The tailgate of the Tahoe closed behind the last bag, sealing it in with a heavy thud that echoed through the garage. Between the concrete pillars, the ship was still visible, distant now, but unmistakable.

The same view we’d had three days earlier, rising from the port like a floating city. Back then, it shimmered with promise. Now it only loomed, silent and gleaming, as if laughing at the marriages it had quietly rewritten.

We loaded in without ceremony, Mike and Steve up front this time. One final babysitting shift on the forty-five-minute ride back to Orlando before we’d drop them at the airport, sending them back to Mississippi, back to a life that, for Pam, would never be the same.

The doors closed one by one, a dull sequence of thuds that felt heavier than they should have. That sound, so ordinary, marked the exact moment vacation turned back into real life.

As we merged onto State Road 528, the scenic stretch leading in and out of the cruise port, I turned in my seat. Behind us, the ship receded into a backdrop of industrial buildings and port signage, a towering reminder of everything Pam and I would carry to our graves.

It dissolved into the haze, breaking apart piece by piece until nothing remained, like it had never existed at all.

Up front, the guys traded small talk, with Steve cracking careless jokes about how close he’d come to financial ruin at the casino, completely oblivious to where it had led Pam. He was already drifting into half-hearted talk about doing it all again next year.

Mike had hated every second of his role on this trip, but by the end, he and Steve had shared more than just a few drinks. That kind of debt, the kind with a comma in it and the adrenaline rush of clawing your way out, has a way of forging a quiet, masculine bond. Not friendship, exactly. More like the unspoken connection you feel at a ball game, surrounded by strangers all rooting for the same outcome.

Pam sat beside me, staring out the window, her gaze distant as theme park billboards and faded roadside motels slipped past. Just three days ago, though it felt like a lifetime, this same stretch of highway had been filled with anxious chatter, all of it rooted in the guilt of leaving Lily with her parents and the quiet fear that needing space somehow made her a bad mom.

Now, there was only silence.

Silence. Guilt. And a kind of satisfaction that was almost impossible to recreate.

She hadn’t said a word since we left the garage. Neither had I.

Somewhere beneath the white noise of Steve, still obnoxiously reliving his comeback, our heads turned left at the same time.

There it was.

The Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center rose from the flat Florida horizon like a steel monolith, the same one you see on TV, synonymous with spaceflight, with the massive American flag painted across its face and the NASA and SpaceX logos stamped beneath it like signatures. But from where we sat, it no longer represented a symbol of discovery. It had become a testament to our undoing at the hands of Jamal.

We both stared, locked on it. Not saying a word.

My mind began to drift, and I knew hers had too, though not in the same direction. Hers had gone back to Jamal’s room, to that afternoon after trivia at the Golden Mermaid.

Her love of space, something she shared with me like clockwork with every launch, was now tethered to him in a way she could never undo. What had once been a wonder had become a memory; complicated, intimate, almost cruel. And with SpaceX launches happening nearly every month, it would now be a recurring reminder of the biggest risk she’d ever taken.

My mind wasn’t on Jamal’s room, not really. It was on what came right after. The aftermath of lunch at Guy’s Pig & Anchor Smokehouse. Mike, tearing into a grotesquely oversized hot dog barely held together by a collapsing bun, a fever-dream straight from Guy Fieri himself. The culinary equivalent of Jamal, wedged between my brand-new tits not thirty minutes earlier.

Steve, still riding the high of his comeback, was a far cry from the man who had been firing off vile texts just hours earlier. He was upbeat, almost likable in small doses. The version Pam could tolerate. And for once, Mike no longer needed to babysit or play mediator.

That quiet pattern of Pam and me slipping off to bury our faces in Dark Ships while Mike held the line was over. It was our last night onboard, and the shift had already begun.

A shift that couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Mike gave me that look, the one that said it was time to collect. Time to finally get something in return for playing peacemaker all weekend. Alone time I would’ve begged for on any other night.

But not now. Not with Jamal still leaking into my panties.

Pam and Steve went their own way. Maybe to finally check off the parts of the cruise they’d skipped, the things couples usually gush over their first time at sea, but that Steve had been too self-absorbed to notice.

Maybe his casino win had him feeling brave enough to end their three-year dry spell, not realizing it had already been broken without him. Or perhaps it was just another argument waiting to boil over, fueled by silence, resentment, and everything neither of them had the courage to say aloud.

It felt almost cruel, the way we ended up in the same elevator, the very one that had carried both of us to and from our fate. As if the Jubilee itself were twisting the knife, just to remind me who I was standing beside now.

With the push of a button, Grand Central disappeared again through the glass as we descended into the bowels of the ship, the floor numbers ticking down in silence.

We stopped one floor short of Jamal’s; our floor. Deck five. Close enough to feel the echo, the tension still hanging in the air.

The doors slid open, and we stepped into the hallway. A mirror image. Same carpet, same lighting, same smell. Like every floor in the ship’s belly had been copied and pasted without a second thought.

The door plaques ticked backward again like mile markers as we made our way toward our room.

Before I knew it, we were back in our cabin. The door slammed shut behind me, louder than I expected, and I jumped. The déjà vu hit instantly. But this time, it wasn’t a six-and-a-half-foot monster with a twelve-inch cock standing behind me, ready to rearrange my insides.

It was my husband, the father of my children.

The look in Mike’s eye? I recognized it instantly. It didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t waiting for a shower, a moment to freshen up, or even a chance to wash off Jamal.  

Thankfully, it was the kind of look that meant he would skip his usual routine, his favorite part, going down on me. A rare moment of selfishness, and for once, exactly the mercy I needed. He would never know how close he came to discovering everything I couldn’t say out loud. The swelling. The tenderness. The slow, steady leak and taste of another man’s release still slipping out of me, left behind by a cock over twice his size.

He was wound tight. Days of frustration piled high; missed chances, constant detours with Steve, one interruption after another. And now, finally alone, he was ready to take what he’d been waiting for.

Before I knew it, I was on my back, eased down with the kind of practiced gentleness that only comes after more than a decade of marriage. Mike was steady, careful, and respectful. Some of it was habit. Some of it was caution, mindful of the investment he’d worked overtime to give me. I was still sore, still bound inside the bra that wouldn’t come off tonight. Still off-limits to the very man who had signed the check.

The contrast to Jamal couldn’t have been sharper. There was no tenderness, no hesitation; just a firm, unapologetic shove that dropped me straight into the orgasmic pool he’d just extracted from my best friend. Confident. Unbothered. As if I weren’t a new body but a continuation, like he already owned whatever came next.

And then there was the view.

No 21-year-old carved from an anatomy book, dark skin gleaming under the light, stretched over an eight-pack and shoulders broad enough to shrink every doorway. No dreadlocks skimming traps that looked like armor. Just Mike; forty-five, with a strip-mall haircut and a soft, sagging midsection built from skipped workouts and drive-thru dinners. More budget-conscious than body-conscious. A man who always prioritized me and the twins over himself.

And hovering at my entrance, no thick, punishing footlong sausage that had left me raw and breathless barely an hour earlier, just five inches of something familiar.

A cruel reminder of reality.

Mike wasn’t there to make love to me; he was there to scratch an itch. Two days of slow-burning frustration had built up behind every movement, after playing mediator while Pam and I got to pretend like we were back in college. He wasn’t rough. His thrusts were still careful, still mindful of my chest. But he was focused. Intent. Moving with the quiet urgency of a man trying to drive the weight of it all out of his body.

Normally, it would’ve worked. The rhythm, the weight of him pressed against me, the familiar angle of his hips; things that usually brought me release without even trying. But not this time.

What had always felt amazing...suddenly didn’t.

It wasn’t that Mike had changed. It was me. Jamal had ruined me. All over again.

There was a phantom seven inches between where Mike ended and where Jamal had been, and it wasn’t just the length. The girth alone had felt unreal, like something engineered, not born. Unfair in a way that made my body clench just remembering it.

A happy marriage had made me forget that anything more even existed. Like the way time dulls the loss of a pet, softening the grief until you barely remember how deep it once cut.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to be truly, impossibly full. Amir had faded into something almost imagined. That stretch, that overwhelming fullness, the kind that made you question if you could take any more, had become a memory I thought I’d buried.

But now? That absence was impossible to ignore.

It wasn’t just going from Wagyu to flank steak. It was being expected to forget Wagyu ever existed, while still tasting it on your tongue.

My mind drifted back to the car, to reality, doing anything I could to escape the guilt that twisted inside me as Mike finished. Two quiet minutes of self-serving thrusts, more routine than passion, ending the way they always did. Careful not to make a mess, holding himself back like always. Passive. Almost beta. He let out a soft, breathy whimper as he pulled out and hunched forward, sputtering weakly into the boxer briefs at his feet. It was the release of a man in his mid-forties, prostate beginning to slow him down, years of predictability dulling the edge.

The comparison felt cruel.

Jamal had fucked me with a precision and intensity I hadn’t realized I was starving for. It was the best sex of my life, better than Amir, better than anyone. He went for thirty unrelenting minutes, every thrust deliberate, every movement designed to tear me apart. He pulled three orgasms from my body, matching the ones he’d taken from Pam, like it was nothing, like it was a game he’d already won.

By the second, my legs were shaking. By the third, I had no choice but to bury my face in Pam’s breast, still slick with his release, just to survive it.

Impossibly, he was reloaded. His twenty-one-year-old balls had already recovered from erupting inside Pam minutes earlier, as if nothing had touched him. He ended with a cocky countdown from ten, each number slow and deliberate, soaked in control. It was a smug nod to his new job and the power he knew he held.

By the time he reached one, his voice broke into rough, guttural grunts. Then came the release.

His hips stayed buried, moving slow and steady, letting my pussy do the work. I clenched around him without meaning to, my body milking him greedily, pulling every last drop onto my cervix. His balls, heavy and full like grapefruits, pressed firm against my ass, pulsing with each thick spasm as he emptied himself deep inside me.

I turned to the window, focused on the ride. The blur of neighborhoods and apartment complexes sliding past, any one of them possibly hiding the man who had quietly, irreversibly rewritten both of us.

Jamal was probably already home, freshly showered, settling into a new zip code, likely scouting his next target. Another woman chasing a version of herself she’d forgotten existed, or never realized was there at all. Mid-forties. Married. A mother. Curious. Maybe even a new neighbor, her husband none the wiser that his worst nightmare had just entered the picture, despite doing everything right. And like us, she’d be willing to risk it all for a taste of what she wasn’t supposed to want.

She’d leave with the same parting gift we did: a business card. Crisp, confident, stamped with the SpaceX logo and Jamal’s contact information. A polished little keepsake for being chosen. For being taken. Something he probably handed out like a signature, without a second thought for the vows he’d helped bend, the marriages he’d nudged toward cliffs, or the custody battles that might follow.

Just a souvenir for every woman who left his bed unsteady, sore, and changed. Sworn to be tossed, of course, but it wouldn’t be. It would end up in a drawer, a shoebox, or its image tucked into an encrypted folder on her phone. A quiet reminder that it happened.

Pam and I finally looked at each other as we merged onto I-4. Thirty more minutes together before they’d be on a flight back to Mississippi. Thirty more minutes of silence, this time consumed not just by Jamal, but by the heavier question of where our lives would go from here.

We’d spent the ride staring out opposite windows, pretending to watch the blur of scenery, pretending not to replay every second. But that one glance between us said everything. It carried the weight of unspoken truths, none louder than the quiet admission that neither of us had let go of that same business card.

Handed off casually as he stepped away to take a piss, like it meant nothing. We’d stood there on unsteady legs, pulling sweat-damp clothes from a crumpled pile that looked more like a twisted ring toss than anything intimate. Like a couple of sorority whores dressing quickly before being kicked out of a frat house.

It was impossible to know exactly where things would go from here, but some outcomes felt inevitable.

Pam would return to Mississippi. Back to her classroom. Back to Steve. Back to the dull, mechanical rhythm she’d long since stopped pretending was a marriage. And if the silence through the cabin wall last night was any indication, Steve’s casino comeback hadn’t come close to breaking what only he still believed was a three-year dry spell.

Eventually, he’d slip back into old patterns; the offhand racism, the lazy jabs she once brushed aside but now couldn’t un-hear. He’d even talk her out of the final two laser sessions, leaving the faint outline of the rebel flag etched into her skin like a quiet surrender. And still, she’d smile. Nod. Maybe even laugh when expected. Pretend it didn’t bother her. Pretend she hadn’t been unraveled by a man her husband would attempt to cause bodily harm to if he only knew even half the truth.

But behind the scenes, she’d itch. Not just physically, but in that gnawing, psychological way only someone who’s tasted something forbidden and unforgettable can understand. She wouldn’t tell me; not yet, maybe not ever. Too embarrassed. Too raw. 

At first, she’d wait for it to pass, convincing herself it was nothing; just a moment, a memory, something her body would eventually forget. She’d try to brush it off, the same way she imagined I had with Amir. But it wouldn’t pass. The need wouldn’t fade. It would only sharpen, growing clearer the longer she tried to ignore it.

The next logical step, at least the one that would let her scratch the itch while keeping her conscience clean, would be porn.

BBC porn would quickly become her nightly escape. Her quiet release. A frowned-upon genre in her part of the country, barely tolerated, if not outright filtered. Favorite scenes would be bookmarked, favorite performers chosen not for fame, but for how closely they mirrored Jamal. It would feel like watching a highlight reel of her own undoing. The same thick dreadlocks. The same impossible length. The same effortless, arrogant control.

She would watch with headphones in, one hand between her legs, the other gripping her phone, while Steve worked late or sat in the next room, completely unaware.

Soon, she’d supplement her vibrator. The one she already owned; small, discreet, easy to tuck into the back of an old shoe. She’d probably bought it years ago to quietly replace what Steve had stopped giving her, never thinking it would become anything more than an occasional fix.

It wouldn’t be enough.

Before long, she’d be searching for something more specific. A dildo. Something obscene in size. Chosen not just for length and girth, but for skin tone. Something that mirrored Jamal in every way she could manage. Too large to hide in a drawer. Too obvious to explain if Steve ever found it.

It would be a risk, one she’d have to get creative to conceal. But she’d convince herself it was harmless. That if she could match him in shape, even in silicone, it might quiet the noise.

That it might be enough.

But it wouldn’t be.

Eventually, she’d end up on a hookup site, spending hours scrolling, searching, filtering; convincing herself that if she could somehow find a white man who matched Jamal’s size, it might make the risk of being caught by Steve feel a little more acceptable. But the footlong fantasy wouldn’t cooperate.

Search after search would come up empty. Nothing even close.

Until the filter flipped. Race changed.

And suddenly, they’d be there. Dozens of them. Black men. Gigantic. Unapologetic. Each one mirroring her memory of Jamal, confirming what her body already knew; they really were built differently. Some would be local. Maybe even on her own street. Others just beyond the Mississippi border. All of them more than eager to claim the bored wife of a bigot, like she was a prize they’d been waiting to collect.

She’d convince herself it was harmless; just images, just a way to cope. Local profiles would replace the porn she’d grown dependent on. Real men. Tangible, nearby. Men she could message, meet, fuck, in under an hour if she ever worked up the nerve. 

Over time, the line between curiosity and craving would begin to blur, and without meaning to, she’d find herself looking longer, clicking more, needing more.

Eventually, she would crack. Lust would override logic, and she’d pull the trigger, choosing the man who resembled Jamal the most, or at least close enough to pass under the heat of desperation.

She would wait until Steve was at work or out of the house, then finally tend to the unkempt bush between her legs, untouched for three years. Jamal hadn’t cared, but she knew other men might not be as accepting. She’d leave Lily with a sitter, guilt tugging at her briefly before the anticipation of what was coming dulled it into background noise. Then she’d slip into her car, the highway replacing the cruise ship corridor that had quietly led her to this point. 

A nervous wreck behind the wheel, she would follow vague directions to wherever she was told to go. It would be a risk, but one she had already decided was worth it.

She’d arrive at some house or apartment, maybe in a part of town she’d normally avoid, greeted by a man who didn’t resemble Jamal in the slightest. No impressive job, no sculpted frame. Maybe overweight. Maybe even ugly as sin. But he’d be naked, and the reason she came would be right there between his legs. It would be the only thing that mirrored Jamal. And the only thing that mattered.

He would fuck her senseless. Maybe not like Jamal had, but good enough to leave a mark. Good enough to change something she wouldn’t be able to undo. She would go home to Steve, suddenly indifferent to whether he ever touched her again. And eventually, there would be miles. Hundreds of them. All added to their vehicle as she chased the ghost of Jamal in every man who fit the criteria.

Me? I was doomed.

Pam could already see it on my face. The distant stare. The quiet machinery turning behind my eyes.

Like her, I’d go home in denial, holding on to the hope that the itch would fade, though I already knew it wouldn’t. Almost immediately, I’d find myself back in that hidden folder of Amir’s pictures, the only visual I had to even come close to reliving the details of Jamal’s room without a single trace of evidence.

I’d feel awful. Maybe even sick. Because Mike hadn’t done anything to deserve this. He loved me, without question. We’d sat together more than once, trading quiet judgment over friends who blew up their marriages for something impulsive, reckless. Always certain we were different. Always sure we were safe.

Within a week, I’d dig Jamal’s business card out of my purse, haunted by the thought that I was already fading from his memory. He’d be settling into his new life, the chaos of deck four slipping quietly into the past. And before I disappeared completely, I’d download some shady, untraceable second-number app, tucked into the same hidden folder where I’d kept a digital trophy of Amir. Something unbecoming of the woman I still pretended to be.

“Hey, it’s Amy from the cruise,” or maybe just, “Remember me?”

Something vague enough to protect my pride, in the chance he ignored it or simply didn’t remember me.

And in the cruelest twist, it wouldn’t even be the Tahoe making the trip. It would be our 2012 Honda Odyssey; the same practical, aging minivan that said everything about our life: dependable, unremarkable, safe.

The kind of vehicle made for grocery runs and daycare drop-offs. Not for this. Not for transporting a happily married woman toward a fate like Jamal.

The same gravity that had pulled me into Jamal’s room still lived in my body. It wouldn’t disappear just because we were back to real life; work, parenthood, random trips to Disney World. The carefully curated routine we’d convinced ourselves was enough.

And I knew exactly how ugly it would become.

No romance. No dinners. No stolen kisses under moonlight. This would be raw, reckless, and dirty.

I’d cross paths with women just like me; wives and mothers, barely holding it together, just as hollow underneath. The same minivans lined up in the driveway, car seats still buckled in the back. They’d show up with a flutter of excitement and leave, legs wobbly, with a guilt that wouldn’t stick. Just enough to get them through the week, until it was time for their next fix.

No judgment. Just a glance. A quiet respect. A silent exchange between strangers who had shared the same man, knowingly the same fluids, and decided it was worth it.

As if we belonged to some hidden order other women hadn’t found yet, or were still trying to deny.

Some would be in their biological prime, risking pregnancies they might not stop, might even welcome, all in the hope of passing on Jamal’s DNA for the next generation of women just like us.

Willing to accept the fallout. The wreckage of their marriages, their families, their carefully constructed lives.

Before we knew it, we were pulling into the departure lane at Orlando International.

The buzz of the terminal was already leaking through the windows: rolling suitcases, tired footsteps, a dim, fluorescent-lit echo of the cruise terminal from three days ago. Steve climbed out first, popped the hatch, and started unloading their bags with the intent of a man who couldn’t wait to get back to his life in Mississippi.

Pam followed more slowly, her face hidden behind the same sunglasses she’d worn by the pool during her quiet refusal to look at Jamal. I didn’t need to see her eyes to know it was already fading; the vacation, the heat, the version of herself she’d barely allowed to surface. It was slipping away already, retreating before her feet had even touched the sidewalk.

There was a quick handshake between the guys. One more gloating comment from Steve about his “comeback,” A few forced laughs. Then something easy and forgettable about doing it again next summer; same ship, maybe with the kids next time. The kind of empty promise people make at the end of something they’re not ready to unpack.

Pam and I held on a little too long. The kind of hug that doesn’t end when it should. The kind that says what words can’t. It lingered in the space between two bodies that knew they were leaving something unfinished. When we finally let go, she looked at me. Really looked. And in that glance was everything: gratitude, regret, curiosity, fear. And something else too. A flicker of knowing. Like we both understood this wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.