SUMMER SWAP 2 // Chapter 10

Scarlet didn’t know how to begin. All four of them now sealed inside their bedroom suite. The bed made—she made sure of that before dinner—clothes tidied from the floor, lamps turned low. She gestured toward Cheyenne saying, “Chey and I were talking…”

She’d expected Chey to join in, but Chey stood there pigeon-toed, knees touching, her fingers interlocked at her crotch and squirming around. She had an expression on her face like What’s this, Scarlet? What are you saying?

Scarlet scowled at her, then held out a hand. When Chey didn’t come immediately she snapped her fingers and waved her closer. Chey rolled her head around on her neck like a teenager and came to stand at her side. She folded her arms and looked at the guys. Sully looked wide-eyed, as though he suspected what this could be about. Byron looked perplexed. Maybe the guy had been really eager to get in the hot tub, and they were about to ruin his plans.

Byron said, “What were you talking about?”

Scarlet looked to Sully, then over to Chey. Then she faced the guys saying, “We were talking…”

Sully looked irritated when she didn’t continue. “And…?”

“Well, Byron, you know,” Scarlet said, finding this harder to broach than she thought. “You know Chey told me about what happened. I know you talked to Sully…”

Byron looked uncomfortable. He looked to Sully and both of them made a strange face at each other. They’d both gone pale.

Scarlet looked to Chey, and Chey offered nothing, letting Scarlet do all the grunt work. “I guess what I mean to say is we were talking, and we wondered if what was happening on the ship might be better…” She gestured with her hands rolling in wide circles, trying to find the words.

Sully said, “Kept in the family?”

“Gross,” Scarlet said. “Ew. Not in the family. Us, the four of us.”

“That’s what I meant,” Sully said.

“We’re not family.”

Sully said, “You two are sorority sisters.”

“Whatever,” Scarlet said. “This was mostly Chey’s idea.” Chey batted her arm really fucking hard. “Ow,” she said, rubbing her shoulder. “Well, help me out here, Chey. You’re standing there like my ventriloquist dummy.”

Chey rolled her head around on her shoulders again, completely transported back to her petulant youth. She said, “Maybe all we need is right here in this room.”

Byron stared at his wife. She didn’t regard him. He said her name, getting her attention. When she looked at him, Byron said, “What is it you’re saying? What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “this was Scarlet’s idea,” and she smiled.

Scarlet motioned like she would backhand her but didn’t do it. Chey broke out laughing, and then Scarlet did too. “Woo hoo,” she croaked, looking up at the ceiling and shaking her hands out. “This is a hundred times weirder than I imagined.”

Sully wasn’t deterred, still staring at her with intent. “You guys were talking about this?”

Cheyenne spoke up now without provocation. She said, “Yeah, I confide everything in Scarlet. I told her.”

Byron said, “You told her what you wanted?”

Cheyenne said she did, and Byron shook his head as if he didn’t believe it. He said, “With Sully?”

Cheyenne shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, “I mean only if that’s okay,” addressing Sully.

And Scarlet’s stupid husband put on the cool act, giving Cheyenne a half-lidded and casual eyebrow raise saying in a cool tone, “If you guys talked about it...”

She leaned close to Cheyenne and whispered, “Look who’s trying to be the cowboy now.”

Cheyenne didn’t get it at first, then when she did she burst out in giggles and covered her mouth with both hands. Sully got mad. “What did you say to her?”

“You’re my laconic cowboy,” she said.

Sully said, “What does that mean?”

“It’s a compliment.”

Sully looked at Byron then back to Scarlet. “Doesn’t seem like a compliment,” he muttered.

“Trust me,” she said, “it wasn’t an insult.”

Cheyenne tucked both hands under the opposite armpit and looked at Byron. “What do you think?”

Byron still couldn’t believe it. He looked to Sully then to them both. He said, “I mean, I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. It’s just… I’m surprised you said it.”

“Why?”

Byron gestured to sully. “We talked about it too.”

Sully shot him a look like Byron would ruin everything with this conversation’s direction.

Scarlet said, “You did?”

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s where the all in the family thing came in. Like the four of us know each other, maybe it would be easier to...”

“Right?” Cheyenne said, a brighter shine in her eyes now.

Sully said, “It’s a big step though, guys.”

Scarlet said, “Are you trying to ruin it?”

Sully rolled his eyes. “I’m being sensible. If we’re going to do this we have to be honest about everything going into it.”

“Okay,” Cheyenne said. “Shoot. What do you want to be honest with us about?”

Sully sneered. “You first, Cheyenne.”

Cheyenne shot back, “You first, Sully.”

“What’s there to be honest about?”

“You tell me.”

Byron said, “Well this is off to a good start.”

“I think the problem is,” Scarlet said, raising her palms to them, “we’re standing here like idiots, all awkward, like it’s a high school dance.” She walked to the bed and sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and patted the spot next to her and told Sully to come over. She pointed for Chey and Byron to take the opposite side of the bed.

All four of them sat on it, dressed for a hot tub but now facing a whole different direction. Byron still wore his beach towel cowled around his neck and shoulders. He chewed his cheek, staring at Scarlet. She didn’t hate it. No, she kind of liked it. Cheyenne said Byron was afraid of her and she liked that too. She liked that he felt intimidated—because from her eyes she surmised some of it was due to attraction. Cheyenne’s husband had never made any kind of untoward pass at her, but here they were with everything on the table, and Byron liked the idea. Wanted to hear more about what might happen.

Sully said, “Let’s start with rules. If we’re going to do this.”

Cheyenne said, “If we do it. But we could do it.”

Byron looked at Chey, then over to Scarlet. “What do you want to be honest about?”

Scarlet shrugged then said, “Okay. It would freak me out if Sully went to Carla’s bedroom.”

Sully clucked his tongue and looked at her. “You want to swap with Cody and Carla? I always knew you wanted Cody.”

She flicked his shoulder with the backs of her fingers. “Don’t be an idiot. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Philippe,” Byron muttered then chuckled. Sully shot him a sidelong glance, a silent Shut the fuck up.

Byron pretended to button his lip.

“See, and Sully,”—she cupped his cheek—“my wonderful Sully, is a little touchy about this Philippe guy.”

“Philippe’s okay,” Sully muttered.

She shot Sully a sly look. “How okay?”

Sully smiled and rolled his eyes and pulled his face from her touch. “Not that okay.”

Byron said, “So what’s this about then?”

“Getting loose. I don’t know, I was thinking of Chey, too.”

Chey said, “What about me?”

“You know what about you, my exhibitionist friend.”

“Oh,” Chey said and rubbed her arms. “I do like that.”

Byron chuckled and said, “She didn’t like it earlier today when Cody and Lily were going out jet skiing.”

Sullivan said, “Why not?”

Byron said, “Because she was naked and they weren’t.”

Sullivan smiled and looked at Chey. “The exhibitionist gets self-conscious?”

Cheyenne’s features crumpled, and Scarlet reached across the bed for her hand. “I think, you malicious assholes, sometimes the self-consciousness is part of the fun.”

Cheyenne brightened and looked up, a glimmer of hope there, and Scarlet was convinced she’d just guessed right. Being an exhibitionist was no fun if all you wanted to do was strut around naked, force people to ogle your beautiful naked body and your flawless tanned skin. It was only fun for anxious Cheyenne because it scared the shit out of her too.

“What do you say?”

Cheyenne frowned. “Say about what?”

Scarlet folded her arms behind her back, tugged the knot of her bikini top that Sully had tied a few minutes before. The cups loosened then draped over her breasts. Both husbands went slack-jawed and wide-eyed like cartoon dogs looking at a soup bone. She unstrung the bikini from around her neck and exposed her breasts to them. Any objections, any quests for honesty and truth, any reservations, were quickly diminished by a multitude. Byron licked his lower lip, his eyes glued to her nipples.

Cheyenne saw that and right away sat straighter, pulled off her crop top T-shirt, revealing her bikini bra. And though she’d been buck naked in front of them all today, Sully’s eyes were glued as if he were about to receive a grand revelation. Scarlet leaned closer, untied Chey’s bikini, and watched Cheyenne’s long arms pull it free and then show Sully and Byron her naked chest. Cheyenne’s nipples were already hard and upright, the table lamp glinting off their swollen bulb edges.

Sully sighed, “Holy shit.”

“What do you think, guys? We’ve all seen each other naked. All of us did it earlier today. Let’s keep talking… Let’s work this out… Let’s move forward. I like the idea. I like the idea of at least trying. Don’t you?”

Both guys nodded, no longer able to meet their gazes, both of them looking at naked breasts.

“Yeah,” Sully said, eyes still locked on Cheyenne’s nipples, backing off the bed now, peeling off his T-shirt. Byron did the same. Sully pushed his swim trunks down to his knees and hiked his feet out of them, his half hard dick swinging around. He stood upright with his hips thrust forward, trying to give Cheyenne his dick’s best angle. Make it look as big as possible.

Scarlet reached over, gripped its warm and dangling length, eased it back and forth a few times, squeezed and gently milked downward, helping her husband out. Helping him look his best. When she let it go, he plumped further, her husband’s pretty-decent dick looking good swinging between his legs. Byron on the other hand was fully erect, his dick pointing upright. Scarlet thought of how Cheyenne said Byron had flubbed it with Carla. She didn’t see how that was possible. Byron always seemed eager. Always up for something. And every time she’d seen his dick, the thing was hard as a rock.

The guys sat down, Byron a little more aware of himself now, able to meet Scarlet’s gaze, only glancing down at her chest every once in a while. Now that he was sitting, he covered his arousal as if he was embarrassed by it. Sully stroked his, trying to get it fully hard. Cheyenne watched him. A flash of jealous anger snapped in front of Scarlet’s eyes like a hypnotist waking her out of the trance he’d put her in. That was her friend. That was her husband and her husband’s dick. Scarlet’s dick. But then again, Scarlet’s property. She’d loan out a lawnmower to Cheyenne if Cheyenne needed it. Of course, dick wasn’t a lawnmower.

She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to make sense of this. Every moral objection rose up before her, but there was a tug on her insides, a warmth growing below. A desire to actually see this crazy thing through. And another very strange part of her wanted to share Sully with Cheyenne. She loved Cheyenne, and she loved Sully. Sully would be good to Cheyenne. Probably. Unless he tried too hard to impress her and did something stupid. That could happen. Most likely, Sully would be good to Cheyenne.

And a deeper, stranger part of her kind of wanted to watch it happen.