Note: This is a slow burn narrative that explores the depths of strained relationships, corruption, power dynamics, predatory lust, reluctance, humiliation, risk, prostitution, pregnancy risk, and more. While it subverts many tropes of the NTR genre, it simultaneously embraces them while adding more contour, nuance, and as much realism as possible to the narrative and its characters. Please observe the additional tags associated with this narrative series. If they are not appealing to you, it is completely understandable, however I would still challenge you to read on regardless of how you end up feeling about the story. Thank you, I truly appreciate any and all comments and ratings. Enjoy.
Alicia started in arabesque, flowing into a faultless pirouette. Still limber, but past the readiness necessary for competition, yet dutiful in her practice. Pride remained in her movements, the strength of her en pointe, the strain of her thighs and arms expressed a passion that was held long ago, smothered by time. The blinding lights of the studio cast long shadows of younger ballerinas, who moved with an elegance and balance that she herself once knew. After her set, she sat down and grasped the back of her neck, tension working through her, a prelude to exhaustion. She smiled softly at the younger women as she watched, envy buried behind her eyes as she stood and headed towards the front of the studio to decompress from her exertion..
It was in that studio, weekly, challenging herself with grace and focused study, where she found solace. A consistent reprieve and distance from the burdens of life. It was one of the few things she had for her, a nourishing form of expression that she cherished. She tapped into a deep calm, beginning her yoga with Tadasana. She let go, releasing, breath a steady rhythm, trying to bleed away the stresses of life with a cadence of focus and patience as she changed into different yoga stances. She closed her eyes as she tucked in her core, then relaxed. She shifted into Shavasana, and after some stillness mimicking the calm of death, the only thing that remained was the lights flush against her eyelids. She sat up, a resurrection of release. She crossed her legs, and drank from her tumbler, it's stern weight and coolness an elixir for her exertion. She knew this calm would not last, and would soon be disrupted by the inevitable deluge of texts from her husband, her son, co-workers, her sister, and her alcoholic father.
She would ignore it at first, making a vow to not check her phone or enable notifications until she was settled. Her focus was on wellness, on deliberate rituals. Take a warm bath, utilize her diffuser to concoct new fragrances for aromatherapy with chosen oils. To be an apothecary with vitamins, wellness shots, and supplements. Gifts from nature she saw unseen and unused by those around her. In the bathroom she let the lights of candles burn softly, let the wicks melt against swirling flames. She would meditate, manifest and partake in the space she cultivated, to absolutely no result.
All of her efforts fell to waste, a woeful pairing of anxiety and dread becoming skeins of persistent torture as she lifted her phone and saw endless communications. She checked her husband Brett's message first. It was thankfully, without drama.
"Hey, going to be late at the office. I have some additional drafts to complete. Stakeholders for that project I took on are getting antsy. Technical writer called out, so I'm pulling double. Love you."
Alicia scrolled through more notifications. A calendar notice. "Cruise next week." She forgot. They forgot. After being booked a year in advance, the stress and exhaustion of the months between, dulled any excitement and awareness for the vacation itself. She forwent dinner, and went to start packing early. Grabbing from their still under-furnished bedroom closet, a pink expandable set of luggage. In what felt like a lifetime ago, during her time in sales at a prestigious tech firm, she had bought the luxury set, thinking it would be something she would use endlessly. It was the first time in seven years she even pulled it out from the closet.
Yoga attire, midriffs, athleisure, flats, sandals, modest heels, a series of elegant dresses for dinner. She browsed her underwear drawer, packing functional underwear, and a lace and chain wireless bustier with garters, colored a robust dark blue, holding it against her olive skin, watching the careful contrast between. She held it in her hands, it too, never used. She packed it away, unsure if she would ever even feel comfortable enough to adorn herself with the fitted set in front of Brett.
She had been married to him for twenty one years. Meeting when they were just nineteen. He was charismatic, with an amazing sense of humor that made loving him easy. He was always overdressed, stylish, mostly diligent as a father to their son Noah, who was a beautiful but challenging accident that occurred a year after they started dating.
Brett was also loyal, at least physically. An office emotional affair two years ago ruined his peerless record, forcing a transfer, and an accompanying set of of rumors that spread among his former teammates, his absence only creating more conspiracies. He had in recent time, developed pronounced difficulties, taking care of himself, indulging far too much, he was heavier, still handsome but having lost his definition, and with it his confidence. He had grown looser with his spending and imbibing. Two things which had always reminded her of the worst times of their younger days.
There was no denying the awful disquiet that filled the space between them. Two years ago, their bedroom died. He began ruminating, begging, speaking of his desire for Alicia, and she felt the claustrophobic, suffocating notion of reconnecting with someone she had grown so distant from. After Noah left for college, both remained leading lives of quiet disconnect, mired in the same spaces. Rather than prolong the discomfort and continue their habit of either arguing or retreating to complete solitude, they started couples therapy, a measure which they struggled with.
What was divulged in tears and anguish was admittance, guilt, attempts at forgiveness, with the goal of intimacy and romance lying at the end of a phantasmal timeline. Suggestions of dating again, participating in each other's lives with greater focus, quality time spent, seemed plausible, yet there was little initiative from either of them. For as much as Brett wanted her, she seemed mired in anxiety, a herald of her changing needs, body, and desires. The trust she had for him eroded, and with it the confidence she had in their marriage.
She finished packing, proud of her inclusion of the lingerie, seeing it as a token of effort on her part. She withdrew Brett's luggage and started to pack what she could for him, wanting for her own sake, to try and ensure that their trip would occur smoothly. He didn't come home until she was already in bed, under the cool sheets she felt him kiss her lightly on her head, he took the far side of the bed leaving the center empty, a placeholder of space for what they hoped to have again.
She spoke, soft and weary, a large yawn delaying her high pitched voice. "We have the cruise next week. Monday. We, somehow forgot."
Brett sighed and threw his head back against the pillow. "Fuck. I can't believe it. I gotta put in for my PTO." The cruise wasn't a particularly expansive one, five days, to the Cayman Islands and Cozumel, three days at sea. What should have been an opportunity for relaxation already seemed like more trouble than it was worth., between planning, packing, and inevitable weekend overtime for Brett.
On Monday, they left their home outside Tampa, checked their bags, idled in security and waited in lines, an experience of things to come. Once they were called to board, they were surrounded by cruise line photographers, instructed to take photos at anytime to try and sell to them for exorbitant prices later. They smiled falsely, wearing already the most relaxed attire possible, not looking the part of the hokey luxury background they had to pose in front of. As they headed up the ramp, Brett noticed that Alicia in her most relaxed attire, a boxy midriff top draped over her narrow shoulders, with wide legged gray sweatpants and a messy bun, no makeup at all, looked experienced, alluring and exotic among the masses of pale college women that boarded the ship along with them.
Their luggage was nearly lost, their room barely prepared, they waited too long on a deck that was nothing more than a writhing mass of passengers. Shortly after disembarking, their luck realigned, they settled into the small room, in the bowels of the massive ship. They explored, idled, ate a mediocre lunch, not realizing that it would herald nearly their every experience on the ship. Their floor of the ship met with the assistant cruise director, Tania. As she stood in front of them in far too high heels, and far too low cut of a blouse, her thick Eastern European accent managed to wrest enough attention away from her attire and prominent, clownish augmentations. As she instructed the passengers regarding events and safety, Brett playfully nudged Alicia's elbow and spoke. "Geez, if I were her I'd sue my plastic surgeon."
Even though his volume was inappropriate, the smiles and chuckles of others who overheard made Alicia comfortable to partake giggling. As the first day at sea dragged on, Brett and Alicia examined every opportunity, every event, each one seeming more dull than the last. Between the panicked planning of the weekend, overtime, and general exhaustion, the appeal of most activities seemed like even more labor to them. Brett reexamined the list and spoke, mirth in his bright smile and blue eyes. "Hey, this sounds so weird, but, hey check it out there's a single mixer tonight." Alicia barely grinned. Going to find someone else?"
"No, babe, why don't we go and play pretend, like meeting again, you know? It would be kind of fun right? Like isn't that something that the therapist suggested?
"Fun? Come on."
She cocked her eyebrow up and went back to scrolling through her phone already terminally bored from the first day at sea. She sighed before speaking. "I really, really, and I cannot stress that enough, don't have an interest in that." He shook his head, "Babe we're supposed to try new things, remember?"
She groaned, and as she studied his kind face, she decided she would. If for anything deciding that her attempt wouldn't find her in the shackles of guilt later in their next couples session. She didn't overdress, she kept her appearance studied and modest, with an ankle length black romper with a lower neckline. They both removed their wedding rings and placed them on the dresser. As Brett rolled up the sleeves of his neatly tucked chambray shirt he raised an eyebrow in a playful fashion. "Oh, this is already pretty fucking sexy right now." She rolled her eyes and scoffed playfully. "We haven't even left the damn room!"
He laughed as he placed his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek. "So? I mean, we could be anybody right? On a cruise like this, we could you know, have a really sultry one night stand. Just two strangers meeting for the first time." She shook her head as they let the door close behind them, arriving far too early at the mixer, noticing they were almost the only ones there. Brett clicked his tongue. On her mission of compliance she made her way over to the mahogany bar, settling in on the comfortable leather stool as Brett began his earnest attempt at role playing. He took a deep breath, and made his way to approach her, for the "first" time, not realizing how intimidating the prospect would actually be, she was a fortune, that much he knew.
As he took a single step forward, a husky and tall sunburnt older man, poorly dressed in cheap vacation attire, bearded, disheveled, balding with long frazzled black hair, and reeking of stale cigars and scotch, sat next to her. Alicia looked over her shoulder to the older man and offered barely a glance before the man began speaking to her, his voice gruff and far too loud, his posture slouched, his focus that of deliberate aggression. "Name's Roy. Yours?"
He held his hand out, to which Alicia kindly refused and ordered her gin and tonic. She peered back over to Brett, begging him already to save her with wide pleading amber eyes. Brett made his way over to the stool down from her, biting his lip to hide how amusing he found her discomfort. Being an observer he wanted Alicia to mire in the discomfort for a bit, for experience, but also to show how lucky she was as well. Roy signaled the bartender by snapping loudly. "Put her tab on mine."
He handed the bartender his room card to scan as Alicia protested. "That's nice, but you don't have to do that. Thanks."
The bartender was confused, eyes darting back between them, slumping his shoulders in frustration he took Roy's card instead of hers, sliding her card back to her across the damp counter. She sighed loudly drowning out Roy as he spoke. "So, I saw your card, Alicia huh? Pretty name. I got a boat named that if you can believe it."
Brett ordered an old fashioned and laughed hard into the crook of his elbow as Alicia stared at a wall, bored and annoyed. Roy barely acknowledged Brett but passed a glance over him, observing his stature, demeanor, presence and aesthetics. He had already discerned that Brett was either interested in Alicia himself, or was already with her, either way it wouldn't phase him in the least. Roy took out his old phone and scrolled through dozens of photos, mostly all blurry, of times and places he'd never print out, simply stored as data like so many others have. He showed her the side of the luxury boat with the name "Alicia" on the side of it. "Beauty ain't she? Like you."
She smiled halfheartedly as she set her drink down. Doubting with all conviction that this man could possibly own that boat. She didn't care about ships. They were boring as her and Brett were painfully realizing. Roy's boat, if it was his, to her was a status symbol born of a disposable income. It was a symbol of a boorish obsession with beaches and water, a false freedom that was kitsch, hollow. Yet, the coincidence was of mild interest. Roy tapped his fingers on the bartop. 'Silent type huh?"
Alicia didn't respond this time, only catching the shimmer of his old Rolex, clad in gold with a scratched dial and numerous dents. It was as storied, and worn as he was. A true tool watch, meant to be used as intended instead of mere status and a collectors preservation.
Brett ordered another old-fashioned, unable to believe the persistence of the older man, finding it not only pathetic, but deeply humorous. Every annoyed expression of Alicia's was another moment of comedic delight for him. Roy ordered a cheap beer and downed it in nearly a single gulp, he spoke to Alicia again who was preparing to leave, even if it meant abandoning Brett. Their attempt at playful rekindling had already turned into an exhibition of embarrassment. Roy belched, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and spoke."I'm from Ocala, you a Floridian?"
Careful and not wanting to divulge any aspect of her life she spoke, plain and calm.
"Atlantic Coast."
"Nice. Yeah, I got two places out there, Palm Beach, rentals. Real nice."
She wriggled her shoulders slightly as she finish the cocktail expediently, too strong a pour burning down to her toes and clutching at her vision. Alicia stood, grabbing her clutch.
