Her vet breathed heavily, while he rocked against her. Perhaps, from among the trees, it would look as though he was only coughing or spasming and she was struggling to hold him up.

And, while her hands worked, she wondered what the definition of sex actually was. For the vet, his fingers tight on her shoulders, his eyes closed, this was clearly sex. For her, nervously surveying the beach and the forest, it was not. So was the act between the two of them sex or not? Perhaps it would depend on whether the person making the determination was looking at her expression or the vet’s.

She thought of her dad and the boar. In that case, any witness would need only a moment to feel certain this was not sex, even if the person could see only the boar’s expression. Her dad was a middle-aged heavy man hunched down in his faded overalls, his hands and the bottle under the boar. The boar rocked on the mounting bench, grunting, slobber hanging from his mouth. The radio in the barn droned on about the weather. Anyone glancing at this would know this was simply an unfortunate part of being a pig farmer. This was work.

Junior and she, however, would look different. She was young and slender, in a bikini top and bike shorts, her tan dark enough to make her look exotic. A sleek dolphin rocking on her knees, her hand reaching underneath. They wouldn’t think of this as part of her job. They wouldn’t think of her job at all. They’d stare at this scene surprised, unable to look away. In the flush of their reaction, they might miss her expression, or if they did see it, they would forget it a little more each time they thought of the scene, and they would think of the scene a lot, at the most inopportune times. Over time, their memory would give her a very different expression.

And standing here with her vet, him breathing in her ear, her hands working, trying to speed the process up, she understood what the difference was for herself, between doing this with Junior and doing this with the vet. With her vet, she wished he would do the same to her, not outside on a beach where others might see it, but instead in a room with a door that closed, where she could relax and enjoy it. That he would do it gently and with a certain teasing and ever so slowly.

She assumed there was something wrong with her and this was why she took so long in comparison to him. At times when the two of them were in a room with the door closed, him pumping on top of her in the way he liked, she would start to feel a heat in the distance, a hum moving toward her. But, before it could get closer, he would be finished.

Like now, panting hard, his eyes unfocused, moaning into her hair.