The retreat was in Tulum, a collection of tents on a beach where the jungle met the ocean and the mornings smelled like salt and incense. I’d been sent there by my husband — Richard, always generous, always oblivious — as a “birthday gift.” A week of yoga, meditation, and “finding yourself.” He’d stayed in the main tent. I’d been assigned a private cabana. And Sloane had been assigned as my personal guide.
Sloane was twenty-nine. A yoga teacher who’d grown up on this beach, who could hold a handstand for ten minutes, who had a body that looked like it had been carved by the tide. She wore black one-piece swimsuits that showed her back muscles and had a habit of “adjusting” my poses with a hands-on approach that was either spiritual or completely sinful.
Tonight — this morning — was day three. The retreat group was supposed to meet at 7 AM for sun salutations. I’d woken at 5:30, unable to sleep, and had walked to the water’s edge to practice alone. Sloane had found me there.
“Your husband is in the main tent,” I whispered, standing in warrior pose on the wet sand, my sarong clinging to my legs, my white bikini top soaked through from the spray. Sloane was standing behind me, her hands on my hips, her body pressed against my back. “The tide is coming in. The retreat group wakes up in twenty minutes. Richard snores. He’ll sleep until 8. But the others — the other couples, the other women — they’ll wake up. They’ll walk out of their tents. And your hands are on my hips in a pose I never requested. You’re supposed to be teaching sun salutations. Not pressing against me from behind. Not sliding your hands under my sarong. Not—”
Sloane didn’t speak. She just leaned in from behind, her cheek brushing my wet shoulder, her hands sliding from my hips to my stomach, then lower, under the edge of my sarong, finding me wet and ready and completely exposed to the sunrise.
“If the retreat group wakes up,” I breathed, my voice trembling as the waves washed over my feet, turning the sand into something that shifted beneath me, “they’ll see the guide kissing the married guest in the surf. They’ll see your one-piece open and your mouth on my neck and the sun rising on two women who are supposed to be doing yoga. They’ll see that I’m not in warrior pose. I’m just standing here while you—”
She turned my face toward her with a hand on my jaw. Her mouth found mine. A kiss that tasted like ocean and sunrise and the exact moment when a wave breaks and you can’t tell which way is up. Her tongue slid against mine, her hand sliding deeper inside my sarong, her thumb finding my clit with a pressure that made my knees buckle into the wet sand.
The main tent flap opened.
“Hello?” A voice. Sarah. One of the other guests. An early riser. “Is that the yoga group? Are we starting early?”
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 in the golden light.
“Just a private session, Sarah!” Sloane called out, her voice perfectly serene, completely at odds with the fingers that were currently making me arch into the surf. “We’ll join the group at 7!”
“Okay! The coffee is ready!”
The tent flap closed. Sloane looked at me. The sun was fully above the horizon now, turning everything gold and holy and completely profane.
“The morning flow starts now,” she whispered against my mouth, her thumb circling my clit, her fingers pressing deeper, finding a rhythm that matched the waves. “And I’m not letting you go until the tide goes out. Until you’re completely washed away. Until there’s nothing left of you but sand and salt and my name.”
She made me come in the surf. My sarong pushed aside, her mouth on my breast, the waves washing over our feet, the sun rising behind us like a witness. I came with her hand over my mouth, my cry swallowed by the ocean, my body shaking so hard that I fell into her arms and she caught me before I hit the water.
After, she wrapped me in her towel. Kissed my forehead.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
I stayed at the retreat for the full week. Richard did yoga. He meditated. He “found himself.” And every morning at 5:30, I met Sloane at the water’s edge and she showed me exactly what “morning flow” means.
The tide went out. The tide came in. And I never went back to Richard.
Sloane and I run the retreat now. We teach yoga at sunrise. And every morning, when the first guest walks out of their tent, they find us in warrior pose — together, on the wet sand, with the ocean at our feet and the sun rising behind us.
Richard still comes back every year. He says it’s his favorite retreat. He has no idea that the woman who runs it is the same one who ruined his marriage on the beach at dawn.
We don’t tell him. We just smile. And adjust his warrior pose. Gently. Firmly. Completely.
