ANTIAGING SKINCARE PRODUCTS

“I’m such a slut,” Vivi Kaleikini stared at her own body in the steaming mirror, aghast. Her waterfall-like hair plastered on her ample breasts. Her dark skin was glowing, unadorned and voluptuous, yet emanating polar disaster as if her soul had just been ruptured. Despoiled, she didn’t quite know how to recuperate, gasping. The apartment was enclosed in the stale odor of the exchange of fleshes. Slightly suffocated, Vivi dried up, wrapped around her sarong and hasted to the balcony that faced Hilo Bay. As she inhaled, she could help drooping her eyelids and embracing the air, literally. Morning chill was bone piercing and she needed it. She then was mesmerized by, in the distance, the strata of misty mountains, stretchy coast and luscious farm lands. She felt exceptionally real. How luxurious, she envied. Then suddenly turned and searched for Andrew, as if just came to realize his existence and his ownership of the space.

Andrew Weinberg was still in his sleep, sweet and sound like a child. Turning sideways, his curly black hair was buried in a soft feather pillow. The duvet tucked at his hips, exposing his perfect waistline. He must have caught many waves, she supposed. It reminded her of the day before at Kahalu’u when he blended into her peripheral vision with his body board. Tall, lean, face angular and well proportioned, eyes blue and deep as the sea. Vivi admired how his plain white shirt accentuated him - awfully virile.  He flashed her a gracious smile, and that was all it took. Vivi spent the rest of her day with him, speaking of her Hawaiian genealogy, her prodigious days at Boston Berklee and her travels in South East Asia. Meanwhile, she listened to his childhood in California,  his haole descent, remote spots of Fiji and Indonesia he had surfed and how he used to work his ass off construction sites. They were intrigued by each other’s differences. Vivi did not care if he knew Debussy or Tchaikovsky, “why would I burden myself with feudal mating standards? ” Vivi relished the way he lounged around town, the way he handed her soup spoon, the way he pidgined with his fisherman neighbor. She simply indulged herself in his domesticity, until the aroma of kukui oil penetrated her skin, or was it the Indian spice he added to her tea that stirred her sensuousness. At sunset, in the kitchen and at dining table, Vivi kept imagining him nude and feeling her burning desire intensifying. All she had in mind was pounding him, and so she did, without choreographed foreplay. Soon she became a beast in the moonlight, an erupting volcano of  Moana Kea, spewing and melting.  Andrew moaned prolongedly and quietly. He seemed a bit withdrawn as he watched up the movement of hers; though never for a second dared to look into her eyes, portraying her as a mere physical object, any physical object. What is he looking at exactly, humiliation loomed. Their intimacy, if there had been any, emotionally or coitally, disowned in the sack in that very instance. Things had just turned awry and Andrew wasn’t the same I met, Vivi just knew.  

 Why am I here really, apart from filling in my lust and venture? She had contemplated what her female ancestors were openly fond of – love making, and the insane phenomena of them desperately seducing haole sailors despite the plague of leper that endangered the islands. It may be in my blood, she affirmed, I’m such a slut! Vivi again gazed at the tapestry of landscape, unconsciously absorbing strength for her sudden vulnerability. Another natural death between a man and a woman, she repeated it to herself with some self-pity. As a modern woman of sophistication, she agreed on the profound meanings of love and romance, something beyond the temporal and physical. Why am I betraying my faith, she suspected, what attracted me was only superficial.  

Vivi had been with enough men to understand how their hunter’s aptitude would play out in their relationship with opposite sex. She wondered why women with the same traits would be otherwise considered worthless whores. When do I get to learn to protect myself, Vivi was bewildered by the vast disconnection of her genetic extremities. I don’t have a life, so everything I do doesn’t matter; He could be anyone too, a void of my misery; Vivi fabricated something that sounded reasonably compensating. Since her orchestra in Honolulu filed bankruptcy half a year before, she had been doing nothing but straying into secret spots on Big Island. Only occasionally did she play at gallery openings and commercial farmers’ markets. And only her favorite wine, produced in South Africa and France, glass after glass, had succeeded in preserving the fleetness of time. Vivi managed to sustain, stoically, her pride and beauty, but deep down she never ceased yelling and decomposing. She had missed the craze and chaos of living on mainland, how authentic and alive it had made one feel. She also missed the old vivacious self who was adept at relationship subtlety, knowing when to push the boundaries and when to back off. Returning, she found herself friendless, affectionless, and unfit for the culture she grew up with. How odd, Vivi had long been in constant denial unless she let go of some of her indigenous fervor.  

“Hey babe”, a soft tone drifted over.

“Oh hi, good morning.” At a loss, Vivi responded. She immediately felt disgusted, why is he calling me babe? Does he even know my last name? The invasion of personal space to her was even more unacceptable than premature intercourse.  

Andrew rose from creased sheets and roughly forced his lips against Vivi’s while slipping his hands into her loosened sarong, his breath redolent of Bohemia dark. Although her hormone was rousing, Vivi resisted with such force that it stumbled Andrew back in disbelief. ”Whhhat’s wrong,Vivi?” he stuttered, “don’t you want me?”

Things Vivi didn’t care about a day earlier now all revived to matter. Andrew wasn’t attractive from this moment on in Vivi Kaleikini eyes. Degraded, uncomfortably, she snatched her weightless dress and lingerie scattered on the floor and ran to the bathroom. “Sorry. It’s not you, it’s me,” she trotted behind the bathroom door.       

Andrew couldn’t figure. “Oh, okay… Can I see you again?” Andrew pleaded. 

Vivi  went crimson, “No!” She was surprised at how fastidious she quickly became.

Now properly dressed, Vivi reached for the entrance door handle. When she was about to escape, Andrew twisted her waist and had her whole body dance into his wide chest.

“I like you, Vivi. Can I see you again?” Andrew sounded pious and lonely.

Vivi paused for a second in another spasm of disgust, thinking what on earth did he like me about, did he know what he was saying? “What… I… ” she pulled her head out of his chest and examined him. She felt lost for a second in his charming eyes, then finally said ”I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I gotta go.”

“…”

“Thank you for letting me stay.” Vivi gripped Andrew’s hand, thinking she had not for a very long time held a man’s hand which actually felt special. ”Oh, nice view”, she had a farewell look out the balcony. She meant it. Without the message sent from the larger world she might not have been able to look forward, stay impervious and be herself.  

Vivi Kaleikini then pedaled away, indomitably, to a resort of improved conscience and verity, leaving Andrew Weinberg stiffening at the balcony, forsaken. Well, the ruined could only be mourned, she knew. 

(draft. may be continued)