Cleansing

Lining up in the queue to check in, you study the Aboriginal artwork on the wall, dots, lines and skeletons, but mostly arrows, pointing in that direction, and you look back and wonder whether it’s a sign you should follow, but that way—only the front doors and the skim milk white waves crushing the beach. You have a reservation, so you don’t leave, and your eyes flick back to the painting, the acrylic so gooey that you flinch when he calls, next one. The next one is you.

You slide him your credit card, and he asks where you come from. Do you want to tell him the truth? From the hostel down the road. You’re here to cleanse. Wash your clothes that rotted in the fusty backpack for the last three months as you worked three cleaning jobs to pay for a bunk bed, Coke and rare Martinis. Wash your flaccid body under the burly water stream of your expensive, rich hotel. Wash your mind, too, but this is a complicated matter, much easier to explain the need for the washing machine. The hostel laundry is always out of order, the showers—lacklustre, and you thought, why not splurge.

From Vanuatu, you say.

He doesn’t take his eyes off you, and you know that he knows that you’re not from there, you’ve never even been there before, but he doesn’t say a thing. He smiles, his teeth—pure saccharin, your lips—orgasmic pink. His gaze lingers for as long as the ocean salt clings to your mouth and eyelashes after a morning dip, so you’re not surprised that when his shift ends, he knocks on your door. You know you’ll regret it if you don’t allow him under the comforter, between your legs, between your breasts. He eats you alive, and you let him.

You lie still on the silk sheets, tacit, melty. Where’s the laundry, you ask.

He takes you down to the washing machines, a paper bag on his head, two holes for his eyes, one for his nose, one for his mouth. He drops a penny, and it starts cleansing—remember, that’s what you came here for. He kisses you, the greasy bag clamming against your face, but you don’t want regrets, not a single one. He loves you on the washing machine as it shakes and shudders, and you wonder if they have cameras here, but he coos, no.

In the gloom of the hotel room, your clothes smell of roses, your body—of him.

Should we get a moon buggy and leave for the moon? He asks.

Let’s start with Vanuatu, you say, your eyelids heavy.

You don’t hear his response.

When you wake up, the room is empty, the air mint-crisp and conditioned.

You collect your cleansed clothes into the backpack, zip it tight. Brush the last traces of sleep from your eyes. Colour your lips with gloss. Send an air kiss to the mirror.

Your curls bouncy and fresh, you walk out of the room — trot to the elevator — go down — drop the keys off. The staff smiles politely, but there’s a queue you’re no longer a part of, and their attention moves on.

You look around. He’s not there, not at reception. You wonder if he’s at the back, choosing moon buggies. Or downstairs, a paper bag on his head, doing one more secret load of laundry. Or maybe he’s in a room, servicing another guest, maybe from New Caledonia or maybe Tonga.

Your eyes dart to the wall. The Aboriginal arrows keep pointing in that direction, and this time, you follow them, submissive, your cherry lips stretched wide.

You run to the beach, drop the backpack on the sand and dive into the milk white. Salt stings, and for a moment, submerged deep, deep within, you are one with the ocean. You drink it, take a mouthful. You rise again, salty inside and out, salt yourself, purified and transparent, as pure as his saccharin teeth.

You float on your back, no longer sure where you end and the ocean begins. The sky stares back, placid. You know now the artwork was right; this is the way, the right way, yet the question lingers: what if he’s in Vanuatu, waiting?