I wake up as the first rays of the morning sun streams through the thin cotton curtains\. Beside me is Nick, still fast asleep\. I let out a wistful sigh as I stroke his cheek\. He's smiling\. The bed is soft and inviting, but I'm too worked up to go back to sleep\. In a few hours I'm going to be “submerged”; I would be kept underwater for a near\-drowning experience\.

I’m an aquaphile, and I fantasise about drowning\. Weird, right? I don’t quite understand why I’m into this either\. As I grew up, it was odd finding out that it wasn’t normal to be aroused by the idea of being dunked in water until my breath runs out\. Lonely too\. It didn’t help that I also found out I was interested in guys that same year\.

Then Nick came along\. What would I do without him? I met him six years ago in school and we hit off instantly\. Our friendship grew into something more\. Being with him felt right, no matter what everyone else thinks\. We spent loads of time together\. I told him all my secrets\. Well, all my secrets except for my deepest, darkest fetish\.

Until one day, after mustering up a week’s worth of courage, I finally told him\. He choked on his drink\.

“I’m sorry, this must sound so weird\.” I remember saying\.

His jaw dropped and he stared at me\.

“Look, you don’t have to do anything for me\. I’m not expecting you to force my head into water and whatnot\. I just wanted to get this off my chest\.”

He was trying to speak, but his surprise had rendered him speechless\.

“Please, I know this is weird\. This is weird for me too, trust me\. I never really understood—”

“Is this a joke? Are you pulling my leg?”

“Because I swear if you’re just saying that to tease me, I’m going to be fucking pissed\.”

“I don’t get—”

“I’m into drowning too\.”

He looked so cute saying that\. I close my eyes and reminisced\. Our breathless stutterings\. Our flustered confessions\. Neither of us could believe it was true\. But it was, and we started experimenting together\. We had breath\-holding competitions and experimented in the bath\. I’m hard from just imagining him choking out water from our sessions\. What would I do without Nick? I run my fingers through his short brown hair\.

I get out of bed and wash up\. Doing chores feels surreal when this could easily be my last day here\. What would this house be like if I’m gone? What will Nick do? I push these thoughts aside and get on with my day\.

After lunch, I retreat to the room\. I’ve one last thing to do before my submerging, so I decide to get changed first\. I picked out my blue jammers\. Nick likes the orange lines that go down its sides\. The lycra squeezes against my thighs and crotch, bringing out the curves of my bulge\. I allow myself one sensual squeeze\.

After putting on some Metallica, I grab my iPad\. Nick knows my passcode, so if anything happens to me today, he’ll see this letter\. I scroll through my folder of notes\. There are letters for family members and close friends: last words should anything unfortunate happen today\. I even have a Facebook post ready\. We’ve been planning this for months, so I’ve had time to prepare\.

But I still have one more letter to write\. Each time I try to start on it, my heart breaks and I can’t bring myself to finish the first sentence\. How can I say goodbye to Nick? I just can’t\. But today’s the day, and I can’t leave him without some last words\. A shitty letter is better than none\.

“Nick, if you’re reading this, that means I’ve already drowned,” I type\. That sounds weird\. I delete it\.

“Sup\. Guess I’m dead now, huh?” Too casual\.

Fuck\. I get off my chair and pace around the room\. Damn it, Nick, why do you have to get in the way of enjoying my life\-threatening experiences\. I chuckle and get back into my seat\.

“Remember the first time we met? I was sitting alone at the school cafeteria during lunch break when you showed up to keep me company\.”

I’m so engrossed in writing that I don’t notice the passage of time until the doorbell rings\. Nick is already up, so he goes and gets it\. It’s probably the Breathtakers\.

I met the Breathtakers on an aquaphilia forum\. They offer a service for “submerging” and I asked to find out more\. For $2000, they could make our fantasies come true\. They’ll help with the setup, and should anything happen, they’ll call an ambulance and perform CPR\.

“Can my boyfriend and I drown together?” I asked in a private message with them\.

“Ah, sorry, we can’t do that\. If anything happens to one ‘submerged’, we can’t leave the other ‘submerged’ unattended\. And it would be very suspicious if two people from the same group suddenly needed an ambulance\. P\.S\. we don’t call it ‘drowning’\. It’s pedantic, I know, but what we do is for pleasure and enjoyment, not death,” came the reply\.

We couldn’t agree if Nick or I should go first, so we let a coin toss decide\. I won\.

“I’ll pay for it,” Nick offered\.

“Nah, I can do it\. I have—”

“You can pay for mine when it’s my turn\.”

He just wanted to be a part of this too\. I gave him a long hug\.

I’m almost done with Nick’s letter\. My fingers are still fervently typing away on my iPad when…

“When are you gonna stop listening to this crap?”

I hastily switch to a different letter and turned to him\.

“You know I hate it when you do that, Nick\. You trying to give me a heart attack?”

I turn back to my iPad and pretend to type\.

“Hey, if it means I get to go first, I’ll give you five of them\.” He peers over at my iPad\. “Really? You’re writing a letter to your mother? You don’t think she wouldn’t find that a bit suspicious? You go and drown, we can’t bring you back, I walk up to her and say ‘Hey, sorry about your son, but he wanted you to have this letter\.’ You don’t think she wouldn’t find it a bit suspicious when our goal is to try and make it seem like an accident?”

I flinch at his use of the word “drown”\. It’s hard enough trying to say goodbye to a future version of him where he’s mourning my death\. Him being flippant around me makes it impossible\.

“Shut up, Nick\.”

“In conclusion, dearest sweet mother, your son is a sicko who just couldn’t help but take the deepest breath of water he could muster\.”

He’s not helping\. “Nick, I swear to God…”

“Cry not for me, mother, for there is a silver lining to this whole thing\.”

“For you see, when I took in the beautiful water, and breathed my last, I died a most happy man, as evidenced by my soiled jammers—”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you\!”

Getting off the chair, I swiftly grab him and pin him on the bed\. He’s bigger than me, but I can still overpower him\. We have a small pillow fight\.

“Man, you can be such an asshole\.”

“Hard not to be when I see you writing silly letters to your family when you should be finishing up the things we need to do if this whole thing goes south\. Writing silly letters, and listening to shit Metallica\. How can I not be an asshole?”

_Pssh\._ “If I recall correctly, it was you that introduced me to Metallica in the first place\.”

“Yeah, I did, but I didn’t expect you’d be taking a liking to their shittier music\. Load? Really? That album is barely listenable\. Barely\.”

I didn’t even put “Poor Twisted Me” on, but it’s strangely appropriate\. It’s almost as if Spotify knows what’s up\. Still, I’m not going to let Nick win\.

“Says the guy who sings ‘Believe’ in the shower every morning\.”

“Hey, that was one time, and it’s not my fault I believe in life after love\. Seriously though, we’re pretty much ready for you downstairs\. Are you finished with your…you know…”

I get off the bed and head back to the desk\.

“Pretty much\. I just want to finish writing this\.”

“I do hope you’re being careful with what you put in there\. I know it’s not my turn to do this yet, but I don’t think I’d ever willingly tell my mother that I got off to being underwater, let alone drowning,”

I switch back to Nick’s letter and continue writing\.

“I didn't tell her any of that\. Trust me, I don’t think she’d let you hear the end of it if she found out that I died because I wanted some sexual thrill from it\. My guess is she’d try to have you incarcerated\.”

I glance to the side\. He’s still on the bed as we continue our banter\. I’m almost done with the letter\.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it’ll be for you to let go\.” I write\. “Heck, I can’t imagine you disappearing from my life either\. But give yourself some time to recover, then move on\. I want you to be happy too, and if that means finding someone else, I’m all for it\. Remember, there are plenty of aquaphiles in the sea\.”

Fuck\. This is difficult to write\. I sign off and let out a heavy sigh\. “There\. I think that about does it\.”

I lock my iPad as he comes over\. Am I nervous? It’s hard to tell\. I guess so? But there’s also this sense of erotic excitement mixed in too\. And fear\. Fear of dying\. Fear of what lies beyond\. Fear of leaving Nick behind\.

“I want to say I’m not, but I think we both know that would be a big lie\.”

He gives me a hug and kisses me on the forehead\. He’s warm\. It feels nice\.

“Promise you, you’re not nearly as nervous as I am\.”

Am I? I don’t know\. I walk over to the window and stare at the pool\. One of the reasons we even bought this house was because of the pool\. We’ve had some fun in there on several occasions, but they’ve all been relatively light\. The closest I came to drowning was swallowing a mouthful or two of water while Nick held me down\. Today, I’m going to be tied down by weights until I black out\. After that, they’ll pull me out, perform CPR, and whatever\.

“Fuck… I can’t believe we’re actually about to do this,” Nick says\.

“Tell me about it\.”

“I mean… I know we’ve been excited about it for weeks now, but man…now that the moment is here, I almost don’t want to go through with it\.”

“Almost\.” I repeat\. After months of preparation and anticipation, I do want to go through with this\.

“Well you know, there’s always that crazy part of the brain that’s begging to jump in and just take it all in immediately, but it does have sanity to compete with\.”

Dammit, is he trying to talk me out of this? I’m nervous enough as is\.

“I’ve been up here almost two hours, trying to relax myself, trying to get myself in the moment, trying to tell myself that I can do this\.” I confess\. “I know I can do this, but it’s hard not to get worked up\. I kinda want to make it last\. It’ll be hard to last if my heart keeps beating as fast as it is\.”

He hugs me again, this time holding me close and pulling me tight\. My bare chest brushes against his soft T\-shirt\. His erection is pressed against the curves of my behind\.

“I have faith you’ll last\. I’ll bet you fifty bucks you make it past four minutes\.”

“Mmm, should I take that bet? You gonna time me?” I tease\. I know he won’t be able to time me, not with that distraction of a boner he’ll have as I’m submerged\.

“If you want me to, I will\.”

“Do it\. I’m curious\.” I turn around and kiss him\. Our lips meet and we spend the next minute or so locked on each other’s lips\. When I pull back, he’s staring at me intently\.

“Do me a favour, please?” he asks\.

“Be careful…please\.”

I chuckle before I can stop myself\. “Be careful? I’m about to willingly drown myself, and dance on the line of death as we know it, and you want me to be careful? I can’t exactly be careful when doing what we’re about to do\.”

“Brad, just fucking humour me, please\.” Something in his voice catches me by surprise\. There’s this pleading desperation to it, and it grips my heart, refusing to let go\. I’m this close to calling it all off, but I know after my turn, Nick will want to have his too\.

I nod\. “Alright, Nick\. I promise\. I’ll be careful\.”

“Be sure that you are\. Like, I know it’s weird, I’m super excited for you, but… I don’t want to lose you\. You better come back\.”

“I know I’ll come back,” I lie to reassure him, “because I know you won’t stop prodding me until I wake up\.”

“Well, are you ready?”

As ready as I’ll ever be\. “Let’s go\.”

I try to take my mind off the fear\. Before we leave the house, I pick up the GoPro I left in the hall\. “Will you…uh…will you film it?” I stutter\. This is so weird\. We’re boyfriends, we’ve indulged each other in increasingly dangerous water\-related stunts, and now I’m shy to ask him about this\. “I…I kinda want to…uh…”

To my relief, he takes the GoPro with a cheeky smile\. “Yes\. I will film you\. But of course… it won’t do much good if you don’t make it out of this alive\.”

His light\-hearted attitude about the possibility of my death isn’t helping, but I can’t bring myself to stop him\. “Just film me, and stop worrying about whether I make it out of this or not\.”

He starts filming me as we walk out of the house\. The Breathtakers are already there\.

“Here we see Brad Holloway, walking towards our pool, getting ready to pull off one of the biggest stunts of his entire life\. You wanna tell all these lovely people watching you what it is that you’re gonna do?”

That’s more like it\. I’m getting into the mood\. The water looks inviting and it’s only a matter of minutes before I’m engulfed by its cool embrace\.

“Oh yeah, so many people are gonna watch this, Nick\. The world must know what I’m about to do,” I say to an invisible audience\. Chances are, this will be a video for our eyes only\.

SevenDoses, one of the Breathtakers, approaches me\. I’ve seen him in a couple of water peril videos, most of which I’ve cranked one out to\. And now I get to meet him in person\. His real name is Justinus\. It’d be suspicious if investigations were carried out, and we don’t even know the name of the people involved in the submerging\.

“Alright, Bradward, my guess is that you’ve gotten your affairs in order in case the worst happens?” he asks me\.

Affairs in order\. What a phrase\. “Yeah, I’ve got instructions on my tablet upstairs\. Nick knows the passcode\.”

“Alright, that sounds good, let me just walk you through what we will do for you here\. We’ve taken the liberty of providing you with plenty of ways to properly secure yourself, but know that these are all optional for you\. You can choose to use them or not\.”

He points out a duffle bag and I check out its contents\. Handcuffs, ankle cuffs, bungee cords, and some kettlebells to weigh me down once I’m submerged\.

“We can tie you up, or would you prefer Nick do it for you?”

“Nick is fine\.” Nick will definitely enjoy this\.

“Alright\. So we’ll let him tie you up and get you into the water\. From that point onwards, it’s all yours\. You do your thing, and once you black out, we will immediately pull you out, and resuscitate your body\. Know that when we pull you out, one of us will immediately call 911 for an ambulance regardless of whether or not we are successful in reviving you\. Please note that you are responsible for any and all medical charges that should come from this\. We are only here to monitor you, and to make sure that you make it out of this safely to the best of our ability\. Of course, should you have second thoughts about going through with this, you are more than welcome to walk away from this right now, we will all leave, and we won’t speak about it from here on out\. You still intend to move forward with this?”

This was all in the agreement I had to sign a few months ago, but having SevenDoses repeat them to me in person feels so much more sobering\. It’s like I’m taking a step past the point of no return\.

“Yeah\. Let’s do this\.” I nod\.

“Alright\. Whenever you’re ready…” SevenDoses gets the rest of the Breathtakers to get ready\. They strip into their swimming trunks and some of them get into the pool\. All of them are keeping a lookout for neighbours that might be watching\.

“You wanna give that weight a test lift?” Nick prompts\.

I lift the kettlebell\. “Jesus Christ, how heavy is that?”

“About thirty pounds if I remember right\.”

Fuck\. It doesn’t sound heavy, but once I’m thrashing in the water, everything is going to feel hefty\. It’s gonna hold me down, and it’s gonna hold me down good\. Nick teases me with the handcuffs and I’m tempted to grab them from him\. That’s what we do in the bedroom sometimes; he thinks he’s going to have a night of topping me, then I turn things around and put him in his place\. But now’s not the time for that\. Instead, I let him cuff my hands behind my back\.

I test the cuffs: solid steel with no give\. “Man…this is really happening\.” I exhale as he ties my handcuffs to one of the kettlebells\. “We’re really gonna do this\.”

“Yeah… we really are going to do this\. And I fucking hate that you’re going first\.”

“It’s not my fault you’re lousy at calling a simple coin flip\.”

“I’m so tempted to leave you at the bottom of the pool for an extra minute for that one\.”

My dick tenses at the prospect\. “I love it when you flirt with me\.”

He cuffs my ankles, ties them to the weights, then takes a moment to take in the sight\. My slim body must look really cute in these restraints\. I’ll confirm it when we watch the video later\. This is getting me so damn hard, it’s not even funny\. A thought crosses my mind and I blush\.

“Hey Nick? So uh, when I’m down there, and I breathe in…what do you think is gonna happen?”

"I mean, we've both done our fair share of research on the subject\. Describing it, probably won't make it sound anymore pleasant than anyone else can make it feel\. You'll probably enter a state of spastic convulsions, you won't be able to—"

"No, no, that's not what I mean\. I mean…well, since we've got our own reasons for trying this, do you think that…well, do you think that when it happens, I might…"

"God, you can be such a slut sometimes\."

"You know you love it\."

"I can pretend not to\."

I think he got the hint as he teasingly strips to his black jammers\. Following my static aponea training, I take deep breaths and hold, but Nick’s bubble butt distracts me\. He gives my bulge a squeeze and I gasp\. He definitely got the hint\.

“Mmmm…\. no fair, I’m trying to get relaxed,” I protest\.

“Hey, you’re the one who wants to cum in the pool\. Keep taking those deep breaths\. I’ll get you in position\.”

He sets the kettlebell at the pool’s edge and I sit down beside it\. The cool water laps against my thighs and bulge\. This is it\. Nick gives me one last kiss\. Fuck, I’m aroused\. So much for being nervous; I just want to be sinking into the depths of the water\. I’d drag Nick down with me too if I could\.

I pull back\. The Breathtakers give me a thumbs up: nobody else is watching us\. “I’m ready\.”

**Rule 4: Everyone present is to memorise the cover story: we were having a pool party when we realised the submerged is drowning\. We pulled him out, performed CPR, and called the ambulance\.**

Everything happened so quickly\. He kicked the weight into the water, and the rope yanks me into the pool\. The pool swallows me up in a flurry of bubbles that caress my skin on the way up\. Water gets up my nose\. There’s a pressure in my ears\. I can’t see\.

Then the water clears up and I see Nick coming down with the GoPro\. He’s wearing goggles\. Fuck, my eyes sting\. I struggle to keep my cool\. I need to be calm if I’m going to enjoy this\. Nick squeezes my nose\. I’m confused for a moment, but then I blow into my nose\. This clears the pressure in my ears and I suddenly feel much better\.

He shows me the GoPro\. This will be fun\. Nick goes up for another breath and I use the time to take in the sensations\. The sounds of the outside world are muted, leaving me with the watery sounds of currents in my ears\. The late afternoon sun shimmers through the wavy surface of the water\. Its warmth contrasts the coolness of my aquatic surroundings\.

I close my eyes\. Over the next few minutes, my body will consume the oxygen in my blood\. The carbon dioxide will build up in my lungs\. My instincts will force me to exhale, and I will have to fight the urge to breathe\. Then I’ll black out and wake up above the water\.

I hear the sound of Nick coming back down\. The currents caress my skin as he nears me\. He pulls me close and I open my eyes\. His short hair floats in the water, framing his cute face\. He gives me a smirk before reaching for my jammers\.

He pulls my trunks down before I can resist\. I protest, letting out breaths of precious oxygen before I can stop myself\. He succeeds, exposing my semi\-flaccid dick\. He’s massaging and squeezing\. My squirms only seem to make him more eager to get me to erection\.

Fuck, I let out another gasp as he gently grips my balls\. I squeeze my thighs around his hand, willing him to stop\. If this keeps up, I’ll be out of commission within the minute\. He doesn’t let up\. He comes close until we’re eye to eye\. I shoot him a pleading look, but he proceeds to grind his lycra\-clad bulge against the underside of my cock\. More bubbles escape my mouth\.

He takes pity on me and gives me a kiss of life as he blows air into my mouth\. That calms me down\. There goes my breath timer\. Nick goes up for more air\. When he comes back down, he goes back to teasing me with his crotch rubs\.

Fuck, if he weren’t my crazy\-adorable boyfriend, I’d have punched him by now\. My heart is beating so quickly, I’m sure Nick can hear it\. He’s using up my oxygen and he knows it\. What a dick\. He laughs\. My mind is in a flurry of emotions and sensations\. I’m trying to focus\. He’s distracting me\. I’m taking in the calm of the water\. He’s stirring it up around me\.

Confused, I accidentally let out a mouthful of air again\. He must’ve noticed because his expression turns into one of concern and he gives me a second mercy kiss\. As he swims up for more air, I’m left with the sound of violent thumping of my chest\. His second kiss only replenished half of what I lost in my last gasp, and it’s going to be hard to hang on\. The surface is just up there\.

He comes back down\. I tell him to stop, losing more air in the process, but he doesn’t hear me\. Instead, he goes for my exposed erection and takes it in his mouth\.

I give up and let my body go limp\. I quell the buzzing urges in my mind and focus my sensations on his lips against my rod\. His tongue is warm against my cock head\. Then he explores the underside of my shaft, assaulting my nerves with sensations of the cool water and his warm flesh\.

Dammit\. I’m sure he can taste the pre leaking from my tip\. I hear him moan\. The water makes him sound higher\-pitched than he really is\. He gives me another kiss and I take in the much\-needed oxygen\. His tongue invades my mouth and I taste my own pre, making my dick throb eagerly\. I could do this forever, feeling the water caressing and stroking every inch of my skin while Nick keeps me alive with his kisses\.

Nick goes up for air once more, before diving straight for my cock\. This time, it takes every bit of me to resist his fervent efforts to get me to cum\. Not yet\. The air and water in his mouth drives me into a frenzy as he takes my entire shaft with his mouth and tongue\.

Then he gives me a gentle bite that loses me air again\. Fucker\.

Instincts take over\. My body tenses up\. My muscles clench\. My sexual cravings fill my head with dizzying visions of pleasure\. I throw my head back and bathe in the shimmering light from the surface\. Then I thrust against his face\. He gags and chokes\. I give him an apologetic expression as he swims up to face me\. He comes in for another kiss\. I’m running out of air already, and I’d give myself another ten seconds if not for him\.

Our lips meet and I eagerly try to catch my breath\. Instead, he inhales hard\.

I twist my head away and shoot him an accusing look\. He’s just teasing me, I know\. But right now, my body is fighting to survive, and his actions triggered a knee\-jerk reaction of anger within me\.

Yeah, Nick, go back to the surface for your precious air\. Fuck\. So much for gradually losing air\. He stole the whole lot of it\! My chest feels constricted, but I clench and willed myself not to breathe\. Nick doesn’t come back down for me\. Instead he goes for the camera\.

A strong urge to breathe grips my chest and I take a breath\. A mouthful of stinging chlorinated water enters my lungs and fills my chest with an unfeeling coldness\. I close my eyes and lock my jaws\. Ordinarily, Nick will let go once I choke\. My next gasp will get me my oxygen\. But not now\. There’s no second breath\.

I instinctively writhe and twist\. The weight of the water in me feels heavy\. It feels tight\. It feels wrong\. My cheeks are puffing up\. Fuck\. This isn’t right\.

_Nick\! Get me out\!_

He’s watching me from the side\. Can’t he tell that I need help? Fuck\. I told him not to interfere\. I told him not to let me out until I black out\. Fuck\. I should’ve come up with a safeword at least\. Maybe a hand sign to say when I wanted out\. Sure, I was expecting to choke on a bit of water, but this feels different\. This feels very, very wrong\.

Nick, you shouldn’t have taken that breath\. You fucking shouldn’t have\. Fuck, I can feel it, I’m going to die\. The GoPro is still pointing at me, capturing my final moments\. Nick\! NICK\!

He’ll get me out once I black out\. But that’ll be too late\. The water is already messing with me\. Another wave of spasms engulfs my body and I’m forced to take in another breath of the suffocating water\.

Fuck, fuck, fuck\. I want out\. I NEED out\. Please, Nick\! I’m looking at you\. Can’t you tell something is wrong? HELP\!

My fingers fumble on the ropes\. Unable to see the ropes behind me, I can only go by feeling\. I’m fighting\. Fighting the impulse to scream for help\. Fighting every urge in my body to take in another deadly breath\. Fighting for my life\. I can’t die here\. I can’t leave Nick with the guilt of watching me drown while he got off to it\.

I free the weight from my wrists, but my ankles are still weighed down\. I accidentally let out another breath\. My lungs are half full of pool water and the pain is making my eyes water\.

Fuck\. I promised I’d be careful\. I promised I’d stop if anything happened\. I’m trying, but the ropes at my feet are tied too tightly\. Or I’m just panicking too much\. Fuck, the keys\. WHERE ARE THE KEYS?

Did Nick pass them to me earlier? Did I drop them somewhere in the pool? Please, dear God, don’t let me die here\. I jump, but the kettlebell holds me down\. I try again, but it’s not working\. Carbon dioxide fills my lungs\. I need this breath\. I gasp and displace air with more water\. I don’t have much time left\.

_Nick, please, help me\._

I let out a sickening gurgle as the last of the air left my lungs\. I’m struggling to breathe, but the water feels so much thicker, so much more solid in my lungs\. My body is twisting and squirming\. I’m gasping for air that wouldn’t come\. My vision is blurring\.

My throbbing dick betrays me and I let out one last orgasm\. I’m going to fucking die, and shooting my load will be the last thing I do\. My mouth opens and closes in a futile attempt to breathe\.

So this is what dying feels like\. A numbness that creeps in from my fingers and toes\. That washes up my limbs\. Then it fills my chest with a calming peace that tells me it’s over\. I don’t feel the pain in my lungs anymore\. Then it washes up my head, easing the throbbing headache\. It spreads up my face and darkness enters the peripheral of my vision\.

Then everything goes black\.

Everything that happened next went by like a blur\. I was coughing up water\. SevenDoses was there\. So were the rest of the Breathtakers\. Nick was crying\. My dear, sweet, Nick\. The sirens of the ambulance\. And then I’m whisked away\.

It’s the late afternoon when I’m finally awake\. A machine is hooked up to me\. A strap goes around my head, holding plastic tubes in my mouth\. I clench my throat and feel them threaded all the way down my windpipe\. It hurts, but I’m alive\.

My chest hurts\. My body is aching\. Those few minutes in the water\. Minutes? It must’ve been hours of pure agony, just thrashing and squirming, writhing and struggling\. My lungs feel like they’ve been weighed down with sand\.

Fuck\. Nick\. Nick was so fucking scared\. Heck, I was scared too\. But Nick\. I can’t put him through this again\. His heart would break if I didn’t make it out alive\. Stuck in the hospital bed with tubes down my throat, I’m left to reflect as I stare at the whitewashed ceiling\.

This…this was what I wanted, right? To experience the joy of drowning\. To feel the water enter my lungs\. To black out in the cool embrace of water\. That was what I wanted\. This was what WE wanted\.

But if going through all that puts us in a situation where one of us might lose the other, is that really worth it? All these aquaphilic thrills, were they worth risking Nick’s happiness over? Damn it, Nick, why do you have to get in the way of enjoying my life\-threatening experiences\. I let out a pathetic chuckle, hindered by the invading plastic tubes\.

Is Nick okay? I won’t be surprised if he’s distressed by the whole situation\. I could’ve died, and he would be— No\. I try not to think about it\. But after what happened today, is Nick alright with submerging himself too? And then I’d have to go through the pain that he’s going through now\. I’ll do it for him, but only if he’s still interested\.

“You look like you’ve seen better days\.”

Nick interrupts my train of thoughts\. I can’t help but chuckle and give him a thumbs up\. He comes into the room and squeezes my hand\. It feels soft and warm against mine\. A touch of comfort after the cold, cold water\.

My eyes meet his\. He looks like he had aged a few years over the past few hours\. I want to say words of comfort but the ventilator impedes my speech\.

“You crazy bastard, you did it\. You fucking did it\.”

I chuckle in acknowledgement but the tubes in my chest replaced amusement with agony\.

“Here\. I brought you a little something,” he eases the awkwardness and pulls out my Bluetooth speaker\. “I brought you your shitty music\. I figured it might help you settle down here\.”

I laugh again and manage a feeble nod\.

He continues\. “I wish I could tell you how long you were down there\. Unfortunately, I kinda spaced on stopping the time, so how about I just give you twenty\-five bucks and we call it a draw?”

I roll my eyes\. The timing wouldn’t have mattered anyway, with all the kisses of air he gave me\. Then again, he did steal it all back at the last moment\. He kisses my forehead\. “You fucking lucky asshole\.”

Yeah\. Yeah, I am pretty fucking lucky\. I could’ve died there, you know\. And knowing all that, would he want his turn to be submerged? But before I can communicate this, he interrupts me\.

“Look, I’ve been told that your mum is coming, so, I’m going to go and grab a cup of coffee\. I'm gonna stick it out here tonight, and I'm not leaving without you in my car\. So you just pick out your shitty music you’re gonna make me suffer through for the next few hours, and I’ll be right back\.”

Right\. Mum\. I’ll have to deal with her later, and I’m not looking forward to consoling her while she cries about almost losing her only son\. It doesn’t help that I intentionally got myself into this situation for my erotic fantasies\.

Nick exits the ward so I pick up my phone\. I scroll through Spotify, looking for a playlist to relax to\. I see “Poor Twisted Me” and I grin\. Spotify, you always come through for me\. I know what song to put on loop for the next few hours\.

I pick up my phone\. At least I could still talk through my keyboard\.

“Thank you,” I text Nick\.

What did I mean by that? Thank you for letting me go first? Thank you for letting me experience the joys of drowning? Thank you for letting me almost die while you grapple with the bleak possibility of losing me?

“Thank you,” I type again, “for the music, and letting me go first\.”

“Lucky asshole\. I can’t wait to watch that video with you\.”

Haha, fucker\. But my final question remains unanswered\. Does he still want to have his turn at being submerged? I text him another message\. “When do you want to try?”

I’d love to see Nick submerged too\. I’d love to be there to tease him\. To give him the kiss of life\. To fuck him in the ass while he’s struggling to hold his breath\. Fuck, revenge would be so sweet\. But if he says no, I totally understand\. The experience was thrilling and erotic, yes, but it was also terrifying\. If he gives a non\-committal answer like “We’ll see”, I won’t push further\. I stare at my phone as I wait for his reply\. It comes through with a chime and a blue text bubble\.