Betty is awake, lying on her back. It’s the difference between tofu and prime rib; they'll both keep you from starving, but… When she turns her head, Paul is also looking at the slow twirl of the ceiling fan, probably thinking something similar.
When the cabin door creaks, they both turn their heads to see the outline of André backlit in the doorway squinting into the darkened room.
“You OK? I didn’t see you on your morning walk and got worried,” he calls in.
“Come kiss me good morning, André.” Betty sits up and beckons with both hands. André tiptoes on bare feet, his eyes cautious. “Paul, this is my friend André; you saw him on the beach the day we met.”
Paul turns back to the ceiling fan. “The pretty one—I remember. Another of your boyfriends?”
“Don’t be mad. It’s not like that—”
“She’s like my sister,” André says leaning down to kiss Betty on both cheeks while still looking at Paul. “I love her, but we’re not lovers, if you know what I mean.”
Betty smiles that André is so bold to a stranger, so open about being gay. She reaches behind his head and pulls him down for a kiss on the lips.
The bed bounces as Paul flips to his side to face them. Betty continues to hold André’s lips to hers, her eyes shut, shoulders tense, waiting for Paul to yell, or maybe slap her. She wants André to see Paul’s jealousy. When nothing happens, she releases André and opens her eyes. The boys’ faces are only inches apart. But there is not the glare of hatred she had planned for.
Without even looking to her for permission, André strips down his bathing trunks and slips under the sheet facing her. His face nestles between her chin and breast, arm stretched down her body, his hand at the fluff below her stomach. The boys’ eyes are still locked, neither even glancing at her. Paul positions his body toward hers exactly the same as André, as if answering his challenge. When their hands meet on her stomach, they tussle like small animals. The struggle ends with their hands lightly clasped.
It is unbearable. In a rage, their arms are thrown aside as she scoots off the end of the bed taking the sheet with her. A withering glower answers their startle. Wrapping the sheet around herself, she stomps to the bathroom and slams the door.
A flush of pink underlies the tan face in the vanity mirror. Humiliating! She should go back out there and slap them both. The flat of her hand bangs the door instead. Grabbing a sundress from a hook on the back of the door, she storms into the bedroom.
She stands at the foot of the bed, looking back and forth between them. They sit on the sides of the bed with their feet on the floor, their heads anxiously turned to her with contrite expressions like toddlers awaiting punishment.
She tries to renew her hard frown but instead finds herself fighting to keep the corners of her mouth from curling into a grin. These boys who will never be men are also slaves to sex, however misguided. It is not like they have chosen each other over her; this just isn’t about her anymore.
The initial indignity subsides, replaced by jealousy that love has chosen them and not her. What these two felt when they looked into each other’s eyes was unmistakable, that moment of rapture when all else vanishes, when passion overwhelms and demands to be satisfied. She has known that white-hot euphoria only rarely, but the memory lingers in her body like an addiction.
Her expression softens. “I’m going for a walk,” she says.
“I’m sorry, please don’t be mad,” André entreats.
“It’s just me…disappointed, I guess.”
“Don’t leave.” André reaches for her hand. “You’re my best friend.”
Paul’s face is slack, eyes full of question, apparently not knowing how he should feel or what to say.
“I’m the odd man out here; you two want to be alone,” she says.
“Please stay.” André pulls her onto the bed so she is kneeling between them.
“Neither of you wants me, I know. How can this work?”
André’s pleading face turns into a mischievous grin. He had already been thinking about that.
“Then can everybody agree to at least play fair?” André nods his head vigorously and she and André look to Paul. He stares back, startled eyes shifting between them before his head also nods. She shoves them roughly onto their backs and dives between them. She twists onto her back, squirming her hips for them to give her more room.
She knows she is not the source of their craving, but also that her body and experience is ideally suited to quench their lust. What goes through their heads when they look at each other, or at her, is mysterious; however, their bodies are those of men and surprisingly simple to operate.
Their separate fires become one consuming blaze, leaving their sweltering bodies tangled like corpses tossed in a heap by some horrendous violence.
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