Benidorm Balcony
"She's on the balcony next door, sunbathing topless. Catches him looking. Invites him over for sangria. The sangria leads elsewhere."
Benidorm in August is exactly what you'd expect.
Cheap hotels, cheaper drinks, sunburn everywhere. I'm here with the lads—three days of drinking ourselves stupid before we all go back to our shit jobs and shit lives.
First morning, I step onto the balcony with a hangover and a coffee.
And there she is.
She's on the balcony next door, lying on a sun lounger that barely fits. Topless. Tanned. Slim body glistening with oil, small tits pointing at the sky.
She sees me see her.
"Alright?"
I nearly drop my coffee.
"Sorry—I didn't mean to—"
"Mean to what? Look?" She doesn't cover up. Just props herself on her elbows, giving me an even better view. "That's what these are for, love."
Her name is Kerry. Twenty-eight. Essex. Here with her mate who's currently passed out in their room.
"You gonna stand there staring or you gonna come have a drink?"
I climb over the balcony divide.
The sangria is cheap and strong.
We drink it from plastic cups, sitting on sun loungers, the Mediterranean glittering below. She tells me about her job—receptionist at a gym—her dickhead ex, her plan to get as brown as possible before going home.
"What about you? Here with your mates?"
"Yeah. Lads trip."
"Let me guess—you got smashed last night and now you're hiding from them."
"Basically."
She laughs. "Lightweights. We were out till four."
"And you're up now?"
"I can handle my drink." She finishes her sangria, pours another. "Can you?"
The second jug of sangria disappears faster.
By now I'm not pretending not to look at her tits. She knows. She likes it.
"You're different," she says. "Most blokes would've made a move by now."
"Maybe I'm being respectful."
"Maybe you're being boring." She sets down her cup. "I didn't invite you over for respect."
"What did you invite me over for?"
"What do you think?"
She kisses like the sun—warm and insistent and everywhere at once.
Her tongue tastes like sangria. Her body is hot from sunbathing, slick with oil, sliding against mine. She pulls me onto the sun lounger, on top of her, and wraps her legs around me.
"Fuck," I breathe.
"That's the plan."
I fuck her right there on the balcony.
Anyone could see—other tourists, people in the pool below—but she doesn't care and neither do I. She's tight, tanned, making noises that echo off the hotel walls.
"Harder—come on—we're on holiday—"
I give her harder. The sun lounger creaks. Her nails dig into my back. She comes with a scream that probably reaches reception.
I finish inside her because she tells me to.
"Pill," she gasps. "I'm on the pill. Fill me up."
After, we lie there, catching our breath, sun beating down on our tangled bodies.
"That was alright," she says.
"Alright?"
"Better than alright." She grins, that Essex grin that promises trouble. "Wanna go again?"
"Need a minute."
"Lightweight." But she cuddles against me anyway, her oiled body slick against my skin. "I'm here till Saturday. You?"
"Same."
"Good." She traces patterns on my chest. "Then we've got three days to do that as many times as possible."
We do.
In her room when her mate goes out. In my room when my mates go out. In the pool after dark. On the beach at midnight.
"This doesn't mean anything, yeah?" she says on our last night. "Just holiday fun."
"Just holiday fun," I agree.
But she gives me her Instagram anyway.
And I follow her.
And six months later, when I'm in Basildon for a work thing, I message her.
Fancy a drink?
Thought you'd never ask.
She meets me at a bar that's too nice for either of us.
Same slim body, same Essex attitude. She's wearing a dress that barely qualifies as clothing.
"Thought you said no strings," I remind her.
"That was on holiday. This is real life." She takes my hand. "Different rules."
"What are the rules now?"
"My flat's round the corner. Wanna find out?"
The rules, it turns out, are simple.
We're exclusive. We're real. She's still a slag when she wants to be—just my slag now.
"Never thought I'd find my boyfriend on a Benidorm balcony," she says one morning.
"Life's weird like that."
"Yeah." She kisses me, tasting like coffee and home. "Weird and wonderful."
The balcony was just the beginning.
The rest is still being written.