That Time a Stranger Joined My Honeymoon

story and photos by Kirsten Koza

(first published in Perceptive Travel Magazine – USA)

Spring 1990: Malcolm, my ex-boyfriend, was on one knee amongst the rubble in my East London room. My bedroom was basically a walk-in closet where I kept a toppling tower of swords and tap dancing shoes. The only good things about my flat were my eccentric roommates, it was across from a pub, and it was just a five-minute stagger to East 15 Acting School where I was currently performing in Shakespeare’s Pericles.

Malcolm, a Civil Engineer, had flown from his orderly home, north of Toronto, to spend Easter with me in England, and I hadn’t even tossed my clothes into my wardrobe. He was holding an emerald ring. “Would you…?”

My flat was one-hundred percent slum. I’m not being overly dramatic. It was so bad that after we’d been broken into, a London Bobby walked into my un-ransacked room and said, “My-my, look what they did in here!”

Why was Malcolm kneeling? I wanted to kick him.

“Kirsten, will you marry me?”

I could say no. I was twenty-three and Malc, twenty-six. What was the rush? This was a logistical nightmare. Why was he looking at me all doe-eyed? Beam me up, Scotty. I fidgeted on the edge of my crappy single bed. I didn’t even have a toilet seat in my flat. Koza to Enterprise. Malc had gained weight since I saw him in January.

“Yes.”

I still wanted to kick him.

Malcolm obviously didn’t know what to say next. “Your production of Pericles was ummm…”

“Um is polite.” It was the worst show I’d ever been in.

Off to Sicily

It took Malcolm one day to decide he wasn’t spending his holiday in East London. I’d urged him to bring his mountain bike to the UK. That morning he’d left his bicycle at my place while I was at the college, and he took the tube into London. Malcolm returned with plane tickets to Sicily, a map, and a copy of The Rough Guide. This was to be our honeymoon, since we were already overseas and were going to be married in just a few months.

That very same night Malc was refilling his bike tires beside the baggage carousel at Palermo’s airport, and I was fiddling with my broken gear shifter.

“Hello. Do you want some riding company?” An Englishman in his late thirties had wheeled over his beat-up touring bike. He wore jeans with clips around the ankles.

“Sure. Which way are you heading?” Malc stuck out his hand.

“Towards Trapani, along the coast, but just to a nearby hotel for tonight.” The stranger looked at me. “I’m Christopher Crawley.” He saw me eyeing the bug nets attached to his bike. “Entomologist, with the British Museum. Everyone just calls me Crawley.”

“Kirsten and Malcolm,” Malc replied. “We’re heading towards Mount Etna. Opposite direction.” He pulled his map from his pack.

“You know, the traffic will be quite thick that way. Towards Trapani is much quieter and less populated this time of year.” Crawley peered over Malcolm’s shoulder at the map.

“Hmm,” Malcolm pondered. “Maybe we should go the way you’re going.”

I frowned. I really wanted to see an active volcano. And I really didn’t want to travel with Christopher Crawley.

“It’s eleven-thirty. Might as well go find a hotel. Maybe we should share a room to save money,” the entomologist suggested.

“Great idea!” Malcolm clapped Crawley on the back.

What? Had Malc just invited this stranger to share a room with us on our honeymoon? Oh, my God! He had! I shot dagger-eyes at Malcolm. He didn’t receive my message.

A Threesome on the Road Together

Two days later, we were still biking and bunking with the bug doctor. An old lady in black was showing us our room in the Spaghetti Western village of Scopello.

I was shivering after the pedal in pelting rain along the rugged coast from Castellammare. I jumped under a blanket on one of the many beds that butted end to end along the walls. If you opened the desk drawer, I bet you’d have found a bed.

The lady said something about no heat. “What?” I wailed as she left. Crawley rifled through his bags. He’d be used to freezing; the museum paid diddly-squat. He probably had some fingerless, Scrooge-gloves in his panniers.

Malcolm stripped off his wet clothes. I looked at his Schwarzenegger-like chest with disinterest. Crawley was watching him too. I decided to grab a shower before either of them used the hot water.

“We’ll just have to have some grappa,” Crawley pulled the hooch from his bag.

“Tutto, tutto!” Another old lady in black was stooped over my mixing bowl of penne “Tutto!” She motioned for me to keep eating. Why wouldn’t she leave? I rammed another forkful into my mouth. I raised my wineglass in salute. She smiled and backed towards the pensioni’s kitchen.

“Excuse me.” Crawley got up to go to the loo.

As soon as he was out of earshot Malcolm grabbed my arm. “Crawley proposed a threesome while you were in the bath.”

Wine filled my sinuses. “Pardon?” I spluttered. “What the hell did you say?” I blotted red wine off my turquoise jacket.

“I reminded him we’re engaged.”

“So! He’s married!” This was not what I expected from a mild-mannered entomologist who wore bike clips around his trousers. “Is he interested in guys too? How would it work?” I suddenly realized Crawley had been looking at Malcolm perhaps differently than I’d assumed. I’d thought it was muscle envy. How were we going to share a room with him now?

“I told him that I had no interest. He’s fine with it.”

“Well, I’m not.” I chugged the rest of my wine. “There hasn’t been a hint. How long has he has been thinking about this? Maybe that’s why he hooked up with us in the first place.”

Creepy Crawley was coming back to the table. I flushed tomato red. I waved to the old lady who was peeking from the kitchen door. “Grappa?” I called to her.

Tucked in our beds in the bone-chilling pensioni, the air was thick with tension. I couldn’t sleep. Malcolm was horny. I could tell by the object poking into my back. No way was I going to have sex. I could feel Crawley listening in the dark. I closed my eyes and called for the starship Enterprise.

At breakfast Crawley suggested we all go down to the abandoned tonnara for a swim. But after breakfast Malcolm bailed. He was sick and wanted to stay in bed. So, now I was down at the stony beach with Crawley—just me, and Creepy Crawley. The cliffs and old buildings loomed over us. The entomologist was puffing on a cigarette. I didn’t know what to say. I decided to go for a dip. I shed my clothes down to my black one-piece and tiptoed into the March Mediterranean. My breath was whacked out of me by the cold. I went deeper and a wave came over my shoulders. That was enough. I went back to my towel and Crawley.

“Can I bum a smoke?” Malc hated it when I smoked.

“Certainly. How’s the water?”

“Invigorating.” My hands shook as I tried to light up.

“Well, I guess I might as well.” Crawley stripped down to his underpants. Then, right in front of me, off came his boxers. I looked away. I looked back. Holy cannoli, the man was hung like a donkey, a stallion, a blue whale!

Crawley hobbled over the rocks. I stared at his white buttocks. I was in a state of shock, induced by the sheer mass of his manhood.

“Woah.” Crawley had entered the sea. “Wo—” a wave had lapped his privates. He ducked under. He turned around and walked towards me. The icy temperature had done nothing to the size of his penis, nothing! It still swung near knee-level. Where had he been hiding that beast? I looked at my cigarette. I looked at the historic towers on the cliffs. My gaze drifted over Crawley again and then darted quickly up to the fluffy, white, clouds.

Sicilian Longevity on Display

Crawley and I returned to the pensioni to get Malcolm for lunch. Malc rolled over in bed. So, Crawley and I decided to go for a beer. We sat at an outdoor table at the Scopello bar inhaling springtime between cigarettes. This was uncomfortable. And it was all due to this threesome thing, and well, now, the image of bug-man’s penis kept flashing through my mind.

“Do you want another?” Crawley pointed to my third beer.

“I think I’m done, or I’m going to fall asleep.” I snuffed my cigarette.

“Why don’t we go lie on the grass?” Crawley nodded towards the small park beside the patio.

“Sure.”

We paid and moved five feet over onto the grass. Just as we sat, a smoke billowing bus, belched open its doors and boisterous Sicilian seniors erupted from within. A couple of young women helped the more decrepit onto benches. Another heaved wicker baskets covered in brightly coloured fabric.

“Something tells me these people have their own teeth,” Crawley whispered. Huge lengths of chewy Italian bread were being sliced open. There were whole prosciuttos, capocollos and salamis. There was a wheel of cheese that could support the bus. There were stuffed tomatoes, slices of roasted eggplant and red peppers dripping in olive oil. Mount Etna sized sandwiches were erected and spilled filling like lava.

One of the young women handed sandwiches to Crawley and me.

“Guess how many years have I!” A spry old man in a charcoal three-piece suit danced before me. “What you say if I say ninety-nine years? My birthday next week and I have big party. You come!”

“I was going to guess seventy.” I was flabbergasted.

The old man kissed my cheeks. “Ninety-nine!” he bellowed. There was raucous applause. This was so unlike any North American nursing-home outing.

“My secret? It’s the olive oil!” The man who was almost a hundred beamed.

“Pomodori!” An old lady hollered.

Another yelled, “É tutto il vino!” and they all laughed.

“She said it’s all the wine he drinks,” Crawley translated.

“You guess how old my wife!” The spry man pointed to the woman who’d shouted about the wine.

“You all look so young.”

His wife dumped cookies in my lap. “Mangiate.”

“She ninety. I’m older,” the old man boasted.

She slapped her husband. “Ogni bel gioco dura poco.”

Crawley chuckled, “She just said, basically, that all good things come to an end.”

I was happy for Crawley’s company. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world. I was getting past the threesome thing too and his enormous penis. Or perhaps I was drunk.

A Collector of Stories

Decades later: It was Malc’s and my anniversary. We were in our unorderly kitchen, north of Toronto. My mess was everywhere; nothing had changed. I told Malc about the elderly couple in Scopello. Then I reminded him that he invited a stranger to join us on our honeymoon. “Why did you do that?” I demanded. “Come clean. You still do this. I hate it.”

Malc paused. “Because I’m a collector too, but unlike Crawley, I don’t kill my specimens. I like hearing strangers’ stories. Anyway, that wasn’t our honeymoon. It was before the wedding.”

“But you don’t do anything with the stories.” I was baffled.

“I remember them. You invite strangers now too. You do it bigger. You invited ten women from the internet to bike the Andes with you.”

Crap. He was right. Maybe things did change. Maybe I’d changed. “Let’s go to Sicily. You owe me a honeymoon because according to you, we didn’t have one.”

“Really long flight.” Malc looked unenthused. “Maybe Scotty can beam us there.”

“He won’t,” I rolled my eyes. “I just read that nobody on Star Trek ever said, ‘beam me up, Scotty.’ I reckon that’s why it never works.”