Lada’s scarlet sling bikini was a thing of almost architectural precision—a single strip of fabric that ran between her breasts, around her neck, and down between her cheeks, creating a line of red that bisected her body with the clean, deliberate stroke of a calligrapher's brush. The fabric barely contained her nipples. When she moved, the cloth shifted, and the dark edges of her areolas peeked out, small crescents of exposed skin that appeared and disappeared with each breath, each turn, each subtle movement of her torso. The back of the suit was a single string of scarlet that disappeared between the muscles of her lower back and reemerged at the base of her spine, where it vanished between her cheeks with the quiet confidence of a woman who knows exactly what she is wearing and has decided, deliberately and without apology, to wear it anyway.