The Taste of a Stranger's Sea

The salt air carried the scent of grilled snapper and diesel fuel across the harbor, mixing with something sweeter—hibiscus, maybe, or the overripe mangoes splitting open on the vendor’s cart. Mark breathed it in anyway, willing the Caribbean to work its promised magic. Ten years of marriage had calcified into routine: Monday meatloaf, Thursday sex with the lights low, Sunday spreadsheets balancing what they still owed on the house. He had booked the cliff-side villa believing turquoise water could dissolve the residue of all those ordinary days.

He’d also brought a secret, folded small and tucked into a mental drawer. On winter nights, when Claire slept and the house ticked with cold, he’d sometimes browse forums where men spoke in coded whispers about watching, about sharing. He’d feel a guilty, electric thrill, then close the laptop, ashamed. It was a fantasy, not a blueprint—a ghost of a thought about seeing his wife through hungry eyes that weren’t his own. He never imagined speaking it aloud. The idea felt too fragile, too dangerous for the sturdy architecture of their life.

Claire stood beside him at the rail of the open-air bar, her sundress whipping around her knees, one hand shading her eyes as she tracked a lone frigate bird overhead. The late sun ignited the highlights in her dark hair; she looked like the woman he used to photograph when they were dating—back when he still carried a camera for the pleasure of it, not for quarterly reports. He reached for her hip, testing. She let his fingers rest there, neither leaning in nor pulling away.

“One week,” he said. “No emails, no contractors, no anything. Just us.”

She answered with the small smile that once jump-started his heart. “Just us,” she echoed, but her gaze had already drifted to the bartender setting up for the evening rush.

The man moved like someone born to islands—unhurried, shoulders loose, the sleeves of his white linen shirt rolled high enough to reveal ropey forearms lacquered with bronze hair. He arranged bottles so the labels faced outward, a silent showman. When he looked up, his eyes met Claire’s for a fraction longer than courtesy required. Mark felt it in the increased pressure of her hip beneath his palm, the way her weight subtly shifted forward.

He told himself it was nothing. Vacations were permission to look: at tanned skin, at lithe strangers, at possibilities you’d never touch. He’d done his own share of looking on the flight down—the college girls in row twenty-three, the stewardess whose skirt brushed his elbow. Harmless combustion, over before it started.

The bartender—Dante, according to the brass nameplate—approached with a languid smile. “What can I build for you?” His voice held a lilting cadence, the question pitched halfway between service and flirtation.

Mark ordered the house rum punch, heavy on the bitters. Claire hesitated, teeth grazing her lower lip. “Surprise me,” she told Dante, and Mark’s pulse stumbled. She used to say that to him in dim restaurants, trusting him to order for her, to know her tastes. Now the phrase landed on the bartender’s counter like a transferred allegiance.

Dante’s grin widened. He reached for a bottle of agricole rhum, fingers nimble as a jazz bassist. Watching him work was intimate: the crack of fresh ice, the hiss of shaken metal, the deliberate drag of a lime wedge along the rim before it was dropped into the glass. He set the cocktail in front of Claire—sunset orange, flecked with grated nutmeg—then folded his arms, waiting.

She took a sip, eyes closing. A soft sound escaped her throat, half sigh, half moan. “Jesus.”

Mark’s cock stirred, startled by the immediacy of his own reaction. He imagined that same noise in their bedroom, pictured himself coaxing it out of her. When had she last made it for him? He couldn’t remember.

Dante watched her swallow, satisfaction hooding his gaze. “It find you well?”

“Dangerous,” Claire corrected, licking a drop from the corner of her mouth. Her tongue was quick, pink, almost feline.

Mark drank deeply, letting the rum scald a path to his stomach. He thought the evening air would cool the heat pooling there, but the breeze felt like a hair-dryer aimed at his skin.

They stayed for three more rounds. Dante lingered each time, leaning across the mahogany as if the bar itself were nudging them closer. He asked Claire where they were staying, how long, whether she’d ever tried paddle-boarding under a full moon. He never directed a single question at Mark. By the time the sun surrendered to a bruised violet sky, Mark’s head buzzed, and Claire’s laugh had risen an octave, bright with unfamiliar electricity.

Back at the villa, they made love in the four-poster bed, windows flung open to the crashing surf. Mark expected the alcohol to slow him, but every thrust felt urgent, sharpened by the echo of Dante’s smile. Claire’s nails scored his back; she cried out, a raw note that startled them both. Afterward she clung to him, breathing hard, her heartbeat fluttering against his ribs like a trapped moth.

Neither mentioned the bartender. Not then.

The next morning, Claire rose early. Mark watched her dress through half-lidded eyes: yellow bikini, translucent cover-up knotted at her sternum, the silver ankle chain he’d bought her for their fifth anniversary. She bent to brush her lips across his forehead.

“Going for coffee,” she murmured. “Sleep in.”

He dozed, surf hissing like static. When he finally padded into the kitchen, the villa felt empty. He told himself she’d found a café in the village, maybe struck up conversation with tourists, maybe—his stomach twisted—returned to the bar for a second surprise.

He swallowed the suspicion with lukewarm espresso and walked into town. The harbor glinted, crowded with charter boats promising reef dives and bottomless rum. Dante’s place wouldn’t open until eleven, but Mark found himself standing outside the shuttered bar anyway, studying the chalkboard cocktail list as if it might yield coded evidence.

He killed the day snorkeling half-heartedly, spotting only murky silhouettes of grouper. Claire texted at two: Found a yoga class on the north beach. Back for sunset dinner? He replied with a thumbs-up, unsure whether relief or disappointment weighed more.

She arrived at the villa sun-drunk, hair braided with tiny cowrie shells. They grilled lobster tails on the stone patio, butter sizzling into the coals. Conversation drifted to Dante only once.

“He asked about you,” Claire said, dragging a piece of crustacean through spiced oil.

Mark’s fork paused mid-air. “What about me?”

“Whether you like sailing.” She licked butter from her thumb, gaze steady. “I told him you get seasick.”

The information felt like a test—an invitation to pry or a warning to retreat. Mark chose retreat, tipping more wine into their glasses. They watched the horizon bruise to black, the moon a thin blade overhead. When they fucked on the lounge chair, Claire straddled him, breasts silvered by starlight. She rode him slowly, eyes shut, bottom lip caught between her teeth. He sensed her elsewhere, practicing the rhythm she might have learned that morning, and the thought should have enraged him. Instead it detonated in his bloodstream like a fuse reaching powder.

Afterward, she nestled against his chest. “I love you,” she whispered, voice ragged. He stroked her spine, counting vertebrae, unsure which of them she was trying to convince.

Wednesday blurred into Thursday. Claire disappeared for hours, returning with salt-crisp hair, sand in the folds of her tote. She spoke of market stalls, of an old woman who sold her turmeric soap, of reef-safe sunscreen demonstrations. Yet each time she stepped under the outdoor shower, Mark imagined Dante’s hands slicking foam across her shoulders, rinsing suds from the cleft of her ass.

He told himself he was being paranoid, emasculated by rum and too much idle time. Still, when she declined sex on Thursday night—headache, too much sun—he felt the first true lurch of dread. He lay awake listening to geckos chirp like faulty wiring, Claire’s breathing even beside him. At last he slipped from the sheets and opened her phone, thumbs trembling.

Nothing incriminating: no new contacts, no late-night messages. Relief should have followed, but the absence of proof felt like a magician’s misdirection—evidence of how carefully she might be hiding.

He returned to bed and dreamed of turquoise water closing over his head.

Friday morning dawned clear and hot. Claire was already up, slicing papaya at the kitchen counter. Mark watched her from the doorway, the tension in his shoulders a coiled spring. He couldn’t swallow another day of vague suspicion.

“We need to talk,” he said, his voice rough with sleeplessness.

She turned, knife poised, her expression unreadable. “Okay.”

“You’re lying to me.” The words hung in the humid air. “The long absences. The yoga classes that leave sand in your bag. The way you look at me like you’re rehearsing a story. What’s really happening?”

Claire set the knife down slowly. She didn’t look guilty; she looked cornered, and strangely, relieved. “I’ve been seeing him,” she said, no preamble. “Dante. The bartender.”

The confirmation was a physical blow, a punch to the solar plexus that stole his breath. He gripped the doorframe. “Since when?”

“Tuesday morning. After coffee.” Her chin lifted, defiant. “It just… happened. And then it kept happening.”

“Why?” The word was a cracked whisper.

“Because I felt invisible,” she said, her own voice breaking. “And for a few hours, I wasn’t. And because…” She hesitated, searching his face. “Because part of me wanted you to know. To feel it, too.”

The confession hung between them, fragile and terrifying. Mark’s mind raced—images of her with the stranger, anger, betrayal, but beneath it, that old, secret thrill uncoiling, dark and potent. “You wanted to hurt me?”

“No.” She stepped closer. “I wanted to wake us up. I wanted you to look at me the way he does. Like I’m a mystery you’re desperate to solve all over again.”

Mark sank onto a stool, his head in his hands. The fantasy was no longer in a drawer; it was in his kitchen, wearing his wife’s face. “What do you want now?”

She knelt before him, her hands on his knees. “I want you to see me with him.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“There’s a tasting tonight at the bar. He’s hosting. I want us to go together. I want… no more secrets in the daylight. Whatever happens after that, we decide. Together.”

The proposition was insane. It was also the most honest thing she’d said in years. Mark felt the ground tilt, the safe, predictable path of refusal washed away. He thought of the forums, the ghostly fantasies. He looked at his wife’s eyes, wide with fear and hope. “Okay,” he heard himself say.

Friday arrived with hammering rain, the villa’s gutters gulping. They stayed inside playing gin rummy, Claire barefoot in a tank top, nipples peaking whenever the wind shifted. Mark watched her shuffle, the quick flick of her wrists, cards snapping like bones reset. The tension from the morning had morphed into a charged, almost unbearable anticipation. By late afternoon the storm surrendered to steam. Claire disappeared into the bedroom and emerged in a green silk dress the color of bottled absinthe. She’d lined her eyes in kohl, something she hadn’t done since their twenties. Mark’s pulse stuttered.

“It’s time,” she said.

He dressed in silence, his reflection in the mirror looking sunburned, eyes glassy with a fear that was indistinguishable from desire.

The bar glowed amber, storm lanterns flickering along the deck. Dante greeted them shirtless, a white apron tied low on his hips, torso gleaming as if lacquered. He kissed Claire’s knuckles; the gesture belonged to another century, yet she flushed. Mark received a cordial nod, but Dante’s eyes held a new, assessing depth, as if recognizing a fellow player finally stepping onto the field.

They sat at the curved bar, knees touching beneath overhang. Dante moved like a dancer, plating ceviche in scallop shells, igniting cinnamon sticks until they sparked. Between courses he poured thimble-sized shots: passion-fruit rum, coffee-rum, rum steeped in scotch-bonnet that left Claire gasping, lips parted, eyes watering. Each time she coughed, Dante’s hand brushed the small of her back—ostensibly steadying her. Mark tracked every contact, heat coiling low in his belly.

By the eighth pour, conversation turned intimate. Dante rested his elbows opposite them, gaze fixed on Claire. “What’s the wildest thing you’ve done on a trip?”

Mark expected deflection, but Claire answered instantly. “Skinny-dipping in Crete. Full moon, cliff jump, twenty meters at least.” She laughed, the sound bright with remembered adrenaline. “My heart felt like it would explode.”

Dante’s eyes darkened. “The edge is where you taste your own blood in your mouth. Makes you feel real.”

“It makes you forget you have a name,” she replied.

Mark’s throat tightened. He reached for his water, ice rattling. Dante shifted attention to him, predator switching prey. “And you, brother? You a cliff-jumper?”

Mark thought of spreadsheets, of mortgages, of Monday meatloaf. “I’m learning,” he said, holding Dante’s gaze.

A slow smile spread across Dante’s face. He poured two final shots of midnight-black rum. “This one’s special,” he murmured. “Fermented with cacao husks, aged in barrels that once held island honey. The first sip always tells a truth. Sip slow.”

They obeyed, eyes locked over cup rims. The liquor tasted of earth and burnt sugar, of secrets. Mark’s head swam. The lanterns seemed to sway though the breeze had died.

Dante untied his apron. “Kitchen’s closed to the public now.” He gestured toward a screened door behind him. “I keep a private stash. Interested?”

Mark’s heart hammered against bone. He waited for Claire to decline, to laugh it off, to drag him back to the villa where the rules were printed in invisible ink. Instead she stood, smoothing her dress, eyes glittering with reckless hunger.

“Yes,” she said.

Mark followed because he could no longer feel his legs.

The back room smelled of vanilla beans and citrus zest. Shelves sagged beneath mason jars—infusions the color of topaz and garnet. A single bulb cast honeyed light over a mahogany table flanked by two bar stools. Dante closed the door, click loud as a gunshot.

He poured from an unlabeled bottle, liquid viscous as motor oil. “Blackstrap molasses rum. Aged twelve years. No one else on the island has it.”

Claire cradled her glass, breathing fumes. “It’s beautiful.”

Dante’s smile curled. “It’s a truth serum. Swear by the sea, it is.”

She sipped, moaning softly. Mark watched her neck work the swallow, remembered that sound from their first years. Now another man coaxed it from her throat. His arousal was immediate, shameful. He shifted on the stool, fabric tenting. Dante noticed—of course he did. His grin widened.

“Your wife,” Dante said to Mark, not taking his eyes off Claire, “has a tongue that knows things before her mind does.” He stepped closer to her, his hip brushing Mark’s knee. “She taste the ocean in this? The old wood?”

Claire flushed with pride. “I taste… possession.”

Dante hummed, a low, approving sound. He reached out and, with a calloused thumb, caught a stray drop of rum from her lower lip. He then, deliberately, turned and swiped that same thumb across Mark’s lips. The touch was shocking, intimate, the taste of rum and her saliva exploding on Mark’s tongue. “And you?” Dante asked, his voice a gravelly murmur. “What do you taste?”

Mark’s breath hitched. The act was a bridge, a direct, physical connection between the three of them. “I taste her,” Mark rasped. “And I taste you.”

The admission shattered the last pretense. Dante’s eyes flashed. He cupped Claire’s face first, thumbs stroking cheekbones as if memorizing topography. Then he kissed her—not polite, not exploratory, but full-bodied, claiming. Claire melted against him, palms sliding up his bare chest, nails scraping flat nipples.

Mark’s cock throbbed, trapped in linen. He watched his wife open her mouth to another man’s tongue, watched her hips rock forward, seeking friction. It should have shattered him. Instead it pieced something together, a mosaic of lust and awe.

Dante broke the kiss, eyes glittering. “Tell me what you want.”

Claire’s voice was barely breath. “I want you to fuck me.” She glanced at Mark, cheeks flaming. “While he watches.”

The words detonated in Mark’s chest. Dante turned to him, eyebrow arched—final confirmation. Mark nodded, pulse hammering so hard he tasted copper.

But Dante didn’t move immediately. Instead, he reached for Mark’s hand. “Come,” he said, his tone leaving no room for refusal. He guided Mark’s trembling fingers to the knot of Claire’s dress at her lower back. “You unwrap her. For me.”

Mark’s hands fumbled, the silk slippery. He undid the knot, and the dress loosened. Dante, standing behind Claire, slowly drew the fabric down her shoulders, baring her to the waist. Her breasts spilled free, and Dante’s large, dark hands came around to cup them, his fingers plucking at her nipples as he nuzzled her neck. Mark was transfixed, his own hand moving to his cock, palming himself through the linen.

“Touch her,” Dante commanded Mark, his voice low. “Let her feel us both.”

Mark stepped forward, his chest pressing against Claire’s back as Dante continued to fondle her from the front. He reached around, his hands joining Dante’s on her breasts, their fingers tangling over her heated skin. The sensation was surreal, electric—the rough texture of Dante’s hands against his own, the soft, yielding flesh of his wife beneath them both. Claire let out a shattered moan, her head falling back against Mark’s shoulder.

Dante then lifted Claire onto the table. He gathered her dress, inching silk up toned thighs until it pooled at her waist. No panties—she’d left them somewhere between the villa and here, premeditation that should have stung but only inflamed. Her pussy was shaved smooth, lips already slick, inner petals flushed rose. Mark’s mouth watered at the evidence of her readiness.

Dante palmed her knees, spreading them wide. “Hold,” he commanded. Claire gripped the table edge, arms trembling. Mark saw the muscles of her abdomen flutter.

Dante unbuttoned his pants, freeing a cock thick and darker than the rest of him, veins ropey beneath taut skin. He stroked once, twice, letting them both look. Claire’s lips parted.

“You want this inside you?”

“God, yes.”

He teased first, sliding the crown along her slit, painting himself in her arousal. Claire whimpered, hips churning. Mark could smell her—brine and want, unmistakable. His own pre-come soaked through linen.

“Mark,” Dante said, not looking away from Claire. “Come here. Hold her open for me.”

Mark moved as if in a trance. He stood beside the table, and at Dante’s nod, he used his thumbs to gently part her slick folds, exposing her completely. The intimacy of the act, serving this other man’s possession of his wife, sent a violent, exquisite shock through him.

Dante entered slowly, relentless, until his balls kissed wood. Claire’s head fell back, a guttural sound clawing free. He gave her no time to adjust—simply withdrew and slammed home, table legs screeching across tile. Again. Again. The rhythm was savage, possessive.

Mark watched his wife come apart. Her breasts shook. She bit her lip until it blanched, then released a torrent of filth he’d never heard from her mouth: “Fuck, right there, don’t stop, make me take it—” Dante growled approval, pounding harder, fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise. Mark memorized every mark, every sound.

Claire’s first orgasm tore through her without warning. She stiffened, mouth open in a silent scream, pussy clenching around Dante’s shaft. He didn’t pause—simply rode the spasms, extending her until she sobbed.

When the shudders ebbed, he pulled out, cock gleaming with her juices. “Turn her,” he told Mark. “I want her from behind.”

Mark obeyed, surprising them both. He helped Claire flip onto all fours. Her hair had escaped its braid, cascading over flushed cheeks. She looked at Mark, eyes glassy, pupils blown. “Touch yourself,” she whispered. “Show me how much you love this.”

He fumbled his cock free, groaning as cool air hit overheated skin. Claire’s gaze locked on his fist. Behind her, Dante lined up and thrust home in one stroke. The impact rippled through her. Mark matched Dante’s rhythm, jerking himself in time with every slap of flesh. The room filled with primal music.

Dante wrapped her hair around his fist, arching her back until her spine bowed. “Tell your husband who owns this pussy tonight.”

Claire’s voice broke, exultant. “You do. Oh God, you do.” She locked eyes with Mark. “I’m his, baby. Watch me be his.”

The confession detonated Mark’s restraint. He came hard, ropes of come striping the floor, knees buckling. Claire followed seconds later, wailing as Dante pistoned through her climax and spilled deep, hips stuttering.

Silence crashed over them, broken only by ragged breathing. Dante eased out, come trailing down Claire’s thigh, iridescent under the bulb. He tucked himself away, then did something unexpected: he took Mark’s sticky hand in his own, a firm, brief clasp, a warrior’s acknowledgment. “I’ll give you two a moment,” he said, and slipped through the door.

Mark sank onto the stool, legs jelly. Claire crawled into his lap, dress still bunched, skin fevered. She cupped his face, thumbs wiping tears he hadn’t realized were there. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “And I’m not.”

He kissed her, tasting rum and salt and the metallic tang of adrenaline. “Tell me everything,” he said. “No more secrets.”

She did.

They started at the beginning: the first morning, when she’d returned for coffee and found Dante closing up from the night before. How he’d offered to steam milk just for her, how their fingers brushed. How conversation slid from pleasantries to confessions, how his gaze stripped her until she felt nineteen again. How the second morning she’d worn the yellow bikini, let him untie it behind the supply shed, his mouth on her nipples while fishing boats droned past. How she’d knelt, tasted island salt on his cock, swallowed him as waves gnawed the pylons. How guilt had flared, then morphed into something sharper—an edge she wanted Mark to feel cutting them both.

“I thought I’d ruined us,” she whispered, voice cracking. “But when I saw your face tonight—how turned on you were—I realized we’d ruined something else. The idea that marriage has to be a cage.”

Mark stroked her back, feeling vertebrae beneath sweat-slick skin. His emotions were a kaleidoscope: jealousy, awe, liberation. None fit neatly. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said. “But I think I like sharing you.”

Claire’s eyes shimmered. “We write the rules together. Maybe we rewrite them every year. Every night.”

They stayed in the back room until Dante returned with a final gift: a small bottle of the black molasses rum, wax sealed. “For anniversaries,” he said. “Or Tuesdays.” He kissed Claire’s temple, squeezed Mark’s shoulder again. No promises, no expectations. Just an open door should they ever return.

Outside, the moon rode low, silvering the path to their villa. They walked barefoot, shoes forgotten. Claire’s dress still smelled of vanilla and sex; Mark’s thighs were sticky with his own release. Halfway home, she stopped him beneath a sea-grape tree, leaves rattling like dry bones. “One more confession,” she said. “I’m not done.”

She pushed him against the trunk, sank to her knees, and sucked him slowly, taking her time, showing him the skills she’d polished on a stranger’s dock. Mark threaded fingers through her tangled hair, surrendering. When he came, she swallowed, then rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Now we’re even,” she teased.

Mark laughed, dizzy with love and lust and the vertigo of a life tilted off its axis. They stumbled the rest of the way home, bodies humming, fingers laced.

Saturday they spent in bed, mapping new continents. They fucked face-to-face, Claire narrating every detail of Dante’s tongue, his thickness, the way he’d called her doudou in the local creole. Mark discovered dirty talk lived in his marrow; phrases spilled from him—how he wanted to watch her ride three men, how he’d buy her jewelry with their come still inside her. Claire came so hard she squirted, soaking the sheets, then rode his face until he licked her clean.

Between bouts they napped, tangled, woke to salt-filtered light. Mark traced the bruises on her hips, pressed kisses to each one, branding himself with evidence. “Next time I want to be there from the start,” he said. “Watching every second.”

Claire smiled, lazy, sated. “Next time,” she agreed.

Sunday they sailed on a catamaran crewed by two local college kids—brothers with identical braids and easy grins. Wind whipped Claire’s hair into Medusa coils; spray soaked her white bikini transparent. The brothers couldn’t hide their staring. Mark felt the familiar stir, the intoxicating knowledge that she was his to display. He whispered suggestions in her ear—how she could let a strap slip, how she might “accidentally” brush their crotches while steadying herself on the boom. Claire played coy, but her nipples betrayed her. By the time they docked, both boys sported tents in their board shorts. Mark tipped them generously, storing fantasy fodder for winters back home.

The flight north was quiet, bodies tender, minds rewinding reels. They held hands across the aisle, Claire’s head on his shoulder. At cruising altitude she pulled the in-flight blanket over their laps, eased down his zipper, and stroked him slowly under the scratchy wool, whispering memories until he spent in her palm, biting his lip to stay silent. She licked her fingers clean, eyes twinkling with mischief that felt brand-new.

Snow greeted them at the airport, a stark white reset. They drove home through flurries, heat blasting. The house smelled faintly of cedar and closed windows—unchanged, yet altered by the lens they now wore. In the kitchen Claire unpacked island souvenirs: packets of turmeric soap, a tiny steel drum, the sealed bottle of black rum. She set it on the windowsill, where winter light could strike its obsidian surface.

The first test came that evening. Mark, back in his uniform of chinos and a button-down, was paying bills online. Claire, in yoga pants and an old sweatshirt, was folding laundry. The domestic normalcy was a dissonant chord after the week’s symphony. He watched her bend over the basket, the familiar curve of her backside, and felt a surge of desire, but also a strange distance. Was she thinking of Dante? Was he?

He must have sighed, because she looked up. “What is it?”

“I don’t know how to be here with you now,” he admitted, the words raw. “It’s like we brought back a wild animal and we’re trying to pretend it’s a pet.”

Claire put down a towel. She walked over, took the laptop from his hands, and closed it. Then she straddled his lap right there in the desk chair. “We don’t pretend,” she said, her voice firm. She guided his hand under her sweatshirt, over her bare breast. Her nipple was hard. “The animal stays. We feed it. Together.”

She kissed him, deep and searching, and for a moment, the villa’s salt air seemed to flood the sterile home office. They made love right there in the chair, clumsy and urgent, her sweatshirt pushed up, his pants around his ankles. It was different—not the performative heat of the island, but a reclaiming, a grounding. Afterward, she rested her forehead against his. “We’re still us,” she whispered. “We’re just more us.”

That night they lay in their own bed, sheets frigid until shared warmth seeped through. Mark traced circles on her belly, marveling at how a stranger’s hands had redrawn their geography. “What do we tell people?” he asked. “About how the vacation saved us?”

Claire smiled against his chest. “We tell them the ocean reminded us we’re alive. The rest stays between three.”

He kissed her, slow, deep, tasting salt that might have been memory or might have been tears. Outside, snow muffled the world, but inside their house the air hummed—an aftershock of distant surf, the echo of another man’s name caught between their tongues.

Someday they’d return to the island, book the same villa, walk the same dock. Or maybe they’d choose Greece, Thailand, anyplace with unfamiliar constellations. They would arrive as two, but they would remember the formula: open water, honest mouths, the courage to want loudly. They would scan bar counters for languid smiles, for eyes that measured hunger in millimeters. They would invite, they would watch, they would reclaim each other in the raw light of dawn.

For now, Monday waited—meatloaf, spreadsheets, snow shovels stacked by the door. Mark pulled Claire close, palm cupping the faint, yellowing bruise on her hip, his fingerprint on a map that now belonged to both of them. He felt the tide recede, felt it gather again, perpetual, inside his chest. The taste of a stranger’s sea was now a permanent flavor on their tongues, a spice that would forever season the ordinary, transforming it, bite by bite, into something chosen, something wild.