I first recognized her when I saw her leg tattoo. She had a multicolored sketch of dragon lilies along her right thigh, which I could clearly see since she was wearing black, skin-tight boyshort swimsuit bottoms. She was standing on a wooden dock, under a cloudless blue sky, staring down at her cell phone in a pair of mirrored sunglasses. I had never seen her tattoo before, but I knew she had a tattoo of flowers on her leg from chatting with her online. The only photo I had ever seen of her was of her face, she was wearing the same dark sunglasses and had a nose ring. As I walked closer, I recognized her face, but I already knew it was her.
She was an olive-skinned Spanish beauty, with long dark brown hair that had lightened due to a lot of time spent outdoors out on Hawaii's crystal clear waters. She had an athlete's build, with thick, muscular legs and well-defined arms. In addition to the boyshorts that barely covered her firm ass, she was wearing a black wetsuit vest that exposed just enough of her midsection that you could see her pierced belly button.
"Hi, you must be Cristina," I said, and extended my hand, but she ignored my hand and pulled me in for a kiss on the cheek. "Um, nice to meet you."
"Me too!" She smiled. "I'm sorry, I'm originally from Argentina, this is how we greet." I had actually known she was from Argentina, we had talked about it, but I wasn't expecting to be kissed as soon as I met her. However, I did have hopes of doing much more than just kissing later in the day after we finished our scuba diving trip.
We had been communicating for weeks on a dating website, since I had changed my profile location to Hawaii before I even went there on vacation in hopes of finding someone to join me for activities. Cristina had messaged me, which was unusual since beautiful women rarely initiate conversations with me on dating websites, so she had my attention instantly. She had first complimented my taste in music, and we later talked about our shared love for scuba diving. I had mentioned scuba diving on my profile, but I truthfully hadn't been diving in nearly a decade. I had been living in places like Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Pittsburgh, not exactly famous for their underwater attractions. I put scuba diving on my profile to sound more adventurous than I really am, just like I casually mentioned my pilot's license. In reality, I hadn't been behind the controls of an airplane since I flunked out of Air Force pilot training when I was 23 years old. But here we were, about to go on a shallow reef dive off in the clear waters off Hawaii.
As it turned out, Cristina worked as a scuba diving guide and instructor and offered me a dive excursion at a discounted price, so I agreed. We engaged in small talk as we walked down the dock to the dive boat. As we stepped onto the small twin-engined boat, she motioned to a shirtless, bearded man wearing Rayban Wayfarers and swimming trunks. "This is my husband Paul," she said, as he extended his hand, "he runs the boat."
As a shook his hand and politely smiled, but I was a little stunned. "Oh, you work together, that's so cool. I didn't know that."
Cristina had openly identified herself in her profile as "married," but also "open to non-monogamy." I had just assumed she was in an open marriage, looking to have a little fun. My initial euphoria that I was going on a promising scuba diving date with a sexy South American suddenly shifted to disappointment that I had actually been lured into a tourist trap.
"Welcome aboard," Paul said, gripping my hand. "Cris told me all about you. You're going to have a great time. She told me where you had been diving before, this is on a totally different level." He was handsome, with a broad smile behind a well-groomed brown beard. Like his wife, his skin was evidently bronzed from all the time he spent barechested in the sun. Squinting into the sun had also given him early crow's feet in his eyes, despite the fact that he was younger than I was. This somehow made him seem even hotter. Tattoos covered most of his arms, and part of his chest, and I fought the urge to stare at his toned abdominal muscles. I had clearly identified on my online profile that I was bisexual, and I guessed that Cristina had almost certainly passed that bit of information on to her husband.
"Oh, I'm really excited," I said. "I can't wait to get out in the water." The three of us chatted for a while while we waited for the other divers to join. Four other people would join the dive, a middle-aged father and his young daughter in the Peace Corps, and a young, attractive Korean couple on their honeymoon. Cristina was a professional the entire time as we made our way out to the dive site, giving us a refresher course on the equipment and describing the names and types of all the tropical fish we would see. She made jokes about her Spanish accent that made everyone laugh, and called everyone by their first names.
Once we were underwater at the dive site, Cristina led us through a beautiful coral reef and pointed towards schools of brilliantly-colored fish. I was impressed by her seemingly supernatural ability to locate camouflaged fish in the sand or rocks. But I was more interested in watching her toned, muscular bare legs kicking underwater than I was in seeing a masked angelfish. After two thirty-minute dives, we all climbed back into the boat for the ride back to the island.
I was now confident that I had been marked as a business opportunity, but Paul offered me an India Pale Ale and we started talking as he piloted the boat to shore. It turned out that we had a lot in common. Like me, Paul had served in the military and ended up in Hawaii due to his last assignment, and he just decided to stay. We had the same taste in music, loved the same types of beer, and found ourselves finishing each other's movie quotes. Once we had docked the boat, I stood around drinking beers and talked to Paul as he and Cristina cleaned up, and then I helped them load their truck with the oxygen tanks and gear.
"Well guys, this was so much fun," I said, as I gave Cristina a hug as my Uber driver pulled up to the curb, "it was great meeting you two. Thanks so much."
"Hey," Paul said, shaking my hand, "if you're not doing anything tonight, I speared a huge tuna and we were planning to do poke if you want to come over."
"Sure, I love poke," I agreed instantly. They seemed like an interesting couple, and I felt like I could talk to Paul forever. I loved the idea of eating a fresh-caught Hawaiian fish with a couple of pseudo-locals, even though I had given up on the idea that anything was going to happen between me and Cristina. In the Uber ride back to my hotel, I pulled up Tinder on my phone and I started swiping.
Later that night, I walked up their driveway carrying a bottle of wine as a gift and worried that I had picked up the wrong one. I chose an Argentinian Malbec because of Cristina, and was second-guessing myself. Cristina greeted me with kisses at the front door, took the wine, and reassured me that I had made a great selection from her native country.
We sat outside for dinner at sunset and drank the bottle of wine before moving on to beer. We told stories, laughed, and raised our glasses in toasts. As it got late in the night, Paul got up to clear the table and do dishes, and Cristina and I sipped our beers.
"You know," she whispered, "he really, really likes you. Like, really likes you."
"I like him too," I responded. "You guys have been absolutely amazing, thanks so much for having me over..."
"No, no, no, " she shook her head, raising her index finger. She was a little drunk. "He wants to you to fuck him."
"Oh," I said, dismissively. "I'm not so sure about that. I'm not getting that vibe from Paul."
