Ruby
I kick off my heels and dive into the pool fully dressed.
The shock of cold water hits like a slap, exactly what I need to snap out of whatever spell I was under tonight.
I push deeper, letting the water muffle everything until there’s nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat.
My shirtdress tangles around my thighs, dragging me, but I push deeper until my fingers brush the tiles at the bottom.
Not until my lungs are about to burst do I surface, gasping for air as I cling onto the poolside.
I glance at the steps, then decide I’m not ready to get out.
I turn onto my back and float, facing the sky while my sleeves billow around me like dark wings.
What am I doing? The question echoes in my head, impossible to silence.
For two years, I’ve wrapped myself in armor.
Work became my shield, loneliness my constant companion.
But tonight, watching those women together, feeling Athena’s hands on me…
I wanted things. Craved things. Physical things.
The intensity of that desire terrifies me.
Even now, floating in the cold water, my body is burning remembering her touch—the firm pressure of her fingers on my thigh, the heat of her breath against my neck, the way she held me still when I wanted to move against her.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the night sky. My voice breaks. “I’m so sorry, Claire.” The words dissolve into the desert breeze.
Tonight, I forgot about her. Claire wasn’t on my mind for even a second while I was sitting on Athena’s lap.
For the first time since she died, I existed completely in a moment without her shadow over me.
And that betrayal cuts deep—the fact that another woman could make me forget, even for a moment, the love of my life.
Guilt crashes over me. Not just because I wanted someone else—that seems almost secondary to the betrayal of wanting Athena more intensely than I ever wanted Claire, at least in the physical sense.
My intimacy with Claire was sweet, tender, built on years of love and trust. What I felt tonight was something else entirely—raw, primal, overwhelming.
The kind of desire that threatens to consume everything in its path.
The kind of desire that makes people do stupid things.
I feel heavy with shame. In Athena’s club, watching strangers find pleasure in each other’s bodies, I forgot myself.
Forgot my grief, my guilt, my walls. Worse, I didn’t want to remember.
For those moments in Athena’s lap, I was someone else—someone who could feel desire without drowning in loss, someone who could watch two people fuck without blushing, someone who could spread her legs and beg to be touched.
I dive under again, hoping the cold will clear my head. It doesn’t. The shame burns hotter than the desire now. God, what was I thinking? I so desperately wanted to be part of it.
Claire and I used to swim here together on summer nights.
She would joke about skinny dipping but never actually did it.
She would talk about making love in the pool, but we always ended up in bed instead.
The memory feels distant now, like it belongs to someone else—someone who didn’t know that desire could feel like drowning.
“What would you think of me now?” I ask the stars.
Claire had such faith in me, such trust, and she knew me inside out.
Would she understand this version of me?
Would she understand that I could want something so different from what we shared?
That the tenderness we had, while beautiful, never made me burn like this?
What would she think of me sitting in dark rooms watching strangers fuck while trembling at another woman’s touch, fantasizing about being tied up, controlled, made to beg?
We never talked about things like that. Sex was sweet between us, comfortable like everything else in our relationship.
We made love on Sunday mornings, slow and gentle, and it was more about connection than passion.
She never pushed for more, and I never knew I wanted more.
Physical intimacy was just one part of our life together, not something that consumed our thoughts.
Crossing my arms over the pool’s edge, I stare at my reflection in the glass doors.
A stranger stares back at me; I barely recognize myself anymore.
The controlled lawyer seems far away. In her place is this new creature, dripping and desperate, caught between desire and duty, between the safety of solitude and the dangerous promise of pleasure.
“Ruby?”
The voice startles me out of my reverie. Athena appears at the pool’s edge.
“How did you get in?” My voice sounds rough, like I’ve been crying. Maybe I have; it’s all a bit of a blur.
“I followed you. Slipped through before your gates closed.” She doesn’t apologize for the intrusion, just studies me with those dark eyes. Her gaze travels over my face, taking in what must be quite a sight—wet hair plastered to my neck, mascara streaking my cheeks. “May I join you?”
I hesitate, then nod. The surreal quality of this night deepens as I watch her kick off her shoes and remove her hat. Then she steps to the edge and dives in fully clothed.
She surfaces near me in a sweep of dark hair and white fabric, water streaming down her face. When she reaches me, she grips the edge of the pool beside me.
“You must think I’m crazy,” I say. “The unstable woman next door who can’t make up her mind.”
“Not at all.” A breeze stirs the palm fronds overhead. “If anything, I should apologize. I pushed too hard again.” She meets my eyes. “Do you feel guilty?”
“Yes.” The admission comes easier than I expected.
She nods. “I understand.”
“I believe you do. I even feel like you understand everything I’m not saying.” I frown as I study her. “You know so much about me and I know nothing about you.”
“I don’t like to talk about myself,” she says.
“Why is that?”
She chuckles. “Answering that question would require me to talk about myself.”
I’m not willing to give up. I’ve bared my soul to her, and as much as she wants me to trust her, I want the same in return. “Tell me why it is that I feel like you understand my grief,” I whisper. “What happened to you?”
Athena’s expression shifts, something vulnerable flickering across her features before disappearing like a ripple in still water. She seems uncertain, as if weighing how much of herself to reveal.
“Okay,” she says finally, pushing away from the pool’s edge. “Let’s get dry and make coffee.” She swims to the steps, water streaming from her suit as she rises. Turning back to me, she extends her hand. “And I’ll tell you a story about a girl from Athens who used to be a hopeless romantic.”
I take her offered hand, letting her pull me up.
“But I’m warning you,” she adds. “It’s not the happy kind. It’s a tragedy.”