Derrick turned under the shower head, grateful for its warmth. He was also mindful. The cabin probably had a half-size water heater, like his old apartment, and Larry hadn't showered yet. He would need to save some hot water for his soon-to-be father-in-law.
The only soap in the stall was a tall pink plastic bottle of rose-scented bodywash that probably belonged to his future mother-in-law Sharon. But oh well. When in Rome...If he emerged from the shower smelling like a rose, so be it. He didn't like smelling like lake trout either, but that's how he'd entered the shower. After rinsing off Derrick stepped out onto the bathmat and pulled a steel-grey bath towel from the bar—one that had presumably been washed and then hung by the cabin's last occupants before they vacated it. The Steens—Sharon and Lawrence—shared the cabin with another pair of wealthy Manhattanites.
After drying off a naked Derrick entered the cabin's lone bedroom expecting to find the pile of his discarded clothes on the wood-plank floor where he'd left them. Fishy as they were, he would don them long enough to run out to Larry's truck and grab the travel bag he'd brought along for the three-day holiday weekend. Larry had been in such a hurry to get out on the lake he'd said, upon midday arrival, "Leave everything. We'll bring our gear in later. Let's get out on the boat! The trout are biting!" But now Derrick stared at almost empty floorboards. His clothes, except for his white sneaks, were AWOL. While distantly, what sounded like a washing machine clunked and rumbled.
So Derrick sighed, retreated to the bathroom, wrapped damp grey towel around his waist and entered the cabin proper, where a fire already raged in the stone fireplace to his right. At the far end of the cabin—the kitchen—stood his future father-in-law. Larry's back was to Derrick and he appeared to be wielding a knife. But Derrick wasn't looking at the knife, or anything else for that matter. He was looking—staring—at the naked man's well-formed ass. Derrick swallowed.
"Um...Larry?"
"Hey! I got a cold Heine with your name on it, partner!"
Heine?
"This one's yours!" Larry said, turning from the counter only far enough to hold up a gutted, tailless but not headless lake trout. "Remember? You reeled this baby in. What a catch! First time out on the lake...Some assholes here go years before they catch one this big. Great job!"
"Um, Larry? Like...where are my clothes at?"
Larry—or rather Larry's knife—pointed vaguely to the right. "I threw everything in the washer."
Derrick was starting to perspire. It was a small livingroom of stone and lacquered wood, and the heat from the fireplace was searing. He shifted his toweled weight. "The whites too?" he asked weakly, immediately regretting it. His naked father-in-law threw a smile over his softly muscular left shoulder.
"What, you only brought one pair of underpants?"
It was a sweaty Derrick's turn to point. Left. "But...but we left everything out in the truck."
"It's not a truck, son. It's a Land Rover I just paid seventyfive grand for. Sharon went nuts. 'All the expense of the wedding and you go out and buy yourself a new car?' But fuck it. The firm had a great second quarter and technically speaking it's a company car. First rule of business, son: Always take care of number one."
Number one. The only thing Derrick could think of at that moment was...peeing. Which he'd taken care of before his shower. "But...you know what I mean."
"I do?"
"My clothes. Our..."
Larry turned a frown. "Well you can't go out there dressed like that, son." Laughter bubbled to his lips: "And I sure as hell can't go out there like this! Fucking neighbors would murder us."
"What neighbors?" Aside from somebody in a small boat on the very far side of the lake, Derrick hadn't seen another human being since they arrived.
"Oh they're out there, believe me. Nosy bastards too. And there's nothing these local-yocals resent more than us bigshots...well, you know what I mean...from the city. Yeah, go out there like that, son, and the sheriff will be knocking at our door in a half hour."
"But...," Derrick's sigh one of exasperation this time. "But, OK, is there, like, something in the closet I could...?"
"Something of Sharon's," Larry confirmed matter-of-factly. "If you really wanna get the locals wound up. You mean a dress or something?"
"A robe?"
"A pink robe with rabbits or some shit on it? If that's your thing, son, go for it. I won't tell."
"But..."
Lawrence, boning knife still in hand, this time turned a full 180 degrees. His smile magnanimous, kind of: "Chill, son! We got a fridge full of beer over here! Come grab a cold one and relax, and hang with me. We got three days—less now—to really spend time together and get to know each other." Larry scratched his nose with the curled pinky of his knife hand, which sported a gold-banded diamond ring. "As for this?" arms out from his sides now, at almost exactly the same latitude as his meaty cock, his balls, his dark bush, at which his son-in-law stared open-mouthed. "Once inside the cabin it's clothing-optional! Them's the rules! Boys only, however. Sharon would...So lose the towel if you want, come grab a Heine and keep me company."
Derrick started to take a step. Forward. But stopped. Mercifully Larry and his thickly drooping penis and manly pair of balls had turned to face the counter again, with its plastic cutting board and the array of half-dozen trout they'd caught on the lake. Larry had caught. The previously mentioned "what a catch" Derrick had reeled in his father-in-law had in fact hooked, before passing his rod over to his "son," along with reams of advice: "Go slow. Slower. Not so fast. The trout's hooked. He's not going anywhere unless you get over-anxious and yank the hook from his mouth. Smooth. Be smooth about it. It's like foreplay, you and Denise."
Denise being his only daughter. And Derrick's fiancé. Derrick and Denise: it said so on the wedding invites. And on the cake design. Foreplay. What the...?
Derrick, having finally, tentatively reached the kitchen, tried to, as it were, sneak past its naked occupant on his way to the fridgeful of Heinekens they'd picked up at a convenience store on the way. Derrick tried. And failed.
"Know what?" turning in his son-in-law's bending direction. "That washer's still on its, like, first cycle. Gimme that towel, son."
And off it came, with a damp snap, as if Derrick's body, from waist to knees, were some kind of product of a magician's trick. Derrick froze, clenched, bent, while a few feet away Larry stuffed the towel in the still-spinning but slowing mouth of a portable washer, stacked beneath its companion mini-dryer in kitchen's corner.
"There. Good," Larry declared, while sizing up his son-in-law's just-bared midbody. "You look good. Nice. My daughter's chosen well, for once. She's a loose cannon, you know. So get used to it. Gotta stand up to her. If you don't she'll walk all over you. Gets that from me. My father's daughter or whatever the fucking saying is. Always had lots of boyfriends, so watch out. Some of those guys...they like never go away y'know? Nice," he repeated, in a sudden almost trance-like tone, as fishy fingers examined his son-in-law's testicles. It most definitely wasn't a mere fondle. It was more like Derrick, standing naked in front of an open fridge full of green bottles, was being examined, his smallish balls that is, by an obsessively thorough urologist. Or whoever examines guys' questionable manhood.
"You'll do," Larry declared, withdrawing his enquiring hand as he straightened. "But then again you'll have to won't you?" laughing at what seemed to be his own private joke. Six gutted trout behind his back, Larry abruptly frowned as he sniffed the air. Larry, it seemed, was nothing if not mercurial. Mercurial perhaps being a euphemism for...mentally unbalanced?
"What's that smell?" the older man again sniffed. "Christ, son, you smell like a fucking rose garden!"
For the second but not the last time Derrick asked his father-in-law: "Are you sure this is, like, OK?"
"Why? What's not OK about it?"
