Chapter 5: Boat Games
The party room was a convulsion of light and sound. Strobe lights fractured the crowd into jagged, moving pieces. The bass from the speakers vibrated up through the soles of Agatha’s shoes and into her bones. She stood near a high-top table, a watery soda in hand, watching Wanda attempt to teach the electric slide to a bewildered accountant from Nebraska.
“This is a circle of hell Dante was too polite to describe,” Agatha muttered to herself.
“The one reserved for people who brood in corners at parties, maybe.”
Rio appeared at her elbow, materializing out of the neon smoke like a phantom. She wore dark jeans and a thin, sleeveless shirt that showed the clean lines of her arms. She held two drinks. One looked like the same pink concoction Wanda loved. The other was clear, over ice.
“I’m not brooding. I’m conducting a sociological autopsy.”
“Right.” Rio pushed the clear drink toward her. “Vodka soda. Low sugar. Less tomorrow’s regret.”
Agatha eyed it with suspicion. “Your last gift had dental records.”
“And you kept it,” Rio said, a quick flash of triumph in her eyes. She’d seen Agatha tuck that specific ice cube into a napkin at the pool. “Until it melted, at least. So. You’re bored. I’m bored. Wanda is over there inventing new dance moves that may require physical therapy. Let’s play a game.”
“I don’t play games.”
“Everyone plays games. Yours are just more convoluted.” Rio reached into her back pocket and produced a deck of cards, still in its cellophane wrapper. She tore it open with her teeth, a surprisingly feral gesture. “Strip poker. Simple. Classic. Low cognitive load for the intoxicated.”
Agatha stared at the deck. The noise of the party seemed to recede, funneling down to the small, charged space between them. This was a blatant ploy. A juvenile, obvious line. It was also irresistible. A structured framework for the naked tension that had been humming between them since the observation lounge. A way to engage without the terrifying quiet.
“Fine,” Agatha said, her voice flat. “But we do it here. At this table. No retreat.”
Rio’s smirk was instantaneous. “Dealer’s choice?”
“Just deal.”
They commandeered a quieter booth in a shadowy corner of the lounge. Rio shuffled with a practised, fluid ease, the cards snapping together. The first few hands were taut, silent affairs. Agatha won the first, a pair of eights. Rio, without a hint of hesitation, pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a simple black lace bra. Her skin glowed in the shifting coloured lights. A few people glanced over, hooted. Rio ignored them, her eyes on Agatha.
Agatha won the second hand too. Rio unbuttoned her jeans, shoved them down over her hips, and stepped out of them. She stood in bra and black lace panties, leaned against the booth, and gestured for Agatha to deal again. Her posture was a challenge.
The third hand, Agatha had a king high. It was garbage. Rio laid down her cards—a pair of threes, weaker garbage. She’d lost. Again.
Agatha didn’t move. She watched Rio’s face, the subtle performance in it. The slight, too-visible downturn of the mouth, the not-quite-convincing sigh.
“You’re cheating,” Agatha stated, not accusingly, but as a forensic fact.
Rio blinked. “Losing isn’t cheating.”
“Losing bad hands on purpose is. You folded a straight draw two rounds ago. You’re throwing the game.” Agatha leaned forward, the plastic seat creaking. “You want to be naked. That’s the point. This isn’t a game of chance for you. It’s a very slow, very public striptease you’re forcing me to choreograph.”
Rio held her gaze, the smirk returning, wider now. Unashamed. “Is it working?”
Agatha felt a surge of pure, hot authority. The feeling was a familiar cloak, settling back onto her shoulders after days of disarray. Rio wasn’t fighting for control. She was begging to relinquish it, in the most annoying way possible.
“The game is over,” Agatha announced, sweeping the cards into a pile. “You’ve forfeited by being a terrible cheat.”
Rio pouted, a comedic, exaggerated gesture. “So I get to keep my underwear? That’s no fun.”
“We’re playing a new game. My game. The rules are simple: you do exactly what I say, without comment, for the next hour. You get a safe word. Do you want a safe word?”
Rio’s playfulness evaporated. Her breath hitched, just barely. She gave a single, sharp nod.
“Good. The word is ‘librarian.’ Pathetic, but you’ll remember it. The first instruction: we are leaving this room. You will put your clothes back on. You will walk, beside me, to your cabin. You will not speak.”
Agatha stood up, leaving her drink unfinished. She watched Rio move, the earlier ostentation gone, replaced by a swift, purposeful obedience. She dressed in silence. They walked out of the pulsating party room, the silence between them a palpable tunnel through the noise.
The corridor to the captain’s suites was wide, quiet, and plushly carpeted. Rio swiped her keycard and held the door open.
Her suite was not a cabin. It was an apartment. A wall of windows looked out onto the black, star-dusted ocean and a sliver of moonlit wake. A sitting area, a wet bar, a bedroom visible through an open door. It was sleek, minimalist, and ruinously expensive.
Agatha closed the main door. The lock engaged with a heavy thunk.
“Rule two,” Agatha said, not moving from the door. “Stand in the centre of the room. Take off your clothes. Fold them. Then kneel.”
Rio walked to the centre of the vast rug. Her back was to Agatha. She peeled off her shirt, her bra, her jeans, her panties. Each movement was economical, unhurried. She folded each item into a neat square, piling them on a leather armchair. Then she lowered herself to her knees, facing the windows, her hands resting on her thighs. The lines of her back, the curve of her spine, the pale glow of her skin in the ambient light—she looked like a sculpture. A sacrifice.
Agatha approached slowly. She circled Rio, taking in the faint yellowing bruise on her inner thigh, the tense set of her shoulders. She stopped in front of her, blocking the view of the ocean.
“Look at me.”
Rio lifted her head. Her auburn eyes were huge, dark, completely stripped of their usual snark. There was only raw, waiting anticipation.
“You wanted a performance,” Agatha said quietly. “You wanted to be forced. You are an exquisite manipulator, Rio. You rig every game so you lose. Because losing to me is what you really want.” She reached out, her fingers tracing the line of Rio’s jaw. “This is the problem with brats. They never know when to stop testing.”
“What are you going to do?” Rio’s voice was a husk.
“I’m going to give you exactly what you’ve been asking for.” Agatha’s hand moved to the back of Rio’s head, tangling in her hair. “You are going to get on that bed. On your back. You are going to put your hands on the headboard. And you are going to hold on. You are not to come until I say. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“The safe word?”
“Librarian.”
“Good.”
Agatha released her hair. Rio rose, moving to the large bed. She lay back against the dark sheets, her body a pale contrast. She reached up, her fingers wrapping around the wooden slats of the headboard. The position arched her back, lifted her chest, left her utterly exposed.
Agatha stood at the foot of the bed, watching. Letting the anticipation build. Letting Rio feel the weight of her own vulnerability. Then she crawled onto the bed, not between Rio’s legs, but up alongside her body. She leaned down and kissed her, deep and possessive. Her hand found Rio’s breast, pinching a nipple until Rio whimpered into her mouth.
“Quiet,” Agatha breathed.
She kissed down her neck, her sternum, her stomach. She avoided the heat between Rio’s thighs, tracing her hip bones with her tongue instead, nipping at the sensitive skin of her inner thighs, just beside the bruise. Rio trembled, a fine, constant vibration. A soft, helpless sound escaped her clamped lips.
“I said, quiet.”
Agatha finally moved. She didn’t use her hands. She settled her weight between Rio’s thighs, lowered her head, and simply tasted her. A long, slow, flat stroke of her tongue from bottom to top.
Rio gasped, her knuckles white on the headboard. “Fuck.”
Agatha did it again, and again, establishing a lazy, maddening rhythm. She licked into her, savouring the clean, sharp flavour, then circled her clit with a teasing lightness that made Rio’s hips jerk. Agatha pressed a hand firmly down on Rio’s abdomen, pinning her.
“You move when I tell you to move.” She went back to work, this time with more focus. She wrapped her lips around Rio’s clit and sucked, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. She fucked her with her tongue, deep and slow, then shallow and fast. She listened to the hitches in Rio’s breath, the broken, stifled curses.
Rio was shaking, sweat sheening her skin. “Agatha… please…”
“Please what?”
“Let me… I need to…”
“You need to come.”
“Yes. God, yes.”
Agatha lifted her head. Her chin was wet. “No.”
She shifted her body upwards, sliding up Rio’s torso until their faces were level. Then, in a single, fluid motion, she turned and straddled Rio’s face, settling her cunt directly over her mouth. She looked down over her own shoulder, at Rio’s wide, surprised eyes.
“You like to watch,” Agatha said, her voice thick. “So watch. And earn it.”
She lowered herself onto Rio’s mouth.
Rio’s tongue met her in a desperate, hungry lunge. There was no finesse now, only a starving, muffled fervor. Agatha rocked forward, grinding herself against Rio’s face, using her for her own pleasure. The sensation was intense, overwhelming—the hot slide of Rio’s tongue, the soft pressure of her lips, the complete debasement of the act. Agatha fucked her own climax closer, her movements becoming more frantic, less controlled.
She could feel Rio’s own desperate rutting against the air beneath her, feel the ragged, hot breaths against her thighs. She reached a hand back, her fingers finding Rio’s soaked cunt. She plunged two fingers inside, curling them, matching the rhythm of her own hips.
“Come for me,” Agatha commanded, her voice guttural, strained. “Now.”
The vibrations of Rio’s groaned, wordless climax against her most sensitive flesh pushed Agatha over the edge. Her own orgasm ripped through her, a silent, blinding seizure that locked her muscles and stole the air from her lungs. She ground down hard, milking the waves of pleasure, feeling Rio’s own flutters and convulsions around her fingers.
When the last tremor faded, Agatha collapsed to the side, rolling off onto the cool sheets. They lay side by side, panting, the only sound their ragged breaths and the distant hum of the ship.
After a long time, Rio turned her head. Her face was a messy, beautiful ruin. “You win,” she whispered, hoarsely.
Agatha stared at the ceiling. The taste of Rio was still on her lips, her scent on Agatha’s skin. The control she had wielded felt hollow, a performance she herself had been desperately performing.
“No one wins,” Agatha said finally. The statement hung in the dark room. “The cruise ends in 90 hours. That’s the only rule that matters.”
The silence after her words felt heavier than the ocean outside. It was a vacuum, pulling at the exposed nerves between them. Rio didn’t argue. She just watched the ceiling, her breath evening out, the slick proof of their coupling cooling on their skin.
Agatha became aware of the sheer, ridiculous luxury of the room. The silent climate control, the absurd square footage. “Your suite is obscene.”
“I like space.” Rio’s voice was scratchy. “And quiet.”
“You could have bought the cruise line and canceled it.”
“I considered it.” Rio turned onto her side, propping her head on a hand. The morning light from the porthole would find the marks Agatha’s teeth had left on her shoulder. “Then I wouldn’t have met you.”
Agatha scoffed, but it lacked venom. She felt unmoored, naked in a way the physical act hadn’t achieved. She swung her legs off the bed, her back to Rio. The carpet was dense and soft under her feet. “I need a shower.”
“Through there.”
The bathroom was a monument to marble. Agatha turned the water as hot as she could stand, stepping under the torrent before it steamed. She scrubbed at her skin, but the scent of Rio, of sex, seemed embedded. It was in her nostrils, on her tongue. She braced her hands against the wet tile, letting the water pound her neck.
The glass door slid open. Rio stepped in, wordless, her skin pebbling in the cooler air. She didn’t try to touch. She just took the soap from Agatha’s still hand.
“Let me.”
It wasn’t a question. Agatha nodded, a tight little jerk of her chin. Rio’s hands were efficient, gentle. She soaped Agatha’s back, her arms, working the lather over the planes of her stomach. The care in it was devastating. Agatha stood rigid, her eyes closed, water streaming down her face.
Rio’s hands slid lower, between her legs, washing her with a clinical thoroughness that was more intimate than anything they’d done. Agatha’s knees felt weak.
“I’m not a thing you can fix,” Agatha said, her voice muffled by the water.
“I know.” Rio’s lips brushed her wet shoulder blade. “I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to remember you.”
They dressed in silence, the previous night's clothes hanging awkwardly on them. Agatha’s black cover-up felt like a costume. Rio pulled on a fresh t-shirt and sweatpants, her hair dripping onto the fabric.
A frantic knocking shattered the quiet. It was followed by Wanda’s voice, pitched high with worry. “Agatha? Are you in there? Your cabin’s empty! I’ve been looking everywhere!”
Agatha closed her eyes. The real world, with its relentless, clumsy concern, had found its way in.
Rio opened the door. Wanda stood there, her face a mask of morning-after panic that melted into stunned confusion. Her eyes darted from Rio’s damp hair to Agatha, standing stiffly by the bed.
“Oh,” Wanda said. Then, “Oh.” Her expression cycled through surprise, delight, and dawning protectiveness. “You’re… here.”
“Astute observation,” Agatha said, walking toward the door. “I was just leaving.”
Rio’s hand shot out, not grabbing, but resting lightly on Agatha’s wrist. A public plea. “Stay for coffee.”
“I need to go.” Agatha pulled her wrist away. The touch burned. She looked at Wanda. “Let’s go.”
The walk back to their standard cabin was agony. Wanda buzzed with unasked questions, her silence louder than any interrogation.
Once inside, she exploded. “That was her? The ice cube psycho? Agatha, she has a captain’s suite! Do you know what those cost? And you… you spent the night? Was it… are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Agatha sat on her neatly made bed, the antithesis of Rio’s rumpled sheets.
“You don’t look fine. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. A really hot, rich ghost.”
“Wanda, please.” Agatha pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “It’s nothing. A cruise fling. It ends when we dock. That’s the point of all this, isn’t it? Forced frivolity?”
Wanda sat beside her, her energy softening. “You like her.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It always matters.” Wanda sighed. “There’s a disembarkation lecture in the main theatre. Mandatory. We have to go.”
The theatre was a cavern of burgundy velvet and low light. A crew member droned on about luggage tags and customs forms. Agatha sank into her seat, letting the meaningless information wash over her. Ninety hours. The words echoed in her skull.
She felt a gaze like a physical touch. From the upper balcony, leaning against the railing, Rio watched her. She held a paper coffee cup, her expression unreadable across the distance. Agatha’s breath caught. Rio didn’t smile. She just watched, a silent, persistent presence in the shadows.
Agatha looked away, her face hot. The man on stage discussed valet baggage service.
When she glanced back, Rio was gone. A folded piece of paper lay on the empty seat next to Agatha. Her heart hammered. She snatched it up, unfolded it under the cover of the seat in front of her.
It was a detailed, technical schematic, hand-drawn in precise, sharp lines. Not of a ship or a circuit. It was a drawing of the observation lounge sofa from their first encounter. The dimensions were noted, the angles of the windows. In the center of the sketch, two simple figures were outlined. A smaller one straddling a taller one. Arrows indicated force, movement, connection. At the bottom, a single line of text was written in the same neat script: System architecture for optimal memory allocation. Currently at 98% capacity.
It was a blueprint of what they’d done. A clinical, obsessive map of their intimacy. Agatha’s hands trembled. It was the most romantic and the most insane thing she’d ever received.
She crumpled the paper in her fist. Then, carefully, she smoothed it out again and tucked it into her pocket.
The day passed in a blur of forced normalcy. Lunch. A trinket shopping excursion with Wanda. A pathetic attempt at reading by the pool. Everywhere, Agatha felt the ghost of Rio’s presence. The pool chair where she’d first pressed that damned drink into her hand. The hallway to the suites. The silence was a trap, and her own mind was the cage.
That night, the ship’s restaurant felt stifling. Agatha pushed her food around her plate. Wanda chattered about a zumba class.
“I need air,” Agatha interrupted, standing abruptly.
She didn’t go to the deck. Her feet, traitorous and sure, carried her back to the forward observation lounge. It was empty, just as before. The wake glimmered in the moonlight.
She wasn’t alone for long.
Rio entered silently, holding two glasses of whiskey. She placed one on the wide arm of the sofa, then sat a careful distance away. She didn’t look at Agatha, just out at the water.
“I’m not an experiment,” Agatha said, her voice raw.
“I know.”
“Your schematic was deranged.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t do relationships.”
Rio finally turned her head. Her eyes were frank, weary. “I’m not asking for a relationship. I’m asking for the next eighty-two hours. All of them. No games. No safe words. Just… the time that’s left.”
Agatha picked up the whiskey, drank half in one swallow. The fire in her chest was a welcome pain. “Why?”
“Because when I’m with you, I’m not in my head. And I live in my head. It’s a very large, very quiet, and very lonely place.” Rio’s confession was quiet, stripped bare. “You’re the only outage the system has ever enjoyed.”
Agatha finished the whiskey. She placed the glass down with a decisive click. Then she moved. She climbed into Rio’s lap, straddling her, facing her. She cradled Rio’s face in her hands, forcing her to hold her gaze.
“Okay,” Agatha breathed, the word a surrender and a conquest. “Eighty-two hours.”
She kissed her. It was different. Not a battle, not a performance. It was a deep, aching convergence. Rio’s hands came up, gripping Agatha’s hips, holding her close like something precious and liable to break.
When they broke apart, foreheads resting together, Rio whispered, “My cabin?”
“No.” Agatha stood, pulling Rio up by her hand. “Mine. I want you in my small, un-obscene bed. I want you to smell the cheap shampoo I use. I want Wanda’s stupid floral sleep mask on the pillow next to your head.”
A real, unguarded smile broke over Rio’s face. It transformed her. “That might be the kinkiest thing you’ve said yet.”
Agatha’s cabin was dark, Wanda still out at some show. The tiny room felt charged, intimate. Agatha locked the door. She pushed Rio onto her narrow bed, following her down into the dimness illuminated only by the digital clock: 10:17 PM.
There was no patience left. Agatha wrestled Rio’s shirt off, her mouth latching onto a nipple, sucking hard. Rio cried out, her back arching. Her hands fumbled with Agatha’s clothes, pushing fabric aside until skin met skin. The cheap sheets rasped against Agatha’s knees as she positioned herself.
“I need to feel you,” Rio gasped, her voice ragged. “All of you. Now.”
Agatha reached for her own suitcase, fumbling in an inner pocket. Her fingers closed around a smooth silicone shape. A simple, bullet-shaped vibrator. She held it up, the green power light glowing faintly in the dark.
“You first,” Agatha said, her tone leaving no argument. She kissed Rio’s stomach, then lower, her tongue delving through coarse curls. Rio’s hips bucked. Agatha held her down, licking and sucking until Rio was a writhing, gasping mess.
Then Agatha flicked the vibrator on. The low buzz filled the small space. She ran it over Rio’s inner thighs, around her aching clit, but not on it. Rio whined, a high, desperate sound.
“Please, Agatha. Fuck, please.”
Agatha pressed the buzzing head against her. Rio’s whole body seized. Agatha moved it in slow, torturous circles, watching Rio’s face contort in the dim light. She slid a finger inside her, then another, fucking her in time with the vibrations.
“Come,” Agatha ordered, her own need a tight coil in her gut.
Rio’s orgasm slammed into her, silent and violent. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream, her body clamping around Agatha’s fingers in rhythmic pulses. Agatha held the vibrator against her until she was oversensitive, twitching away.
Before Rio could recover, Agatha moved. She turned the vibrator on high and pressed it into Rio’s hand. “My turn.”
Understanding flashed in Rio’s hazy eyes. She took the device, her grip sure. Agatha straddled her face again, but this time, she lowered herself slowly, feeding herself into Rio’s waiting mouth. At the same time, Rio brought the buzzing vibrator up, pressing it firmly against Agatha’s clit from below.
The dual sensation was unreal. The hot, wet pull of Rio’s tongue inside her, and the intense, electric buzz on her most sensitive nerve. Agatha’s composure shattered. She rode Rio’s face in earnest, her movements becoming jerky, primal.
“Yeah, just like that,” Agatha groaned, one hand fisted in Rio’s hair. “Don’t you fucking stop.”
The orgasm built like a tidal wave, sudden and overwhelming. It tore through her with a force that blurred her vision. She ground down, shuddering, a raw, guttural cry ripped from her throat as she came against Rio’s mouth, the vibrations milking every last spasm.
She collapsed to the side, spent. Rio set the vibrator aside and curled into her, their bodies fitting together in the small bed, skin slick with sweat. The digital clock shifted to 10:43 PM.
Eighty-one hours and seventeen minutes left.
Wanda would be back soon. The world would intrude. But for now, in the dark, with Rio’s breath warm on her neck and the taste of them both lingering, the rule about endings felt very, very fragile.