SUMMER SWAP // Chapter 12

*edited to add: DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER without reading the mis-posted Chapter 11*

***

The tightness in his stomach made it impossible to eat dinner. Byron picked through the hamburger Carla had grilled, but left half of it on his plate. He picked at the coleslaw, picked at the salad. Mostly just pushed things around his plate. Carla had a good time asking him why he wasn’t hungry. What, you don’t like my burger? She knew why he wasn’t hungry. She just liked tormenting him. Every time she asked him, it reminded him the reason why. Oh, Carla, my stomach feels a little funny because your husband is going to sleep with my wife tonight. And for some reason, I want that to happen. And as much as I want to sleep with you tonight, now that it’s going to happen, I have to be honest, I’m feeling a little intimidated. His bowels had gone squirrelly. Even making funny sounds at the table. He was relieved to note, however, that his wife also seemed to suffer the same ailment. Cheyenne barely able to make it through her dinner, picking and poking at her food. Carla didn’t bother her.

He wondered how nervous Cheyenne was. Now that they decided to do this thing, did Cheyenne start to have second thoughts like he did? They were going to go through with it; he was pretty sure, but he would like to get a measurement on Cheyenne’s anxiety.

After dinner, they congregated on the back deck. Cheyenne said she was going to go in and get cleaned up. He sat out back with Arlo and Sullivan talking about fishing. He passed on the beer because it was too filling, but didn’t say no to a bourbon. That was nice and calming, and sitting with those guys took his mind off it. But after half an hour, it was perplexing that Cheyenne hadn’t returned.

It got him doing a headcount. An adrenaline spike of worry ripping through him that his wife just couldn’t wait to get it done and had slunk off with Cody. It wouldn’t be breaking the rules, and yet it would be. If Cheyenne were to do that, she would have to let him know ahead of time. Weird how you could have rules in a scenario where there were technically no rules. That was another thing of worry. Somehow, in all the excitement of arranging tonight’s activities, he’d let the honesty about what had transpired midday go untold. He was supposed to tell Cheyenne what happened—that he’d touched Carla’s naked body, and that Carla had done something he hated to remember.

He excused himself, and moved away from the lounge area at the back of the boat, into the covered section where Carla was sitting with Cody and Scarlet. Carla eyed him the whole way, and he was worried she was thinking that this was some signal from him that they should go do it now. As he walked past them, her head oscillated and before he got out of sight, she said, “Where are you going, tiger?”

“Just up to my room.”

“Cheyenne up there?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and smiled slyly.

He made his way to the alley of bedrooms, then could hear the whine of Cheyenne’s hairdryer from inside the room. When he opened the door, she was standing bent over, head upside down, brushing out her mane of hair and wafting her blow dryer. The room was warm with the heat of it.

He said, “You’re really getting dolled up.”

She didn’t hear him, still blasting away with the hairdryer. He rubbed the small of her back as he walked past and climbed up to sit on the bed and watch his wife. Watched her pretty body. Missed it. Although it was his, and nothing had changed.

But maybe during the last year, he’d come to take Cheyenne’s gifts for granted. Cheyenne was an amazing woman. And Cody was going to find out tonight. Cody was going to find out everything there was to know about Cheyenne’s body.

Shit. Just that weird thought had him starting to get hard. He looked at her the way she was, in a pair of cotton sleeping shorts and a tank top. The small of her back was bare, the knobs of her spine raised against her supple skin. He could picture Cody now, coming up behind her this way, putting his dick inside her and fucking her from behind.

Well, that was not making the boner dissipate. He adjusted it in his pants.

Cheyenne shut off the blow dryer, hung it by its loop on a hook on the wall over top of his pajamas. She smiled at him, but there was a mild measure of worry in her eyes. She began scooping her hair back, a hair tie plugged in the corner of her smile. She gathered it all back, then tied it in a tail.

He said again, “You’re getting dolled up.”

Cheyenne flashed a brief grimace, then rolled her eyes around. “I just want to be clean.”

“I get it,” he said. “I’m going to shower, too. I’ll wait until a little later.”

Cheyenne showed a timid pose. “How do I look?”

“Like my wife,” he said.

“I always look like your wife,” she said and smiled timidly. “But really? Do I look okay?”

“Of course you do. Come here.”

Cheyenne came in between his open knees, cupped his face, and kissed him. He held her, ran his hand under the tank top that had fallen around her hips again, and stroked the small of her warm back. Then he cupped her buttocks. Another man was going to hold these tonight. There was no turning back now, because the closer they got, the more excited he grew. The only way it wasn’t going to happen was if Chey chickened out. There was that chance. Between his legs, his cock had come to life. He let Cheyenne know, taking her wrist, guiding her hand between his legs. He said, “I just want you to know I’m still into this.”

She caressed the hump of his bulge. “I’m into it too.”

“You nervous?”

A booming rap hit their door and both of them jumped like they’d been electrocuted. They broke up laughing. Yes, they were both nervous. From outside in the hall, Arlo said, “Movie time. We’re meeting in the theater.”

“We’ll be out in a minute,” he said, grabbed Cheyenne’s wrist and pulled her back to him. He said, “This is crazy, but I love you, and we can do this.”

She kissed him again, and he held her in his arms.

***

The yacht’s home theater was a rectangular room with a tremendous LCD screen at one end. The walls were painted black, and purple neon lighting glowed within a recessed valence that ran the edges of the room’s ceiling. The space had seating for eight, but there were nine of them now, interspersed and crammed into all the low and very cushy sofa benches. Byron and Cheyenne got a spot on a comfy bench at the side, propped up on pillows. Cheyenne leaned on him while they watched a horror movie. It had been almost impossible to settle on a movie with so many conflicting tastes. So they settled on a drama. But he Scarlet realized she’d already seen it. So while the horror movie played out on the screen, he held Cheyenne next to him, not thinking of the movie at all, only thinking of what would happen later. Tonight, he would sneak into Carla’s bedroom. He was going to have sex with Carla. Cheyenne was going to let him. It was crazy.

Cheyenne’s chin was moving, dragging on his chest.

He followed Cheyenne’s line of sight and saw Cody in the back corner mouthing to her. Cody had Carla on his arm, Carla snuggled right up to her husband. Carla was intent on what was happening on the screen, but Cody and Cheyenne were sharing secret communications.

And now he was getting hard again.

He shifted uncomfortably, and that made Cheyenne’s chin ride up and down on his chest. She straightened, patted his stomach, sat back and adjusted her hair, smiling Cody’s way. Cody was also all smiles, sitting there watching a movie, grinning wide enough to show his teeth. That guy would have his hands all over Cheyenne tonight. Cheyenne wanted that guy’s hands on her.

“Hey,” he whispered to Cheyenne. “I’m going to go jump in the shower now.”

“The movie’s not over,” she whispered in return.

“I’ve seen it,” he lied.

The real problem was a growing erection. He didn’t want to sit here being tortured this way amongst all his friends, with his cock poking out the fly of his shorts.

“I’m just going to be fifteen minutes,” he said, squeezing out from next to her, Cheyenne falling into the place where he’d been sitting.

He hunched over, hiding his bulge, and tried walking below the screen. But the screen was low, and his friends were assholes, all yelling at him. Someone was throwing popcorn. He hissed, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Then he was out, sliding the glass door behind him. Arlo threw a piece of popcorn that bounced off the glass. He gave Arlo the finger, standing in the door frame in a way that would block any bulge someone might see. Then he was pivoting, heading down the hall. He went up to the bedroom, got his shower kit together, then went into the bathroom. Under the water spray, he stared at his dick, standing upright, its lone eye looking up at him—wondering what the hell he was getting it into. “I don’t know,” he said, “but get ready for a wild night.”

The erection was aching. His stomach was twisted up like a metal pretzel. Never in his life had he thought he would be a swinger. Or into “the lifestyle,” as Carla would say. But holy shit, he couldn’t deny that he’d never been more sexually thrilled in his life. This felt like being a virgin in high school and you were going out with a girl you thought might put her hand in your pants later on. That level of puberty-driven hormone. He was surfing on sex-blinding hyper-focus. All he could think about was his hands on Carla. What her breasts would feel like. What would it would feel like to put it inside her. And conversely, and maybe even more powerful, was the idea of Cheyenne with another man. A man that she wanted to have sex with. And that was the most twisted part. Cheyenne’s sexuality was shown to him in an unexpected way.

He lay with his back against the shower stall wall, shower spray hitting him square in the chest. The water hitting him and rolling down his stomach and between his legs was only felt in one place. That throbbing hard-on he had. Just the feel of the water on it was going to set him off.

He levered the shower off, got out and dried, changed into the clothes he would wear tonight to sneak into Carla’s bedroom. A good-looking pair of shorts, a plain old black T-shirt. Sensible, attractive, and easily removable.

Once he returned his items and towel to the bedroom, he headed back down to the home theater, figuring the movie would just be about over. Then it would be the time everybody wandered off to bed.

Byron stopped short at the sliding glass door, and his heart thudded. Cheyenne wasn’t sitting where he’d left her. Instead, the pale flashing light from the LCD screen lit his wife up now, as she sat in the back row, right up against Philippe.

His breath caught in his throat for a long moment and his temples throbbed. Good Lord.

He slid open the door, tried sneaking in again, closing the door behind him amidst a flurry of popcorn kernels, then darted past the screen, and threw himself back on the bench at the side. He looked to Cheyenne. He gave her a What are you doing over there? face.

She rolled her eyes and pushed herself out of the spot next to Philippe. Philippe guided her to stand, his big carpenter’s hand on the small of her back.

And shit, that semi-erection that had faded to half-slumber in his underwear surged hard again. He held his hand out, pulled Cheyenne to sit with him. “I can’t take this anymore,” he whispered.

She snuggled against him. “It’s almost time,” she whispered.