A Summer in the Flesh

This is a chapter in a fifteen-chapter novella, and each chapter is dependent on the one that precedes it. It is best to read them in order. In any event, the story takes place in a Midwestern college town in the summer of 1979.

*****

Amy’s kiss didn’t startle me. But when I heard someone coming down the hall and I could tell that he was coming into the kitchen, I pulled away. Amy smiled at me, and I smiled back. It was Charlie.

“Good morning, ladies.”

“Good morning, Charlie,” we said in unison, a bit too coyly, and we laughed. Charlie seemed a little confused at first, and then he shrugged it off.

“Well, it’s good to see you two getting along.”

This made us laugh again. Charlie looked at us as if he were questioning our sanity. Then he looked at me as if he were trying to gauge something deep inside of me. I got up to get more coffee.

“So what is on the Blues House calendar today?” Charlie asked sarcastically.

“I’m off to the library, unfortunately,” I offered.

“I have my first exam this afternoon,” Amy replied.

“Hmm… Pretty boring stuff.” Charlie had retrieved a mug and held it out for me to fill.

“Well, you know us, Charlie. We’re pretty boring folks.” I looked Charlie in the eye, and tried to let him know that there were no “issues.”

“I’ll say,” Charlie seemed to catch my drift, and he nodded at me. “Pretty damn hot out.”

“Thanks for the report, Stormy,” Amy interrupted.

“I was going to say, maybe we should have a house picnic at the Quarry later this afternoon, or this evening.”

“The Quarry?” I had heard the term used before, but I had never bothered to determine it’s meaning.

“You haven’t been to the Quarry, have you?” Charlie seemed hurt. “Oh, we gotta go then.”

I learned that the Quarry was a relatively obscure local swimming hole that was created in an abandoned granite quarry. The mining company diverted the river to the quarry to help them process the granite. They just left it when the money ran out, and the whole quarry filled up. Charlie learned of the spot from a friend who was a local, and he had been going there since his freshman year.

“The water’s great, crystal clear. You’ll love it,” he assured me. Amy and I agreed, and Charlie said he’d see about Tom and Mike.

When I got back to the house just after 6:00 that evening, Charlie was loading up the trunk of Amy’s car.

“So, are stillyou coming?”

“Yes, of course,” I replied.

Charlie gave me thumbs up. “You won’t regret it.”

I decided on a one-piece suit, and put on a pair of cut-offs and a T-shirt over the top of it. I grabbed a beach towel and my sunglasses, and I was ready to go.

Tom and Mike came back from the store with a case of beer. We sat on the front porch drinking and small talking until Amy arrived, and then we were off.

We got to the Quarry while it was still light. It was a prettier area than I had pictured it. It was up a tree-lined dirt road that was only two paths through the woods. The trees were enormous and lushly green. The Quarry itself consisted of bleached-white rock that made for a startling contrast. There was a makeshift area used as a parking lot with only two cars in it. Charlie had us put all of our jewelry and money in the trunk, and then he hid the key under a log in front of the car.

We unloaded the cooler and our towels and carried the stuff down a path through the woods alongside the Quarry. The path opened onto a flat rock landing that disappeared into the water. Charlie was right. It was crystal clear. What I hadn’t expected was the color. It was a translucent shade of lime green.

“So, what do you think?” Charlie seemed proud of himself as he asked me his question.

“You were right, Charlie. It’s beautiful.”

Tom and Mike pulled off their shirts and ran into the water. I helped Amy and Charlie set up our stuff, and then I hurried out of my shorts and T-shirt and ran into the water. It was the perfect temperature: refreshing, but not cold. Only ten feet or so out in thigh-deep water, the rock landing ended at a ledge where the bottom disappeared. There were only five other people in the water: three high-school-aged boys fighting over an inner tube and a thirty-something couple.

Charlie swam out to where I was treading water.

“How deep do you think it is?” I asked.

“I’ve never touched the bottom. It’s deep.”

The sun was setting behind the trees, and the clouds were lavender trimmed in a shimmering gold.

We swam and talked in the water for about an hour, occasionally running up onto the landing for a beer or some chips. Before we knew it, it was dark, and a full moon was rising in the east. We all got out of the water and ate our sub sandwiches. The beer was ice cold, the air was muggy, and the breeze was humid and warm. It felt great.

We were chatting in a loosely connected, collective stream-of-consciousness when Amy, looked around, and announced, “We’re alone.”

“Great!” said Charlie.

“Finally,” said Tom.

As if on cue, everyone but me stood up, took off their suits, and tiptoed out into the water stark naked. Charlie stopped and came back for me. I was tempted to reach out for his cock as it waggled in front of my eyes and pull myself up, but he offered his hand instead.

“Come on.”

“What if someone comes?”

“This is called ‘The Skinny-Dipping Hole.’ It’s a summer’s night ritual. If someone comes, they won’t be surprised. Trust me.”

“Then why did we wait till everyone left?”

“They’re called day-stragglers. I’m hip with the lingo. When they’re gone, surf’s up. Come on.” I took his hand and stood up.

Mike and Tom had already jumped in off the ledge. Amy was standing at the ledge running her hands through her hair. The moon had just peeked over the trees, and the light radiated from her. Tom and Mike were treading water, staring at her, mesmerized, and she knew it. Her skin was taught and evenly tanned. She was trim and firm where I was round and soft, her buns were well-rounded and taught. She turned to see what I was doing. I could see she had neatly trimmed pubic hair. Her breasts were pert, but not as small as they seemed when her clothes were on.

“C’mon, girl. The water’s perfect.” Amy turned and dove in. Charlie let go of my hand and I gave him a shrug as if to say, “What the hell.” I pulled my arms through the straps of my still damp suit and peeled it off. Charlie hooted, turned and ran into the water. I walked to the ledge, and all four of them treaded water and stared at me. The water felt perfectly warm on my feet. The sultry breeze felt warm against my skin. I jumped in.

Whenever I have found myself skinny-dipping since that night, I always think about how wonderful and sexy and natural the water from the Quarry felt, and I wish I could recreate the feeling. But I can’t. My body felt loose and fluidly flexible, like I was part of the water. Charlie dared me to swim down to where the water was colder. I probably only got ten or twelve feet below the surface, and the water was eerily cold. It was invigorating, and made the surface water seem like bath water. Charlie led us to the far end of the Quarry where there was a ledge that never came up fully out of the water. The ledge was about twenty feet long and it ended in a wall of rock that went straight up about twenty feet.

“This is the ‘Ledge,’” Charlie announced. “It is the premium spot in the Quarry – first come, first serve.”

Charlie pulled himself up onto the ledge and then seemed to rise up the rock wall by magic. When I looked more closely, I could see it was an optical illusion, and that there was an incline of crudely carved steps leading up to tiny perch about a third the way up the wall. Charlie stopped, looked below, cupped his genitals with both hands and jumped, plunging into the water feet first in a loud splash.

Amy pulled herself up on the ledge and took a seat with her back to the wall. “You should take a look at the view from up there,” she said to me.

“I’m not jumping.”

“ Just take a look.”

I crawled up onto the ledge ungracefully and as Amy pointed the way, I climbed the steps. On the perch, the breeze sent a tiny chill through me, and I noticed my nakedness. I ignored it at first. There was still the faintest glow of daylight in the western sky, and I could see treetops and hills well off into the distance. I decided to enjoy being naked, standing on this pedestal, the world stretching out before me. I looked below, and the three boys we’d brought along were fixed on me. I waived. They whistled and hooted. I put my hands behind my head and swiveled my hips. More hoots. And then I saw some people coming up to the water’s edge on the far bank. If I had to guess, I would say it was the three boys with the inner tube, but I couldn’t see that well in the growing darkness.

I was about to turn around to come down when I felt Amy come up behind me. She reached around my waist, and I felt her breasts press into my back. Now I was doubly embarrassed. I was embarrassed that a group of high school boys might be ogling us, and I was embarrassed about my softness against Amy’s leanness. What startled me even more however was how these two issues captured my attention, while the fact that a naked women was embracing me from behind seemed irrelevant.

“God, I am so fat.” Oh great. Now I felt stupid. It was like I was asking, “Do I look fat in this?” while all I was modeling my own damn skin.

“Annie, you’re gorgeous.” She petted my tummy and pressed more firmly against me.

“It is pretty up here, isn’t it?”

I looked at the water, and the moonlight seemed to be filling the pond with streaks of light that penetrated very deeply. It was beautiful.

“Do you see those boys over there?”

She took a second to look around my shoulder. “Yes.”

“Maybe we should go.” I started to turn, and she loosened her grip, but when I faced her, she slipped her arms back around me. I was truly awe struck by my casualness about this development.

“Do you really think this is the place for this?” I whispered.

“Forget them.” She turned her face put her head against my chest. I was more than a head taller than she was. I wanted to pull away and go down, but I thought about it again and decided to humor her. I embraced her, and she snuggled against me. She was so small, and I felt fleshy and large-than-life with her in my arms, but it felt comforting, too. She nuzzled at one of my nipples, and then took it in her mouth. “Come on, Amy, those kids are watching us.”

“Let’s jump.”

“No way.”

“I’m serious. I’ll go first.” She let go of me and took a step around me to edge of the perch. She waived at the guys below, and then she waived at the boys across the water.

“I’ll make too big of a splash,” I said stupidly.

“Chicken-shit.” She jumped, and her scream startled me.

Now I felt silly. It wasn’t my pride that didn’t let me take the steps back down. It was that little voice in my head saying, “Live!” Amy was clear below. I jumped.

The world rushed by. I felt like I was tipping forward and was going to belly-smack on the water. I screamed and threw my hands in the air. This righted me just as I hit the water. My breasts felt like they were pushed up to my shoulders. I went deeper than I had expected, and the cold water shocked me. I spread out my arms and legs and stopped.

“Wow!” I blurted out as my head splashed out of the water. The guys clapped lightly. Amy shouted, “All right!”

My heart fluttered and raced. My skin tingled and puckered into a million goose bumps. “What a rush,” I beamed.

The guys took turns jumping from the perch. Amy and I sat on the ledge discussing in hushed tones how cute Tom’s buns were and how solid and tough-seeming Mike was for a shorter guy. They all looked so adorable scampering out of the water and tiptoeing up the steps. It was like they were young boys at play in an indecent Norman Rockwell painting.

“Have you seen our little boyfriends over there?” Amy asked. I had forgotten about them. They were gone, as far as I could tell.

After awhile it seemed to cool off, and we headed back to the landing. Mike was the first to climb out of the water, and thus the first to notice our fate.

“Goddammit, our suits and clothes are gone!”

And so they were. All that remained was the cooler. Charlie opened the cooler.

“Hey, would you look at that?”

“What?” we all seemed to say in unison.

“At least they left us some beer. The shits.” Then Charlie started to laugh.

Amy and I stayed in the water while the guys scurried about bare-assed looking for any sign of life or our clothes. After a few minutes, Tom and Mike came back, grabbed the cooler, and disappeared down the path. Then Charlie appeared.

“Okay, there’s nothing. Here’s the plan. Mike and Tom are already in the car. There’s no one between here and there, not that you have much choice, so come on.” He held out both his hands.

“Come on where?” Amy spoke for both of us.

“We’ll just get in the car and go home. No big deal.”

“No way.” My turn.

“There is no Plan B.” Charlie twitched his hands as if to say, “Come on.” There was silence. .

“Let’s go,” Amy said to me.

Charlie pulled us out and we scampered over the landing and up the path. At first I was breathless, and then I started to enjoy myself. The moonlight flickered through the trees, and the crickets hummed. All of a sudden, Amy and I were giggling. Just as we got within striking distance of Amy’s car, another car’s lights illuminated the road, and we could hear its tires rolling on the dirt.

“Quick.” Charlie opened the back door. It was a big Ford LTD with cloth bench seats. Tom and Mike were already in back. Amy hopped between them.

“Annie.” Charlie was holding the driver’s side door. The new car turned into the dirt parking lot, and its lights must have hit us just as Charlie pushed me in. Charlie, Amy, and I were breathless. We all started to laugh.

“Maybe they have some towels or something we could borrow,” I offered.

“Go ahead, Annie, sashay on over there and ask ‘em,” Amy replied.

“That’d be a sight,” someone said.

“We’re fine.”

Charlie started the car, backed up, and turned on the lights as we turned on to the road. The cooler was on the floor in front of my seat, so I sat close to Charlie (my excuse anyway). The glass was fogging up, and someone was smoking a joint, so the windows came down. I looked in back and Tom handed me the culprit joint.

We laughed and talked excitedly and passed the joint around. Charlie said he would take the country rounds around the back of the city to avoid the lights and traffic downtown. After a while we were quiet. The night air and the din of crickets filled the car. The road was empty and shrouded from the moonlight in a canopy of giant elm trees.

“This is so cool,” I heard Amy say under her breath from the back seat. She was right.

“Thank God you’ve got cloth seats, Amy,” Charlie said as he pushed in a tape. Springstein’s “Born to Run.” I put my head on Charlie’s shoulder.

“What a night,” I sighed.

Charlie rested his head against mine for a moment. Then he kissed the top of my head sweetly.

“You seem to be saying that a lot lately.”

I heard a curious commotion in the back seat and what I saw when I looked made me smile in a strangely knowing sort of way. Amy had one leg thrown over Tom’s knee on her right, and the other thrown over Mike’s knee on her left. She had a cock in each hand (the wicked bitch). She had her head turned towards Tom, and they were kissing sloppily. Mike had his hand between Amy’s legs. The funny thing I remember about this shocking picture of decadence was that Mike and Tom each had a beer cradled in their outside hand resting on the armrest. Mike then did something that oddly endeared him to me. He raised his beer and nodded at me.

“Cheers, fair Annie.”

I smiled and gave them what little privacy they had. Then I got an idea.

“Do you want a beer, Charlie?”

“Sure.”

I took one from the cooler and pried off the cap, took a deep, long swig, and handed it to him.

“Thanks.”

I put my head back on his shoulder, and then I put my cold, wet hand carefully between his legs.

“Ooh,” he fidgeted, and smiled.

I squeezed his flaccid penis. He spread his legs a little, and I petted his scrotum.

“This IS cool,” Charlie whispered.

Just as I anticipated, his cock rose from its slumber. He put his beer in a cup holder and put his arm around me. He stroked my side and squeezed my breast playfully. Slowly I pulled the flesh of his penis up and down over his shaft. I gripped him tightly but lovingly, and I watched with calm amazement as his penis grew in my hand.

“How much longer?” I whispered close to his ear.

“A few more inches,” he said. I giggled and squeezed his penis with authority.

“You know what I mean.”

“Oow… about forty minutes. Jeez…”

I leaned up and kissed his cheek. “That’s quite a while.”

“In dog years, maybe… oow!”

I squeezed his member again. “Keep your mind on the driving, guy.”

I went to work on his erection with a little more diligence. What a spectacular piece of equipment the good Lord blessed this boy with, I thought. I was glad I was in the front seat. I heard a moan and a sound of someone throwing a beer can out the window from the back seat and unable to contain my curiosity I looked.

Amy was now straddling Tom. She reached behind her and guided his cock to its destination. She was little enough not to have to bump her head against the roof as she bounced up and down on him. I watched for a moment, staring at the spot where their genitals met. It aroused me. I looked at Mike, and I felt sorry for him, sitting there with his dick pointing straight up in the air.

“That’s littering, you know,” I said looking at Mike in a way so he would know I was talking to Tom.

“I’ll get it later, promise,” Tom mumbled.

“You all right?” I asked Mike.

He raised his beer again. “Just enjoying a little night air.”

I settled back into my former endeavor. Tom and Amy got a little louder with each passing mile. Charlie was rock hard. The Boss was wailing. I slipped down, avoiding the steering wheel with my head, and put the tip of Charlie’s penis in my mouth. Because of the cooler, I couldn’t get my legs situated, so I settled on kneeling on the seat despite the fact that this meant my ample, lily-white ass was sticking up in the air for the world to see. As I nodded up and down on Charlie, I started to enjoy the breeze wafting and swirling between my legs. Charlie clenched my airing ass with his free hand.

Tom and Amy were really going at it. Poor Mike, I thought. I hoped Amy would make sure he got his. Tom was going to come (I could tell). The slapping of skin and grunting and groan rose to a crescendo. “Jungleland” did likewise. And then it quieted, and I could hear a little slurp as Amy dismounted. Charlie tickled my asshole with a finger, and I went to work in earnest on his dick.

All of a sudden we were slowing down. I started to come up and Charlie said, “It’s all right, I’ve just got to pull over here for a second and take care of something.” I wanted to come up and look, but Charlie kept his hand on the back of my head. I heard gravel, and felt the car turn, and within a few moments we stopped.

“Stay right there and don’t move, Annie.” Charlie opened his door and hustled out of the car.

What the hell was he doing? I came up on all fours and looked in back. Amy was already sitting next to Mike, stroking his neglected unit.

“Don’t move,” Charlie cajoled as he trotted around the front of the car, looking ridiculous streaking through the headlights. Amy was laughing. I looked back and Mike wiggled his fingers at me to say hi.

Charlie climbed in to the car behind me with the clear intent of fucking me from behind. He was humorously over-anxious. I had to put my head back down on to the seat to make room for him, and I could hear his head bouncing off the roof of the car and his knee banging on the cooler. There was chuckling from the backseat. It was a big car, but we were too big for this.