Life Raft

I stared hard and unblinking into his eyes as my skin crawled. Part of me was certain that Alex was going to smack me and put me back into my rightful place, but on the other hand, I was a good head taller than him and probably thirty pounds heavier. Why hadn't I ever thought about that before when I was eating his shit sandwiches? "So what do you plan to do if I don't watch my mouth, Alex?"

If he had been surprised by my lack of obsequiousness moments earlier, he was positively stunned by my lack of clothing and physically aggressive behavior now. I could see him desperately trying to figure a way out of this without losing face, and he came close to calling my bluff, but in the end, he was unsure of just what this new Sean might be capable of. I realized that despite his tough talk, Alex was basically a coward.

Sure enough, he hesitantly backed away. "Jesus, dude, I was just kidding around."

That was good enough. "Glad to hear it, Alex."

I turned back to the raft and handed Jessica out. She stood next to me, calmly looking down at Alex. His eyes were wide as she pressed her hip to mine and slipped her arm casually around my waist.

"So why didn't they give you a ride?" I asked.

"They, uh, said there wasn't room in their car."

"Bullshit, Alex," Randi said as she and the other two girls arrived. "I think the words they used when you ran up and begged them for a ride were 'fuck off, you loser.'"

"Pretty much what we told you," Trish said. She looked at me. "He followed us halfway down the river after the girls he was with ditched him. We couldn't get him to leave us alone."

Alex looked fit to be tied, but held his tongue. Anything he said now would only make it worse.

I'd noticed that the girls' eyes kept straying to my exposed crotch. I was almost startled to realize that it didn't bother me in the least. It wasn't erotic and it wasn't embarrassing. It just was.

I wasn't the only one being subjected to furtive looks, though, and the ones Jessica's breasts and bush were receiving were a lot less subtle. By now I knew her well enough to see that while she was indeed standing tall and proud, Alex' lewd stares bothered her. I didn't like them either.

"Alex," I barked, "you mind your eyes when you look at my girlfriend!" I'd used the G-word almost unconsciously and I belatedly wondered if it might have been a bit presumptuous, but Jessica's arm tightened around me possessively.

Alex looked away guiltily, then Jessica and I pulled my trusty raft fully out of the water. I released the quick deflate valve and it began to shrink rapidly.

I held my palm out to a completely cowed Alex. "I'd like my pump adapter back," I said curtly. His eyes told me he'd completely forgotten that he had it on him. He guiltily handed it over and I stuck it in my backpack.

"Uh, sorry about that," he mumbled.

"I'd like my stuff back too," Jessica said to Randi. Randi walked down the beach a ways and untied the bag that was attached to Jessica's tube. She walked back and handed it to her, but Jessica made no move to put her suit back on.

"I'd get you the rest of your things," Randi said, "but I somehow left my keys up at the launch area."

"Oh, that explains it," Jessica said.

"Explains what?"

"The fact that you guys are still here. I'd just assumed you would have been long gone by now."

Randi actually managed to come up with a nearly believable hurt expression. "Leave you? Why would we do that, Jessica? We're your friends." Her two companions were doing their best to try and simulate the same expression.

"Bullshit," Alex said, evidently no more willing to stand up for Randi than she'd been to stand up for him. "You were pissed as hell that you had to wait until Five got here. I heard you plain enough."

I turned to the three girls. "You guys call her 'Five?' If that's how you refer to her behind her back, you'd best not make any claims about being her friends."

Randi's eyes were huge. "She told you about that?"

I nodded. "There's no need for secrets between Jessica and me."

Jessica stared hard at Randi. "Would you even have let anyone know I was stranded, or would I have had to wait for the first tubers in the morning?"

"Oh, don't go getting so dramatic, Jessica," Randi said. "There was no need to call for rescue. We knew Sean or somebody would pick you up."

"That's pretty damn cavalier of you," I said, not having to fake my anger. "I was the last person on the river today and I nearly missed seeing her. If I had, and if you guys had taken off like you'd planned to, she would have been stuck there until tomorrow. As cold as it gets up here at night, she could have died."

Randi blanched.

"Look," Jessica told her, "I'm not planning on filing charges at this point. I just want my stuff out of your car, then I'm riding home with Sean."

"But we can't unlock the doors without the keys," Randi said.

I shrugged. "That's no big deal. I can bust out a window."

"But that's my mom's car," Randi protested. "She's out of town and I took it without asking. She'll kill me if she finds out I did it again!"

"Like I give a shit about that." It was still unpleasant for me, talking to people that way, even ones as deserving as Randi. I wasn't going to use this new found ability any more than I needed to, but now I knew I could when necessary. This was a good thing.

"Look, Sean," Randi said, nearly begging now, "all I need is a lift up to the launch area and back. I know exactly where I left them."

"Then why didn't you ask one of the other groups coming out of the water to give you a lift?"

"There was only one other group that got here after we did. They were in an Escalade, but the driver told me to go pound sand when I asked for his help."

"And he called her an 'ugly goat'," Alex reported, unsuccessfully trying to hide a smirk.

"The 'Sexiest Man Alive' called you 'an ugly goat'?" Jessica could barely contain her mirth at that. I was right on the edge myself.

"I told you guys that was Ethan Crest," Trish said triumphantly to her compatriots.

That did it. Jessica and I burst out laughing. Randi looked daggers at her. "Like Ethan Crest would think you were any prettier," she spat.

"Actually, Jessica got him to skinny dip with her," I said, very matter-of-factly. "He was quite taken with her."

"Whoa," Alex muttered, rather impressed.

"So if you know where your keys are," I said to Randi, "why didn't you just walk to the highway and hitch a ride up there to get them?"

From the looks on their faces, I could see that none of them had even thought of that. Lazy, stupid people.

"Most drivers could even be talked into giving you a ride all the way back here to the parking lot," Jessica added. "You could have done the whole thing in an hour and been long gone when we arrived."

"Are you going to give me a ride or not?" Randi asked petulantly.

"Look," I said, "I'm willing to take you up there and back under a couple of conditions."

"Which are?"

"We bring Kim and Trish with us and all three of you leave your suits here before you get in my car."

"What?" they shouted, nearly in unison.

"Why not? You seem to think that making other people run around naked is funny."

"But--"

"Take it or leave it. I just need to snag Jessica's stuff." I reached down and picked up one of the grapefruit sized rocks that marked the outer border of the lot, then began to purposefully walk toward the Suburban.

"Wait!" she yelled, near panic. "We'll do it."

I returned, putting the rock back were I'd found it. The other two girls were obviously pissed at Randi, but they didn't seem to be willing to walk two miles either.

"Okay, then," I said, holding out my hand, "let's have the suits."

"Hang on," Trish said. "What's to keep you from ditching us naked up at the launch area?"

"Oh, I see your concern. You probably think I'm as dishonest and backstabbing as you all are, huh?"

That was greeted by stony silence. Fine, I could work with that. "What if I pull my own clothes out of my car and have Alex hold them with yours?"

"We don't trust him," Trish said. "He's your friend. If we go, he and Jessica go too. And Alex leaves his clothes as well."

I turned to Alex. I'd noticed that he had been licking his chops at the idea of seeing the rest of the girls naked, but the idea of having to strip down himself? Not so much.

"I, uh..." he stuttered.

"What's the matter, Alex?" I said. "Afraid to let the girls see this supposedly monstrous dick of yours? You've been bragging about it since I met you."

"No way. I'm not gonna-"

"The fuck you aren't," Kim said, speaking for the first time that I'd heard. "If we're getting naked, you are too. You're such a moron, talking all that smack about your supposed friend. Well, let me tell you, asshole, Sean's cock doesn't look the least bit 'dinky' to me."

Ouch! "What'll it be, Alex?" I asked. "Looks like you're not going anywhere tonight until you agree."

"Okay," he sighed, "I'll do it. But only if they go first."

"What a baby," Randi spat.

Jessica opened the top of my backpack. "Okay guys, stuff 'em in," she said. Kim went first, angrily taking off her bikini pieces and throwing them in. She stared at the other two until they did the same. Soon the girls were all naked. I would have previously imagined such a sight to be highly erotic, but their obvious shame and discomfort made it more pathetic than sexy.

They glared at Alex. Reluctantly, he turned his back and stepped out of his cutoffs and briefs. Blushing furiously and covering himself with his hand, he turned back to us and walked over to put them in the bag. Before he could get there, though, Trish grabbed the arm that was covering his crotch.

"Okay, big guy," she said. "Let's see it."

"But..." Alex could tell that she wasn't going to let go, so he reluctantly allowed his hand to be pulled away.

The three girls laughed.

"Oh, come on you guys," I said, "cut him some slack. It's not his fault." But then I looked Alex in the eye. "It might be a good idea, though, not to go calling other guys' cocks 'dinky' if that's all you're bringing to the table."

"Fuck you, Sean," he said, handing his suit to Jessica.

"Just sayin', pal."

All four stood there, hands and arms covering crotches and breasts while Jessica and I went about our business, totally unconcerned by our lack of clothing. Then I realized the difference: Jessica and I were nude, the others were naked.

I made them wait while I folded up my raft, then Randi and I hiked over to my Mustang. I stuffed the raft in the trunk, then pulled out my clothes (and Alex' T-shirt) and set them on the hood. Randi searched my car to make sure I didn't have any other attire stashed away.

I opened the driver's door and leaned in to temporarily put the keys in the ignition so I could roll the windows down, telling Randi that I wanted to let the hot air inside the car escape. "You can go ahead and take the clothes," I said. She walked around to the front of the car and reached for them.

"Whoa, hang on just one second!" I exclaimed.

Randi stopped in her tracks and stared at me. "What?"

The expression on my face said I'd just figured out something important. In reality, it had come to me about two minutes before. "Randi, you're the one blackmailing Jessica with Kevin's sex tape, aren't you?"

A guilty expression came over her face. "How did you know that?" she said, then stopped abruptly when she realized she'd just confirmed it.

"Kevin doesn't sound like the kind of person that would try to blackmail Jessica," I said, "but I'm pretty sure you are. Also, how would he have the address of Jessica's grandparents? You, on the other hand, probably had access from cards and letters they sent her."

"I'm not gonna talk about it," she said, but it was quite obvious that my educated guess was spot on.

"Oh, you'll talk about it alright. I want every last juicy detail. If you hold out on me, I'll have to take all the clothes out of your car, then leave you guys here."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

"Alex wouldn't let you."

"Alex will help me if I offer him a ride back to his place. I don't think he likes you any better than I do."

If looks could kill, she'd have gone to the electric chair for the one she gave me, but she really had no choice. "Okay, I'll tell you about it, but if you repeat any of this, I'll call you a liar to your face."

"Fair enough."

"Well, uh, I got home after class just in time to see Kevin coming out of Five's... I mean Jessica's room. That was weird because that's somewhere boys never went. He was face down in his phone and I heard her voice coming from it. I took a guess as to what that meant and grabbed the phone from him before he even knew I was there and locked myself in the bathroom.

"When I saw what he was looking at, I couldn't believe it. I sent a copy to my phone, then erased it and gave him his phone back before he made too much of a fuss. He begged me not to tell anyone, especially Jessica.

"I made no promises, but asked him what the fuck he'd been trying to do, taping Jessica secretly. He said he wanted to record it because he was gonna finally lose his cherry."

"He was a virgin?" So much for Kevin being a hookup artist.

"Yeah, he said he'd only ever seen videos of sex. When she asked if he wanted to do it, he got excited and completely forgot about gettin' her warmed up or anything. He just went for it in the position he liked watching the most."

I could imagine why that wasn't going to work. Two clueless virgins, trying to pretend to each other that they weren't. What a disaster. Still, the horrible way he had treated Jessica afterward tempered any sympathy I might have had for him.

"So why did Kevin disappear after that?"

"Well, I figured out right away that I could use the video to make sure Jessica didn't go to the Olympics, but I wanted her to think it was him doing the blackmail. For that to work, I needed to make sure the two of them didn't kiss and make up, so I told Kevin that if he ever spoke to her again, I'd send the video to his parents.

"A few days later, my boyfriend Brandon said Jessica overheard Kevin and the guys saying some pretty nasty shit about her in the library. After that, Kevin told Brandon that he'd now fucked up twice with Jessica, but was going to try to make it up to her because he realized that he really liked her.

"Brandon called me right away, so I got to Kevin first. I told him to get out of town permanently or everyone would see what a loser he was."

"You are one seriously tweaked bitch, Randi."

"Jessica had it coming," Randi said defiantly.

"Really? Why is that, exactly?"

"It's because she keeps getting all the honors that rightly belong to me."

"So you're trying to blackmail Jessica just because you're jealous of her?"

"You can call it what you like, but that bony half-breed cunt doesn't deserve any of the glory she's been getting. She gets all the breaks, being little Miss Goody Two Shoes, while I fuckin' get kicked off the team for no reason and lose the last year of my scholarship. That skinny gook even managed to fool the coaches into thinking she was good enough for the goddamn Olympics. She was going to be on TV and everything! It's not fair because I have her beat in every way that matters."

I swallowed my angry retort to her egotistical, racist tirade. Instead, I begged. "Please, Randi. Jessica is a good person. Don't treat her this way."

"Sorry, but if she goes to the Olympics, that video will be all over the Internet." With that, she turned and walked back toward the others, practically daring me to carry through on my threat. I'd heard and seen all I needed, though, and let her go.

Randi gave the clothes to Jessica, who stuffed them into my backpack with the swimsuits and cutoffs. Jessica then walked over to the locked Suburban and hung my backpack on the mirror while Randi and company headed toward me.

"Can we really get everyone in there at once?" Randi called out to me, having seen the vestigial back seat of my car.

Six adults in a Mustang? Of course not, but I'd never intended to.

"Shotgun," Alex yelled.

"Sorry," I yelled back. "Jessica and I are way taller than the rest of you. We're going to be up front. You'll have to sit on each other's laps in the back. It's only for a few minutes."

"Hang on, Sean," Randi said, pulling up short right there in the middle of the lot. The rest stopped with her. "There's no way we're going to be piled naked in back with Alex. You can stick him in the trunk."

"It's not big enough," he whined, "especially with that life raft in there."

"Alex," I yelled, "a life raft is a last resort to avoid drowning. My raft is for having fun, which, despite the best efforts of the four of you, I actually did for a while today."

None of them looked like they were having a good time now. "We're not sitting with the creep," Randi said obstinately. They were still planted in the middle of the lot. From the look on her face, I could see that she'd been pushed as far as she'd go. Not a problem. I'd already pushed her just far enough.

"Sorry, it's still a take it or leave it deal," I yelled back, sitting down in the leather driver's seat and sticking my keys in the ignition.

"Kiss off, asshole. We're not doing it," Randi yelled. "You and your fucking bitch can just--"

Randi was cut off mid-sentence by the sound of the Suburban's big V8 firing up behind her.

They all spun and looked back, discovering that Jessica hadn't been walking with them.

"What the fuck!" Randi screamed. "They had my keys all along!" She ran toward the Chevy. It was way too late, though, and Jessica was already rolling, racing around the edge of the lot so that no one would get near her before she reached the exit.

Alex was already sprinting in my direction, but he hadn't gone three steps before I had the supercharged beast fired up. "We'll leave Randy's car by the highway. The keys will be on the visor," I yelled to him, then slammed the door and dropped the clutch, putting a load of gravel and dust in the air. I headed down the exit road with Jessica in hot pursuit. Moments later, I checked the rear view mirror and saw that he'd quit running and was standing in the road with his hands on his hips, watching us go.

I drove down the road a ways, then stopped at the top of a small rise that hid the parking lot from the highway. Jessica pulled up right behind me. I was there when she stepped out and we grabbed each other tight.

"Oh my God," she exclaimed, "I can't believe our plan actually worked."

"Yeah, I figured they'd tell us to go to hell and start hiking."

"And I thought at least one of them would suspect that you'd picked up Randi's keys at the launch area."

"But they didn't," I said, "and now they get to do the hike naked."

Then Jessica looked down and gasped happily. The excitement of pulling off this stunt had given me a bit of an erection. Having her bare body pressed to mine had only made it harder. Seemingly, my body was trying to make up for its eighteen months of inactivity.

"You still owe me that warm load of cum," Jessica reminded me, "and getting back at Randi's got me hot and excited." She spun and assumed the position against the Suburban, then looked back at me with a very naughty expression. "Can I have it now?"