Wild Card

by Elsie Silver

What can I say? I’m a sensitive gal. I’ve always felt things just a little more deeply.

“Thanks, I made them myself.” I glance over my shoulder when I finish the stairs, watching her dainty fingers flutter over the rounded woodwork at the top landing. She doesn’t even look my way as she muses, “Goddamn, you must be good with your hands.” We freeze in time, and I watch pink splotches pop up on her round cheeks as she slowly turns her head in my direction. Fuck, she’s so pretty, I can’t even stand it. Eyes wide and pleading, she adds, “I mean, you must be handy.” “I’m both.”

But that thought comes to an abrupt and screeching halt when I catch sight of what she’s looking at. Because it’s not the lake. It’s Clyde. On the deck. Naked. My jaw unhinges as I come to stand next to her, chin dropping in shock. He’s seated facing away from us, legs spread and in the air, with his arms hooked behind his knees. “What the fuck is he doing?” Gwen looks up at me, amusement dancing on her face. “Oh, that?” she replies with a little smirk. “He’s, uh…sunning his perineum.”

“Sunning his perineum?” Gwen snorts an unladylike laugh, her shoulders shaking with the effort of restraining herself. “That’s what he called it. In my head, I’ve been calling it tanning his taint.”

“Coming right up. What my girl wants, she gets.”

“I haven’t asked you if you’ve done this before,” Bash says through the headset as the plane rolls along. I can hear him clearly over the loud engines. “No, Bash. You’re my first, so be gentle with me,” I reply with a smile. A smile that only grows bigger when I hear him grumble “For fuck’s sake” in my ears.