Life Raft

"Well, there was a lot of scar tissue and the bullet tore me up pretty good, but they couldn't give me a firm prognosis. I always knew there was an outside chance that my impotence could be psychosomatic, but when I never regained the ability, I had to assume it was physical."

Jessica's hand was gently exploring and caressing, and making it difficult for me to concentrate on our conversation. I didn't mind that in the least.

"May I offer a theory?"

I nodded.

"I wonder if your shame over Amanda's death made your subconscious decide that having erections was evil somehow. Your amazing Tantric control over what's usually an involuntary function was probably enough to keep you impotent."

I disciplined myself to ignore the way Jessica's velvet-soft hand was nearly turning me inside out, and considered her theory. "You know, that's just possible. Right off hand, I can't think of anything else that would explain it."

Jessica's thumb ran across the tip of my straining member and I could feel her encounter a fat droplet of pre-cum. She gasped slightly at the slickness, but then began to rub the head with it. It felt sensational. She was obviously a fast learner.

"So what are we going to do with this thing?" she asked, grinning mischievously.

Naturally it was at that moment when we were interrupted by the sound of a male voice, carrying across the water from upstream.

"Hey you two. Having a good time?"

We both popped our heads up to see Ethan's group in their tubes, all six tied in a circle around their floating cooler. They were only about a hundred yards behind us. Something told me that the canyon walls hadn't been nearly as lonely as I'd supposed. Busted! Oh well, there was no benefit in acting ashamed.

"Hey, guys," I called back. "We're having a great time. How about you?"

"We're having lots of fun," Ethan's wife Fiona said, "but from the sound of it, not half as much as you."

"Oh shit," Jessica whispered, "they heard me screaming."

"Hell, people in town probably heard that," I whispered wickedly.

I could see that the tubers were steadily catching up to us and belatedly realized that our raft was more effected by the steady breeze coming from downstream than their tubes were. They were in the water -- we were on it. They'd be alongside in a couple of minutes.

I reached for my swimsuit so Jessica could at least have that much modesty, but a frantic search revealed that it was long gone, probably knocked off the bow and overboard during our lovemaking.

"I'm sorry, Jessica. It looks like we're both going to have to deal with these folks while in the buff."

She took a deep breath, obviously psyching herself up. "Sean, I'm just going to run with it."

Gulp. But I had to agree with her. The best way to handle this was to just brazen it out. "Okay. We'll act like this is our normal thing."

Our raft was sideways to the current, so Jessica gave them a good profile shot when she sat up. I could hear a couple of gasps from across the water. A couple of minutes later, they were within easy conversational distance.

"Lose something?" Lisa asked Jessica with a grin. "Every time I see you, you're wearing less than before." They were maybe ten yards away now.

"I hope you guys don't mind," Jessica said. Her small, proud breasts were getting approving stares from the three male members of Ethan's group and I could tell that she was surprised. And pleased. She sat up a little taller.

Lisa reached way out and slapped one of the guys. "Kirk," she said, "it's impolite to stare."

"But hon, it's... it's... boobies."

"Hey, there are 'boobies' right here," she said, pointing to her own chest.

"Yeah, but hers are uncovered."

"Jesus. Men!" Lisa sighed. "Girls," she said, looking at the other two women in the group, each in turn, "I realize that none of us have gone topless while tubing since Sabrina here had the infamous disappearing pink bikini top incident two years ago." There was a chorus of appreciative chuckles from the guys. "But, in the interest of equality, and keeping my husband's wandering eyes where they belong, what do you think of my joining Jessica?"

"Do us guys get a vote?" Kirk asked eagerly.

"We already know what your votes would be," the woman who by default had to be Sabrina said, "but Lisa, honey, here's my issue. If you do it, Fiona and I would have to do it too."

"This is true," Fiona said.

"And?" Lisa persisted.

Frankly, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt a little guilty that we might be a part of pushing them into something they weren't comfortable with, but I suspected that the adult beverages from their cooler may have been an influence as well. Jessica and I had made due with the bottled water from my backpack and were stone sober.

Sabrina looked over at Fiona, who was blushing furiously. She didn't get an actual stopper though, so she gave the nod to Lisa. Lisa giggled, then reached back and undid her bikini top behind her neck. She slowly lowered it until she'd fully revealed her treasures, then untied it in back and stuffed it in her bag.

"I've got your boobies right here," she said to her husband. Kirk beamed and reached out for one. She laughed and slapped his hand away.

"Not in polite company, babe. You can look, but don't touch."

I could see why Lisa would be proud of them. They were disproportionately large on her petite frame, pale white against her tanned chest, but looking amazingly firm. Kirk beamed proudly as the rest of us guys gave them approving looks.

Evidently seeing that her husband was busy looking at boobs that weren't hers, Sabrina released her dark brown, perfectly conical breasts into the wild. "Happy now, Rudy?" she said.

"Oh yeah," he said, returning his attention back to where it belonged.

"Men are such boys," Sabrina muttered.

Ethan was staring intensely at my Jessica's chest.

"I get the point, dear," Fiona said, looking reproachfully at the other girls. "My sisters are too easy." She slid her brightly patterned one-piece down to her waist. The three guys reached in and high five'd each other.

"You're welcome, boys," Jessica giggled.

They were almost alongside now and our raft looked like it would just brush their tubes as they went past. "Want to tie off to us?" Ethan asked. "We can always use more fun-loving company."

"And boobies," Kirk said, followed by the sound of a slap from his wife.

"Twit," Lisa giggled.

"Sure, that would be great," Jessica said, having noted my nodded agreement. Jessica handed the stern rope to Ethan and I tossed the one from the bow to Sabrina. They pulled us in so that the side of the raft was up against Ethan and Fiona's tubes. All of them had had their feet on the center cooler tube, but now Ethan and Fiona turned around in their respective tubes to face us.

"Uh," Fiona said, her eyes getting big, "you guys do know you're missing some other stuff, right?"

"You must be pretty hard core to go full nudist on your first trip up here," Ethan added.

"Nude?" Kirk and Rudy piped up in unison, levering themselves up in their tubes to see if they could catch a glimpse of Jessica's naked nethers for themselves. Their wives hauled them back down.

"Yeah, my tube, suit, friends, and everything else went down the rapids without me when we were jumping commando at the first spot," Jessica admitted, blushing deeply. "Sean happened along and bigheartedly agreed to bring me down with him." That was awfully generous of her, not speaking out about what little bitches her "friends" had been, but I followed her lead.

"Yeah, I thought I was going to be the dorkiest guy on the river, riding solo on a big raft instead of having an actual tube, but I guess it turned out to be a good thing. Lucky too, because the warden closed the gate before I left. We're the last of the day."

"Jessica, weren't you wearing something when you floated past us at the second jump spot?" Sabrina asked.

"Yeah, Sean cut up his suit for me to wear for the occasion," Jessica said, "but it, uh, got away from us."

"So I'm guessing you two strangers have been getting to know each other pretty well," Lisa giggled.

"Yeah," I said, smiling myself, "there's nothing like spending the day naked together to find out everything about someone." They all chuckled, but it was truer than they imagined. Jessica and I already knew things about each other that none of our friends or families did.

"Hey," Ethan said, turning to his compatriots, "do any of you guys have a towel, or T-shirt or something these guys could wear?"

It turned out that they were pretty much a sunblock and cooler only sort of crowd.

"Sorry," he said, turning back to us.

"Don't mention it," Jessica said. "Over the last couple of hours, we've gotten totally comfortable with it." I realized that she was right. I was a lot more concerned about making them uncomfortable than I was about my own modesty.

"So are you guys going to join us at the last jump spot?" Ethan asked. "It's just around the bend."

"Well," I said, "the issue is that neither of us should have been getting this much sun. We both have UV issues and were planning on getting to the bottom as quickly as possible."

Ethan looked up at the sky. There were shadows from the canyon walls reaching out into the river now. "You know," he said, "the jump spot is probably in the shade by now. If we spend an hour or so there, the rest of your trip down the canyon will probably be in the shade as well."

That made a certain amount of sense, but... I looked over at Jessica.

"As long as there aren't any other people there," she said. "It wouldn't bother me being nude around you guys, but I don't think either of us wants to get ogled by a bunch of drunks with cameras."

"Yeah," I said, "if there are any people still there, we'll need to cast off from you guys so I can row us to shore upstream of them and wait until they leave. But otherwise, sure, it would be great to stop there with you."

"Hang on just a second," Sabrina protested. "It's not fair that they have to be naked if the rest of us are at least partially clothed. I say if we do this, we all strip down. It's just the neighborly thing to do."

There was a momentary hush at her words as everyone considered her seemingly outlandish suggestion.

"Uh, you guys don't need to do that," I finally said. "It's not your fault that Jessica and I don't have suits."

"No, I agree with Sabrina," Lisa said, at least having the decency to blush deep red, but bravely making her wishes known. "And I think it would be fun. We've joked about shedding the suits for years, but since we've finally got the river all to ourselves, this is our big chance. I say no hanky-panky or anything, but I really wanna try going au naturale."

"I'm up for it if you are," Fiona said hesitantly, looking at Ethan to see if it was all right with him.

I came to the sudden realization that the other girls were, like Jessica, sitting up a little bit straighter and perhaps subconsciously competing with each other for the guys' attention. I didn't mind that at all.

From the look of things, it seemed that, against the odds, the guys were going to be the reluctant parties to this deal. All three looked stricken and I could tell that this would be a big step for them, like it would have been for me just a couple of hours before.

"This was a first for us too," I said. "I think you'd get used to it just as quickly as we did." I really wanted to stop and get out of the raft, and the sun, for a while.

"Come on guys," Fiona said, "what are you afraid of?" From the tone of her voice, she wasn't all that confident about it herself, but she wasn't going to let the guys off the hook either. Her comment was dirty pool too. An accusation that they were scared to do something the girls were willing to do could have only one manly response.

"I'm in," Kirk said, quickly followed by the other guys.

We'd come far enough around the corner to see the last jump spot. It was indeed completely shaded now, and the only tubes in sight were going around the next bend. I quickly determined that three of them were occupied by Jessica's friends, tied off together. About a hundred feet behind them was a lone tuber towing a floating cooler. I quickly realized that it was Alex. I wasn't surprised to see him floating all by himself.

Jessica gave me a look. Randi, Kim and Trish must have stopped to jump. They'd evidently thought we were further behind them than we were.

I handed an oar to Rudy on the other side of our makeshift vessel and we began to paddle for shore. Everyone else pitched in with hands and feet and minutes later we beached on the coarse sand.

I hopped out to help pull the tubes and raft out of the water, then automatically held out an arm to help Jessica out of the raft. I knew, of course, that she was just as capable of climbing out unassisted as I was, but she smiled and gave me an un-ironic "Thank you," anyway. I liked that a lot. Just because we were buck-ass naked didn't mean that we had to throw out all societal conventions.

Soon everyone was standing there on the beach, two of us naked and now feeling a bit embarrassed about it; the other six not sure of who should go first. The moment probably wasn't more than just a few seconds long, but it seemed like an eternity and I started to wonder if this had been a big mistake. Then Fiona spoke up.

"Guys, when we left last year we swore that everyone was going to do the last jump this year. I hereby declare the jumping rock a clothing-free zone. Also, the last one to jump leaves the tip at Hanks on the way home."

Six grown adults raced for the path to the top, leaving a trail of swimsuits behind. Jessica and I looked at each other, then started after them.

The beach here was large and the rock wall wasn't nearly as straight up and down as most of the canyon. The jumping place was from a large outcropping of rock that ran out to the river, but could be climbed by any one of a dozen different routes. The top of the rock was flat, with room for a bunch of people and it actually overhung the water so that it wasn't necessary to jump out far at all. It was maybe ten or fifteen feet above the beach. High enough to be fun, but not high enough to be dangerous. This was easily the biggest and best jump spot on the river.

The others had gotten a head start on us, but stripping was slowing them down and Jessica actually got to the top first, followed by Ethan and then me. She hesitated slightly and Ethan ran right off the edge of the rock, whooping as he fell to the water. I got to the edge and looked down just as Jessica jumped.

Hearing the crowd coming from behind, I jumped as well, protecting the family jewels with my hands on entry. The water was cool and I realized that unlike everyone else, this was the first time I'd actually gotten wet all day.

I swam down to the bottom, which was nice and sandy, maybe twelve feet deep. For all the years of swimming I'd done, I'd never skinny dipped. The feel of the water flowing freely around my package was novel -- and very liberating. I vowed that this wouldn't be the last time.

I felt a hand brush along my butt and lower back, then Jessica took my hand in hers. She leaned in for a quick kiss, then we both looked up as four more nude bodies splashed in above us. The water was remarkably clear this far down the river. Together, we kicked to the surface.

It was just Sabrina left standing on the ledge. She was covering herself with her hands and looking down at the water nervously.

"I guess we know who's picking up the tip at Hanks," Lisa laughed.

"What's the matter, hon?" Rudy yelled, obviously less than thrilled at the impending setback to the family budget.

"It's a lot higher than it looks," she said nervously. Having seven of us staring up at her naked form probably wasn't making this any easier for her.

"Actually, it looks a lot higher than it really is," Rudy replied. "You've got this."

Sabrina probably weighed about what Jessica did, despite being a foot shorter. It was all in the right places, though, and I'm sure all of us guys were hoping those hands would move out of the way.

"Jump, jump, jump," said Fiona, starting the chant, which was soon echoed by all. Resignedly, Sabrina screwed up her courage, plugged her nose (happily exposing her breasts) and jumped. Her entry was anything but graceful, but we cheered for her when she surfaced.

"That was awesome," she exclaimed. "I'm doin' it again." She started dog paddling for the beach and the rest of us followed after her.

Rudy passed his wife on the way up and jumped, but Sabrina stopped the other girls as they arrived. "Let's us ladies jump together," she said.

Wow, she was really getting into the spirit of things. Ethan, Kirk and I hung back as the girls took each other's hands and stepped up to the edge. It was an amazing sight from where I was, but Rudy must really have been getting a show from down below.

"Okay," Sabrina yelled, "one, two, three, jump!" They synchronized well enough that they managed to hold hands all the way to the water. I was fairly impressed.

"Okay, guys, it's our turn," Ethan said, holding his hands out to Kirk and me. The look on his face said he was joking around, but we snatched his upper arms anyway and threw him over the edge. The fact that I'd just grabbed a naked man for the first time in my life didn't even register.

I jumped in right after that, doing my own cannonball, but then Jessica and I stayed in for a bit, wrapped in each other's arms and watching the others jump. The water was about shoulder deep off to the side where we were. The shade was much appreciated, but the air temperature was still high and the water felt good.

"I'm amazed at how quickly these guys got used to not wearing their suits," Jessica murmured softly. "After the first jump it was like they'd forgotten."

"Yeah, and they're not even long-time nudists like we are."

She giggled.

Kirk and Lisa jumped together, holding hands and splashing us pretty good.

"Yup, they're looking pretty comfortable," she said.

"I've noticed that it hasn't taken you long to get comfortable with me." Jessica had taken my cock in her hand and was rubbing the head against her belly. It felt sensational and even with my Tantric skills, I was barely able to fight down a full blown erection.

"I'd like the opportunity to get a lot more comfortable with you before we leave here," she murmured.

"Hmm, I think I know how I might arrange that."

When we eventually came up out of the water, hand in hand and shivering a bit, it looked like Rudy and Sabrina were done jumping for the day. They were now sitting in the sand, watching everyone else. She was cross-legged and wrapped in his arms. They were both looking at where Ethan, Lisa and Fiona were readying themselves for their next jumps.

"Hell yeah, they're fake," Rudy was saying. "Girls as skinny as Lisa don't have natural racks like that. They've got to be ten percent of her body weight."

"Oh, they're natural, Kirk. You can take my word on that," Sabrina said, taking a long pull on a bottle of Heineken.

"Really? But they're so amazingly..." He came to a stop when he realized what he was saying and who he was saying it to.

"That's okay, hon," Sabrina said. "I know how guys are with boobs."

"Yeah, but size isn't everything. I still prefer yours," Rudy said, unselfconsciously reaching around and cupping Sabrina's breast in his hand. He began to stroke her taut nipple with his thumb.