Belize: Getting Zoe (Part 2)

     The most surprising thing about that morning was that I woke up in the top bunk. I have no memory of returning to the tree house, climbing the precariously steep steps, or tackling the bamboo ladder that led me into bed, though a throbbing pain in my left knee suggested that at least one of those things didn’t happen without incident.

     Cool air swirled in through the glassless windows; it couldn’t have been much past ten. When did we leave the street party? At what point had I lost my assistant, Zoe, to a car full of sexy Lebanese men? Where were my pants?

     Oh, there. The most surprising thing about that morning was decidedly not that I woke up in the top bunk.

     The most surprising thing was that my skinny jeans were slung over the guard rail, one inside-out leg dipping down towards the floor, the other tucked underneath my hip. If you find no miracle in the fact that I managed to remove my pants that previous night, then consider the fact that my hiking boots were still tied tightly onto my feet.

     Consider that.

     And now you know how surprised I was.

     I sat up in bed, top of my head brushing against the bamboo ceiling and dangled my long, naked legs over the edge, kicking back and forth like a kid in lead shoes.

     “I could have been in Anime,” I told my legs.

     My post-drinking-spree whimsy was short-lived, however. I wasn’t alone.

     Craig the sound guy was sprawled naked across the rug with his hairy chest to the sky, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and a puddle of drool spreading across the psychedelic Central American weave, like some satire of a dog.

     Pantsless, and I mean that in both the American and the British sense of the word, I trapped my lap beneath the corner of the bed sheet, eyeing Craig the sound guy suspiciously.

     A quick peek beneath the sheet. Tightly tied boots. Naked Craig the sound guy. (Bruise on knee?)

     Had we?

     No, that was ridiculous. I would never wear made-for-walking boots during sex.

     I pulled the laces on one of the boots until the knot slipped loose and then kicked the smelly shoe over to my crew member, landing it square on his face.

     “Sorry.”

     “Fuck.”

     He rolled away from me, scratching a butt cheek in my general direction.

     “Craig the sound guy. Are you awake?”

     Tying the sheet loosely around my waist, I leaped from the bed. It was the worst idea I’d ever had.