The building was a glass tower in Manhattan, the kind with a rooftop infinity pool that jutted out over the street like a diving board and cost more per month than most people made in a year. My husband — Richard, successful, completely oblivious — owned the building. He’d thrown a party on the rooftop bar tonight. I’d slipped away to the pool.
Sloane was the pool attendant. Twenty-six. She worked the night shift, checking towels, enforcing rules, looking at me across the water with an expression that made me forget how to swim.
Tonight was the party. Richard was at the bar, schmoozing investors. The pool was supposed to be closed. But Sloane had unlocked it for me — “Mrs. Voss should have a swim,” she’d said, handing me a towel. “The water is perfect.”
I’d changed into my white bikini. I’d stepped to the glass edge. And Sloane had stepped into the water behind me.
“My husband is at the rooftop bar,” I whispered, standing at the infinity edge, the city lights below us like a constellation, the glass showing the street fifty stories down. The water was warm, blue, completely transparent. “The pool closes in ten minutes. Security does rounds at 11. And your hand is on my waist under the water where no one can see. You’re supposed to be handing me a towel. Not touching me. Not sliding your palm over my stomach. Not pressing against my back where the glass meets the sky—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in from behind, her cheek brushing my wet shoulder, her hand sliding from my waist to my stomach, then lower, under the edge of my bikini, finding me wet and ready and completely suspended above the city.
“If security does their rounds,” I breathed, my voice trembling as her fingers traced me under the water, “they’ll see the pool attendant with her hands inside the boss’s wife’s bikini. They’ll see your mouth on my neck and the glass edge showing everything to the street below and the blue water turning everything into a dream and they’ll know that this isn’t a swim. This isn’t a party break. This is—”
She turned my face toward her with a wet hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like chlorine and altitude and the exact moment when an infinity pool becomes a place with no escape. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding deeper inside my bikini, her thumb circling my clit with a precision that made my knees buckle against the glass.
The rooftop door opened.
A security flashlight swept across the pool — a beam of white light cutting through the blue water, illuminating us, exposing us.
“Hello?” Security’s voice. Male. Bored. Completely unaware. “Pool’s closed. Anyone in there?”
Sloane didn’t pull away. She just pressed her other hand over my mouth, her fingers still moving inside me, her eyes locked on mine.
“The deep end starts now,” she whispered against my ear, her fingers pressing deeper, her thumb circling faster, the city lights blinking below us like witnesses. “And I’m not letting you surface until you come. So hold your breath. Be still. And let the water hide what I’m doing to you.”
She made me come at the glass edge. Her fingers inside me, her mouth on my breast, the security light sweeping over us again and again while she worked me with a rhythm that matched the water. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the pool, my body shaking so hard the water rippled against the glass.
“All clear!” the guard called out. “Must have been the wind.”
After, Sloane helped me out. Wrapped me in a towel.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I still go to that pool. Richard still throws parties. And every night, when the bar is loud and the investors are drunk, I slip away to the glass edge and Sloane shows me exactly what infinity means. She says my stroke has improved. She says I no longer fear the deep end.
She’s right. I don’t fear it. I crave it. And the only thing deeper than that pool is the fall I take every time she touches me.
