Chapter 1: The Cliff's Edge
The salt air bit our skin, sharp and clean. Up here, the world was wind and light. The cliff face, a brutal slab of ancient limestone, dropped away to where the sea churned into a perfect, impossible sapphire pool forty feet below. Julio stood right at the edge, toes curled over the rock, his back to the void.
“Too much for you?” he called over his shoulder, his voice carried away by the gust.
He wasn’t talking to me.
Marta squeezed my hand, but it wasn’t for comfort. It was a restraint. “Don’t,” she whispered, though her eyes were fixed on Julio’s broad, tanned back. “Just don’t say anything.”
Julio turned, his cocky grin a white slash against his stubble. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his swim trunks. “Warm-up,” he announced, as if to the ocean itself.
He pushed them down in one smooth, unselfconscious motion.
Marta’s grip on my hand went dead. Her breath caught, a tiny, sharp inhale lost in the wind. I looked, because not looking would have been more conspicuous. I wished I hadn’t.
Julio was… built. Everywhere. He stood there naked, completely unbothered, letting the sun and the spray and our stares hit him. He was thick and long, already semi-hard, resting against a heavy sac. It was less a part of him and more a piece of equipment, a declaration. He spread his arms wide, a muscular god offering himself to the cliff.
“See?” he laughed. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
He was looking right at Marta. She swallowed, her throat working. A faint pink flush bloomed across her chest.
“Julio, that’s…” I started, the words weak and shriveled by the wind.
“Incredible,” Marta finished, her voice hushed. She let go of my hand completely.
She reached for the hem of her own sundress, a simple yellow thing she’d worn for me that morning. Now, it was just fabric in the way. She pulled it over her head in a single, fluid motion. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her small, pert breasts tightened in the cool air, her shaved mound exposed. She didn’t look at me. Not once.
“Marta,” I said, her name a plea.
She folded her dress neatly, placing it on a dry rock beside Julio’s discarded trunks. A domestic gesture, absurd here. “It’s just a jump, baby. Don’t be a coward.” The word was casual, tossed at me like a pebble. It hit like a boulder.
She walked to the edge, standing beside Julio. The difference was staggering—his powerful, hairy thighs next to her smooth, slender ones; his solid, towering frame beside her delicate balance. He slung a heavy arm around her bare shoulders, pulling her into his side. His hand dangled, his fingers brushing the side of her breast. She leaned into it.
“Ready?” he murmured into her hair.
She nodded, a quick, eager jerk of her chin.
They jumped.
Not apart. Together. A tangled knot of limbs, his arm still around her, her face buried in his neck. They fell forever, a scream of laughter torn from her throat. The sound was swallowed by the boom as they hit the water and vanished into the froth.
Silence rushed back in, broken only by the crash of waves on rock and the dull thud of my own heart in my ears. I was alone. Clothed. Upright. The coward on the cliff.
I inched forward, my sneakers scraping on the slick stone, and peered over. They surfaced, two heads bobbing in the turquoise pool. Julio whooped, the sound echoing off the cove walls. Marta was clinging to him, her arms around his neck, laughing, spitting water. She was saying something I couldn’t hear. He laughed back, his hands underwater on her body, holding her up, or just holding her.
I sat down, hard, on the sun-warmed rock. The heat didn’t reach me. I watched them. He swam, powerful strokes carrying him to a flat, submerged shelf of black rock. He hauled himself up, water sluicing down the dense muscles of his back and legs. He turned and reached down, pulling Marta up after him. She shimmered, water beading on her skin. They were both naked, exposed to the sky, to each other, to my gaze from above.
He sat on the rock, legs spread, king of his tiny, wet domain. The sun glinted off him. Marta knelt in the shallow water before him, her hands on his knees, saying something, her face upturned. He ran a hand through her wet hair, his fingers tightening just slightly, guiding her head. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a direction.
She went down, her head dipping below his waist, the water swirling around her shoulders.
A jolt, white-hot and nauseous, shot through my gut. I looked away, my face burning with a shame that had no name. I stared at my hands, at the textured limestone, at anything but the scene below. The roar of the sea was now a roar in my skull. Minutes stretched, thin and torturous.
A shout pulled my eyes back.
Julio was standing again, waving an arm. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey!”
My eyes met his across the vast gulf of air. He was smiling, but it wasn’t friendly.
“Your turn!” he yelled, his voice carrying clearly now. “Come on down!”
Marta surfaced beside him, wiping her mouth. She looked up, shielding her eyes. She didn’t call my name. She just watched.
Julio’s grin widened. He hooked a thumb towards the water. Then he pointed directly at me, his arm a commanding line. “Don’t just sit there. Get down here. Now.”
The command hung in the air. An order. My feet felt rooted to the stone. But a new, terrible current was pulling at me, one that had nothing to do with the cliff’s edge. It came from deep in my belly, a sick, gravitational pull toward that point on the rock below, toward the man who owned it.
He kept pointing, waiting.
I fumbled with the button on my jeans, my fingers numb and clumsy.
I fumbled with the button on my jeans, my fingers numb and clumsy. The zipper sounded violently loud. I pushed them down, along with my boxers, the fabric catching at my ankles. The wind felt alien on my skin, a shocking violation. I kicked the tangled clothes aside, standing there exposed and pale against the stone.
Julio’s approving whistle floated up, a sharp, two-note sound. “There he is!”
Marta didn’t whistle. She just watched, one hand resting on Julio’s hip, her head tilted. I couldn’t see her expression from this distance, only the tilt of her head. It was the same look she gave a menu before choosing an appetizer.
The walk to the edge was the longest of my life. Every pebble bit into my bare feet. The void yawned, sucking at me. My heart was a frantic bird in my throat. I saw the specific rocks below, the white water, the dark, deep blue where the pool dropped off.
“Just jump, for Christ’s sake!” Marta called, her voice edged with impatience. “You’re killing the vibe.”
Julio said nothing. He just waited, a statue of expectant muscle.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t leap. I stepped off.
The air was a cold, furious slap. It stole my breath, my thoughts, my identity. I was just falling meat. I hit the water feet-first, and the impact drove me deep, into a silent, green world of rushing bubbles. My ankles screamed. I kicked, frantic, disoriented, fighting toward the shattered light above.
I broke the surface gasping, water burning my sinuses. The cold was a visceral shock, tightening my skin and shriveling my flesh.
They were right there. On the shelf of rock.
Julio had settled back, reclining like a king. Marta was nestled between his legs, her back against his chest, his arms loosely circled around her. They were a portrait of conquest and contentment.
“Took you long enough,” Marta said. She reached over the edge of the rock and splashed a handful of water at me. It was a dismissive, playful gesture. It felt like a slap.
I paddled weakly, trying to keep my lower body submerged. “It’s high,” I mumbled, the excuse pathetic even to me.
“It’s a jump,” Julio corrected, his voice a low rumble. “You think about it, you’re finished. You just have to commit.” His hand stroked Marta’s arm absently. “Some people can’t.”
I tasted salt. Sea or shame, I couldn’t tell.
“Come here,” Julio said. It wasn’t an invitation.
I swam the few strokes to the rock. It was slippery, covered in green algae. I tried to pull myself up, but my arms were trembling. Julio watched my struggle, not offering a hand. Finally, I hauled myself onto the coarse surface, scraping my knee. I crouched, trying to cover myself, water pooling around me.
From this vantage, he was even more immense. Marta, curled against him, seemed to belong there. She looked at my hunched form, my arms crossed over my chest, and a faint, pitying smile touched her lips.
“Relax,” she said. “You look terrified.”
“He’s cold,” Julio said, a hint of mockery in his tone. “Aren’t you?”
I nodded, my teeth wanting to chatter.
“Sun’ll warm you up.” Julio shifted, and the movement was deliberate. Marta shifted with him, a practiced dance. He was fully, blatantly erect now, a thick, veined pillar resting against her lower back. She didn’t flinch. She pressed into it.
The world narrowed to that point of contact. The roar of the sea faded. My own breathing was too loud.
Julio’s eyes held mine. They were dark, challenging, amused. “Better?”
I couldn’t speak. I nodded again, a traitorous jerk of my head.
“Good.” He looked past me, out to the mouth of the cove where the open sea churned. “We should get back before the tide shifts. This spot gets tricky.”
He moved Marta aside, a gentle but firm displacement, and stood. He stretched, his body a masterpiece of tendon and power, then dove cleanly into the deep center of the pool. He surfaced far out, shaking his head like a dog.
Marta stood. She gave me one last, unreadable look—a mix of annoyance and something else, something like curiosity—then she followed him, her dive a slender, graceful arc.
I was left alone on the rock.
The imprint of their bodies was still warm in the sun-heated stone. I stared at it. The command to follow was silent now, but it echoed louder than Julio’s shout. It was in the sting of the scraped knee, the chill in my bones, the hollow pit in my stomach where my pride used to be.
I looked at the water where they swam together. I looked at the sheer cliff face, an impossible climb back to my crumpled clothes, my old life.
THE NARRATOR FOLLOWS THEM.
I slid off the rock. The water swallowed me, colder the second time. I began to swim, my strokes awkward and splashing, toward where they waited.