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He was simple. I think that's what stood out most to me. He wasn't at all like everyone else aboard that gaudy ship; there was something peculiar, genuine about him. It made me smile a little, for no real reason other than it was charming. He was charming. Not in that "what a delightful morsel you are" kind of way, but in an almost beautiful, picturesque, romantic fashion. As if he were a Greek marble, naked in all his glory, holding the discus, ready to hurl it a thousand feet away.

He wasn't built like a Greek marble, of course--no, he was very average. Sweet, yes, but average. He had a bit of a belly. I could almost say it was adorable, but it wasn't; it simply worked for him and who he was--it sold his character. I liked his character.

He held everyone around him in contempt and, while remaining civil, would do little to hide the fact that he was simply not interested. I liked his impatience, his weariness, his inward Zen that he had to hold on to dearly in order to keep a placid face on his exterior. I liked him almost immediately.

It was by pure chance that we met: both of us holding up our ends of the conversation about clouds and the sun and whatnot as was courteous and proper, despite the captain addressing the matter of How Lovely The Day Was every morning over the loudspeakers. The moment I realized he was no more interested in the weather as I, and he that I was enthralled with him, we forgot all about the "pleasant breeze". We thought of better uses for our breath.

He was a unique kisser, with the right amount of pressure and the right amount of control, but an overpowering passion. I'd never been pressed into so fiercely, wantonly; I have to admit my head got wound up fast. It wasn't the best kiss I've ever had, but nobody's ever been able to manage quite the same.

I think I have the right to omit the lewdity that took place once we had stumbled into his stateroom, considering that it is very much my own business and that the essence of what's important was not found in the four hours of sex but the idle minutes that took possession of us at the very end, when all our blood had settled down and we lay, exhausted, on the bed.

I noticed, as the haze cleared from my vision, that he had opened a pack of cigarettes and was lighting up, so I held out my hand lazily for one. He hesitated before handing me one, but the look on his face was not of stinginess but of concern.

"You smoke?" he asked, sounding a little incredulous, as if I didn't seem the type to smoke. I vaguely wondered what the smoking type looked like.

"Only after wild, exotic nights of pleasure with complete strangers," I answered, feeling a cheeky grin twitching at the corners of my lips. I gestured for his lighter, and he held it up for me to light the small cylinder.

"You mean, like tonight," he answered pointedly, giving me a grin as I puffed. It was not a practiced technique. I coughed a little as the cancer stick lit.

"Exactly," I replied hoarsely, and cleared my throat a little, feeling my voice return to normal. "There we go." I brought the cigarette up to my lips and took a mild drag, pulling it out and exhaling smoke into the air, like a child playing with a new toy.

"So..." he murmured, watching me enjoy myself.

"So..." I murmured, smiling as I settled back against the pillow and lay my hand on his chest.

"Do you do this kind of thing often?" he asked gently, sliding his arm around my shoulders and smashing his cigarette into the ashtray by the bed. I continued to toy with mine.

"Not often..." I answered quietly. "No, not often."

"Why did you tonight?" He sounded curious and a little surprised. I looked up at him and felt my face contort into something like anguish, but I couldn't really tell why I felt that way.

"I... oh. I don't know," I answered, shaking my head. "I just... well. I just went withinstinct."

"Your instinct led you to flirt with a random stranger and then follow him to his room and have sex for hours."

"Just about."

He was laughing. "You're just like a kid."

"Maybe," I answered defensively, but the answer was laughing in my face, too.

"If I had been an axe murderer, what then?"

"You don't have any axes."

"They could be in my closet. In my bags."

"You can't bring axes onto the ship."

He opened his mouth as if to say something, stopped, thought about it, and then replied "Touché."

I laughed and kissed him again.

"So, you. Do you do this often?" I asked, smiling as I pulled away. He smiled back. It was warm and comforting: a curious parallel to the standoffish-ness when I had first approached him.

"I don't," he replied. It seemed honest.

"Why not?" I inquired, propping myself on my side, fiddling with the cigarette.

"Truthfully? How often do you think the chance presents itself?" he said, a light smile on his lips as he took my hand gently and guided it around to the ashtray, giving it a light tap and knocking the ashes off.

"Well, I always thought there must be more people who felt as annoyed with all the glamor and faux as I do," I said, somewhat jokingly, sitting up as I brought the cig back to my lips and gave it a light drag, puffing thoughtfully.

"There are. They're just not many, and not as attractive as you," he began, and I felt a light blush creeping into my cheeks but then he added, "and certainly not as up for sex," and I gave his shoulder a smack with my palm, with an indignant huff. He looked up at me, grinning cheekily, and the decision between annoyance and amusement melted away.

"You probably say that to all the pretty young things you seduce," I countered, and his eyes widened, like a cat's when startled by a loud noise. I had to stifle a giggle and wound up with a snort as I covered my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Seduce? Who seduced who? You came on to me." He propped himself up on his elbow, smirking back at me.

"The way I remember it, it was you who came in me," I teased and grinned, satisfied, at the warm red flush rushing to his face. It was adorable.

"That has no bearing on who initiated it," he responded, and there was more terrible going back and forth like children that I am loath to repeat lest I die of embarrassment.

After a while of generally lying around and occasionally kissing and stroking and such affectionate things, we got talking. It's that spontaneous thing that happens when two like--or unlike?--minds meet and spend a few hours in each other's presence. The conversation is just waiting to pour out. I realized as we shared more and more that I truly liked him, and not just for the satisfactory way he compared to everyone else, but for his own, special way. And this new feeling which I couldn't quite understand made me somewhat confused, as pleasant as it was.

"So... are you married?" I asked. It was a dumb question. But you would ask these things in that kind of situation. He smiled at me, almost condescendingly.

"No, I'm not."

"...Nobody special?" I inquired further.

"No," he chuckled.

"I see."

"Are you nervous you're toeing in on someone else's property?" he asked, amused.

"Tenth Commandment," I replied lightly, smiling.

"Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife," he recited.

"Cute," I chuckled, wondering then if that Commandment was issued only to keep married women from having fun away from their stuffy husbands.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back. I felt for an instant like we had been very old friends for years and years, only suddenly having wrapped up in some wild and romanticized accouchement. The feeling faded almost instantly when he leaned in to kiss me again. It was replaced with other, more predominant feelings.

"Mmm... my parents would hate you," I whispered after a few minutes. He turned around from where he had been looking into space and looked at me and the expression on his face made me laugh.

"What?" he asked in dismay.

"Don't worry. They're not on the cruise," I reassured him, more to tease than to assuage.

"But why?"

"Oh... it really isn't that important." I looked away, embarrassed.

"No! Tell me."

"Well..." I felt his hand on my shoulder and smiled, looking back. "Hm... all my life I've been kind of urged to follow all these silly guidelines. My parents have an almost provincial outlook on dating... and you certainly break all the rules."

"All of them?"

"From 'no sex on the first date' to 'nobody over five years older than you."

He smirked.

"What about 'no sex with random old men on cruises'?" It was dorky. I loved it.

"Well... you're not _that_old."

He laughed then, a beautiful, genuine laugh that made me like him infinitely more than I had all night.

"So do you keep to these provincial regulations?" he asked me, leaning his head in to kiss me. I playfully slipped the cigarette between my lips before he could get to them, and smiled up into his face.

"Maybe. Though maybe sometimes... I'd like life to be more like tonight."

We talked about other things. We talked about life. He was into music I loathed. I liked doing things he believed were trivial, such as crossword puzzles. It didn't really hinder the flow we had slid into--I didn't mind his depths, and he didn't mind my shallows. We found even ground, and stood knee-deep in water, giggling as we shared, confided, revealed: two complete strangers, bundled up close together like small children, talking about simple things.

"What do you do?" I asked him as he rummaged through a drawer. He turned back to me, looking confused, hand still in the drawer as if he was still searching inside it--but he closed it right after and came back to the bed, sitting down.

"What do I do? As in... my profession?"

"Yes. What do you work in?"

"I'm in a company," he answered.

"What do you do there?"

"Manage things," he answered.

"So... you..."

"I don't feel like talking about it," he interrupted, not looking at me. I realized with a small jolt that he didn't want to share that detail of his personal life with me. At all. It was a painful concept, and I settled back on the bed, looking at the ashtray quietly where my now-burned-out cigarette lay. It was unfinished, and I didn't feel like lighting it up again.

"I guess it's not something you want to talk about," I muttered quietly.

"It's not that I don't want to talk about it!" he replied defensively. "It's just..." he looked a little torn. That pang of anguish that had haunted me at the beginning of the night stabbed at me again, and I for the life of me could not figure out why I felt so, watching him staring at the wall, eyes fixed on a point only he could see, mouth slightly open as he lost himself in a race, his thoughts escaping even him. If asked, he would have just said he wasn't thinking about anything, and I couldn't bring myself to voice the words.

We sprawled there in silence, the world still turning around us, the ship still rocking. I heard the sound of something breaking, but I couldn't tell where it had come from.

We didn't have sex again, but rather lay about in each other's arms, idling away minutes past midnight. It was warm and dark in the room, with only the sound of very occasional creaking and the rock and sway of the ocean, and our breathing--mine, slow and tempered; his, strong and asthmatic. We didn't speak much more until the night began to lull us, the heat of the room and The Act sending us slowly to sleep. I gently nudged him. "It's late," I whispered. Whispering, of course, was pointless--it was a cabin, built for privacy on a luxury liner. There's no need to whisper, no matter how late it is, when you're in those rooms--but we whispered all the same, the darkness's presence humbling our voices to a soft murmur.

"You're going to leave?" he asked gently. I felt that unexplainable pang of anguish again, coupled now with a sting of regret. But what was I regretting?

"I have to be in my room in the morning... someone's bound to call on me," I answered back, hushed. That, and my parents would ask me what I had done on the cruise and I didn't want to have to make up stories, I wanted to add. But I could smell the hurt in his eyes. They felt like hot wax on my skin. I couldn't bear to dig another stake into him.

I picked up my carefully discarded clothes and tidied up, dressing as reasonably as possible, so that people seeing me out walking at dawn would not jump to think my askew appearance meant I had just taken luxury in the luxury cruise's diverse clientele. He offered me a cigarette almost shyly, but I thanked him and politely refused. I suddenly couldn't stand to be in the same room as him for some reason, and wished fervently to get out.

But when I got to the door, I stopped. I looked back at him, lying on the bed, unlit stick in his hands, looking down at it as if afraid to look anywhere else, body hunched over as if protecting himself from something, reading pain like a fire reads hot.

"Hey," I called quietly, and he looked up. I smiled at him, leaning against the door. "Maybe we'll get together again sometime?"

"Yeah..." he answered back, eyes unreadable in the darkness. "It's a small ship. We could maybe exchange numbers or emails next time we see each other."

"Okay," I replied, and I felt myself agreeing enthusiastically, despite that small corner in my head that turned the doorknob. "I'll see you soon, then."

"See you soon... sleep well!" he called quietly after me, and I smiled, waving gently, slipping out on him and seeking his face in the shadows until I closed the door.

I never saw him again.