My Swimming Trunks Have Been Sucked Off -

The current was stronger than I’d anticipated. One second I was floating peacefully in the Aegean, the next I was being dragged toward a submerged vent on the seafloor of this tiny, forgotten Greek cove. It wasn't a whirlpool, exactly—more like a giant, thirsty mouth of rock, sipping the entire bay down into some subterranean river.

I decided I didn’t want them back. Some stories are better left where they happened—submerged, absurd, and told only to very close friends after three glasses of wine.

“…The Aegean Sea has expensive taste.”

“And your wedding ring?”

As I wrapped the towel around my waist, I glanced back at the sea. The vent was still gurgling, still hungry. Somewhere down there, in a dark underwater cave, my pineapples and my marriage band were keeping company with Greek shipwrecks and Poseidon’s loose change.

Chloe’s eyes went wide. Mark started to laugh—that horrible, silent, shoulder-shaking laugh that precedes an explosion. Elena put down her book. She looked at my face. She looked at my clasped hands. She looked at the empty patch of sea behind me.

I took a breath. “The Aegean Sea has claimed them as tribute.” My Swimming Trunks Have Been Sucked Off

I pulled back just in time, but my wedding ring scraped against the stone. The ring spun off my finger and plink —gone, swallowed faster than my trunks.

I felt the elastic waistband yank backward, then a strange, cool kiss around my thighs. I looked down just in time to see the bright blue fabric—featuring a cheerful pattern of cartoon pineapples—spiral away from my body like a startled squid. It vanished into the dark maw of the rock, sucked into the underworld.

I surfaced with a gasp, not from lack of air, but from the sheer, wet vulnerability of it all. The water was crystal clear. My wife, Elena, was still on the beach, her face buried in a book. Our friends, Mark and Chloe, were arguing about the best angle for a snorkeling selfie twenty yards away. No one had seen. The current was stronger than I’d anticipated

I was indeed squatting, a perfect catcher’s stance, hands clasped in front of me like a fig leaf woven by a desperate man. “Stretching. Important to stretch. Post-swim.”

“Get in the car,” she said. “We’re going to the village to buy you the ugliest, most elastic-waisted pair of shorts they sell. And you’re wearing them for the rest of the trip. I don’t care if they have flamingos.”

I reached the shallows, where the water was only knee-deep and treacherously transparent. I had to crawl. On my belly. Like a marine. I dug my fingers into the sand and slithered, the waterline dropping from my chest to my waist to my… well. The moment of truth arrived when my feet touched dry land. I was behind a small rock outcropping, five meters from Elena. I decided I didn’t want them back

Mark finally noticed me. He squinted. “Nick? Why are you the color of a tomato from the neck down? And where’s your… oh.”

“I’m good,” I said, not moving a muscle.