Drama Queen on the High Seas

Belinda and Dan take a cruise with Fornigaytion Vacations. Oops.

Feb 01, 2025

with Belinda Vandervelvet

Hi, y’all. I know many of you enjoyed my holiday column about making nice on Facebook, “Can’t We Just Move On?” Sadly, things have not improved for Dan and me socially since Trump’s inauguration. The brown people in our neighborhood have quit saying hello or even looking at us. I don’t get it. It’s very rude, especially since we regularly employ these people to do our yard work and housecleaning. You’d think they’d show just a little gratitude.

And now things are horrible at work since I refused to serve patients I imagined might be illegals. Turns out all of the patients I rejected were U.S. citizens, but how was I to know when they had names like Ximena and José? I was told by my Haitian boss that I could no longer be working as a surgical nurse until I “adopted” a different attitude. Her word: adopted. Even if my ovaries were dried up and I was desperate to be a mother, I would never, ever adopt a brown baby, even if he or she resembled Pablo Pascal or Penélope Cruz. The long and short of it: Carmelita expected me to work with any and all patients, regardless of “age, color, culture, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, politics, language, race, religious or spiritual beliefs, legal, economic or social status” — all of this gobble dee goop from the ICN Code of Ethics for Nurses. That is ridiculous — and a HUGE ask, expecting me to touch those creepy people.

Thank god Trump is the new sheriff in town. I guarantee he will soon be dismantling these idiotic codes of woke ethics with the flick of his black Sharpie. In the meantime, I’ve been relegated to cleaning bedpans on the midnight shift — this if I want to continue drawing a paycheck and keep my benefits. Did I mention, I’m now at minimum wage? Just wait until that bitchy brown boss of mine gets sent back to Haiti. Hope she enjoys eating cats and dogs.

After three nights on poo poo patrol, I was feeling pretty distraught about my demotion, so Dan suggested that maybe this was a good time to cash in my vacation days, which had been accruing for over three years. He posited that at the rate Trump was dismantling the deep state, things would likely be rectified with my job situation by the time we returned home. Good. Thinking. Dan! His schedule — also wide open, as he’d been sacked as the high school’s assistant football coach after repeatedly showing up to practices in his MAGA attire. We’re pretty sure his firing was a direct violation of his First Amendment rights and are now just waiting to hear back from the White House before we put down a retainer on an attorney.

A couple of Dan's less offensive MAGA shirts.

One evening, after cleaning up some especially greasy and foul-smelling feces from a guy with liver failure, I thought FUCK THIS. I tucked my cleaning gear into the janitorial closet and headed to the 3rd floor nurse’s station where I spent the rest of the night on the staff computer checking out cruises.

And what should pop up at the top of my Google search for “all-inclusive cruises”? ForniGaytion Vacations. Their motto: “Have a Gay Time on the High Seas!” Sounded perfect to me and the pictures were spectacular. A gorgeous crew, luxury everything and loads of eye candy. I could really use some of that as I was horny as all get-out after all that stress at work. And you know the old saying: “Don’t matter where you get your appetite, as long as you do your eating at home.” If the crew were anything close to what was shown on the website, Dan had better watch out. I would be dragging his sorry ass below deck every two minutes. Sadly, my extra-long gel nails had accidently typed “inclusive cruises,” instead of “all-inclusive cruises” into the Google search bar. This would prove to be a disastrous typo. Disasterous for me. Disasterous for my marriage.

FGV looked to be a great company. They offered themed parties with dancing, celebrity DJs, cabaret shows, 24/7 buffets and bars, black tie dinners on the weekend, clothing optional poolside, and then every amenity known to man: in room massages, jetted tubs, three outdoor pools, costumes for parties, private dancers and an assortment of posh toiletries and “toys.” They also had a special turndown service at night that included getting “tucked in” and the administering of a special “bedtime snack.” Without hesitating I pulled out my credit card and booked our non-refundable two-week cruise, after which I clocked out of work and headed down to HR to request time off.

That night as we noshed on our Wing Stop carry-out, I announced all to Dan. He was thrilled, especially after looking through the photos on FGV’s rainbow colored website. Remarkably, it didn’t occur to me that the “women” in the pictures were not really women. In fact, they all looked remarkably like me — glammed up, loaded for bear, surgically enhanced, drop dead gorgeous, flamboyant. The kind of women that got Dan all stoked up.

There was no time to waste — we needed to pack quickly as two cancellations had come through that allowed us to sail out of San Francisco (to Puerto Vallarta) this coming Saturday — just 2 days from now. I pulled out my best everything: faux leather shorts and crop tops, skimpy sundresses, bikinis and coverups, a couple of cocktail dresses, and an elegant sequined gown. Dan was a tad short in the wardrobe department, but still had a rental tux he’d never returned to The Men’s Warehouse, some dress khakis and button down shirts and then a huge assortment of stealth shorts, which nicely accentuated his ass and worked well with all of his Trump apparel. And then there was that godawful pair of gold Trump hightops and his American flag cowboy boots. I would have to avert my eyes. There simply wasn’t time to go shopping for something new and more stylish that didn’t smack of MAGA smegma. Melania would be turning over in her grave, if she was dead.

Our departure day arrived and off we headed to San Francisco. Upon turning in at Pier 35, we situated ourselves in long-term parking, then schlepped our luggage to the gangway where we were checked in. A buff looking pair of young men grabbed our things and invited us to follow them to our cabin. The suite was gorgeous — decked out with fresh flowers, a bottle of bubbly on ice and an overflowing bowl of truffles on the nightstand. Sexy.

We started with a spectacular afternoon at the clothing optional pool, where Dan enthusiastically lost his swim trunks, and where oddly I was the only female — this on a ship with nearly 3000 guests. I kept my swimsuit on as there was no way I was going to be the only nude woman. And I most certainly would not be getting in that pool. Holy shit. Even a woman my age would have gotten pregnant in that semen soup.

Still, the weather was beautiful, the cocktails generously poured and fuck me — I had never seen so much raw male flesh. I was stoked.

The dinner buffet, an inviting spread of seafood, was also clothing optional. It did, however, give us pause to serve ourselves food that was just inches from grazing genitals, so partway through the buffet line we abandoned our plates and headed back to our cabin for room service.

The following evening we partook in a sit-down dinner, black-tie optional this time, after which we enjoyed a spectacular burlesque show. To say Dan was turned on by the show would have been a huge understatement. We could barely get back to our cabin quickly enough. Something about all that grinding and women crooning in the baritone range had Dan really worked up and for once he didn’t need his little blue pill. I was pretty stoked myself after watching that parade of nude men at the pool who were then dressed to the nines at dinner. That evening, Dan and I had our best sex ever, though for the first time, we did the nasty in total darkness. That was a bit odd. And when I woke in the middle of the night, I found Dan’s side of the bed to be empty and cold. What was up with that?

I quickly got up, slipped on my little black cocktail dress and some strappy sandals, brushed my hair back and off I went to discover what the hell was going on.

I did not immediately find Dan, as the ship was a big place and there was a lot going on that evening — dancing, more dancing, gambling, swimming, drinking, canoodling on the deck and shenanagans in the spa. The first spot to draw my attention was a ballroom where a DJ in fetish gear was spinning non-stop Prince sets, hundreds of men frenetically dancing. I managed to plant myself right in the middle of all that testosterone, and without hesitation. What a feeling, the dancing queen surrounded by all those luscious booties and you-know-whats. I was truly loving it, but something was off. I was the female in the room. The one and only. And the female on the entire ship. Gonna admit I liked that powerful vibe, but WTAF.

And where praytell was Dan? Not in the cocktail lounge. Not in the spa. Not at the 24/7 buffet or the bar. Ah… there he was. Nude. In the pool. Arms in the air, swaying to Can’t Stop the Feeling. Joyfully cavorting with 100’s of men.

Yes, it took this long for me to connect the dots. We were on a gay cruise. Dan was gay. Dan thought I brought him on this cruise so he could come out. Dan came out.

Oh, boy.

I went back to the cabin and grabbed all of Dan’s MAGA memorabilia and apparel, then went out to the deck and I heaved all his shit into the ocean. Dan would have to go barefoot and barechested for the rest of the cruise. Oh yeah, he was going to do that anyway.

And what could I do? I went back to my suite, ordered a private dancer and polished off that bowl of fucking truffles. Then I slept like a baby.