Summer Swap 5-13

Byron brought the blanket with him from the bed because he wanted to hide in it if they got caught sneaking around the yacht without their clothes on. Carla had no problem showing off what she had, was walking with him with everything on display. Once they were outside, he was glad he brought the blanket and so was Carla. They walked together around the deck that passed by the command station or the bridge or whatever a yacht captain would call it, their reflections warbling in the black glass. The nighttime breeze was chillier than he’d expected, but it was later now, the night truly black. Sparkling stars scattered above them, and though they couldn’t see the water, they could hear its rushing and sense its power. Over his shoulder and behind him, off in the distance, they could see lights along the shore where Annaberg Beach would be, and off to the right a light up on the hill at the higher point of the shoreline. It was all very distant from home, all so far away and secluded. Somewhere on the boat was his wife, who knew what he was doing and accepted it, had worked to arrange it from what he could gather. But at this spot, in this moment, it was just him and Carla, alone in the world. It felt might fine. Mighty fine and mighty fun.

“Brr,” she sounded, laughing, scooting back to join him under his enormous, quilted Superman cape. She slipped an arm around his waist.

“Your skin is so cold now,” he said.

“Yours isn’t. You’re going to have to warm me back up.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Carla said, “I know you will.”

They stepped down the two stairs to the bow-end dining area, a table set with six chairs, the surfaces lit up in the starlight. At the bow, there was a step up, guarded by a stainless steel handrail, and Byron got ahead and pulled himself up and over, doing it naked in the dark while Carla waited inside the blanket. He held a hand out to her, and she stepped up with his help, telling him what a gentleman he was.

“My lady,” he said, and spread a hand out in theatrical introduction, as if he were offering her the stars, the sky, the ocean, and the horizon; all that she saw.

“It is beautiful,” she said.

“What we can see of it.”

“That’s what I like best,” she said. “What I can’t see, I make up in my own mind.”

“Fill in the blanks.”

She enjoined him in the blanket’s protection, the two of them standing together in an embrace—Carla slightly shivering—and admiring the view they could barely see. But it wasn’t so much the view as the sensation of being. Of existing in something huge, of being small, small but powerful, small but mighty in their ability to reflect and appreciate.

He said, “This night was nothing like I thought it would be.”

“Aw, you like a little romance, don’t you? Our first time was so... what? Mechanical?”

“Something like that. Whatever was missing the first time, it’s here now.”

“It was you, Byron, my friend. You were missing.”

He chuckled, thinking at first the statement was Carla’s purposeful attempt at clumsy philosophical bromide, making fun of the woo-woos. But then realized she wasn’t kidding. Then realized she was right.

“I’m here now,” he said, turning to face her, the blanket falling to their feet. They both went right away to shivering as the breeze whispered over and around their naked bodies. “I’m here with you.”

“Corny,” she said, going to her tip-toes and kissing his neck.

“You started it,” he said, his hands smoothing over the perfect small of her back. They made out, shivering and jittering until the blood started pumping again. Soon they were down on their knees, mouths connected, laying down on the blanket in the comfortable delta-space beyond the handrail, between it and the raised edge of the prow’s fiberglass shape, safer from the breeze, protected from fucking so hard they rolled right off the ship and plunged into whatever lay in the black below them. She wriggled around, her back to his front, kissing him over her shoulder, and he pulled the blanket over them. Her rump tilted, her tailbone pressing into his navel, and they worked together to center the point of his hardness in her slippery aperture. She gasped as he entered her again. Then his arm went around her like he wanted to warm her—and he did—but holding her in place so he could ease his rock hard cock in and out of her soft wet space. Both her hands gripped his enclosing forearm, and she panted with his thrusts.

“You’re exactly what I wanted, Byron,” she whispered.

“I am?”

“You’re everything I wanted you to be.”

* * *

Why couldn’t they see it like she could see it? It spread out around her like a starry night, pinpoints of distant suns winking at her, itemized dots of her transgression’s output. Guilt. All the things that could happen, would happen, all because of karma. All the bad things that could happen, would happen—because she deserved it. She deserved punishment.

Cody asked her what had her so stressed, and she shook her head in quick jitters, eyes wide and looking at the stupid ceiling. Then he said, “We worked all of this out already, Chey. You were so stoked for Byron.”

“I know, I know, I know,” she said on an exhale.

Scarlet said it didn’t have to make sense, rubbing her arm.

“This is more than swinging,” she whispered.

Scarlet didn’t know what to say, but Cody said, “Well, sure, it can be. What makes you say that?”

“Carla wanted Byron before we even got here.”

Cody chuckled a little through his nose. “I wanted you before we came here, too. Am I in trouble for that?”

She turned to face him, surprised to see his handsome face so close. “You did, didn’t you?” Her voice sounded too whiny, too pleading.

Cody looked puzzled by her question. Sully said, “Chey’s worried she was an after thought.”

Her scalp prickled, and if Cody wasn’t here and Scarlet wasn’t in the way, she’d let Sully have it. She hissed, “I didn’t say that.”

But Cody thought it was amusing, laughing next to her and shaking the bed. “You gotta be kidding me, Chey.”

“I never said that,” she said, scowling, mad at Sully but looking at Cody still.

Cody had rolled away to laugh, but now when he rolled back, he came closer to her, his body pressing hers, his arm going over her waist. It wasn’t sexual, though. She pursed her lips and watched him.

Cody said, “I’ve had it bad for you for a long time, Cheyenne.”

She stared back, blinking, mind blank, but some of the machinery hard at work in the basement trying to crunch the numbers and determine if he was deceptive or not.

Then she said what the worst thing was bugging her. “Carla has specific things she wants from my husband.”

Cody didn’t understand, and fucking Sully took the beat of silence to mean he should interject with a clarification. “The premature ejaculation thing?”

Cody smiled, unbothered, saying to her, “You told them?”

“Why does she have, like, kinks for Byron?”

Cody took his time thinking her question over. “I mean, I guess that’s kind of her business, but... would it be bad if I had specific kinks for you?”

“You didn’t though, we just played around, and, like—”

Cody said, “Maybe I just didn’t get the courage yet to ask you what I want.”

It stopped her roll, and her mouth closed. Then she said, “I don’t mean I’m jealous that you didn’t.”

“You’re worried Carla has real feelings for Byron.”

She chewed her cheek and stared deep into Cody’s eyes. That was it exactly. “Yeah,” she said, then sniffled, embarrassed. But there was more. “And I’m afraid Byron has real feelings for her.”

* * *

Cheyenne’s plight put Scarlet’s position with Sully into harsh perspective. And showed how lucky she was. She smoothed Chey’s shoulder, for the first time really jibing with Chey’s upset.

It was Cheyenne who’d kicked off this whole escapade—of course, Cheyenne was put into place by some CIA-level manipulation—and though she and Byron had stepped foot into the pool together, they’d failed to hold hands while doing so. And now look at them.

On cue, Sully put his arm tighter around her and nuzzled his face near her neck. She reached up and stroked his stubbly jaw.

Cody nodded, respecting Chey’s words. He touched her arm with just the point of his index finger. “I kinda hope he does.”

Chey’s head jittered with disbelief. “How can you say that?”

“I think that would be beautiful,” he said. “I’m not scared of that.”

Chey just stared at him, wondering how he could say something so outrageous. But Scarlet could see the point. It would be beautiful. Cody might have an easy time of it because he was wealthy and handsome and accomplished, but maybe someone like Chey or Byron would be more frightened.

Chey challenged Cody. “What if Carla fell in love with Byron, you’d be okay with that?”

“I didn’t mean to say I would, and I’m not talking about love—though love doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game.”

“It is how I play it,” Chey muttered.

“Well, let’s not talk about the game of love then, let’s... hey, let’s maybe talk about you and me.”

“You and me what?”

Cody’s eyes moved up like he was trying to find the best way to put how he felt. At last, he said, “What would you say if I had feelings for you?”

“I’d say what the heck are you talking about?” But the erratic pattern of Chey’s panic speech had smoothed out. This line of conversation had given her something less fright-inducing, and she was fully engaged. Scarlet couldn’t help chuckling, wondering if Cody had done it on purpose.

“I had feelings for you, Cheyenne, and that was before we got on the yacht. I’ve thought about you for a long time.” Cheyenne said a quiet Oh. Cody continued, his eyes turning u to meet her eyes now. “And since we’ve spent time together now, I don’t think it would be crazy to say those feelings I have for you are stronger.”

Cheyenne’s body quarter-turned toward Cody, showing Scarlet a sliver more of her back, like maybe Scarlet wasn’t even here. Sully pulled on her sheet, finding a loose end and pulling it over himself as well, as if he were chilly. She thought to say to him maybe they were going to get kicked out of their own bed so Cody and Chey could talk a little more, but then thought she should stay to make sure Chey didn’t get naked with Cody and ruin the virtue of her gesture with Byron, sending him to Carla. Sully wriggled closer to her, his hand slipping up and down her naked side.

Chey whispered, “They are?”

“Sure,” Cody said.

Sully’s hand settled on Scarlet’s haunch while this soap opera captivated her. But then Sully pushed a thumb into her butt cheek and pushed. She curled, and turned her head to scold him, ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing—but it became obvious.

The blunt hand of her husband’s erection pushed between her legs and her body responded, arching her back to give him access to the space his big hard dick sought. She was still wet, it turned out, but it took some work for him to get his cock inside her. Once he’d worked it in a few inches, her interior sweat flooded and made their connection like slippery heaven.

Sully whispered in her ear, “We can’t make a single sound. You understand?”

She dug her nails into his hip and nodded.