He nodded suavely. "Yeah." He confirmed. "I know a little about engines and stuff."
"Don't be modest." I said as I backed the boat away from the dock. I turned to Maggie. "We wouldn't be out here today if it wasn't for him. He's a goddam mechanical genius."
Mike blushed at the praise and Maggie smiled. "You know?" She said. "My car's been making a funny sound lately. Maybe you could take a look at it sometime."
"Maybe I could." He nodded. "What's the sound?"
While Maggie described the ticking noise her car was making I throttled up a little and began to ease the boat out towards the buoy. Nina dropped her hand to my knee again and smiled at me. I was able to read her thoughts. She was thinking that bringing Maggie along was a good idea after all.
Conversation became impossible once I passed the buoy and throttled up the engine to full. It screamed with horsepower, driving the boat along at 45 MPH, the bow bouncing over the chop on the surface of the water, tendrils of spray occasionally wetting us. It was thrilling to be on the lake again, to be at the controls of a boat after all that time. I felt the thrum of the engine beating through my chest, felt the bow bouncing up and down in the waves, felt the sun beating down on my shirtless body, felt the hand of my beloved on my thigh.
I headed in a NorthWest direction, hoping to find a reasonably deserted portion of the lake so we could do some skiing and maybe find a nice island to hang out on. I looked at Mike at one point and mimed the act of drinking with my hands. He got the idea and fished in the ice chest, pulling out a frosty can of beer for me. While I opened it he pulled out three more and distributed them. Nina, who had recently sworn off alcohol opened hers and took a huge drink.
Finally finding an empty spot I throttled down the motor and let the boat drift.
"Who wants to ski?" I asked.
Nina and Mike had never done it before so Maggie volunteered to be first. She stripped off her shirt and tossed it onto her seat. Her bikini top was red and was very brief, allowing her large breasts to bulge out the side. I tore my eyes away from the appetizing sight of this and looked at Mike instead. His eyeballs were nearly bugging out.
She put on the life vest and then jumped into the water.
"How is it?" Mike asked her.
"A little chilly." She admitted, suppressing a shiver. "It's making my nipples hard."
I looked over at Nina to see if this statement would offend her but she only giggled and took another drink from her beer. Mike, on the other hand, was staring agape. This made both of us laugh even more.
Maggie smiled up him. "The water might make Nina's and my nipples hard," She said, "But wait till you see what it does to you and Bill. Does the word "shrinkage" mean anything to you?"
We all laughed at this and Mike, trying to compose himself, finally picked up the water skis and put them in the water for her.
"Thanks." She said, gazing at him. While he blushed she began the process of putting them on.
She fumbled around in the water for a few moments and finally mangaged to get the skis on her feet. Mike tossed the rope to her next and I instructed him to face backward and watch her carefully.
"No problem." He assured me, watching her legs bobbing up and down.
"And tell me if she falls." I added.
"Oh yeah." He nodded.
I throttled up a little until the rope was tight and pulling Maggie forward.
She got into position and then gave me the thumbs-up. I throttled up more and she was pulled neatly out of the water where she began sliding across it's surface, a huge grin on her face.
Maggie turned out to be quite an accomplished skier. I turned left and right and she hung in there, turning gracefully behind me, maneuvering herself so that she went back and forth across the wake. Finally I turned a little too sharp and she hit the wake at the wrong angle. She went down in a tumble of arms and legs, her skis flying free.
"She's down!" Mike screamed, much too loudly.
I throttled down and circled around to pick her up while she swam after the skis.
"You asshole." She yelled at me when I got close. "You turned too sharp."
"If you can't hang…" I said, smiling. "You wanna try again?"
"No." She said, shaking her head. "Let someone else have a chance."
She tossed the skis in the boat and climbed up the ladder. Her body was dripping with lake water and when she pulled the life vest off I noticed, uncomfortably, that her bikini top had pulled down from her collision and the upper half of her aureole was showing. I dragged my eyes away from this but Mike didn't.
"Like what you see?" Maggie asked him sweetly, slowly reaching down to pull her top back into position.
Mike suddenly found something to look at in the sky, his face reddening even more. "I didn't see anything!" He protested.
Nina and I both suppressed laughter at this while Maggie kept the amused, interested expression on her face. "It's okay." She said. "Accidents happen." She handed him the life vest. "Let's see how you do Mr. Mechanic."
Mike gulped and then began to put on the vest. He did it quickly and jumped into the water. But not before everyone had seen the fact that his shorts were definitely bulging outward.
We spent the next two hours skiing back and forth across the portion of the lake we were on. Mike did badly at first, continually falling the moment I tried to pull him out of the water. He was making the typical beginner's mistake of trying to pull himself up instead of letting the boat do it. This let the line develop slack which, when it was unslacked inevitably pulled the skier sharply forward. Maggie gave him helpful hints from her position as observer and finally he was able to get up without falling. Once he figured this out he was unstoppable. He had a keen sense of balance and soon he was out-skiing Maggie.
Nina had no trouble gaining her feet but she had a lousy sense of balance. It was quite a while before she was able to keep from falling whenever I turned. While she skied and while Maggie continued to serve as observer I taught Mike the basics of piloting the boat. At last, when Nina came dripping inside it was my turn. With Mike at the helm I skied back and forth for a while, reacquainting myself with the pleasure of sliding along the water. While Nina sat backwards, watching for me to fall, I couldn't help but see that Maggie and Mike were sitting quite close together in the front. Just call me Cupid.
We were all buzzing pleasantly from the beer and absolutely famished with hunger when I finally pulled myself back inside and threw down the life vest. We opened up another beer and then went to find a place to eat.
I found a small island to park at. It was about an acre or so and had some scrubby looking trees growing on it. We pulled the boat onto the shore, tied it to a tree to keep it from drifting away, and then grabbed our picnic blankets. We spread them in the shade and opened up the food my Mom had packed for us. The next twenty minutes were filled with contented chomping and chewing and the slapping at bees and flies that had been drawn by the smell of fried chicken. Out on the water an occasional boat shot by, most pulling skiers behind them, but for the most part it was peaceful and quite.
After we stowed the food away and got rid of the trash we lounged on the blanket. I sat up drinking a beer while Nina laid down on her back with her head on my lap. She seemed very contented to be there. Maggie looked at us for a moment and then at Mike.
"That looks comfortable." She said and then patted his bare leg. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all." He croaked, shifting his position to give her room.
With a smile she stretched out and put her head in his lap. He seemed as if he was in ecstasy and a look was passed between the two girls. A knowing look.
The conversation went back and forth, varying on subject as we sat there. Mike was strangely quiet through all of this.