Blissed

Ted lay flat, defeated entirely by the heavy, oily heat. Last night’s drink oozed from him, mixing with sweat and cheap suntan oil to form a grim, stinking cocktail on his skin. He slowly raised his head and scanned the poolside area to see if anyone had ordered a drink yet. He couldn’t be first, that was his rule. The usual crew, familiar after six days at the resort, lay scattered like dead things on loungers. The fat man with his thin white legs, the ancient woman dripping in gold jewellery, the bald man and his ugly wife. None of them were drinking. Ted groaned as he lay his throbbing head down again. ‘Hungover? asked Val from the lounger beside him, her voice sharp. ‘Serves you bloody right.’ Ted though fondly of the blissful, sullen silence she had maintained at breakfast. ‘Do me a favour today,’ she hissed at him. ‘Get inside before you’re too drunk to move.’ She turned away from him. Ted thought of replying, then saw the fat man raise a bottle of lager to his lips. A quick glance at Val, then he raised his hand and got the waiter’s attention. The boy started to walk over, but Ted made a drinking motion and held up two fingers. The waiter nodded and headed off to the bar. 

He was quick with the beers. Seeing him approach, Ted struggled to his feet, hurried over to him, signed the check, took the beer, returned to his lounger and put each bottle inside one of his shoes to muffle the clink of glass on tile. Glancing at Val again, he picked one up and took a hard, grateful swallow. He paused as the beer worked in him, loosened his chest, settled his stomach. Relief flooded through him and once he had carefully replaced the bottle, he sank back in his lounger and sighed. He lay there, still, staring at the vast sky, fractured through the broken lens of his sunglasses. Darker clouds were drifting into view, but they were still far over the sea. 

Something veered into his vision from the right. A woman, headed to the other side of the pool. Ted jerked awake, straightened his glasses, looked up, saw her smile at him as she passed. ‘Morning,’ he said, cheerily and automatically. She smiled again, nodded and walked on. He watched her go. She was new, younger than the others around the pool, maybe mid-thirties. Straight blonde hair down past her shoulders, tanned, a good, full figure. He kept watching her, noticed how the others around the pool, both men and women, followed her progress, all except Val. The fat man pulled his gut in as she passed. Ted took another drink and watched appreciatively as she settled herself into a lounger straight across the pool from him, apart from the others, and started oiling her skin. Slow, long, hard strokes along her legs, her arms, her stomach, breasts...

Val moaned and Ted jerked. ‘My stomach doesn’t feel right,’ she said. ‘That bloody curry last night. I knew it was off.’ Ted nodded. ‘You had a lot to drink, too,’ he said. She stopped, glared at him. ‘A bit rich coming from you.’ He smirked, shook his head. ‘I think I’ve got diarrhoea,’ she said. ‘I need to go inside.’ Ted looked up at her. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Do you need me to come with you?’ She just shook her head, continued stuffing magazines and water bottles into her bag. Ted watched her, looked at the veins on her legs, the pouches of fat around the waist of her swimsuit. She looked old. Old and ill. ‘Ted,’ she said, before she went, ‘please don’t drink today.’ Ted started to protest, then simply said, ‘Don’t worry, love. I’ll be in soon. It’s going to cloud over soon anyway.’ She nodded doubtfully then hurried off, away from the pool. He watched her disappear round the corner, then reached under his lounger and pulled out the second beer. He drained most of it in a single swallow and held his hand up for two more. 

He sat up in his lounger and looked around the pool. The shadows were shortening as the sun climbed high in the sky. He pulled his sunglasses off his face. The crack in the lens was annoying him, especially as broken memories of the night before - an argument, a fall - lurked at the edge of his mind. He rubbed his face, took another drink. He’d need to be a bit more careful today. Across the pool, sweat coursed down the fat man’s body and the old woman under the trees fanned herself furiously. The bald man had let his gut relax again and now lay sprawled asleep and snoring, his thin legs spread wide open. Ted looked over at the blonde woman. She was stretching, her tanned face golden in the full glare of the sun, hands clasped above her head. Ted sucked on his beer, stared at her breasts, full and shapely in the brown bikini. The woman sighed happily, then opened her eyes and looked straight at him. An embarrassed smile flicked across her face and she crossed her arms over her chest. Ted glanced away, ashamed to be caught staring. He didn’t want to get a reputation. 

He picked up one of the magazines Val had abandoned and glanced at a story about a woman whose husband had left her after winning the lottery. He couldn’t concentrate, though, and his gaze kept creeping over the top of the page to the woman across the pool. She was reading a thick novel, he noticed, a proper book. He pulled his sunglasses on again , propped the magazine on his knees and tried to finish reading the story. The waiter stopped to ask if Ted needed anything. Two more beers. It went fast in this heat, he thought, but at least you sweated most of the alcohol out. He’d go for a walk later, clear his mind before Val saw him.

The blonde woman crossed her legs. He wondered where she was from. Blonde, blue eyes, so German, maybe, but all the German women he had seen and heard here were big, crude women, fond of their food. Too many sausages, he had joked to Val, though she had barked at him to keep his voice down. Scandinavian, perhaps. That would make more sense. She looked a bit like the blonde one from that old band, Abba. Agnetha, he remembered. He had more time for Scandinavians, though he couldn’t recall ever having met one. Good looking, fun loving people, liked a drink. Just like himself, he thought. The boy brought his beer and he signed the check, adding a generous tip. He drank deeply, enjoying the chill of the bottle in his hand. Bliss. Blissed out, he had heard youngsters saying. That’s what he was. Blissed out. Blissed and pissed. He giggled at his joke, his lips moving as he murmured it to himself.

The woman, Agnetha, stood up with her back to him. Her backside was firm and tight, a beautiful thing. Something fluttered out of her book and she bent over, slowly, deliberately, it seemed to Ted, to pick it up. He drank, slowly, deeply, staring through his broken glances at her legs, the backside, tight and muscled against her tiny bikini. The woman stopped at the bottom of her bend, turned and glanced at him, or past him, over her shoulder. What was she looking for? A reaction? He was certainly reacting, he thought, as he crossed his legs. 

Bright, fast pictures of Agnetha in bed, him above her, flashed through his mind as he watched her straighten. They’d be in her bed, in her apartment in Oslo, clean white sheets, fresh every day, just like the hotel beds. He knew what her apartment would be like. Wooden floors, white walls. A few expensive paintings on the wall. She’d spend her summers in the sun, the winters back home in Oslo, dressed warmly in wool, bare feet curled under her on the huge, clean couch, a small white dog quiet and obedient at her side. And there he was as well, bearded perhaps, dressed in white linen, drinking moderate amounts of expensive wines. He sipped at his beer, intoxicated by this vision of bliss. The conversations they would have, fired by wine and intellect and passion! Politics, poetry, music! He saw himself at dinner, wine glass in hand, talking knowledgeably about... about something, it didn’t really matter what... and she sat across from him, food forgotten (but delicious, and healthy), her eyes ablaze with life and love and passion, containing dark depths and promises of pleasure to be delivered later... The thought of Agnetha’s home both warmed and saddened him, the thought of the life she had, the life he had missed. But perhaps it wasn’t too late... Ted’s eyes glowed and his lips moved between sips as he murmured Agnetha’s name to himself, staring openly across the pool at her, Val’s magazine forgotten in his lap. She sat upright, staring in his direction, those splendid breasts on display, her head nodding. He raised his bottle to her and she nodded again. Their eyes locked briefly, but definitely; something moved, uncoiled in Ted and he felt, he knew, he had to act or regret his cowardliness forever.

He signalled the waiter. He was quick, expecting another tip, no doubt. Ted took hold of the boy’s white lapel, pulled him down, slurred into his ear. ‘See the lady across the pool? The blonde lady?’ The boy looked up, nodded ‘Bring her a cocktail. Something expensive. Tell her it’s from me. Find out what room she’s in.’ The boy looked uncertain, but his face cleared as Ted pushed a note into his hands. ‘And two more beers here.’ He watched the waiter depart, sat back in his lounger and drank, watching and waiting for Agnetha, his woman, to receive his gift. 

A shout from behind him broke the silence. Agnetha looked up, past him, smiled. He looked around. A blonde man pushing an old woman in a wheelchair. The man was huge, both tall and broad, and his torso was covered in tattoos. Like an ogre, Ted thought. He turned back to see Agnetha pull headphones out of her ears and wave past him, over his shoulder, at the ogre. Behind her, he could see the waiter approaching with a lurid-looking cocktail on a tray. Agnetha, waiter, ogre. Ted froze as a vision of these three elements and the likely outcome of their coming together flashed like fire into his mind. He dropped his beer as he lurched to his feet, desperate to cut off the waiter. His feet tangled in the lounger and he fell, landing painfully on his knees. The ogre had pushed the wheelchair around the pool by now and was embracing the woman, Agnetha, whatever her name was. Ted watched, helpless, as the waiter approached and presented the ridiculous drink, then - oh God, no - pointed at him. The woman looked at the stupid drink, then across at Ted. The old woman tutted and shouted something in German at him. The ogre stood still, looking at the drink, then at Ted, sprawled on the ground. Slowly, frowning, he started to pace around the edge of the pool. Ted struggled to disentangle himself, but his fingers were drunk and clumsy, and as he tried to stand up, he fell forward, into the shallow pool. When he gained his feet, he could see Agnetha, the bitch, helpless with laughter. ‘Ted,’ he heard then. ‘What’s going on? Why is that man so angry?’ He turned to see Val approach just as the ogre stepped into the pool and started to wade towards him. He fell backwards and slipped beneath the water and, just for a moment, before Val’s voice and the ogre’s hands caught him, it was perfectly, blissfully quiet.