Having finished breakfast, Marisa and Marco stopped by the pool on the stern, whose main attraction was the generous spiral of a blue water slide under the auspices of a big, upright fish spouting water from the mouth. That was the children's leisure area now assailed by the adults, who constituted the majority of passengers on board. Marco and Marisa went straight to the water slide and afterward floated in the circle of the pool like two contented starfish—their silhouettes with hands linked, pink bikini and black swim trunks dipped in turquoise, the coolness of salty water on the back and golden warmth on the face.

"I could stay here forever," sighed Marisa.

"Me too," Marco agreed without opening his eyes.

Forever didn't last long. A moody gust of wind smoothed the ocean toward the infinite with its invisible hands. Clouds glided away, covering and uncovering the sun, sweeping the deck with shade and light. Shivering, Marisa and Marco left the pool and lay on the chaise lounges.

Soon the sun returned and the surrounding filled with people eager for a tan on that first cruise day, Passengers had already packed the central pool, pushing latecomers to the colorful kingdom of the gurgling fish. And so, one by one, they arrived with their sleepy faces: first Zoe and Jean-Philippe, a little later Eliana and Robert—and the orgy.

Eliana undressed her elegant sarong to reveal an equally elegant figure in a white bikini. Marisa couldn't help but compare herself to Eliana like she did with the photoshopped models in magazines, with the same self-punishing certainty she herself had been shaped in a deficient mold. That certainty affronted Marisa, hurt in her core and aggrandized Eliana. She tried convincing herself the other woman was too thin, almost gaunt apart from the evident silicone in her breasts. Meanwhile, Eliana stretched on a chaise lounge in all her smiling perfection.

Robert proceeded to the water slide and his cheerful shout came echoing down until disappearing into the water. He stepped out the pool radiant, the lean body glistening in dark green sports trunks with white stripes. Marisa evaluated him covertly the same way she had done with Eliana, but for different reasons and with a mix of fascination and embarrassment. In a reflex, she lay on her side to emphasize her curves, to compensate for legs that weren't as long and breasts that weren't as large as Eliana's. Marisa scolded herself with self-irony, she was a fool afraid of losing consistency and becoming invisible without male attention. Yet she sustained the pose.

Only now Marisa weighted her decision. It would be different if she and Marco went to a swing party on their own for meeting strangers with no residues of previous contacts, or old friends with no conundrums attached. Robert and Eliana, however, parked themselves in a blurry point of the scale between the intimate and the unknown. He was an enigma, and something about her felt terribly fake. More and more, Marisa suspected Eliana was attracted to Marco. What about him?

Marisa feared the party because she had no control over anything. Once they were all amid a muddle of naked bodies, how would they react? Maybe it was best to back off. The reasoning that Eliana and Robert wanted company for fending off their insecurity wasn't convincing. If they were up to copulating with strangers, they didn't need anyone encouraging them with pats on their backs. No. More likely the first step to their initiation would be taken with the very couple that had invited them. Just between friends. In other words...

Installed next to his wife, Robert looked at Marisa as if he grasped the direction of her musings. She wondered whether, behind his shades, Robert also assessed her physique like he did the previous day and whether Eliana's dilettante gaze strayed to Marco's trunks while he basked in the sun. Of course it did—it would be strange if it didn't. Marisa fiddled with her braid, glimpsing around her: on the opposite side of the pool, a thin and pale man talked to a curvaceous woman with a colorful bandana. Would they attend the party? Would anyone there?

In that interim, the conversation stumbled between the lines and caused a moment of constraint. It was when Zoe, always loquacious, commented on the presentation of an indie band called Intrepid at the Pearl Theater that evening. She then added that the following evening Jean-Philippe's band would also play at the theater.

"The show starts at eleven and will be even better than yesterday's because the stage is bigger and fits more instruments. The festival promoters have reserved the theater for the most popular bands," she informed proudly.

Zoe and Jean-Philippe addressed the others an implicit invitation for them to support his band. The only thing was, tomorrow night at eleven the others would be at the swing party. They froze, and only their eyes darted in a cautious crisscrossing while each of them waited for someone to come forward. The pause swelled with the unsaid, inflated with a sweaty carnality that silenced desires, reluctances and embarrassments. Finally, they cut off each other, all speaking at the same time.

Great. Amazing. Wonderful. Congratulations. Then they fell once again into an immobile and reticent muteness. They were all adults and could simply admit they already had an engagement: an orgy. It wasn't unheard-of nor shocking. The question was the backdrop of that engagement—Eliana and Robert's marital crisis, Marisa and Marco's frictions, the nebulous relation between the two couples. It would be better not to mention the orgy albeit now it screamed in their thoughts.

"We wouldn't miss your show for anything in the world," said Marisa.

Her words provoked disconcerted expressions in the other three since it could mean several things. That she and Marco wouldn't go to the show but were too polite to decline, that they would swing by the theater for fifteen minutes before sneaking out, or that they would watch the presentation up to the end and dismiss the orgy altogether.

In reality, Marisa hadn't established what that meant. The perspective of the orgy caused her repulsion and also curiosity for unveiling a dark instinct laying somewhere within her like a sleeping beast—which, once awoken, would drag her to a sphere where modesty turned into eagerness for pleasure at all costs, by any means. It was frightening. It was instigating.

One, two, three, the hours elapsed. Jean-Philippe and Zoe opted for relaxing in one of the hot tubes by the central pool while the remainder of the group had a lunch break at the Topaz cafeteria. There the aroma of grilled meat and hot dishes woke up other appetites and, when another pause frayed the conversation, Robert said: "Eliana and I want to thank you for going with us to the party tomorrow. We know you're not regulars to that kind of thing, but... You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

"Of course not," Marisa resolved, repeating Marco's line with counterfeit aplomb: "It will be fun."

The others went by the same token, laughing unstable laughs that sprouted incoherently. Robert provided the details of the orgy—each party reserved a surprise theme, no one knew the identities of the hosts, guests had to wear masks—and they all cracked up. He, Marco and Marisa tried guessing the theme for the coming party, conceiving all sorts of bizarre settings: a swamp, a traffic jam, a meat processing facility. More laughter.

Only Eliana kept quiet.

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Marco asked her.

Eliana smiled and stood up.

"I'm ready for dessert. Anyone coming with me?"

"I'll go with you. I'm done." Marco turned to Marisa. "Do you want anything?"

Marisa made a negative gesture. She observed the two of them walking toward the dessert buffet—Eliana talking to Marco with unsuspected eloquence—and looked at her own plate with no appetite.

"What about you? Ready for tomorrow?" Robert probed.

Marisa feigned a solemn tone.

"More than ever. I'll start my new career with a psychological study on collective libido."

"The psychology of the flesh."

"Yeah. The psychology of the flesh."

Robert chewed a medium-rare piece of steak, cleaned his mouth on the napkin and took a sip of mineral water. Slowly, he ran his tongue over his lips. Marisa noted the shape of his mouth, both lips with smooth lines and identical proportions as if chiseled by a talented artisan.

He scrutinized her, and in the center of his irises the pupils widened. His eyes also lingered on her lips for a brief lapse. In that lapse, the air they breathed seemed to jar.

"What's on your mind, Marisa?"

She shook her head as if it were nothing and resumed her meal. What was on her mind? The psychology of the flesh. Robert's lips. His naked body.

_______________________________

Yeah, if you read the sneak peek of RED 2 in RED, you know where this is going...  :)  xoxo