What I Did With That Group on the Cruise

Beatriz was fifty-eight, ran a publishing group that ran itself, and had a blank calendar for the first time in three decades. The sabbatical year was a decision she had put off until her doctor, with the bluntness only good friends have, told her that the pressure she was carrying would kill her before any financial debt did. She signed the powers of attorney on a Tuesday afternoon and bought the ticket to Cologne on Wednesday morning.

She had found the cruise brochure by chance in a clinic waiting room: seven nights along the Rhine, “experiences for open-minded adults,” a ship limited to twenty-two passengers. The language was discreet, almost bland. But the third time she reread it she understood exactly what it offered: sex. Sex between strangers, group sex, sex without the courtesies of everyday life. And that word, which she had gone years without saying aloud except in thought, soaked her cunt right there, sitting in the waiting room with a magazine on her lap.

She boarded in Cologne on a cool May evening, with a suitcase too small for what she had brought and too large for what she needed. The ship was called Madeleine and had four decks, cabins with wide picture windows over the water, and a bow terrace that at night became the best lookout over the river. Her suite was simple but well thought out: a bed with a firm mattress, a rain shower, a desk she never used.

At the welcome dinner, the dining room smelled of Alsatian wine and the white flowers someone had placed on every table. Beatriz chose a seat near the window and asked for water while she watched the other passengers arrive.

Cyrus arrived last, with the calculated punctuality of someone who knows a late entrance says more than ten minutes of conversation. He was Persian, forty-four, with black hair streaked with gray and the kind of gaze that does not let go of what it looks at. He was traveling as a cultural guide: every stop would have a guided visit, every night a brief lecture on the fluvial heritage of Central Europe. But something in the way he sat, the way he tilted his head when he listened, suggested his interests were not limited to art history.

“Is this your first cruise of this kind?” he asked without introducing himself yet, as if the question alone were enough of an introduction.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘of this kind,’” Beatriz replied.

Cyrus smiled slightly.

“You’ll answer me by the end of the week.”

***

Monika and Rafael had been together eleven years and traveling this way for five. She was Swiss, fifty-three, with that Alpine pragmatism that turns any conversation direct and to the point. He was from Bilbao, forty-nine, a physiotherapist by profession and, according to Monika, “the most curious man in the world.” They had sat across from Beatriz at dinner and within ten minutes already knew where she had studied, what kind of novels she preferred, and why she wore her hair cut so short.

“It suits you,” Monika said. “Most women take years to dare.”

“I took fifty-six,” Beatriz admitted.

Gordon was English, sixty-one, widowed for three years. A retired architect, he spoke surprisingly good Spanish for someone who had never lived in a Spanish-speaking country. He had large hands, accustomed to blueprints, and the habit of listening with his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed, as if he processed words before crediting them.

Claudine was French and wore silence like a second skin. Fifty-six, a businesswoman from Lyon, she traveled alone with the same ease others travel with family. When she spoke, she did so little and well.

Andrea and Marco closed out the group. Italians, she forty-seven, he fifty-one. They had been doing this for fifteen years and it showed: not in any kind of arrogance, but in the ease with which they put people at ease. Andrea laughed easily. Marco had patience.

Dinner lasted three hours. The Rhine passed black and wide beyond the glass.

***

The next day they visited Cologne Cathedral at dawn, before it opened to mass tourism. Cyrus spoke of the flying buttresses, of the modern stained-glass windows covering an entire side nave, of how the building survived the bombings intact because the Allies used it as an aerial reference point for flight routes. He was good at explaining things, good at choosing what to tell and what to leave out.

Back on the ship, while they ate breakfast on deck with the Rhine moving slowly below, Monika sat down beside her without asking permission.

“Do you know how to give massages?” she asked directly.

“Not especially,” Beatriz admitted.

“Rafael does. If you ever feel like it, tell him. That’s his way of getting to know people. He starts with the feet and, if you let him keep going, he ends up with his fingers inside your cunt. He’s very good.”

Beatriz did not answer, but she did not look away either. She understood exactly what they were offering, and she felt the hot little sting between her legs.

That afternoon, the ship sailed downstream while the passengers used the spa or the reading room. Beatriz chose the upper-deck jacuzzi. The water was hot and the landscape changed every ten minutes: vineyards on the cliffs, medieval castles on the hills, slow barges passing loaded with goods against the current.

Claudine was already in the jacuzzi when she arrived.

“Do you mind?” Beatriz asked.

“Quite the opposite,” Claudine said.

They stayed silent for nearly half an hour. It was not an awkward silence: it was the kind that exists between people who do not need to prove anything. At one point, underwater, Claudine’s bare foot brushed Beatriz’s calf and kept moving slowly up the inside of her thigh. It did not reach her cunt, but it stayed close long enough for Beatriz to understand it was no accident. Beatriz parted her legs a finger’s width. Claudine smiled without turning her head.

When Beatriz got out of the water, Claudine handed her the towel without being asked.

“There’s an evening gathering on the bow terrace tonight,” she said. “The ship anchors in Andernach. It’s nice up there.”

Beatriz looked at her. The sentence carried extra weight.

“Are you going?” she asked.

“Always,” Claudine replied. “And tonight I plan to fuck until I can’t stand. I hope you do too.”

***

The bow terrace was a rectangular space with side tarps that could be lowered for privacy when the ship was anchored. Someone had put thick cushions on the loungers and warm electric candlelight around the area. The Rhine lay still. In the distance, Andernach’s lights blinked on the dark water.

They arrived one by one, without anyone explicitly organizing it. Cyrus brought German wine from the Moselle. Gordon brought cheese from a market in Cologne. Andrea lit incense that smelled of dark woods and sandalwood.

The conversation started as it always does: travel anecdotes, comparisons between cities, differences between the Rhine and the Danube according to those who had done both. But as the wine level dropped in the bottles, the words changed weight. The sentences shortened. Gestures began to complete what was left unsaid.

It was Monika who said out loud what everyone was already thinking in silence.

“Does anyone feel like making this into something else? I’ve been wet for two hours. And I’m not the only one.”

No one answered at once. No one stood up. The question hung over the water like a proposal with no urgency.

Cyrus put a hand on Beatriz’s thigh with gentle pressure. She felt the warmth of that hand through the fabric of her trousers, and then the fingers moving higher until his thumb brushed, just barely, the bulge of her pubis.

“What do you say?” he asked softly. “Do you let yourself get fucked tonight?”

Beatriz thought that in fifty-eight years she had made more decisions than she could remember: companies, contracts, lawsuits, divorces. This one was different because no one needed her for it. It was hers alone.

“I say yes,” she replied. “All night.”

***

What happened on that terrace did not have the rhythm of a film. It was slower at first, more real: the initial awkwardness of two bodies that do not know each other, the adjustment, the pause to breathe. And then it stopped being slow.

Cyrus kissed her first. His mouth was firm and he had the habit of placing one hand at the base of her neck, not squeezing, just marking that he was there. With the other hand he undid the buttons of her blouse from top to bottom, never stopping kissing her, and he lifted her breasts out of her bra with an open palm, weighing them.

“You’ve got such good tits, fuck,” he murmured against her mouth.

Beatriz realized it was the first time in a long time someone had touched her with that kind of real attention: without hurry, without an agenda. Hearing the word tits from him with that hunger made her clamp her thighs together.

Monika came up behind her and took off her cardigan with precise movements. Her hands had the temperature of someone who knows exactly what she is doing. She ran her palms over Beatriz’s shoulders, loosening the built-up tension, and moved forward to bring Beatriz’s hands together with Cyrus’s over her breasts. She pinched both nipples at once, one with each hand, and twisted them slowly until Beatriz moaned.

“Relax,” Monika said near her ear. “Your shoulders are like stone. And your nipples are already asking for a mouth.”

“Then suck them,” Beatriz murmured, surprised by her own voice.

Monika turned her slightly and lowered her head. She licked Beatriz’s left nipple with a flat tongue, then bit it softly, then sucked hard. Beatriz felt a direct tug to her cunt, as if an invisible thread ran from the nipple to the clitoris and Monika was pulling it on purpose.

Rafael sat in front of her and started with her feet. It was exactly what Monika had said: his way of getting to know people. His thumbs traced the arch of her sole, moved up her calves with steady pressure, found knots Beatriz had not known she had. The pain was soft, almost pleasurable. He unbuttoned her trousers, pulled them down along with her panties, and kept moving his hands up her thighs, unhurried, until he had opened her legs all the way and was looking at her exposed cunt with the calm of someone studying a floor plan.

“You’re soaked,” he said, and sank two fingers all the way in.

Beatriz arched her back. Rafael’s fingers were thick, precise, and knew exactly where to curve. He moved them in a slow rhythm, seeking that inner spot no one had found for years, and when he found it Beatriz clenched her teeth to keep from screaming.

“There,” she gasped. “There, fuck, don’t stop.”

Rafael did not stop. He lowered his mouth at the same time and ran his tongue over her clitoris with the tip, very slowly, while his fingers stayed inside. The combination was brutal. Beatriz grabbed Rafael’s hair with one hand and Monika’s nape with the other, refusing either sensation.

Cyrus had gotten to his feet and was unbuttoning his trousers. When he pulled them down, Beatriz saw the hard cock, thick, slightly curved upward, the tip already shining. She reached out and took it in her hand without asking permission, bringing it to her mouth from the twisted angle she was lying in. She sucked it from base to tip, her tongue wrapped around it, tasting the salty pre-cum leaking out.

“That’s it, that’s it,” Cyrus murmured, one hand at the back of her neck setting the pace. “Take it all, my love, you’ve got such a good whore’s mouth.”

Beatriz moaned around his cock. The word made her cunt clench around Rafael’s fingers, and he felt the spasm and smiled without lifting his head.

Gordon had sat down beside Claudine at the other end of the terrace and was no longer processing anything: he had lifted Claudine’s skirt to her waist and was eating her pussy with hunger, gripping her thighs, while she held his head with both hands and moaned in French things that sounded like orders. Andrea and Marco were already completely naked, she astride him on a lounger, riding him slowly, her breasts swinging over Marco’s face as he bit her nipples one after the other.

***

Beatriz would not remember exactly when there was no longer any clothing left on the cushions. The coolness of the Rhine at that hour made bodies seek heat in each other, and that heat had its own logic.

What she would remember was the moment Cyrus pulled his cock from her mouth, laid her back on the cushions, and spread her legs all the way, with her knees bent against her chest, leaving her cunt and ass exposed to the candlelight.

“Good like this?” he asked, with his cock resting at the entrance, already slick with her wetness.

“Fuck me,” Beatriz said. “All the way. Now.”

Cyrus thrust in at once. Beatriz felt him opening her, felt the head brush her cervix, felt her whole body settle around that fullness she had not felt in years. He held still for a second, letting her breathe, and then he started fucking her with long, rhythmic strokes that made her tits bounce and pulled a moan from her with every thrust.

She clutched his hips with both hands and set the rhythm from below, pushing against him. That was exactly what she wanted: not to be taken. To fuck as equals.

“Like that,” she said through clenched teeth. “Harder. Break me.”

Cyrus obeyed. He grabbed her legs behind the knees and opened them wider, resting them against his shoulders, and began to drive into her with all his hip. The sound of bodies colliding filled the terrace, mixed with Beatriz’s moans, Claudine’s gasps in the background, the wet rhythm of Rafael’s mouth now sucking Beatriz’s clitoris while Cyrus penetrated her, the tongue working her hood with his cock entering and leaving two inches from her nose.

Claudine came over, still with Gordon behind her. She crouched over Beatriz’s face, shaved cunt gleaming, and descended without asking. Beatriz stuck out her tongue and licked Claudine’s slit from bottom to top, finding the swollen clitoris. She sucked it the way she wanted to be sucked herself, without gentleness, sliding her tongue inside and returning to the hood to pull. Claudine moaned above her and pressed her face harder against Beatriz’s cunt.

“Yes, baby, eat me,” she gasped. “Eat it all.”

Monika had knelt beside her and was sucking her breasts alternately, one nipple then the other, biting them, spitting saliva on them and sucking them again. She ran a free hand over Beatriz’s belly and sought out her clitoris, competing with Rafael’s tongue, two fingers rubbing it in quick circles while Cyrus kept fucking her with deeper and deeper thrusts.

Beside her, Gordon had gotten behind Claudine and shoved his cock into her from behind while she remained seated on Beatriz’s face. Beatriz felt Claudine’s body lurch forward with every thrust from Gordon, and how that pressed her cunt even harder against her mouth. She ate her with more hunger.

Marco had come too. He knelt beside Beatriz and offered his cock, thick and veined, aiming it at her cheek. Beatriz turned her head for half a second and took it into her mouth, sucking one side while Claudine came on her face on the other. Andrea was behind Marco, pressed against his back, kissing his neck and masturbating with her free hand.

Beatriz’s orgasm came in waves. The first was with Cyrus’s cock inside her and Monika’s fingers on her clitoris: a shock that shot up her legs and tightened her cunt in rhythmic spasms Cyrus felt and used to fuck her faster. She did not have time to come down. Rafael sucked her sensitive clit mercilessly and brought her the second, longer, deeper one, the kind that made her scream against Claudine’s cunt.

“I’m coming,” Cyrus gasped. “Tell me where.”

“Inside,” Beatriz said without hesitation. “Come inside. Now.”

Cyrus drove in three more times, all the way, and came with a deep groan, emptying himself inside her with spasms Beatriz felt one by one. He stayed inside a moment, motionless, while his semen dripped down between her thighs.

When he came out, Marco grabbed her face, turned it toward him, and came over her lips and tongue in two long pulls. Beatriz swallowed what she could and let the rest slide from the corner of her mouth to her chin. Andrea came over and licked her cheek clean of what remained, then kissed her mouth, mixing the tastes.

***

Afterward, wrapped in one of the blankets someone had brought without being asked, Beatriz looked up at the sky over the Rhine. Clouds had covered the stars. The river made no sound. Between her legs, Cyrus’s semen was still dripping, warm, and she was in no hurry to clean herself.

Cyrus was beside her, drinking cold wine with his eyes on the dark bank.

“So?” he asked, remembering his question from the first night.

“Now I know what you meant,” Beatriz replied.

The nights that followed were different, each in their own way. In Strasbourg, Monika and she slipped away from the group during the cathedral visit and spent an hour in Monika’s room that had nothing to do with tourism. Beatriz learned the taste of Monika’s cunt with her mouth pressed to it for long minutes, tongue going in and out, until Monika came while squeezing her head between her thighs. After that Monika did the same to her, sliding three fingers into her while sucking her clit until she came twice in a row. It was intimate and calm, more like a conversation than anything else, though without words.

In Mainz, Gordon invited her to his cabin and talked about his wife for an hour before there was any physical contact. When they finally touched, it was tender and precise. Gordon had patience and those large architect’s hands that know where to apply pressure. He undressed her slowly, laid her face down, and ran his tongue all over her back before moving down to her ass. He parted her cheeks with both hands and licked her asshole for a long while, something no one had ever done to her, and Beatriz discovered she moaned like a teenager. Then he turned her over and fucked her missionary, looking her in the eyes, fucking her slowly until he made her come three times before coming himself over her belly. Beatriz took time to let go, but she did.

In Koblenz, a rainy afternoon kept everyone on the ship. Rafael gave massages in the main lounge while the others read or dozed. Beatriz got the last turn. He started with her back, continued over her ass with open hands, and by the time he reached her thighs nobody was pretending anymore that this was a massage. He turned her onto her back, spread her legs, and ate her pussy for twenty minutes without stopping, with a technique that combined tongue, fingers, and a suction Beatriz had never felt before. He pulled four orgasms out of her in a row, one after another, until she tugged his hair to make him stop. When Rafael was done, it took her ten minutes to be able to speak.

On the last night, with Amsterdam already glowing on the horizon, the group gathered once more on the bow terrace. It was quieter than the first time. The hands knew where they were going, the bodies no longer needed to negotiate. Beatriz ended up with Cyrus’s cock in her cunt and Marco’s in her mouth at the same time, with Claudine sucking her tits and Monika eating Andrea’s pussy a meter away. She came so many times she stopped counting.

***

Beatriz returned to Schiphol airport with the same suitcase and a sensation she could not name exactly. It was not euphoria. It was not guilt. It was something steadier: the certainty that her body was still capable of things she had filed away long ago, and that desire, when shared honestly, does not need to apologize.

On the plane home, she opened the notebook she had carried unused all week and wrote three words: “the Danube river.”

She had time. She had desire. And the publishing team would keep running without her for another month.