He and his friend were pups together, and they darted and spiralled beneath the waves and wrestled on the shore, and piled on top of each other while they slept. Then they were half-pups and they herded schools of silver fish together and gorged themselves. They preferred the crisp, clean flesh of the trevally to the metallic tang of the couta or the oily meat of the mackerel. They trapped octopuses in caves and then played tug-of-war with their stretchy bodies—that was her favourite game. His favourite was when they would see how deep they could swim, mostly so they could listen to the way whale calls echoed in layers through different depths of ocean. They would dive deeper and deeper until the whales’ yowling blended unbearably with the pressure in their ears and they would have to shoot back to the surface.

Then, this last harem season, she became beta-ready, which surprised them both.

She told him in low grunts and murmuring barks that she had always thought the males signalled to you that you were ready when their thick pink cocks poked out at you through their fur. But she knew she was ready before the males arrived and fought for territories.

He rubbed his body against hers, this way, then that, to ask: How?

She told him that her body felt slinky by sliding herself up and down against him. The friction released tiny, tickling bubbles from their fur. She kept rubbing, curling around him, and so told him that the seaweed felt slippery and sensuous against her skin, more so than ever before, and that her fur had become radiant. She explained to him that some betas had told her that she smelt beta-ready and asked her if she wanted to share an alpha with them this harem season, and she felt curious. Don’t you feel curious too? she asked him by rubbing her body against his, this way, then that. Doesn’t your body feel curious?

He rubbed his face through her wiry outer fur and into her woolly underfur and breathed in deeply. She did smell beta-ready: no longer fishy and milky and fleshy like a pup, but sugary and briny and … something else, something … alluring. He felt his body stir. He drew away and showed her how his fledgling cock was peeking through his fur. They both watched sadly as it retreated like a scared wrasse withdrawing into a swaying mane of seaweed.

They knew what it meant: their life romping together was coming to an end. She had shown him that he was now beta-half-pup. At the end of the harem season he would leave with the other males and not return until he was a full beta.

She grunted and so told him: Find me when you come back.

But they both knew it would be years before he would be big enough to win her harem and become alpha.