Early the next morning, memories of naked Diane spun fresh in my mind, and dreams of her mysterious sister Hannah haunted my consciousness. They were only dreams of Hannah, because I still could not place her. None of the current women who worked at the Lodge had hair the color of lemons, dandelions, or yellow crayons. She was the enigma that I owed Diane to uncover. Time was short. The Summer Lovin' Party would be this Friday, two days away.
The Lake beckoned me with its gentle waves and languorous mists. Out in the middle of the Lake, I could plan my next steps. First, I had to find Hannah and get her to trust me. Although many of the women over the years have dismissed me as a chivalrous fool who was too gentlemanly to be any fun or any threat to them, others had come to trust me. I wanted Hannah to be in the latter group.
Next, I needed to get my first-ever invitation to the Summer Lovin' party. How else could I guarantee that no harm might befall Diane's little sister? Marco Ragusa had never seen fit to invite me before, but I had something he desperately wanted — my legal interest in the Lake. With bait like that waved before his eyes, Marco Ragusa would surely bite.
Finally, what would I do if I did get in to the party? Ragusa had nearly fifty men invited to each Summer Lovin' party, and plenty of provocative, excitable women to entertain them. If Hannah had been invited to the Party Room, could I really protect her from all those lascivious eyes, drooling maws, and scurrilous hands? It's what Diane expected.
I drifted, I fished, and I dreamed. I also meditated on the problem of innocence and pleasure, and especially the concept of impurity. What small change had been worked in Diane to let her slip from her life of prim rectitude to a world of shameless wantonness? Does every woman face that same temptation, or only hope to? Is it always that easy to turn a nice girl, which Diane believed Hannah was, into hot mess?
Shortly before noon, I roused myself from my ruminations. The boat had drifted to the far end of the Lake, as far from the Lodge as one could go. No bites this morning, again. Work started at 2:00pm. With all the special guests arriving, I wouldn't have much free time and I shouldn't be late.
"Hey!" someone called. Then I heard a short, crisp whistle. About forty feet away, just behind some trees, there was a flash of magenta again, waving to get my attention. It was the hard-bodied runner, signaling with her magenta top while she was wearing a brief white bandeau bikini. All around her, neon colored swim suit pieces were strewn.
I waved back. She pointed upwards, and there it was, another drone. Bigger than the last one, flying higher than yesterday, but focused on her again. It triggered my foolish chivalry, but this time, the dark blue machine was too high to be taken down with fishing line.
She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "What are you going to do about it, huh?" Then I saw that she was not alone. There were at least two other women with her. I recognized the white skin and orange nose of the curvaceous Clara, wearing a tiny teal two-piece that stretched dangerously across her full hips, and hugged her coal tipped tits. The other woman was wearing a red polka dot bikini, using her long arms to afford her the modesty that her suit otherwise failed to provide. My runner pointed aggressively at the drone.
"I see it. I see it," I said, though no one could hear me.
I checked my tackle box for any kind of weapon, and found the old slingshot that I had used to become a crack shot with Marco Ragusa so many years ago. The bands were old but still stretchy. I pulled it back cautiously, expecting it to snap in my hands at any moment, but it held. I had no spherical ammo to use, but there were three oblong lead sinkers that just might do the trick.
I shot one sinker, and it went sailing past the machine. There was no accuracy with this ammo. I brought the boat closer, and shot the second sinker. There was plenty of power, but the missile went wide.
My runner saw the difficulty I was having. She understood I needed to get closer to the drone, without attracting its defenses. She stepped from behind the trees to a more open area, turned her back to the drone, and unsnapped her top, letting it fall to the ground. Her back was smooth and tan. The drone shifted position a little to get a better look. Then she began fiddling with the sides of her bottoms, preparing to expose her bare bottom.
I took the last sinker, and tried to squash it in my hands to a more spherical shape as I positioned the boat directly underneath the drone. This was the last shot.
She slowly slid her bottoms down, while bending slightly forward, giving the drone and me a full look at her exposed buttocks. Her ass was the most lovely thing I'd ever seen. Smooth and without tan lines, it was round and firm as an apple, and looked like it might crisp when I sank my teeth into it. The drone hovered, as transfixed as I was at this show of backside beauty.
I shook my head to clear my mind and focus on the task of downing the drone. It had not moved yet. I pulled back, using all the forgotten muscle memory I had used as a rambunctious lad. Despite the entrancing sight of the runner's beautiful bare bottom, the drone must have recognized the danger at the last moment, because it tipped to the side, preparing to make a sideways escape.
But it was too late. The lead ball smashed into the machinery with enough force to flip it over, which I had never seen happen before. It lost its aerodynamic capabilities and fell like a tossed life preserver into the lake. It sputtered at the surface for a while before slipping in a mass of bubbles, froth and smoke beneath the lake waves.
Clara and the tall one in the red polka dot bikini clapped their hands and jumped on their toes like cheerleaders. The other woman couldn't clap; she pulled up her bottoms and bunched her top close to her small, perky breasts for demure decency. She had a broad smile on her face, and waved me toward them with her free arm.
I pulled the boat onto the shore and secured it.
"Hi, Teddy," meowed Clara, looking up at me sidewise through thick dark lashes. She had intertwined her arms, which pushed up her bosom, and I could count the veins leading to her nipples beneath her translucent skin.
"You can leave now," my runner said. She shouldered her bandeau top quickly and secured it in place. "We've got this."
I noticed a small blue brick tattoo in the sensitive area between her left hipbone and the beginning of her mons pubis. It was a measure of how abbreviated the white suit was that I was able to see the blue tattoo at all. It was usually covered by her running shorts and most swimsuit bottoms. It was a brief word or a few letters, but I could not make it out.
I looked to the third girl, a tall vision in red polka dots. Her hair was the blond color of liquid amber, and it curled over her shoulders and toward her chest. Her wide eyes seemed emerald green, reflecting the trees surrounding her. Her thin legs glistened in the sunlight, smooth and shapely. They had gaps where pretty women often had gaps when their legs were together, and widened just enough to stretch the red polka dot bottom tightly across her pussy. It was brief and narrow, and still I saw no evidence of pubic hair. Maybe Ragusa required Brazilian waxes for his female employees.
But her best feature was her breasts. They were large, languorous and shaped like melted chocolate drops, heavier on the bottom than the top, where gravity's fingers cupped their mass. The red top tentatively supported her breasts, helping form a deep valley between the two, and did nothing to suppress the jujube tips pointing slightly skyward.
"Well," I said to her, sitting on the edge of my boat, holding the slingshot, "Whether I get to stay or not seems to depend on you. Would you like my protection for a little longer?"
She glanced at the other two and I noticed the O shape of her mouth before she smiled. Her lips, like her breasts, were full and sensuous. I'd seen lips like that only once before, and that was last night.
"Do you have any pot?" she asked in a slow drawl.
I held up a baggie and flicked it with a free finger. It held about ten rolled cigarettes. Her mouth went from its promising O to a broad smile, showing large white teeth.
"Ooh," she said. "I vote he stays."
I tossed the baggie in her direction. My runner snatched the baggie midair.
"No fair, Kate. Teddy meant that for me."
Kate, my runner, held the baggie up to the sunlight. "We've got suits to try on. We don't need to get wasted, Hannah." She tucked the baggie into her bottoms' elastic, next to the blue brick.
"So, your name is Hannah?" I said.
She was pouting and didn't answer.
"I think I know your sister. Her name's Diane, right?"
Hannah pouted a little more, but looked more puzzled than before. "How...?" Then she put her fists on the exposed tops of her hips. "Are you a painter?"
I laughed, and saw that Kate was very interested in my conversation with Hannah. Kate leaned a little forward, and didn't notice Clara sidestepping closer to her.
"No, I'm not a painter, though my father is. That's where I met Diane. She's beautiful. I remember when she used to work for the Lodge a long time ago. You work there now, right, Hannah?"
Suddenly Clara's hand dove into the side of Kate's bikini bottom, grabbing the baggie. She snatched it away with a victorious laugh and held it over her head as she danced toward Hannah. The pressure on Kate's bottoms must have been too much, and it split. Kate squealed as she realized what was happening. She was quick, though, and kept the pieces in place in front of he long enough to hide behind a tree. Her long tan arms reached out for some of the suit pieces strewn close enough for her to use.
Hannah and Clara quickly pulled out a joint and I lit it for them.
"Just one!" yelled Kate from her tree-lined dressing room.
They both smiled and nodded their heads while savoring the soothing smoke.
"I used to have a sister named Diane," said Hannah in her slow drawl. "We don't talk any more. She never comes around. She's left the family to pursue her art."
"I know," I said.
"I miss her though," said Hannah, getting sentimental.
"She talked the whole time about you," I said.
"Really?" said Hannah. She considered that and pushed a tear from the corner of her eye. "Tell her I miss her."
Kate came out, wearing a strange yellow one piece that plunged deeply in front while riding high in the rear. When Clara saw her coming, she tucked the baggie under her right thigh for safekeeping.
"What are you all doing?" I asked. "Why are dozens of suits all the way out here? Ragusa has that private pool that you can use."
