Girls Only: Pool Party Read online

  “Hello?” Nancy called when she reached the gate. It was closed and locked. “Gina? It’s Nancy. Are you out here? I brought the rose oil…”

  “Hi there, neighbor.” Gina smiled, unlatching the gate from the inside and waving her in.

  Considering the times she’d seen the woman sunbathing in the nude, Nancy shouldn’t have been shocked to find her completely naked, but she was anyway. Gina’s whole body seemed to defy gravity. Her self-proclaimed age was thirty-four, but she had the body of a twenty-four year old. As far as Nancy could see, the photographers wouldn’t have to do much airbrushing.

  Averting her gaze, Nancy held the paper bag up to her neighbor. “Here.”

  “Thank you!” Gina took the bag, peering inside like a kid opening a present on Christmas. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Oh, no.” Nancy waved the offer away. “Nothing.”

  “So how does this work?” Gina held the bottle up in the sunlight, squinting it at, while Nancy tried to look anywhere else besides the pink-tipped curve of her neighbor’s breasts and the fiery V between her legs. She couldn’t help remembering watching Gina touch herself, and the thought made Nancy feel warmly uncomfortable.

  “Just rub a little on the affected area.” Nancy cleared her throat. “Corner of the eyes and mouth, you know…”

  Gina opened the bottle, shaking a drop onto her finger and taking off her sunglasses before rubbing the oil under her eyes. “Ahhh. There. Wrinkles gone?”

  Nancy laughed. “It’s not magic. It will take a week or two.”

  “Oh! Speaking of a week or two!” Gina dropped the bottle back in the bag, putting her sunglasses back on. “I’m having a pool party next weekend and I want you to come.”

  “Oh, no…” Nancy shook her head. “I don’t swim…”

  “I insist. Lots of food and fun.” Gina pursed her lips for a moment, cocking her head, contemplative. “I think you need to get out, meet people. Lots of hot, eligible men will be invited, I promise.”

  “I’m not ready for men yet. My divorce isn’t even officially final,” Nancy reminded her.

  It had dragged on two years, a strangely long, protracted affair, given there were no children and there was very little property, but it had taken her a year to track him down in the first place, living somewhere in Florida with the twenty-year-old he’d run off with.

  “Men.” Gina sighed. “It’s enough to make you want to switch teams sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Nancy just blinked at her. “I really shouldn’t…”

  “Oh yes you should!” Gina insisted. “If you say no, I’m just going to come over and get you, so you might as well say yes.”

  “Well maybe.” Nancy looked at her neighbor’s pool so she wouldn’t have to look at her neighbor. The woman’s lack of self-consciousness was disconcerting. “I guess I can get someone else to run the shop and do the wedding deliveries.” There were always a bunch of those on the weekend.

  “Florist or bridal shop?” Gina mused, answering her own question before Nancy could even open her mouth. “Florist. You and plants have a thing.”

  Nancy smiled. “Yes.”

  “Well come on, get undressed, we’ll go for a swim!” Gina offered, putting the paper bag on a table with her umbrella drink and nodding toward the pool.

  “Oh, no!” Nancy protested, glancing up, first at her own house, where her bedroom balcony was in clear view, then the other way, where the neighbor on the other side must also have an unobstructed view from the bedroom window. “Besides, Mr. Desoto.”

  Gina grinned, coming over to stand so close to Nancy, she could feel the heat radiating from the woman’s body in waves, leaning in so she could whisper, “We can put on a good show. Give him a heart attack.”

  Nancy laughed in spite of her embarrassment, taking a step away. “No, I really have to go.”

  “Okay.” Gina shrugged, and the look of disappointment on her face made Nancy feel strangely guilty for not taking her up on the offer to go for a swim. “Thanks again for the magical rose wrinkle cream!”

  Nancy laughed again, opening the gate.

  “And you are coming next week, I’m not taking no for an answer!” Gina insisted, following her.

  “All right,” Nancy relented, with Gina right behind her, and that’s when her neighbor leaned in and kissed her cheek. It was just a sweet gesture, but the soft feel of her lips, the press of Gina’s full, bare breast against her arm, made Nancy feel faint, and it wasn’t the heat, at least not from the sun, that did it.

  Nancy walked home, her cheeks flushed and warm. The cats clamored and mewed to be fed, and she dumped Fancy Feast into their bowls before heading upstairs to take a shower. It was when she was standing nude before the full-length mirror on the back of the door, that she noticed the clear imprint of a lipstick kiss on her cheek and it made her blush.

  She stood there looking at her body in the mirror, the same body that had expelled six of their babies in the space of three years, all before she was four months pregnant, the same body Neil had come to loathe, protesting he was having sex with a “babymaking machine.” He said he felt “used” for his sperm, claimed she only wanted to have sex on schedule, when she was ovulating.

  It wasn’t true of course, not entirely. And she’d loved him without reserve. But even she had to admit, she’d gotten a little obsessive about the baby-making. Losing that much life in such a short span had done something to her. Some part of her had died with each miscarriage. Some plants you could prune, and they would come back stronger. Like roses. Some plants, like lilacs, were more delicate. If you pruned them, they didn’t flower again for a very long time.

  Nancy stood in front of the mirror, she didn’t know how long, contemplating the lipstick mark and Gina’s quip about switching teams, thinking about the hows and whys and whens of buds turning to blossoms.

  * * * *

  Nancy had started the party out in the cabana, and that’s where she was ending it.

  Her own swimsuit was an old, faded one-piece affair, nothing to write home about, but she’d forgotten one of the straps had broken on their last trip to Florida—she mended it with a safety pin—and there was a hole on the right side along the seam, where she’d caught it on the edge of a slide in the water park.

  Neil had loved that park, running to the top of the slide with his tube again and again like a little kid, and all Nancy could think was how great it would be if they actually had their own little kid, even one of the lost six would have been a blessing and a miracle. But that was over, and she didn’t have time to buy a new suit, and when she told her neighbor she didn’t think she could come and the reason why, well somehow she had ended up in the cabana, changing into one of Gina’s.

  It had taken her neighbor half an hour to convince Nancy to come out after she changed. Outside, Gina had picked the perfect day for a pool party, the weather in full cooperation, the sun sinking low over the horizon as dusk approached but the air still plenty warm enough to go swimming.

  “Come on,” Gina begged from the other side of the door. “You can’t stay in there all night!”

  The party was already underway by then, and Nancy had entertained that very thought—she could just stay in the cabana. All night. There was plenty of room to recline on the padded bench, and she could just curl up and take a nap until everyone went home. But it was all Gina’s relentless cajoling and begging and pleading that finally wore her down, and Nancy found the courage to open the door, stepping out of the cabana in a shockingly red bikini.

  Gina’s eyes widened. “Damn! What were you being so shy about? You rock that suit, girl! Let’s get you a drink!”

  Nancy didn’t drink, but she decided it was a very good idea. Gina had hired a DJ and a bartender, and her friends were taking advantage of both, dancing and drinking and, of course, swimming. Nancy thought she’d never seen so much flesh in her life. She gulped down her first drink, something tangy and fruity and it burned all the way down her throat to
her belly, then asked the bartender for another.

  Gina started introducing her to people, telling them all about her neighbor with the green thumb and her amazing medicinal garden.

  “I’ve been using this rose-oil stuff on my eyes. Carly, look at this!” Gina blinked at a bleached blonde with roots desperately in need of touching up and a stunningly contrasting tan. “Gone! It’s like magic! You should buy some from Nancy!”

  Nancy looked between them, blinking. “Oh, um… it’s…”

  “Rose oil,” Gina said, putting an arm around her neighbor’s shoulder. “It’s just forty dollars for one bottle!”

  Nancy gaped at her, but Carly seemed very interested, as did her brunette friend, and before she knew it, Nancy had fifteen women who wanted to buy a bottle of her rose oil at forty dollars a pop. Gina had already made a list, taking orders at the bar, when a young, tall, dark-haired guy with a six-pack—not the beer-kind, the body-kind—came over to tell Gina something about someone throwing up in the house.

  Gina sighed, leaning over to Nancy. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Nancy wasn’t about to go anywhere. She sat and just watched, gulping down another drink and ordering a third, wishing Gina would come back. And soon. The pool was a huge, rectangular affair, all lit up in the darkness, everyone splashing and laughing and shouting to each other. How many people were there? Fifty? A hundred?

  “Let’s play ‘I’ve Never!’” Carly came up to the bar to order a round of shots. She was followed by a group of both women and men, who grabbed their shot glasses and tried to cajole a bottle of whiskey out of the bartender.

  “We need it,” Carly insisted. She was already slurring her words. “Otherwise we can’t play the game!”

  “I’ll fill your shots right here,” the bartender countered. He was older, probably fifty, salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a Jimmy Buffet Hawaiian shirt with a parrot on the back, but as laid back as he looked, he wasn’t going to let them get away with anything.

  “Fine!” Carly huffed, and the group gathered around, half a dozen of them, pulling up and sitting on bar stools, surrounding and trapping Nancy. “Let’s see… I’ve never…had sex in a canoe.”

  Just one guy stood up and did his shot.

  “Oh my god, Gary!” The blonde gaped at him. “You’ve had sex in a canoe?”

  The curly-haired guy with glasses—Gary—flipped off the blonde and sat down. “I was a camp counselor at the YMCA for ten years.”

  The crowd laughed.

  “You know what they say about American beer?” The bartender went down the line pouring shots. “It’s like having sex in a canoe.”

  “Huh?” Gary cocked his head.

  “It’s fucking close to water.” The bartender put a shot in front of Nancy, including her because she was sitting there, his little joke getting a good laugh.

  “He’s going to say something he’s never done before.” Carly leaned in to explain the game to Nancy. “You have to stand up and take a shot if you’ve done it.”

  “Okay,” Nancy agreed faintly. If the statements were anything like what had already been mentioned, it wasn’t likely she would ever have to take a drink, but unfortunately, she couldn’t slip away. She was surrounded. She glanced over to where Gina had disappeared into the house, willing her to come back out.

  The brunette in the white biking sitting between Carly and Nancy—she thought her name was Sarah—stood up and said, “I’ve never… had sex in a confessional.”

  “Gary!” Carly exclaimed as he stood and took another shot. No one else did. “Again?”

  He grinned. “Catholic school.”

  “Your turn,” Carly said, nudging Nancy, who stood very reluctantly.

  “I’ve never…” She swallowed, looking around at all the eyes on her. What in the world could she say? I’ve never had a baby. I’ve never been with someone who really loves me no matter what. I’ve never told anyone how lonely I am. “I’ve never… gone skinny dipping.”

  The group goggled at her like she had said something so shocking they couldn’t quite believe it. Carly giggled, her eyes like blue sparks as she downed her shot. Every other person holding a shot glass did the same.

  “Skinny dipping!” Carly called, taking off her bikini top and waving it over her head. “Time for skinny dipping!”

  The guys hooted and cat-called, and before Nancy could blink, everyone around the bar was peeling off their suits and jumping in the pool. Nancy looked at the bartender, wide-eyed.

  “First time at one of Gina’s parties?” he inquired with a grin.

  Nancy watched with growing horror as the trend caught on. People abandoned their bathing suits left and right, leaving them beside the pool and jumping into the water. Before long, she found herself the only one wearing any clothes at all, with the exception of the bartender and the DJ, all of the guests were naked and pairing up in the water.

  “Excuse me,” Nancy said faintly, not looking at the bartender but hearing him chuckle.

  She thought about going home, but didn’t want to abandon Gina’s party without saying goodbye. She thought about going into the house to look for her neighbor, but didn’t want to bother her if she was dealing with something serious or important. So instead, Nancy slipped quietly into the cabana again, the same place she’d started out the night and that’s where she was dozing when Gina slipped inside.

  “Well here you are.”

  Nancy half-sat, still dazed from sleep. “I’m sorry. I just…”

  “I should have told you.” Gina sat beside her on the long, padded bench. The top of the cabana was canvas, attached higher than the paneled cedar walls, letting in both light and sound. The party was still going on, but it was more subdued. “Everyone knows clothing is optional at my pool parties.”

  “I should go home.” Nancy stood, but Gina stopped her, taking her wrist and tugging her slowly away from the door.

  “You don’t want to go out there.”

  Nancy swallowed, looking down at where Gina was circling her wrist with her hand. Her touch was so hot it almost burned. “Why not?”

  “Everyone’s having sex.” Gina smirked. “Poor Mr. Desoto. He’s going to have a stroke.”

  “Oh.” She blinked, relenting to Gina’s gentle tug and sitting beside her on the bench. Their thighs were touching, and the incredible softness of her neighbor’s skin was a surprise to her system, making her breath come a little faster.

  “I’m sorry if you’re shocked.” Gina leaned in a little, pressing her shoulder into Nancy’s, nudging her.

  “Oh… no. I’m not. Not really,” Nancy protested, but the smirk on Gina’s face just grew, her eyebrows rising with every denial.

  “Really?” Gina stood, taking her neighbor’s hand and heading for the door. “You want to join in then?”

  “No, no!” Nancy shook her head furiously, pulling on Gina’s hand, desperate.

  “No…” Gina smiled, coming to stand in front of her neighbor, and Nancy found herself face-to-face with her perfectly shaped navel. She gazed up, up, up, past the swell of Gina’s breasts in her white bikini top, meeting her neighbor’s twinkling eyes. “Maybe we should start in here first?”

  “Start?” Nancy squeaked, swallowing as Gina sank slowly to her knees, making them eye-level now, so close she could smell the alcohol on her breath, something light and fruity. Nancy could still taste her last drink, and she was feeling that light, floaty feeling she got whenever she drank, which wasn’t often.

  “Tell me if you want me to stop,” Gina breathed before bridging the gap between them with a kiss. Her mouth was soft and open, her lips like velvet, Gina’s hands on either side of the bench, not touching her, just kissing. Nancy realized about halfway through it was the most delightful thing that had ever happened to her as Gina’s tongue found its way between her lips, exploring.

  Nancy just blinked when they parted, unable to say a word. Taking her silence as consent, Gina bridged the gap again, kissing he
r, this time putting her hands on Nancy’s hips, her fingers dancing along the curve of her waist, and then, oh then, cupping her breasts. Gina’s thumbs grazed her nipples through the red material of her borrowed bikini, and Nancy moaned into her neighbor’s mouth.

  “Doesn’t that feel good?” Gina breathed as they parted, her thumbs still rubbing, back and forth. Nancy just moaned again, looking at her through half-closed eyes. It had been so long, too long, since anyone had touched her—even just a casual hug or a kiss on the cheek—that her senses were overloaded with the attention.

  “You’ll tell me if you want me to stop?”

  “Yes,” Nancy breathed as Gina’s lips tickled her neck, her shoulder, her fingers untying the bikini top fastened behind her neck. “Oh yes, I… ohhh!”

  Gina’s mouth moved to Nancy’s nipple. Her breasts were average size, her nipples dark and very large, filling almost all of her areola, and they were incredibly sensitive. She moaned and arched, her hands moving in the mass of Gina’s red hair, pulling her even closer as her neighbor continued to suckle her. The hot sensation of Gina’s mouth engulfing her, the wet tongue flicking back and forth, teasing her nipple, made Nancy’s toes curl with pleasure. And just when she thought she couldn’t stand it for another moment, Gina moved to the other one.

  But that didn’t mean she abandoned the first. Gina stroked the wet nipple she had deserted with her fingertips as she suckled at the other, and Nancy felt herself parting her thighs, welcoming the pressing weight of Gina’s breasts against her belly, as if she could simply absorb her through her flesh. Nancy glanced down, meeting Gina’s eyes—she was watching her, listening, paying close attention to her response—and suddenly found it so strange she had to stop.

  “Wait, no…” Nancy gasped, twisting away. She had an urge to run, or at least to hide her face. “I have to go!”

  She bolted, forgetting she was half undressed only when she pulled the door open, but the sight that awaited her left her paralyzed, frozen in place, eyes growing wide with every passing second. When Gina had said everyone was having sex, she clearly hadn’t been kidding. Everywhere she looked, there were naked people kissing, touching, licking, sucking, even fucking. It was a banquet of skin, a mass of flesh, and anyone who wasn’t participating—there were a few, here and there, she noted—seemed to bat an eyelash.