After a minute, Rick sat down. He was wearing white tennis shorts and a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and I thought, What kind of guy brings a ripped shirt with him on vacation? It was cold out, and everybody else was wearing jackets. He didn’t seem cold. The fire glowed in his golden hair. He had dimples next to his mouth, and he wore his hair long and curly. He moved down the log right next to me. He was tan as hell, his arm muscles were like knotted brown wood. Rick had the looks—handsome and strong and cool at the same time, that was him. Like those guys you knew in high school who had it all. He probably used to drive a Camaro with a surfboard on it.

On the other side of the circle there were two hotel guys playing guitars. They weren’t spectacular or terrible, but one guy had a nice voice. Rick asked me how everything was; we talked about home, how it seemed like a million miles away. I started to tell him about my problems, my crummy sex life with Diane. I don’t know why—people do funny things on vacation.

He listened, staring into the fire. I tried to keep the descriptions as vague as possible, and then I thought, fuck it—some stupid boat dealer from the Everglades who I’m never gonna see again, so what if he knows my wife has a mustache? He said he understood. He was, it turned out, totally cool. We talked about how married people get along together. He rubbed his chin. “That’s all normal,” he said. “You have to work around it.”

So, as Diane and I walked back to our suite, I grabbed some matches and asked for a candle from the front desk. Following Rick’s advice, I gave Diane a neck rub, and put some warm water in a bowl and got a washcloth. I washed her neck and shoulders with the cloth. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her to be quiet. I washed her hands and her fingers; I untied her sandals and washed the tops of her feet. She said, “That feels good.” I put some lotion on her elbows. She let me undress her. I took her shirt off, and her bra; I undid her shorts and pulled them off. She lay down and smiled, and I took the cloth and rubbed it in slow circles over her entire body.