Tibbet sat in the blind and threw the striped triangle on a string over onto Kat’s side so only she could see it. Mother couldn’t see which shape Kat had been shown or which shape she then tapped. She could see however when a fish was tossed to both of them as a reward.

Mother eyed the answer symbols stapled to the end of the dock and rolled her face through the water. Since this experiment was now the only way they received food, they would get increasingly hungry if they didn’t answer right more often, if they didn’t answer correctly at least as often as random chance.

Tibbet felt this version of the experiment would result in incontrovertible proof about their ability to communicate. For surely, if they could answer right, they would. Surely, they wouldn’t willingly starve themselves.

Mother clapped her beak a few times, thinking. Then, staring at the blind where Tibbet sat, she tapped the white square, the wrong answer, with her fixed smile.

He didn’t say how long the experiment would continue, how far he would push it, how hungry he would allow them to get.

* * *

During the Sunday lunches in town, she found herself staring in fascination at the vet’s hands. He had fingers and fingernails. He had two legs and dry clothing and a face without a beak. She had been with the dolphins for so long that at night she dreamed of them and of flickering water much more often than she did of humans and dry land.

It was possible that the vet took this staring as interest, and perhaps it was. Either way, one afternoon as they walked back to the research center, he asked if he could kiss her. She was surprised, not that he wanted to, but that he’d asked. Other men, they just kissed, confusing their want with hers, never thinking they might need permission.

In his case, she did want to. He might not be the most handsome man, but he asked about her life. He listened to her and responded to what she’d said, not returning the subject immediately to himself.

So she answered his question by stepping in close and raising her face to his.

The act of kissing him quickly encompassed all her senses, all her attention. She had not been with anyone for so long. His body was lean and young. He didn’t smell of cigarettes. She pressed herself against him, leaning into his warmth.

For months, she’d been watching the dolphins, how they touched and had sex. How they rubbed against each other and played. Perhaps this was why, standing on the dusty road in the late afternoon, kissing him, she began to sway gently, moving her torso against his. The feel of his ribs and hips and stomach. If it were up to her to choose, the two of them would take their time and rub every inch of their bodies together, the soles of their feet, the ends of their noses, the tender sides of their fingers. They would treat this moment like a sacred pursuit, the first bite in a fine meal. They would engage in a slow clothed tango. There was no rush. There were no rules. Her breath changing.