She cocks her head again, to ask him what he means.

He barks excitedly and brushes her pregnant belly with his flipper to remind her that she doesn’t have a pup yet, that she could come with him, now.

She rubs against him slowly and sadly to tell him that she can’t. Then, she swims in a circle around him to tell him that her place is here; she can’t just leave.

But why not? He swims in a circle around her. You won’t pup until harem season. Why not explore with me, like old times? He nuzzles his head into her shoulder and licks her whiskers. With me, for one last time?

She grunts and rubs her belly on his. I am with pup. I can’t just leave. She brushes her flipper against where his cock hides, to remind him that, unlike him, she is female and can’t go to a haul-out.

He knows she is right, but still, he can tell she is tempted. He swims in lazy circles around her, rubbing his body against hers, savouring the brush of her fur on his, and telling her that he misses her and that, should she change her mind, he’ll be waiting and watching for her until harem season begins.

She circles him slowly and sadly to tell him he should leave and that he should not get his hopes up. But before she disappears, she also rubs up against him one last time and brushes her flipper cheekily across his face. Maybe.

He coasts back down south on the current, which, this season, is teeming with tuna. They are too fast for him but he chases them anyway because he enjoys the feel of their bubbly wake fizzing about his face. He floats, dozing on the surface, with his flippers held up in the air, and when he wakes, he watches the albatrosses, shearwaters, petrels and jaegers lift and fall on the licks of warm and cool air, which brush against his cheeks as they peel off the surface of the water. The birds move individually but together like fish in the sky. He dives down low and swims through the different layers of the whales’ echoing songs. He comes up for air then dives beneath the surface and drifts on a lower current, gazing up at the flickering beams of sunlight that curl and sway on eddies, and listening to the hum of a boat engine in the distance.

She will come. He is sure of it.

As he surfaces for air, he tries to launch himself but he barely manages to get any of his body to breach. He is growing bigger and heavier every day.

Maybe it will only take me one season to become beta, he thinks. Maybe I will grow so big I will become alpha without having to fight!