Under the Cypress Moon

by Wallace, Jason

  Finally, Melina could take no more without chiming in with her thoughts on everything that she heard. "I'm sorry, Mark, but if this girl loves you like she says she does, she'll find a way to get over what's goin' on. She'll fight to get you back just like you fought to get her back. If she doesn't, she's an idiot, and some other girl is gonna snatch you up so fast this Shy... Shylah?"

  "Yeah, Shylah," Mark answered, staring straightforward again toward the ocean.

  "This Shylah's head is gonna spin when she sees all the women that are gonna be beating down your door. I'm sure she's a great person, like you say she is, but she doesn't realize what she has. If I was her, I'd never let anything get in the way. I'd hold onto you and never let you go, never let you feel alone, never let you have to do what you're doin' now, spendin' time on a beach hundreds of miles away with somebody you just met when you should be sittin' here with her." Melina put her arm around Mark's shoulder. She wanted him to want her the way that he clearly wanted Shylah, but she knew that she would have to settle for so much less and that Mark was too good of a guy to let him suffer alone.

  Mark fought tirelessly to control his emotions, to let the sighs now escaping from his lips suffice for venting his anguish and dismay. He hated to cry by himself, let alone in front of someone, especially someone new. He swallowed down the successive lumps that built within him, one after another, and comforted himself with a heavy dosage of nicotine. He wished that he could start drinking soon and began to wonder if his new found friend would mind him tagging along to the beach club she mentioned, but he was too afraid to ask, thinking that he might be some kind of burden and even the laughingstock of the night.

  After the sun set completely, Melina invited Mark to join her and her friends. Mark couldn't believe the strange luck of it all, being asked to do exactly what he hoped to ask to do. Mark had a difficult time finding his shirt among the sand dunes. It had blown more than twenty yards further away from where he had thrown it, but eventually, it was noticeable, peeking out from a light dusting of beach blown covering. Seeing that it was quite dirty, not to mention that it had been worn all day and sweated in, Mark quickly threw it back to its resting place and left it to remain there forever. He decided upon going back to his room and changing entirely. He was followed by Melina, which felt strange, but he could not object.

  Mark felt uncomfortable having another woman with him in his hotel room. It felt totally wrong, but then, he thought of how Shylah had quickly discarded him twice and how when it happened the first time, she almost immediately flocked to another man. He hoped that this situation would be different, as they had since become engaged and learned that they were to have a baby together, but he knew that he simply could not know and had to leave it all to chance, fate, kismet, or whatever else anyone could call it.

  Surely, Mark thought, nothing bad would happen as long as he maintained self-discipline. He wondered if Shylah would even care what he did. He was certain that he would care, that if he did anything that went against the vows that he had made to Shylah and to himself, that he would not be able to live it down, even if it never became known to others. If he simply kept himself at a distance from the women among whom he would spend the night or, at least, kept safely aloof, nothing could creep up on him and cause him to let down his guard and do something unspeakable.

  As Mark changed in the bathroom, he felt an eerie feeling, thinking that a very beautiful, available, and obviously very interested woman was just outside the door. He hurried to change into his fresh clothes, but as he bent down to pull off his pant leg that had gotten stuck, his underwear now the only piece of clothing covering anything, Melina walked into the room.

  "Mmmmm. I love what I see, Cowpoke. You about ready? My friends are texting me, asking where I am and why I'm not with them yet." Melina happily continued to stare at and admire the sight before her, but it made Mark feel overwhelmingly self-conscious and feel that he was, indeed, doing something very wrong.

  "Almost, but could you get outta here, please?"

  "Why? What's the big deal? I've seen plenty of guys in their underwear before. It's just underwear. It's not like I saw somethin' more, not that I'd mind."

  "My fiancée would mind." Mark continued stripping down and changing into his next outfit, knowing Melina was still watching him.

  "She's not here, Goofy Ass."

  "Goofy Ass," Mark asked, quite puzzled.

  "I don't know. It sounded good in my head for some reason. Hurry up, Sexy. How about Sexy?"

  "That's ok. Feels weird, but ok."

  Melina, almost afraid to ask, already knowing well what the answer might be, asked, "Why is it weird?"

  "Cuz of Shylah. It don't feel right."

  "Oh. Like I said, she's not here. And it's not like we're getting naked and doing somethin' somethin'." Under her breath, Melina mumbled, "even though I'd love to!"

  "She's here in my mind," Mark argued, pulling up his clean pair of jeans in a rush. As he buttoned them, Melina looked at his reflection in the mirror, staring hungrily at his muscular physique and all over tan.

  Melina could no longer take any more of Mark's mutterings about Shylah. "In your mind? Whatever. It doesn't matter. Do not feel guilty about anything! She left you anyway, but even so, you haven't done anything at all to feel guilty about! You know how rare you are, a guy that is not only smokin' hot but so sweet that he can't even stand the idea of another woman seeing him in his underwear because it makes him feel like he's cheating?! You're one in a million. No, more like one in a hundred billion! I doubt there are any other guys quite like you on this entire planet! If you told me you're rich, I'd marry you right now!"

  "Well...," Mark started, stopping himself short in fear of saying too much.

  "Wait. What? You're rich? Yeah, ok. Funny," Melina stated.

  "Yes and no."

  "Yes and no? What the hell does that mean? You are or you aren't. Which is it?"

  "Ok," Mark sighed, already wanting to kick himself for even thinking of telling Melina the truth about his wealth. "I... I inherited a bunch, way more'n you could imagine, but I don't have it yet. So, on paper, I'm rich, but in reality, I'm waitin'."

  "What? How? How much?"

  "Long family history, but it boils down to my family ownin' a steel plant that I manage. I run the place and kinda technically own it already but don't have the money yet. I told you there was a family business, didn't I?"

  "Yeah," Melina replied in a snarky tone, "but family business means like your family owns a laundromat or a Dairy Queen or some apartment buildings or somethin', not some big multi-million dollar company!"

  "But you know how my family got their start?"

  "How's that," Melina demanded.

  "Slaves."

  "Your family was slaves? But you're white. And how does that make you money? I don't get it," Melina stated, her eyes squinting as she tried to figure out what Mark meant.

  "No! Wow. My family owned slaves. We got our start by ownin' other people." Mark began to think that Melina was a dullard, far more than he ever would have thought had she not spoken her last words.

  "Oh shit," Melina exclaimed with her hand over her mouth.

  "Yeah. I know," Mark agreed. "I don't like it, but hey. I can't complain about what's it done for me and that it provides a lotta jobs for good folks who need 'em. Oh, and if you would, please don't say a word about this to your friends. I don't need people knowin' I got money or about my family. Please."

  "No problemo there, good buddy," Melina joked. "You got a friend in me. Take that how you want to."

  Mark and Melina hurried back to the beach to meet up with Melina's friends. Her friends seemed a little taken aback when they saw Mark with her.

  "Hey, you guys," Melina said as she came near the two other women. "This is my new friend, Mark. I met him on the beach earlier. Mark, these are my friends, Shanice and Tara."

  "Howdy," Mark happily obliged the meeting, nodding.

  "Howdy," Shani
ce, a lightly-complexioned woman of obviously mixed ancestry mockingly asked. Shaking her head, Shanice accepted that Mark would be tagging along for the night, much as she didn't like it. She thought that Mark was good looking enough but not her type and also assumed that her friend was into him.

  Tara, on the other hand, was quite smitten from the get go. She thought Mark to be "absolutely yummylicious," as she put it in her own mind. His swaying dark brown waves of hair, his beautiful greenish-blue tinted eyes, tightly-compacted muscular body, his dressing in tight blue jeans and a buttoned-up plaid shirt, plus his accent, drove the woman completely mad with jealousy over her friend's seemingly fantastic luck. Biting her lip as she walked on the side of Mark opposite Melina, Tara could not help but imagine the immense fun that her friend would likely have with the man.

  The night progressed well. Everyone got along, including Shanice with Mark, once she got to know him and had a few drinks in her system. She saw that Mark was an easily likeable guy and fun to be around. Mark had even managed to put Shylah largely out of his mind, at least, outwardly. He made no mention of her to anyone, fueling up on shot after shot and beer after beer, caring about no consequences.

  After an hour at the beachside club, Mark's phone rang. He was both delighted and dreading that it was Shylah on the other end. With music playing so loudly that he could hardly hear the people next to him, let alone someone on the phone, Mark answered, fairly reluctantly. "Hey."

  "Hey, yourself," Shylah shot back right away. "What are you up to?"

  "Oh, out." Mark had no idea what else that he could say to explain his situation. He didn't want Shylah to know exactly what he was doing and feared that he would have to tell her at some point.

  "Out? It sounds like you're at a party or somethin'. It's loud."

  "Yep."

  "You don't seem like you wanna talk to me. I can go," Shylah assured, hurt but seeing that she had few options.

  "No. It's not that. It's hard to hear, and I didn't think I'd hear your voice for a long long time."

  "Where are you, Mark?"

  "Oh, a place."

  "Tell me. Don't play games. Just tell me, please."

  "I'm at a bar." Mark felt his heart sinking lower and lower as he admitted this.

  "Was that so hard then? You coulda just told me. You're at a bar. Whooptie-doo. Not a big deal, Babe."

  "Babe? I'm Babe again?"

  "You don't wanna be?" Shylah was shocked to think that Mark had a problem with her being affectionate after so much endurance of bad occurrences.

  "No! I do. I just thought you wouldn't call me somethin' like that. Asshole, maybe."

  "Well, you're right. You are an asshole, but you're my asshole."

  Suddenly, Shanice held up two shot glasses and cried out, "Mark, come do a shot with me! Whoo!"

  "Who the hell is that, Mark," Shylah demanded coldly.

  "A friend."

  "Well, you can just go take your friend out somewhere and do God knows what with her and forget about me then. Go do what you want. You really are an asshole!" Shylah ended the call before Mark could attempt an explanation, leaving him to worry and wonder.

  After three failed attempts to get Shylah back on the line, Mark gave up and agreed to drink some more shots with his new friends. Before too long, Mark began to feel the effects of the drinking. He almost felt like breaking down into tears but held back. He was not a mean drunk or a crazy drunk but a goofy and sometimes deeply saddened drunk. He took one step out of the bar to get some fresh air and immediately stumbled onto the sand, vomiting profusely before he could pull himself up, creating a horrifically-painted vomit sand mural with his face very much a part of it.

  Mark felt arms grabbing at him to help him stand and realized that both Shanice and Melina were there to coax him to his feet. "Thank..." Mark could hardly finish before feeling as if he would vomit once more. He realized, at that moment, that he should have eaten before drinking so heavily, though the thought of food only made him feel more like regurgitating. "Thank... thank you, guys."

  "That's what we're here for. Right, Shanice," Melina announced, laughing, thinking that Mark's current condition was more than slightly amusing.

  "Yup. Pickin' drunk guys off of the beach and cleanin' 'em up! We're regular public servants, Mel."

  Thankfully for Mark, he had not gotten anything on his clothes, only on his face and hands. The two women carefully guided Mark to the bathroom of the club so that he could wash himself, seeming to almost shove him in when the door was opened and then hurrying back to their table. Mark emerged a few minutes later, feeling much better, cleaned thoroughly, and even thinking of having a few more shots. When he began to shout for his order to be taken, the women quickly stopped him.

  "No, Mark! You've had way too much as it is," Tara stated firmly, grabbing Mark's arm to force it back down. "You need to stop. If you're too drunk to even stand on your own, you've had enough."

  "Party pooper," Mark screamed, raising his hand again. "Shots! We need shots!"

  "No more, Man," Melina advised, seconding her friend's notion.

  "No more? I want more. Why can't I have more? You ain't my mama," Mark laughingly cried out as he began rubbing Melina's arm.

  "No. I'm not," Melina agreed. "Thank God for that. That'd be weird."

  "You like me," Mark asked. "Do you? My fiancée don't like me! She called me an asshole, and she won't answer the phone! She's bein' a bitch, but I love her! I love her so much! She's gonna have my baby!"

  "That's good," Melina assured Mark, quite perplexed by the situation. "I think you've definitely had too much, Mark. You seem like you could really handle this stuff. Of course, you had a lot more than I did, though."

  "Yeah. I had like five beers and like seven shots of I don't know what all. I wanna do like maybe only four or five more. That's it. I promise. Maybe six, but no more than that. Seven at most."

  "No. You don't need any more shots," Tara stated, grabbing Mark to steady him. "How about a beer, just one? Ok? You could have just a beer. It shouldn't hurt ya."

  "Ok," Mark said, disappointed. "One beer, but make it like... like really big."

  "Alright." Tara mumbled as she scurried away to get Mark his last drink. When she brought back the one, normal-sized beer, Mark looked it over, wondering why it was not bigger.

  "Hey! This ain't big! This is reg... reg... regler. Reggler. Regulor. Reegular. That's funny. I can't say regular. Did I just say that just now? I said it."

  "Yes, you did," Melina reassured Mark. "You're funny when you're drunk."

  "And you're hot when I'm drunk," Mark stammered back.

  "I wish you would've said that when you were sober, but thanks."

  "No problem, Little Lady. You remind me of my girl, like in no way at all. Haha."

  Melina quickly turned to both of her friends for advice. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

  "Dunno," Shanice chimed. "It is pretty weird. Maybe he's sayin' she's ugly, and you're really hot. I don't know."

  "No," Mark screamed. "That's not what I'm sayin'! They're both really hot!"

  "So then," Melina began to question, "How am I not like your girl back home if we're both so hot?"

  "She's black, and you're white. She's from the country, and you're from I don't know where. She's got black hair. You got brown hair. She's shorter than you. She's sometimes naked, and you're not naked, and I wish somebody was naked. Maybe I should get naked."

  "Well," Melina said, biting her lip, "I wouldn't mind that. Just don't do it here."

  "I wouldn't mind either," Tara agreed. "Hey, Shanice, he said he likes black girls."

  "Yeah. I heard. Anyway, what do we do now? He's drunk off his ass, and we gotta get him home or wherever." Shanice felt mildly concerned about Mark but far more about just getting him out of her hair.

  "I got this," Melina assured her friends. "I know where his hotel room is."

  "You've been to his hotel room," Tara asked, her eyes bulging out of thei
r sockets in utter disbelief. "Did you guys... you know?"

  "No, not like I didn't want to, but no. But I was there, so I know where it is. I'm only kinda tipsy. I think I'm good. I should be able to find it."

  Tara, feeling slighted, sat back and said nothing on the matter. Shanice happily obliged her friend's request. She liked Mark well enough but was a little sick of his company. She intended for it to be only a "girls' night out" in the first place.

  Mark and Melina headed down the beach, stumbling here and there, both trying to catch the other. More than once, they both went tumbling to the sand, laughing hysterically as they fought their way back to their feet.

  "Kiss me," Melina demanded the last time that she and Mark helped each other up.

  "Kiss you?!"

  "Yes! I've wanted to kiss from the first moment I saw you! I'd be good to you! I would never treat you like that other girl does! Just kiss me, and find out!"

  Mark stood there in awe, afraid to comply with the command but did not fight Melina away as she lunged toward him and planted her lips on his. In the midst of all of the turmoil of his life, Mark gave in, closing eyes and seeing Shylah's beautiful face, believing, in that moment, that it was her kissing him and not Melina. After several seconds, he realized exactly what was happening and shoved Melina away from him.

  "What did you do that for," Melina screamed at the top of her lungs as if she were in pain.

  "I can't do that! I told you that! I know... I know I'm still drunk. I can't... I can't think too clear now, but I can't do it. I got... I got somebody. I can't hurt her."

  "She's not here! She'd never find out," Melina screamed.

  "But I'd know," Mark screamed just as loudly. "I'd know! You're... you're so damn beautiful, and I knew that before... before I got drunk. I could really care about you, if I didn't have her. Exc... excu... excuse me." Mark fought all that he could but could not keep the next emigration of vomit from leaving his lips.

  Mark still allowed Melina to accompany him to his hotel room. As soon as Mark got inside, he fell face first onto the bed and went out like a light. The next morning, Mark awoke to see Melina next to him. Though Mark had his pants on, he had no shirt and wondered if he slept with Melina. Mark peered under the covers to see if Melina had any clothes on, feeling it would be a good indication. To Mark's great consternation, Melina was completely nude.