vagina. I have all the usual external paraphernalia, so I look normal, but I have no vaginal canal or uterus.”

I’ve let my guard down so much that I almost let the distress show on my face. This is awful news. I’ve been falling hard for a girl who is never going to be able to have intercourse with me, and would never be able to bear me the children I want so very much. Almost is the operative word, though, and I quickly come up with words and an expression that I hope won’t reveal just how devastated I am.

“Kira, I’m so sorry. That’s awful. I’ve never even heard of anything like that.”

For her part, Kira is obviously working hard not to let her own pain show. The embarrassment is more obvious. “Well, it’s pretty rare, but maybe one in five thousand women have it. Not all is lost, though. All of my, uh, outer stuff works just fine. I even lubricate when I get horny. I’m also lucky because I do have ovaries and the normal female hormones that come with them. Other than my lack of a vaginal canal and uterus, the only thing that’s different about me is that I don’t grow pubic or underarm hair. My doctor says she doesn’t know why, but supposedly it’s not due to the MRKH.”

“So what did Angelo do when you told him?”

“Well, I expected him to get up and walk out.”

“But he obviously didn’t.”

“And neither have you,” she says. “Thank you, Peter.”

“Why would I walk out? It doesn’t affect any of the things I like about you.” Though it would affect some of the things I think I would have potentially liked about her.

“You’re a good man, Peter.”

That embarrasses me, so I change the subject. “What did Angelo have to say about it?”

“He already knew.”

“What? How did he find out?”

“Evidently, someone in Human Resources got careless and copied him on an email to our health insurance company. He’d looked up MRKH and had been intrigued. He said it was one of the reasons he had asked me out in the first place.”

“Really? Did he want a date or a lesson in women’s medicine?”

“Actually, he admitted to me that he had a problem of his own. He said that due to some medical issues during his childhood, he was impotent.”

I think about that for a bit. “So, he figured that your two conditions would be complementary?”

“Well, I could see the logic in it. He seemed kind of embarrassed to talk about it, but he said he figured he would enjoy other types of sexual activity.”

I don’t like the mental picture that follows, and suddenly realize that I’m jealous. That’s not something I’ve ever felt about a woman’s previous partners before, but this is Kira we’re talking about. “Well, yeah,” I say, almost reluctantly. “There’s a lot more to sex than just intercourse.”

“That’s what I figured too. I liked him, and he treated me well. One thing led to another and after only three months, he proposed and I accepted. We didn’t do anything sexual during our engagement, though. I was willing, but Angelo said he was raised in a strict Catholic tradition and didn’t believe in any form of premarital sex. I worried that we might not be sexually compatible, especially since we hadn’t really talked about what kind of sex we would have. Still, I was a nineteen-year-old virgin and figured it would all just work out.

“We got married on my twentieth birthday,” she continues. “I was excited about our wedding night and was ready to do whatever it took to make our sex life work for both of us. Unfortunately, when I got my courage up and did a little strip tease for him in our bedroom that night, he asked me to stop when I was down to my panties. He apologized, but said he just didn’t find my naked body attractive.”

I shake my head. “Not only is Angelo monumentally ignorant about what’s attractive,” I say, “he’s also a grade-A asshole for saying something like that to you. And on your wedding night.” On the other hand, it makes me secretly happy that he didn’t touch her in that way.

Kira nods. “I realize now that I was being hopelessly naïve because I actually apologized to him for not being pretty enough. I hoped that as we spent more time together, he’d come around.”

“I can’t imagine that with such a rocky start, things would just magically improve.”

“And you’d be right, of course. But as disappointing as it was, over the next year it went from bad to worse. Angelo told me it was unseemly for me to work my low-paying job since he was a senior associate at the same firm. He had me quit, but at least I had more time to write. But then he started doing other things, little by little, to isolate me from the outside.”

“Like what?”

“Well, first he told me he disapproved of my friends, the few that I still had. I stopped seeing them to make him happy, but he didn’t introduce me to any of his. I wanted to start working on my online degree again, but he said there was no reason for me to do that since I wasn’t going to have a career. He gave me no cash and had me buy everything with a credit card, probably so he could track my purchases. He said he didn’t like the way I looked in makeup and only let me wear it on the rare occasions when we went out in the evening.”

“Knowing you now, I’m amazed that you would have put up with that,” I say.

“You’ve never met Teri, only Kira. I was so timid that a sharp look from Angelo could make me back down, even when I knew I was in the right. Soon I was almost totally isolated. Angelo had me ordering groceries through a service, and any time I needed to go out for clothes or anything like that, he would hover over me the whole time.

“He had an alarm system installed so that in the unlikely event I left the house, he’d get a text. Then he’d call me, ostensibly worried that I was putting myself in danger. As a matter of fact, my phone rang about five seconds after I got back into the house on that morning when I met you.”

“So you were a virtual prisoner?”

“Yeah, but I resented it and wanted to rebel in whatever small ways I could. One morning, after my shower, I realized that the panties I really wanted to wear were in the load I’d put in the dryer the night before. Even though Angelo had already left for work, I was about to put on my bathrobe to go get them, but then it occurred to me that since no one would see me, it would probably be okay if I didn’t wear the robe. I hadn’t been nude anywhere but the bathroom since our wedding night, so it felt weird and a little scary, walking through our big house with nothing on.

“I knew that Angelo would hate it if he knew what I was doing, and that added to the thrill. When I got to the laundry room and was about to pull my panties on, I decided I’d wait until I’d folded the whole load. Then I decided to wait until I’d finished the rest of the laundry. Then it was ‘after the dishes.’ By noon, I was reprogramming the thermostat to keep the house a few degrees warmer during the hours he was gone.

“I started spending all of my alone time in the nude. It let me feel a little bit like I was free. I especially liked working naked in the greenhouse, feeling the sunshine on my bare skin. I wouldn’t throw my clothes on until I heard the ding of the alarm when the garage door started to open.”

The nude gardening explains her beautiful, all-over tan. “It’s kind of neat,” I say, “the sense of liberation you get when you wear only what nature intended, isn’t it?”

“Hmm, that sounds like the voice of experience to me.”

“Uh, yeah. I hardly ever wear clothes at home. It’s just easier not to have to screw with getting dressed, and I spend a lot less time doing laundry.”

She smiles up at me. “But is that safe in your line of work? You could slip and, well, slice something you might need.”

“When I’m working in the shop, I wear an oversized leather apron and steel toed boots.”

She smiles. “Now that is a fascinating mental picture.”

“Kira,” I say, getting a little more serious now, “I don’t understand how you could have put up with Angelo’s crap.”

“I guess it’s kind of like putting a frog into a pot of water,” she says. “Turn the heat up a little at a time, and the frog will stay in until it’s cooked.”

“You do know that’s an urban legend, right?”

“Of course it is. The little guy is gonna jump out when he gets uncomfortable, but I was so socially inexperienced and felt so isolated that the idea of leaving Angelo was a leap too far. That is until I met you. That totally changed my life.”

“Really? How so?”

“Do you remember just how frightened I was when you ran up to me and demanded my phone?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I thought I’d about scared you to death.”

“You nearly did, but it wasn’t just your imposing appearance. See, it was highly unusual for me to be outside like that anyway, but the paper had come too late that morning for Angelo to snag it before he left for work. I knew he’d call if I opened the front door, but I hadn’t left the house in weeks, and getting the paper seemed like a reasonable excuse to do so. It was all I could do to work up the courage to go out the door, so when you surprised me, I thought the worst. But then…”

She looks to be deep in contemplation, so I give her some time.

“But then what?” I finally ask.

“I guess it was that look you gave me when you realized you’d scared me. It was like I could see straight into your soul. I knew right then that you were the kind of man that would never, ever hurt me. Don’t ask me how, but I knew. It changed everything.”

Kira is still and quiet for a while. I can tell that she’s still trying to make sense of whatever it is, so I stay silent until she speaks again.

“It sounds totally crazy, but it was like my life flashed before my eyes. I didn’t like what I saw, so I asked myself, ‘what would Maya Windrider do in this situation?’ Somehow, with you, I had the courage to not just imagine it, but to try it. So I just wrote the scene in my head as if Maya were the one talking to you, then went with it. Yanking your chain like that was so Maya. It scared the shit out of me that I could actually do that, but it was totally empowering.”

“So when we met, I was actually dealing with the main character from your books?”

“Yeah, and to an extent, you still are.”

“Having spent some quality time with Maya, I’d have to say you handled that situation exactly like she would have.”

“Good, that was what I was shooting for, and I was totally stoked when I figured I’d actually pulled it off. That success got me to thinking about what Maya would do if she found herself married to Angelo. Frankly, I couldn’t even imagine her putting up with his shit. An hour after meeting you, I’d already decided to leave him.”

“Wow. That was quick.”

“Oh, I’d known subconsciously that I needed to go. It was just becoming Kira that made it real. As soon as I’d made the decision, I started packing a couple of suitcases. I figured that Angelo might get vindictive and destroy everything of mine that he could get his hands on, so I took everything I couldn’t live without.”

“So it’s not all clothes in your suitcases?”

“No. All of the clothes I intend to wear this week are in my carry-on. My larger bags are full of legal papers, mementos, pictures, all that stuff.”

“So you brought everything that’s important to you to Mexico?”

She shrugs. “I’ve mostly lost contact with the few friends I used to have, and I had nowhere else to go, so I brought the suitcases with me. I raided Angelo’s supposedly secret stash of cash and left him a note saying I would be divorcing him, then caught a taxi to a motel. I was planning to stay there for a week or two, but then you called the next morning. I knew Angelo would be furious at me, so getting out of the country seemed like a good idea.”

“You’re only here until Sunday though. What are you going to do when you get back?”

“Well, the first thing is to get access to my funds. Angelo’s been putting my royalty payments in an account he supposedly set aside for me. He didn’t give me a checkbook or debit card for it though. Then, on Friday, when I tried to pull some cash out for the first time, I found that he’d set it up with a pin number that I don’t know.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. So I called my dad’s old attorney. He’s having the account frozen so that Angelo can’t touch it either. When I get back, we’re going to file divorce papers and have the courts give me exclusive access to my account. It should be more than enough to pay for my legal fees. I know it’s going to be ugly for a while, but I’ll get through it.”

“I’d like to help you in any way I can,” I offer.

She smiles. “Careful, or I might take you up on that, but for now I’ve done way too much talking about me and you’ve had to hear way too much about my problems. I want to hear about you.”

I’ve never been upfront with women about my condition. Like with Destinee, I always do my best to hide my disability, but Kira has just bared her soul and told me some deeply personal stuff. While I don’t intuitively understand a lot of human concepts, I get fairness in a big way. It obliges me to do the same.

“Kira,” I say slowly, “there are some things that make me quite different from anyone you’ve probably ever met. There’s a lot to unpack, so would you mind if I started at the beginning too?”

She looks a bit concerned. “I suppose that would only be fair.”

I take a deep breath. Yeah, I’m gonna do this.

“Back when I started school,” I begin, “my teachers couldn’t help but notice that I wasn’t relating well to my classmates, even after I became fluent in English. I showed no interest in talking with them, sitting with them at lunch, or playing with them at recess. I would read my textbooks and take the tests put in front of me, but I was usually off in my own little world, all by myself.

“Of course my mom had suspected that there was something wrong with me, but she’d hoped I’d just grow out of it. She couldn’t ignore what my teachers were saying, though, so she scraped up enough money to try and get me some help.

“The therapist who saw me ran me through a bunch of tests. He told my mom that my IQ was insanely high, but said I was almost completely unable to read other’s expressions, moods, or nuances of speech. At first his diagnosis was Asperger’s, but then he realized that a lot of my symptoms didn’t fit any of the Autism Spectrum disorders. In the end, he just referred to my issues as ‘Peter’s Syndrome.'”

“Do you suppose it had anything to do with your Mom’s radiation exposure?”

“Good question. The therapist didn’t think so, but I was at just a few weeks gestation when my mom was exposed. I looked into it a few years ago myself, but there’s not a whole lot of cases in the literature. I don’t think there’s enough known about how radiation affects early development to say either way.

“In any event, over the course of our visits to his office, the therapist tried the usual treatments, but I couldn’t be bothered to pay more than cursory attention to what he was attempting to do. We were making no progress at all, and he called it off after five sessions. He felt he couldn’t help me, and I didn’t want his help.

“I went along like that all the way through grade school, being a willing outcast. I about drove my teachers crazy, always sketching mechanical devices in my notebook while I was supposed to be paying attention to their lectures. On the other hand, I had a nearly photographic memory for what I read in the textbooks and I got good enough grades that they didn’t have an excuse to put me in the Special Ed program.”

“I can only imagine that you would have been a target of bullies,” Kira says.

“Odd thing, that. There were guys who would try to push me around, but they found out quickly that I wasn’t afraid of them. If someone hit me or shoved me, I just did the same thing right back to them, even if they were twice my size and it got me beat up. Bullies don’t expect physical resistance, especially if they’re bigger and stronger, and mine invariably moved on to easier targets.

“The teasing was a more persistent problem since I didn’t have the tools necessary to hit back. Even though I didn’t particularly care about the opinions of my classmates, their constant taunting really hurt. Eventually, though, when I wouldn’t even acknowledge that I’d heard them, they almost invariably gave up out of boredom.

“Things started to change when I got to high school, though. I’d been growing unusually fast from about the time I turned twelve, and I was easily the tallest person in my freshman class. Everyone called me ‘beanpole’ and stuff like that because I was so gawky, but then, during the first half of my sophomore year, I took a weightlifting class as an elective. I discovered that I was a natural, making rapid progress with each session. I really enjoyed pushing myself to the limit.

“When the semester was over, I still went to the gym every day. I was putting on a lot of muscle, even without ever using steroids. I also started training in martial arts at the dojo next to my apartment building, getting free lessons in return for doing janitorial duties. My sensei was the first instructor I’d ever really paid attention to, and I became a lot surer of myself physically.

“Near the end of that school year, a couple of seniors from the football team picked a fight with me and I bloodied the two of them. Luckily, the vice principal witnessed the whole thing and I didn’t get in any trouble. No one teased me after that, and people made way for me when I walked down the halls.

“It was a total revelation for me. I was suddenly getting respect, just for the fact that I was really strong and had learned how to handle myself in a fight. That got me to thinking; if I could change myself on the outside, maybe I could change myself on the inside too.

“I started reading self-help books and everything I could find about Autism and Asperger’s, since they’re at least similar to what I have. I began to push myself to speak with everyone I came across. I’m not immune to shame and embarrassment, so it was excruciatingly painful at times. I freaked out a lot of people at first until I figured out the basics, but then, little by little, I learned how to interpret even the smallest body language and verbal cues. In a lot of ways, because I’m hyperconscious about it, I can actually pick up on stuff that normal people miss.”

Kira suddenly disengages and begins to slide away from me. I realize that I’ve probably blown it. I’ve miscalculated again, thinking that she would somehow understand. I wonder if there’s a way to salvage the situation.

But Kira doesn’t leave. Instead, she scoots down near my knees, then pulls herself up onto my thighs and turns back toward me, drawing herself into a cross-legged position, facing me. “Sorry,” she says, her voice still mildly friendly, “I wanted to be able to see your face while we talked. Tell me, Peter, are you doing that thing with me right now?”

That’s a truly interesting question, because for the first time in my life, I’m not sure.

“Kira,” I say, “there’s something about you that has always put me at ease, right from when we met. Yes, I’m still thinking about what I’m doing and saying, but it’s so much easier than it’s ever been with anyone else I’ve met. There’s something about you that allows me to be way more like myself. With you, I don’t have the anxiety that makes my dealings with people so much more difficult. The only other time I’ve had that experience was…”

Belatedly, I realize it would have been smarter to have kept my mouth shut about that last bit. Kira can evidently see my discomfort. “What is it, Peter?”

I’m not about to try and lie my way out of this, not with her. I take a deep breath before speaking. “Kira, even though we haven’t been a couple, I feel bad about this.” I go ahead and tell her about my day with Anna.

I didn’t feel guilty about it the night before, but the wounded expression on Kira’s face makes me feel like a real jerk now. “I’m so sorry,” I say when I finish. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She shakes her head. “No, I have no right to be upset with you. We agreed to do separate vacations. Sure, we enjoy each other’s company and we like to share a bed, but that doesn’t mean we’re beholden to each other.”

Part of me wants us to be beholden, but I’m not going to say so. She’s got a lot going on in her life right now.

“I appreciate your understanding,” I say, “but I won’t do that again.”

Part of me expects her to reiterate that I don’t have to base my relations with other women on her feelings, since we’re not a couple, but she doesn’t. I’m not sure how I feel about that, because as much as I love being with Kira, I also really enjoyed being with Anna.

“Thank you, Peter,” she says. “I admire you for the work you’ve put in, trying so hard to fit in. You really do a good job of it, from my perspective. I wouldn’t have suspected your condition.”

Her praise makes me feel warm inside. “It’s a life-long project for me, trying to become normal.”

She pauses for a long moment. “So do you think you’ll ever get to the point where you’ll consider yourself ‘normal’?”

Tough question. “Well, I’m still pushing myself hard to increase my skills. It’s not comfortable, always going out of my way to talk to new people and putting myself in places where I feel like I’ll never fit in, but it’s all part of the process of my becoming the man I want to be.”

“And what kind of man is that exactly?”

“Well, I want to be able to walk into any kind of social situation with confidence, even ones where I wouldn’t normally want to be, and not leave any detectable trace that it isn’t perfectly comfortable for me.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why spend the rest of your life being anxious and uncomfortable just to prove to others that you’re not anxious and uncomfortable?”

“Well…” That was an interesting way to put it.

“Peter, I’m really impressed with what you’ve accomplished. I wish I’d had a quarter of your drive and determination, but doesn’t there come a point when pushing yourself is doing more harm than good? There are lots of people who are shy and introverted but are comfortable in their own skins. I should know, I’m one of them.”

“So you think I’ve crossed the line into obsession?”

“Only you can say, but I’m wondering whether you know there really is a line.”

For the first time ever, Kira is starting to irritate me. Doesn’t she realize how important this is to me? “So after knowing me for just a couple of days, you feel qualified to psychoanalyze me?”

I can see that my words sting, but she doesn’t back down.

“Peter, you’ve been exceptionally brave by facing your fears about the world around you. Can you trust me enough to take a good hard look at something you may be fearing on the inside?”

What I want to do is to tell her where she can stick her criticisms. I actually open my mouth to do so, but then I revert to what I’ve trained myself to do. Would saying that to her be smart? Am I so sure of myself that I can say something hurtful to her? Looking at it dispassionately, I know she’s trying to help me.

Finally, I decide that what I want is to get away. I need to cool off and take some time to think about what she’s said. And, logically, there is no downside to being courteous about it.

“Look, Kira, you bring up some good points, and I’m going to consider them, but for the moment I think I need to be by myself for a while.”

She’s looking at me curiously. “You’re doing it right now, aren’t you?”

“Doing what?”

“You’re thoroughly analyzing all the data before forming your responses. You say you do that with everyone else but me, and now I think I can see the difference.”

This is becoming increasingly difficult, like when Destinee confronted me. It helps that Kira’s not yelling, but the feeling that I’m trapped and suffocating is getting stronger by the second. I need to leave now.

“Sorry, Kira. I have to go.” I gently lift her off my thighs, sitting her down on the bed. I scoot away from her and get to my feet.

“I think we should talk this out, Peter.”

But I’ve already grabbed my laptop and I’m heading for the door. “I’ll catch you later,” I say.

“Peter?” The door closes behind me. My chest feels so tight that I can barely breathe.

In the café there’s Wi-Fi and a quiet corner with a nice view of the ocean. I take a few deep breaths, then begin to check my messages. There are a quite a few of them, and when I think about the kinds of things I’m going to have to do in response, I nearly get the willies. I’d resigned myself to it earlier, but now I’m starting to question my decisions.

This is going to take lots more thought.

* * * * *

At three minutes after seven, I’m standing outside the door of the Águila y Sol with a huge bouquet of flowers in my arms. Kira sees me as soon as I see her, but doesn’t break stride.

I’ve never seen her dressed to the nines before and it’s a breathtaking sight. She’s just come around the corner in a strapless, blood-red dress that fits her like a glove. It’s perfect on her. I’m glad that she’d decided she couldn’t live without it.

Her makeup is amazing. The little girl is gone, and her beautiful face is showing its true womanhood. Her long brown hair is radiant and she’s inches taller than usual, due to some improbably high heels.

Suddenly, I realize that her stunning appearance has diverted me from noticing who she’s walking with. It’s Anna of all people. Seeing her with Kira is totally incongruous, especially since I hadn’t described Anna to Kira, much less mentioned her identity. Then, even stranger, the rest of the South Carolina contingent comes around the corner behind them.

Anna is staring at me with questioning eyes. She obviously wasn’t expecting to see me here. Then she looks at the flowers. I can tell that, just for an instant, she thinks they’re for her. My gaze is right back on Kira, though. For once, I’m having a difficult time reading her expression. I’d hoped for relieved joy, I’d feared disgusted annoyance, but I just can’t tell what she’s thinking. On the positive side of the ledger, though, is the fact that she’s arrived at the right place and time for what she’d called our “date.”

“Hi Peter,” Anna says hesitantly. I glance at her for a moment and return her greeting.

Confusion flashes across Kira’s face, but then the unreadable expression is back. “Hi Kira,” I say. Now the quick flash of confusion is on Anna’s face. Evidently neither of them was aware that the other knew me.

“Hello Peter,” Kira says in a very neutral voice. “Nice flowers. Are they for me?”

“Yes.”

“Please hand them to Anna.” I’m not sure what she’s implying by that, but I comply. Anna is looking as confused as I am.

Then, surprising the hell out of me, Kira crouches slightly and launches herself upward in a leap that would make an NBA forward proud. I quickly recover and, at the top of her arc, when her eyes are maybe only a foot below mine, my hands are there to catch her and lift her the rest of the way up.

There are several gasps from the Palmetto State group at her sudden act, but Kira and I cling together cheek to cheek. “Oh God, Peter,” Kira says softly in my ear. “I’m so sorry. I was afraid you’d never want to speak to me again.”

“No Kira, it was wrong of me to stomp off like that.” We just hold tight to each other for a long moment.

“So I guess you two, uh, know each other?” Anna eventually ventures.

“Yeah,” I say. “Kira’s the ‘roommate’ I told you guys about yesterday.” I realize that I’d never described her to them.

“Ah, it suddenly becomes clear,” Anna says. “Kira said she had a platonic guy friend for a roomie, but if she’d mentioned he was seven feet tall, I might have made the connection. You two make an awfully cute couple.”

Odd might be a better word for it. “Well, we’re not actually a…” I blurt, then stop myself. Our recent actions give the lie to the words I’d been about to say.

“We came down here as mere acquaintances,” Kira says, bailing me out. Then she whispers in my ear. “You should probably put me down now, Peter.”

“Oops, sorry.” I set her down lightly on her tall stilettos and she happily recovers her flowers from Anna, who, to my relief, doesn’t seem to be at all jealous. Kira gives them an appreciative sniff.

“Thank you, Peter. They’re beautiful.” In her arms, the large bouquet looks positively humongous.

“I was going to introduce you to my new friends,” Kira says, “but evidently you’ve already met.”

“Yup, I spent the better part of yesterday with these folks.” I turn to the group. “Hi guys.” There’s a round of hugs and handshakes.

“Yeah,” says Braden, the nominal leader of the group, “we always seem to be picking up strays.” He smiles and shakes my hand. “Dude, you’re crazy to have spent a day with us if you could have spent it with this lovely young lady.”

The daggers for him in Anna’s eyes are very brief, but razor sharp. Braden and his wife had split off from the group before dinner the night before and he evidently didn’t know just how friendly Anna and I had become. I’m not sure where I stand with the tall blonde, but her face quickly regains its mild expression.

“What do you say we all do tables for two tonight?” proposes Braden’s wife, Julie. “We’ve been traveling as a herd all day and, since everyone has someone, a little intimacy might be a good thing.”

Murmurs of agreement break out all around. “Thanks guys,” I say, then look down at Kira. “Shall we?” Her grin is answer enough.

I slip the maître d’ a hundred peso note and he gets us a semi-secluded table with a great view of the ocean. A server takes Kira’s bouquet.

“So, what were the chances of that?” I ask, wanting to start our conversation off with something relatively safe. “It about blew me away, seeing you with the same group I was with.”

“Well, after you left, I really needed to take my mind off my woes. For me, there’s nothing like a good thrill to do that, so I went over to the parasailing spot. That’s where I met Anna. We were the only two girls in line. She said she’d felt stupid chickening out the day before and the gang had encouraged her to come back and do it. When they saw that I was a singleton, they kind of took me under their wing.”

“Sounds familiar. They’re a good group of people.”

“So true. Then we found out there’s a 110lb minimum weight limit to parasail, and I’ve never been within thirty pounds of that. Anna and I were both nervous about flying anyway, so she suggested we go tandem. They have rigs for that, so we got to experience it together. It was awesome. I’ll have to show you the video some time.”

I grin. “Can’t wait.”

“We all spent the day together, then tonight they were wanting to go upscale for dinner anyway, so I steered them into coming here at seven.”

“I see that you took the time to get ready for dinner. You clean up exceptionally well.”

She blushes slightly. “I should say the same about you.”

“Thanks.”

“So Anna is the girl from last night that you told me about?”

“Yeah. Look, I have no intentions toward her.”

“Peter, it’s okay. I can see why you’d be attracted to her. She’s really tall and pretty, though only a mere shadow of Destinee.”

I can hear Kira trying to disguise her jealousy of my ex-girlfriend, but it’s still thick in her voice. Interestingly, I don’t detect any jealousy at all regarding Anna, who would be much more of a threat to her at this point.

“Kira, I learned my lesson about Destinee. She’s most emphatically not the kind of girl I want to spend my life with.” That seems to relieve Kira a little. “I also learned some other important things this afternoon.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Like maybe my whole life has been a lie.”

“Whoa, hang on there, Peter. You’re just-”

“Please hear me out, Kira,” I say gently.

“But-”

“Please?”

She bites her lip and nods for me to continue.

“I was reading my email this afternoon. There was an invitation to my ten-year high school reunion. They’re going to have a mixer, a barbeque, and a formal dinner. There were two from a professional engineering association where I’m scheduled to give a presentation on how to navigate the US Patent process. The one that scared me silly, though, was from a high school in St. Paul. One of their teachers heard me give my speech about how to push past what you feel are your limitations. She wants me to give it in front of the entire senior class.” I think a little of my internal shudder makes it to the surface.

“Peter, none of that sounds like you.”

“It’s not, but I do these things to try and get more comfortable dealing with people. It’s part of my self-improvement project.”

“But?”

“But while I’ve gotten better and better at doing it, I haven’t gotten any more comfortable with it, which was the whole idea. No matter how many times I do any of those things, my stomach churns at the prospect of having to do them again the next time. I hate doing that shit, and I think I always will.”

Our waiter interrupts momentarily to take our drink orders and to return Kira’s bouquet, which is now beautifully arranged in a simple glass vase. Kira orders chardonnay while I ask for ginger ale. She has to dig around in her purse when the waiter asks to see her ID.

I chuckle as he walks away. “Laugh it up, fuzzball,” she says with a chagrined smile. She’s just old enough to appreciate being carded.

“And you do realize that the drinking age here is only eighteen?” I ask.

“Oh wow. Do I look that young? In this dress?”

“You look beautiful, Kira, no matter what you wear, or don’t wear.”

She blushes, then urges me to continue with what I had been talking about, probably to change the subject.

“Kira,” I say, back to being completely serious now, “what you told me this afternoon pissed me off, but it was true. It pushed me to step back and reexamine my life’s goals. I finally started to ask myself what it is that I really want. What would I be doing if I could do anything? At least among the things that might be possible for me, anyway.”

“A worthy question,” she says. “I think everyone should give some thought to that from time to time.”

“Yeah, and after spending some time sifting through my motivations, I’ve come to realize just how much my life has been influenced by the bullies who teased me as a kid. They called me a weakling and a ‘retard’, and said I would never amount to anything. I honestly believe that my motivation for much of what I’ve done ever since has been to disprove a grade school taunt from kids I’ll never see again.”

“Wow,” she murmurs. “So, what is it that you really do want, Peter?”

I’ve been thinking hard about that question and have some general ideas, but somehow, sitting across the table from Kira, my thoughts and desires seem to crystalize.

“I love to work in my shop, creating new and useful things. I love to work out, and I love my peace and solitude.”

“So far so good.”

“Yeah, the effort I’ve put into that has been time well-spent, but I want more.”

“Like what?” she says gently.

“I don’t want to deal with large groups of people, but I don’t want to be alone either. I want to have a good relationship with someone who understands me, who I can talk to and relate with honestly without constantly having to monitor my every word and action. I basically want someone I can share my life with.”

But what I can’t bring myself to admit is that I want children, because to say that to a woman who will never be able to get pregnant would be downright cruel.

“I can certainly understand that desire,” Kira says. “How do you intend to make that happen?”

“Well, I’m working on it. I’ll let you know, Kira, and I really owe you for being brave enough to push me on it this afternoon.”

She smiles. “It was the least I could do.”

The waiter arrives just then with our drinks and we proceed to have what is easily the best meal of my life, not because of the food, which is nevertheless exquisite, but because of the lovely company and relatively unforced human conversation.

“So how do you like this tropical climate?” I ask.

“It’s totally awesome,” she enthuses. “If I hadn’t been so messed up from losing my folks, I’d have moved back south long ago. Minneapolis is just too cold. How about you?”

“Well, this is my first time visiting a place that never freezes.”

“Seriously?”

I shrug. “My mom grew up in the Soviet Union, so she wasn’t in the habit of traveling. Even when we moved to the US, we never went anywhere. When I got old enough, I went to college nearby and was so focused on my goals that I never took the time to do anything else. I’m loving the warmth here, though, and I’m not sure I want to deal with snow and cold ever again.”

“Amen to that.”

* * * * *

We’ve finished our main course when Kira excuses herself to go to the lady’s room. I take the opportunity to look out over the ocean. The nearly full moon is lighting the foamy surf, making it almost appear to be illuminated from within. I find that I’m very quickly becoming used to being near the sea and don’t like the idea of leaving it behind. Then I feel, more than see, a female presence alight on the chair across from me. That was quick. I turn back from the window, but it’s not Kira.

“Good to see you again, Peter.”

“And it’s good to see you too, Anna. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, I couldn’t help but notice how good you and Kira are together. I’m really happy for both of you.”

“Well…”

“And I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

“Huh? What could you have possibly done that would require an apology?”

“I was taking time away from you that you should have been spending with Kira. See, I was having so much fun hanging out with you that I just couldn’t bear to tell you the truth. Normally, I would have told a guy about it a lot sooner.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Peter, I delayed because after I’d been with you for a while, I thought I had you figured out. I mean, I’m not a complete ogre, but when you never tried to put a move on me, I just figured you must be gay.”

“I’m not,” I say quickly, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

She smiles, obviously catching my Seinfeld reference. “Yeah, but I wondered. But tonight, in front of the restaurant, that first moment that you looked at Kira told me that girls are your thing.”

“Look, Anna, I’m sorry if I didn’t try to be more, uh, romantic last night, but somehow it just didn’t feel right. I absolutely loved hanging out with you, but I didn’t have those kinds of feelings, and it bothers me a little that I don’t know why not.”

“Oh, I think I know why, and I think you didn’t come on to me because you recognized it subconsciously. And it’s why I need to apologize.”

It’s like a bolt from the blue when I finally get it. “You’re a lesbian?”

“You don’t have to yell it out,” she says with a smile.

“Oops, Sorry. So, you and your roommate…?”

“Sure, but René and I are just friends with benefits. We’re not a couple.”

“Not that I’d be jealous, of course.” Though I am, which is stupid because… well… Anna’s a lesbian.

“Of course you’re not,” she says.

“So were you just being polite yesterday, hanging around with me, slow dancing with me, holding me close?”

She pauses for a long moment. “I had a great time with you, Peter. I certainly wasn’t faking that. And if you’d tried to get more intimate with me, I’d have told you about my orientation, but you never did. Don’t you find me attractive?”

It’s my turn to pause. “Anna, I find you very attractive, I mean, well, look at you. You’re tall, gorgeous, smart, and I relate to you on a friend level as well as anyone I’ve ever met in my life, but I somehow just didn’t have those kinds of urges. Still, I was totally serious when I said I wanted to see you again.”

“You know, Peter, it was the same for me. I’ve never made a better human connection than I did with you yesterday. And you’re a guy.” She blushes a little at that, but then continues. “But what about Kira? You’ve obviously got romantic feelings for her that you don’t have for me. What do you suppose she would think about the two of us hanging out?”

“Well, you obviously hit it off with Kira. Maybe you could hang out with both of us.”

“Hmm, but wouldn’t you worry that I’d try and get in her pants?”

“Do you think she’d let you?”

Anna pauses for a long moment. “Maybe. I’d been planning on finding out tonight.”

“So you’re kind of my competition?”

“Maybe, but only until Friday, when I have to fly home. And I’d share.”

“Share what?” comes a tiny little voice from beside us. Kira has returned. Now Anna and I both blush.

“I’m going to let Peter tell you about that,” Anna says to her. She leans toward Kira, (who’s at her height with Anna sitting) giving her a quick kiss on the lips. Kira returns it.

Anna gives me a smile and a surreptitious wink, then heads back to her own table, where I notice that René seems to be fuming, probably from having been abandoned in the middle of a dinner for two. Kira levers herself up onto the now vacated chair.

“Share what?” she repeats.

“You,” I admit, deciding that honesty is the best policy in this case. “Anna thinks you’re cute.”

“And I think she’s gorgeous. Don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, absolutely,” I stammer, “but she’s, well…”

“A lesbian,” Kira finishes for me. “So she’d share me with you, would she?”

“Only if you swing that way.” I decide to go ahead and ask. “So, uh, do you?”

“Well,” Kira says, blushing a bit, “back when I was in high school, Bethany and I practiced kissing a few times. Supposedly it was just so I’d know what to do if I ever went out with a guy, but it was kind of fun and we ended up making out a little. She was quite eager to go further, but I wasn’t up for that. I don’t know that I could have sex with another woman, but if I did, it would be with someone like Anna. I really liked hanging around with her.”

“So did I.”

“Maybe we should invite her to come to the beach with us tomorrow,” Kira suggests.

“Seriously?”

“Well yeah, sure. You like her and I like her. I think it would be fun.”

“And you really want to go back to the beach after what happened today?”

“Well, thanks to you and your very stern phone call, there’s going to be security there tomorrow. And I really did have fun for most of our time there.”

“Well, how can I argue with that? Anna may not want to go au naturale, though.”

“We’ll just have to play it by ear,” she says, “but I’ll invite her.”

Wow, this conversation has taken some interesting turns. “Okay then, now that we’ve got everything else settled, I’m going to throw the question you asked me earlier right back at you. What do you really want from life, Kira?”

She seems to gather her thoughts for a moment. “I want what I hoped I was going to get when I married Angelo. I want a man who wants to be my partner in life, who loves me, cares for me and yes, can make me scream at night.”

“Don’t let Gloria Steinem hear you talk like that.”

“Hey, feminism is about letting women make their own choices. If those old broads don’t like my choices, then fuck ’em.”

I raise my half-empty ginger ale and she clinks it with her wine glass. “Hear, hear,” I say.

Of course, we’re both still skirting around the issue of what exactly is going on between us. I’ve never met anyone like Kira, and while she’s gorgeous, she’s so not my physical type. I can’t imagine what intercourse with her would have been like, even if she’d been capable of it. It certainly wouldn’t have been anything like what I’ve had before.

“Here’s to both of us getting what we’re really dreaming of,” she says.

“Cheers.”

* * * * *

As we’re exiting the restaurant, we run into Braden and Julie, sitting on the padded benches and evidently waiting for more of the group to emerge. “You guys want to come dancing?” Julie asks. “We didn’t dance last night, but we were wanting to see if anyone else wants to go with us.”

What I really want is alone time with Kira, but I don’t want to be rude either. I can pick up that Kira feels the same, but it’s still early and it couldn’t hurt to be social for a while. I do actually enjoy dancing, and the music at the club isn’t anywhere near as loud as it is at the Time Zone.

“Sure,” I say for both of us. “That sounds like fun.” Only then do I think about the fact that dancing with Kira might be a bit awkward. Her face mirrors my concern, but I’ve already kind of committed us.

* * * * *

The whole gang ends up coming along as we hit the dance floor. Happily, tonight’s musical theme is ’70’s disco and Kira and I immediately groove to the beat.

We find that we can dance together just fine as long as it’s not a dance where we touch, but soon we’re getting tired of craning our necks to see each other’s faces. I spot a sturdy looking table right at the edge of the dance floor and impulsively lift Kira up onto it. She grins her approval and gets right back into the rhythm. Now she’s my height and we’re dancing face-to-face.

“Is this okay?” I ask, worrying that I might be demeaning her.

“No, it’s wonderful. Thank you, Peter.”

Kira is a good dancer and I really enjoy watching how she moves. Being so small, her movements are naturally quick, and she can put a lot more intricacies into her steps than I can.

After a few songs, the group begins to trade off partners, which I would have assumed would be awkward, what with Kira table dancing at the edge of the floor, but it turns out not to be an issue. Braden drags a heavy coffee table over next to the full-height table, and Kira’s able to comfortably dance with everyone else. I end up dancing with Anna, Julie, the other two married women, a few random tourists, and even René once. I keep coming back to Kira, though, lifting her up onto the taller table each time.

There are several slow songs in the mix and at last one comes on when I’m dancing with Anna. We automatically move in until we’re pressed tightly together, her large, firm breasts flattened against my chest. This is not the way I was slow dancing with the other girls (except Kira) tonight. Even knowing that we don’t have sexual intentions toward each other, I love the feeling of Anna’s tall body against mine. It just feels good. And strangely, it doesn’t make me feel at all uncomfortable that Kira might see us like this.

“Mmm, I really like holding you Peter,” she murmurs in my ear.

“Likewise, Anna.”

“You’ve got to realize that this isn’t a normal thing for me. Back in college, when I was trying to see if I could develop a desire for guys, I danced like this with a quite a few of them. It always felt gross to me, probably because I knew they wanted to get in my pants.”

“Well don’t get me wrong,” I say. “If you were willing, I’d love to get in your pants, but I know it’s never going to happen, so I just completely put it out of my mind.”

“And I think that’s the difference. You treat me as a fellow human being who simply enjoys close physical contact, not as a potential sexual partner. Just the same way I treat you.”

I consider that for a long moment. “I think you’ve nailed it, Anna.”

But then she’s looking past me. “Uh oh.” I turn to look, but Anna has already disengaged and is heading that way.

Kira is still up on the coffee table, but René isn’t nearly that much taller and has her face buried in Kira’s chest, rubbing against her breasts in a clearly sexual manner. Kira is displaying a “what do I do now” look as Anna steps up to them. I’m on the way as well now, assuming that I’m going to snag Kira, but Anna deftly cuts in and begins dancing cheek to cheek with Kira, who gives me a quick wink.

René looks less cheerful about the switch. Too bad. Maybe she should tone down the aggressiveness toward a girl who has no interest in her in that way. Still, she’s momentarily alone on the dance floor, so as she turns away from the dancing couple and in my direction, I’m right there with my hands under her arms, lifting her onto a chair. She’s only a few inches taller than Kira, but probably weighs twice as much.

“Hey!” she protests softly, but I pull her close and resume dancing. She’s stiff as a board and I can tell that she has about the same interest in being held by me as I would have in being held by Braden.

The top of René’s head is about even with my shoulders, but we’re close enough to converse. “I’m not comfortable with this,” she protests.

“Neither was Kira,” I say.

“But she looks like she’s enjoying dancing with Anna,” she protests. I look over there and sure enough, Anna and Kira are still pressed close together.

“I didn’t say she doesn’t like girls.” I leave it out there that it’s René personally that Kira doesn’t like. She picks that up from context, as I of course intended.

“Okay, point taken. Now let me fucking go.”

“Fine,” I say, irritating her even more by picking her up again and placing her down on the floor. She marches over and rudely cuts in between Anna and Kira, taking Anna with her further out onto the floor. The taller girl looks a little put out by it, but goes with her. Seconds later, I have Kira back up on the taller table, clinging to me.

“Yikes,” she mutters. “René’s so rude. I don’t know how Anna puts up with her, even for a minute.”

“Must be a saint.”

“Dammit Peter, why did I have to be this size?”

“Likewise.”

“Would you hold me?”

“I am holding you.”

“No, I mean pick me up again.”

With her permission now, I lift her up and sit her tiny little bottom into the crook of my arm. She puts her arms around my neck and I sway, cheek-to-cheek with her. She’s light as a feather and I feel like I could do this all night.

“That better?” I ask.

“Much. It’s not terribly dignified, but I like it. No one’s going to cut in on us this way either.”

“I like it too,” I say simply. We dance until the end of the song, then a faster tempo track comes on.

“Wanna call it a night?” I whisper in her ear.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Kira waves to the gang as I carry her out into the warm Mexican evening air.

“Let me know when you want me to put you down,” I say.

“You can put me down the instant you get tired of holding me.”

So I carry her back to our hotel building at the other end of the resort, enjoying having her lithe body pressed against me. We duck through seven different doorways on the way up to our room. I manage to work the key card one-handed and carry her into the bathroom where I pull my toothbrush out of the stand. I sit it on the counter and fumble with the tube of toothpaste with my free hand.

“It would be easier with two hands,” Kira says.

“But I’m not tired of holding you yet.”

“Then hand them to me.” She squeezes some onto my toothbrush, then onto hers and we brush together, rinsing from the same cup. I have to lean us way over to spit. I’ve had sex with girls where it didn’t feel as intimate as brushing my teeth with Kira.

“Wow, I thought it was tough being short,” she says, wiping her mouth, then mine, with a hand towel. “I guess it’s a royal pain in the ass being super tall too.”

“It has its moments,” I say.

“Okay, well I guess it’s time to get dressed for bed.”

“Well, let me help you with that.”

She doesn’t protest as I reach behind her and unzip her dress, but when I start to bring my hand back up, intending to slip it off her shoulders, she finally says the words I was dreading.

“Okay, you can put me down now, Peter. Thanks for the lift, but I need to check for emails from my lawyer. I’ll let you use the bathroom first.”

“Okay,” I mutter, sitting her on her feet on the vanity, then changing my grip and lowering her the rest of the way down to the floor.

“See you in a few,” she says, flouncing away. I watch her cute little rear end in that amazing dress until it disappears around the corner. The unzipped back reveals that she’s not wearing a bra. Wow.

I quickly do my evening ritual then go to pull on the boxers and T-shirt I wore the night before, but then I apply pure logic to the situation. Both Kira and I have expressed our preference for going without clothing around the house, and we’ve spent a couple of hours today in each other’s company without them. It just makes sense that we can dispense with the bothersome things.

I head out into the room in the buff, feeling much more comfortable now. She’s sitting at her laptop with her back to me, still wearing her dress. She looks over at me as I approach.

“Peter!” she gasps. The look of surprise on her face tells me that I’ve miscalculated badly. I’m back in the bathroom in three seconds flat, pulling on my sleeping attire.

“Kira, I’m so sorry,” I say as I dress. “I guess I just thought that since we were naked together on the beach, you wouldn’t mind. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to come on to you.”

There’s a long pause. “Peter, your logic is impeccable, as far as it goes,” she says, more calmly now, “but there are certain social conventions and expectations at play here. Our nudity earlier was okay because that beach is a venue where being unclothed together is socially acceptable. If you don’t ask first, though, getting naked in our room when I’m here is no more acceptable than stripping down in the elevator in front of strangers you saw nude earlier at the beach. Does that make sense?”

Kira hasn’t raised her voice since her first exclamation of surprise, and she doesn’t sound upset or angry. Not like the girls I’ve known who have gone off on me for unknowingly violating social rules in the past.

“That does make sense, Kira. Now I know. Thank you for setting me straight.”

“I’m just glad you’re willing to listen without getting upset, and I apologize for yelling. You just surprised me, I guess.”

“No problem. You’ve been more than decent about it.”

“One more thing though,” she says, the changing sound of her voice indicating that she’s approaching. “Nudity in the room is fine if we both agree to it.” With that, she comes around the corner with her dress and matching red panties in her hands.

“Wow,” I say, for maybe the tenth time today, both because she’s surprised me again, and because with her hair and makeup so perfect, she’s even more beautiful while nude.

“I’m going to consider your actions to be a way of asking if we can ditch these stupid clothes,” she says. “My answer to that request is to say that you have my permission to wear as much or as little in our room as you like from now on.”

“And of course, you have my permission as well.”

“Good,” she says, tossing her panties into the hamper and carefully hanging her dress. In turn, I quickly strip my boxers and T-shirt back off. Ah, much more comfortable.

I realize that spending time with Kira could be a good thing for my learning of social mores. Getting royally chewed for every innocent mistake I’ve made along the way has been painful. Destinee had been particularly brutal about it, but Kira has been very understanding. I’m liking this girl more every minute.

“My turn in the bathroom now,” she says. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

I head back into the room, draw the curtains, dowse the lights and slip into bed. Immediately, I realize that I’m too restless for sleep. Rather than fight it, I get back up and open the curtains on the sliding glass door and stare out at the surf, seven floors below. I can see two different couples walking hand-in-hand along the beach. I envy them.

My mind ponders what exactly is going on between Kira and me. We’re certainly not just platonic roommates anymore. Still, she’s nothing like what I’ve always assumed “my type” to be. I like my women tall, large chested and blonde. Like Destinee or Anna. Kira doesn’t fit that bill at all. Yet…

I hear the padding of small, bare feet on the tile behind me. Kira climbs up onto a chair, then up onto the table itself, stepping over her laptop to come over and stand next to me. We’re at eye level this way. She turns to look out the window. We watch wordlessly for a minute or two, standing side-by-side with only our shoulders touching.

“It’s romantic, isn’t it?” Kira finally murmurs.

“Especially watching it with you.”

“I feel that way too.”

The depth of my feelings for her finally convinces me that this is right. And the moment couldn’t be more perfect. I begin to turn to her, but then I see the look in her eyes.

“Kira, what’s wrong?”

I can see her gathering her courage to talk about it. “There’s something else about me that I think you need to know before… well, before anything happens. If it was going to happen.”

My mind begins to race, thinking about all the different reasons she might come up with for why we shouldn’t make love. “Sure Kira. You know I’m always ready to listen.”

A long pause, then, “A big part of why I was so timid before I met you was because of something that happened to me back in high school.” An even longer pause, which I don’t interrupt. “I was kidnapped and held for nine days.”

“Oh my God, Kira.” Without even thinking about it for once, I instinctively wrap her into my arms to comfort her. She wraps her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. We cling to each other.

“I was walking home from the store,” she says, her small voice right next to my ear, “and I was only a couple of blocks from home. He was parked along the curb and had the back doors of his minivan open. It looked like he was about to unload a big wooden crate. Instead, as I walked by, he suddenly grabbed me and stuffed me into the crate. He did it so quickly, and I was so shocked, that I didn’t even scream before he slammed it closed. He was wearing a mask, so I never saw his face. A few seconds later there was a hissing sound, then a sweet smell, and I passed out.”

“Knockout gas?”

I feel her nod. “The doctors said it was probably Sevoflurane, a kind of ether. When I woke, I was tied down on a mattress, gagged and blindfolded.”

She’s reciting the experience woodenly, like she’s giving a police report. My mind is trying to cope with what she’s telling me.

“Was it a money thing?” I ask, hoping upon hope that it wasn’t something worse.

“No. My parents weren’t rich, and they never got a ransom note.”

Shit. “Did he…?” I can’t even say the words.

Kira takes a deep breath. “No, the only times he touched me were to put adult diapers on me and clean me when he changed them. He was very business-like about that. The rest of the time he was using a computer really close to the mattress. It sounded like he was mostly gaming, but he never said a word. The only times he left the room were to use the bathroom or to go downstairs and get food.”

“So it was a multistory house?”

“Yeah, and he wheezed a lot coming up the stairs. Definitely not an athlete. He cracked open a lot of cans of soda and crunched a lot of chips, but he only let me drink some of that nasty meal-replacement stuff from a straw every now and then. When he’d take my gag off so I could drink, I’d beg him to let me go, but nothing I ever said got a response from him.”

I let her talk without further comment, hoping that her telling me about it will help her somehow.

“There was another bed in the room. It had a squeaky frame and he snored really loud at night. I’m pretty sure my mattress was on the floor of his bedroom.

“As the days went by, I eventually lost track of time and started to think I was going to be his prisoner until I died, but he finally put a mask over my face and hit me with that same gas until I passed out. I woke up in the woods. He evidently intended for me to survive, because the tape he used to bind my hands and feet was only a couple of layers thick and there was a highway visible through the trees. I freed myself and flagged down a semi. I felt lucky to be alive.”

“Oh God, Kira, I’m so sorry. Did they ever catch the bastard?”

She shakes her head. “The cops had no leads because I never saw his face, and there was no forensic evidence. Then he took me again a year later.”

“What? He kidnapped you twice?”

I feel her nod. “After the first time, I was being more careful. I only left the house when I was with family or friends, but I made the mistake of going around to the outside restroom at the convenience store while my friends were shopping inside. The creep must have been shadowing me, because he grabbed me as I came out the restroom door. It was just like the first time, except it only went six days before he released me again. The cops still had no clue, so I became super careful never to be alone. Still…”

“Oh shit, not again.”

Kira is near monotone now. “I was at a sleepover at a friend’s house for the first time since my last abduction. We were celebrating our eighteenth birthdays — she was three days younger than me. Her dad was a former Army Ranger who knew my history, so I figured I was safe. All we know is that I fell asleep on their family room couch and woke up chained to the creep’s mattress again. They never figured out how he even knew I was there.”

“I’m so sorry, Kira.”

She nods. “Unfortunately, it was a lot worse that time. I don’t know if he had some sort of warped morality that made things different for him because I was now technically an adult, but when I regained consciousness, I realized I was naked this time. As soon as I started testing my bonds, the creep held me down and tried to stick his dick into me. Of course, he found out that he couldn’t.”

“Well, I suppose if there had to be a bright side to having your particular condition, that would be it.”

“Yes and no. What he ended up doing to me was probably worse. I would rather he had raped my body, because in the end, he raped my soul.”

I know that whatever she means by that, it’s not going to be pretty. “Kira, what did he do to you?”

She shudders. “He started lightly stroking me all over, caressing me, then touching me down, uh, there. No man had ever touched me in a sexual way before, but I knew that if I responded the way he obviously wanted me to, he would win. Still, my body betrayed me and eventually he made me orgasm. I felt like an abomination for having done that, and it didn’t help that I felt his semen landing on my breasts a few seconds later. I’d obviously done exactly what the bastard wanted me to, and he got off on that.”

“Oh Jesus!” I say, the catch in my throat obvious. “I’m sure you know that this was not your fault in any way. It’s all on that fucking bastard.”

“Yeah, I’ve been told that a million times. Intellectually, I agree. But still, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for responding to him like that, not deep down inside.”

I’m nearly shaking with a rage that has no outlet. I don’t trust myself to speak.

“He did it to me several times,” she says. “Every time I told myself that I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction again. Yet every time, he was able to do it to me, then come on me afterwards.”

“Oh Kira,” I whisper, almost overcome by the depravity of it. The very idea that someone could do horrible things to the innocent girl in my arms is making my protective instincts kick into high gear. If the pervert were to magically appear in this room right now, I know I’d kill him with no remorse.

“I wasn’t going to cooperate in any way this time,” she says, “and I didn’t care if it killed me. I screamed at the top of my lungs when he went to take my gag off to try and feed me.

“Unfortunately, without any liquids, I deteriorated quickly. After five days, I was so frail from dehydration that I could hardly move. He probably worried that if I died, he wouldn’t be able to abduct me again, so he took me out and dumped me like the other times. Unfortunately, I was so weak and dejected by what had happened to me that I didn’t even make the effort to get out of my bonds. I just laid there and waited to die.”

I hug her a little tighter. “You obviously survived, though. Did someone find you?”

“I have no memories of what happened after that, but I was reportedly spotted on the shoulder of the road by a passing motorist. The police forensic unit said my tracks showed that I crawled about a quarter mile. I evidently gave the police a full account of what had happened, then I lapsed into a coma. My kidneys had failed, and it was considered something of a medical miracle that they eventually started working again. It was almost two weeks later that I finally regained consciousness.

“My body recovered, but it took me a long time before I was willing to leave the house again. And even then, it was only when I was surrounded by people I trusted. There’s been no sign of the monster in the years since. I like to think that he’s dead or serving a long stretch in prison for something else, but it’s more likely that he just hasn’t had another opportunity.

“The cops don’t think he’s ever taken anyone else. For some unfathomable reason, he just wanted me.” She pauses. “It’s also part of the reason I came with you to Mexico. I didn’t feel safe, alone in my motel room in the same city with him.”

I have no words for what I’m feeling. This poor girl has been through hell. I gently stroke her hair. “I’ve got to imagine that being treated like that would affect the way you look at men.”

“It did. I managed to get past it enough to marry Angelo, but the idea of having sex still scares me.” She sighs. “I know you’ve been attracted to me romantically, just like I’m attracted to you, but with all the crap I’ve dumped on you today I can’t imagine how you could still want me.”

She’s making some good points. Between the doctor’s malpractice that left her tiny, the birth defect that left her unable to have intercourse or bear children, a husband who’s psychologically abused her, and a monster who’s left her emotionally scarred, she’s damaged goods. If I were thinking logically, like I usually do, I would put her down, retreat to my side of the bed, and just say goodnight to her.

But this isn’t about logic. I know now that no matter how tiny she is, what body parts she might be missing, and the things that people have done to her in the past, holding her is exactly what I want to be doing. I care more for this woman than I’ve ever cared for anyone, except for — no, I care for her even more than I was ever able to care for the cold, empty shell that was my mother.