I guess getting married by contract is as old as the hills, the modern thing is getting married for Love, and even so, to be honest, I never imagined as a contractual wife, but well ... I didn't imagine myself like a married woman either, and here we are. I have read so many stories of deceived women, who got married without knowing what they were getting into…  and here I am,  just that I know very well what I’m doing, and I will never would  do it if was blind about it.

Just that knowing and agreeing doesn’t guarantee success. There’s a high chance of complications. Luckily, I’m not a naive 20-year-old about to marry. At 35, I can take care of myself, I have my own place and I have traveled the world. Yet, here I am, considering a 5-year marriage contract, with the option to extend if all parties involved agree no matter if we are two or four if you know what that means.

I need to figure out where to start. The best point would be when he asked me to marry him.  My best answer was a big laugh; the only background between us was a kiss a long time ago, a really good one, but it wasn't a big deal; this time I found him fleeing from a horde of "ladies" who surrounded him like a great artist, oblivious to the effect his foreign accent had on some "good" girls.

For my part, I just watched while drinking some of my beer, a very well-paid one, the fruit of my hard work. I think I look like the least dangerous woman on the planet because he came to talk to me while he was trying to escape from the "girl fans". We talked for quite a while, partly in his language and partly in mine. I told him that this was a trip we could call mixed, part work, part fun; more friends and other "ladies" trying to get his attention arrived and he came closer to me, then more of his friends arrived with whom he talked happily. We all exchanged contacts and then I left alone and quietly to my hotel. I would be here for at least 2 semesters, which I had committed to as a professor at the university based on this tropical island, So, It seemed like a good idea to make us friends, since he would also be here for a while.

We coincided several more times in that nightclub and many others, as a group, we met to go out and dance, listen to music, and entertain ourselves as  the 18-year-olds think we 30+ don't do it (news, yes we do it, but the hangover and lack of sleep hit harder). Every time something similar happened: we were at the party, he would chat happily with his friends, but he would run away from the girls as if they were the plague and we would end up going dancing. Over time I gained confidence and lost precautions, I know that when I drink I can go off the boil a little bit, and if you do not know if there is someone to trust it is better to hold the urge to drink, but, that night I felt confident and at ease, moreover I came to think that again this aura of frigidity that tending to looks like a uninterst in the opposite sex had led me to find new “gay” friend.

Yes, I know I was biased, I accept it, I'm not proud of it, not much of what I have done drunk is a source of pride.

Anyway, I was already dancing bachata with the guy, we were chatting and in the end, I told him I thought he was gay....

He opened his eyes as if they were going to pop out and his mouth to  trying to talk, thenI realized that I had been very tongue-tied with someone I barely knew and I started to apologize. He tried to interrupt me and I kept apologizing, then he kissed me, while he pushed me into the dark, against the wall I realized that he handled those hands with skill, he knew where to put them when kissing.

Once the song was over, we broke up and I laughed again, I said -ok, ok, the message got through, sorry for the misunderstanding- we sat down and continued chatting and drinking. That moment reminded me of my college days where it was common to end up kissing someone new going out somewhere, or If the kiss was good like the one with the aforementioned, he could become the trusted “friend with the right to kiss”.

I know, I'm not a saint, I'm not a libertarian either. I simply believe that I have the right to decide, I believe that having sex or not having sex does not define me in my morals, other things do, like the decisions I make about who I have relationships with. I also think that this play called marriage and more expressly, the marriage contract is what those involved consider it to be.

From my vacations with him I learned that he is not a womanizer, I mean, he is not a saint either, but I never saw him kiss or take someone to his bed just because. and he did, but always something he saw in her, that is something that makes us similar, our bodies are not a public park are a VIP park.

I'm not going to say, after all this, that I didn't like him; he seemed attractive to me, although, between the fact that he was a little younger than me and that I've learned that the fact that a man gets along with me doesn't mean he has feelings for me, or that he likes it doesn't mean he has to want a relationship with me,  I ended up putting him in the "strange loves" category.

Let me clarify it again: I am not the one to judge those who have strong beliefs regarding virtue and "feminine virginity" but neither are those who seek in bed the recognition that they do not have elsewhere. Being a virgin was a requirement in a marriage contract when there were no DNA tests.  Fidelity, well that does seem important to me, especially with oneself and with couple agreements.

Returning to my chat with... hubby, is it okay for me to call him that? When he told me that because we were not getting married, I almost drowned with laughter and I told him to stop, that if I said one of those things again while I was drinking I would be drown and I would have to see how he responded with that before the authorities where his pretty face and beautiful accent would not help him. He looking me seriously said, "If I am what you say, wouldn't it be okay for you to marry me?" I'm not asking you to fall in love with me; I'm offering you a society -  he smiled halfway. I remembered the day of the kiss and his attitude towards the other girls, so I asked again: - and how why me and not one of these ladies who were turning water for you? If you think that due to my age, I can be a good housewife and caregiver, I have to tell you that I am not so good at the jobs of the house, I have dedicated myself to the academy and my career, so that will not work.

"Hubby" laughed and said: "Good luck to you that I have a couple of people who can help with that at home and, the question would be why not?

He barely said that all those novels I read and the Asian dramas that I saw so many times came to me,  a shiver ran down my back, but I dared to ask out loud - Won't you have a girlfriend that your family doesn't like and you want to take me there so that all your relatives mistreat me in what you protect her and humiliate me by taking her to all the parties and so on?

He answered, I hope as a joke. "No, no, the one suffered at the moment is my sister-in-law, she is the one who married SEO, if you want you can be the bad sister-in-law who puts her a job and makes fun of the poor woman in disgrace" I decided to believe that it was a joke and I laughed again while taking something from the bottle.

I kept looking at him, and at this moment I didn't know whether to rejoice or regret having learned his language... In the end I thought it was a joke, it was only a couple of months left to return to my country and all this snap of the marriage would be left behind, but as usual, it had to be me, with my habit of looking for what I have not lost and to close the subject it occurred to me to tell him rather to have another couple of drinks, with my speech as a carefree woman.

- Well\, let's leave the joke. For this kind of soap opera of absurd marriage contracts\, the protagonist must be a prince or the heir of a huge business consortium\, and well\, your canvas sneakers and "Someone who loves me was in the Caribbean and this is all he brought me" T-shirt does not exactly scream: "I am the owner of the world\," let's go to the bar and I'll buy you another beer\, Mr. Tycoon.

That's the end of the subject as I remember it. You, my friend, remember that I said that I'm not proud of the things I do when I'm drunk? well... When I woke up, I was on a private jet flying to who knows where with my soon-to-be husband by my side. And I can only think one thing with my headache: Why a second bottle of tequila?

It was the cold that woke me up, I heard his voice, I told someone to give me a blanket; it was soft and warm to the touch, I adjusted myself in the chair, clinging to that last little sleep, suddenly I felt the belt,  opened my eyes, while trying to adjust my sight I began to realize that I was not in my bed and a woman dressed conservatively but comfortable was fixing the position of my chair. There I noticed him, he was looking at me, he laughed while reading a piece of paper.

-"It seems that still drunk I'm good at asking for consent, look what you wrote last night, I surely asked you to avoid problems. I quote: "I, America M, although drunk said that I will get on that damn plane of my own free will, to evaluate the possibilities of a marriage" Then he says other things that I don't understand... It's not in your language or mine or English, what other language do you speak?”

"I don't think that's important right now," I said, raping the paper from his hands while remembering a couple of things from the night before.

Images of us drinking, dancing, with friends, him repeating his offer and talking about the beautiful places he could know, the opportunities that like his wife he would have, after all, his language is not a language that is compulsorily taught in schools, his country had to call my attention or something from the Asian axis...

There he caught me, I learned the language because I thought about traveling sometime, and then I told myself that it would be good for mental agility or to do a master's degree at some point, which I know. Suddenly I remembered asking him if he was in love with me or what a weirdo had bitten him to make me that offer like that, like out of nowhere.

Words more words less, the answer was that I had learned that proposing things how she is to a girl, said about women under 23, it was like putting them a challenge and they would probably agreed just for show, but it was not easy to trust those decisions when thet are still in dipers, that from 25 to 30 the women he meets are dreaming of children, they are looking for someone who fulfills the dream of forming a home with them so proposing something like that would be a crime and those who are thinking of strengthening their career are busy working And with excessive concern for what others think; On the other hand, after 30 there is balance, women like me, according to him, we are already clearer what we want and what we are and that from what I knew about me I fit with that description.

I can say that I agreed on some things he said and others didn't.

After this burst of memories, my present caught my attention more: I'm on a damn plane! And it looks like an apartment in the air, and here where I'm sitting it seems more like a massage chair than an airplane chair. I remember that I kept play along sure that I was inflating reality and that's why in the language that he said he doesn't understand I wrote, that if the plane was imaginary the marriage was too, later I said that if I didn't manage to get on a plane before midnight the offer would expire. I put that in English.

"This is not my plane, a friend lent it to me to meet within the deadline you signed," he said when he looked at his cell phone, I think he was not very sure how he had ended up on that plane with me and he was checking to clarify it, "but don't worry, it's big enough for a direct trip, there are only another 6 hours left.

I got up from the chair and began to tour the aircraft, this must have been the size of a commercial plane, but equipped to travel comfortably, in front four fluffy fine leather chairs were in front of a table, so I noticed, some panels could be removed to close the atmosphere, I suppose that on friendly trips they use it as a dining room and in business trips for meetings. Behind us two chairs looked like a sofa bed, when I looked again two flight attendants were accommodating them together, putting on an over mattress, opening and closing drawers, organizing a kind of screen, putting cushions, and soon a kingsize bed was revealed in what looked like a cozy alcove.

I stare to my adventure partner, or could we say the bearer of the "call to adventure", this 32-33-year-old man, With soft and well-groomed skin, not very thin, with a toned body, who still wears fabric slippers and the typical cheap T-shirt that they sell as a reminder to travelers and that backpackers without money buy to be able to dress, but who also now wears on this a light brown cloth coat that looks like it was made to measure, that looks cost an arm and a leg...  Who is really this man I only know by his "Western" name Tom J?

He felt that he was looking at him and looked up from his cell phone, he had been watching it for a while and laughing  covering his face time to time, I guess he was also finding out what he had done the day before because he was throwing  expressions of surprise, then he told me:

"Oh, mmm, it seems that I announced that we would come and that we would stay for 15 days... At my parents' house," I think that whatever he told them was not something he planned to do as I didn't plan to travel...

- FIFTEEN DAYS!!! This is not right\, I have a contract\, I had to be on the island for another two months\, I can't leave for 15 days!" I was shaken by the sense of responsibility that made the hangover start hitting me..