The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Read Online Free Page A

said. “Not my bed. I think Dad just got tired of turning that dial and punching.”
    “Take me to your bedroom,” Joseph said. “I want to see if this system really works.”
    “Uh, okay.” Obedience had always been a problem for Jamie. She didn’t know how to not do what she’d been told.
    And with Joseph, whose very presence dulled her intellect into a warm ball of Play-Doh, Jamie didn’t even think to not do what he had asked.
    Upon entering the bedroom, Joseph walked straight to Jamie’s bed and flung himself across it, facedown. Jamie couldn’t see him at first, as all she could focus on was the white bra and rejected T-shirts that lay in a heap on her floor.
    “Where are the speakers?” Joseph asked.
    Jamie kicked the pile of clothes under her bed.
    “Up there and there,” she said, pointing to the black boot-box-sized cubes hanging from the corners of the ceiling.
    Joseph rolled onto his back and patted the bed beside him.
    “Come here,” he said. “Let’s lie together and listen.” Jamie stared at her unmade bed, the pink, chenille bedspread bunched in a corner at Joseph’s feet. He was wearing flip-flops that had a layer of hardened beach tar on the soles. His feet were bony—cadaverous looking—anachronistic on his solid body. Jamie moved to the edge of the bed, put her hands on the brass foot rail, and looked at Joseph. There was a clicking in her brain, like a playing card clicking in a bike tire. This clicking told her what hadn’t yet occurred to her: Joseph might try something. What he’d try, she wasn’t  sure, but she knew it would be something she’d never done before, as thus far Jamie had kissed only three boys and had yet to be touched anywhere on her body by any boy.
    Jamie exhaled and laughed because she didn’t know what to do or say.
    “Come on the bed with me,” Joseph said again. “I won’t hurt you. I swear.”
    It was a promise Jamie didn’t doubt, and so she did as she had been asked. So, for the first time in her life, Jamie was on her bed listening to House of Honey with a boy. A post-college boy. A post-college boy who had the dazzling looks of a Tiger Beat cover.
    “Do you have a boyfriend?” Joseph asked.
    “No.” Jamie snorted and laughed and didn’t even think to ask him if he had a girlfriend.
    Joseph rolled to his side, head propped on the triangle of his right arm. With his left hand he traced his fingers up and down Jamie’s out-turned forearm.
    “You have beautiful, soft skin,” he whispered.
    She didn’t answer. The song ended. For a second all was silent and still.
    Jamie looked at the ceiling, afraid to turn toward Joseph, whose face was inches from hers, and whom she sensed was staring at her.
    “You know,” Joseph said, continuing to stroke her arm,  “when a man touches a woman it’s a beautiful thing. A beautiful, wonderful thing.”
    “Oh yeah?” Jamie looked at him quickly, then turned away.
    Joseph shifted Jamie’s T-shirt up toward her rib cage. She tensed up momentarily, and then tensed up in a different, less fearful way as he stroked her belly. A tingling began to  run through Jamie—an internal telephone line, calling up all her bits and parts. Somewhere in her mind was the unfocused idea of pressing her body against Joseph’s.
    “You’re very beautiful,” Joseph said, and he swirled his long, dark finger into the whorl of Jamie’s belly button. The telephone ringing echoed in a hollow Jamie never knew she had—she found the sensation captivating and disturbing.
    “Have you ever kissed a boy?” Joseph leaned in so close to Jamie’s face that she could feel his hot breath on her cheek.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “With tongues or without?”
    “With.”
    “Did he touch your breasts?”
    The word breasts three inches from Jamie’s ear caused her to shudder.
    “No.”
    “Did he touch you between your legs?” Joseph’s hand paused just below her navel. Jamie felt a ghost sensation of him touching her lower,