The Summer of Naked Swim Parties Read Online Free Page B

but she glanced down and saw that it wasn’t true.
    “No,” she said.
    “He didn’t touch you right there?” And then Joseph delicately placed his hand over the fly of Jamie’s jeans. A shooting heat ran up and down her body.
    “No,” she whispered.
    “You see, I love to make girls happy,” Joseph said. “And there’s nothing that makes a girl happier than when you touch her . . . right there.”
    Jamie’s right leg kicked in a spasm as he pulsed his fingers against her. She looked at him, her mouth half open—hypnotized by this good, scary feeling. She was being fed something that, prior to that instant, she had never hungered for.

    And now that the feeling was there, now that desire for a body other than her own had been pressed into her, she couldn’t remember not feeling it.
    There was a clomping of fast feet coming up the steps.
    Joseph pulled his hand away just as the bedroom door swung open and Debbie appeared, a giant red oven mitt on one hand.
    “Brownies will be ready soon,” she said. “I’m borrowing one of your suits—Tammy’s swimming in her underwear!” Debbie flung open the top drawer of the white, painted dresser and pulled out a black crocheted bikini Betty had bought Jamie at Sabado y Domingo, the local arts and crafts show. She rushed into Jamie’s bathroom and pushed the door shut but not hard enough for it to fully close. Jamie hopped off the bed and stumbled toward the door. She turned and looked back at Joseph.
    “Do you want brownies?” Her voice was paced with Debbie’s staccato.
    Joseph rotated his legs off the bed and sat up slowly; he reminded Jamie of her father trying to rise on Sunday mornings.
    “Okay!” Jamie chirped. “So I’ll see you down at the pool!”
    Tammy sat on the shallow-end steps in her padded white nylon bra and blue cotton underwear, holding a fistful of gooey barely baked brownie. Her braces were spackled a tarry brown.
    “Oh my god,” she said. “These are so, so good! Can you believe that Debbie could make such good brownies? I mean, they’re, like, raw!”

    Bill was in his boxer shorts jumping on the diving board.
    He jumped higher and higher, his arms whirling like rotors.
    Finally he threw himself off the board, screaming a war cry that was silenced by the water. When he popped up for air there was a new explosion of sound as he belted along with the song that had just started. Bill swam to Tammy on the steps and took a bite of brownie straight from her fist.
    Mike sauntered out from the kitchen wearing an oven mitt that matched the one Debbie had on. The pan of brownies was in his hand. He was picking at it with his finger, feeding himself frosting-soft balls.
    “Want some?” he asked.
    Jamie reached into the pan and pulled out a wad just as Joseph emerged from the house. As she was eating, standing beside Mike, Joseph quietly slipped off his jeans and T-shirt to reveal a pair of loose-hanging, faded yellow boxers.
    “Pool heated?” he asked.
    “Um,” Jamie had a wad of brownie in her mouth that stuck her teeth together, clogged her throat. “Uh huh,” she hummed.
    Joseph looked back at Jamie with one long, cinematic gaze and she regretted that her finger was in her mouth loosening splotches of brownie from her gum line. He dove into the water and swam two fast laps: back and forth, back and forth. No one watched except Jamie, who felt like her body was operating on its own—she had no choice but to look at what every cell beneath her skin insisted she look at, pointing her to the place her body wanted her to be.
    Debbie appeared in the black crocheted suit.
    “Oh my god,” she said. “Do you love those brownies?  Mike and I made them! Can you believe how good they are?!”

    “They’re great,” Jamie said, although she was still trying to swallow. The mass of brownie was stuck like peanut butter; she could feel the forces of her body squeezing and undulating the lump down her throat.
    Tammy’s favorite song, “Pick