Faith Chapter 17: The Cabin

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This entry is part 16 of 18 in the series Faith

We reached room 213 and Yoko wished me a good night sleep.

“I am in cabin 228 if you need anything. It’s in the other corridor. Don’t hesitate to knock, I don’t have a roommate”.

She had a weird smile which put me ill at ease. Perhaps it’s the insistence on “anything”, perhaps it was because I wasn’t sure if she was just being friendly or if she was openly flirting with me.

I was far from being tired, but I still knocked on the door. It might have been my cabin, but I had no idea if Paula was friendly or not.

A voice came from the other side of the door. “I’m coming”, she said.

Yoko had just turned the corridor and I noticed she took one last look at me before leaving. We made eye contact and I could swear she blushed.

The door opened in front of me, revealing curvy brunette who was barely older than I was. Her hair was the shortest on the boat.

“Hi, you must be Paula?”

“Yeah, Faith?”

I nodded and she welcomed me.

“Sorry, I am usually cranky at night. All day I try to contain my rage, but once I am in my cabin, it comes out. Sorry, like the other girls, you’ll probably get to ask for a change of cabin a few days. They know upstairs how I am, so they usually give me the new girl to see how she holds up”

Actually, I missed some of what she said, it was more of a rant than a calm discussion. There were also half spoken swear words scattered in there.

“Sorry to hear that”, was all I could say. “Trouble adjusting to the lifestyle?”

“Oh, you mean the nudity and the sex around us? No, I don’t mind that… if you have issues though, I can help you. I’ve seen my share of new girls crying.”

“So what is making you angry then?”

“I am always fucking hungry! I feel like I am never getting enough calories for all of the exercises they make me do. Yeah, I am losing a lot of weight, but the process is frustrating!”

I was almost shocked.

“They are making you lose weight?”

How dare they? But then again, all of the nude girls I had seen were slim.

“Making me? Hell no, I joined up TO lose weight!”

Ok, so I was confused…

“What do you mean?”

“Grace is a childhood friend. Always slim, always sexy, could get any guy, nicest person you will ever meet but God, DUMB AS A BRICK. We were like this”, she said, crossing her fingers.

“Well, she didn’t graduate high school. It was too much for her. She did odd jobs here and there and got recruited for the cruise. She actually loves it here: they appreciate her for her body. When I next saw her, she told me about the nudity, the sex, the guys. For her, it was heaven and for me, a pure nightmare. Who would want a fatty like me? Oh, by the way, I way fatter back then. So, she told them about me and guess what, they met me and were convinced 100% that if I lost weight, I would be very attractive and gain a lot of confidence. They said they would help me lose weight. It took some convincing, but hey, here I am! and it’s not like I had many prospects, both Grace and I grew up in the middle of Arkansas in a tiny town no one ever heard of.”

What a story!

“And it’s working?”

“You wouldn’t be asking this if you had seen me back then”, she laughed.

I guess we each have our own demons from childhood.

“So, why did you join…”, she asked me.

“Huh, well…”, I hesitated.

“Ok, let me take a few guesses. You don’t look dumb, I don’t get a crazy sex maniac vibe from you, I’ll say homeless? Runaway?”

“Homeless, but abandoned, not runaway. “, I was looking at my feet, in shame. She closed in and hugged me!

“Oh Faith, you’ve found a new family. No one will get rid of you here. You’ll always have a place until you decide to leave. We are all sister and we love each other”, she told me.

I don’t know why, but I began crying. I guess the day was too much for me, but instead of running away, Paula god closer and held me tighter.

A few minutes later, when the tears had run down, she let go and we each sat on one of the ridiculously small beds.

“Listen, Faith”, she eventually said. “we are like a sisterhood in here. Girls look out of each other. A few are a little loco but most of us are rather sane. Don’t hesitate to ask most of us for help. There are tricks to keep the management happy with you at minimum fuss for you when you don’t feel like seeing anyone and there are tricks to maximize your revenues if that’s what you want.”

That puzzled me again and I wanted to ask.

“Listen, everyone is saying that girls here don’t do drama or talk behind the other girls and from my experience, that’s pretty hard to believe.”

She laughed.

“Yeah, I guess it is. Listen, they say that boys compete and girls cooperate, right? But it’s bullshit. Boys cooperate as much as the girls and girls compete as much at the girls. The difference is the approach. Guys want to know the hierarchy between them: who’s the leader, who’s a follower, who’s a lieutenant, so they compete until they know for sure and then they cooperate. But for us girls, it’s fucked up. We cooperate by default without figuring out who’s on top and who’s not, so we compete with gossip, with backstabbing, etc… But boys do too, right? So what’s the difference? For boys, once they figure out who’s the boss, the fighting stops, well, until the status quo changes and they fight again and then, stop again. But girls, we don’t stop ever, it’s less intense but God, it never ends! There is always a new gossip a new girl who did something bad to another because it’s rare there is a definitive queen bee, and when there is one, she needs to keep fighting to stay top.”

“It kind of makes sense, but it’s depressing…”, I said.

“Yeah, it is. So why do boys want to be on top? To rule the other boys and make the decisions for the gang. To get the girl, to decide what the group will do, which sport they will play, which video game they will fight on. It’s the same with girls, we are humans too! The difference is that with no clear leader, every decision is a fight, right?”

“I guess”

“Well here, there is no fight to get a boy. The patrons are quite willing to sleep with every interested girl and the few male employees usually have no problem with being shared. Uptight monogamy girls usually don’t last long here so the drama for boys is taken care of. There is also no fight for jobs as we pretty much do what we want. Rare are the positions that are really overbooked and interesting. I mean, there could be too many hostesses at the buffet, an easy to do job but it pays nothing and it’s basically the bottom of the prestige around here.”

“It is?”

“Yeap… but if that’s what you want to do, do it!”

“What do you do?”

“I let patrons eat sushi off of me at supper, I exercise all morning to lose weight and I serve food at the steak restaurant but that’s just to fill the time. Oh, and I play guitar in the house band!”

“You do? Wow…”

“Yeah, so what was I saying? Oh yeah, so here, girls don’t have to compete much. Those that want to quickly discover they can’t get ahead and are shunned by the other girls. They tend to leave quickly but those that like this sisterhood enjoy it and stay.”

I guess this cruise has its advantages. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but now I had a better idea of how the girls were.

 

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