"I'll just be a minute," she says from the bathroom before closing the door.

Grunting, I sit up and slip my shoes off, hearing them drop by the side of the bed, and then reach over to turn some of the lights back on but I can't reach them and quickly realize I'm just too tired and too drunk to really do anything right now.

"Hey baby?" I call out. "Can we keep the lights on?" I fall back onto the bed. "Honey?"

The bathroom door opens and Marina briefly stands in the entrance, the hood now draped over her shoulders, but even by squinting I can't make out her features since she's backlit in the doorway, just a dark shape moving toward me, the door slowly closing partway behind her, and it's so freezing in the cabin that my breath steams in the half-light coming from the bathroom and she drops down onto the floor, her hair covering her face, and she proceeds to yank down my tuxedo pants along with the Calvin Klein boxer-jockeys and tosses them in the corner and with both hands on my thighs spreads my legs open, moving in between them until her head is at my waist, and my dick-amazingly-is rock hard and she starts rolling her tongue around the head while sucking on it at the same time, her hand gripping the base and then, keeping the head in her mouth, she starts sliding her hand up and down the shaft.

"I want to kiss you," I groan, hooking my hands underneath her arms, trying to pull her on top of me, but her arms are bound up in the bulky jacket, which I finally manage to move down a little, revealing muscular pale shoulders and what looks like a tattoo, partly covered by the strap of a white tank top, on the right shoulder blade. Reaching out, I try to touch the tattoo. "Come on," I groan, "take ' your clothes off," but she keeps pushing me back, my c**k moving in and out of her mouth, her hair hanging down, brushing across my hips, her tongue expertly sliding up the shaft, and then I'm angling myself so I can push the entire dick back into her mouth and with both hands holding my hips she starts swallowing it over and over and I'm making soft moaning noises, pulling my shirt up, not wanting to come on it, and I start jacking myself off while she eats my balls, a finger pressing against my assholc that I keep brushing away but she slips it in and I start coming and afterwards, panting, things spinning away from me, through a blurry lens I notice her moving around the room opening drawers and I'm murmuring "Why are you wearing a wig?" before I pass out, which I don't want to do because there are so many things I need to show her.

5

The noon whistle is what stops the dreaming. In the middle of the night I was wrapped in blankets after I passed out but no one removed the tuxedo shirt and bow tie. Unable to stay motionless in the tightly curled fetal position I'm in-due to a great deal of pain-I reach for the phone but in mid-reach realize I've missed brunch and there's no possibility I could keep anything down anyway so I nix room service. In desperate need of water, I stumble up, stagger to the bathroom in pain, squealing "Spare me, spare me," and drink greedily from the sink, which tastes awful, and then I stare at my reflection in the mirror, utterly confused: my face looks completely dehydrated and splotchy, the hair on my head is sticking up at weird angles in a totally ungroovy '80s kind of way and below that the sparse hair on my stomach is matted with dried se**n. After a shower the day seems halfway salvageable and much less grim. I get dressed, take three Advil, flush my eyes with Visine, then fall into a violent heap on the bed.

I call Marina's room but there's no answer.

4

I find Marina's room and knock on the door but there's no answer and, predictably, it's locked. I knock again, place my ear against the door: silence. While lingering in the corridor, out of it, still hazy, wondering what I should do after I apologize for being drunk, I notice maids five doors down cleaning rooms, moving slowly this way. I take a walk along the starboard deck but end up pacing just one small stretch of it, sunglasses on, mumbling to myself, the wind off the Atlantic causing me to weave around, until I move back to Marina's hall. Her door is open now and a maid is given her cue to enter, leaving in the open doorway a giant canvas hamper piled high with laundry.

I knock, peering in, clearing my throat, causing the maid to look up while she's stripping the bed. Without smiling and with some sort of bossy Scottish accent, she asks, "May I help you?"

"Hello," I say, trying to be genial and totally failing. "I'm just looking for the girl whose room this is."

"Yes?" the maid asks, waiting, holding the bundle of sheets.

"I, um, left something here," I say, moving into the cabin, noticing an unopened fruit basket, knocked over, on the dressing table, the phone Marina used to call me on the floor in the corner next to the bed instead of the nightstand, as if whoever was last talking on it was huddled down on the floor, hiding behind the bed.