The Swim Team Ch. 04

"What's going on?" she asked, standing in the doorframe.

"It's an intervention," Lily replied, alarmingly serious. Her mom was staring down, no hint to get from her.

"For what?"

"For your addiction."

"To what?"

"Stealing hubcaps."

Gabrielle sighed, shaking her head, and went to sit across from the two pranksters.

"So," Lily began. "I think Ms. Chervony here has something to tell you."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes." Isla had raised her head and had quickly lost her smile after the joke. She was nervous. "Lou has been pestering me for days and I think it's time we face the issue."

Gabrielle held her breath, summoned herself not to go pale. It was going to be about porn consumption. Or maybe worse: maybe she knew about her penis.

Isla sat up straight, something she rarely did. "As you know, out of respect for you I always wear clothes in your presence."

Oh my God. Gabrielle darted panicked eyes at Lily. Oh no you didn't.

Back to Isla. "And Lily and I we explained to you. That being naked is not just natural, it's also about freedom, self-confidence. So I guess now that you're both big girls, we thought... I mean... If you are absolutely ok with it, I thought maybe—" she sighed out the last part, "—I could stop caring so much about it? if you're comfortable with it? I mean... um..."

Lily came for help. "What she's trying to say is: she wants to flaunt it but you're always around."

Isla shrugged, finding nothing to add, asking Gabrielle for a reaction with interrogative eyes.

"Wow, um... ok um..." She shrugged, in turn. "I mean I had to put up with Lily's butt for years, I guess I'm pretty desensitized."

No one chuckled.

"So it's a yes?" Isla tried.

"Yeah, mom, she said yes!"

"Shut up, little brat, let her speak."

Lily grinned.

Gabrielle didn't realize she was slightly slouching on her seat. She said, "Yes. It's your home, Isla. You can dress however you like."

Lily raised her arms in victory, looking around, like she was the mastermind of all this.

Isla mumbled, "Should I... um..."

Gabrielle tensed straight up. "Oh you mean now?"

"Yes?"

"Of course!"

"Ok well so I'm uh... just gonna...um..." Isla stood up and left the kitchen. Disappeared.

It made the thing even worse for Gabrielle. Now there was a suspense factor. She was staring at this empty doorframe. In a few minutes, Isla would walk back in and this time she's going to be naked.

Any minute.

Actually the whole dynamic was about to change. So far it only had been Lily naked among clothed people. Anytime now, Gabrielle would become the only one wearing clothes.

It didn't sound like a big deal, but then why was it a category of porn? There's an acronym for it, CNNF or something. Typically the kind of stuff Lily would tell her about.

Not counting Lily (you cannot not count Lily, though) and not counting Sophia this morning (she had been only bottomless and obscured by frosted glass), it would be the second time of her life Gabrielle saw someone naked. And she could already feel that it would be different. She had seen Dr. Emmerson full-frontal to test her prophesied bisexuality, with no conclusive result. And it felt like so long ago.

And it was going to be this forty-two-year-old woman who, if she knew from birth and thus could not be objective, she thought was objectively beautiful. A redhead but nothing like her daughter. Hair more red than orange, no freckles and actually some melanin, and an hourglass figure that so far she had only guessed through her loose hippie rags.

What's it gonna be? Will she keep her jewelry on, her oversized wooden necklaces and bracelets that are constantly clanking around? Is she gonna take it casually or will she make some introducing, like 'Gabrielle, my boobs. My boobs, Gabrielle.'? Will she have a tramp stamp? secret piercings? and what about her pubic h—

"Ok, let's make some food!" Isla burst into the kitchen in three strides and seized an apron which she tied over her nudity.

In those five seconds, Gabrielle had seen everything.

The thin silver bracelets left on her forearm. Her rings. Her complicated web of ear piercings. Her carmine hair falling over her shoulders and announcing or pointing at the glory of her big breasts. Their slight sag, their large areolas in touching coherence with the stretchmarks of her midriff, her generous hips, as they were all related to one event, whose date was tattooed below her left clavicle, close to the heart.

No cellulite in sight, though. Thanks to Sophia.

She was so hot.

Legs incredible. Her ass too. Aprons don't cover the ass. Nice legs, really. Muscular calves. There were boobs-men, there were ass-men, but what about legs-men? Am I a legs-woman? Gabrielle wondered while she smirked at Isla's ugly one-strap sandals on her feet, toenails painted gay-flag.

She had skipped one detail, it seemed. An area now covered and pushed against the kitchen countertop. But in these five seconds this point had caught her gaze like a magnet to a very nosy piece of metal. Gabrielle had scanned her entire body in every direction but it had only been her eyes. Meanwhile her entire attention, her brain, bypassing her optic nerves, had carved and burned in the sight of her sex.

And here it was, as if the information was vital to Gabrielle. Why do I care about this anyway? From mere observation, she knew Isla shaved legs and pits; but now she had a live, blinding proof that she also waxed her pubic hair like a statue.

"Makes you swim faster," Sophia had once said. Which had puzzled Gabrielle because competitive swimmers wear swimsuits. Unless...

Oh my gosh, do they go full nudism when Sophia's here?

"What's rule number one of life?" Lily interrupted her ramblings.

Gabrielle put on the apron that was handed to her. If she had a dime for every time she heard this... Never cook naked. Even a hardcore nudist like Lily knew that.

And suddenly everything was a little easier. She could feel a little less like an intruder at a nude camp, and they started slicing the vegetables, greasing up the pans, tenderizing the meat and singing along to Italian songs.

*****

♫ When the moon hits your eye, like a big-a pizza pie, that's... ♫

*****

"...a moray?"

Gabrielle took the phone Lily was holding out to her and had a closer look at the picture of a fish on the screen.

The water it was swimming in was undeniably too blueish to be the sea.

"It's Sara Felton who took the picture," Lily said, "but it's Toni Robles' swimming pool."

"You can't prove that."

"I swear to God! They had to call the cops to take it out. So now everybody's saying it's Toni cause like she went to Sicily with her family and she came back with moray eggs in her vagina and that's how it ended up there."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I think it's funny."

"It's gross."

"But then the Lebinski dog went missing, it's the next-door neighbors..."

The inane conversation went on. Lily wiped the spot of sauce that had crusted on her left thigh. Isla looked at the photo, incredulous, fidgeting with a lighter that could not light a cigarette for the rest of her life. The empty plates had been pushed back to leave room for the bellies. Life was good.

Although a bit hard for Gabrielle. The two women had dropped the aprons and she had two pairs of titties jiggling under her nose.

For Pete's sake, I'm not a lesbian! she was screaming at her chubby tucked between her legs.

But most importantly she was still working out her plan to announce safely all the upheavals of the last hours.

"So next Friday there's one of them corporate dinners," Isla said.

"Yeah, my parents are going too," Gabrielle mentioned.

"I guess the whole company is invited. I couldn't skip it."

"Bring me back some goodies," Lily said.

"My parents never bring back anything."

"Usually, they just avoid me and drink."

"Yeah right." Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

"Yea just kidding, I always see them chatting with suits. You're gonna have so many connections when you start looking for a job, girl..."

"Try not bringing back a new boyfriend this time," Lily sneaked in.

"Hey!"

"House party on Friday?" Gabrielle asked her.

"House partaaaaaaaay!"

For these two weirdos it meant spending the night together. No booze, no drugs, no boys, just watching stuff, eating stuff, maybe a night drive for a slushie, and eventually having some deep conversation in the dark, falling asleep.

"We're gonna get fucked uuuup!"

Isla almost reacted to the curse word. It's when her offspring sprung from her chair to steal the chocolate cake that had been waiting in the fridge, brought Gabrielle along, upstairs where they would wolf it down while staring at their phones that she did: "Use a tray I don't wanna find crumbs in your beeeeeeed," she shouted, they were already gone.

*****

Lily slammed the bedroom door shut and put the cake down at her feet; it was either this or dropping it from excitement. "I did it! I told you I would do it!"

Gabrielle knew she was talking about getting her mother naked and didn't have any comment. She sat on the bed, squirming funny because of her semi inside her pants. "Must have been so awkward for her," she said.

"You look awkward."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do, do you have a boner?"

"Shut up and bring the cake over here before you step on it."

Lily made a beeline to her desk and conducted the conversation at the same time. "She's hot, right?"—Convinced that the sins of lust and gluttony went hand in hand,—"Us redheads have the best genes. We never hit the wall."—she had at all times in her room all the items necessary to feast.—"You sure you don't have a boner?"—She took spoons, paper plates, napkins out of a drawer.—"Why did you get a boner?"—And climbed onto the bed.

Gabrielle tried to pretend focusing on TikTok but her friend was no dupe of the oxymoron it represented and she kept on teasing, knowing she had her attention. "Here, a spoon. Unless you wanna use your boner?"

Half of the cake vanished.

In this room, shame found supportive provocation. If Gabrielle dared to recognize that seeing Isla naked had made her hard, Lily would most likely suggest they masturbate to lesbian porn.

This disturbingly unique teenager had never bothered coming out as bisexual. Her behavior toward everybody and every type of genitalia was enough. So far she had only dated boys in high school. Two. Dee Holbrook for four months and Sebastian Duprey for seven and a half months. She never had sex with a girl, she only made out with Zoe Tomlin under the bleachers while the homecoming queen was receiving her crown and no one was looking. They were both drunk. They never talked about it again. Except Lily, to Gabrielle.

Lately she had been single. Since the penis revelation actually. And seemed at peace with celibacy. It seemed that what mattered most was masturbating, and spending time with her best friend, sometimes at the same time.

"I have a lot of stuff to tell you about," Gabrielle finally forced herself to say. Her plan was risky and convoluted but she was losing her battle with her bulge.

As long as nothing unexpected got in the way...

Lily put her tablet aside. She was sitting up against the headboard, legs nonchalantly spread, showing that, this time, her vagina was glistening. "I have something to tell you too," she said.

This was unexpected.

But Gabrielle went along.

"Sophia lost her V-card."

"No wayyyy! She has a boyfriend?"

"Yes, she told me."

"But it doesn't mean she lost her virginity. Did she tell you?"

"Uh... no."

"You really think she'd put out so easily? First boyfriend: BAM?"

"I dunno." Gabrielle shrugged, genuinely intrigued.

"Yeah so you just jumped to conclusion. I bet she takes it in the poop chute, just to preserve her lil' flower—"

"Lou, seriously!" she giggled out.

"It's still a V-card, though, in the butt. Would you say it's a rare V-card? you know, with the holo print and everything."

"I don't know."

They were laughing together.

"What took her so long, you think?" Lily wondered.

"I dunno but it means now she's gonna have a lot to say. Can I count on you?"

"I'll be on her like stink on shit."

"She wouldn't tell me anything. It's probably some boring teacher from her boring college."

"A math teacher."

"Ugh."

"Maybe it's a girl?..."

"Oh my God, not everyone in California is gay!" Gabrielle twisted her body to reach for her back pocket. "Speaking of which... I took my flashdrive with me."

"Oh? Ok, who is it today?"

"We watched a film with Ryan Gosling last night."

"Dude, I'm pretty sure you scraped every single picture that exists of this guy."

This was an agreement they had: Gabrielle would bring a flashdrive and fill it with whatever she couldn't access at home, porn videos, dirty fanfic, or pictures of handsome men. They called it the sneakers network. The other agreement was that while it was obviously for masturbatory purposes, Lily should never mention it.

"Yeah, but also..." Gabrielle's heart spurred on. Her stupid plan was so stupid. Her voice broke to a higher pitch: "There was this girl in the movie..."

"What what?!"

"She was so pretty."

"Oh my God, it's happening?"

Dr. Emmerson told her. Bisexuality would kick in eventually. But Gabrielle wasn't sure it was happening. Or at least she still refused for it to happen. But talking about it so abruptly did have the intended effect: Lily blushed.

Not that it was hard, since she was a redhead. But now she had upped from baseline horny to special horny.

"Her name's Saoirse Ronan," Gabrielle said, "you know, she's that blonde who was in the one about the lesbian archeologists."

"Shuuut uuup, I remember. It was some pretentious tripe, but goddam, I almost hurt myself from all the shlicking—but anyway! So you like girls now? that's so cool, Gabe!"

Lily gave her friend the most sincere hug she could while under the influence of self-indulgent desires.

"I just think she's pretty," Gabrielle groaned, air squeezed out of her lungs by her overexcited friend. "I'm not gay. She just...made me nervous last night and I want to see what's up."

"Because you like girls!"

"Nooo! Alright." She tried to explain, patiently. "Last night I was um...m-masturbating and I was thinking about Ryan Gosling and then when I came, instead of him, I saw her. Cause she was in the movie and... And...I dunno..."

"You want pics of her to je— I mean..." Lily sat back down, sighing. She let her hands and her shoulders droop like some kind of mark of respect. "You're hard! I just felt it! Gabe, I mean... Come on. You like girls! It's America, just say you like girls and go about your day!"

"You can't make me have fun!"

Lily was no longer paying attention. She had grabbed her tablet and was typing on it, talking to herself. "I'm sure she has a Wikifeet page. I mean of course she does. Even Princess Fiona has one."

Gabrielle just sat back and observed her friend being her usual hornball.

"Sir Sharonan. Zero results. Goddammit."

By the time Gabrielle had (more or less) spelled the right name out for her, Lily had a hand between her thighs. She opened picture after picture.

"She looks fly," she commented.

Gabrielle mused, "A celebrity you like and first thing you do is you checking out her feet?"

"Bare feet equals sexy photoshoot. It's like posing naked without posing naked. Plus Wikifeet has these giant HD pics, it's exactly what you're looking for."

Gabrielle had a peek. On the screen, Saoirse Ronan was barefoot all right, but it wasn't a closeup of them, it was a full-length photograph, the kind you find in magazines. She was wearing a dress you can only wear once because you're a princess. Her hair probably had an assistant of its own on the set. And there were all those things such as makeup, angles, lighting and filters but even through all this, this woman looked phenomenal.

Seeing this photograph, seeing her, even if for the time of a glimpse, Gabrielle felt good about being a woman. Because, embedded in the beauty, grace was emanating from this picture, and she understood that somehow it meant she could find some in her too.

"I'm amazed," she told Lily, "that you literally cram yourself with porn videos all day errday and you still get hot over pictures of people just hanging around like that. With their clothes on."

Lily let the remark fall flat. She opened a few more pics and concluded:

"Nah, I don't like them."

Disappointed, she retreated to Google.

"What makes feet good looking or bad looking?" Gabrielle asked.

"If you have to ask, it means you wouldn't get it."

And before Lily could switch to Google Images, she blurted out, "Oh my...Gahd!"

"What?" Gabrielle looked over Lily's shoulder to see what she saw.

The plan had suddenly taken off to vertiginous heights.

All the results on the page were articles reporting that, after having officially come out as lesbian, Academy Award-nominated actor Saoirse Ronan, 29, had indulged in a celebratory nude photoshoot for Vanity Fair.

Exploding berserk, the two girls clashed into each other and elbowed their way to be the first to pound the touchscreen, until one of them did and they froze still for the gallery loading before their unbelieving eyes.

Gabrielle recognized the smile immediately. It was one that conveyed the joy of being naked. A smile she had seen before. On her best friend's face.

And with this sweetest, warmest smile, Gabrielle's subconscious celebrity crush was showing her everything. It wasn't some artsy-fartsy black-and-white pics with flowerpots and sunrays hiding the nipples. It wasn't some vulgar waxy-looking 'just pose in flesh-colored underwear and we'll CGI the nudity in post' swindle either. The ten plus photographs of Saoirse Ronan absolutely naked were full-colored and sharp-focused, showing her fearless and uncompromising; and if one snap caught a hint of labia, so be it; if the angle, the position, the movement implied to end up legs spread, so be it.

The girls devoured the pictures like as many slices of cake.

"You can almost see her butthole on this one."

"Her feet look fine to me. What's wrong with them?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Gabrielle saw Lily's wrist making slow circles between her legs. The plan was unfurling superbly. Gabrielle knew one thing about Lily. She was multi-orgasmic, able to put herself through dozens upon dozens of short and mild climaxes which far from exhausting her, aroused her exponentially.

Or.

Or she could summon a big one that wrecked her from head to toe and often would knock her out for the night.

Gabrielle was counting on the latter.

That was it. Her plan.

To make Lily cum.

It weirded her out, put this way.

So the anxiety started to talk up.

Why do I have to tell her today anyway?

She wanted to tell her, she needed to tell her. Telling her most intimate secrets to her friend, her best friend, her only friend, a sister almost, was like telling her she loved her. There even was some kind of analogy that could be made: just like cum, it had to get out.

Gabrielle winced. That parallel was a little gross.

But she was ready.

"So, you wanted to tell me something," she said, eyes glued to the screen.

The something was most likely to be about sex or porn and she knew Lily would not be able to hold her orgasm back while saying it. And thus, hopefully climaxed out of her wits, sobered up, she would be less likely to insist on immediate proof of Gabrielle's new talent.