“Yes, please,” the girls said at the same time. Then they looked at each other and giggled.
“Right,” Carter said after a moment. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Why would you try?” Christy wondered aloud.
“Why indeed.” He relaxed and actually laughed. “Come on, let’s do it.”
Chapter 35
We pulled into the Retreat and parked next to Carter’s Audi behind the clubhouse. The night was sultry and the air felt heavy without a breeze. The crackle of distant fireworks punctuated the chirp of crickets and the faint buzz from the sodium light overhead. Then the clubhouse air conditioner roared to life. It was a big commercial unit that drowned out everything else.
I chuckled to myself at the sounds of life in the new south. Fortunately, I didn’t feel the desire to wax nostalgic about the “good old days” before air conditioning. They were hot and sticky, and I really didn’t miss them. Kim clearly held the same fondness for modern amenities, especially the ones that kept her cool.
“Can we go for a swim?” she begged. “Please, Carter, can we?”
Christy cleared her throat, although I heard it in my head more than my ears.
“Sounds good to us,” I said, “but let’s open another bottle of wine first.”
“Or maybe the bourbon,” Carter agreed.
Christy beamed. Her mind control had worked.
“We’ll join you in the pool,” Carter said to Kim.
“Don’t take too long.”
“We won’t.” He bent to kiss her cheek. He caressed her bare bottom at the same time, and she leaned against him. The wine made her flirty and affectionate, and she nuzzled his neck.
“Run along,” he said at last. “We’ll join you shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Christy shot her a playful grin and then dashed toward the pool. Kim shrieked and ran after her. She was drunk enough that she didn’t care that her breasts went flying.
Carter and I watched them go.
“Does she really have that much energy?” he asked about Christy. “All the time?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
He eyed me sideways. “She must be a wildcat in bed.”
He was fishing, so I decided to answer his real question.
“Yeah, she is,” I said, “but only for me. Sorry.”
“No! That wasn’t what I meant.” He thought about it and then looked guilty. “Right. Maybe it was.”
“Sorry,” I repeated.
“Don’t be.” He appeared to mean it. “She has boundaries and you respect them. The relationship wouldn’t work otherwise.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
“I still wanna fuck her, if I’m being honest. Who wouldn’t?” He flashed me a grin but sobered quickly. “But I respect your decision. Right, it’s her decision, but it’s yours to enforce it.”
I nodded.
“And, still being honest, we wouldn’t be talking about swinging if you didn’t.” He sensed my question and answered, “If you don’t respect her boundaries, you won’t respect mine or Kim’s.”
“True.”
He gestured, and we started toward the front of the building.
“Thanks for being cool tonight,” he added. “The whole day, as a matter of fact. We, ah, didn’t know what to expect. When we first made the reservations. We only knew that the camp had swingers.”
I opened the door and followed him inside, and we paused to enjoy the air conditioning.
“Speaking of which,” I said after a moment, “how did you hear about us? The camp in general but the swingers in particular.”
“A… friend.” He paused to decide how much he wanted to tell me.
“You don’t have to name names.”
“Sorry. She’s a client. Privilege applies. Besides, I’m naturally cautious.”
“Yeah,” I chuckled, “I noticed. Forget I asked. ‘A friend’ is good enough for now.”
“Thanks.” He considered it a moment longer. “Word of mouth can be unreliable, even when you know the person. But this time it worked out better than we could’ve imagined.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “For us too.”
“Honestly?” He snorted a soft laugh. “You do this all the time.”
“Not really. Besides, you’d be surprised how often it doesn’t work out—”
“No, probably not.”
“—so it’s really nice when it does.”
He nodded at the wine crates and changed the subject. “I hate to keep asking, but—”
“Ask away,” I laughed. “That’s why we have it, to drink and enjoy. Besides, we’re talking about sharing the girls.”
“Right,” he agreed. “What’s a little wine compared to them?”
“Exactly.”
“You mind if we switch it up? Now that I don’t need to pair with food, you have a Malbec I’m dying to try.”
“Fine by me,” I said. I didn’t know a Malbec from a malaprop, but Carter was happy. I smiled to myself and understood Kim’s devotion to him. He was a likable guy. He was a bit demanding at times, and he wanted things a certain way, but at least he was polite about it. Christy’s reaction sounded in my head (Yes, Mr. Perfectionist?), and I laughed aloud.
“What’s so funny?” Carter asked.
“Nothing. Just that you and I are a lot alike.”
“I could’ve told you that. I have.” He retrieved the bourbon and selected a bottle of red wine. “Grab some glasses. For the bourbon. I’ll drink wine from a plastic cup, but I refuse to drink fine spirits from anything but glass.”
Case in point, I thought, he likes things his way. “Do we need ice?” I asked aloud. I grabbed four Solo cups from the stack.
“Ice in wine?” he said, scandalized. “God, no! Are you insane?”
“For the bourbon,” I chuckled.
“Oh, sorry. But still no. Drink it neat.”
“Roger that. Let’s go.”
The girls were treading water at the far end of the pool, but they’d clearly been playing and splashing each other. The concrete deck was wet in a half-dozen places.
Carter called to them, and they turned to face us. They looked almost identical with only their heads above water. Christy’s hair was lighter, and Kim’s was longer, but that was it. Their smiles were identical—white teeth, tan skin, and cheeks slightly pink from the sun. Even their eyes looked the same from a distance.
“They could be sisters,” Carter said. “Maybe only from the neck up, but… wow.”
They swam toward us and were easier to tell apart. Kim’s features were wider, not quite as elfin as Christy’s. And Kim was a decent swimmer—she’d spent plenty of time in the country club pool—but Christy glided through the water like an otter.
Or a selkie, I added with a silent laugh.
“What did you bring us?” Kim asked.
Carter held up the bottles. “Bourbon and a Malbec.”
“Ooh, yum,” Christy said. “Bourbon, please.”
“Shall we join them?” he said to me.
“We shall.” I descended the steps and gently set the four glasses on the smooth concrete lip of the pool.
“Be careful,” Carter told the girls. “There’ll be hell to pay if we break one in the pool.” He opened the bourbon and poured four shots, although two of them were nearly doubles. He handed the smaller ones to the girls.
Christy cleared her throat and held up her glass. “Um… excuse me. You forgot something.”
Carter rocked back in mild surprise. Then he looked at me.
“Did I mention that she can probably drink more than both of us? Together?”
“Ah, right. Irish Catholic.”
“And my metabolism,” Christy said.
“She’s probably sober again,” I said.
Kim was still drunk, while Carter and I were comfortably buzzed.
His sandy eyebrows rose. “Seriously?”
Christy nodded. “Hungry too. For the record.”
“Do we need to fix you a snack?” he laughed.
“Do we have any strawberries?”
“No, sorry. We ate them all.”