And that is how it is. I fuck Stewart, I fuck Paul, and they both know about it. And the more I fuck one, the more turned on the other gets. The more competitive, aggressive, loving, they become. It is a constant, whirling sea of sex. I love it, and they love it. They don’t need to know who the other is. That would take it a step too close, a step too real. It is better that it is a nameless, faceless individual. And I appreciate keeping the worlds separate. I have fantasies, sure. Of having them both at the same time. Their hands on my body, their competing cocks battling over my skin. But that just seems too messy. And I don’t want to do anything to disrupt the perfection that is us. The three of us. Living two separate relationships.

I get that you don’t understand. That you wonder how someone could possibly be aroused, turned on by the thought of something so forbidden. But often, it is the forbidden that is the hottest, and the depraved that is the most arousing.

TORRENCE, CA

DANA

It is unhealthy, this obsession I have with Stewart’s love life. Why should it matter who he dates? Why do I care if the blushing blonde on his arm is a flavor of the week or a future wife? I should return to my life, return to my empty condo and my stacks of work. I should not care whether he is happy or lonely, a workaholic or a loving boyfriend. But of course I care. I will always care, I will always love him, and I will always watch out for him. He is my Stewart.

And the blonde from the bookstore—if she is a flavor of the week, she has stretched her flavor into months. Some may call it stalking, some might call it love, but I have continued to watch them from afar. I see her leave his building, her long legs in cutoff shorts and flip flops, her friendly smile to the valet one of familiarity as she catches the keys and slips into her expensive convertible. I’ve followed her onto the freeway, the woman driving recklessly, quickly losing me in traffic as I attempted to use a blinker, maintain a safe speed, and not nose dive beneath the tread of an eighteen-wheeler. She was gone, the white car whipping into the glare of the California sun, headed east, my sleuthing attempt a disaster. Except for her tag number. I wrote it down, with no clear idea of what to do with it.

Maybe he is happy. I hope he is. I called him this afternoon. But again, as it has been for three years, he did not answer.

LUNADA BAY, RANCHO PALOS VERDES

CRUSHER: Someone who surfs hard,

as if they have nothing to lose

and no fear inside.

MADISON

Lunada Bay is Paul’s favorite place to surf, the waves so high they take your breath away. It is also one of the most contested spots to stick your board in at. It’s located in Rancho Palos Verdes, which is pretty much where all rich white people money goes to die. Colossal mansions sit oceanfront, with manicured lawns and Mercedes that stare out onto waves that kill at least one surfer a year. The local surfers are territorial, running off tourists with sharp voices often backed up by fists, keeping the waves uncluttered and the beach sunbather free. In the ‘90s, a local television crew was attacked, broken bottles and fists causing blood and bruised egos to scamper back up the slippery slope to the road, their broadcasts interrupted by a trip to the ER. But they allow Paul. They are in awe of him, as am I—his effortless conquer of the waves, his ability, no matter how rough or dangerous a spill, to resurface in the froth. But he wasn’t always allowed. I have seen his scar. A long, thick knot of tissue where some spoiled rich kook slashed his side in an attempt to protect this jewel-encrusted strip of beach. Paul returned the next day, and battled waves while bleeding through thirty-four stitches. After that, they accepted him as their own, and, when I came into his life, welcomed me with sunburnt smiles.

Today the waves are almost twelve feet. Surfers measure from the back, so a twelve foot wave is actually, from the shore, twenty-four feet in height, a huge wall of dark water, rising like a beast before curling and crashing onto whatever surfer is foolish or unlucky enough to be in its’ grasp. I look for Paul, look for his red board, not seeing his head bobbing among the riders. My arms tighten, my eyes scanning slowly, then quickly, my mind trying to recount the last time I saw him.

Then I see his board, a quick rush of relief replaced by nerves. He is out farther, a few hundred yards behind the main peak, at a spot called Truck Drivers. My heart sinks, a heavy weight of doom pulling it down, dragging it to the bottom until it sits somewhere in my stomach, heavy as lead, my breaths coming short and fast.

“Whoa, Paul’s taking Truck Drivers?”

I don’t turn at the voice, knowing its source. Rayne. A dreadlocked Barbie who rarely lifted her head off her boyfriend’s cock or the bong he placed before her. “Yeah.”

“He is crazy, girl.”

He is crazy. Truck Drivers is a take-off spot for waves, named by some tourist that had probably died shortly after naming it. It’s for daredevils, or anyone stupid enough to want to risk their life for a wave. And the wave that was coming? It was beautiful. Terrifyingly so.

“Uh-oh.” Rayne says softly. I don’t know whether to slap her or bury my face in her massive chest and avoid the entire thing.

But I can’t move. I’m glued to the scene, glued to his form, as he leans forward, lying flat and low on the board, and begins paddling, the wave growing larger and more deadly as it grows.

The ocean is a beast. A beast that doesn’t care if it chews you up or swallows you whole. A beast you cannot beat, you can only dance with it until the time comes when it kills you. It will never lose, and with moves like this, Paul is living on borrowed time. I watch him paddle and wonder if this is the moment when he will die.

The wall of water stands, straight up, sunlight glinting off it in a way that hurts my eyes. I stand, my eyes locked on the one small break in its awesome silhouette, the dip that is my heart, the man I love standing to his feet and disappearing into its churn as it breaks, bending down on itself, Paul’s body gone, nothing but white energy before me.

He is right now in one of two places. In the channel, hidden by the wave of water, or he’s fallen, crushed underwater by the wave.

A breaking wave can push a surfer down twenty to fifty feet, sending them into a washing-machine style spin that tumbles and breaks them apart. When they finally stop spinning, when their chest is breaking apart and fighting against the urge to inhale, they have to regain equilibrium and figure out which way is up. Some surfers swim the wrong way, traveling ten feet before their bursting lungs and their sense of direction alerts them to the deadly mistake. Lack of air is not the only danger. Water pressure at that depth will rupture an eardrum as easily as crushing a fly. Even worse is not having any depth. If the ocean floor, or a reef is present, the wave will grind you against it like a mortar to a stone. Paul needs to get to the surface before the next wave hits. The next wave will be a new downward force, a second round in the spin cycle. A second round that compounds the danger, one that his lungs will probably not survive.