"Come join us!" Four of them: two younger women, two older men, one a supervisor. They are all quite in their cups; I too, but less. I join them in the hallway late at night, according to a slurred invitation. Work friends on a business trip.
We are making for the pool, for what purpose I have not divined. It is closed for the night; the men try to force the door. I laugh. Trying to be helpful I take a knife from a nearby room service tray; the knife is bent, lock picked.
Down some steps ("Careful it doesn't lock us in," I say, and place a waste bin in the doorway) to the dim-lit outdoor pool we all collide in laughter. I am thinking childish things: throwing lawn chairs in the pool, pulling sodden pranks.
With a splash the supervisor has leaped in nude and yells for a girl to follow. I see his limp penis and feel awkward, and chilly. Without interest I notice one girl is now naked too. Her breasts are very small and it baffles my slipping wits. She looks uncomfortable, glances my direction and asks with nervous laughter, "What about him?" I shrug, demure, and promise not to look.
A modicum of decor stumbles soggily through my head; "You're drunk!" I cheerily declare to all, and raise my whiskey-glass in well-veiled protest. Splash, the naked girl is in the water too. No-one seems happy. I think it is cold: a good night for jackets.
The second girl eyes me as I am about to slip away; the second man laughs and confidingly asks me, "What's in this for me?"
"I'm leaving," I announce to no-one, with no malice. At the bottom of the stairs the second girl asks, "May I come with you?" as if I were getting in a taxi; I give her a ticket for the ride. She is putting her blouse back on.
The naked couple are in the pool, I think failing to have sex. The second man is caught between two worlds.
Sauntering then down well-lit halls, with a worried drunkard trailing, I call the front desk from my cell-phone to complain of loud kids in the pool and please send security. I take a sip out of my glass and notice my companion looks relieved.
We go our separate ways; next morning everyone is most apologetic and hungover. "I couldn't find my key," says the second girl, "so I slept in someone else's room." The supervisor says a number of contrite things; the naked girl had a long fight with her fiancee, of which I heard a lot. Years later, both men remain in their positions; the second girl no longer works here; the naked girl married her fiancee and they had a child.
When I see the supervisor sometimes in the hall I whisper jokes to friends but always smile to him and say hello.
