Tropical nightmare

The beach was perfect, like the ones in movies or on brochures. Most times they are just less attractive, filled with smashed sea shells and lots of leaves laying around. Not this one though. It seemed it was cleaned every single day because it was impossible it was naturally perfect.

Truth be told, it wasn't very close to the road and tourists hadn't invaded yet. Only locals, like Pat, knew about these natural beauties no one else knew about. And that was the reason why I had come here with Kevin. We wanted an adventure but also clean bathrooms and a comfy bed. Well, we got it.

It was all Pat's doing. She was a native Hawaiian Kevin had met in work. He worked in a travel agency and many people were very interested in visiting Oahu and all other islands. Pat had been to Kevin's office offering the services of her family's company: they provided personalized tours for small groups or couples all over the state of Hawaii. They only asked for the visitors to fill an online survey to know their tastes and schedules and then the perfect tour would be assigned to them.

And up to know, it was perfect. We had visited pineapple crops and the most interesting sites of Honolulu and its surroundings.

Today, it was Maui's turn to amaze us and the beach had done just that. Pat told us she would leave for a couple of hours to visit a cousin not very far. That would give us privacy and time to enjoy the beach. We only saw couples there and not that many. We held hands and walked on the soft sand. After a while we took off our clothes and jumped in the water, leaving our things hidden behind a coconut tree.

The water was also perfect. We swam a lot, for a hole hour before we went back to the beach. We had something to eat and looked at the ocean, dreaming of one day leaving in or near a place like this.

Then I realized my phone and Kevin's were not in the backpack. I checked two, three times but could not find anything. We worried, as Pat had told us to call her at 4 PM, but how if we had no idea of the time of day. Actually, we had no idea of what her phone number was. I looked around for the cellphones as Kevin went to look for someone to lend us a phone to call but I found nothing and he found no one.

We put on our clothes and walked back to the road. It was a long trail through the trees, but Kevin said he remembered the way so I followed him, holding his hand but in silence. After 45 minutes of walking, we finally got to the road but it too was deserted. Something felt really wrong.

We waited and waited and the sun was going down and we worried more and more. We were supposed to be in a boat back to the hotel by then, but instead we were standing by a lonely road and darkness would settle in no time.

I told Kevin that we should walk, at least to be closer to a town or something and he agreed. Not much time passed when a car drove by. We made signs for it to stop and it did. We both jogged towards it but then I saw who was driving and who was sitting in the back.

I tried to pull back but someone grabbed by the arm and made me enter the car. Some other guy did the same with Kevin, forcing him into the back seat. The car drove off and we were not saying a word. We both knew what was happening but did not see it coming. One mistake, and we would be done for good.

I should mention I am a police officer. As such, I have captured and sent to jail hundreds of thieves, murderers, con artists and so on. The man that was driving was a drug lord who people thought had died in a helicopter crash. I saw the explosion myself and that was another reason for my silence.

Kevin also knew who he was because I almost died the day of the helicopter accident. One of the drug lord's men shot me but thankfully I received no serious damage. But Kevin was not fixed on that man. He was looking at Pat, who was sitting there, next to them. She just gazed at the window, as if she was on a car with friends.

Already dark, the car pulled off by a small house by the road. We were forced to enter, as well as Pat was. The drug lord then started talking about revenge and intelligence. Pat had led us to a trap, set by him to kill me. I had been a key member in the investigation against him and it was my testimony that had sent his wife and son to jail. Now, he wanted to get "even".

He thanked Pat for her help but stated that he couldn't leave any witnesses. She went mad when he said that and tried to attack him. One of his men grabbed her and the other shot her in the head, in front of us.

The man continued, telling us the house was soaked on gasoline and that we would die as he had supposedly died: on fire.

Before leaving, of the thugs, the one that had killed Pat, turned around and shot me in the right thigh and Kevin too. They weren't going to tie us but wanted to be sure we wouldn't escape.

The house rapidly caught fire and, before the smoke began to be unbearable, we heard them drove off.

The pain was too much and I had to drop to the floor before I fainted from it. Kevin had been shot in the waist and begged me to do something.

The fire was everywhere and we were already coughing and pulling back from the flames but it was futile. The place was made from would only and it wasn't a very big house. Options were scarce.

We were going to die.

Can you feel me?

He had done it before and knew what it felt like. But he kept doing it, not caring for the aftermath, how it hurt afterwards.

It was so easy now, not like it may have been for boys and young men decades earlier. These days, all you had to do was grab your phone, download an app, put up a picture and voila. That was it. Thousands of men available, just by touching a few commands, just by responding to a message or sending one.

Of course the images were laughable. Most tried too hard to get noticed so they uploaded pictures where their bodies were shown in full exposure. Many were taken at the gym or in a bathroom.

Our guy, he just took a selfie on the street and that was it.

For the last six months, he had intercourse with several men. Sometimes even two on the same day. Always in their homes, their workplaces or sometimes in cars or parks. He didn't really thought much of it, not before or during the moment. It was the aftermath that hunted him.

Curiously, it wasn't the unprotected sex that bothered him. Most guys used condoms so he didn't gave it much thought. What pierced through his head was that emptiness he felt during the process. He had sex to pass time, to forget, to feel liked for at least a second. He wasn't keen on finding love or looking for it. He just needed someone's touch sometimes, and to feel needed or wanted. That was his turn on.

But it all disappeared pretty fast after it had all ended. Most guys rushed him out of their homes and it was understandable: many had couples and were even married, to women. He had even known some of them had children.

The truth was that he felt numb, sometimes during sex but always after it. He didn't really care for anything. He was desperate to feel something but many times couldn't. Physical arousal was rapidly meaningless, empty and hollow.

One day, going to meet a guy, he realized he had lost his cellphone. He had no idea if he had lost it or if he had been the victim of theft. Anyhow, he didn't have the exact address of where he was going as it was noted on a message the guy had sent. He waited until he saw a familiar sight and waited for the bus to stop.

It wasn't a pretty neighborhood but he kind of knew all about it. He had been raised in a house not very far from there but hadn't visited in years. His family had sold the house more than twenty years ago and there were things he didn't remember.

He decided to walk around a bit, eat something and then go back to his house. All the houses looked as if they hadn't been cleaned for years and there was a lot of garbage on the side of the road. It was sad, to be honest, to see how a place could just freeze in time, in such a negative way. It had never been a nice place but it was sad anyway.

The boy saw an internet café and was tempted to go inside but something came over him. It was maybe better to spend the day without any electronic devices, specially not the kind that may make him go to a place he now had no intention of going.

He did enter a Chinese restaurant and asked for the menu of the day, which had lots of rice, soup, a drink and a dessert. All of it for a good price. He was glad to be the kind of person that never left the house without money. He didn't have much, but enough for the meal he craved.

As he ate, he detailed every corner of the restaurant: red and gold veils all over, dragon statues that looked like made of gold but obviously weren't, a Buddha figurine and a one of those white cats that greets people with a paw. It was nice and almost empty. Lunch time had passed so only two tables were occupied. The other one was taken by a young Chinese girl doing her homework or so it seemed.

As the boy finished the soup, a man came from the kitchen and started arguing with the girl, in Chinese. It had always fascinated him how, as different as languages may be, we all have the same facial expressions, body language and reactions.

The man went back inside and the girl continued with her work, typing on a calculator and writing in a small notebook.

 - Is the business good? - he said.

She raised her head an looked at him, a bit confused.

 - Sorry... The rice is really good.

She then smiled and said the recipe had been brought from China by her grandmother and it had been in her family for years. He asked if she was doing homework but, as it happens, she was doing the numbers for the restaurant. Her father had entrusted her with this responsibility a few months ago but now thought it may be too much for her to handle.

The boy said he was good with numbers so he could help if she needed to. She hesitated, so he took a bite of a spring roll. But then the girl stood up and took her things to his table. She explained what was troubling her and in a matter of minutes, the boy had cleared the issue easily.

As he finished lunch, he helped her get everything in order. The father came back and was surprised to see his daughter talking to a client. The boy thanked the man for his food and asked for the bill. The man did not say a thing to his daughter.

The boy then wrote his email in the girl's notebook and told her to remember him if she needed help again. She said she had actually been looking for a tutor, as she needed to improve her grades to one day be able to handle every single aspect of the restaurant.

The man brought the bill and he was introduced by his daughter. The boy thanked him again with a handshake and told him he was going to tutor his daughter, as he realized she was eager to have the best Chinese restaurant in town.

The man seemed very happy, shaking the boy's hand and smiling. After he left, the girl and the boy talked about the business and not much about each other. He then saw what time it was on a clock in the wall and decided to leave. They bid farewell and, some time after, he was on the bus en route to his home, to his family. And for days, he didn't even thought of getting a new cellphone. He finally did in order to be in contact with his friends and family, all the people he had banished of his life and was now getting to know again, feeling them closer.