“Of course,” he agreed.
“We moved the living room furniture to the clubhouse and covered the floor with air mattresses, so it’s really one big bed.”
“Sounds fun. What about tests?” he asked. “We’re both tan, but since this isn’t our normal group…?”
My brow furrowed. Tan? Of course he was tan, he was a nudist. Then it hit me.
“Oh, TAN! Sorry. I thought you meant the skin tone.”
“We love him,” Leah said, “but his mind doesn’t work the way a normal person’s does.” She arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Got it now?”
“Yeah, sorry,” I repeated. “TAN, Tested AIDS Negative.”
“We are too,” Leah said. “We use the lab from Kara’s practice, and we’ve all been screened.”
“Us too,” I agreed, “before we left Boston. We have the results if—”
“No need,” Doug said. “We all know each other. The honor system’s fine, as long as everyone’s been tested recently.”
“We have.”
“Birth control?” Olivia asked. “Doug’s had a vasectomy, and I’ve had my tubes tied.”
“Christy hasn’t,” I said, “but she doesn’t have sex with anyone else. I’ve had a vasectomy.”
“Mark and Victor too,” Leah added. “Kara and I are both… um… normal? Fertile? ‘Unfixed’ sounds like we’re broken.”
We filled in the blanks on everyone else. All the couples except Erin, Tom, Brooke, and Nate had some form of birth control, but we still needed to pay attention.
“Sorry it’s such a mix,” I said.
“It usually is,” Doug said, “which is why we ask.”
“When in doubt, pull it out,” I quipped, which earned a grin from Leah.
“It’s a good thing we all like swallowing,” she said.
Olivia smiled and sent me a sideways glance that made the little head start planning again.
Doug chuckled in agreement before he turned serious. “I figure we all have the same rules otherwise. We’re all second- or third-generation.”
We slowed to a stop at the inner ring of bungalows. On the other side of the pool, my girls were telling Christy about their day, and Trip’s were doing the same with him.
“Speaking of the next generation,” I said.
Doug sighed agreement. “This is maybe our last chance to do something like this.”
“Mmm,” I agreed, “the end of an era.”
* * *
Leah, Wren, and I took the kids down to the main camp and left them with our parents after breakfast. We didn’t hang around for long, even though a part of me wanted to invite Gina and John to join us at the Retreat. Unfortunately, I knew better.
Gina hadn’t been a swinger for years, and John wasn’t even comfortable as a nudist in the first place. I couldn’t imagine him in a threesome, much less the middle of an orgy. So we returned to the Retreat by ourselves, although we chatted about who’d been flirting with whom.
“Trip, of course,” Wren said. Then she rolled her eyes. “He wants to have sex with every woman at least once. Well, everyone but Christy, although he thinks he might have a chance, even with her.”
“He doesn’t,” Leah said before I could.
“Try telling him that,” Wren laughed. Then she shot me a look. “And you… You’re almost as bad.”
“What!”
“I saw the way you looked at Olivia last night.”
“Oh, that,” I laughed. “Well, can you blame me?”
“No, not really. And… I have to admit, I’m a little curious myself.”
“Oh?”
“You know what I mean. She looks exactly like Susan.”
“She does,” Leah agreed.
“I thought it was a little weird at first,” Wren continued, “but you know what they say—men marry their mothers.”
“Or something,” Leah said under her breath, so only I could hear.
Not now, I warned her with a glance.
Yes, sir. She added a flirty little smirk, in case I thought she was serious.
“Anyway,” Wren continued to me, “I might join you if you get together with them.”
“Who? Doug and Olivia?”
“Who else? She asked about you.”
Leah nodded confirmation.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Yeah, she wanted to know about you and Christy,” Wren said, “whether she needed to talk to her first.”
“What’d you tell her? Never mind,” I said immediately.
“Not so slow after all,” she teased. Then she looked across me and asked Leah, “What about you? Who’re you thinking about?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
“Seriously? I didn’t think you cared about size,” Wren said.
“Oh, I don’t. But it’s my job to investigate.”
“That’s a lot of investigation,” Wren laughed.
“Mmm, I know.”
Wren rolled her eyes at Leah’s enthusiasm. “I don’t know who’s worse, you or Christy.”
“I think it’s a tie,” I said dryly.
“Well, you’d know. Anyway, speaking of Christy…?”
“I think she and Mark have a date.” I glanced at Leah to confirm, and she nodded.
“What about Brooke?” Wren asked. Then she huffed. “God! Will she get married and have kids already!”
“Why?” I laughed.
“So she doesn’t look like a fucking Playmate!”
“Oh, relax,” I said. “You’re as pretty as she is.”
“Yeah,” Wren muttered, “if you like sagging and stretch marks.”
“I’ll prove it if you want.”
“How?”
“Let’s see if Doug and Olivia want to get together.”
“You mean it?”
“Of course.”
* * *
We relaxed by the pool after lunch, although couples occasionally drifted away for private fun. Kara, Victor, and Jason started fooling around, and Sydney and Woody joined in. Before long they went off to the group bungalow together. Stacy stayed behind.
“Not in the mood?” I asked.
“Hmm? Oh, I might join them later.”
I hadn’t felt any kind of connection with her since they’d arrived. We’d known each other intimately at one point, but we’d both changed since then. She wasn’t a lost and insecure young woman anymore, and I wasn’t a shy and pudgy teenager. I didn’t feel any hostility from her, but I didn’t feel any attraction either. I almost laughed when I realized we were like siblings more than lovers.
“So much has changed,” I said obliquely.
“I know what you mean. It’s like we both stepped into a time warp. I still have to remind myself that you’re a grown-up. You’re a kid in my head. Okay, maybe not a kid, but you know. I have a son who isn’t much younger than you were when we first met. That’s wild.”
“No kidding,” I agreed. “Time flies.”
“At least you still look like you. Town is…” She gestured futilely. “I barely recognized it. Did you see where they tore down the Winn-Dixie?”
“Uh-huh. And replaced it with a strip mall.”
“I know!” she laughed.
“Hey, every small town needs a Blockbuster, a GNC, and a Chinese restaurant.”
“Add a dry cleaner and you have everything you need,” she joked.
We fell silent for a moment before she looked around and sighed.
“It’s a shame about the camp, too.”
“Mmm.”
“She’s been worried about it for a couple of years,” she added, “but I think the numbers finally forced her hand.”
“What do you think she should do?”
“From a business standpoint?” Stacy shrugged. “You have to change with the times.”
“But from a personal one?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was never that attached to this place. Not like you. I like it okay, but I don’t have a lot of fond memories from those days.”
“You do about Susan.”
“True. She’s been like a mother. Better than my real one ever was.”
I didn’t know much about Stacy’s family—more evidence of a disconnect—but I did know that her mother had died about five years earlier. Stacy hadn’t even known until the state contacted her and asked what she wanted to do with the body. She sighed again and drew me back to the present.