"Here you go," Ellen, my cousin, and soon to be sister in law, said pointing a plastic jar with the lid off towards me, "take one."
"What's this?" I said, a bit leery as everything we had done so far was way out of the normal for me.
"It's a question about your love life. Just draw it, and I'll go first."
"What do you mean, you'll go first?"
"Think of it like a confessional. Whatever it says, we'll all take turns sharing."
~
I was startled awake when the room light suddenly came on. I hadn't heard anyone come in, I hadn't felt or heard Ricky get up, but suddenly I was surrounded by Carrie and Josette and Ricky's sister Ellen. "What?" I asked, sitting up, disoriented, and pulling the sheet to my naked body. "What's going on? Why... Why are you guys here?"
"Get up girlfriend!" Ellen, obviously the ringleader of this ambush, said. "We've got a flight to catch."
"A flight? A flight to where?" I responded, still not following what was going on. I glanced at the clock beside the bed, seeing that it was 4:17 AM as Josette stepped up and took my hand, pulling at me to get up. I realized the three of them must have been traveling all night if they were just getting to our place. I ducked aside as Carrie tossed me a bra and panties, my eyes landing on Rick standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, a shit-eating grin on his face. "Did you know about this?
"Don't look at me," he laughed, holding his hands up and stepping back, "I've got nothing to do with this." He was shirtless, wearing only shorts, and since he had gone to bed naked, I knew he had to have at least known about this -- whatever "this" was. I slipped my bra on and grabbed my panties, just as Josette stepped back from the closet and handed me a blouse.
"What is this? What's going on?" I said again since they hadn't yet told me anything.
"We've gotta go. We've got a plane to catch at 6:30," Carrie said, turning from the dresser and handing me shorts to go with the blouse.
"A plane to where?"
"A plane to your bachelorette party, silly!"
The little clues that something was going on all became clear as I awoke. That Rick had unexpectedly washed all our clothes two nights before suddenly had meaning. His seemingly innocently asking where my passport was, that he was putting his in the safe and would put mine with it, suddenly took on a different meaning also. Would we be going somewhere out of the country? Might be, but then again, my driver's license had never been updated to the "flying" ID requirements, which is why he needed to know where the passport was, so I didn't know.
"Go get your toothbrush and makeup while we pack," Ellen said, taking the bag from the closet that Rick handed her and putting it on the bed. She and Carrie and Josette were rapidly collecting my clothes, packing for me, so even though I didn't know what was going on, I knew I was in good hands.
~
"I can't believe we're doing this," I laughed, reading the slip of paper that I had just drawn from the plastic tub of multiple folded sheets of paper. I read it, my eyes opening and said, "Oh, my."
Ellen and Josette and Carrie all laughed, Ellen reaching for the slip of paper that I'd pulled out.
It was late afternoon, and multiple hours since our plane had taken off. Arriving in Palm Springs, collecting our bags, getting the taxi had all taken time. With a wry grin at my naked and laughing girlfriends I lifted my plastic glass of Pina Colada, sat up, leaned in and reached out with the glass for a toast. They didn't hesitate to return the toast, Carrie jumping up from her lounge to step over so the four of us could clink plastic glasses. Where we were was the Desert Sun Resort in Palm Springs and although it was listed as "clothing optional" we hadn't seen anyone wearing anything since we got there.
I asked whose idea a nude resort was for a bachelorette party, and they confessed that they'd all agreed it was a great idea. Ellen said she and her husband David had been here a couple of years before and had a great time, while Carrie and Josette said we'd always talked about going somewhere that we could be naked together and 'show off' when we'd skinny dipped as teenagers in the Fletchers quarry. When Ellen told about Desert Sun, they were all in.
Ellen had, over the last couple of months since Ricky and I had announced our engagement, become almost as close of a friend with me as Carrie and Josette. We had spent multiple hours on the phone together, and when I'd returned home to shop for a wedding dress, it became an 'all-hands' affair. Ellen and I had gotten on-line together many times so had an idea of what I wanted, but we figured we still could not just buy any old dress. Josette and Carrie and Ellen and I, along with my Mom as well as and Rick and Ellen's mom, spent all day Saturday dress shopping. With 6 of us, we let Mom and Aunt Danni drive, the rest of us were sloshed before we were halfway through the day. Apparently, Mimosa's are the drink du jour for girls when you are shopping for wedding dresses, every shop had them.
Having been to Desert Sun before, Ellen led the way and was the first to just strip off and head for the pool naked. Carrie and I, having been together for a short time in Mexico also had no problem, but Josette was initially just a bit more bashful. When I told her, "Come on, Josette, it's just like the quarry -- only warmer!" she sheepishly grinned and stripped off. Of course, with the entire place naked, 30 seconds after we were outdoors, nobody even noticed.
Ellen, at 25, was the oldest of us, while the other three of us were all 21. Josette was the tallest and slimmest at almost 5 foot 10, and I suspected the least experienced of any of us, sexually. Carrie and I, of course, had our fling the summer before when we were all locked in, and the three of us had skinny dipped so many times at the Fletchers, but somehow Josette had never talked much about her lovers, or even just her boyfriends, whether they were lovers or not. Certainly the three of us weren't as close as we had been in high school, but Josette was still one of those people in my life that all she had to do was pick up the phone and say "I need help" and I'd have been there. Ricky's sister, Ellen, had been married for three years and, in our talks over the last few months, I had learned a lot about her including that she was definitely not a prude.
"Tell all about your first blow job," Ellen read aloud quietly, a bit subdued from the rambunctious talking we'd been doing, as there were other people around the pool, although not really close. We had pulled our lounges into a semi-circle off to one corner of the patio, so it was obvious we were together but other than that, nobody was paying us any special attention. "Who, what, when, where -- everything," she continued.
"Ok, here we go," she said looking around at all of us. "I'd had a couple of boyfriends before but nothing serious, and then there was Richard. We hadn't had sex yet, but we were playing with each other. We were at his house, after school, making out in the living room. He loved my boobs, and I'd let him take my shirt off, and then I opened his pants. I was playing with it, and well, it seemed like the thing to do." She looked around and shrugged. "That was my first time."
"Oh, come on," Carrie said, "Spit or swallow?"
