The Spell of Summer - Day 02

Claire peered at him. "Why?" she demanded, sounding rather aghast.

This surprised Aaron, and he scoffed. "Why did I stop it?" he asked her, chin jutting forward. "Because she's a virgin. I'm not about to strip that of her for a one-night fling in the art room, for god's sake."

Claire's eyes darted around his face, searching him in silence for a moment. Aaron had no clue what she could possibly be thinking, but this wasn't the conversation he'd expected. In his mind, it held a lot more curse words and perhaps a few items chucked at his head, for starters.

Finally, she said, "Maybe that's what Nora wanted." Her shoulders shrugged. "Did you think of that?"

Aaron gaped. "I don't care if that's what she wanted," he said after a moment. "That's not how it should be."

"You're the ultimate say on how it should be?" Claire asked.

This was too bizarre, however right Claire might be. "I'm not saying that," Aaron said, finding himself getting annoyed and riled up. She had a good argument, despite him still adamantly feeling that she was completely wrong.

Claire nodded her head, hazel eyes looking deeply into Aaron's brown ones. "Imagine you're a twenty-year-old girl. You're at a summer camp where people around you are hooking up, and let me tell you, Aaron, they are! All over here, it's happening. And you're the virgin, and guys for whatever reason decide they either want to be chivalrous with it or just don't want someone without experience. So while you're ready, you can't find anyone to just do the deed with and get it over with so you can start having some fun and experimenting with . . . with sex!"

It had never occurred to Aaron that this might be the case. He'd lost his when he was fifteen. It had been special, and maybe that's why he assumed that it should always be special. He hadn't once imagined himself being a virgin up until twenty, and what kind of desperation might set in to just get rid of it.

"So . . . you don't even care that I don't consider this the beginning of some whirlwind romance," Aaron said to Claire, still unable to reconcile it all. He decided to put it in the most crass terms possible, so maybe Claire would change her mind. "That I was just horny and wanted to fuck."

Claire laughed lightly. "Who cares?" she cried, rolling her eyes. "That girl gets no attention, and she deserves attention. You give it to her! Checking out her art and hanging out with her on the beach. You are interested in her, right?"

It was still impossible for Aaron to believe this was even happening. So not at all what he'd expected. "I think she's beautiful," he said.

"Well, there you go," Claire said, as though it was all final and he should run off after Nora and fuck her brains out.

Yeah, this was too much. Time to leave, and quickly.

"Alright, I'll think about it," Aaron said, using his hands to push himself from the lean against the table, which took a considerable amount of effort.

His arm was snagged by Claire before he could get too far. "Wait," she said.

"What?" Aaron cried, swiveling to face her. "I said I'd think about it."

Claire smirked at him. "I'm not done with you yet," she said, rising from the bench and taking a step toward him. To Aaron's utter disbelief, she wrapped her fingers in the top of his jeans and began to unbutton. Staring at her work, she said, "You obviously need a release. Let loose a little bit."

If art supplies were flying around the room, Aaron would have been less startled, though his eyes widened in wonder as though that was exactly what was happening. "Are you serious?" he demanded, grabbing one hand and pulling it away.

The top button was undone, however, and she used her free hand to quickly yank on his zipper. "Completely serious," she said playfully, then pressed her lips against his with a force unheard of.

"Wait a second," Aaron said, backing away. He couldn't deny though that his body was waking up, every nerve firing, blood rushing through his veins. "You were just selling me on your best friend."

"Yeah," she said, as though it didn't matter in the slightest. "And?"

"And you don't care that minutes ago I was about to hook up with her?"

"Until you put a stop to it," Claire responded. Her hand cupped his growing erection, and she laughed with a fully open mouth that had a wicked grin. "You don't want to go back to your cabin with this, do you?"

Biting his lip, Aaron didn't know what to say. It was official; his brain was shutting down and his dick was taking over. He'd been so ready for exactly this ten minutes ago that he was forgetting it had been with Nora and not Claire.

"Let me help you," Claire cooed, then kissed him. He couldn't help but kiss her back, though still fully at war with himself and not quite present in what was happening. "I'm not a virgin," Claire whispered after trailing a line of kisses over his cheek and neck. "I think we both deserve a little fun."

With that, she fell to her knees in front of him. Aaron stared down at the beautiful auburn hair; the two loosely hung ponytails on each side of her head that he wanted to grab hold of and pull. His brain was engaged in a war that he wasn't sure he could win at this point. Everything was so strange, so entirely surreal, and as Claire began to unbutton his pants, his eyes slammed shut in the pain over the "right" he knew he needed to follow through with.

"Claire, I can't," he groaned, and gently grabbed her wrists. Pulling her hands away, he held them for a moment, staring into her blue eyes. He bit his lip then, wondering if he should sigh and take it back, let this beauty relieve him of the now very real ache he felt in his groin.

No, he thought to himself. This is too fucked up.

"Another time, maybe," he finally said, barely able to look at her. With an enormous amount of reluctance, he finally released her hands and walked toward the door, fastening his button. He didn't look back as he cracked it open and slid through, as though sneaking out of a girlfriend's bedroom where he's been doing something very wrong and didn't want to get caught.

The camp was dark, and he spent the walk back to his cabin obsessively trying to piece together the puzzle that was this camp. He wavered between wishing he was eighteen again and considering the very real possibility that he was flat out dead from their car accident. But he'd felt them. He'd felt these girls in a way a dream doesn't. Things are experienced in a dream, but not felt in any tangible sense. He'd had his share of fantasies while asleep that nearly paralleled this: a group of sex crazed women, but in those they were overtly jumping him, and he was never once protesting. Perhaps Claire would have convinced him this was a dream, but Nora had been real. Harper, while other-worldly in her coolness and confidence and beauty, was even more convincing. A girl in a fantasy veraciously denying him?

That just doesn't happen in sex dreams.

No, they were absolutely without a doubt in this bizarre place, but he was sure of something by the time he was on the row of tree-themed cabins: this place may be on earth, and it may be real, but it was not supposed to be found. And the sequence of events that had led them here had no explanation, and maybe never would.

He could hear giggling as he reached the porch and began to feel sick. After Nora and Claire, he didn't think he could take Justin and Layla, or whoever else he'd decided to bring back to the cabin. He had a very angry erection in his pants that was screaming at him for a good long fap session that required time and privacy.

When Aaron opened the door to the cabin, he had a grimace on his face that could frighten a tiger, and he peered at the parties in the room. Justin was sitting on his bed with Layla leaning up against his side, her long black hair in a loose braid over her right shoulder. On the foot of the bed sat Ems, the strawberry blonde, pixie petite and hugging her knees to her chest with a grin. And over on Aaron's single lay Quinn, propping her head up with her hand, elbow on the mattress, the tips of her thin blonde hair skimming the blanket.

"You alright?" Justin asked through a laugh that held genuine concern, though equal part amusement, his eyes scanning his best friend. Aaron looked like he needed a drink. His chestnut hair was disheveled and the frown on his face had defined lines at the corners that don't age well if held too long. Justin removed his arm from Layla's shoulders and reached for the beer on the dresser, quickly popping the top on a bottle and holding it out. "Come join us."

Aaron inhaled deeply, trying to find the repose. Then, he officially gave up. With an infinitesimal shake of his head, he walked over and took the bottle from the grinning Justin, appreciating that without a word, he could tell Justin was both contrite and worried about him.

"Sit here," Quinn said, curling her knees to make room for him on the bed and patting the mattress. She held her bottle up, and Aaron clinked it out of courtesy, then took a healthy swig as he sunk down on the bed, then leaned against the wall, his skull clunking against the wood. "Awww, what's going on, Aaron?"

Aaron just shook his head. He definitely wasn't about to launch into his night to Quinn and her friends, though he couldn't wait to get Justin alone to discuss in depth the Nora situation and Claire encounter. Justin would help him find the comedy in it, and despite Justin's "free spirit" attitude when it came to sex, he knew his friend would empathize with him.

"Nothing," he finally said. "What are you guys up to?"

"Well, Layla was just regaling us with a tale about a few guys here at camp who have been following these three around, and the many ways they've tried to get their attention," Justin said, grinning. "You know, typical college boys!"

Aaron chuckled a little, as a fleeting moment of memories on how they'd tried to get girls attention when they were in college danced through his head. No doubt there were some good stories.

"You have no idea how glad we are that you two showed up," Quinn said. "The scene here was getting stale."

"We needed some new excitement!" Ems agreed, bouncing a bit with a wicked smile. She was a tiny thing; built like Nora, only shorter a lither. Bubbly and outgoing instead of mousy and introverted.

"So it's been boring around here?" Aaron asked, for the sake of conversation only to pander. As long as this is where he was, he may as well be cordial and try.

Layla giggled. "It's never boring here."

"Never boring," Quinn agreed, rubbing the mouth of the bottle against her lower glossed lip. "We just needed some new blood."

Aaron's curiosity was piqued. Maybe this was an opportunity for him to get some answers. Harper had been vague at best, and Justin had been given some insight in regards to the health and wellness of the girls here, and the general laxness of rules, but the history of it might provide some understanding.

"So what's the deal here, anyways?" Aaron asked, seeing what they'd offer up before asking direct questions.

Quinn shrugged, still running that glass against her lower lip. She took a sip, then glanced at Aaron beneath heavily mascaraed lashes. "I mean, it's really exclusive," she began. "Hard to get into even if you know about it."

"I only came because of my sister," Layla piped in. "She was here a few years ago, and when I graduated high school, she told me I'd be missing out on life if I didn't go. She didn't tell me much about it, but she was so different when she came back."

"How so?" Aaron asked.

Layla's smile was impish, and she leaned forward in earnest. "She was always a goodie-two-shoes," she began. "Perfect grades, perfect daughter . . . I was the bad seed if you asked our parents. Anyways, she came back and, well, I wouldn't say she was bad . . . I'll just say she now lives with another girl and two guys, and they're poly, and she is always at clubs and parties and living it up. And if she changed that much, I had to know what it was that got her there."

Justin grinned and began massaging Layla's neck. He'd never been in a relationship before, but he'd experienced a poly style of living, and the fact that Layla sounded excited about her sister's lifestyle made him more excited about her.

"Okay," Aaron said, making the conscious decision to just be open minded about everything. What else could he do? "So you come here after graduation for the summer, or between years at college, it's a giant party, life changing experience, and then you go home with your fresh eyes . . ."

He trailed off there, as everyone but Justin had stopped looking at him, and were now either studying their bottles of beer or staring at the wall.

". . . am I missing something?"

Quinn was the first to rally. "Nope!" she cried with an enthusiasm that seemed to be hiding something. "That's basically it!" The bottle she'd been milking was placed on the bedside table, and she rose to go grab a fresh one from the table closer to Justin's bed. Once the top was popped, she held it up. "Guys, we are here in this sweet cabin, five of the hottest people on earth. I'd like to officially say to you two—" she gestured with the bottle to Justin and Aaron, "—Welcome to the greatest place on earth. The three of us are fucking stoked you're here, because you both are fucking hot!"

Aaron's chuckle was a growl in his throat bordering on a scoff; these girls were so full of themselves, exactly like girls he'd once known and partied with years ago who didn't care about the future. They were in the high point of their life, and he wasn't about to tell them that for girls like them, their popularity had peaked and it was pretty much downhill from here with that shallow attitude.

"Alright, well thank you," he finally said, nodding his chin down to just graciously accept her compliment. The other girls were laughing, and Justin and Layla were getting friskier than before in their touches and glances.

Quinn leapt at Aaron in the next second, plopping beside him with her leg draped across his lap. And for a moment, he laughed at the absurdity. "So where did you come from tonight?" she asked him, running her fingers over his tee.

He glanced down at her hands, the pink polished nails, then met her eyes. "I was in the art room," he said. "Nora was showing me her paintings."

"Nerdy Nora?!" Quinn cried in sheer delight and amusement. She turned to look at her friends, and Aaron saw them biting their lips with wide eyes. "How was that?"

Aaron gave her a lopsided grin. "You're kinda a bitch, aren't you?" he said, teasingly, however true it was.

"You know it!" she cried. "Did she try and hit on you?"

This made the other girls erupt in laughter, though it wasn't as derisive as it could have been, otherwise Aaron would have leapt to Nora's defense. It was more that they found the idea of it ludicrous, something that wouldn't happen in a million years.

"Nothing like that," Aaron said, shaking his head. He brought the beer to his mouth, found it empty, so he snatched Quinn's bottle from her and took a large gulp. She feigned offense, her glossed lips forming a faux pout, and Aaron gave her the bottle back. "We're both artists," he explained, gesturing toward Justin, "and as it turns out, she's very good."

"Yeah, she's pretty good," Quinn acquiesced. "At least she has that going for her, amirite?"

"Remember when she wanted Cade going for her?" Layla asked from across the room.

"And remember when he didn't go for her?" Ems added.

"Seriously, you guys are cruel," Aaron said, sobering.

Quinn frowned. "Just because you weren't here for it," she said defensively. "If you had seen it all, you'd understand. I feel sorry for her."

Aaron wasn't sure she meant that altruistically. But he wasn't about to start the next drama in a group that no doubt thrived on it. Girls like this lived on drama as a form of oxygen.

"Ooh!" Layla cried suddenly, leaning forward again and away from Justin, much to his obvious dismay. "We should play a game!"

Quinn's interest was piqued, enough that she pulled away from Aaron, having the opposite reaction as Justin: relief. "What game?"

"Truth or dare!" Layla declared. Aaron's lack of surprise came from years of experience. It's not as though he'd expected them to say Chess or Yahtzee.

Quinn looked at Aaron with challenging eyes. "You in?"

One beer down, Aaron rose from the bed and grabbed a second, popping the top. "Alright, I'm in."

"Whoa, really?" Justin asked in astonishment.

Aaron shrugged at his friend. "Why, we're here in the greatest place on earth!" he cried with a mocking drawl. Wiggling his fingers to imply a spooky factor, he said "Let's play truth or dare!"

Plopping back down on the bed with his beer, Aaron took half of it down. He'd need it and was glad there were a good dozen or so left. He noted that his mood had actually lightened a bit already and was glad for that, as well. He was tired of questions and carrying the burden of worrying for both him and Justin. It was time to just let it go.

As the refrain from the song ran through his head, it was Quinn who shook him out of it by pointing at Layla, "Your idea, so you're up! Truth or Dare?"

Layla grinned. "Dare."

Aaron watched Quinn think for a moment in silence, her eyes upturned to the ceiling. "We'll start simple. I dare you to get up and do your best twerk."

Everyone laughed, including Aaron. And that laugh intensified as Layla stood up, walked a few feet to the center between the beds. She grabbed her knees, facing Quinn and Aaron, and wiggled her ass at Justin and Ems.

"Now the other way, so we can see!" Quinn ordered. Layla immediately leapt in a half circle and was in full twerk mode a second later.

And she definitely had the movement down pat, her ass never having seemed big enough in a glance to jiggle the way it did just now.

When she'd finished, she dove back to the bed and sipped her beer, staring at each person for a second while she decided who her victim would be. "Aaron, truth or dare."

"Truth," Aaron said immediately.

"Noo!" came the chorus of groans, and to Aaron's chagrin, Justin was among the protests.

"You don't pick truth!" Ems sang.

"Then why call it truth or dare?" Aaron challenged.

"Fine, truth," Layla sighed, then in her most bored tone, said, "How many girls have you had sex with?"

Aaron took a moment to think, then said, "I don't exactly keep count like a lot of guys, but I had my wild days. I'd say more than twenty, less than fifty . . .?"

"Good for you!" Ems cried, running her eyes over Aaron appraisingly. "Now no more truths from you. That was your freebie."

"Fine," Aaron said with a laugh. "Okay, Ems, you're up. Truth or dare."

Ems eyed him levelly. "Dare, of course!"

He'd been afraid of that. After a moment of considering his audience, he said with a slight apprehension, "I dare you to take off your bra under your shirt."

Some laughter erupted, and Ems reached behind her back and under her shirt, fiddled around for a moment, then worked a strap down her right arm. She pulled the bra through the sleeve of her left and held up the lacy black undergarment between her thumb and forefinger, then flung it at Aaron.

"A souvenir for the night," she said, then winked at him. Aaron laughed as he laid it beside him on the bed, mouthing a silent thank you with a wink back. Ems scanned around, then landed on Quinn. "Truth or dare, Quinn!"

Quinn pretended as though she were mulling over her options, even though it was clear that if anyone said truth they'd be ridiculed. She finally said "Dare," and took a large sip of her beer.