Tulum

Tulum. The world is heavy, weighing her tongue down with possibility. It tastes salty like the sea and the salt on the tip of a margarita glass that's been hand blown and ponderous. It tastes of mosquito netting and hammocks on the sand. Tulum.

Richard hadn't been able to pronounce it, shortening the vowel like in the word dumb. It wasn't heavy when Richard said it, there was no promise only a sarcastic sneer. Richard did not lick margarita salt off of a glass, he was a whiskey man like his father and his father's father and his father's father's father before him. Real salt of the earth kind of guy. She hated whiskey.

Jimmy liked salt. Liked to lick her salty flesh after a frantic coupling in the back room when they should have been boxing books up instead. He'd suck on her pulse points until she was terrified yet hopeful he'd leave a mark. He'd been hired on only a few short months ago but he'd come up behind her reading a travel guide to the Yucatan while on her break one day and he'd leaned in close enough to stir the hairs on the back of her neck. "When are we going?" They'd been at it like bunnies in heat since.

Jimmy was light and laughter, adventure and seduction all rolled into one. He was temptation and she was tempted. Richard was staid and patient, kind but stubborn and had no desire for anything more than what he already had. And she...she was unsure. For Richard she had stayed. For Richard she had married young. And for Richard she had put her dreams on hold. For Jimmy she would do just about anything. For Jimmy she finds herself sitting on a plane watching the scenery fly by and as the tarmac falls away she mouths the word Tulum. The heaviness feels good in mouth as she feels Jimmy's hand slip into her own. Tulum. It tastes like freedom.