To put it bluntly, Steve was a bigot. Not always through words, though those slipped out often enough, but through the kind of quiet pride that flew flags most people had long stopped pretending were just about heritage.

And Pam, with her deep Mississippi roots and that warm, easy charm she was raised on, had absorbed more of it than I think she ever intended. Not by choice, but by proximity. By years of conditioning.

She wasn’t afraid of the man standing in front of us. That wasn’t it. She was afraid of what acknowledging him might mean, what Steve would have said had he caught her looking, what it might say about her loyalties, about the version of herself she had always been expected to maintain.

Even now, with Steve somewhere out of sight, lost in the golf simulator, his shadow lingered. She couldn’t just switch it off. The reflex was too ingrained. Years of subtle corrections, offhand comments, and sideways glances that told her when to look away had done their work. Her silence wasn’t discomfort with the man across from us. It was a fear of what it might mean if she wasn’t uncomfortable.

Steve was the reason this trip had taken so long. That was the truth, even if no one ever said it out loud. I had always been cordial with him, polite, pleasant enough on the surface, but I hated him. Not in a loud or dramatic way. Just in that deep, exhausted way you hate someone whose presence forces you to pretend. 

Living in Florida while they stayed in Mississippi made it easier. The distance helped. It let Pam and me keep our friendship intact without having to test how far it could bend.

But the tension with Steve was always there. He knew my past, knew I had dated a Black man before settling down with Mike. And even though he never said a word about it, I could see it in his eyes every time we were in the same room. 

There was a tightness in him, a quiet judgment that never left his face. It clung to every interaction, subtle but unmistakable. I didn’t need him to say it. I felt it. And as long as they remained married, he would be a part of my life whether I liked it or not.

Still, for some reason, I gave in. Maybe I was tired of avoiding it. Perhaps Mike was right, and it was indeed long overdue. So I agreed. One couple’s trip. One weekend. And now here we were, together at last. Steve might have been off somewhere else on the ship, but his presence still lingered like smoke you couldn’t quite clear from the room.

My words still hung between us. “He’s not here. You’re not in Mississippi anymore.” I hadn’t said them to provoke her. I said it because it was true. Because she needed to hear it. And because someone in her life had to give her permission to stop living under Steve’s invisible stranglehold.

Pam didn’t respond right away, but something shifted. A breath let out slower. Her grip on the empty cup loosened. And finally, after what felt like hours packed into seconds, she let herself look. Just one glance, behind the safety of her sunglasses, but it was enough. She gave in. Joined every other woman on that pool deck who had already stolen their moment of awe, their silent appreciation.

The three drinks in her system didn’t hurt. Liquid courage, soft and slow, loosening the reflexes Steve had trained into her. She wasn’t free of him, not entirely. But in that moment, she let herself feel something else. Curiosity. Rebellion.

“Impressive, huh?” I asked, watching the corner of her mouth twitch like she wanted to laugh, or gasp, or both.

As if on cue, the man finally lowered himself into the lounger, his movement fluid, almost lazy, like he didn’t feel the weight of a single stare. He stretched out, muscles rippling as his massive frame settled into the chair like it had been molded to fit him. The black spandex clung to every inch, still unforgiving, still bold, outlining every thick, heavy line without apology.

He laced both arms behind his head, biceps flaring, revealing smooth, hairless underarms, his body open and unguarded. Eyes closed, chest rising slow and steady, he looked completely unbothered. Comfortable. In control without effort.

Earbuds in, his phone resting beside him on the lounger, he lay there without a care, fully aware of the attention, and completely untouched by it.

The contents of his spandex left nothing to question. For Pam, it was more than just a visual. It was the living confirmation of a stereotype Steve had spent years programming her to forget. Not naïve, but truly oblivious in that deep, quiet way that comes from being raised, and later married to a man who made sure she never had to confront certain truths. 

She had heard the comments—the jokes. The suggestions whispered between women or passed along with a glance and a smirk. The myth that Black men were built differently. More. But it had always been distant. Abstract. Something she was never expected to see for herself.

The silence hung there, thick and awkward, but not in a way that begged to be filled. It was charged. Pam sat perfectly still, her eyes still hidden, fingers lightly tracing the rim of her empty glass. 

Her body language had softened, just a little, like something inside her was finally starting to give. And even though she hadn’t turned her head or said a word, I could feel it building. The question was there, just beneath the surface, waiting for the moment she’d finally let it out.

Her voice was soft, like she wasn’t sure if she actually wanted the answer.

"Is that what Amir looked like?"

The question hit harder than I think she meant it to. Amir. She’d never met him. That year, we were living entirely separate lives; Steve had dragged her off to Mississippi, and I was still trying to figure things out in Florida. Amir came a couple years before I met Mike, before I even thought about settling down.

Pam knew his name, knew we’d dated, but that was it. I never shared the details, and she never pressed. Not because she wasn’t curious, but because she’d always been too afraid to bring him up around Steve.

Before I could respond, the server reappeared with perfect timing. Same easy grin, same loud floral shirt, like he had somehow sensed the moment.

He set down our fresh drinks without a word. No request, no check-in, just a knowing nod before he disappeared again into the blur of poolside motion.

“No,” I said. “Amir wasn’t that tall—or anywhere near that muscular.”

The words hung in the air for a beat before the weight of them really landed.

Pam didn’t react right away. She stared straight ahead, her fingers wrapped around her fresh drink, condensation trailing down the glass. Then she took a long sip, longer than necessary, and I could almost see her gathering the nerve.

When she finally spoke again, her voice was quieter, more careful.

“What about…” she started, then stopped, the rest catching in her throat.

I let the silence stretch before finishing the thought for her, a slight grin tugging at my lips. “Down there?” I asked, finishing the question even three drinks in her system wouldn’t allow her to ask out loud.

“Yeah,” she muttered, her legs shifting slightly.

I didn’t answer right away, just held her gaze for a moment and took another slow sip of my drink.

“Almost identical,” I said finally.

That landed. Her leg shifted again almost immediately, a subtle cross and uncross, like the response had hit somewhere deeper than she expected. Her latest drink had disappeared in three long sips, and now the alcohol was doing precisely what it was designed to, loosening whatever filter she usually kept tightly in place.

Her eyes, still hidden behind her sunglasses, flicked downward for just a second. Not toward him this time. Toward me. Specifically, my bikini bottom.

She didn’t mean to stare. It was instinctive, her eyes drifting back again and again, quietly assessing, wondering, trying to make sense of the proportions. The logistics. As if her mind couldn’t stop itself from doing the math, questioning how someone my size, five feet and a hundred pounds soaking wet, could possibly take something like what was stuffed inside the spandex across from us.

“Seriously?” she asked, after a pause, curiosity overtaking whatever filter the last sliver of self-consciousness had left behind.

I turned to her, a little surprised, but also not. The drinks had done their work, softening the edges between us, turning questions she’d never dare voice sober into casual conversation under the sun.

She took a long sip from her straw, even though the glass was already empty. The hollow suction filled the space between us, loud enough to turn heads if anyone had been listening. It bordered on unintentional rudeness, the kind of sound people made on purpose to shame a slow waiter into a refill.

I smiled and gave a soft laugh. “Yeah. Seriously.”

Pam didn’t say anything at first, her lips pressing together as she stared straight ahead, then slowly turned back to me.

“But how?” she finally asked, her voice low and uneven. “Didn’t it... hurt?”

The question came out like it had bypassed her entirely, like her body had asked it before her mind could stop it. A quiet surrender to the curiosity she’d been trying so hard to control, her composure cracking under the weight of something deeper.

“At first,” I said quietly, nodding as a soft laugh slipped out. “Yeah, of course. It was intense.” I paused, the smile still on my lips. “But you get used to it. Kind of.”

The laugh said enough; I wasn’t being sincere, and she knew it.

She blinked slowly, letting it settle. I could almost see the gears turning behind her glasses, her gaze still fixed on the man stretched out in front of us. Her mind was clearly working, forced to paint a picture it had never been allowed to consider before.

“This is definitely not a conversation I ever thought I’d be having with you,” I said, my voice light, a little teasing. A gentle nudge at the version of herself she’d been stuck playing for far too long—the one Steve had built.

Another pause settled between us. Not awkward, just thick with everything we were too buzzed to pretend wasn’t happening.

The server reappeared, like he’d been keeping score from a distance. Another round arrived without a word. Fifth? Sixth? I wasn’t sure. The glasses clinked down in front of us, full again before we could miss being empty. We were both on the verge of being plastered, barely two hours into the trip. And neither of us seemed to care.

She took a slow sip, then glanced over at me, her voice softer now, more curious than cautious. “Do you ever think about him? Amir?”

I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t know, but because I did. He was the first thing that came to mind the moment I saw the man across from us. The size. The shape. The way it pressed against his hip, bold and unapologetic. It was almost identical to Amir. And in that moment, I felt it hit me hard: memories that had lived with me almost daily, but had never been spoken aloud. Not once.

"I hadn’t… until now," I said with a laugh, and a slight pause that hinted I wasn’t being entirely truthful.

She raised her eyebrows, surprised. I could feel her leaning in, drawn into the kind of conversation that only surfaces after too many drinks and with a best friend who knows nearly everything about you.

She swirled her drink, then asked quietly, “Does Mike know? About Amir?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he knows. I told him we dated before we ever met. He was never dumb enough to ask about the details,” I laughed, and that probably ended up being for the best.

Pam gave a tight smile, like she admired that but didn’t quite know what to do with it. The silence returned, not uncomfortable this time, just open. Maybe it was the buzz, perhaps it was the heat, but something about the moment made me keep going.

“Mike and I still have sex twice a week,” I blurted, the words spilling out before I could stop them. It wasn’t planned. The guilt of talking about Amir shoved Mike to the front of my mind like a reflex, an instinct to defend him. To defend our marriage. But instead of easing the tension, it only made the contrast more obvious. 

“I mean, for ten years into marriage, that’s supposed to be pretty good… right?” I added, my voice quieter now, like I was trying to convince myself just as much as her.

Her head turned toward me, a little too fast. There was a flicker of something behind her sunglasses; surprise, maybe, or something she didn’t want me to see. Her body shifted, stiffened slightly, a quiet, involuntary reaction. It reminded me of earlier, when she stood frozen with her swimsuit in hand, like the conversation had suddenly touched something too close to home.

“Really? Twice a week?” she asked, her voice catching just slightly as she tried to keep it casual.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It’s not always candles and wild passion, but it’s regular. Consistent. We make time for it.”

I took another sip, letting the silence settle for a beat before glancing over at her.

“What about you and Steve?” I asked, keeping my tone light but curious.

Pam didn’t respond right away. Her fingers tightened slightly around her glass, eyes still hidden behind her sunglasses, lips pressed in a thin, uncertain line. I didn’t push, but the pause stretched long enough to feel intentional. She wasn’t ready.

But the drinks were.

She let out a quiet breath, then finally spoke. “We haven’t… since Lily.”

I blinked, thinking I’d misheard. “Wait. Three years?!”

It came out louder than I meant, cutting through the hum of the pool deck. Pam’s shoulders immediately sank as she pulled back into her chair like she could shrink from the sound, from the weight of the admission now floating in the open air between us.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” I said quickly, lowering my voice. “I didn’t mean to say that so loud.”

She gave a weak laugh, then shook her head. “It’s fine. Just… yeah. Three years.”

Her voice was quiet, almost embarrassed, like she’d never said it aloud before. And maybe she hadn’t.

Suddenly, it all made sense—the hesitation with the swimsuit, the restless shifting in her chair, the way she clung to an empty drink like it might shield her. It wasn’t just insecurity. It was years of quiet undoing, of being picked apart until she no longer saw herself as someone worth being seen.

Pam hadn’t simply lost her confidence—it had been worn down, piece by piece, by Steve’s quiet, cutting remarks. And like me, she’d made it through a high-risk pregnancy—scarred, changed, but stronger. Yet instead of being celebrated for it, she’d been made to feel invisible.

I didn’t press her. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t either make it worse or feel like pity, and she didn’t need that from me. The drinks in our system softened the moment just enough, made it easier to sit in the silence without rushing to fill it. But even through the gentle haze of alcohol, I couldn’t imagine it. Three years without sex. Without being touched. Without feeling wanted.

I loathed Steve. Quietly. Constantly. But he wasn’t my husband. And the truth was, despite everything, she still loved him. That was the part that made it hardest to watch. They were married. They should have still been touching, still finding each other, still connecting in all the ways that mattered.

I looked at her, sitting there in her oversized glasses, sun warming her shoulders, drink nearly gone again, and I felt it in my chest. Not judgment. Not confusion. Just sadness. I felt so bad for her.

Pam let out a breath and broke the tension with a dry smile. “Well,” she said, lifting her glass, “at least you’re having enough sex for the both of us.”

We both laughed, the kind of laugh that comes not from humor but from relief. A release valve. It cut through the weight of the moment just enough to let us breathe again.

Still staring straight ahead, she asked quietly, “So… he was good, huh?” There was a subtle urgency in her voice, so eager to deflect from her own sex life, she was willing to wade deeper into the most off-limits, taboo topic her world had been carefully shielded from, just to shift the spotlight away from herself.

The man across from us had given her a real-life visual of what I’d only hinted at: that he shared the same qualities Amir had beneath that jet-black spandex. And now, the image had taken root. She was suddenly forced to picture herself on the receiving end of it, to sit with the size, the stretch, the weight of it, and wonder what it would feel like to be filled by something so far beyond what she’d known. It wasn’t just curiosity. It was a quiet confrontation with something she’d never let herself imagine, until now.

Three years of being untouched, unseen, and unwanted. And now, here she was. Forty-five years old, fully in her prime, sitting in the sun with a drink in her hand and a man lying just feet away who looked like he could undo her with a glance. Her body still worked. Her desire hadn’t died. She hadn’t stopped feeling, it had just been buried.

“The best,” I said, and it came out softer than I meant it to, like I wasn’t just answering, but reliving it.

That was the truth. No details, no embellishment. Just that.

Her phone buzzed suddenly, the sound cutting sharply through the haze around us. She blinked and pulled it from her bag, reading the screen with a tension I recognized immediately. Then she turned it toward me.

“Where are you guys at? Meet us by the casino,” the message from Steve read—more command than question.

The text snapped her back instantly, like a shock collar she didn’t know she was wearing. Her shoulders straightened, and whatever softness the drinks had brought to her posture disappeared. For an hour, she’d let herself forget, forgotten that Steve was even on the ship, that he couldn’t see her, couldn’t control her. But now, with that message glowing on her screen, it all came rushing back.

She looked afraid, not of being caught doing anything, but of being seen. Of Steve somehow knowing that a man like the one stretched out in front of us had been within a hundred yards of his wife, as if proximity alone was betrayal. As if just existing near that kind of man was something Steve could punish her for.

“I think we should go,” she said quickly, already pulling her cover-up over her swimsuit.

Her movements were fast, jittery, and no longer casual. She hadn’t even finished her drink. I stood too, silently, not wanting to add to the weight that had just dropped back onto her shoulders. The shift was sharp, like someone had slammed a door shut inside her.

We left in a hurry, towels clutched awkwardly, glasses half-full, no real words between us. Just a shared, heavy silence.

Whatever freedom Pam had allowed herself to feel had vanished, erased by a single vibration from her phone.

As we walked away, we both took one last glance at the man by the loungers, the image of him already burned into memory, before heading inside without a word.