Skydiving, Skinny-Dipping

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  And he’d been right to pick this spot. We had to drive down a path barely wide enough for his truck, a winding path through a dense wooded lot, which opened to a secluded lake with a small beach area. The beach, made up of large, pebbly, sandy soil, lacked the same invitation of its oceanfront counterparts. But the pebbles didn’t seem to slow Lennon down in the least, peeling off the layers until he had nothing left to peel.

  The man had no shame or modesty. He dropped trou right at the edge of the lake, showing off his assets (it’s not a swear if it’s part of the word) to the world, which in the moment consisted of me and the trees, as he waded into the water.

  “Please. I’ll take everything off. Just do this one favor for me,” I begged.

  “Depends on the favor.”

  Because I knew, just knew, I didn’t have it in me to perform a striptease in front of that man, I gave it to him. “Turn around?”

  He must have seen the true heart-stopping, vomit-inducing fear on my face, heard that same scared sincerity in my words, because Lennon actually relented.

  “Fine. But it all comes off, Kam.”

  “I know. It will.”

  I watched him turn around and to his credit, not once did he look over his shoulder as I disrobed. First to come off were my tee and jeans. Next, slowly, one at a time in order to push back the inevitable, I toed off each shoe. I chose to hold onto my dignity a bit longer, making my way down the beach still in my bra and panties until I reached the water’s edge. Then with no reason to put it off any longer, I stripped down to my birthday suit as promised. Definitely not the suit I wanted to wear.

  Brian’s text, however, came to my mind, giving me the courage to wade into the water.

  So there you go, Brian. Along with Lennon’s patience and encouragement, your ridiculous, totally uncalled-for response to my pretend happiness gave me the courage to strip bare and swim.

  Cold. I shivered and wrapped my arms over my chest as I waded closer to Len. Being so much taller than me, his waist height equaled out to covering just below my breasts.

  “Can I turn back now?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you—oh my god!” I shrieked, leaping onto Lennon, where he had no choice but to wrap his arms around me to hold me up. “I think a fish just tried to get to know me biblically.”

  “Thank you, fish,” he mumbled. And to my horror, I realized I’d plastered my naked chest against his nakedness, and let me just say how good all that satiny skin and muscle felt pressed against me, one of his hands holding onto my naked bottom.

  I tried to push out of his hold. He predictably held tighter but allowed me to slide down his body, which was almost worse because even wading in chilly water, I could feel a specific and highly impressive area of his anatomy. Highly, highly impressive. Enough for me to close my eyes and swallow hard while the jerk chuckled in my ear.

  “You can let me go,” I told him, with a bit of edge to my voice. A year I’d neglected my girl parts by avoiding those boy parts.

  “I’m good,” he replied, chuckling harder at the edge in my voice.

  “Why do you want to torture me?”

  “I’m not trying to torture you. Well, no, that’s a lie. I might be enjoying this a little. Why is your heart beating so fast now, Kam? The hard part’s over.”

  “No, no…” My response squeaked out. “The hard part you’ve got pressed against my belly.”

  I thought I’d get another laugh. What I got was Lennon’s crystal blue eyes staring deeply into mine. “I’m going to kiss you now.” He warned me as his head descended, tilted to the right.

  “Okay,” I whispered back, having fallen under his spell until it hit me, and I hit him with a palm literally to his chest. “You can’t kiss me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re naked.” And yes, I whispered the word naked as if someone else could hear me and not see our two unclothed bodies.

  That got me the laugh I’d expected before. “Naked is the best time to kiss, fearless.”

  He called me fearless. And then he kissed me. Universes expanded in that kiss. Stars went supernova in that kiss. Civilizations rose and fell.

  The closer he held me, the harder he pressed his lips to mine, exploring my mouth with his tongue, coaxing me to explore back. Nothing in my life had felt like it. No kiss I’d given or received made my heart feel on the brink of exploding. Soft and hard, powerful the way a good kiss should be.

  Lennon moved one of his hands to grip my hair, positioning my head exactly where he wanted me, to deepen the kiss further.

  I might have figured out the meaning to existence because of his lips.

  “Well, all right!” yelled a distinctly male voice coming from behind us. So not Lennon’s, obviously. “Got here just in time for the good stuff.”

  The good stuff? Jesus. I froze in his arms. To his credit, though, Len stopped his beautiful assault on my lips, whipped his head up to look at our intruder, and shoved me behind him, all without exposing any of my lady bits, in one smooth move.

  “No, dude,” the guy on the beach called out. “Don’t stop on my account. Your lady is hot. Dudes like you always get the hottest chicks.”

  He sounded like a stoner. He sounded stoned. And even worse for me, he wasn’t alone. Three other young men watched us from the beach in their rumpled jeans and T-shirts. Smoke billowed out of the open door to a nineteen seventies conversion van. Copper, with a Native American woman and a feather airbrushed where I would’ve wanted a window on the backend of the vehicle. And I thought I counted three more sets of feet sitting inside the van.

  Oh, but that wouldn’t be the worst part. Far from it. The worst part was noticing the stoner dude held a cellphone in hand aimed at Lennon and me.

  “Stay with me, fearless,” Len ordered, moving through the water up toward the beach’s sandy soil.

  I didn’t even give “stay with him” a second thought, plastering myself to his backside. One of my hands on his shoulder, the other he held tight and close, resting against his chest. Over his heart, if I was the kind of girl to notice, which I totally wasn’t. Not at all. Shoot.

  And the stoner kept right on filming us.

  “Make him stop,” I pleaded to Len. Big and badarsed, he could do it.

  “No,” he told me. No? “I have a better idea.” The water level dropped to around our knees, then calves, ankles until, with me still plastered to his back, Lennon stood on the beach in all his naked glory. “Toss me the lady’s clothing, will you?”

  “Dude, get the hot chick’s clothes,” Stoner-boy called to his friend standing closest to my jeans and tee. He walked them over to Len, who grabbed them and turned, to my mortification, to my utterly naked self.

  “Arms up,” Len ordered me. I put my arms up, not caring in the least the girls went unwrangled as he slid the shirt down, making it his mission to caress all of my curves as he did. Then I held on to his shoulders as he slipped first one leg and then the other over my feet. Yanking them up my wet body became a test of pure will. Man versus denim. In this case, thankfully, man won. Lastly, he helped me back into my cute little white canvas sneakers. Though, neither of us took the time to tie them.

  Then he pecked the tip of my nose. Pecked my lips, and turned tail to collect his clothing scattered from the water’s edge back to where we’d parked.

  So yeah, I watched him the whole time he dressed. Not my proudest moment, but I had a screaming crush. And he kissed me. And shielded me. And he helped me dress. And he was much better at being a pretend boyfriend than most real boyfriends were at being a real boyfriend.

  As Lennon made his approach to the stoner with the camera phone—I thought to take it and erase the evidence of him and me in the lake, naked together—he instead asked the guy, “Can you text that video to me? I want to post it to my Instagram.”

  You couldn’t see anything more than my upper back and part of his chest and shoulders (at least while we’d been in the lake), but that wasn’t the point
. I knew I was naked and so had to assume the others would know, too.

  “What?” I shrieked. The shriek he paid no attention to as he busied giving his number to the stoner.

  Horrified, I watched the stoner upload the video into a text and a minute later, heard the ping on Lennon’s phone that he’d received said text.

  Len opened the text, pressed some buttons on his phone, then held his arm out to me. “Come here, fearless.” Uh… no. That wasn’t going to happen. Not with me contemplating between running off or killing him. “Kami. Come here, sweetheart.”

  Shoot! He called me sweetheart. That was new. God, he was so good at this fake boyfriend stuff. So good, my shoes stuck out their tongues at me and walked us over to him, despite my initial internal protest.

  His arm snaked around my waist, Len held me tight. “He did us a favor. You need proof of your bravery or no one who knew you with your ex will believe this first adventure. Now you have proof.”

  Made sense. “Then Brian can kiss my butt.”

  “Then Brian can kiss your butt,” he agreed. “But not literally. That’s my job.” And he said that with a wink, giving my waist a squeeze.

  Realizing I hadn’t friended Lennon on any of my social media accounts, I did that from my phone before uploading the video of us skinny-dipping that he forwarded to me.

  And just because I could, I made us facepage official.

  Immediately, my phone blew up with notifications from friends who commented or liked the video.

  Truth be told, it kind of skeeved me out that so many people liked almost seeing my naked bum. Or maybe it had nothing to do with me. Fingers crossed, it was Len they admired so readily. Len had a body deserving admiration. Though the more time I spent with the guy, the more it became clear his insides deserved that same admiration.

  “We’re quite the sensation among my facepage friends,” I told him while still looking down at my phone, yet managing to successfully open the passenger door to his truck and climb into the seat. Lennon shut the door for me. “I’d say that’s a good start for bravery. What’s on for tomorrow?” I had to inwardly chuckle at my diversionary tactic. Len didn’t need to know my shift started early tomorrow. As far as he was concerned, I had all the time in the world. In reality, the skinny-dipping did me in and I was ready to head home and hide from the world for the rest of the day.

  I chuckled too soon.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked, but I could tell it was more of a statement by his mischievous tone. “Oh, silly, silly girl. We aren’t done with today.”

  Exactly as I feared. Me. In trouble. Again. My mouth dropped open for probably a half a minute of stunned silence. What was he trying to do to me? “We aren’t?” I finally managed.

  Four:

  The longer we rode in silence—and I’ll admit to careful observation of Lennon, who appeared deep in thought, lips going from pursed to the bottom being tugged between his teeth—the more it became apparent that he had not one clue as to what our next adventure should be.

  Yet he refused to let me go home.

  Then without any warning, and the both of us in sticky, damp jeans, he yanked the steering wheel to the left to turn us down a road leading to the interstate.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “Are you trying to kill us?”

  “I know our next adventure, and no. Hard to show up your ex if you’re dead.”

  “Well?” I asked snidely, even to the point of folding my arms across my chest and tapping my foot against the floorboard.

  In what I discovered to be true Lennon fashion, he asked back in far too chipper a tone. “Well what?”

  My eyebrows raised in my best unspoken “don’t bullcrap me.” I released what I hoped would sound like a long, suffering breath. “Where are we going?”

  “I guess you’ll have to wait and see, ye of little faith.”

  Part of me wanted to laugh. Lennon, it seemed, could be adorably charming when he wanted to be. Which for me to say was saying something. Especially in the face of being forced to participate in another one of his ridiculous adventures.

  My phone pinged so much from notifications of my friends liking or commenting on that darn video, I had to turn the notifications off.

  When I didn’t protest any longer about our next destination, he let me know how my acquiescence pleased him by reaching his hand over to squeeze my knee affectionately, then grasped and held my hand. Another very real boyfriend move for a fake boyfriend to make. And I secretly loved every touch. Big ol’ screaming crush and all.

  When he finally exited the interstate via the deserted off-ramp, to the left of us, trees and road. To the right, trees and road.

  He turned right, which meant he had to have some idea of where we were headed. Up ahead I saw what looked to be the beginnings of a town carved out from the forest. But the closer we got, it looked more like a town in which the people had started to carve it out, found it too difficult, and abandoned the location.

  “You brought me to a ghost town?” Not sure how I felt about this newest adventure.

  “No.” He laughed. “But that’s a great idea to add to the list.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I murmured.

  He let go of my hand, lifted his to wipe away the line of sweat formed above his upper lip, and adjusted the air conditioning. Then he pointed to an old filling station that may or may not have still dispensed gasoline.

  “Our next adventure is a gas station?” I asked incredulously. Because really, how else could one ask that sort of question?

  “No, sweetheart, it’s not the gas station we want—it’s what’s inside.”

  Len clicked on his blinker despite being the only car around for miles, then slowed and turned into the parking lot, proceeding behind the building where I was actually surprised to see several cars parked. And he pulled into a spot next to a black Chevy Silverado.

  But before I got my door open, Len leaned over to me, pulling my head closer to him by my chin and dropped a quick, sweet kiss on my lips.

  Really? What part of my screaming crush did he not pick up on? It felt as noticeable as the nose on my face. Just as fast, he released my chin and hopped out of the cab, leaving me sitting stunned again as he approached an old door that lacked the ability to close properly, leaving about an inch gap between the wood of the door and the frame.

  When he turned back around to me, it was with a smirk firmly in place. Oh, he was so cruising for a punch to the gonads.

  “You coming?” he asked, his voice full of cheek. And worse, the jerkface didn’t even wait for me, pulling on the handle and proceeding inside.

  I slid from the truck, running to catch up. Lennon wasted no time, already at the order window with his wallet out handing the girl on the other side a twenty-dollar bill.

  “’Bout time,” he teased. “Maybe find us a seat instead of standing there?”

  Grr… cheeky cuteness—otherwise known as the worst kind of cuteness because of it being the best kind of cuteness.

  Nodding seemed the smartest course of action as I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss to begin with and him being all Lennon… Only bad could come from this crush. Very, very bad…

  “Well?” he asked, using his eye roll to tell me to get moving.

  His comment snapped me out of my dazed, incredibly ridiculous thoughts, but also accounted for the blush spreading over three-quarters of my body. I turned away quickly and scanned the room to avoid having to speak to him directly.

  On the far wall opposite the restrooms I spied an empty table and made my way over to it. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed another person heading for the table too, but as I never looked his way, I could claim complete deniability if he chose to confront me about the table I reached first. And since Len’s job in this scenario meant playing my boyfriend, fake or not, I was fairly certain he’d stick up for me in the event I needed to be sticked up—stuck up—for.

  As it turned out, probably because dude got a look at Viking-thu
nder-god Len, he veered past our table trying for another about four spots down. Len curiously pulled the chair kitty-corner from mine instead of across from me and sat, his manspreading knee brushing the side of mine.

  Was that heart palpitations or gas? Please be gas… Please be gas… His knee brushed mine again. Shoot! Not gas. Most definitely not gas. I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself before we both heard my voice quivers. “So?” Okay, good. Zero quivers. I had this. “Are you going to tell me the challenge?”

  “Give it a sec.”

  The order girl, in her oversized yellow T-shirt with the sleeves rolled a couple of times so the short sleeves didn’t hang too far down her arms and the words Coop’s Wings printed on the front in large black lettering—walked over with a paper and pen in hand. She set the paper down in front of me and held the pen out waiting for me to take it.

  I read the paper: This is a challenge you have volunteered to partake in. The establishment holds no responsibility…

  At ‘holds no responsibility,’ I realized I held a waver they wanted me to sign. A waver? For?

  That was when a group of guys from another table stood to circle ours, shouting taunts of “no way” and “it’s a lost cause,” to single out a few.

  What the ever-loving heck? They didn’t know me. I still didn’t know what I was signing for, but I scribbled my name across the bottom line, sealing my fate because the moment I set the pen down, the cook from the back placed a red, paper-lined plastic basket on the bar top and shouted, “Order up.”

  The waitress took the waver and pen with her when she left to retrieve the basket. I watched her open the fridge to pull out a gallon of milk. She poured a tall glass and set it on the tray next to the basket. Next came the celery sticks piled in a second paper-lined basket set on the tray, too.

  Then she walked the whole tray over to our table.

  In the first basket, chicken wings. No, not just chicken wings—the most vibrant red-sauced chicken wings probably in the history of sauced chicken wings. And I knew the challenge in an instant. More like smelled the challenge in an instant. The caustic, unforgettable aroma of capsaicin burned my eyes, singeing the fine hairs in my nose.