The Medellín villa’s infinity pool steamed in the cool night air, chlorine and night-blooming jasmine mixing with the scent of warm skin and spilled aguardiente. Tom stood at the edge, a bottle dangling from his fingers, watching the bodies move in the water. A dozen of them. Maybe more. All young, all slick and gleaming under the strung lights, their laughter sharp and bright as broken glass. Dan had outdone himself. This was the excuse: a final blowout before Wayne’s supposed transformation, a last stand for the kings of nothing.

“You look like a man at his own funeral,” Wayne said, materializing beside him. He held a glass of neat liquor, his eyes scanning the pool with the flat, assessing gaze of a surveyor. He’d flown them here after London, after Isla had said yes. The ring was a weight in his pocket, he’d told them. It felt like a stone.

“Feels like one,” Tom said, and took a long pull from the bottle. The liquor burned, but it didn’t warm him. He could feel Eva’s absence like a phantom limb. She was in London. He’d told her it was business. The lie was ash in his mouth.

Dan emerged from the villa, a girl on each arm. They were maybe nineteen, wearing identical tiny bikinis, their eyes wide with the thrill of proximity. “The cavalry has arrived, gentlemen,” Dan announced, his voice cutting through the music. He released the girls with a pat on their backsides. “Go on. Get wet.” They giggled and ran, diving into the pool with synchronized splashes.

“This is your masterpiece?” Wayne asked, his tone devoid of its usual mocking edge.

“A going-away present,” Dan said, lighting a cigar. The match flared, illuminating the tightness around his eyes. “For all of us.”

Tom watched a blonde girl climb from the pool, water sheeting off her narrow hips. She caught his stare and didn’t look away. She walked toward him, slow, her bare feet slapping on the wet tile. She stopped an inch from him, her chest rising and falling. The top of her head didn’t reach his shoulders. “Tom Zanetti,” she said, her accent melodic, Colombian. “I heard a story about you.”

“Which one?”

“The one about the eleven inches.” Her hand came up, fingers brushing the fly of his linen trousers. She felt the hard outline of him, already thick and heavy. Her smile was all-knowing innocence. “It’s true.”

Behind him, he heard Dan say something to Wayne, a low chuckle. The music pulsed. The other girls were watching. Tom looked down at her. He didn’t want her. He wanted the want. He needed it to burn out the hollow space Eva’s honesty had carved in him. He grabbed her wrist, not hard, and pulled her toward one of the cabanas tucked off the main terrace. She came willingly, her skin hot and damp against his.

Inside the cabana, the music was muffled. Silk cushions, low light. He didn’t kiss her. He turned her, his hands on her hips, and pushed her gently until her palms were flat against the woven wall. He hooked his thumbs in the sides of her bikini bottoms and pulled them down to her knees. Her ass was round, perfect, still cool from the pool water. He dropped to his knees behind her.

The scent hit him first. Chlorine, yes, but underneath it, the warm, musky, utterly human smell of her. He buried his face between her cheeks, inhaling deeply. His cock throbbed, a painful, insistent ache against his zipper. This was the ritual. The animal truth. His tongue found her, tracing the tight furl of her hole, tasting salt and clean skin. She gasped, her back arching, pushing herself back against his mouth.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I heard you didn’t… do that.”

Tom didn’t answer. He was gone. His hands gripped her thighs, holding her open as he licked and probed, lost in the scent, the taste, the absolute submission of the act. He was worshipping at an altar of flesh, trying to fill the silence in his head with this one, filthy sensation. His own need was roaring in his ears. He stood, fumbling with his belt, his fingers clumsy.

Out by the pool, Dan had a brunette pressed against the bar. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, her bikini top hanging from one arm. He was fucking her in slow, deep strokes, his face buried in her neck. His hands gripped her ass, fingers digging in, controlling the rhythm. He could feel her tightening around him, her internal flutters. He focused on that. The mechanics. The friction. The way her nails scraped his back. He didn’t look at her face. He watched the water ripple in the pool, the other girls kissing, touching each other, a tableau of available flesh. It meant nothing. It was everything. He drove into her harder, chasing a feeling that was just out of reach.

Wayne stood apart, leaning against a stone column. A girl with a pixie cut and wide eyes approached him, swaying to the music. She took his hand, tried to pull him toward the pool. He didn’t move. “You’re Wayne Lineker,” she said, her voice breathy. “The one who… sniffs.”

“Not tonight,” he said. The words were quiet.

She pouted, reaching for the front of his trousers. “But I heard—”

“You heard wrong.” He caught her wrist, his grip firm but not cruel. He looked over her head, through the open doors of the villa. He saw Tom in the cabana, saw the frantic movement. He saw Dan at the bar, his expression blank even as his body worked. Wayne felt the ring box in his pocket. Isla had smelled like jasmine and her own unique warmth. It hadn’t been a conquest. It had been a discovery. This, all of this, suddenly smelled like chlorine and desperation.

In the cabana, Tom entered the girl in one brutal, perfect thrust. She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the cushions. He was so deep he felt her cervix, a firm barrier he knew how to soften. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, feeling her body stretch and clench around his girth. The fullness was immense, a pressure that bordered on pain for both of them. He began to move, short, punishing strokes that made her whimper. He gripped her hips, his tattoos stark against her pale skin. He fucked her with a focused, grim intensity, chasing the oblivion that was always just one thrust away.

Dan came with a grunt, spilling into the brunette, his body shuddering. He kept moving for a few seconds, then stilled, his forehead against her shoulder. The emptiness rushed in immediately, colder than before. He slid out of her, turned, and reached for his cigar, still smoldering in an ashtray. He didn’t look at the girl as she slid off the bar and adjusted her bikini.

Tom’s climax tore through him like a seizure. He slammed into the girl one final time, his release pumping into her in hot, endless waves. He saw stars, his vision whiting out at the edges. For three seconds, there was nothing. No Eva. No guilt. No future. Just animal relief. Then it passed. He pulled out, his cock slick and spent. The girl slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. He tucked himself away, not looking at her. The hollow space was back, bigger now, filled with a new kind of silence.

He walked back to the pool. Dan was there, smoking. Wayne was still by the column, watching them. The girls in the pool had grown quieter, sensing a shift in the air. The three men stood at the three points of a triangle, the steaming water between them. No one spoke. The night smelled of sex and smoke and the sweet, dying scent of jasmine.

The silence by the pool broke when Wayne pushed off the column. His eyes were fixed on a girl emerging from the water, her dark hair slicked back, her ass a perfect, full curve barely contained by a white thong bikini. He crossed the distance in ten strides, the ring box a forgotten weight. He didn’t speak. He turned her by the shoulders, his hands firm, and bent her over the low stone wall bordering the infinity edge.

Tom watched, the hollow in his chest echoing. He saw another girl, blonde and willowy, watching him from the pool steps, water beading on her naked breasts. He walked to her, his movements automatic. He pulled her up by her wrist, her skin cool and wet, and led her wordlessly toward a daybed piled with cushions.

Dan crushed his cigar out. A redhead with a shy smile was refilling her glass at the bar. He caught her eye, nodded toward the villa’s open doors. She followed. Inside, he backed her against a cool, tiled wall in a dim hallway, his mouth already on hers, his hands pulling her shorts down her hips.

Wayne’s face was buried. The girl gasped, her fingers splaying on the sun-warmed stone. He inhaled deeply, his eyes closed. Chlorine, salt, the clean scent of her skin, and beneath it, the warm, musky truth of her. It was perfect. It did nothing. He unbuckled his belt with one hand, his other keeping her pressed down.

On the daybed, Tom lay the blonde girl on her stomach. He kneeled behind her, his hands spreading her cheeks. He didn’t prepare her. He spat, once, onto his cock, then guided the thick, leaking head to her tight hole. He pushed. She cried out, a muffled sound into the cushion. He sank into the impossible heat, inch by brutal inch, until he was fully sheathed. He held there, his own breath ragged, feeling her body fight then accept the invasion.

In the hallway, Dan was already fucking the redhead, her legs hooked over his forearms. The slap of their skin echoed off the tiles. He watched her face contort, her mouth open in silent pleasure. He focused on the angle, adjusting his hips to hit the spot that made her eyes roll back. It was a technical exercise. He was calibrating a machine.

Wayne entered the girl from behind in one smooth, powerful thrust. She arched, a moan torn from her throat. He set a relentless, deep pace, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to leave marks. He kept his face close, his nostrils flaring with each drive forward, chasing the scent that now seemed to hang in the air between them, a ghost he couldn’t catch.

Tom was pistoning into the blonde, his rhythm savage, the daybed frame creaking. Her whimpers were a distant soundtrack. He saw Eva’s face for a flash—the look in her eyes when she’d posted the video—and he fucked harder, trying to obliterate the image. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the small of the girl’s back.

Dan felt his orgasm building, a pressure in his base. He pulled out abruptly, turning the redhead around. “On your knees,” he said, his voice rough. She obeyed, looking up at him, her lips parted. He fed his cock into her mouth, gripping the back of her head. He came down her throat with a low groan, his body rigid. She swallowed, coughing slightly. He stepped back, zipping his trousers. The emptiness was a physical void in his gut.

Wayne finished with a series of deep, grinding thrusts, his release hot inside her. He stayed buried for a long moment, his forehead against her spine. When he pulled out, he didn’t look at her. He looked at the ring box, now half-visible where it had slipped from his pocket onto a lounger. He picked it up. The girl straightened, touching his arm. He shook her off without a word.

Tom’s climax was a silent, violent tremor. He collapsed over the blonde girl, his weight pinning her. For a few heartbeats, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. Then he rolled off, staring at the canopy above. The girl curled away from him. The hollowness was now a yawning chasm.

Wayne’s voice cut through the humid night. “Enough of this scattered shit.” He was looking at Tom, then at Dan in the doorway. “One room. One last time. Do it properly.”

Dan gave a tired, cynical smirk. “A finale.”

Tom stood, his body feeling heavy and used. He didn’t argue. He followed Wayne into the villa, Dan falling in step behind. They moved past girls kissing, girls sleeping, into a large bedroom with a massive bed and mirrored walls. Wayne pointed to a girl with a round, innocent face and a voluptuous body lounging on the silk covers. “You. Stay.” He looked at the others loitering. “The rest, out.”

The room cleared. The chosen girl watched, wide-eyed, as the three men surrounded the bed. They undressed without ceremony, their cocks half-hard again with grim determination. Tom guided her onto her hands and knees. Dan positioned himself at her mouth. Wayne kneeled behind her.

There was no passion, only a synchronized, brutal rhythm. The girl’s moans were choked around Dan’s cock. Wayne drove into her from behind, his hands clutching her ass, his face buried in her neck. Tom watched, his own hand working his length, his eyes glazed. The mirrors reflected the tangle of bodies, a multiplying, infinite loop of the same empty act. The air grew thick with the sounds of flesh, of labored breath, of the bed protesting.

The end came in a ragged, unified gasp. Dan’s hips stuttered first, a groan ripping from him. Wayne followed, his body locking up, a shudder running through him. Tom’s release was last, a hot pulse over his fingers. They moved as one, pulling the girl’s head back, aiming their spent cocks at her open, waiting mouth. The final, warm drops fell onto her tongue, a shared, bitter offering. Then it was done. They stepped back. The girl slumped onto the sheets, spent. The three men stood naked around the bed, their chests heaving, looking at each other, and then at the mirrors, at the strangers staring back. There was nothing left to chase.