Six years had passed since my break-out Havasu spring break of 2003. If you were to ask my close friends when I “started being sleazy,” they’ll probably say it was on that trip. I bleached my hair and frosted the tips black, which made it look like someone had grabbed me by the ankles and dipped me in oil. Nothing could stop me.
The boats–mostly pontoons and motorboats–connected with each other to create a giant Pangaea of debauchery. I’d hop from boat to boat, one hand holding double-stacked beers, the other holding whipped cream; and I’d spray whipped cream on mouths, breasts, necks, chins, hip bones, and ass cheeks. In total, I hooked up with over forty girls in a three-day span. Sometimes I wouldn’t even need to speak. I’d simply point the whipped cream bottle to her mouth, and if she didn’t move, I’d spray and start kissing her. This adventure was before I really knew how to close, so all those “hook ups” were waist and above, ending the moment I hopped onto the next boat.
I learned two things from that trip: first, girls travel to places like Lake Havasu, Las Vegas, and Cancun for the same reason guys do: to hook up; second, rejection ceases to exist with the right amount of alcohol and an ample supply of women. One of my less confident friends requested I write a blog on “how to handle rejection.” I told him: “Stop giving a shit. Drink more. You are cooler than her; if she disagrees, move on.” Whipped cream helps, too.
I returned to Lake Havasu in summer 2009 for KG’s bachelor party. Since we’d missed spring break by two months, I wasn’t expecting the same boat-to-boat madness of ‘03. But Havasu is a different world. Sex is always drifting somewhere nearby.
Eleven of us rented an eighty-foot houseboat. The boat had an upper deck that consisted of a wood-finished bar covered by a fly-infested roof. Beyond the overhang at the front were a half dozen patio chairs loosely facing each other. Down below were four sleeping units along with a bar, kitchen, and a pair of bathrooms. The rooms were the size of a walk-in closet, each with a double bed. In total they slept eight. The remaining three slept on the foldout couch.
The houseboat deal came with a motorboat, so we spent the days tubing and wake boarding. The lake had an eerie amount of dead fish floating around. Every fifteen seconds we’d motor past a new rotting floater. At one point we played a game of Fish Drink: if someone saw a new carcass, they’d yell, “Fish!” and we’d all drink. The game didn’t last long once we realized it wasn’t like that song “Roxanne” because at least that song ended. The dead fish were infinite. We later learned that an epidemic of “fish herpes” had taken over the lake. Sucks to be born in Havasu.
That Friday night we went to a local bar a few blocks from the water. The bar was U-shaped with a less-crowded pool/karaoke room on one side of the U, and a dance/table area on the other. Toward the end of the night I began talking to a thirty-nine-year-old brunette woman named Elena, who was sitting behind a table watching the dance floor. “Are you spying on someone?” I asked. She laughed and defended herself. Girls hate being accused of being stalkers. They always get defensive. I noticed she had a heavy accent, so I asked her which country she was from. She gave me an undecipherable answer involving Switzerland, France, and Romania. I nodded my head and acted like I understood, and then I asked her about her fifteen bracelets.
I was disappointed to find out Elena lived in Havasu, since I had yet to meet a respectable girl from the city famous for scuzzy spring breaks, whipped cream, and boat sex. She’d moved to the U.S. about a decade ago to “start over” and run her own pet shop. I didn’t explore the root of her start-over thing, assuming no good could come from that discussion.
When the bar closed down, we had to wait another forty minutes outside with the mob of drunks because Elena was paranoid about getting pulled over by a cop even though she’d had just two drinks. In that time, I was interrupted twice by a Havasu local who approached Elena and asked, “Is everything okay here?” Elena would reply yes. Then he’d ask, “Do you need a walk to your car?” Elena would reply no. “Are you sure?” he would add. Elena again replied no. Both interruptions consisted of the exact same script. I felt sorry for the guy. Apparently, there are guys who actually think they can get laid by offering girls walks to their car at three in the morning.
Later, blacked-out Punchline gave his best salt attempt when he waddled over and sleazily started caressing Elena’s right foot while she sat on a large planter. Luckily a chunky blonde girl he’d been talking to whistled him back.
When I had to take a leak, I called over a drunken KG and Ron to “watch over” Elena. When I returned from the alley, everything was fine, but Ron didn’t leave. He remained and continued to talk with Elena for the next fifteen minutes. I began to worry that the salt factor would be an issue.
KG dragged Ron away when the mob scene began to wane. Elena and I walked to her car, and I asked where she wanted to go. “We can’t go to my place because my pets will probably attack you,” she chuckled.
“Really? How many pets do you have?” I asked.
“Seven–two cats, two dogs, a parrot, an iguana, and a fish,” she replied, flicking a strand of hair aside.
“One fish!” I exclaimed. “Does that even count?”
“Of course it does!”
“Doesn’t it get lonely?”
“No, why would she get lonely? She has the whole aquarium to herself.”
“I guess,” I said, still confused. “What about the poor parrot? Don’t the cats attack his cage?”
“No no,” she laughed. “His cage is too high.”
Aside from her ankle high white dress, something was wrong with this girl. But since she had a sweet face, an innocent smile, and a nice set of real tits, I ignored our pet discussion. When we got inside her car, she insisted on waiting another five minutes for the cops to leave. The street was deserted. I suddenly felt an urge creep up on me, and I had to act. We still hadn’t made out or had any physical contact whatsoever. With American girls I could usually tell if we were going to hook up or not. Euro chicks made me anxious. I had to make sure she wasn’t looking for a “friendship.” Losing my patience, I decided to try an unconventional move. While she was talking, I leaned in for a kiss Marty-McFly style. Elena cringed and moved away with a look of absolute fright. “What are you doing!?” she shrieked.
“Whoa,” I said, pulling back. “Relax. I was just giving you a kiss.” She was seriously scared of me. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, okay,” she said, sitting up. “You weren’t going to hurt me, right?”
“No, of course not!” Hurt her? Had I not been eleven beers deep I would have gotten out of the car and run away. Instead, I persisted. “Why would you think that?”
“Oh, nothing,” she answered, fiddling with her watch. “I guess it’s just a kiss.”
I leaned in again. Success. We made out for a few minutes until I got bored and suggested we go to the houseboat. She jumped at the idea. “Yes! I want to see houseboat!” she said in a stronger European accent. I asked some of my friends the next day about her accent. None of them could place it, so we settled on Euro.
The moment I walked onto the boat–which was docked purposely away from other boats to avoid noise complaints–I knew I had a challenge ahead. Elena was the lone girl; bringing her into a place with ten other horny guys was like leading a sheep through a velociraptor stable. Even though these were some of my closest friends, Havasu has a way of zombifying men to vagina.
First it was Axe. During a make-out session on the roof, Axe came thundering up the stairs butt naked. He leaned against the corner rail, made an inappropriate face, and pressed his dick upwards to reveal his ball sack. Elena laughed, and made a fake disgusted look even as she continued to look back to get another glimpse of Axe’s sack. Why can’t girls just admit that they want to see guys’ junk? They don’t need to feign disgust to preserve their class. Just laugh and look; you’ll be a lot cooler, and trustworthy. When Axe realized his presentation was getting him nowhere, he retreated to his bed to sleep.
We made our way back down to the bottom deck, and Elena suddenly became inspired to “seize the day.” She stripped naked and jumped in the lake, yelling out “Carpe Diem!” repeatedly. She reminded me of some of my female facebook friends who think their status update is an acceptable and appropriate venue to “change the world” by posting things like, “True love is not finding the perfect person, but finding an imperfect person and seeing them as perfection.. : ).” Or “I think people should take more time to look at the stars! Their beautiful!” Even: “Learn from your mistakes and you’ll get stronger as you grow. Believe you’ll succeed, and then make it so.” These were all taken from actual pages. These girls are inspiring no one. And neither was Elena.
I jumped in the water eventually, but only to increase my chances of sex. Pathetic, I know. When word got out that Elena was naked, nine of my ten friends herded to the back of the boat (Punchline was the tenth, but he was comatose with his head face down on the patio table, so I wouldn’t categorize him as a “herder.”) At one point, KG barged into a sleeping Axe’s room and annouced, “Dude, wake up! There’s a naked chick swimming around outside!” Axe’s body sprang up like a human boner, and he immediately got naked again and ran out back to see for himself.
“Carpe diem! Come on! Jump in the water! You only live once! Carpe diem!” exclaimed the clumsy swimmer I was trying to fuck. My friends huddled at the edge of the boat, frustrated. The dark water was clouding their view of Elena’s body, and it appeared that Elena had a massive Euro bush, which was reportedly swaying everywhere.
After the herd retreated inside, Ron remained. Still under the vagina-zombie spell Havasu had placed on him, he called Elena over to the edge of the boat for a chat. Elena waded over, spouting off nonstop Carpe-diem-like sentences. Idiotically, I was still in the water. I watched helplessly as salty Ron tried to chisel his way into Elena’s attention. After ten minutes of conversing, Elena persuaded Ron to join her. Ron, the dope, jumped in. Elena cheered uproariously since she had obviously changed the world.
Ron’s attempt at seizing the day yielded no results as Elena swam over to me, and Ron dog-paddled around for a bit and then climbed back onto the boat. A few minutes later, after a fake-romantic lake-make-out, Elena and I got out of the water, dried off, and retreated to my empty room–sacrificed to me since I brought back a girl.
Everything was going fine. Her kisses were wet and passionate, her boobs were happily fondled, and my hard-on had evaded whiskey dick. After my attempt at rubbing her crotch was thwarted by her quick-to-close legs, everything started to implode. When I tried to kiss her again, suddenly Elena’s entire complexion changed. She was terrified and sunk away from my kiss and literally whimpered, “Please…don’t…hurt…me.” WHAT THE FUCK? Now I was frightened. I immediately got off her and said, “Whoa, it’s okay. We’ll stop.”
Elena’s emotions were in shambles and she was weeping. She started apologizing and explained how she’d been raped when she was a teenager. “I was only fifteen!” she sobbed, face in her hands. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I had never been with a rape victim before, especially one who’d been harboring the affliction for twenty-four years. So I petted her. After the sobs subsided, she slowly got off the bed and, eyes closed, got onto her knees and started mumbling something while her body lurched back and forth rhythmically, her right arm making some sort of motion. She was chanting. I tried to decipher the sentence she was mumbling, but it wasn’t English. Her body lurched and her right arm went from touching her heart area to waving in the air, similar to what superstitious NBA players do just before a free throw. Except, she was doing it over and over.
After ten minutes of chanting, she had calmed down and got back on the bed. I asked her what just happened. She explained to me something about how a tribe in Africa would do that exact chant to expunge themselves of unhappy thoughts. In other words, Hakuna Mutata.
I lay on the bed, rattled. I looked back at Elena, who was lying on her stomach, her head facing the wall. I turned on my side and tried to fall asleep. Five minutes later, I heard moans. Elena was now lying on her back, fingering herself. No longer horny, I remained facing away from her. She’s a loose cannon, I thought. There’s no way I’m hooking up with her anymore. It wasn’t long, however, before her moans induced an arousal. I turned onto my back. With her eyes closed in ecstasy, it seemed she had forgotten I was in the room.
“Need a hand?” I interrupted. When I was a teenager, I had always fantasized about walking in on a girl masturbating. In my fantasy I’d have a cigarette in my hand–even though I didn’t smoke–and I’d be leaning mysteriously against the wall wearing sunglasses and a trench coat, and then I’d ask if she needed “a hand,” and the girl would say yes, and we’d have wild sex. My opportunity to ask that question had arrived–well, close enough. I took it.
Elena looked up at me, startled. She kissed me violently. Then, using her other hand, she reached through the hole in my boxers, and brought out my cock. A rough handjob ensued. Since she was enjoying her double genital manipulation, I let her carry out her abominable handjob while she played with herself. After a few minutes, enough was enough. I peeled her hand off and quickly jerked off on her thigh and then went to sleep while she continued to play with herself.
An hour later I was awakened by Elena putting her clothes on. “You leaving?” I asked.
“Yes. I need to go check on my babies,” she said, slipping into her shoes. I wanted to stay in bed, but I figured walking her to her car would show “what a nice guy” I was, and it would eliminate the tiny chance of her screaming “rape” on me, so that’s what I did.
The next day began with me telling the disturbing story of Elena. McBride, a psychologist, said he’d never heard of anything like Elena. Seriously, though, who chants? I thought chants only happened in movies like Children of the Corn or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I was wrong: chants really exist.
After another day of water sports and a disappointing trip to a deserted Copper Canyon, we hit the bars. Since it was Saturday we headed to the big club, Kokomos, which was supposedly packed on Saturday nights. It wasn’t exactly packed, but it was good enough for Axe to bring a girl back, and good enough for me to wordlessly hook up with a thirty-two-year-old blonde local. I made eye contact, held my eye contact, approached her, and immediately started making out with her. Then she grabbed my hand, told me, “You’re coming with me,” and led me out of the club with her three friends. I still hadn’t said a word.
I found out the girl’s name was Cori. Her pornstar-like face, accentuated by blue eye-makeup, was overshadowed by her disgusting muffin top. Every time she leaned over, flab would slosh over her belt. And she was a loudmouth. When she learned of the houseboat, she blabbed the news to her Havasu-bred entourage. As one might guess, we ended up at the houseboat.
Highlights of the night included everyone being flashed by two of Cori’s horny rundown friends. The two girls took a liking to committed guys KG and McBride, who fought them off accordingly. One of the girls would have fucked anyone on the boat, but no one was drunk enough to ignore her mediocre looks, pasty skin, and oatmeal-like acne scars. The third friend, who was just an acquaintance it turned out, was a fifty-something local dude who looked and talked like Gary Busey. We had to kick the guy out for talking too much.
Meanwhile, Axe and I fucked our chicks in opposite rooms and heard each other’s fuck noises through the thin walls–mostly grunts and standard chick moans. After sex I was still horny, so I barged into the bathroom while Cori was peeing, whipped out my dick, and smiled. “Well take a look at this guy,” she said, staring intently at my penis. She proceeded to give me a blowjob while she was mid-trickle. Havasu.
I considered the girls my responsibility, so I had to stay awake and watch them swig an endless bottle of Captain Morgan while they told stories of cheating on their ex husbands–“fuckin’ shit” this and “fuckin’ shit” that. Just before they left, all three of them jumped in the lake fully clothed to validate their stupidity and trashy upbringing. They fluttered around in the water and made out with each other amidst their drunken laughs. They left shortly after their swim–at 6 a.m.
The weekend was a celebration of KG’s final days as a bachelor. Perhaps one day I’ll have a party to celebrate the end of my single days. But on that early Sunday morning, I stood on the boat deck in solitude. And all I saw was the trio of dead fish that had accumulated at the edge of the shore.