“Hmm… I’m not sure. I’ve never really figured out how it’s supposed to work and what clothes you are supposed to keep on or when you get undressed or things like that.”
“I don’t think there are hard and fast rules about things, and I think they’ll be happy to explain anything or answer any questions. We can’t be the first folks to wander in there without a clue.”
“And you’d be okay if I wanted a guy to give me a massage?” she asked, smiling. She’s pretty naive, but she knew the answer to that one.
“Of course. And if it makes you feel better, there will be a woman with her hands all over my body too,” I joked. I’ve never heard her express interest in that being something she’d find hot, but I had a feeling it would appeal to her sense of fairness.
“Sure, we can do that then. But then I get to pick something too.” Yes, because I’m sure she’ll be suffering with my first choice of activities.
As we browsed through the website, I saw her stop on the page for their gift shop. It had the normal sundries and souvenirs, but it also had clothing. “Maybe we should hit the store right now and look around. They probably aren’t busy right now and it might be nice to have some chocolate laying around.”
“Sure”, I said, “and a bottle of wine for the room might be nice for the nights we don’t feel like going out.” Nothing like provisioning the room if one of the nights turned out to be movies and chill.
So we headed down to the shop. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. It was big enough that they had a number of separate sections. The snacks and drinks were near the front, and shopping like a guy, I thought that we’d be in and out of here in 30 seconds. But my wife just wandered in and started looking around. I had known her long enough that that neither surprised me or bothered me. She likes browsing and I’m happy to hang out and look around.
What did surprise me, however, was that we eventually wound up in the clothing section of the gift shop. And then a bigger surprise, we wound up looking at the swimwear. We didn’t need swimwear. We had packed for a warm-weather vacation, so we were good, right?
“I worry that the suit I brought isn’t quite what everyone else is wearing. I’d hate to stand out.”
Okay. That second comment was totally Jennifer, but not where she was going with this.
“Everyone else we saw in the hot tub last night was wearing a bikini. Maybe I should try to find one that looks good on a fifty-something, if that wouldn’t be too weird.”
“You know I have no problem with that. I’m happy to help you pick one out.”
She laughed. “Yeah, that’s very noble of you, helping a woman pick out a bikini. I’m not sure I can trust you to do what’s in my best interest.”
“Not in your best interest? I can assure you I’ll be thinking of you the whole time I look at these.”
“How about I pick and then you can vote?”
I resigned myself to being a mere consultant in the process, but looking at the suits, there were only two options for her: hot and hotter.
She spent quite a while going through the suits, evaluating them mentally and trying to figure out the right size. Eventually, she decided on either a smallish white one or an even smaller blue one.