For two hours straight, she kept working, trying to get him to speak. The back of her neck had a rash from the constant seawater and sun. It itched, and, although she tried not to, she’d find herself occasionally raking it with her fingers.

She said over and over again—Talk. Fish, fish.

Last night, he’d woken her up squirting water at her face, waking her up so many times she’d lost track. The pillow had become a squishy puddle of seawater. Right now, her head hurt from the interrupted sleep, and the sun on the water seemed very bright.

She said—Talk. Fish, fish.

He didn’t nip at her as often these days, but on her left ankle was a scratch that had gotten infected, the pink of the infection beginning to radiate up her leg. All she wanted was to crawl into some dry bed in a dark room to sleep. She felt like a fool, asking a dolphin to speak.

She said—Talk. Fish, fish.

Still he wouldn’t concentrate on the lesson, wouldn’t speak clearly, would only work to look innocent while ever so slowly letting his penis drift closer to her calf. For two straight hours, he persistently tried to hump the back of her leg.

Fish—she said—Talk. Fish.

At around 11 A.M., she closed her eyes and stood there, slightly swaying. She was trying to find the will to stay here in this pool, to keep living with this brainless underwater dog, to try one more time to teach him to speak.

Of course, while she wasn’t looking, he thrust against her leg, and her eyes snapped open as she caught her balance. She didn’t jab him with the broom, because it didn’t seem important. She knew what she was going to do next. She was going to march out of the pool. She was going to jog along the beach, somewhere far away from him and the homearium, to sleep in the sun for hours. Her hope was that with her skin dry and her headache gone, she might at some point find the strength to return, tomorrow maybe or the next day.

Meanwhile, it was clear the desire must have built up inside of Junior over the past few weeks, for with the second thrust, he arched his back, grunted deep in his guts and, in the moment of his release, he spoke.

He rolled his blowhole into the water to make the friction of the turbulent ffff, then twisted upright to let the rest of the word escape with the loud exhale of a soda can, ishhh.

Fff-ishhh.

Standing above him, she had the perfect viewpoint. This word spoken by the muscled anus of his blowhole. Magic. It was like seeing the bony pliers of a parrot’s beak open and language emerge.

No, it was more than that. For regarding her was not a parrot’s beady stare, but instead it was Junior, his brown eyes offering this word in thanks.

And inside her, there was this gut-level comprehension. Her skin tightened. It was as though someone had been standing in a darkened room with her this whole time and she’d just recognized the outline, understood she was not alone.