It was cold outside--maybe sixty degrees at best--and the rain was
coming down in buckets. It hit me like an avalanche of live coals,
and for a moment I almost went back inside. But only for a moment. I
trotted across the grass, my feet slipping and sloshing in the soggy
lawn at every step, and ran up to the dancers.
The circle opened for me as I came up. Joanie took one of my hands,
Ernie Bryan the other, and I got into the swing of the dance. One, two,
three, four, five, six, _kick_! To the right, one, two, three, four,
five, six, _kick_! Jump in the air, now. Shout for sheer joy as the
cool rain cleanses your naked body.
Breasts bob and jounce. Bodies glisten in the rain. Everybody into
the center of the ring, now, naked bodies practically touching, Reena
Bryan's breasts inches from my chest. Throw your hands in the air and
shout again. Join hands again, now, run back to the original position.
To the left, one, two, three, four, five, six, _kick_! To the right--
A primitive kind of joy welled up in my throat, and I yelled
spontaneously for pure happiness. I was naked in the rain, feeling warm
and completely at ease in my skin, and the pure water was washing away
all my troubles. Two chapters were written, Joanie of the beautiful
breasts was holding my hand, and life was good.
It was a moment of complete bliss, the sort of moment Faust sold his
soul for. Above us the skies were menacing, below us the lawn was
mushy and slippery. But for the dozen of us, none of that mattered. We
were all one, one joyous group, dancing in the rain. One, two, three,
four, five, six, _kick_!
Jump in the air.
Shout.
Everybody into the center.
We roared with delight. Finally somebody broke the circle, rolling back
on the wet grass, kicking his feet in the air and laughing in pleasure.
The dance ended. And in one sudden spontaneous motion everybody was
hugging everybody else.
I found Joanie in my arms, her breasts hard against my chest, her loins
tight against mine. For one wild moment we hugged, and then, carried
away, I sought her lips and kissed her, and her lips opened to mine and
my tongue slipped into her mouth.
She shivered. I didn't know if it was a shiver of delight or disgust.
I released her and we backed away from each other, both of us a little
surprised by what had happened. She looked confused and fuddled.
But she was smiling.
_CHAPTER TWELVE_
The group broke up, each of us heading back to his cabin to dry off.
With the end of the dance, the impulse of spontaneity died away, and we
were all just a bunch of cold, naked people, soaked by the rain.
I was tingling all over from Joanie's kiss. Tingling like a goddam
teenager. The kiss had been part of the moment, the wild, spontaneous
moment. We had both been carried away.
I wondered about Joanie. She had kissed me willingly enough,
enthusiastically enough. Yet immediately afterward, despite her smile,
she had worn a look of shock, a _what-have-I-done?_ kind of look. And
she had escaped quickly from the group, without a word to me. As though
she had to get away by herself and think over the causes of the strange
impulse that had led her to kiss me and let me kiss her.
I was pretty sure that Meehan had been wrong about Joanie's being a
lesbian. But he had definitely been right when he said she was mixed
up sexually. Frigid or just neurotically virginal, perhaps. Despite
the abundant riches of her body, she had no more sexuality than a
ten-year-old. Yet for one moment in the rain she had throbbed with the
sort of inner warmth that befitted her superb feminine endowments.
Just for one moment.
Tingling and edgy, I made my way back to the cabin and dried myself
off. Dancing in the rain had been grand, but now I felt cold, chilled
through and through. I dried myself thoroughly and dressed in fresh
clothing and settled down with a book.
I couldn't read. I couldn't concentrate. That damned kiss had shaken me
all up.
Tremendous sexual desire overwhelmed me as I lay there. Fierce pains
sleeted through my loins, and left in their wake a dull, pounding ache.
If Harriet or Sandra had walked in the door at that moment they would
have been raped. Even Bonnie, if she still were around, would have been
welcome. I needed a woman--any woman--to calm me, to take the edge off
this throbbing excitement. But no woman appeared. First a feast, then
a famine. I wouldn't find it as easy as it had been to find a sleeping
partner now. Bonnie gone, Harriet involved with Riccio's friend, Sandra
working her wiles on that hapless architect ... the remaining single
women in the camp were mostly dogs or else, like Mary Kinowski, they
couldn't/wouldn't be made. And the one pretty girl available, Naomi,
wasn't available, thanks to my pal Meehan.
So I just had to do without. Well, it was a refreshing change from
the hectic humping of the earlier days. And in an odd way I felt that
remaining celibate would help my chances with Joanie.
The rain continued on into the evening. Everyone gathered in the social
hall for films--a couple of animated cartoons for the kiddies, and
then some more of Dr. Richards' eight-millimeter films of past seasons
at Sunland. Afterwards, the benches were cleared back and there was
square-dancing. I danced a couple of sets with Joanie, but her behavior
was distant and formally polite, as though she still were reacting to
our kiss in the rain that afternoon. At ten, when the program broke up,
I walked her back to her cabin. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, now,
and there was some hope that tomorrow might be a decent day.
I stood hesitantly on the cabin porch, and a wild fantasy passed
through my mind--that Joanie would invite me in, that we would peel
away the wet clothing that at the moment hid our bodies from each
other. My hands would slide around the taut fullness of her breasts, my
lips would once again seek hers, her body would come to life, her legs
parting to receive me, and we would merge in white-hot ecstacy.
Just a wild fantasy. But a nice one.
What really happened was more expectable. She smiled at me, opened the
cabin door, said a cheery "Goodnight, Al," and walked in.
The door closed.
I wandered away, still living my little dream-fantasy. The drizzle
continued. Twenty feet from Joanie's cabin I turned and looked back.
The light was on inside, and she hadn't bothered to close the shutters.
She was half undressed, walking around bare to the waist. For some
weird reason this peeping-tom moment excited me. I had seen Joanie
in the altogether from a distance of six inches, but here she was
undressing with the blind open, and there I was standing in the rain
staring at her bare breasts with my tongue hanging out....
Human beings are silly people.
I leaned against a tree and watched her unzip her fly-front blue jeans
and step out of them. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. I could
see her naked body down as far as mid-thigh.
I laughed at myself for what I was doing, and walked quickly
back to the cabin. Meehan was there already, and he had a
cat-with-canary-inside look on his face.
"Where were you tonight?" I asked. "I didn't see you at the movies."
"Did I miss anything?"
"Some Mickey Mouse and a film of 1954 fun at Sunland," I said. "Square
dancing afterward, and Elinor served punch. Unspiked punch."
"I had a better time," Meehan said.
"With Naomi?"
"With Naomi," he agreed. "That girl has inhibitions, you know?"
"Sure I know."
"But she can be coaxed. And when she decides to stop acting
inhibited--like, _wow_, man!"
I felt a pang of jealousy. For no good reason at all, since Meehan
wasn't getting anything I couldn't have had if I'd kept my wits about
me. "You scored, huh?"
He shrugged. "After much travail and suasion, yes. It was indeed a
struggle. But a worthwhile one. Like a rabbit, Al. Or a mink. That's
how she goes. Like a friggin' rabbit."
"Were you the first?"
"Not quite," Meehan said, looking up at the ceiling dreamily. "She
gave me the life history after we got tired of doing it. I'm the
third, she says. You can probably add one or two to the list. She was
seduced when she was nineteen, and then again last year when she was
twenty-one. Scared stiff of sex. Never had satisfaction in her life
till tonight." Meehan sighed. "Ah, love! Life can be so beautiful!
Yesterday she was a frightened little unvirgin who couldn't bare her
fanny for anything, and tonight she's a confirmed nudist, and better
still a satisfied _woman_. It's heartwarming, man."
"I'm sure it is," I said a little sourly.
"How's your novel coming?"
"I finished Chapter Two today."
"Don't rush it, Hemingway. You've got all summer."
"Yeah," I said, and moved along into my own room, feeling angry at the
world and realizing I didn't have very much to be angry about that
wasn't my own damn fault in the first place.
The drumming of the rain, and the general tenseness of my nerves, kept
me up for a while. But I dropped off into sleep finally, and when I
woke the sun was streaming in the window and it was a gorgeous day.
The grounds were a mess from the rain. But even at half past seven the
sun was high and hot, and it was easy to see that by noon the day would
really be a scorcher. I thought about the boys back on Wacker Drive.
The office was air-conditioned, of course, but they had to step out of
the office to eat and get home. It was probably 99 down in Chicago,
with humidity to match. Here it was hot, but it was a dry, soul-warming
heat, and there was always the lake to cool off in. Plus the advantage
of having no clothes to wear.
It was such a good day that I decided to let the typewriter have the
day off. Chapter Three could wait. After twenty-four dank and drizzly
hours, I wanted to get out into that sun.
The trouble was that not too many facilities were available. The tennis
courts would need another day to dry before they could be rolled;
same with the volleyball court, though you could get up a game on the
grass if you didn't mind risking a sprained ankle or two. The baseball
diamond was similarly soggy and needed some toasting in the sun before
anyone could use it.
The basketball court, being paved, was available. So after breakfast I
got a ball out of the games shed and went down by myself to get some
exercise while the morning was still young.
Playing basketball by yourself can be pretty dull. I ran up and down
the length of the court a few times, taking layups and usually blowing
them. When that got dull, I moved back a ways and took some set shots,
at which I was pretty good, and then started throwing in some one-hand
heaves from mid-court and beyond. After about fifteen minutes of steady
dribbling and shooting, I had worked up a healthy sweat, and my skin
was glistening. I sat down at the edge of the court to rest.
The day of rain hadn't affected my suntan at all. I was still pretty
brown. It was a novelty to me to have the foot-wide strip around my
middle just as brown as the rest of me, but I rather liked the effect.
I also liked the way camp life had toughened me up, removing that
incipient bulge around my middle and giving me some semblance of the
lean, muscular fellow I had been a decade earlier. I was lying there
admiring my tanned, hairy, sweat-shiny nakedness and deciding it was
about time to take some more shots at the basket when I caught sight of
Joanie coming through the trees toward me.
She was carrying some folded-up canvas. She waved and smiled at me, and
I got to my feet.
"Lovely morning, isn't it?" she said.
"Sure is. Where are you heading?"
"To the dock," she said. "I want to get the sailboat in shape."
The camp owned a little sailboat, hardly bigger than a rowboat.
Flat-bottomed, single-masted. Sailing it wasn't particularly difficult,
and it was a popular item at the colony.
I walked down to the dock with Joanie. The rowboats and canoes and
sailboat were all full of water. "The kitchen boys said they'd be down
to bail the boats when they were through cleaning up," Joanie said.
"But we might as well get the sailboat bailed now. Want to give me a
hand?"
"Sure," I said.
I waded out into the shallow water and got the bottom end of the boat,
while Joanie remained on the dock. She lifted the front end and hoisted
the back, and together we got the little boat up on the dock. While I
was lifting, I admired for the millionth time the play of muscles over
Joanie's body. Nothing masculine or overdeveloped, mind you. She was
utterly feminine in every respect. But the muscles and sinews rippled
the way a cat's will, and it did things to the contours of her breasts
and stomach that made me catch my breath.
Once we got the boat on the dock, it was an easy matter to tip it up on
one side and let the rainwater drain out of it. After the final gurgle,
we eased the boat back into the water. Joanie got in it and began
attaching the sail, while I sat on the edge of the dock, dangling my
feet and eyeing with pleasure the golden-brown loveliness of the girl
in the boat.
"There," she said, when the last knot was tied. "It's all ready now for
anybody who wants to use it."
"How about us?" I suggested, surprising myself by the way the notion
rippled out of my mouth. "Why don't we go take a sail, now that we've
put the boat into shape?"
Joanie looked nonplussed. "But I've got to organize the volleyball
game," she said weakly.
"The volleyball court's all wet," I said. "Besides, you're always
organizing things or bailing boats or doing something else useful. Why
can't you just relax like the rest of us? Come on--I'll steer."
It took a little coaxing. Evidently the idea of just loafing away the
morning never occurred to her. Besides, she seemed a bit leery of
being all alone with me in the boat. But her arguments grew weaker and
weaker, and finally she gave in.
She stretched out on the cushion in the front of the boat. I climbed in
at the stern, and grabbed the tiller. There was only a faint breeze,
and for an awkward moment I thought I might have to man the oars to
get the little boat away from the dock. But then the sail filled and
bellied out, and we began to glide outward.
Now, I was an Army man, and had no experience at navigation. But I
got the hang of steering the boat quickly enough, and made the most
of the light breeze. The lake was a fair-sized one, oval-shaped, with
some coves and inlets down at the east end. It was ringed on three
sides by dense woods; on the fourth was the Sunland dock. No doubt from
time to time curious yokels from the town crept through the woods to
train telescopes on the dock, but Joanie had told me earlier that it
was a risky business: the woods were thick and well vegetated, with
a particularly heavy growth of poison ivy. That and the barbed-wire
fences helped to keep peepers out most of the time.
I headed for the middle of the lake, and then, taking advantage of the
breeze, let the boat glide gently toward the coves at the east end of
the lake. Joanie lay stretched out on her back, her eyes closed. She
was smiling as the warmth of the sun bathed her.
Her breathtaking beauty brought a lump to my throat. It was like a
dream, being alone in the boat with this naked goddess. My eyes came
to rest on the clean lines of her face, on her strong throat, on the
twin peaks of flesh jutting from her chest. They travelled lower, to
the firm, unsagging belly, to the golden fleece at her loins, to the
flawless thighs and perfect calves. And both of us naked. I fought back
the wild craving to pitch forward onto her and take her by force.
"Sleeping?" I asked.
"Just relaxing," she said. "The sun's so glorious."
"It's a marvelous day." After a moment I said, "Not at all like
yesterday. But there were some good moments yesterday despite
everything."
"The dancing, you mean."
"And what happened afterward."
She frowned, for a moment, but she didn't seem displeased. I held my
breath. She said, "Yes. That was nice too, Al. But so--unexpected."
"It's the unexpected things that you treasure most," I told her. I
stopped steering and let the boat drift, and stretched out until the
soles of my feet practically touched hers as she faced me in the boat.
"You're a very mysterious girl, you know, Joanie?"
"Mysterious? Me?"
"Yes, you. It's funny, really. I know all about the freckle you have on
your left hip, but I don't know a thing about _you_."
"Such as what?"
"How old are you, for one thing. Where you live. Where you went to
school. What you do during the winter. What sort of person you are."