Summer Swap 5-15

They woke together to the sound of gulls and the dawning light. Wind ruffled his hair, and it tossed Carla’s silky tangled locks to tickle his lips and neck. He brushed away her hair and breathed deep the morning dew. His shoulders, neck, and face were chilled, but underneath the bedding his body was warm, up close and toasty with the yacht’s spiciest tamale.

He’d somehow survived the night. Survived it and come out on top.

Fears vanquished, quests achieved, mission accomplished.

First thing he said to Carla the night after amazing sex on the prow of a multi-million dollar yacht in the Caribbean was, “How did you get such a good fit?”

Carla blinked for a moment, then rolled toward him, coming face to face, her expression blank. “I don’t get it.”

“My schoolboy uniform.”

She chuckled, smiling wide and narrowing her eyes. She was beautiful even in the gray light of morning. “I kept your measurements from Scarlet and Sully’s wedding. You guys went to get your tuxes.”

“You did?”

Carla shrugged a shoulder. “You never know when something like that’s going to come in handy.”

If she had said this to him yesterday, before their wild night together, he wouldn’t have believed it—though he, of course, would have wanted to. It would have been Carla obviously fucking with him, using her sly powers to manipulate or toying for sport. But somehow he didn’t think this was a joke or a charade. He thought she was telling the truth.

So now he was playful. “Did you frame the numbers, put them under a glass frame and hang them on your office wall, or maybe secret them away in the pages of your favorite book?” Some part of him was the roguish schoolboy still, knowing Carla was too cool to appreciate a man who fawned over her attention the way he wanted to.

She palmed his cheek. “No, they were in my phone, you hopeless romantic, and I never deleted the file.”

“My version’s better.”

“We’ll go with yours then,” she said.

“Okay. What is your favorite book?”

“That seems very personal.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Am I coming on too strong?”

She lay back and stretched, flat on the fiberglass, pushing her arms straight overhead toward the point of the prow. The bedding fell away to reveal her naked breasts, so large and perfect, a breath away. Her nipples were hard from the chill, and the sight was the best way to start a day. Voice constrained by her intense stretching, she said, “I may share my body with you, Byron, but my favorite book?” Then she slumped and exhaled, satisfied by her brief morning calisthenic, turning to face him again. Now she said, “Last night was better than our first night, wouldn’t you say?”

“Pretty obvious,” he said. Then: “Did you go away to boarding school?”

She hesitated and in that moment he realized she considered not answering him, like it was none of his business—so when at last she replied, he felt fortunate, and closer to her. “I did. Only for a while.”

He nodded, not wanting to pry, wondering if she got pregnant and the matron sent her back home to cheese land.

Carla said, “Back when my parents had more money,” nodding, reminiscing. “Before they divorced. Then I had to come home and go to regular school.”

“That’s too bad,” he said.

“It left an impression.”

“And when you were there... There was a boy?...”

“There were many boys.” She winked.

“I’m sure there were. But there was one who was special?”

This line of questioning she didn’t like as much, and she turned up her nose. But she answered him, nonetheless. “Yeah, there was.”

“He was your first?”

She looked wowed by the boldness of his questioning. “Yes and no.”

“How does that work?”

She said, “How do you think it works?”

“You just messed around.”

“We did. And we tried, but...”

“You got caught?”

She scoffed at his dumbness. “No. He... was too eager.”

“Oh,” Byron said, nodding and smiling, seeing now how he was selected for a specific component in the replay. He didn’t know if he should be insulted.

“We were too young, anyway. . . . But even that was hot.”

“That you were young?”

“Ew, no. The premature part.”

“Oh, because you’re just so smoking hot this guy couldn’t last?”

“Last? I’m so hot he didn’t even get it in.”

Byron scowled, grimaced, saying, “Wait, your first sexual contact was titty-fucking?”

Carla laughed a bright sound and swatted him with the back of her hand. “No, Byron, that I did for you. This guy came all over my stomach trying to get it in.”

They both smiled at each other, eyes darting over the others face, surveying their expressions. He inhaled deeply, thinking about it, picturing it. “That is hot.”

“See? I liked it. I liked it a lot. It felt really nice. But he, on the other hand...”

“Didn’t think it was so hot?”

“No, sir,” she said. “Too bad. We were awkward, we were virgins, none of us knew what to say, and in the end he just begged off, pretend like he didn’t come at all, had just changed his mind, and I played along, and he left my room.”

“He didn’t have to.”

“He could have stayed. Look at you last night.”

He laughed, seeing how he’d been played. “I got set up.”

“I told your wife what I wanted.”

“Wow,” he said, staring into her eyes. “I’m glad your schoolboy took off on you then. No offense.”

“Yeah,” she said, “it worked out well for you, fifteen years later.”

“It certainly did. I might send him a Christmas card this year.”

“He’d like that, I’m sure.”

Now he kissed her forehead, not passionate, not horny or sexual, but as a friend. A very close friend. He sat up, the blanket pooling at his hips, and looked out to the view beyond the prow. It was hard to believe this was where he was. Hard to believe there had been so many changes. There was a fundamental shift in his he saw himself right now, and it wasn’t his own doing. Others had worked together to put this in play. Gulls squawked and fluttered, and along the razor line of the horizon, the sky soaked in the rosy-gold glow of the approaching sun. He looked down at Carla, napping again, face placid, eyes closed. He said, “You ever run that scenario with Cody?”

Eyes still closed, she said, “Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Carla’s eyes opened, and she scrunched her features into a mask of mock sympathy. “What, you’re wounded now?”

“I’m so jealous of your husband,” he said and put a hand to his chest as if hit by an arrow, turning at the hips and falling away.

Carla laughed and hugged him from behind, her pillowy breasts squashing on his back, the milk-flesh surprisingly cold. She said, “Don’t tell Cody, but you were way better at it.”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah,” he said, putting up a hand at his shoulder, where her face loomed. “I don’t want any secrets. I don’t want to worry about saying the wrong thing in front of him.”

Her eyes narrowed, scrutinizing him. “It’s just a saying. I didn’t mean you can’t tell him. Tell him if you want. . . . You’re very sensitive.”

He went to his back and hooked an arm around her, Carla’s chest now eclipsing his own. “To be honest,” he told her, “I think all you guys suck at swinging and I might be the best at it. I could teach you a thing or two.”

Her mouth went to a shocked O shape. “Oh ho, really. And how’s that?”

“You need scruples.”

Her expression went mean. “We’re unscrupulous? “

“I didn’t say that. I just said you need them.”

“Scruples, huh?”

“Codes of honor.”

Carla rolled her eyes around, pretending to consider his provocative statement. “I like it,” she said then, playing with his hair. “Did we do you wrong, Byron? Did we do Chey wrong?”

“I hold no grudges. But mistakes were made.”

“Huh, I feel insulted.”

“Don’t be. Like I said, I hold no grudges. But here’s the thing: last night was amazing. Totally amazing. If I want to do that again, I have to be on my best behavior. I want to be on my best behavior.”

“Good guy, Byron,” she said, pushing herself off his chest and sitting up now, no blanket around her shoulders, comfortable bare-chested, her big breasts to her navel, the way she hunched. She turned her face to him.

“You’re better than Cody in my private school scenario because you’re slim and boyish and handsome.”

“Cody doesn’t fit the role?”

She said, “Too tall—”

“Too broad shouldered, too manly, too big in the pants.”

“You’re hung up on dicks.”

“Coming from the toilet roll girl.”

“I told you that was sorority shit. Immature. We were kids practically, just out of high school. It was funny, but I don’t think any of us really cared.”

“Really?”

“Really. I mean, maybe some of them did, but most of us were in it for the laughs. What do you really know at seventeen, eighteen?”

“We all pretended we knew it all.”

“You got that right,” she said, facing forward now, looking toward the yacht’s bridge, the black glass concealing the command center. Her expression changed to solemn.

He sat up now, too, hands out on the fiberglass behind him, supporting his weight. He saw what had changed Carla’s demeanor. His heart jumped in his chest.

Cheyenne sat at the dining room table, a dozen feet away, face turned their way. The expression on his wife’s face alarmed him and he felt a crushing and immediate guilt. She’d watched him wake up with another woman, watched them talk up-close and personal, heard the things they’d said. She’d seen her husband softly kiss another woman on the forehead. A beautiful, sexy woman who intimidated her. Had seen them playful and naked, Carla hugging his back, ruffling his hair.

Chey looked grim, sitting at the table, fully dressed, sweatshirt and sweatpants, eyes bleary.

Byron scooted to rise, looking to stoop, then realized they had only one blanket. Either he and Carla could go to Chey together, naked and huddled under a blanket, or he could leave Carla naked, or he could go to Chey wearing nothing. He froze.

Carla stripped the blanket from around her and pushed the gathered material into his arms. She whispered, “Take it. You need it more than I do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go,” she urged him.

He cowled the blanket around his naked body, taking one last second to drink in Carla’s exquisite nudity, posed in an ultra-feminine seated position, like a classic Greek sculpture, the rising sun beginning to paint her luscious flesh-for-marble curves with the first light of day. Then he turned and headed to his wife.

Cheyenne chewed her lower lip, wiping at her cheek, and each step sunk his heart lower, like adding stones to press a Salem witch.

She forced a wan smile as he reached the edge of the table, standing across from her. She sat with her feet on the seat, the points of her two skinny knees up at her chest, shins pushing on the table’s edge. He did not know what to say, only wanted her not to hurt. He could see her fist clutched at her chest, right over her heart.

She said, “Would you come inside with me, Byron? I think we need to have a talk.”

He nodded quick little jabs, cowled inside the blanket that smelled like all-night sex, and Chey rose to stand. He followed behind his wife, her arms wrapped around herself like she was frail or cold, never once looking back to see Carla.

***

Well, folks, this will be the end of Summer Swap 5, and now we can head into the last Summer Swap book, starting next week!