I had my headphones on and my eyes closed when I felt the first warm splash on my cheek. My uncle Jayme, back from his latest adventure, squirting me in the face with a water gun that did not contain water, judging from the yeasty smell it left on my shirt.
"Jayme!" I shrieked, "Is that warm beer? You're so disgusting!" I swatted at him, but he leaped out of my reach, laughing, as he headed in to torment my mother. He must have pulled the same trick on her, because within seconds I heard her similar shriek and his somewhat muffled laughter.
I smiled to myself because I knew the summer would be far more fun with him around. Jayme was my mother's youngest sibling, the "oops," as he was so often called, and he lived up to the name. Little Jayme did was responsible, productive - or hell, even legal -- but he had a great time and enjoyed life to the fullest. He made his living playing in bars for a hundred here or there, crashed with roommates and spent summers and holidays with us. At twenty-four, he was18 years my mother's junior and far more like an older cousin than an uncle, and my twin brother and I loved when he came to visit. Although it usually ended with my father not speaking to my mother for a few days, I could count on Jayme to provide excitement and give Derek and me a taste of his carefree, exotic life.
Not only that, but I'd always had a huge crush on Jayme. Around the time I was twelve, my interest in him became more physical. I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Every time he touched me or even turned his blue eyes in my direction, my heart raced and my stomach did flip-flops. Of course, he'd always considered me just a kid, but I hoped that this summer -- my eighteenth summer - he would see me as an equal.
This time, Jayme had just returned from a sailing trip, the details of which were sketchy at best. The sun had had bronzed his skin and bleached his hair and beard. His wiry body seemed more muscular than ever, and his legendary appetite was even more ferocious than usual. He ate three plates before he even spoke, which had my mother worried but my father delighted. He hated Jayme's sense of humor, which he thought was inappropriate; his lack of concern for dinner table etiquette, which Jayme loved to play up in my father's presence; and his hippie looks. Jayme didn't shave or brush his hair, and he paid little attention to clothing; though always clean he looked, according to my father, "like a homeless drug addict." But Derek and I couldn't get enough of Jayme's wild looks and bohemian attitude. Which was exactly what my father was most afraid of.
That night we lobbied for a slasher film double-feature that sent my father immediately upstairs with a glass of bourbon. My mom hung in there for awhile, happy to see her youngest and favorite sibling. Finally, when the yawning overtook her, she excused herself, squeezing Jayme and murmuring sleepily at us not to make too much noise as she headed up the stairs. Derek and I both rolled our eyes. We'd turned 18 in May, and I couldn't wait for us to go to college and not be treated like children.
Jayme knew this. The second my mom went upstairs, he turned to us and whispered, "I know of a party. Are you two in?" Derek, always the worrier, glanced guiltily back at the stairs, but I didn't have to be asked twice. While Derek stammered his excuses, I raced to my room and shed my lounge pants for cutoffs and a halter top. I fluffed my hair and spritzed myself with some body spray and evaluated myself in the mirror: long, tan legs; flat stomach peeking out between the cutoffs and top; full, pert breasts; big brown eyes; long, silky hair. I didn't look like a kid anymore, either. Would he notice?
"There's my little party girl!" Jayme teased, when I returned to the living room. "Damn, Skinny, you're growing up nicely," he said, eyeing me appreciatively. I thought he looked at me longer than he had earlier, but maybe I was just imagining it. He clearly still saw me as a kid. He still used that horrible nickname from my childhood, so it was obvious that I was mistaken. So off we went, leaving Derek to the comfort of the living room.
"Not much of a party animal, is he?" he mused, as we slipped out the back door.
"Nope," I agreed. "I think he'd love to stay home all the time and just play video games. I swear that's all he does in that dark room of his."
Jayme hooted. "I guarantee that's not all he does," he said with a grin, wiggling his eyebrows lasciviously at me.
"Oh, God, that's so disgusting! I really don't want to picture my brother jerking off, thank you very much!"
"Yep, that image is in there now. Good luck with that." He grinned again and pulled me behind him by the wrist, leading me through the back gate and onto the gravel alley that connected the back yards of the three other houses on our part of the lake. "So where are we going, anyway?" I asked.
"You'll see," he said, cupping his hands to light a cigarette. After a drag he offered it wordlessly to me, and not wanting to seem like a kid, I took a puff. "Look at you, bad girl. You're just all grown up this summer, aren't you?" And this time I didn't mistake the appraising glance he gave me, because he held my gaze when my eyes met his. I knew that look.
Suddenly I had butterflies.
"Yeah, so..." he cleared his throat. "You know where you're going. And you know everyone there."
"I do?" I asked. And then I realized where he was leading me. Josh Hickman's house, the last house between the lake and the river. Josh was older than me but younger than Jayme, in his early twenties though it was hard to tell, because he neither worked nor attended school. A trust fund baby, he spent most of his time driving his Mustang around with random blondes and partying with his mother, who was an infamous hostess of underage parties and a rumored cougar.
"Seriously? Josh Hickman's house?" I complained. Not that it was a true complaint. Secretly, I thought Josh was sexy -- his loose-limbed, perpetually-stoned dark beauty the stuff of many a private fantasy for the girls in the classes behind him. Many times I had pictured Josh when I touched myself, and the memory of that made me blush now. I was so grateful for the cover of darkness.
"Seriously. And I am seriously gonna make Mrs. Hickman beg for it tonight," he bragged, scratching his chest and grinning at me.
"Yeah," I scoffed, "Because that's hard to do."
He patted my head. "Little one," he said, "You may be older than you were last summer, and you may be a hell of a lot sexier, but you're still just as naïve. I didn't say ask for it. I said beg for it." And his blue eyes caught mine in the light at the edge of the yard, and I saw a heat in them that made my stomach flip-flop again. And then cursed myself. He was my uncle. It was wrong. It was like noticing Derek, which I had lately, even though he was my twin. I had suddenly grown far more aware of men -- including, unfortunately, my own brother. But I pushed all those thoughts out of my head as I trailed Jayme up the footpath.
Once there, I saw that it was a very small gathering. Josh and several friends were drinking beers around a fire pit, and the smell of weed sweetened the air. Among the group was Alicia, a girl who'd graduated a year ahead of me and who had been Josh's on-again, off-again girlfriend for most of her junior year, and Cate, who had briefly dated Derek.
"Dana," drawled Alicia in her raspy voice, "I see you brought your deadbeat uncle. You poor thing -- are you stuck with him all summer?" She spoke to me, but her words were clearly meant for Jayme, who tugged at her long hair and planted a wet kiss on her cheek as he moved past her. Her eyes never left him as he slapped the guys in turn on their backs, hugging one or two of them, somehow acquiring a beer, and finally flopping into a chair, a fat joint between his fingertips.
But although she seemed interested in Jayme, she didn't bat an eye when Mrs. Hickman made her appearance in a tight tank dress, her perfume wafting from her tanned, toned body. In fact, no one seemed to notice as Josh's mother made a beeline for Jayme, lowered herself into his lap, and whispered in his ear. I couldn't help but stare, cheeks flushed, as I watched her move Jayme's hand across her torso and into the front of her dress. Her erect nipples made it obvious that she wore no bra, and as she moved, her dress rode up on her thighs, causing me to wonder if she was wearing panties. And then grew ashamed at the thought, as if everyone there could read my dirty mind.
I couldn't believe that Josh didn't seem to care that his mother was behaving like a whore with one of his own friends. I'd heard of her enthusiasm for younger guys, but I'd never actually seen an older woman put the moves on a guy young enough to be her son. It made me feel uncomfortable but fascinated, all at the same time.
As if he knew, Jayme looked over at me and winked. Then slowly, deliberately, he slid his fingers up the inside of the older woman's thigh, his eyes never leaving mine. On his lap, Mrs. Hickman writhed and dug her nails into his forearm as his hand disappeared under her short dress. I didn't want to stare, but I couldn't take my eyes away from Jayme or Mrs. Hickman. Breathlessly I watched Mrs. Hickman, who had a look of languid ecstasy on her face, clearly the result of lots of alcohol and the pleasure Jayme was obviously giving her. I couldn't be sure over the chatter of other voices, but I thought I hear her moan his name, I wondered what it would be like to be touched like that, in front of other people. Again Jayme and I locked eyes, and I caught my breath as Mrs. Hickman cupped his very obvious, very generously sized hard-on. My head buzzed, and instantly I was damp between the legs, a need rising in me so sharply that I almost doubled over from the force of it.
"I'm glad you came tonight," said a low, deep voice in my ear, startling me. "You look beautiful, by the way." I turned and Josh was next to me, sliding his long arm around my shoulders, smelling of cigarettes and wood smoke and beer and some other delicious, spicy scent. At that moment I was aching for someone's touch, and Josh had been the star of many powerful sexual fantasies. I had to fight back the urge to pull him down on top of me right then and there.
Thankfully, he was on his way to heavily intoxicated, and he pulled me closer, his breath hot against my neck. "You've really grown up this past year," he said. "Still got that same boyfriend? Someone has to be enjoying all this." He gestured to my body, giving me a slow once-over.
I blushed and shook my head. "My boyfriend and I broke up a few months ago."
"Well, that's a shame. His loss." And he started talking to me, really talking to me, asking me all sorts of questions. At one point Jayme and Mrs. Hickman slipped away, but I didn't notice, because I was too wrapped up in Josh. Although he'd never paid attention to me in school, or even in all the years we'd been neighbors, he seemed to know a lot about me, and the more I drank, the less shy I became about interacting with him. The more I drank, the more I enjoyed the way he kept finding reasons to touch me, until we were snuggled on the same chaise, my legs across his lap, his fingers tracing up and down my thigh. When he kissed me, I didn't care that everyone else was there, watching him slip his tongue inside my mouth, watching him move his hand up my side under my halter top. And I had a fleeting thought that maybe Mrs. Hickman had felt the same way, sitting on Jayme's lap, her heart racing and her body burning as he touched her.
