Summer Swap 4-13

Byron put up a finger and told everyone at the table to wait, cocking his head and craning his neck to hear better.

Cody said, “What is it?”

“I heard it again,” Byron said, shaking his head, putting his elbows back on the table and fanning out his cards in front of his face.

“I don’t hear it,” Arlo said.

“A crinkling sound,” Byron said, and swore Arlo smirked. He said to Arlo, “Are you doing it?”

Arlo peeped over the top of his hand holding his own array of cards. “Doing what?”

“That crinkling sound.”

“No,” Arlo said, indignant.

“It’s like a plastic bag or something.”

Carla said to Cheyenne, “Does your husband have a paralytic fear of shopping bags or something?”

Cody chuckled. “Byron’s a hardcore environmentalist. If he finds a plastic bag on board this ship, man, look out.”

“Imagine if a plastic bag rustled up from the deck right now,” Carla said, laughing, “got caught in the breeze and wrapped right around Byron’s cute face...”

“And he’s running around screaming,” Cody said, cracking up, “trying to peel it off, cards going everywhere, then whoop, flips over the handrail—”

“Splash, right into the water,” Carla finished.

Byron stared at them over the top of his cards, Cody and Carla leaning against each other, trying to catch their breath, his eyebrows raised high and aloof, showing his measure of cool. “Well, whatever,” he said, “I heard it, you don’t, no big deal. But you know what’s a big deal?”

Carla wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist, sniffling. “What’s that?”

Byron popped his lips and tossed down the King of Hearts. “That’s a big deal right there, baby.” The card spun in place over the layer of already played cards in the center of the table.

Carla and Cody regarded it, more serious now. But Lily said, “Uh-oh.”

Byron peered around Arlo to look at Lily. “Uh-oh what?”

Lily wagged a finger across the table—and he swore he heard that crinkling sound again—aiming at Cody. “I think he’s got the—”

Cody flicked a card, spinning it like a frisbee. It floated down to break-dance on top of Byron’s King. “Ace of Spades, baby.”

“Fuck you, Cody,” Byron said, tossing his remaining hand down. He grabbed the hair at his temples, elbows on the table. “I thought it got played already.”

“That was the last hand, buddy,” Arlo said, patting Byron’s back.

Cody said, “This guy’s got plastic bags on the brain, can’t even pay attention.”

“You guys are probably doing it to mess up my game, break my concentration,” Byron grumbled.

“That’s five out of seven, B-Boy,” Carla said. “You know what that means...” She reached across the table and touched Byron’s wrist, and the feel of her skin against his sent electric waves of pleasure through his chest. He started back from his reverie, Carla still stroking his wrist. “What does it mean?”

“Do you want a truth or do you want a dare?”

“At this point, does it matter? What do you want?”

Carla’s touch retracted as she leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed in sly contemplation. She looked to Cody as if he were her key adviser, but neither of them said anything, only smiled at each other and went through a range of comical expressions, moving their eyebrows up and down, twisting their mouths from one side to the other. Carla leaned forward, fingers interlaced like she was at the table for peace negotiations, eyeing only Byron, not Cheyenne—his teammate.

Byron scoffed, “Oh boy, here we go.” He flopped back in his chair and rolled his eyes.

Carla smiled, shifted away from him, and faced Cheyenne instead. “Cheyenne...”

Chey showed Byron a dirty look. “You didn’t remember there was an ace still out there?”

Byron threw up his hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture.

Chey said to Carla, “All right. Let’s hear it. What have you got for me?”

“I want you,” Carla said, leveling a finger at Chey, “to take him.” Now the finger swept Byron’s way and his scalp prickled.

Chey said, “Take him, and...?”

Carla said, “Make him smooth.”

Chey frowned. “Make him smooth?”

Byron said, “What does that mean?”

Carla fanned a hand in his direction, saying, “Get rid of all that fluff. I don’t like it.”

“Fluff?”

Carla said, “The pubic hair, I want it gone.”

“I have fluffy pubic hair?”

“Scraggly, unkempt. I want Chey to make you bald down there.”

Byron chuckled and leaned back in his chair again. “You gotta be kidding me.” He looked aside to Arlo and Lily to see how they were taking such vulgarity. They looked unperturbed.

Carla addressed Cheyenne. “All gone, Chey. You get it? I mean the shaft, the beanbag, the whole kit and caboodle.”

Chey laughed into her hands for a moment, then moved them away. “Okay. The butthole, too?”

“No way,” Byron said.

Carla considered it a second and Byron repeated, “No way, Carla.”

“Yeah, you know what? The butthole, too, Chey. Good thinking.”

Byron gestured toward Chey, saying to Carla, “What about her? What about her pubic hair?”

“I don’t care about her pubic hair.”

Byron said, “What’s Chey’s dare? Why am I the one who has to get shaved?”

Lily giggled in the quiet moment after his question and they all looked to her, shocked she would involve herself. She said, “Well, she’s... she’s the one who has to do the shaving.”

Carla said, “That’s right, Lily, dear.”

Lily smiled, cheeks blushing, then covered her smile with a hand.

Carla said, “You know what else we should consider, you know, out of fairness...”

Chey looked suspicious, ready for trouble. “What? What else should we consider?”

“Three couples played. We won. Byron and Chey lost.”

“It’s true,” Arlo said. “We came in second.”

Carla dragged out the moment, smiling at them all like a sadistic Bond villain. Then: “Lily, I want you to go help Chey. Give her a hand.”

Lily gasped and covered her mouth with both hands this time. Byron’s eyes widened, staring across at Chey, who showed him a similar shocked expression.

Byron leaned forward, looking to Lily. “Oh, hey, wait... Don’t worry, Lily, you don’t have to do that.”

Lily turned to Arlo, eyes peeping over the tips of the fingers clasped to her cheeks and covering her mouth. The tip of her nose protruded, and it had taken on the same cute pink blush as her cheeks and chest. Her eyes showed fear and horror.

“Oh yes, Lily,” Carla said. “It’s time.”

Lily’s eyes stayed on her husband’s, her head beginning to shake no.

But Arlo sighed, tapping the edge of his cards on the table, like he was contemplating his wife’s fate; like he was in charge of it. The moment stretched on forever and Byron’s heart raced with dread and a strange excitement. At last, Arlo nodded, agreeing. He said, “Yeah.”

Lily shook her head no harder, hands still clasped to her face.

“Yes, Lily,” Arlo said. “Go with Cheyenne and give her a hand.”

Carla said, “There’s a lot to deal with down there. Maybe bring a brush cutter.”

In the moment that the others chuckled at Cara’s jibe, Lily opened her hands from her face and only Byron could see what she mouthed to her husband. He swore it was: “No, Daddy.”

* * *

Once they’d settled in the hot tub, Scarlet and Sully together facing Paloma and Philippe on the other, Scarlet broke the ice, saying, “The seduction began already, didn’t it? Before today.”

Philippe hooked a beefy arm over the crest of the tub, one arm going behind Paloma’s head. “How so?”

Scarlet leveled her eyes on Philippe. “You seduced me.”

Philippe smirked, cocking his head. “Wasn’t it you who seduced me?”

Scarlet crossed her arms below the hot, bubbling water, sidling up to Sully. “You tempted me.”

Philippe regarded Paloma, then looked back to Scarlet. “And how did I tempt you?”

Now she would have to admit it was the sight of Philippe’s tremendous penis, which was a garish and embarrassing thing to admit. She didn’t respond to his question, instead saying, “If Paloma had come first, and it was you who stayed behind, what would have happened to your plane then? How would you have expected me to react to Paloma seducing my husband?”

Paloma frowned like she didn’t enjoy being a step behind, looking up to Philippe and speaking with him in Portuguese a moment. Then she said to Scarlet, “There is an art to seduction. Do you hate art?”

Sully laughed and elbowed Scarlet’s side. “What would make you mad about that?”

“I feel manipulated.”

“No, no, no, we don’t manipulate you,” Paloma said. “No, I swear it.” She lay a hand over her heart, only the tips of her bronze fingers showing above the hot tub water.

“I’m especially hurt,” Philippe said, though he smiled through it. “I thought our attraction was mutual, not a predatory event.”

“That’s what Scarlet thinks, too,” Sully said, and gave her a funny look.

“Who’s side are you on?”

“The truth, baby, the truth,” Sully said, emphatic, widening his eyes at her. “That’s what made it so fun. Don’t deny it.”

Scarlet lifted her hands above the water. “I just don’t get the whole thing about you planning this before we ever even got on the boat.”

Sully said, “Ship.”

Scarlet continued, “You know, like the whole point of this yacht vacation was to put the moves on us.”

Philippe shrugged, then Paloma imitated him, shrugging as well. Like they didn’t see the big deal.

Scarlet sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. While she did, Paloma eased off the side of the tub, head and shoulders bobbing across the tub space, coming to sit on the other side of Sully, Sully smiling wide, eyes following along with her. Paloma and Sully eyed each other, and Scarlet said, “Like, what’s this about a farm and an opportunity? What’s all that? A relationship? What happened to just having fun, swinging, you know?”

“It doesn’t have to be anything,” Philippe said, gaze locked on hers. Paloma and Sully seemed sequestered now, checking each other out, Paloma batting big flirtatious eyes at him. Philippe nodded his black-bearded chin for Scarlet to come and join him on his side of the tub. Which she did, scooting across and turning around to settle in the space Paloma had just occupied, resting the back of her head on Philippe’s bicep. She looked up at him. “Am I being a wet blanket?”

“A little,” he said, eyes twinkling. “It’s okay. I get you.”

“Do you?”

“There’s no pressure, Scarlet. Relationship, no relationship, sex, no sex... Whatever you’re comfortable with. And it can change at any moment, and Paloma and I will respect your wishes.”

She whispered, “What about a farm? What the hell’s that?”

“Another time, Scarlet,” Philippe said in his low and masculine voice, hooking his arm around her neck and holding her close to cuddle against his side. He nodded, his beard now across the hot tub to Paloma and Sully, and Scarlet watched them.

The beat of her heart kicked up as she watched Paloma’s naked shoulder twitch and flex. Her hand was moving under the water, right between Sully’s legs. This beautiful woman was handling her husband’s cock—and by the heavenly look on Sully’s face—eyes narrowed, pupils rolled up, lips parted—Sully loved whatever Paloma was doing to his cock under the water. The spike in her heart rate, she deduced, was 90% excitement and only about 10% jealousy. This was fun. And another thing: the unknown was fun, too. Farms, relationships, polycules, opportunities, whatever the hell this whole thing was about—all that mattered was the heavy and lubricious lust that throbbed between her legs. Sure, her vagina ached from last night’s punishment, but somehow she knew these two (three, when you included her beloved Sully, best friend and husband) would consider her, take care of her. Satisfy her.

She cuddled harder against Philippe, quarter-turning into his warm, furry body, while she watched Paloma stare into Sully’s eyes and jerk him off under the water. Her own hand drifted across and into Philippe’s lap, searching for his might broadsword. She found it, heavy and half hard, hefting it up and handling it, happy to find him growing larger and larger.