Naked House

The sea breeze died in the night, and the air in the bedroom hung warm and still. I couldn't say who moved first—Dory or me—but we flew apart once our euphoria faded. The bed was too small to get away from each other, but we spread our arms and legs on the damp sheet and let the air conditioner cool our bodies.

I was staring at the ceiling when I heard noises from the front door, and Dory tensed. "Seth!" she said, like maybe I wasn't paying attention. She pushed me toward the edge of the bed. "Go see what that is."

I hopped in the dark on one foot and then the other to pull my boxers on, and Dory stayed behind me while I watched around the corner. The front door opened and someone stepped in. They muttered something I couldn't make out, but it was a woman's voice. She left a bag on the dining table and went back to the door. She rolled a travel bag in, and closed the door behind her.

Just as before, I couldn't say who moved first. I reached around the corner to turn on the lamp, and Dory squeezed her naked body past me. We all shielded our eyes from the sudden light, and Dory asked, "Mom?"

The woman at the door jumped and screamed. She spun around with her back to the door and flattened her hand on her chest. "Dodie!" she said.

Her eyes jumped from Dory to me, and Dory was quick to introduce me. "This is Seth—my boyfriend. This is my mom. Call her Camille."

Dory and I went back almost a year, so it wasn't the first time Camille heard my name. It wasn't the first time I heard hers, but I knew her better as "my damned mom." They didn't always get along.

Camille composed herself faster than I expected. She put her hand out to Dory and said, "So that's

your

car on the drive. I was going to be mad at the neighbor."

It was my car, actually. Dory took her mom to the dining table, and I moved her bag of groceries to the counter in the kitchen. "Are you OK?" Dory said. "I didn't think you'd be here."

"Give me a second. I'll recover." She slipped out of her jacket and left it draped over the back of the chair then stopped before she sat down and took a long, thin package off the chair. "What's this?"

I poured a glass of water from a pitcher in the fridge and put it in front of Camille. I didn't ask. It was a habit. "It's a kite," I said. I took the roll of wood and colored paper, and the spool of string that went with it.

Camille watched me while I put the kite and its string out of the way. She smiled from under dark bangs. Her hair was streaked with bright red, and it curled in below her jaw.

She turned her attention to Dory. "I'll get a room. You guys can have the house."

"Mom, no! Sit down. Stay here with us. There

are

two bedrooms, and we're only using one." She turned away from Camille and whispered in my ear, "And you can see what I grew up with."

Camille relaxed her shoulders and dropped into the chair. "Are you sure?" She didn't need to ask. Her mind was already made up. "This is Naked House," Camille said with her eyes on me. She opened her blouse's top button. "Did Dodie tell you the rules?"

I knew the rules, but I didn't stop Camille from explaining while she undressed. "There are two. We wear no clothes, and we keep no secrets."

Dory sat down across from her, and Camille asked, "Why are you guys here?"

"We have a long weekend for the Fourth of July. There's no school and we both got the weekend off." Dory cleared her throat and shifted in the chair. "No secrets. I didn't ask because I didn't want you to say 'No.'"

Camille let her shirt fall on the chair behind her, and Dory tugged at my boxers. "Off again," she said.

I dropped my shorts while Camille unhooked her bra, and I stood butt-naked in front of my girlfriend's mom. It could have been more awkward, but Dory was naked, and Camille was already half-naked.

"I wouldn't have stopped you. I didn't plan on being here." Camille slid the zipper down the back of her tight skirt. "I woke up this morning and bought my ticket before I got out of bed."

Camille stood, tucked her thumb under her waist band, and wiggled out of the rest of her outfit: skirt, pantyhose, underwear, shoes—they all landed by her chair.

"The last two months were intense," she said. "Deadlines, long days. We rolled out a new website Tuesday. This morning I needed to be here." Camille pulled her chair up to the table, and she straightened her back when she found me staring. She was stylish all the way to her bare skin.

I sat back and watched the mother-and-daughter show as if they were down-lit at center stage. Camille sat erect. She asked gentle questions in a calm voice. "How was the drive? You've eaten?" Dory's unfashionable, wavy hair bobbed on her shoulders. Her gestures were tense.

"What are your plans?" Camille asked, and glanced from Dory to me.

I left that answer to Dory, and she worked around the "no secrets" rule. "Nothing. Do we need a plan?" Then she gave in to the doubtful look on her mom's face. "Food. Sex. It's all we planned."

"And kites?" Camille asked, and her eyes flitted over my arms and shoulders.

Dory answered before I did. "Seth is fascinated by anything that flies—birds, planes, kites, all of it."

"I saw the kite at the beach shop. Couldn't resist." Right then I was more fascinated by Camille. I watched her every move and asked, "What did you plan?"

"Sex and food," Camille answered, and Dory blushed. I could see a corollary to the "no secrets" rule. If you ask a question, then you'd better be ready for the answer.

Camille gave me a curious look. "Are you going to be a pilot?"

"It'll happen someday," I said. Maybe Camille enjoyed the way I looked at her. I couldn't tell for sure. "I've taken ground school, but I can't afford the flying time. I have to finish my degree first."

Camille picked up her glass, and a drop of water rolled off the bottom and fell onto her right breast. It ran around the soft curve beside her nipple, and it clung there for a moment before she touched it off with her fingertip.

My eyes followed her hand from her teardrop-shaped tit to her lips, and she watched me while she sucked the drop off her finger.

I suddenly felt exposed, not because I was naked, but because Camille was reading me like a book—at least, that's how it felt. I couldn't sit there. I went to the kitchen and started packing her groceries into the fridge.

Camille stood and coaxed Dory to her feet. "Come on, Dodie, help me make my bed."

Dory rolled her eyes. "When are you going to stop calling me by my baby name?"

"Probably never, dear," Camille said.

I could see their family resemblance, but their differences were easier to see. Everything about Dory was a wordless disagreement with her mother.

***

We argued. We never argued, but we argued until Dory shut the bathroom door behind her. I pushed my fingers through my hair while I tried to calm my temper, and I went to get breakfast.

Camille was at the stove with an apron over bare skin. She had to hear us. "Scrambled eggs and bacon?" she asked.

"Sure, thanks," I was surprised, and she surprised me again when she poured a cup of coffee and set it on the breakfast bar. I didn't expect service.

I pulled up a stool and sat down with the coffee, and Camille talked as she flipped the bacon. "Dodie and I wanted to go down to the beach before it gets too hot. Are you going to come with us?"

The way we planned the weekend, I expected to spend the morning in bed with Dory. The beach was a distant second-best. Distant or not, I agreed with a nod and swallowed my coffee.

Camille paused while she set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me and glanced past my shoulder to our bedroom door. "Dodie is going to be very self-conscious as long as I'm here."

"That probably explains our argument," I said, but I was still mad. That wasn't going away. Camille hung her apron on a hook by the refrigerator. She brought my eggs and a plate of bacon, and she took the stool beside me.

I didn't even try to hide the way I looked at Camille's naked body. "It's a little late to reach the beach before it gets hot."

"Dodie's running late. I think we can go down and wait for her there." Camille watched me watch her, and a little smile curled her lips.

I put tea bags and water into a jug and left it in the sun on the deck while Camille tapped on the bathroom door and told Dory to meet us. Camille carried towels. I carried three sling chairs from the storeroom under the stairs, and I watched the sway of Camille's hips while I followed her down the dunes to the beach.

An airplane towed a restaurant ad across the sky just offshore while I opened the chairs. There weren't very many people to advertise to yet. There were a few more when Dory came down, and every guy on the beach watched her. She bought that little bikini for me, but I wasn't enjoying it as much as I could.

I held my tongue while Dory laid back in her chair, and I should have held it a little longer. I watched Dory and asked, "So our 'sex and food' weekend—it's just food now?" That was the essence of our argument, and it wasn't over yet.

She set her jaw and hid behind her sunglasses. I knew that move. She was mad, but she wasn't going to say anything.

Camille recognized it, too. She picked up her lotion bottle, stood up from her chair on the other side of Dory, and stretched her hand out to me. "Come walk with me."

I went with Camille and that kept things from getting worse. The dry sand was already hot, so we walked where the waves left the beach firm and cool.

"Where to?" I asked. Camille's swimsuit hid more than the strings that Dory wore, but it didn't hide enough to keep me from looking. I already knew what was under the fabric, but I guess there's something about a bikini.

"Away from Dodie." Camille said and smiled from behind her cat's-eye sunglasses. She had a scarf over her head to keep her hair from blowing in her face, but the wind still moved her bangs. I liked the look.

"You can keep looking at me," she said, "and the other guys can look at Dodie for a while. We'll all be in a better mood when we get back."

I stopped to pick a shell out of the sand and tossed it back into the water. "What did you two talk about after I went to bed last night?"

"You, of course." She bumped her hip against me. "She said you raised your little sister."

"She exaggerated. Mom had a heart problem the doctor should've known about, and she died from complications right after Tammy was born. I was like four, and Dad made me responsible as soon as I was old enough to understand. He traveled a lot, and that saved him some money on babysitters and daycare."

"You probably grew up fast," Camille said.

"I learned the limits of authority. I learned a little about planning dinners and cooking, and we did our homework together. I didn't screw things up too much. Tammy starts at Cal Poly next fall."

"Good school, but a long way from home. I bet you two are close."

"We talk." I covered my eyes for a moment because I was looking into the morning sun, and I watched a parasailer far out over the water. As much as I liked talking about myself, I had questions.

"What do you do?" I asked. "Dory told me that you're a designer, but what do you design?"

"Apps and websites," Camille said. "My first job was doing ad layouts, and I got interested in the software we used. I started developing electronic media then started my own company for web design." A wave ran up around our ankles, and she moved a little closer. "It's a competitive business. The expectations overwhelm me sometimes."

A pier ran out into the waves ahead of us, and it got slowly closer as we walked. "So I come here when it gets to be too much," Camille said. "Here the pressure is off. I can be spontaneous. I can be sexy."

She bumped her shoulder against my arm and laughed. "That's about the last thing Dodie wants to hear from her mom."

"I'm kinda surprised, after the things she's told me, how well you and Dory get along."

"You'll have to tell me sometime what she told you—but not now. We get along because we're family," Camille said. "We've had our screaming matches, but when it's all said and done, we're still family."

We dodged a kid who ran up from the water with a bucket and a shovel. He was intent on his engineering project and couldn't pay attention to us.

I started walking again while Camille squeezed lotion into her hand, and I said, "Sorry if we're crimping your style."

She spread the lotion on her arms and shoulders. "That's mutual, but for now I have your attention, and that almost makes up for it." She stopped on an empty stretch of the beach with only a gull perched on a little sand dune to listen to us talk. "Hold your arms out," she said.

Camille spread lotion on my arms and kept her eyes down while she spread the lotion on my shoulders. When she looked up again, she said, "You didn't get this build in a classroom."

"I work for a landscaper." I turned my back on the pier and tried to pick Dory out of the growing crowd on the beach. We were too far away. "Let's go back," I said. "I don't want Dory having too much fun."

We were quiet until we got past the little engineer then Camille asked, "What do you want from Dodie?"

Maybe I wasn't ready to answer that question. I stalled. "Does the 'no secrets' rule extend to the beach?"

Camille laughed at me. "I thought with your interest in flying things that you might be an engineer. You're going to be an attorney, aren't you?"

I wasn't sure where that came from, and I shrugged it off. "Law or business. They tell the engineers what to do. Why?"

"Because you're concerned more about the letter of the rule than its intent."

I put my head down and watched the waves wash around our feet, and I stuck with the intent of the rule. I kept no secrets. "I want her to be mine."

Camille used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and she looked up at me. "What exactly does that mean to you?"

I answered with an emotional blurt. "I want her to melt when I touch her. I want her to give me anything I go for and to come for me because I turn her on."

"You know you're just talking about sex, right?" Camille asked. "Sex and

your

ego."

I sputtered a little before I admitted, "I guess I am."

"Do you know what Dodie wants? Have you asked her?"

We were close enough to the beach house for me to find Dory among the people scattered on the sand. Whatever she was doing or saying, she had two guys as an audience. "We haven't talked about it—ever. I've always thought she wanted what I wanted."

"To melt when you touch her and to come on demand?" Camille muffled her own snicker. "She wants a relationship. Marriage. Home life. Kids."

Dory waved from her sling chair, and I waved back before I asked Camille, "Where'd that come from? I mean, marriage and all isn't a thing anymore, is it?"

"It didn't work for me." Camille stopped as Dory climbed out of the chair. She was coming to meet us. "Maybe her dad put the idea in her head, but I think it's backlash. She wants to be what I've never been. I don't know if she can make it work, but I won't get in her way. Why don't you do the same? Get out of her way and let her get on with the life she wants."

"That's blunt." We didn't have time to say much more before Dory slipped her arm around my waist and squeezed herself against me.

"Are you guys hungry yet?" Dory was in a better mood, and now my anger focused on Camille. She had no business meddling in my relationship.

"Famished," Camille said. "Sandwiches? We can talk about our afternoon."

I picked up the chairs, and they walked on either side of me while we climbed the beach toward Naked House. "Coffee." one said. "Movie?" asked the other. "I need new sandals." They had an afternoon sketched out before we even reached the stairway.

"Sex instead," was on the tip of my tongue. It didn't come out before Dory ran up to the deck, and my line wasn't meant for her mother.

Camille opened the door under the stairs and waited while I leaned the chairs in their place by the door. She stood close and touched my arm. I imagine she could feel the tension in my body. "You're mad," she said.

I let my shoulders relax and said, "You should mind your own business."

"Don't be mad at me, just think about it." She lifted her sunglasses and looked around inside the shadowy storeroom. "Do you want to come with us this afternoon?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "If you stay here, there

are

things to do."

She pointed to canvas rolls in the corner. "Those are sun sails to shield the deck so we don't give the neighbors a show." A pressure washer leaned against the wall with a wheelbarrow beside it. "The house needs to be washed down to get the salt off, and the sand that's drifted at the corners needs to be moved."

"I'll think about it." I closed the door and watched Camille's ass sway as she climbed the stairs in front of me. I think my eyes were right where she wanted them, and she put more motion in her walk than she needed.

I picked up the tea jar from the deck, made room for it in the refrigerator, and found Dory's bikini on my pillow. She opened the bathroom door while I stripped my trunks to the floor. I caught her arm, glanced out the door, and said, "We need to talk."

Talking wasn't really the first thing on my mind when I pulled her sleek body against me. "We didn't come here to shop, did we?" I gathered her hair in my hands and pulled it back so those blue eyes looked up at me. "Let your mom go into town. We can stay and do what we came here for."

Dory glanced past me. Camille wasn't in sight. "Later?" she asked. She didn't melt in my arms. She wasn't mine. "I mean, Mom and already I have the afternoon planned. You'll come with us, won't you?"

"No. Never even crossed my mind." Maybe it should have.

I tightened my hold on Dory's hair; I tipped her head back and tasted her mouth. Her lips and her tongue felt soft for a moment before she turned her head. I could have made her stay, but then I'd have two angry women on my hands, and the afternoon would never come out like I wanted.

"I'll give you all night," Dory said. "I promise."

Dory squirmed away from me, and I looked past her. Camille was naked in front of the open refrigerator. "Dodie?" she called without looking up, "where did you put the mayonnaise?"

I passed Dory and reached over Camille to get the mayonnaise from where I shoved it the night before—with the butter in the dairy section. She had goosebumps when I stepped back. Maybe they were from the cold.

"You'll have to show me where to anchor the sun sails," I said and set the mayonnaise on the breakfast bar where she'd already stacked cold cuts. "I can probably figure out the rest."

"After lunch," Camille said. She trailed her hand over my hip and stepped close around me. Her touch and the scent of her hair tickled my mind until the noise of the sprayer and the heat of the afternoon wiped them away.

I was on the deck when they got home—on a chaise lounge, naked under the sun sails, and more than half asleep. I woke just enough to hear Dory ask, "Order in pizza tonight?" The glass door rolled open behind me and closed again. Fabric rustled and clothes slipped to the deck.

Dory—I knew it was Dory—settled on the edge of the lounge beside me without saying a word, and her fingertips touched my chest. Her touch felt good, and I relaxed into the sensation without opening my eyes. Her fingertips traveled down my belly and then to my hip. She hesitated there for just a moment before her touch passed over my leg.

I stretched and moved to give her room. I think every cell in my body was alive with sensation: the stiffness in my muscles, her naked body beside me in the warmth of the late afternoon, her fingertips on my balls and on my hardening shaft. I dropped my hand on her knee, stroked her soft thigh, and opened my eyes just enough to see.