Show and Tell

A chorus of "no" ruffled from the group, and she gave me a pointed glance before she slunk off across the living room. I sighed, feeling an almost giddy sense of excitement; everyone else was mellow and slumped, their limbs heavy with booze and salt water, and I felt like only me and Rachel were awake, excited, vibrant. I thought about her ass again and made up my mind in a haze of reckless inspiration. "Actually," I told everyone vaguely, my glance lingering once more on Shari, "I think I do want a glass of water." My legs, buffeted by the waterskis, protested as I got out of the chair. "Nobody?"

This time there was only one "no," from Bonnie; even she, sharp as she was, was paying just about no attention, and so I don't think anyone noticed that I quickly adjusted myself as I crept across to the kitchen. What the fuck are you doing? my brain screeched at me, but my dick was half-hard and had the answer, and I crossed the darkened kitchen on silent feet.

The bathroom was at the far end, through the pantry beside the door to the garage; it was really just a powder room, sink and toilet all done up in a Hershey's Chocolate theme with vintage ads and shit like that. Cindy's mom thought she was an interior designer. I hesitated, seeing the light along the bottom edge of the door, wondering if I dared knock and getting an excuse into my head for when Rachel asked what the hell I was knocking on the bathroom door for. I waited a moment, my knuckle against the door, and then I gave it the quietest rap I could.

"It's open." Her voice, low and deep but audibly excited; I could hear her smirk even before I turned the knob, a high-end piece done in Antique Bronze. "I'll... I'll be out in a sec?" she added as an afterthought, in case it wasn't me.

But it was, and as soon as I poked my head in there I saw the smile I'd heard. "Hi," I said, my voice hushed.

She was leaning against the sink with her butt perched on the counter, her body all stretched back with the old t-shirt inching up again. Below it were a pair of sleeping shorts in blue and white stripes, riding low over her hips, and I swallowed as I stepped quickly into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I took in her confident air, her smooth skin, and I felt the corners of my mouth rising along with my dick. "So?"

"So?" she mimicked. She licked her lips and swallowed. "You're right. I'm a teacher. Show and tell, Eric." I flicked my eyes down her body, her bralessness obvious: two nipples puckered her shirt, and it certainly wasn't cold in that bathroom. No, the air in the bathroom was thick; not thick with lust. Thick with secrecy. With conspiracy. Whatever happened after this, Rachel and I were already partners in a thrilling little moment only we could ever know about.

This was new for me. I'm a lawyer; we're careful not to let ourselves get into situations like this. But god, that smirk... intoxicating.

"Well," I began, hoping my dick would deflate a little, "it's part of a larger joke, from like ten years ago, between me and Bonnie..."

"I hate to interrupt," she said urgently, her voice a little nervous, "but we don't exactly have all night in here." She regained her boldness as her pale eyes found mine; she must have seen something there she liked, because she blushed slightly. "So how about less tell, more show."

Wordlessly, pinned by those eyes, I lowered my hand and went to work untying he top of my pajama pants. I had no clue what I was wearing underneath. It's not like I curate my underwear every morning in case some stranger asks to see them. In a bathroom at a beach house. With my wife in the next room. Those are the things I wasn't thinking about at all. Instead, as the knot came free between my trembly fingers, all I was thinking about was the penis still hardening in my pants; I gave it an experimental twinge and discovered I was about half-hard, but by then it was too late to do anything about it.

My pajama bottoms dropped easily to my knees.

Rachel's face crinkled into a big grin as her eyes traveled down my chest, then she put one long-fingered hand in front of her mouth. "You're peeking," she whispered with a giggle that sounded very young indeed, and I looked straight down.

Ah, I realized wildly, my brain vague and fuzzy. I'd opted for the red boxers with the little blue stars all over them. But peeking? What? I squinted, uncomprehending, and then I saw she was right: the extreme tip of my dick, really just the piss-slit and about half my head, had found its way out the gap in the front of my boxers. Right past the little button I never bothered fastening.

"Oh!" I giggled back. "Sorry." I went to stuff myself back in, my cock responding to the situation by swelling with hideous speed, and Rachel's face was a red teary mess. She shook with silent laughter.

"I'm not." She was still speaking into her hand as I fumbled the pajama bottoms back up my leg. "If I didn't know any better, I'd guess you were trying to hit on me."

"Stop," I scowled, making three tries at my drawstring before it finally came under control. My dick was now a firm, fat sausage poking to the right, tenting my clothes very obviously, and once I was all put away I just looked at her and shrugged. Nothing else I could do, despite what I was certain was a scarlet face. "So, yeah. There you go. Show and tell."

'Thanks." Her eighteenth-century face was still pinched in mirth as she straightened and unhitched herself from the bathroom sink. "Even though I got more than I bargained for." She was staring straight at my hard-on, and there was no longer any point in trying to do anything about it. "Does it, uh, do that a lot?"

I shrugged helplessly, conscious of her nearby body with its pokey nipples. "I'm a guy," I whispered, as though that explained everything.

She kept her broad grin as she maneuvered toward me, with me wondering crazily what was going to happen. "You are." She sounded exhilarated. "I'll go first, I guess. If anyone asks, I'll say you had to use the bathroom after me." She hesitated, looking like she had something else to say, but I was already shuffling aside with a foolish smile and she just winked instead. "Try to, um, get under control," she advised, but then we both dissolved into giggles again and she was inching out the door.

Fuck, I told myself as the door clicked quietly shut behind her. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What had I just done? I stared fiercely at myself in the mirror over the sink, willing myself to go soft, but it took time; I remembered her grey eyes set into that delighted, weak-chinned face, and only slowly did I begin to flop back down to a state of vague presentability.

Rachel and Bonnie were thick as thieves when I came back in, risking a glance around at the rest of the group. I lingered on my wife Shari; absolutely no one seemed to have noticed I was gone. Rachel's face was still a fading red as she watched my approach. She'd taken a healthy swig of her G&T, I noticed, the level perceptibly lower than it had been. "Yeah," Bonnie was saying flatly, "Kenny doesn't have that problem."

"What problem?" I plunked into my seat between them and raised my scotch. Bonnie nodded toward Rachel, who leaned back into her overstuffed chair and regarded me narrowly.

"Low T," she murmured. "I was just telling Bonnie what it's like to have a husband that... well..."

"What she was saying was that there's a certain 'softness' in her home," Bonnie winked, and then the rest of the room shook itself out of its alcoholic late-night torpor as the two women cackled.

"What's that, hon?" Kenny was blinking, trying hard to make it look like he hadn't been zoning out, and Bonnie got ponderously to her feet.

"Nothing, O love of my life," she sighed. "I think it might be time to get you to bed, Kenny. I'm not shy," she announced to the rest of us. "I'll step up and be the first one to turn in. Half of you are already asleep, anyway."

"Perfect." Cindy slipped straight back into hostess mode. "Breakfast at... eight-thirty? Nine?" She made a face. "The kids will be up earlier, but whatever. Lars will get up and put Rachel's quiche in."

"Thanks," Rachel said quietly.

"How about eleven?" Shari suggested, only half-joking; she was a notably heavy sleeper. She made eye contact with me, her eyebrows up, and I raised my glass to show her I had a little booze left to finish. "Well. I'm off too. We're second floor this year, right Cindy?"

"Sure." Her folks were grandparents with a beach house, meaning a lot of bedrooms upstairs and in the basement. She got busy then, doling out room assignments with all the wilted subtlety of a wedding planner, and I risked a quick sideways look at Rachel as I took another sip.

Her glass was empty now as she stared straight back at me, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth, then she seemed to make up her mind. "You know," she muttered, "I think I'm on the pull-out couch in the den?"

"Pull-outs suck," I replied evenly, wondering where this was going.

"Well, yeah," she shrugged, "but nobody else wanted to sleep in the den." Her eyes were steady on mine, and there was a shy question in them. "Just saying."

My mouth had gone dry. Was she saying... "I'm usually a pretty restless sleeper," I admitted slowly, probing, wondering wildly if I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.

"Me too." She was blushing as she got to her feet, licking her lips. I looked up at her, struggling to keep my attention on her eyes and nowhere else.

"I'll tell you what I like about that den," I mused quietly, the party breaking up slowly for the night. "It's got a great bathroom."

"Oh! Yes," she admitted. "Huge counter. Great lighting." She paused and looked down at me, the smirk twitching at her eyes. "You can feel free to use my bathroom, if you want to."

"I would never want to bother you." I realized I was matching her smirk, and wondered how long ago I'd done that.

"I'm the new girl in this group." She walked away, her calves flexing. "I've got to pay my dues. Good night, all," she called, smiling around at the few people left. "It's been nice meeting you all!"

I swirled the last of my scotch in my glass and watched her ass move away. I had a lot to think about.

* * *

I was still thinking at two-thirty that night, biting my nails. I hadn't lied to Rachel; I am a light sleeper, but it was pretty rare for me not to sleep at all. Even when the reason was so obvious to my restless mind.

It had been many years since I'd dated or even flirted seriously. So I was way out of practice, but not so out of practice that I couldn't see the clear signs that Rachel was interested in me. I had no idea why; I must have had fifteen years on her. But she was a big girl and knew what she was doing.

Almost without even thinking about it consciously, I slid from the queen bed we'd been given on the second floor. Shari, as expected, slept like the dead, the sheet kicked off her in the July heat, but I tiptoed anyway. I threw on a shirt still slightly damp from the salt water earlier and buttoned my boxers to make sure the slit in the front was closed. I opened the door, slipped through, and shut it behind me with the tiniest of clicks. The upper hallway was silent around me, the whole house snoring with the sea a black mirror for the moonlight outside.

I heard absolutely nothing.

Taking care to keep my bare feet on the edges of the steps, I descended the stairs with exaggerated care. There were three people sleeping on the main floor, Cindy and Lars in her parents' master bedroom and then Rachel, clear on the other side of the house, but I moved as if there were sleeping bags packed every square inch.

I can't say it surprised me once when I crossed the living room and saw a faint yellow slash across the bottom of the closed door leading to Mr Berry's den. He had his own little complex back here, complete with a little closet and that nice bathroom, with the door to his mancave just opposite. It never failed to impress me whenever I came up here just how much money there was sloshing around in the defense industry; Mr Berry had been some sort of missile designer back in the day, and then he'd moved to drones and cashed in. And his wife had been in banking or something.

I took a deep breath and paused, listening at the door. Nothing. The whole house was silent around me, with nothing but black night pressing in at the windows. I took a deep breath, and for the second time that night I brought my knuckles to a secret door with Rachel on the far side. The silence that followed felt endless, but it was probably only a second or two.

"Yes?" I could barely hear her.

"It's me." I licked my lips. "Eric. From the show and tell."

"Come in." Her low voice, soft, almost throaty, and I turned the handle with my heart thumping in my ears.

I don't know what I was expecting on the far side. I was pretty sure this was a stupid thing to do, and pretty sure Rachel thought so too, but I was even surer she didn't care. Nor, apparently, did I, and as I let the door close softly behind me I smiled uncertainly into the room. She lay on her stomach with her knees bent, her feet making vague circles in the air above her. A book lay open between her propped elbows. Her shoulderblades showed through the thin t-shirt as she let her head swivel slowly around at me. "I was beginning to wonder whether you'd need to use my bathroom," she muttered. A smile played at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, you know." She was sideways to me, her legs pointing back at the bathroom door. I gulped. "Call of nature."

She glanced down at my legs. "Well, I'll say one thing," she went on, shaking her head slightly. "I wouldn't have gone through that charade earlier if I'd have known you were going to come visit me in your boxers tonight."

I chuckled suddenly, my dick giving a lurch. I let myself take a step into the room, feeling more confident now, her light eyes following every move. "Only this time, you don't get an extra show." I tugged at the front of my shorts. "See? Safely fastened."

"Too bad," she rapped back at once. She shifted onto one elbow, now stretched out on her right side, her delightful little boobs slipping around behind her shirt. I was seeking nipples.

"You should return the favor," I pointed out casually. "It's only fair." I let her see my eyes rove down along the swell of her hip, over those loose sleep shorts, along her smooth legs. Her mouth flopped open in mock shock.

"Why, how rude!" She was blushing again in the yellow light of the bedside lamp. "You're saying you should get, you know, a peek?"

I hadn't been saying that at all, but what the hell. My heart was pounding. "Well, I was thinking more about just your underwear," I shrugged. "But whatever floats your boat." I was very definitely hardening now. I didn't look down, but I didn't need to. She had to be able to see it.

"That would be difficult," she admitted, her blush deepening. "I can't show you what's not there."

"Ah." Fuck me. The girl was going commando. I could feel my dick spasm and wondered whether she'd noticed. "Too bad," I went on feebly.

"Tell you what." She was breathing fast, I could see, a wild light growing in her eyes. "You go in and use my bathroom. We'll chat some more when you come out." She smirked. "Unless you feel tired, of course."

"Nah." I moved past her to the bathroom Mr Berry had fitted out, forcing myself not to stare at her as I passed. The deployed pull-out made it hard to creep around to the bathroom, but I made it without knocking my shin against the frame. "I'm good."

"Perfect." She had to clear her throat to get it out, and as I sidled into Mr Barry's bathroom I felt obscurely like I was escaping. No, retreating. But that hardly mattered, because I really did have to piss. I reached in, fumbling with the unfamiliar button, hoping I wasn't too hard to pee.

I flopped out fat and long, but not quite hard. Good. The piss tinkled into the bowl, and I remembered suddenly that I hadn't even shut the damn door. I mean, who shuts the door after two a.m.? Ah, well. Rachel was a married woman; it's not like pissing was a mystery to her. I was glad for the noise, and glad she heard it. That way, this whole thing seemed less like a pretext, less like a lie. I debated about flushing; they'd hear it in the basement, but then I remembered most of the people down there were the kids and their parents.

Exhaustion comes easily to kids and their parents after a full day at the Cove. I flushed.

The water churned out of the bowl and hissed through the pipes below, and I tucked my cock back in. This time I left the button undone; who cared, now? I flicked the lights off, then stopped short as I stepped into the den.

She'd flopped onto her back, the shirt carelessly exposing half her midriff as she sat propped on her elbows; that, plus her vaguely challenging smile, were the first things I noticed. The next were her legs, parted, pointing at me like a firing squad, and in between? She'd moved her sleep shorts artfully sideways, carefully, just enough to show a peek of bright-pink labia and a wisp of curly brownish hair above.

So that's why the smile was challenging. I stared and felt my jaw drop. The phrase came to me, from somewhere. "You're peeking."

"What?" She chuckled, low and breathless. "It's a vagina. You've been married a long time; it's not like you haven't seen one before."

I swallowed. "I've been married a long time," I agreed. "But that just means I haven't seen one in awhile." That made her chuckle again, a knowing and very husky little sound, and I had to work hard to tear my eyes off her peeping pussy. Whatever work I'd done in the bathroom to will my cock down was quickly losing its effectiveness.

"That's right!" she smiled. "You did say you don't eat out much. Oh," she went on after a pause. "How rude of me." She reached down and twitched her shorts back over to the side, hiding herself again, but she'd been clear even to my flirt-rusty ears: she was a fruit, and now it was my decision whether I wanted to reach out and pluck it.

But we both knew I would, by that time.

I looked down at her and took a step. "No, you're not being rude." And now, with that step taken, there was nothing left but irresponsibility. I turned off my brain and felt a cold smile form as I did. "You're just trying to even things out. Make me feel comfortable."

"Sure," she murmured. "Something like that." I watched her chest rise as she took a deep breath. "Or maybe I just enjoy show and tell." She was looking at my tented underwear now, her lips parted, and the thrill in those grey eyes was unmistakable. So I reached down, sent my fingers into the slit in my boxers, and hauled out a thick cock gone totally hard in the sex-sultry air of the den.

"So do I." Her lips curled in a greedy smile at the sight of what she'd done to me, and I felt my penis surge with a nineteen-year-old's strength and energy as I stood at the foot of the bed. "What can I say? Sometimes you just need to air out."

"I agree," she husked, and then she pulled her shorts hard aside, with none of the careful finesse that had greeted me as I emerged from the bathroom. Winking back at me, glistening thickly with her juices, I saw a wide, generous, and very swollen pink pussy staring boldly. "Especially on these hot nights."

"You know it." Without even thinking, I'd wrapped my hand around my needy dick and begun stroking, the whole thing trembling, and at the sight of it Rachel licked her lips and sent her right hand down to her pussy. She watched wide-eyed, her breath deepening every time my angry smooth head emerged from the grip of my fist, and I was just as fascinated seeing first one, then two fingers dip gracefully into her slit with a sound like a squeezed sponge. We stared hotly at each other, the tension needing no words at all, and we both knew the moment it broke.