Reflections

The heat had made me sluggish, but something restless was pulsing under my skin. I rolled onto my side, the sea now glistening metallically in the afternoon light - and that's when I saw it.

A ship.

Just like ours, only mirror-inverted. It was gliding through the water parallel to us, close enough to make out the color of the lifebuoys. A mirage? But when I blinked, it stayed. On the mirrored balcony, exactly at my height: a woman. Naked. Her hands clutched the railing, her hair blowing like black silk. My face. My body.

I pulled myself up, but the double ship shook in the heat like a living painting. The other Mia turned around slowly, her back a gentle curve - and suddenly there he was. A shadow that formed into a man. Not through the door or stairs. He was simply there, as if woven from the salt of the air.

His hands were on her hips, broad and dark against her pale skin. Not a sailor, not a tourist. He wore a suit that looked as if it had been tailored from ocean water at night. As he leaned forward, I saw his profile: angular like a galley figure, but without hardness. Something in his posture reminded me of the statues I had admired in Naples - millennia-old gods who demanded awe by their very existence.

Mirror Mia reared up, her mouth a silent “O” as he penetrated her. Not roughly, not greedily, but with a determination that made me tremble even between my legs. My breath caught as she clung to the railing, her every muscle play familiar yet foreign.

And then it happened: the man raised his eyes. Directly at me. His eyes were not dark, but silver like the edge of a cloud. A nod, barely noticeable. Agreement, this gesture said. You and I, we know.

In my imagination - because that's what it had to be, a hallucination of heat and loneliness - I suddenly felt the railing under my fingers. Cold metal anchoring me, while an invisible presence warmed my back. No hands, no body, just pressure - deep, relentless, as if the sea itself was claiming me.

Mirror-Mia came with a silent scream, her head thrown back as the man held her as if he feared she might tumble into nothingness. At that moment, something inside me split: one part was trembling in the recliner, fingers frozen between my legs. The other part was her, feeling her whole body dissolve into pure light, cell by cell.

When I blinked again, the ship had disappeared. Only the railing under my hands was real, its coldness an anchor. But my body was still trembling, and a warmth pulsed between my thighs that had nothing to do with the sun.

“Just the waves,” I whispered to myself. But when I turned around, there was a single shiny button on the balcony floor