Happy Campers

by Karen D. Badger

  “My butt itches, and I can’t see why.” Cat craned her neck.

  “Roll over. Let me take a look.”

  Cat rolled onto her stomach, exposing her naked hind end.

  “Holy shit!”

  “What? Billie, what is it?”

  “Cat, you have poison ivy.”

  Cat bolted up onto her knees and strained to see her buttocks. “How could I get pois—Oh, my God! I know how. Billie, get up, quickly. We need to check on Jen and the kids.” Billie threw the blanket off and started to rise. “Ahhh! You’re covered too. Even your chin!”

  Billie looked down at herself. Dozens of red marks spotted her abdomen. “Damn! How are we going to explain this one?”

  Cat quickly dove into their first-aid kit and retrieved the bottle of calamine lotion and a few cotton balls. “Hold still,” she said, then proceeded to paint Billie’s chin, abdomen, and thighs a pretty shade of fleshy pink before handing the bottle over to her. “Here, do my butt.”

  “Doing your butt got me into this mess,” Billie joked.

  “Ha ha, very funny, now dab, the itching is driving me crazy.”

  As soon as they were dressed, they climbed out of the tent, armed with the lotion. No sooner had they cleared their tent than they heard Jen’s voice, loud and clear, coming in their direction.

  “Thank you very much, Cat,” she ranted. “The rest of you might want to take advantage of the pit stop, she says. It’s a long hike back to the campsite, she says. Damn you, Cat. You can play connect the dots on my ass.”

  Cat approached Jen with her hands up, trying to calm the distraught woman. “Okay, Jen. I know. I have it too, and so does Billie.”

  “Billie? How did Billie get it? She wasn’t even with us yester– Oh, I get it. You two rolled around like a couple of crazed weasels last night, and she caught it from you. Well, serves you right,” Jen raged into their faces.

  “Jen,” Billie said in her best intimidating voice, “Cat had no way of knowing there was poison ivy in the bushes, so back off. Okay?”

  Jen threw up her hands. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. Question is, what do we do now?”

  Cat held up the calamine lotion. “How do you feel about the color pink?”

  Before long, each member of the camping party, save Fred, was doused in pink.

  Throughout the day, other campers passing their campsite cast curious glances at the menagerie of gropers, each grabbing at various body parts, trying to get relief from the itching. After one particularly interested viewer passed by, Jen turned to Billie and said, “They probably think we have body lice or something.”

  Billie just chuckled and reached for the bottle of calamine.

  Chapter 24: True Grit

  Within a day or two, the Charland/Swenson clan recovered enough from the poison ivy to resume normal camping activities. Early on the second day after the poison ivy incident, they packed the cooler with sandwiches, soda, and chips and headed to the beach. The kids went straight for the water as the adults set up the blankets, beach chairs and umbrellas, near one of the picnic tables.

  “Stay where we can see you,” Cat called to the kids. “And stay away from the rock mountain.”

  “And before anyone goes into the water—sunscreen!” Fred added.

  Soon the area was arranged, and everyone was settled in peacefully. Fred, healing but still sensitive from his sunburn, sat in the shade of the umbrella wearing a T-shirt, while the women rubbed oil on each other’s backs before lying out on the blanket, all in a row on their stomachs with Cat bookended by Billie and Jen. They made an impressive sight – one tall and two of medium build; one dark, one gold, and one light; all slim and scantily clad in skimpy bikinis. Fred sat among them, proud as a peacock and laughing as one gawker tripped over his feet because he was too busy watching the ladies to look where he was going. Halfway through the morning, the ladies rolled over to sun their fronts after liberally spreading more oil over their lean bodies. Billie reached out and covered Cat’s hand with her own, entwining their fingers.

  After a time, the kids moved from the water to the beach and began building a large sand castle. The boys worked on the main structure, while the girls built castle walls and a moat surrounding the entire display. Skylar busied herself by filling the moat with water she repeatedly transported to the structure in a small red bucket.

  Soon, Billie became bored with just lying in the sun. She opened her eyes and peered at Cat and Jen. Their eyes were closed, apparently asleep. A spark of mischief ignited in her belly as she grabbed a handful of sand. Grinning from ear to ear, she rolled onto her side and held her hand over Cat’s chest. Very slowly, she allowed the grains of sand to trickle from her fist as she moved her hand slowly downward, across Cat’s breasts and abdomen. Cat absently brushed them away in her sleep. Grabbing another handful of sand, Billie continued her path down one of Cat’s legs and then up the other.

  All the while Billie was engaging in her mischief, Fred watched, chuckling under his breath. “She’s going to kill you when she wakes up,” he warned.

  “If she can catch me,” Billie said, smiling at Fred.

  When Billie was finished, she leaned back and observed her handiwork. Cat was covered with a fine layer of sand. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.” She looked at Jen and glanced at Fred.

  A smile broke out across his face. “Go for it!” he said.

  Billie giggled with glee as she grabbed another handful of sand and proceeded to coat Jen with a fine layer, finishing just as Cat began to stir.

  Cat felt an itchy sensation on her chest, just at the base of her throat. She reached up sleepily and began to scratch. Suddenly, she realized that something was wrong. She sat up quickly and felt a considerable amount of sand slide inside her bathing suit as her hand came away from her chest, covered in suntan oil and sand.

  Billie moved quickly to her feet, ready to make her getaway.

  “What the hell?” she exclaimed, coming instantly awake. She looked at Billie, who was standing beside the blanket. Cat could see she was trying to hold back her laughter. “Billllllllie!” she growled.

  Cat looked at Jen and saw that she, too, was covered in sand. “Jen. Jen!” Cat said, shaking her friend awake. “Jen, wake up.”

  Jen brushed Cat’s hand away. “Leave me alone, I’m on vacation, for crying out loud!”

  “You’re also covered with sand!” Cat said.

  “What?” Jen sat up abruptly. She, too, felt her bathing suit fill with sand. “Son of a b—Who did this?”

  Hearing Fred chuckle, Cat and Jen quickly looked at him. He tried to keep a straight face. Assuming that Fred and Billie were probably in on the prank together, the two ladies jumped to their feet, scattering sand in all directions, except for the sand that was stuck to the lotion covering their bodies.

  Fred and Billie looked at each other and said in one voice, “Uh-Oh!” then took off running toward the water with Cat and Jen right on their heels. When Billie reached the water’s edge, her long legs allowed her to take huge leaps through the water until it reached mid-thigh, dramatically slowing her down and allowing Cat to catch up with her.

  Working together, the two smaller women managed to grab Billie and Fred and pull them under the water. Fred and Billie promptly returned the treatment. Soon they were frolicking in the water like children, splashing and dunking one another, screeching and laughing hysterically.

  In one particularly enthusiastic tackle, Cat pulled Billie down into the water by the straps of her bikini top. When Billie came up for air, her top didn’t come up with her, but instead floated away from the splashing adults. Billie stood there in all her glorious bare- breastedness, water running in sheets from her hair, onto her breasts and back into the lake. At that very moment, Fred surfaced from a dunking of his own, coming up directly in front of Billie’s erect nipples. All he could do was stare open-mouthed at Billie.

  Cat pushed Fred backwards into the water and pulled Billie down. Turning
around, she stood with her back to the taller woman in an effort to hide her wife’s nudity from their friends. Fred resurfaced, spitting and sputtering. Jen clamped her hand over Fred’s eyes and pulled him back under the water.

  “Damn it, Jen!” he said. “You ruined my view!”

  “Fred Swenson, you pervert!” Jen shot back, splashing a wave of water into her husband’s face.

  “Why, you little...” Fred growled as he took off after Jen, who was running as fast as she could through the water. He caught her almost immediately, picked her up and headed toward the shore. As he approached the beach, he stumbled over the bucket Skylar was using to fill the moat, lost his footing, and landed on top of Jen,right in the middle of the sand castle the children just finished building.

  There was dead silence as the kids stood there, slack jawed, eyes bulging at the mess that was once the fruit of their labors. Stevie and Seth looked at each other incredulously, then yelled together, “Get ’em!” before charging the two adults who were lying in the middle of the sand pile. Soon the girls joined in and, between the five of them, they managed to bury Fred and Jen with sand and mud. All the while, Fred complained about the abrasive sand on his tender, sunburned skin, even through his T-shirt.

  In the meantime, Cat retrieved Billie’s bikini top and tied up the strings enough to make it back to the beach to get Billie’s T-shirt. As they passed their neighbors lying in the mud, Jen looked up at the pair and cursed.

  “Damn! I have sand in places that have never seen the light of day! I’ll get you for this, Billie!”

  Billie threw her hands up. “What did I do?”

  “You and those killer breasts of yours! You should register them as lethal weapons!” Jen exclaimed, flashing them a brilliant smile.

  “Yeah, you can hold me hostage with them anytime, Billie,” Fred piped in, earning himself an angry glare from Jen.

  “Well, you can just forget it, Fred,” Cat said. “They’re my lethal weapons, and I don’t share!”

  “Selfish bitch,” Fred said under his breath.

  Billie narrowed her eyes and took a step toward Fred. “What was that?”

  “Shell… fish. I said shellfish. See, a clam, right over there. See?” Fred said nervously, pointing to a spot down the beach.

  “I thought that’s what you said,” she replied. She turned to Cat, smiled, and winked at her before taking her hand and walking back to the picnic table to prepare lunch, leaving Fred and Jen heading for the water to rinse off the gritty sand.

  Chapter 25: War and Peace

  The day at the beach turned out to be wonderfully relaxing, despite the striptease show and subsequent mud wrestling that resulted from Billie losing her bikini top in the water.

  Considering that the adults’ antics had totally destroyed the sand castle the children built, they committed themselves to assisting in the reconstruction and spent the rest of the day crawling around the sand like a bunch of ants, shaping and molding it into an elaborate labyrinth of buildings, roads, and walls.

  The adults worked diligently, long after the children lost interest and retreated to the playground to pursue other activities. They made quite an I nteresting sight – three women and one man, on their hands and knees, covered in mud from their knees to their toes, and from fingertips to elbows, scurrying around their creation like sand crabs. Finally they were finished and stood back to look at their work of art.

  Jen placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head. What lay before them was essentially a small kingdom made of sand. “Kind of went overboard, didn’t we?”

  “Well, maybe the gallows outside the jailhouse was a bit much,” Fred remarked.

  Billie stood behind Cat, her sand-covered hands resting on Cat’s shoulders. She too cocked her head. “Well, maybe, but where else would you put the gallows? I mean, if you’re going to have a jailhouse, you need a gallows, right?” she reasoned. “We are talking about a medieval castle here, after all.”

  “I don’t understand why we needed a jailhouse in the first place,” Jen said.

  “Where else would you put the bad guys?” Cat asked.

  Jen walked over to Cat and took her chin in her hand. “Look, sweetheart, I know you’re a history freak and really enjoy this medieval stuff, but for crying out loud, you didn’t have to make stick men for the sand castle,” she said in a raised voice as she motioned to the small stick figures standing by the gallows in the courtyard of their sand castle.

  “What's wrong with them? They’re cute,” Cat said defensively.

  “Cute? Cat, they’re sticks. And that horse...” Jen stared.

  “What’s wrong with the horse? They didn’t have cars then. They’ve got to have some sort of transportation,” Billie commented over Cat’s shoulder, a slight grin on her face.

  “Well, I happen to have something against horses at the moment,” Jen said. “Anyway, the people are just sticks with seaweed hair. The horse is a piece of rotting driftwood, with toothpicks for legs,” she said.

  Billie could tell Cat was becoming irritated with her friend’s teasing. She thought about stepping in, but decided to let Cat handle it, hoping that she’d teach Jen when to back off. Fred started to reach for Jen’s shoulder to stop her, but Billie caught his eye and gave him a look that said, “No, let them duke it out.”

  Billie placed a quick kiss on Cat’s head, then stepped back and motioned for Fred to join her in a game of Frisbee while the other two ladies settled their dispute. Fred and Billie tossed the disc back and forth along the water’s edge as they listened to phrases like “stifle what creative talents?” and “medieval mumbo-jumbo,” not to mention “they’re only stickmen, Cat!” while they watched the two women face each other, nose to nose, arms gesticulating wildly. After what seemed like an eternity, Fred and Billie stopped throwing the Frisbee and stood side by side, watching their wives argue. Billie elbowed Fred’s ribs to draw his attention away from their wives to where she was pointing out over the water.

  “Uh, girls?” Fred said.

  Jen and Cat continued to argue. Billie covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a laugh.

  “Uh, girls?” Fred said again, a little louder this time. “Girls!”

  Cat and Jen turned together, hands on their hips, and yelled at Fred, “What!”

  Fred pointed out across the water, getting their attention just in time for them to see a large wave sweep up over the shoreline, totally destroying the sand castle and soaking the two women clear to their knees.

  “Ahhh!” Cat screamed. She threw her hands into the air and stomped off to the picnic table where she started packing up their belongings. Billie followed to lend a hand.

  Jen stared in disbelief at the pile of sand that had been their castle. She looked at Cat’s retreating form and pointed to the heap. “Creative talents, my butt! It’s nothing but a pile of wet sand! And your stick men can’t swim!”

  Cat turned and her eyes shot daggers at Jen. Billie stopped her with an arm around her waist as she took a step toward Jen. Jen was just as ready and willing to go at it again as Cat was, but for Fred’s restraining arm around her waist.

  “That’s enough, Jen,” Fred said. “It was just a sand castle, for crying out loud.”

  Billie cringed at Fred’s words and held onto Cat more tightly, knowing that the redhead would object to their friend’s dismissive comment.

  “Just a sand castle, Fred? Just a sand castle? I think not!” Cat fought to break free from Billie’s grasp.

  “Cat, honey, calm down. Look, we’re all tired. It’s been a long day. Let’s just pack up and head back to camp, okay?” Billie successfully turned Cat back to their chores.

  Fred grabbed Jen by the hand and propelled her toward the picnic table, where they all finished packing the gear, Jen and Cat throwing hateful looks at each other the whole time.

  Back at the campsite, Cat vigorously shook the sand out of the blanket the adults had used at the beach and threw it over the clothesline to air o
ut, while Jen stomped around, lighting the grill and making general preparations for their evening meal. A cold silence descended between the two ladies. The only sounds were from the children, who played amicably nearby, and a low murmur between Fred and Billie.

  “What are we going to do about them?” Fred asked, inclining his head in the direction of their stubborn wives.

  “I don’t know,” Billie replied as she added wood to the campfire. “You know, if Jen had only backed off about Cat’s creative side, this could have been avoided.”

  Fred looked at Billie indignantly. “Billie, this is about a sand castle, a sand castle, not some award winning piece of art!”

  Billie stood to her full height and stared at Fred, lifting an eyebrow into her hairline. “This is not just about a sand castle, Fred. This is about respecting someone’s talent.” She tried to be patient, but the tone of her voice belied the undercurrent of anger raging through her at his ignorance.

  “Talent? Billie, it doesn't take a lot of talent to make a horse out of a rotting piece of driftwood, some seaweed, and toothpicks,” Fred observed dryly.

  Billie grabbed the front of Fred’s T-Shirt and was pulling him closer when they were distracted by the sounds of the children yelling.

  “You broke it!” Seth yelled.

  “I did not,” answered Stevie in a defensive tone.

  “You did too. See, you broke the wheels off it,” Seth exclaimed, holding out his toy car.

  “Did not.”

  “Did too!”

  “Did not!” Stevie repeated as he pushed Seth backwards.

  Tara, who was playing off to the side with Karissa and Skylar, launched herself onto Stevie’s back, dragging him to the ground and sitting on top of him. Cat was the first to arrive on the scene, and she managed to grab her daughter and drag her off Stevie before she could throw the punch she had cocked her fist for.

  “All right, that’s enough. Want to tell me what’s going on here?” Cat demanded as the other three adults joined the group. Jen helped Stevie to his feet and brushed the dirt off his backside. Fred stood off to the side, his arms crossed in front of him.