Teaser Tuesday (Part 3 of 4)

This is part 3 of a short story; be warned, this section has some sexual language. If you'd like to read the other sections they are at
Part One
Part Two

P.S. I've made it through the first round of judging in the WOW! Quarterly Flash Fiction Contest!



He started to pack his suitcase like this was any other trip and I almost exploded until he finally asked what the big secret was. I got the brochure for the cruise ship, and we stretched out on the bed to look at it together.

The ship left L.A. in the morning and stopped off at Catalina Island before heading down to Baja California. I thought it would be kind of neat to see those places, but the best part was all the activities the cruise offered.

There were three swimming pools, a soccer field, a golf course, a mall, and a casino/stage all packed onto this one ocean liner. We wouldn't even have to set foot on land during the whole trip! When I showed Steve the schedule I made so that we could fit everything into ten days, he looked a little unhappy. He said something like, "I thought this was supposed to be a vacation," and I totally lost it.

I was trying so hard to be spontaneous, and his negative attitude was going to ruin everything! He tried to make up for it and pretended to be enthusiastic, but I knew he was faking it. I guess maybe it wasn't the best timing, but that's when I told him I'd been faking it for a long time.

By morning neither one of us wanted to go on this cruise, but we couldn't get a refund on the tickets, so we showed up anyway. It only got worse because we found out not everything was like they said it was in the brochure.

The swimming pools were so small that there was only enough room for three toddlers in soggy diapers in each one, and the so-called soccer field was a modified Foozball game. Then we found out when we sat down for lunch that the golf course was just a putting green way too close to the on-deck dining area. The only thing that lived up to its claim was the casino/stage. It was like they took a hunk of Las Vegas and grafted it onto the ship, complete with skanky showgirls and pale, wheezy people at the slot machines.

By the second day, this whole bad trip was stressing me out, but luckily I'd brought my cell phone so I could call Tammy and Kristal. It really ticked Steve off when I answered a call right in the middle of him going down on me, though. I guess it was kind of tacky, but the man was going at it like he was at a pie-eating contest—I mean he had no finesse at all. I was starting to think maybe it was better when we didn't have sex.

After Steve threw on some clothes and stomped out of the cabin, I felt a little guilty. I called Tammy and started crying because everything was going wrong. This cruise was supposed to be so romantic and bring us closer together, but it sucked.

I felt much better after Tammy read me a chapter over the phone from my favorite book, Men Are from Uranus. The author was one of the first people to intelligently discuss the theory that men and women are actually separate species seeded on the Earth by aliens. It made me feel better because I knew it wasn't my fault we were having marital problems—men and women hadn't even evolved together. If it wasn't for the aliens' genetic engineering, we wouldn't even be able to create fertile offspring.