Trick or Treat or Trouble

"Ok, Seth, what about this?" Bailey asked from my closet.

I was on my bed with my legs hanging over the edge and my head and shoulder propped on a pile of pillows.

She emerged with nothing on. Her body was small and perfect; muscular and toned with small breasts and wonderful, tall nipples. She was hairless below the waist and seemed proud of it. She had treated us both to an afternoon at the spa that included full Brazilian waxings.

"That's a costume?" I asked.

"I have a necktie. Duh." She twirled one of my favorite ties.

"That's the spirit. You'll fit right in," I said. Bailey gave me a look that was a little bit concern and a little bit arousal. I could tell she didn't know if I was serious.

The invitation hung on my fridge. There were a hundred little, every day reminders that 'my' house was becoming 'our' house. There was shared mail, an invasion on my vanity counter, little sexy thongs in my laundry. The invitation, addressed to Bailey at my address, said the party would be both 'adult' and 'sexy'.

I figured a full-nude costume was too much.

"Oh," Bailey said. "I know!" She ducked back into the closet as I laughed. I heard her giggle, the rustle of paper, and a swish of fabric.

"What is it?" I asked.

Bailey emerged from the closet dressed in a skimpy bustier and skirt complete with red hood. She held a wolf's tail in one hand. At the end of the tail was a silver butt plug.

She smiled and turned around. From the back, I saw the very bottom of her butt peeking out under the skirt. I laughed and sat up.

"My god," I said.

"Red riding hood," she said. She lifted the tail. "And you can be the big bad wolf."

"Come here, I want to see that up close. That would be a hit. That would fit right in."

Without turning, she inched back. Her little ass wiggled as she walked. She swung the metal plug as she sashayed. The wolf's tail buttplug and riding hood costume had been part of a fun order we'd placed together shortly after she started the process of moving into my place. Sex toys, lubes, handcuffs, outfits, lingerie, and an under-used riding crop had all come to my front porch. Opening the box had been as much fun as placing the order.

Bailey bumped into the bed between my legs. She bent forward and wiggled her ass. I grabbed her cheeks and pressed my fingers into the muscles. "Mmmm," she said. "That's what it took?"

"How do you mean?"

"I've tried on three different naked costumes and this is what gets you to grab me? I figured that first one would have you all over me."

"That first was just you in a dress. You don't really have a sexy office wardrobe."

"It isn't my fault that I'm out in the field and need to wear boots and pants. Should I be wearing this to work? Or do you want me wearing sexy little secretary outfits?"

"We do have a secretary position available," I said. "Requires a Masters in civil engineering, actually. You'd be under me, directly."

"Mmm, under you," Bailey said. "Sounds pretty good." She pulled from between my legs and turned. She took off the cape and laid it on the laundry chair in the corner of my bedroom. She tossed the wolf's tail plug on the floor. Still wearing the red and black lingerie, she came back to the bed.

She stood and looked down at my naked body. "You really should keep waxing that," she said. She smiled as she touched the head of my cock. "It looks bigger without hair."

Before I could comment, she sank to her knees and took my cock in her mouth.

I sighed and leaned back into my pile of pillows. The Halloween fashion show was over.

Bailey liked to suck cock. She had told me that early in our relationship. After a hot and heavy start during a summer heatwave that climaxed with ferocious storms and four days without power, we settled into a happy rhythm.

Bailey had stayed with me during the power outage. We didn't wear a stitch of clothing the entire time. There was a lot of sex, a lot of cold showers, and a lot of laying around bonding. When the power came back, we were firmly a couple. And, in Bailey's words, her 'lady time' arrived.

Her lusty, horny demeanor didn't fade. It just transitioned. I enjoyed four days of wonderful, no-strings blowjobs. Blowjobs at the kitchen counter. Blowjobs in bed. Blowjobs in the shower. A full slurp-and-swallow blowjob as I was heading out the door fully dressed for work.

She liked to suck cock. My cock, she said, was particularly good because she didn't always gag if I pushed in too far. A small win for the smaller men, I guess.

Bailey pulled me back by stopping. With a pop she pulled away from my cock. I was left swaying cold and wet. I opened my eyes and saw that she was climbing onto the bed.

"Give and take?"

"You know I'd love to," I said.

Bailey smiled and swung her legs over my face. She wore nothing under the skirt. I flashed back to a fantasy and a phone sex call. I'd imagined his exact moment. Her pussy was visibly wet and her small ass spread as she leaned back towards my cock.

I slid my tongue upwards from her clit, along her wet, ready lips, over her taint and, with a little flick, to her asshole. Bailey choked on my cock. "Goddamn, Seth," she said. I raised my hands and grabbed her ass. Her cheeks were small and muscular. They fit my hands perfectly and I pulled them wide.

I licked her ass again, my tongue riding high up her crack before easing back down, around her tight hole, and then back to her pussy. I stayed there and focused on pleasuring her before I lost control of my cock. I smelled and tasted the welcome home sex we'd had immediately after work. It was the heavy smells and tastes of my cum and hers as well as the odors we'd both accumulated during the course of the day.

We'd made it into the house before undressing each other, which was an improvement over where we'd been in August and September. Absently I remembered there was a stain I'd have to wipe up on the living room floor.

Bailey wrapped a hand around the base of my cock as she sucked. I dropped my head back to my pillows and focused on control. Bailey's tongue swirled around my head and the sensitive skin underneath.

I looked at her body as she worked on me. The cleft of her pussy crowned by her clit. Her small ass spread and silhouetted against the ceiling. I smelled us. I tasted her on my lips. I moved the thumb of my right hand and pressed it against her tight, puckered asshole. She purred around my cock as I applied pressure I knew she liked. No penetration, just small circles like I'd used on the video game controller that now gathered dust in my living room.

"Oh god, Bay," I gasped.

She pulled away long enough to ask "Feel good?"

Her hand slid away from the base of my cock and, a moment later, both her hands were pulling my legs wider. Then, with one hand teasing my balls, she slid the index finger of the other hand up and down the crack of my ass. "Oh god," I gasped. Her finger mirrored the pressure I applied with my thumb. It wasn't the first time she'd played with my ass, but it felt fantastic.

My abs tightened and I stopped breathing. Bailey recognized the signs and pulled her face back. She abandoned my balls and stroked my spit-lubricated shaft. "God, that is a perfect cock," she said. "Just looks so perfect."

"I'm going to cum," I gasped.

"I know," she cooed.

She stroked one full up-and-down and I gave in. With a big gasping sigh I allowed myself to climax. My face was flushed and I was hot as I ejaculated. Bailey gasped, giggled, and pressed her pussy and ass down on my face. My first jet had some carry, but after that I was reduced to bubbling and oozing over Bailey's hand.

After a long moment, Bailey stopped teasing my ass and climbed off of me. She slipped over the edge of the bed and looked down at me. My cum hung from her eyebrow and down over her nose. The electric blue eyes that had pulled me in months before were full of laughter. "Goddamn, Seth."

"Sorry, I tried to warn you."

"No," she said. She shook her head slightly. The tendril of sticky cum wobbled off her nose. She caught it in her sticky hand. "I wanted it. I love it." She teased her tongue over her slimy fingers and smiled. "Tastes good."

I hauled myself off the bed and pressed against her. My cock, still sticky and oozing, slid into the small of her back. She leaned her head back and looked up at me. I kissed her on the lips and our messy, smelly faces pressed together. When I broke away I looked down at her. "Our freaky really does match."

Together and handsy, we made our way to the master bath. Bailey sat on the toilet while I cranked the shower on. Bent over, I stiffened when she slid her finger in my ass again. "Such a nice ass," Bailey said.

I pulled away and stepped into the shower. I looked back at her as she peed. Her legs were together and I didn't see, but the look of relief and relaxation on her face told the tale. We had reached a level of comfort with each other and our bodies far faster than I had in any other relationship.

I pulled the curtain, grabbed my soap, and was just sudsing up when there was sharp, echoing honk in the bathroom. A moment later, Bailey laughed in high, embarrassed peels.

"That was supposed to be sneaky and quiet," she said as she gasped for air. "I thought it would be silent."

"That toilet has a fart loudener built in," I said.

Beyond the curtain the toilet flushed. Bailey pulled the curtain back and stepped into the shower. "Move, don't hog the hot water."

"You could wait," I suggested.

"Nah, I'm all covered in cum."

She pressed her ass against me. "Don't aim that at me," I said. "It's loaded."

"Just that one, I'm good now," she said.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Sure."

I lathered my hands with her shampoo and began to work it into her thick, black hair. She'd let it grow in the months we'd been dating and the chic, summery cut was becoming a more autumnal and layered look. As I massaged, she leaned her head back and smiled at me. "Do you practice this on yourself?"

My hair was long for a man and Bailey liked to run her fingers through it. "Sure. Nightly."

"Hmmm, I'm sure."

"I'm going to assume you're staying here tonight?" I said.

"Mmmhmm. I'm in the office all week." Her job as a civil engineer with the state often took her to remote patches of highway or state roads across the wide open ranges of the state.

Earlier in the month, she'd spent three nights out state sleeping in a crappy roadside motel. I'd taken a day off to visit her. Our loud and passionate reunion in the crappy motel had earned us thumps on the wall from the neighbors and threats of a ban from the property from the aging proprietress of the motel at checkout. "Actually, road work season is kind of winding down. I'll be in office a lot more through the winter."

"Sounds good," I said. Then, "When does your lease expire?"

She turned and looked up at me. There was a crease in her brow I didn't see often. "Why?"

I smiled. "You know why. I really want your apartment. I want to get it before someone else does. The view of the apartments on Gnome Home street from your tiny balcony is the view men like me dream of."

She didn't answer.

"You're here all the time, anyways. Write your savings account a fifteen hundred dollar check every month. Live with me."

She smiled and the furrow vanished. "I will," she said. "But I'm in the lease until January first."

"Alright," I said. "Then get out of my house. Go back to your place until your lease expires." I gave her little wet ass a playful smack.

She shook her head and grabbed my limp cock. "I'll think of some way to earn my keep."

I smiled and kissed her. "Not tonight. I'm done."

"Good," she said. "I'm getting tired."

We showered and dried ourselves. We took turns at the vanity to go through our nightly routines.

Later, naked and close under my covers, Bailey took my hand in hers. There were no words as we both drifted to sleep.

The following weekend, over a lazy breakfast in my kitchen, Bailey looked at me with a curious expression. The morning was cool and, for the first time, we had both dressed after a slow, intimate round of morning delight. I was wearing a gray, tight fitting t-shirt and sweatpants. She was wrapped in a bathrobe and had her hair up. Even without makeup she caused my breath to catch.

"Who was in here before?"

I was confused. "In here?"

"I mean who did you live with before?"

I nodded slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"You never talk about it. Way back when, I think it was our first date, you said you hadn't been on many first dates. I assume you were in a long relationship. I'm curious about it."

I sighed and set my bowl aside. The cereal was still crispy but I was no longer hungry. "How much did Shelly tell you? Eric?" My best friend Eric had set us up. His wife, Shelly, took fitness classes led by Bailey.

She shook her head. "Nothing. Not a word. Just that you were single and they thought we'd be a good match." She looked around. "It doesn't look like there has been a woman's touch in here in a while. Don't get me wrong, you keep a nice house, but it feels like a bachelor pad. Video games, big TV, workout stuff in the garage, landscape photography prints on the walls. Nothing feminine."

"I bought this house when I was single," I said. "Decorated it from the ground up."

She nodded. "So you were single for a while?"

I nodded but didn't meet her eyes. "Remember I told you about Mike, my neighbor in the bachelor community?"

"The guy who went to prison, yeah."

"I moved out of the place because I had fallen in love. Not with Mike, don't worry." She smiled but let me continue. "I started dating a woman named Jessica. We clicked fast. Kind of like you and me, honestly. Just good chemistry from the word go.

"We were both young and moving along well in our careers. She was a psychiatrist at the children's hospital downtown. Worked with kids a lot. Eating disorders, antisocial behaviors, trauma and stress. She was very good at her job."

I stood and took my bowl to the sink. I used the grumble of the garbage disposal to buy a few moments to think. When it was finished, I stayed standing and leaned on the counter as I talked.

"We were married after the doctors confirmed her tumors were spreading and weren't operable. For a while, it looked like a hysterectomy could work. Cut them out and stop them from metastasizing. But before the surgery they did some more scans. They found colonies of tumors elsewhere. Her liver, her bowel, and her pancreas.

"She was a doctor. She'd done rotations in hospitals. They gave it to her straight and she knew what it all meant. So, she said fuck it and decided against surgeries and chemo and radiation. She knew they would buy time, but not much in the face of the pain of the treatments. She kept working with kids. She focused on our relationship and the other people important in her life.

"We got married in the fall. September 30th. The leaves were perfectly golden, the sun was warm and wonderful. She looked like a goddess in her dress. She'd lost a lot of weight but somehow her skin was glowing and firm that day. She was able to walk down the short, grassy aisle. It wasn't much, six or seven feet, but she and her father sobbed every inch. We all did. Her parents and sister were there. My parents were there. And my brother officiated. Eight people at her family's small farm in New Hampshire."

Bailey was listening with rapt attention. There was a tear hanging in the corner of her left eye. Behind it, the blue of her iris was sharp.

"Less than a month later, she died. It was at the home we had bought on the other side of town. Three days on in-home hospice. No long hospital stays, no care homes, nothing expensive.

"Our family came together again. Her parents and mine. We spent days sifting through that house. Her parents took some things. My parents took some. I have a very few treasures that I keep, but not much. I couldn't. Not then and not yet. I know a lot more of our accumulated stuff is safe at my parents' house if I ever want it back.

"She died two years ago. I've been single since. I wasn't interested in dating. Figured I'd live alone for the rest of my life and I was ok with that. I have good friends in town. I make good money and figure I can retire early. I have hobbies that keep me busy. I had this loose, nebulous plan that when I have enough in the bank I'll just light out for parts unknown. Mexico or Namibia or Finland. I don't really know. Or care.

"I bought this house so I wouldn't go back to one of those bachelor pad neighborhoods. I couldn't do that. I used some of the money she had saved up in the years before she got sick. She was smart and knew how to work the hospital system. She used connections in the hospital. She worked there and knew the charity process. Friends and colleagues waived fees or worked pro bono. She didn't die in debt, which was a blessing to me. I figured I should make this place mine. My bikes, my video games. A post-bachelor pad." I sighed. "But..."

Bailey sniffed and wiped at her eye. "But?"

I smiled to myself. "But Eric told me about a really great woman he knew. He said she was single but wouldn't be for long. He said she was stunning and fun and smart." I met her eyes and held them. "That was what convinced me. The smart part. I like smart women. Jess was miles ahead of me in the smarts department."

I felt myself turn inward. Memories of laughter and smiles and dates from years before flitted through my mind. For a long moment, I couldn't see Bailey or the kitchen around me.

"Seth?" Her voice, soft and kind, snapped me back.

"Yeah." I shook my head like I was waking up. "Yeah. I'm here."

"I didn't know," she said. "I'm sorry for asking." Her voice was very small.

"No, don't be. There is nothing to be sorry for. I have the pain in me, that's not going to go away or flare up because I talk about it. It's always there." I stepped away from the counter. "But, I have a new happiness."

She almost jumped from her chair and wrapped herself around me. Her arms were tight around my ribs and her face pressed hard into my chest. I felt warm wetness soaking through my shirt. I hugged her close.

"Thank you for telling me," she whispered. "I'm sorry I asked and stirred it up, but I'm glad you trusted me."

I kissed the top of her head and held her for a long time.

By mid-October, the leaves were a riot of color. They swirled along streets and collected in yards. Pedestrians wore coats on morning and evening walks. The days were warm and fine and the nights were crisp.

On a Friday evening, I was in my living room with a video game installing when there was a knock on our door. I almost ignored the knock, sure it was a salesman or delivery driver. When a second rap came, I stood and walked to the window. I peeked, recognized the man on the other side and opened the door.

"Todd," I said.

He was short and very thin. He was wearing sunglasses but had no hat to cover his bald scalp. A distance runner, I knew, Todd lived two doors down the street. We'd passed each other often when I was starting a bike ride and he was finishing a steamy run before the sun rose.

"Seth," he said. "Was wondering if you have plans tonight."

I shrugged. "Not really. What's up?"

"Three things, actually. I was wondering if I could enlist your help in a home project. Shouldn't take long. I just need you to brace a ladder for me. I need to pull leaves out of my gutter and I don't want to fall. I'm not too stable on the ladder."

"Sure," I said. "Happy to help. Let me get my shoes."

A moment later I was on the small front porch with Todd stepping down ahead of me. "So that's thing one," he said. "Thing two involves your girlfriend, too."

"Bailey?"

"Yeah, I don't know if I knew her name. I don't think we've ever actually met."

"Sorry about that, I'll bring her around."

He nodded as we walked down my driveway. "Well, that was the thing. I was wondering if you guys want to come down to our place tonight. Did you hear the tree crew here this week?"

I shook my head. "I was at the office late and Bailey leads fitness classes on Tuesday and Thursday."

"Well, they were here. Took down that big dead tree in my backyard. I was worried about it. Every storm that rolled through this summer I thought it would come down on my head. So, anyways, I have a bunch of wood and I was thinking about a bonfire tonight. We have a new fire pit that we've never used. We just bought it over the summer. Thought you guys might want to come down, too."

"That's nice, Todd. I appreciate that. I think I'll take you up on it."

"And Bailey?"

"She's out, at the moment, but I'm sure she'd be game, too. I can call her, have her pick up some beer?"

He smiled and shook his head. "So that's thing number three. I have a batch of a home brew in my basement. It's pretty good, if I say so myself. It's a hobby that Maud got me started on at Christmas."

"Fantastic," I said. "Yeah, that sounds like a nice evening."

We passed the house that separated our properties. The Carpenters, an older couple that were newly retired, had already made their annual migration to warmer climes in Arizona. Their house was dark and winterized.

For fifteen minutes I stood at the bottom of the ladder with my foot on the lowest rung and my hands adding stabilization while Todd cleared mucky leaves from the gutters. He kept a running commentary about running, races, and his long-term goals.

"What about you?" he asked as he slung gunk into the yard. I didn't look up.

"Nothing on the schedule," I said. "About to put the bike up for the winter. Probably around Thanksgiving. Give or take, depending on snow. Then it's the long winter indoors. Gym, pool, treadmill, stationary bike."

"Yeah, that sucks. The winters here, man." He shook his hand clean. "I'm heading down. Thanks for the help." When he reached the ground he sighed heavily. "Ironcially, I hate heights, but Maud, well. I'd shake your hand, but..."

"Yeah. When should we come down?"

He looked at the sun and then at his watch. "How about seven? Seven thirty?"

"Sounds good. We'll figure out something to bring. Maybe I'll see if Bailey will make her pumpkin soup. It's wonderful and would be great on a chilly night."

"Sounds great," Todd said. "And again, thank you. I'd probably be in the ER without your help."

I walked back up the sidewalk towards my house. Bailey's car was nose-in in the driveway. I hadn't heard her on the street.

I opened the front door and walked in. "Bay?"

"Kitchen," she said.

"Making dinner already?" I walked around the small dining room and into the kitchen. I stopped cold. "Wow."

Bailey wasn't cooking anything. She was naked and bent at the waist. I had a clear view between her spread cheeks and spread legs. She looked like she was stretching. Her hands were both on her left leg and she was leaning that way. She looked at me upside down.

"What's happening?" I asked.

She switched sides and stretched to the right. The view didn't change much.

"Getting limber," she said.

"Are we going to be doing gymnastics?"

She stood tall and turned. She smiled. "Hello to you too, my dear." She stepped close to me and rose to her tiptoes. I bent and kissed her on the lips. When the kiss broke she smiled. "I was reading a blog about sex positions today. I was out on the prairie waiting for a crew to finish a culvert and they took way too long so I had a lot of downtime. I saw one that I think looks like a lot of fun. So, I'm loosening up after hours in the car."

"Todd down the street invited us to a bonfire," I said. "I may have committed us. I was helping him with his gutters and he said he has a home brew to try."

Bailey blew a raspberry. "Poop. I was thinking this could be fun."

"Will it take long?"

"That's a sexy question." She was pouting just a little. She made to step around me. As she passed I swung my hand and spanked her on the butt. It wasn't hard, but it was enough to get a good, echoing smack.

I pulled my lounging clothes off as I followed her into the bedroom. The new video game would wait.

When I was undressed she turned and looked at me. She smiled at my cock for the thousandth time. I never tired of seeing her naked and, it seemed, the feeling was mutual. "Aw," she said. "Already perking up. Good to see." She continued into the master bath. "I have a few things I need to get." I flopped on the bed and watched her as she moved around the bathroom. She pulled a sex toy and lube out of the bottom drawer of our shared vanity.

"Oh, that kind of position," I said.

She looked my way and winked. "You'll see." By the time she walked back into the bedroom, I was fully erect and on my back.

"So you'll need to stand up," she said.

"I do?" I moaned and groaned as I pushed off the bed. "What does this entail if you have to be limber and I have to be standing?"

Bailey smiled and laid down on the floor beside the bed.

"What?" I asked as she inched and rolled on the floor. "What the heck are you doing?"

She climbed her legs up the side of the bed and then arched her back to lift her butt, too. Finally, with her legs in the air and her weight on her shoulders, she looked up at me. I tried not to laugh. "You look ridiculous," I said.

"It was supposed to feel good," she said. "Novel."

"Probably written by AI to troll the stupid humans."

She spread her legs. They looked like the rotors on a helicopter. "So you are supposed to come over here and, uh, fuck me. I'll move my legs so they're kind of like a seat for you. Then I can play with this in your ass."

I saw her red face and contorted shape and lost control. I laughed so hard I got dizzy. I sat down on the floor beside her as she untwisted herself. "What? It could work."

"You're like five feet nothing. You weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I'd crush you if we tried that. Your legs would snap off under me." I laid down and kissed her as the pout returned. "But," I said. I traced my fingers down her toned and flat stomach. As it passed her navel the pout vanished.

With a finger on either side of her clit, I made short come-hither movements that sent her eyes rolling back. She opened her mouth, exhaled heavily, and smiled at me. "This is probably better."

I didn't stop as I moved so my knees were under me. My cock protruded in her direction, but she was too focused on her own pleasure. I spun her on the floor so that I was kneeling between her spread legs. "How about something old fashioned and reliable?"

She opened her legs wider. "That's just fine."

I bent and kissed the insides of her thighs. Back and forth from one leg to the other as I descended. Then, bypassing her pussy, I kissed up her belly. When I reached her small breasts and her perfect, erect nipples I lifted her hips.

My cock slipped into her easily just as I used my tongue to trace slow, wet circles around her left nipple. "Mmmmmm," Bailey moaned. "This is so good." I rested her weight on my lap and made tiny thrusts. I used my thumb to apply pressure to her clit.

"Oh god, Seth. That is really, really hitting my spot. Like right there." She threw her arms wide on the floor to steady herself. I pulled back from her nipples and watched her. Her face was humorless now, she was focused on the pleasure. I watched her brow knit and relax. Spasms jumped in her cheeks. "Holy shit!"

I continued the small thrusts and kept the pressure steady on her clit. In the late evening light I saw a blush rising in her cheeks and across her chest. Her mouth was opening and closing like she was speaking, but no words came out. The muscles of her core popped with each breath. "Oh shit, holy fuck, Seth!" Her legs were trembling on either side of my waist.

I focused on my thrusts and her body. Her hands returned to her face. They covered her eyes as she half screamed, half moaned. Every muscle I could see was tense. They stood out as she gasped. Her mouth was open wide as she screamed and sucked for air.

"Oh my god!" The last word stretched on as she did a full sit up and was, suddenly, on my lap. Her face was close to mine. Her fingers were in my hair. She was panting and trembling.

Slowly she kissed my neck and slid herself off of me. I kneeled on the floor with my cock jutting upwards. It was slick with Bailey's cum. She half stood and flopped face down onto the bed. "Holy moly, Seth." She was still drawing big breaths as she tried to steady her heart.

I pushed up from the ground, winced as my knees straightened, and stood over her. I stroked myself as I looked down at her. She was sweaty; her hair was wild and she had a blotchy flush over her shoulders and down her back.

I bent into a semi-squat and slid my cock between the cheeks of her ass. Bailey giggled and lifted her hips slightly.

"No," I said. "Other way. Down." With the cleavage I could manage from her small, taut cheeks, I found a fast and pleasurable rhythm.

"Now I know how a hotdog bun feels," Bailey said. "Makes me think about baseball, warm beer, and peanuts."

"Shut up," I said. "I'm trying to focus." I continued to press.

Bailey started to laugh. "I'm sorry," she mumbled into the mattress. But she couldn't stop. "It tickles, too. I'm sorry."

After another moment of trying, I gave up. I pulled my cock from between her cheeks and fell on the bed beside her. She propped her head on her arm and looked at me. "I'm sorry, babe. If it helps, that was a really, really good fuck. Like," she looked up as she considered, "maybe the best I have ever had."

"Shut up," I said.

She met my eye and shook her head. "No, I'm serious. I am struggling to remember a better, more complete orgasm. I can't. Certainly not one with a man."

"So with a woman?" She had hinted at a relationship with a woman before but remained mum.

"No," she said with exaggerated patience. "I mean without a vibrator, a showerhead, or my own two fingers. Even then, I think this was the winner."

"Best orgasm ever?" I didn't believe her.

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Yeah. Maybe." With her free hand, Bailey reached for my wilted, sticky cock. She gripped it at the base and flopped it back and forth. "Not coming back?"

"I don't think so. Not anytime soon."

"Sorry," she said again.

I looked at the clock. "I told Todd we'd be down around seven. I may have also suggested you would make your pumpkin soup."

"Ugh, Seth. I was hoping I'd have time to shower."

"It doesn't take that long, right?"

She stood and pulled her robe from a hook on the bathroom door. She wrapped it around herself. "No, I have time. I have everything I need for the soup, but I need you to go to the store. Get a couple of baguettes and some cheese. Gruyere or maybe Havarti or a mild cheddar. I don't know. You choose."

I stood and looked for my clothes.

At ten after seven we left the house. Bailey was wearing skin tight jeans and one of my old flannel shirts. The shirt looked like a dress on her small frame. She carried her soup in a large ceramic bowl she found in my lower cupboards. I didn't know I had it and was glad we didn't have to serve out of the dented pot that lived on my stove.

She was irked that I hadn't led with the soup commitment, but I could tell from the way she moved that the endorphins, dopamine, and oxytocin flooded through her system were working in my favor.

Todd met us out front. He and Bailey had crossed paths briefly and exchanged pleasant greetings. "We're out back," Todd said. "New fire pit. New chairs. You're helping us break it in."

We rounded the house. As we passed through the gate into the backyard, Bailey noticed the long, chest high stack of firewood. "Wow," she said. "Not burning all that tonight, right?"

Todd laughed. "No, this should last a few years. I had the guys split it and stack it while they were here. They had a machine and made quick work. I paid them each a hundred extra for the time. And bought pizza and subs."

"Well, be careful when you're working around there," Bailey said. "There are rattlesnakes in the area and that looks like prime snake territory."

"Rattlesnakes, huh?" Todd said. He paused to look at the woodpile.

"Prairie rattlers, timber rattlers, and diamondbacks. I've seen them all much closer than you'd think."

"How? Are you a herpetologist or something?"

We rounded into the backyard proper. Maud smiled and waved from a chair. Where Todd was skinny, Maud was plump. She had a friendly, round face with dimples and smile lines. "I'd stand up, but this blanket is too perfect," she said.

"Maud, this is Bailey," Todd said. "And you know Seth."

"I do. Bailey, good to meet you. Welcome."

"I have soup," Bailey said. She hefted the bowl. "Creamed pumpkin. And Seth has bread and cheese. I figured we could toast the bread over the fire and get some really good melty cheese on them."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful," Maud said. "Maybe I'll have to stand up after all." She folded her blanket back and stood to take the bowl from Bailey. "Warm," she said. "What was that I heard you talking about? Rattlesnakes?"

"Yeah," Bailey said. She sat on the edge of one of the other chairs. The fire was already going and the bigger logs in the middle were throwing off a lot of heat. Bailey held her hands towards the flames. "I work with road crews a lot. Highway repair and whatnot. We see rattlesnakes all through the summer. Well into the fall, too.

"In fact, I was bitten by a rattlesnake once. In Texas during grad school."

"No shit?" I said.

She shook her head and smiled. "No shit. It was a dry bite, I was lucky. No venom. But it was a snake bite."

"Sounds like you'll have to look for scars later, Seth," Maud said. She was at a table on the small deck behind their house. "This smells so good, Bailey."

"It is canned pumpkin. I didn't have time to use a real one because someone didn't let me know I was bringing it." She shot me a look.

"Well, whatever kind of pumpkin, it smells delicious."

"It's my mother's recipe," Bailey said. "When we were kids she'd make it and we'd hollow out big bread bowls and eat it like that. Messy and fun. We have bread. Fresh baked today, which isn't ideal but I didn't tell Seth that when I sent him out. Older bread holds the soup better. But this should work."

"Sounds like a plan," Todd said.

I was still on rattlesnakes. "You got bitten by a rattlesnake? How is this the first I'm hearing about it?"

"Well, it was, uh, eleven years ago, for one. Two, there was no venom. And three, like Maud said, you just haven't found the scars yet."

Maud looked up from cutting the bread. "You said Texas for school? Whereabouts in Texas?"

"Austin," Bailey said.

"Well, I'm from Waco."

"Huh," Bailey said. "Small world. I was just west of Waco when I met that diamondback. Checking a repaired culvert over a small, seasonal creek. I put my hand down on a rock while I was climbing into the dry creek and bam! No warning rattle. Had no idea the snake was there. One minute I was fine, the next I was bleeding and screaming."

"Oh my," Maud said. "That's awful."

"Scared the heck out of my advisor. He was doing a site visit and was white as a sheet. We didn't wait for an ambulance. He threw me in his truck and we went about a hundred and twenty on the way to Waco and the hospital."

"So I need to look at your hand," I said.

"Yeah," Todd said. "And I need to keep an eye on that woodpile."

We all ate in relative silence. Todd's brew, a hearty, spicy amber ale paired well with the pumpkin trenchers. Maud had skewers and we cooked brats over the flames.

By the time Todd had to add more logs we were all well fed and more than a little buzzed.

"Do y'all have plans for Halloween?" Maud asked. She had her feet up on the lip of the fire pit and her hands on her stomach.

"Well," Bailey said. "A sort-of friend sent me an invitation to their party. We might go."

"We should go," I said.

"The invitation says costumes should be sexy, adult, and fun. I have no idea what that really means," Bailey said. "Stick in the mud over there vetoed all my ideas."

I coughed as I choked on a sip of beer. "Did you tell them your 'ideas'?"

She laughed. "Well, I thought I'd do a sexy little lingerie outfit and a red riding hood. Get him to put on some wolf ears and be the Big Bad Wolf." I smiled.

"That would be something," Maud said. "But where is the sexy for him?"

"Well," Bailey said. "I was going to have him wear just the wolf ears."

Todd's eyes widened as he sat down. "That would fit the bill."

"I was actually texting with Manuela," Bailey said. She looked at me and then at Maud and Todd. "She's my friend and will be hosting. She said there will be awards for costumes. Three categories."

"Scary, sexy, funny?" I asked.

Bailey shook her head. "No. 'Most Likely to Get Arrested,' 'Best Use of Strategically Placed Accessories,' and 'Costume That Leaves the Least to the Imagination.'"

"That sounds like my kind of party," Todd said.

"Oh please," Maud said with a groan. "You're still embarrassed to be naked around me."

Bailey took a long drink before looking at me. "Seth is the expert on sexy Halloween parties. He went to the Trick or Tease Ball."

Todd made a surprised moue with his lips. "Ohh, that's the one at the old Heartland Hotel? The one they turned into a nightclub? The hotel's upper floors are a haunted house tour?"

"It is," Bailey said.

"Is it the one where people wear really skimpy costumes and get really trashed?" Maud leaned forward with a look of aroused curiosity on her face. "I've heard about it."

"They say it can get raunchy," Bailey said. "I've never been." She looked at me. "Seth?"

I sighed. "I was there once before. Way back. The company had tickets and gave them to me as a kind of tip. Or reward. I don't know what to call it. Incentive? The boss gave me the tickets. I'll say it that way.

"I took a colleague. A guy, before you get the wrong idea. We were both single and went thinking it would be a fun place to pick up women. It was, hmmm, an experience, to say the least."

"I want all the details," Maud said.

I smiled and took a long sip of my third glass of beer. "Well, there were a lot of women there. A lot of them. Nick, my colleague, did very well. He ended up going home with roommates. He said they had a big king sized bed and he fit perfectly in the middle.

"I had a different experience. Going in, Nick had some LSD and we both took a hit. He enjoyed it and went home with sexy college girls. I went to a very different, very dark place. Not a bad trip, necessarily, but a bad night. Everyone I saw was a vampire looking for my blood. The haunted house tour was terrible.

"By the time I came down, I was done. I left alone and without my pants. The taxi driver said I wasn't the first guy he'd seen leave without his pants."

"So the moral is don't do drugs?" Todd said.

"Not before going to a haunted house, anyway," I said.

"I don't have any LSD," Maud said. "But I do have some weed if you're interested. Just a few joints, but it was pretty good."

"So you're the ones I smell every once in a while," I said. "I wondered where it came from. I assumed it was that teenager over there." I pointed in the direction of another neighboring house.

"Nah, it's me," Maud said. "Todd doesn't do it because he says it affects his runs and could affect his job."

"You?" Bailey asked. She sounded a little surprised.

"I like it. Edibles, too. I go over state lines to get them."

"Just alcohol for me tonight," I said.

"Yeah, and I've already had too much of that," Bailey agreed. Then, after a moment, she leaned forward. She planted her arms on her legs and looked across the fire at Todd and Maud. "So I have a question."

"Bailey," I said. I recognized her tone.

She ignored my warning. "Back during the summer, when the power was out."

"Bailey," I said again.

"We were out on the back porch and we heard another couple, uh, fucking."

Maud snorted into her cup as she tried to take a drink. She set it aside and coughed. "It's in my nose." She blinked hard and coughed. "Ugh."

Bailey smiled. "Was that you guys?"

"Well, was the really loud couple you two?" Todd asked.

"Probably," Bailey said. "We were loud. That was our first time together. We really got into it." She patted me on the arm. "He may not look like it, but Seth is really good with his tongue."

"God, Bailey."

Maud recovered a bit. "So if that was you, it was your fault you heard us. We were laying in bed and it was really hot and humid. So we didn't have a lot on. Then we heard you and, well, things escalated for us."

"Well," Bailey said. "You sounded good."

Maud looked at Todd with a satisfied and smug expression. "See, told you we could keep up."

Todd, embarrassed and not drunk enough, looked at me. "So you're going to this party. What are your costumes?"

I looked at Bailey. "Yeah, Bay, what are our costumes? So far you have what? The slutty red riding hood? Or maybe the simple one, just a neck tie and nothing else?"

"Vavoom," Maud said. "Winner."

Bailey laughed. "Funny you bring it up. I actually had a really good idea today."

I raised my eyebrows. "Do share with the group."

"Well, you go without pants..."

"Veto," I said.

"But you left without pants from the Trick or Tease Ball. We're just going to start this party where you ended the last one. Find the same taxi. Get you some more LSD. It'll be fine."

"I have an idea," Todd said. "If you're interested."

We all looked his way. "I don't know if-- Do you guys know what I do for a living?"

I searched my memory and came up blank. I looked at Bailey. She shook her head.

"No," I said. "I don't know that it's ever come up."

"I'm a pilot," he said. "Private commercial jets. Business execs whose companies don't have their own fleet. They rent us by the flight."

"Very cool," Bailey said. She looked at Maud. "Mile high club, huh?"

Todd laughed. "That is actually exactly what I had in mind."

"Elaborate," I said. It was a promising idea.

"Well, just yesterday our attendant had this older guy hit on her and suggest a mile high club type experience. Of course she said no and, quietly, we've blacklisted him from our service. But there are a lot of people who think that kind of thing is sexy in an airplane." He paused. "Actually, you know what... Stay here."

He stood and walked towards his house. I saw a bit of a sway in his gait. I hadn't counted how many times he refilled his own cup.

With Todd gone, Maud steered the conversation back to the steamy summer nights. "So that was you we heard?" She addressed Bailey with a girl-to-girl conspirators tone. "I still think about that night."

"It was our first night together," Bailey said. "And by the time the sun rose I knew I was committed. Not just because of the physical stuff, but because he swept me off my feet."

"Uhhh," Maud made a moan of envy. "Todd is wonderful. But he's not the sweeping type."

"Neither am I," I said.

They ignored me and Maud continued "He provides well, he is supportive, and he is very kind. But he doesn't do feet sweeping. When he proposed he was very direct. He said that our goals aligned. We were a good physical match. Our career aspirations were compatible. He did mention love, but it wasn't the first word out of his mouth."

I heard Todd coming through the house. He emerged from the back door and stumbled on the back steps. "Shit," he muttered. "Alright, I found it. Seth, your costume!"

He held up a shapeless blob of plastic. In the firelight it meant nothing.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Ah-ha, just you wait." He searched the plastic for a moment, found what he sought, and put it to his mouth. We all watched as he blew. And blew. And blew.

Slowly, the plastic filled with air. In time, it began to take shape.

"Is that a pool floatie?" Bailey asked.

Todd, winded, nodded in reply. "Yeah," he gasped. "An airplane."

Another few puffs and I saw it, too.

"You can stop, Todd. Don't pass out."

He pulled the semi-inflated float away from his face and almost swooned. "Shit." He grabbed the back of his chair and sank into it. "Dizzy. What's the point of an excellent VO2 max if I can't blow up a damn pool toy."

I took the plastic toy and looked at it. It was an airplane shaped raft. Or boat. There had once been a plastic bottom where a child could sit and float around a pool. Todd had cut that thin plastic out and was left with something like a belt. I stood and stepped into the airplane. I pulled it up.

"That could work," Bailey said. "Blue suit coat. Hat. I could dress up like a sexy stewardess."

"Flight attendant," Todd said.

"That." I saw the plan coming together behind her eyes. "Todd, this is a good idea." She looked at the plane. "Seth, maybe you don't wear a shirt under it. Just a tie. We could write Mile High Club on your chest or something."

"No shirt?"

"You have nine days. Do a lot of pushups and situps. Ride another century tomorrow. You'll be fine."

"A hundred miles with this much beer in me would probably kill me. Either dehydration or residual blood alcohol."

"You'll be fine," she said again.

"I think he should try it on now, just to be sure," Maud said. She was the drunkest of us by a wide margin. Her tongue was loose.

Bailey's eyes lit up. "Yes!"

"No," I said. I made to hand the float back to Todd. Bailey grabbed it and found the nozzle. She blew into it. Her eyes were just a little wicked in the fire light.

"C'mon," she said when she paused for air. "You're doing it."

"Over my clothes?"

She was too busy blowing into the plane to answer. Instead she just shrugged.

"Ohh," Maud said. She sat up. "I think we need it to be a good fit check."

"No," I said again. But Bailey gave me a wink that made me think she was going to get her way. "Shit," I muttered.

When the float was inflated, Bailey handed it to me. "This may work," she said. She was out of breath and sat down quickly. "Try it on."

"Todd, where's the bathroom?"

"Same place as your house," he said. "They're identical. We looked at yours when it was on the market. Different interior finishings, but the bones are the same."

I nodded and took the floatie towards the back door. Their deck was not enclosed like my screened in sunroom. In the backdoor I was surprised and a little unsettled. He was right. Everything was where it belonged, but nothing looked right. Their kitchen floor was linoleum where mine was hardwood. Their walls were papered, not painted. The colors were wrong, the furniture was wrong, and the overall feel was wrong.

But the guest bath was in the right spot. The black and white tiles threw me for a loop, but I persevered. I thought about the wink Bailey had given me. I unbuttoned my pants and pulled off my sweatshirt. I left my underwear on. Wink or no wink, I wasn't going out in just a pool floatie.

With the float around my waist and my clothes in my hand I walked back through the uncanny home. Outside I registered how cool the evening had become. I got the expected whoops and wolf whistles from Bailey and Maud. "Give us a twirl," Bailey called. I obliged.

"Wait," Maud said. "You still have your pants on." Her words were slurred. "Boo!"

"Maud," Todd hissed. "You'll wake up the whole neighborhood."

"Seth," Bailey cooed. "You forgot a layer."

"I am not going to this party without pants," I said. "I won't go if that is the alternative. I'll stay home and hand out candy."

"If you wear that thing you can hand it out here," Maud said.

"Maud!" Todd sounded a little offended.

"Well, look at him."

"This was a mistake," I said. "I should have said no." I pushed the floatie down and pulled my sweatshirt back on. As I stepped into my pants, Bailey stood.

"I didn't mean to embarrass you. Or offend you."

"I'm fine," I said. I wasn't, and my tone made that clear, but I wasn't looking for a fight. "Todd, may I borrow this?" I held up the plane.

"Sure, man. Be my guest."

"I like the idea. I do. I think I'll need to make sure the expectations are understood ahead of time." I looked at Bailey and she looked into the fire.

"Want another beer or are you headed out?" Todd asked. I could hear a hint of disappointment in his voice.

"I'll have another," I said. "But I'm not doing a century ride tomorrow."

We stayed until the quarter keg was dry. Todd lifted it and shook it before declaring it defeated.

"Good god," I moaned. "We didn't drink all that between us, right?" I was trying to dredge up pints and ounces from my college days.

"No," Todd said. "I took some to a buddy. His beer is in my fridge. He bottles it. I took mine in a couple of growlers. And the keg wasn't full, the batch didn't produce what my math said it should."

"So how much did we drink?" I asked.

"Between us?" He paused to belch. "I would guess thirty pints? Maybe?" He was standing and looked like he was struggling.

"I had six," Bailey said.

I was pretty sure I was at six or seven.

Maud put her hands on the arms of the chair and pushed herself up and out. She looked like she was going to overbalance and fall into the fire. Instead, she put her hands on her knees and vomited into the dying flames. "Christ on the Cross," she muttered when the heaves ended. "Ohmygod." She sat back on the edge of her chair. "Todd, love, can you get my cane?"

"How many have you had?" Todd asked. He turned away from the fire and reached for a cane leaning against the porch rail.

"I don't know for sure," Maud said. "The whole evening? Ten? Eleven, maybe."

"Oh honey, you'll feel this tomorrow," Bailey said. "We all will. We'll be miserable with you."

Maud took the cane and pushed herself up. Slowly, and with Todd's help, Maud staggered to the steps. "Good grief," she said. "I don't know if I'm going to make it."

"You'll make it. And if not, we'll get you cleaned up," Todd said.

"You're a good one, Todd." She kissed his bald head as he helped her up the steps and to the door. "I got it from here."

Todd held the door and turned back to us. "She was in a car wreck some years ago. Before I met her. In the aftermath she had a minor stroke. Caused some neurological damage that limits what her left leg can do. And, sometimes, she has some lingering incontinence issues."

"Can I help?" Bailey said.

Todd held a hand up. "No, we're very used to this. The incontinence isn't usually an issue but with all the alcohol, I don't know. Maybe. The bigger issue is that she is going to go in, pee, throw up again, and then want to jump my bones. She gets horny when she gets drunk." He sighed. "Usually I don't mind, but I'm really tired."

"Well," Bailey said. "Leave your windows open. Maybe it'll give Seth and me something to listen to."

"Thanks for a nice night," I said. I offered my hand and Todd made a grab but missed. He got it on the second try.

"Christ, I'm drunk," he said.

"We all are. And thanks for the costume idea." I held up the floatie. "I think it'll work."

"Let me know," Todd said. "And hey, if it doesn't work, you can come here. I'll drag the fire pit around front and we can hand out candy to the kids. Drink beer together and eat too much sugar."

"Yeah?" The idea of a quiet night with new friends was more appealing to me.

"The offer stands. We'll be out here until at least nine."

Back home Bailey was insistent. "I want you in that floatie and nothing else." She smiled as she said it. "I demand to see it."

"Then go put on your sexy stewardess outfit," I said.

"I don't have one. Yet. I'll make one." I had forgotten she liked to sew. Many of her outfits featured at least one item she'd made by hand.

With my bluff called, I shook my head. In the middle of the living room I stripped off my clothes. Naked, I pulled the little floatie up and over my crotch. I raised my hands. "Happy."

"Yes," she said. "And so is anyone who was walking or driving by."

I turned, saw that the curtains were wide open, and dropped to my knees. I crawled towards the bedroom.

"You have no idea how good your butt looks right now," Bailey said as she followed me. "Actually, stop, Seth."

On the runner near the bedroom I stopped. She crouched behind me and put her hands on my ass. "It looks really good, even with this stupid thing on."

"So how about I take it off and you put it on. Crawl around like I am."

Bailey was quiet for a moment. I jumped when something cold and wet slid between my ass cheeks.

"Oh relax," she said. "I know you've done more than this." I forced myself to relax against the pressure of her finger. "I've never done it, though, so tell me what I should be doing."

"That's fine," I said. Then "You've never fingered a man?"

"Or a woman."

"Never yourself?"

"Never. With the exception of the tip of your tongue, I have never had anything around my ass." She pressed her finger deeper. I was rock hard and we both knew it. "No, that isn't exactly right. There was a thermometer when I was kid. I remember the doctor insisting it was the only accurate way. My parents didn't take me back there."

"Ew," I said.

"Yeah, ew is right." She pulled her finger from my ass. "Speaking of ew."

"There is usually some prep that goes into that." I stood as she stepped past me and into the bathroom. I wiggled out of the airplane and tossed it into the bedroom. Bailey was washing her hands as I cranked the shower on.

"Don't you want to take care of that?" I saw her looking at my cock in the mirror. "I owe you from earlier."

I shook my head. "Not tonight. I just want to wash the smoke off and go to bed. Rain check?"

She smiled. "Of course."

I showered alone. It was the first time I had showered alone while Bailey was awake in my house. There had been mornings, after a ride, when she was still asleep. But never while she was awake.

Instead, she sat on the toilet. "Probably a good idea," she said.

"What's that?"

"Not to fool around."

"Not feeling great?"

She didn't answer.

"Bailey? You ok?"

I got an answer in the form of heaves and a thick splash. I looked out around the shower curtain. Bailey was on her knees in front of the toilet. She had taken off her shirt and was using one hand to hold her hair back. I watched her vomit again. "Can't watch that," I said. "Or I'll be joining you."

"Just finish up and get out," Bailey moaned. "I'm not sure it isn't coming out both ends soon."

I took her advice and finished my shower fast. I took my towel and ran.

In the bedroom I dried off while trying not to hear the sounds of Bailey barfing. I was drunk but not that far gone. When I was dry, I flopped onto the bed and pulled the sheet over myself. In the bathroom I heard the toilet flush and the shower turn on. I figured that was a good sign.

I was too tired to keep my eyes open and wait for Bailey. I heard no more retching as I drifted to sleep.

The next morning I was up before her. She lay face down on my bed. There was an empty trash can beside her. Another good sign. I pulled the covers up over her bare back and went to the kitchen.

The morning was cold and foggy. Thick gray swirls hung at every window. I closed all the curtains that we'd left open the night before. At the kitchen sink I filled a bottle with water and drank it down in one. Then I refilled it and carried it to the couch.

I ran through the morning sports and news summaries. Nothing caught my eye. College ball was still an hour away and the baseball season was over. There was no major news to report so the morning broadcast was focused on the weather shift coming. The fog would linger, they said. Followed by the season's first temperature crash. Overnight lows tonight were predicted in the teens.

When I was caught up on world events, I turned on my as-yet-unplayed video game and settled in with my feet on the coffee table. It was a single player game and I enjoyed the immersion and steep learning curve.

I was almost two hours in when I heard the bedroom door open. Naturally, my protagonist had just taken a female character to bed and there was no way to skip the animation.

Bailey leaned, bleary eyed, and watched the digital characters bump and grind. "Porn game?"

"No, sword and sorcery. You just came in at a bad time."

"Looks like a good time," she said. "Coffee?"

"Didn't make any yet."

"Good. I want it hot and black."

"Isn't that how you like your Hungarian basketball players?" I asked. It was a jab about an ex boyfriend.

She flipped me a middle finger as she walked to the kitchen. "You want some?"

"I do," I said. When the sex cutscene ended I paused the game and joined her. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I never want to drink again."

"Been there," I said.

"You aren't hungover?"

"I don't feel great," I said. I held up the water bottle. "This is my third." I drank the last of it and refilled again. "Best hangover cure is hydration. I have electrolyte powders in the cabinet if you want some flavor."

Bailey bent over and put her head in her hands while the coffee dripped. "I think I'm going over to my place today. Want to come?"

"Sick of me?"

"I wouldn't have invited you if I was sick of you. I want to work on that costume idea. The stewardess idea."

"Flight attendant."

"Fuck off."

I smiled and took another drink from my bottle. "Yeah, I'll come. You have a TV, right?"

"Yes, I have a TV."

"Alright. There are some good games later."

"Sure," she said.

"Football, Bailey."

"I understand what you mean. I just don't care."

"No wonder you didn't last in Texas," I said. I returned to my game as she poured herself a cup of coffee and dug in my pantry for bread to toast.

The next Saturday, with my costume fitted and finished, we did a final fashion check. Bailey looked like a million bucks. She wore a tight, perfectly cut costume of navy blue fabric with gold trim and a matching little hat. Her skirt was short and showed off a lot of leg. The jacket was cut low in the font and teased skin above her gold buttons.

My uniform felt like it was finished by a tailor. The jacket was snug but flattering. The pants were tight and hugged my ass and balls. Bailey said that was intentional and looked good.

Satisfied with our outfits, I pulled the inflatable airplane floatie up around my waist and we looked at ourselves in the mirror. "That looks so dumb," Bailey said. She was smiling. "Are you taking it? Or do we just do pilot and stew--flight attendant?"

"I think we take it without air. If I need the prop, I blow it up. If not, I leave it in the car."

"Good thinking." She looked at me. She took a deep breath. "We doing this?"

I nodded. "I think we can. If it is weird or lame, we leave."

"And hand out candy with Maud and Todd?"

"If you want."

"Deal." We shook hands and laughed. Nervous and excited, we left the house in my car.

"Come in, come in. Welcome!" The man at the door shoved a hand into mine. "Name's Marty. Good to meet you." He looked up and down the street behind us. "Just you, Bailey?"

"There were some kids a few houses down," Bailey said.

"Oh, then hurry up. Get in. We're not doing candy this year." Marty was a fleshy man with thick black hair combed back from his round face. He was wearing an apron that made it look like his head and arms were on Michelango's David. His shoulders, arms, and legs were bare.

Outside, the house looked like an advertisement for the upper middle class. Large and tastefully designed, the house was deep on a large lot dominated by mature trees and manicured lawns. The driveway was a half-ring lined with high end sedans and SUVs.

Inside, the house smelled like booze, pizza, and weed. A thick haze hung around the overhead lights.

"I'm Seth," I said.

"Yeah, I've heard about Seth. Good to meet you."

"How do you know Bailey?" I asked. I hadn't heard a clear answer.

"Well," Marty said.

Bailey stifled a giggle.

Marty looked past me, saw Bailey's smile, and laughed himself. "Many moons ago, and many pounds ago," he patted his belly under the apron, "the missus and I met Bailey and her partner at the time at a retreat down outside of Sedona."

"Oh? I didn't know that," I said. "Why the coyness?"

Bailey laughed out loud and pushed away from me. Beyond, in the living room, the party was well underway. The punchbowl was largely empty, a trashcan overflowed with beer cans and paper plates, and the faces of many guests in the living room were turned our way.

Marty nodded slowly. "Well the resort was a sexual wellness retreat. Manny and I were there to see if we could salvage our marriage during a long dryspell in the bedroom. Turns out morning tantra and group sex therapy can open your mind to a lot of stuff."

"Sexual wellness resort?" I was truly surprised. "Really?"

"Arizona was perfect for it. Warm, dry air, cool shade, beautiful sunrises and sunsets. And the red rocks. The hiking. Hmm. Perfect."

Marty turned away from us and stepped further into his living room. From behind, it was clear that he was naked under the apron. I hesitated to follow. Bailey looked at me, rolled her eyes, and walked into the house. As she did, she pressed her fists to her waist and flapped her arms like a chicken.

I followed.

Inside, the house was beautiful. It was a study in mid-century modern style that would have been perfectly at home in sunny California. It felt a little out of place in the midwest. The living room had a large conversation pit with deep, comfortable sofas and matching ottomans. High top tables were lined along floor-to-ceiling windows hung with large drapes to stymy prying eyes.

On the far wall, crackling with low flames, was a fireplace that was as large as my kitchen.

Spread around the conversation pit were other guests. Some were in costumes and some were not. Those not in costume were not dressed in street clothes. I noticed the abundance of flesh on display while trying very hard not to stare.

There were a dozen or more, I didn't count. Men and women sat in small conversation groups, stood around tall tables, and sat at a large breakfast bar fronting the deep, well appointed kitchen.

There was a man in a sasquatch costume who was wearing no pants. As I watched, the sasquatch removed his head. Beneath, the man had orange-reddish hair that matched his pubic hair and clashed with the suit's dark fur. "Are they more strippers, Marty?"

I looked at our costumes and understood the confusion. Bailey and I did look like strippers.

"No, Pete," Marty said. "They're my actual, invited guests."

"More strippers, Marty?" Bailey asked. "More?"

"There were two earlier. We may have kicked off a little earlier than the invitation said." He looked around at the other guests. Most were deep in their own conversations, but closer, a few were looking our way. "Alright, so, introductions. This is Bailey and her boyfriend Seth. Manny and I know Bailey from a few years back. We met her in Arizona."

On the couch beneath me, one of the less dressed women smiled and extended a hand. "I'm Manuela. Call me Manny," she said. She had a thick German accent and short, blond hair. She wore a flight jumpsuit that had more of a military feel than our costumes. It was unzipped and her sleeves were tied around her waist. She was naked from the navel up. "Bailey, lovely to see you again. Sorry you missed the strippers."

"Well, I'm sorry we were late. Last minute alterations on the costumes," Bailey said.

"You made them?" Manny asked. Her 'th' was more of a 'z' sound.

"I did," Bailey said. "From scratch."

Manny nodded her approval. Around her, the other guests listening in nodded too.

I was surprised at how chill they all were with Manny's bare chest and the half-naked sasquatch in the room. Even Bailey seemed to have not noticed.

A man in a pirate costume sat on the floor between the stockinged legs of a wench whose corset teased a lot of cleavage. He had a can of beer in his hand and I watched him give Bailey a comically unsubtle up-and-down. His eyes lingered on her toned legs.

The woman seated on the loveseat nearest me had her back to me. At the mention of homemade costumes, she turned and looked at us again. "They are nice," she said. "I made ours, too. But they didn't turn out that good." She stood and turned. "I'm Lacey." She held out a hand to Bailey and then to me. We both bent to shake her hand.

She was dressed like an ancient Egyptian priestess. She had black hair worn long and wore a gold band tiara. Beside her, wrapped in loose bandages, was a mummy. The more I looked, the more I realized the woman's costume was as racy as any other in the room, including the half naked sasquatch man.

She wasn't naked, but she wasn't far; her large breasts were bare with her nipples covered by hieroglyphs that could have been lifted from the Kama Sutra. They swung freely as she leaned over the couch to shake our hands. Her midsection and long legs were bare and well toned. The only thing around her waist was a small, white loin cloth.

Marty stepped beside me and pointed at those nearest. I followed and tried to get the names. Randy was the mummy man beside Lacey. The pirate was Mike and his wench was Suzi. "We have drinks in the kitchen. There is a very strong punch on the counter. It's mostly rum."

Manny interrupted. "I just added two bottles of sparkling wine to give it some bubbles."

"Well then," said Marty. "It's rum and sparkling wine. There was some fruit punch to make it blood red, but it is so watered down it is basically pink now. But it packs a wallop." He looked at the kitchen as a guest walked around the breakfast bar with a clear plastic cup in her hand. I looked and did a double take.

She was wearing a red riding hood and nothing else. She was a busty woman with large, pierced nipples. She had a thick triangle of pubic hair and round hips. A pair of women at one of the high tops watched her as she walked down the two steps into the conversation pit and angled towards us.

"Cleo," Marty said. "What happened to your dress?"

"It was uncomfortable," she said. "Too small." She stopped and smiled up at us. "Hello, stewardess. I'm Cleo."

I pointed at Lacey in her Egyptian costume. "I thought she was Cleo."

"I'm Lacey," she said.

"I meant like Cleopatra. Sorry. Bad joke."

"My name is Cleona, not Cleopatra."

I held up my hands. "Hey, just a joke. Sorry."

Cleo took a long sip of her drink, scowled at me, and looked back at Bailey. "Matching costumes?"

"I was going to do red riding hood like you," Bailey said. "Make him wear wolf ears and his wolf tail buttplug, but he was too chicken."

"Ohh, that could have been a lot of fun," Lacey said. She reached out and touched my leg. I fought the urge to recoil.

"Go," Marty said. "Get a drink. We were going to do a tournament of strip PartyCart. And Lacey was saying something about Seven Minutes In Heaven."

"Seven Minutes In Heaven?" Bailey asked. "Is this a middle school sleep over?"

Cleo, now seated on the couch, looked up at Bailey. "I always had fun at those. Get pretty little girls like you in a private room..." She trailed off with a wink.

Bailey didn't flinch. She turned towards the kitchen without rising to Cleo's bait.

I followed her but didn't ladle myself a drink. "I'm staying sober," I said. "I want to be able to drive if I need to."

"Need to?"

I raised my eyebrows at her insouciance. "Yeah, Bay, need to."

She shrugged and took a long drink. She coughed and set the cup on the counter. "Whoo." Behind her, in a formal dining room beyond the kitchen, I saw two people pass a bong and a third, a man in a jester outfit, bend over the table in a very obvious snorting position.

I looked at Bailey. She glanced towards the dining room and looked back at me. She gave me a half smile and a shrug.

"Can we talk for a minute," I said. "Outside?"

She nodded and followed me to the front door. Back on the porch she looked up at me. I looked at my car in the driveway then back at Bailey. "You knew it would be like this? A sexual wellness retreat? What the hell, Bailey? You said we could be out if it was weird, remember? Re-mem-ber?" I leaned heavily on the sarcasm in the last word.

She rolled her eyes. "This isn't that weird, Seth. It's just raunchy games. They're harmless. Marty and Manny are good people, I trust their judgement on invites."

"I don't know," I said. "That Pete guy looked shifty."

She put her hand on my chest. "Oh I don't know, I bet that Lacey chick would suck your dick if you asked nicely. She was eyeing the bulge in your pants."

I shook my head and looked down the curving drive. At the far end a small group of ghosts and witches paused to look towards Marty and Manny's house before continuing on.

Bailey put her hand on my cheek and pulled my attention back. "Seth, we can go home if you want. No problem." She looked at the door. "Or we can go back in, have a drink, play some video games for a while. No pressure."

"You really think that doesn't end in some sort of orgy?" I asked.

She laughed. Her smile lit up her whole face. "You really think it will?"

I shrugged and jerked my chin at Marty and Manny's door. "That Cleo was totally comfortable being naked. Sasquatch had his dick hanging out. There are people doing lines off the dining room table. Marty was only wearing that apron. The cat lady at that high top table had one of her tits hanging out. And Manny, too. Did you not notice?"

Bailey shook her head. "Of course I noticed, I just didn't think it was going to be such a big deal for you. I thought it might fit your flavor of freaky." She was quiet for a moment. "So we'll head home."

"It's fine," I said. "Don't pout. I'm not saying we leave, but it's a little weird to walk in on that."

She turned to go back inside. I caught her forearm. "We can stay for a while, but if it gets weird, we leave."

"What's 'weird'?"

I shrugged. "I feel like we'll know it when we see it."

She smiled and nodded. "Deal." With her hand on the doorknob she paused. "Is this weird?" She tugged the bottom of her skirt up a few inches. Her bare cheeks peeked out at me.

I sighed. "You're liking this, aren't you?"

She turned and rose up to kiss me. "You are, too. You're just old fashioned and won't admit it."

Back inside, the PartyCart was in full swing. Marty and Mike the Pirate were locked in a battle of nudges and body blows as they tried to keep their carts on the tracks. Suzi sat with her controller on her lap and her corner of the screen showing a wrecked, smoking cart. Manny, cross legged on the floor, was focusing on the screen with her tongue pinched between her lips. It looked almost normal, except that Manny was topless, Marty's ass was hanging out the back of his apron, and the totally naked Cleo was lounging on the couch watching.

Directly below us, Lacey was on the mummy man's lap kissing him passionately through a gap in his bandages. His hands were under her short, white skirt. I could just see her cheeks and a vanishingly thin strip of white material between them as he kneaded her flesh.

Other guests continued their own party. Some at the hightops watched the game. In the dining room, the hard partiers had added a few to their number.

Bailey, the drinks starting to show, took my hand and pulled me through the house. "Let's look around." I let her lead me out of the living room and down a hall. Ahead, I saw two women waiting outside a closed door. Bathroom, I assumed.

Bailey tried the knob on one door and muttered a curse. "Locked."

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm going to suck your dick before Lacey does," she whispered.

"Naughty," said one of the women down the hall.

Bailey tried the second door and it opened. She pulled me in and we both stopped.

On a large, high bed were two lovers. They were wrapped together in a classic missionary, her legs around his waist as he thrust from above. She looked our way as the door opened and smiled. A moment later, the man saw us and pushed up. "Oh shit," he said.

"Mmm, don't worry about them," she said. "They're hot." To us, she continued, "Plenty of room, it's a king sized bed."

Bailey looked up at me, read my face, and together we backed out of the room.

In the hall, one of the women was gone. I guessed she was in the bathroom. The other looked at us and then at the door. "Dan and Layla work with me," she said. "This could get them both fired." Her voice was heavy. Her words slurred and her eyes struggled to focus.

"Sleeping together?" Bailey asked.

"No, the cocaine," she said. "Layla brought it. Got it from her boyfriend."

"Oh, so they aren't a couple?" Bailey asked.

The woman shrugged. "All I know is if I see a lifted pickup pull into the driveway, I'm running out the backdoor before the shooting starts."

I looked down at Bailey and saw that she was making every effort not to meet my eye.

We drifted back to the living room with a short stop over in the kitchen for Bailey to refill her drink. At the punchbowl, she emptied her second cup in one long drink before ladling a third. "Good," she said.

In the main living room, the PartyCart tournament had progressed.

Suzi the pirate wench had lost her top, Marty was totally naked with his apron in a pile on the floor, and Pete the sasquatch was fully erect watching Manny try to wiggle out of her flight suit.

"Weird," I said.

Bailey elbowed me in the ribs.

Another round was in full swing. Lacey, her mummy man Randy, Mike the pirate, and the already mostly naked Cleo were playing a heated race on a desert track. As I watched, Randy and Mike's carts came together and Mike was sent spinning into the dunes. Randy overcorrected and bounced hard through a stand of cacti. Before he could right himself, Cleo's cart zoomed by him for a last-second win.

"You guys want to play?" Marty asked. He looked up at us over the back of the sunken couch. I looked down in time to see his eyes flick up Bailey's legs and linger under her short skirt.

"Take a picture, Marty," Bailey said. "It'll last longer."

"May I?"

Manny, freed from her flight suit, turned and smacked him on the thigh. She was a rail of a woman, tight and hard except for her breasts. They were almost too full for her physique. She leaned back into the couch and watched as the participants in the last race argued about what strip PartyCart meant.

"No," Manny said. "You take it off, Lacey. That is the rule. And you, Randy and Mike."

Alternately mumbling and giggling, Lacey and Mike began to remove what little clothing they wore. Cleo sat on the edge of the couch and watched with hungry eyes.

They settled on Lacey's short white skirt and Mike's vest and frilly pirate shirt. He kept his eyepatch and pants. Lacey, wearing only a g-string, sank back to the couch beside the mummy man. I watched her make a pained face as she pulled off one of the sticky hieroglyph pasties.

"You okay, Lacey?" Manny asked.

"Yeah, I'm glad to get these off. They really hurt." She made a face as she peeled the hieroglyph off her other nipple. "Owwww!" When they were free, I could see the skin under was red. She looked at Manny. "Do you have rubbing alcohol?"

Manny nodded. She pointed to the guest bathroom. "Under the sink."

Casual and unbothered about wearing only a tiny thong, Lacey stood. "I think I'm reacting to the adhesive. I get that from bandaids, so I should have known." She walked across the room towards the hallway bathroom. I didn't watch her ass as she climbed the steps out of the sunken seating area, but I didn't look away, either.

"I'm not going to play," Bailey said. "But I will come down to that couch."

She stepped over the back of the sofa and dropped onto the floor beyond. She sat down beside Marty with her legs crossed. "Seth?" She patted the open cushion beside her.

I mirrored her movement and lifted my leg over the back of the couch. As my right leg went down, my left bent. I felt the seam in my pants go. Then a rush of cool air in areas that didn't often feel cool air. The custom costume pants failed in fantastic fashion, tearing from the yoke through the rise, crotch, and fly in one rapid rip. I felt my cock and balls drop out of the material even before the seam had finished unravelling.

Then laughter.

I stood up fast and looked around. Mike and Suzi were both bent over laughing. Suzi's large boobs bounced and swayed as she laughed. Mike smacked his knee. I looked fast at Bailey. She had her face in her hands. I could see a red blush around her fingers.

"Thanks, Bay," I said. "Quality craftmanship."

I tried to stand in a way that the remnants of the too-small pants would contain my cock and balls. I failed.

I looked back at Bailey. She had lowered her hand. She was laughing hard enough that tears rolled down her cheeks. She mouthed the words I'm sorry.

Resigned to my humiliation, I settled on the couch beside her with the tattered remains of my pants still clinging to my legs. Bailey put her hand on my knee and tried to steady her breathing. She looked at me through wet eyes.

"Well then," Bailey said. She looked around at the others.

I felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head when she stood and unclasped the waistband of her little flight attendant skirt. She dropped it on the pile of discarded costume pieces. She stood bare bottomed in the middle of the group.

Mike the pirate laughed. "Room over here, if you'd like." Suzi the wench punched his arm hard enough to make a smack. I thought it probably hurt.

Manny bounced down the steps Lacey had climbed. She had a bong in one hand and a pitcher of the punch in the other. "Refills?" If she was uncomfortable being totally naked, she didn't let it show. Like Bailey and me, Manny was waxed hairless. She offered the pitcher to Bailey. While Bailey poured a fourth cup, Manny lit the bong and took a drag as she sat down on the couch. A fresh cloud of weed filled the living room as she passed it around. Bailey looked at me with guilty eyes as she took a long draw, suppressed a cough, and exhaled slowly.

"Hey Marty," Lacey called down the hall. "You'll need to change your sheets."

"What?" Manny called.

Manny jumped from the couch and ran across the living room. Others watched her go with smiles and whispers. As I looked around, I noticed that the PartyCart players weren't the only ones losing parts of their costumes as the night went on. Naked was the new normal in the large living room.

"You're fucking on my bed! Did you pick the lock?" Manny yelled. The party went silent. The only sound was low, soft jazz music that I hadn't noticed over the hum of conversation. Lacey, looking a little embarrassed, slipped back into the room and down the steps. She sank onto the couch with a sheepish smile on her lips.

The reply was not as loud, but it carried in the silent house. "Are you sleepy? We can move over. She doesn't usually want to do anal, so I wasn't going to say no. You were playing the game. I didn't think anyone would miss us."

"We should go see," Marty said. He made to stand but swooned and flopped back onto the couch.

"I've never seen someone get fucked in the ass," Lacey whispered.

Mike the pirate replied, "Would you like to?"

She turned and, in doing so, brushed her perfect tits over my bicep. She smacked Mike on the shoulder. "Pervert."

Her calling him a pervert in a house party of nearly naked people caught me. I laughed. The tension around us hung for a moment and then Bailey joined me. Soon enough, everyone was laughing. From the hallway, Manny threw up her hands and stalked towards us.

"Marty, we're going bed shopping tomorrow. And getting new couches. But for now, new game!"

"We're playing Seven Minutes in Heaven," Manny said. "I never played before. We didn't have it in Austria. Lacey, you explain."

Lacey rose. She had shed the little white thong. When, I didn't know. She stood in the center of the circle of couches and looked at the guests around her. Manny's outburst had pulled others towards close.

Lacey had a perfectly rectangular strip of pubic hair that drew the eye to her perfect vulva. She was as toned as Bailey, but fuller and rounder. She looked totally comfortable with every eye on her.

"Well, two names are picked at random and those two people get to sneak off to a quiet, private place together for seven minutes. What they do there is their dirty, little secret," Lacey said.

She lifted an oversized pirate hat off the coffee table. "Perks of the RSVP list," she said. With a game show flourish, she fished out a small piece of paper. "First to slip away for a private little rendezvous." She lifted the first slip and read. "We have Marco. Is Marco here?" She looked around.

"Here," a man said from the stools fronting the kitchen breakfast bar. He stood and raised a hand. He was dressed like a lumberjack, flannel shirt, big fake beard, and a plaid shirt. The beard was fake but the muscles underneath were real.

"Well," Lacey said. "Maybe I'll rig it and pull my own name." There was polite laughter as she fished for a second slip. She pulled the name and read. "Suzi." She turned a devilish smile on Mike the pirate's date. Suzi had shed every part of her wench outfit except the kneehigh stockings.

There was a lot of oohing and wolf whistles as Marco and Suzi headed for the privacy of the den.

"And now we start a timer. We'll give them a warning at seven minutes. If they don't come out promptly, we'll go in," Lacey said.

And we waited. Bailey got another refill of her punch and took another long draw on the communal bong. She exhaled slowly, the smoke rising in satin curls from each nostril. "God that's good," she said afterward.

Bailey sat on the couch beside me and pulled her legs up under her. She looked almost demure, which was strange for someone not wearing pants. "Maybe we'll get drawn to go in together," she said in a whisper. "I don't know if seven minutes would be enough."

"We could always head home," I said. "Have all the time we want."

"Let's see how this game goes. Give it another half hour."

I nodded.

While the clock ticked, Cleo stood. She shook out her red cape and walked towards the kitchen. When she returned, she had an empty wine bottle. "If we're doing this middle school stuff, we need to play spin the bottle."

Lacey and Manny both laughed. "Now I know this game," Manny said. Manny crawled forward towards the bottle. Bailey made a joke of covering my eyes to block out the very clear view of Manny's waxed vagina and butt.

On her knees, Manny gave the bottle a hard spin. We all watched it twirl before settling in the direction of Mike. Manny looked like a cat as she slunk towards the waiting pirate. Mike jerked a little when Manny undid the oversized buckle on his pirate belt and then his pants. "Hey, wait!"

"What? You don't play like this here?" Manny pulled Mike's cock from his pants and bent towards his lap.

Mike didn't look like he knew what to do. I saw his concern and, a moment later, his eyes rolled back and his mouth dropped open.

"Jesus, Manny," Marty said. He leaned forward but failed to hide a pronounced erection of his own.

I put my arm around Bailey and leaned my face towards her ear. "Getting pretty weird," I said.

She patted my leg. "It'll be fine."

Manny slowed and leaned back. With her butt on her heels, she looked at Mike's cock. "A grower," she said. "I like a grower." She looked over her shoulder at Marty. "Marty's a grower, too." She stood and took a seat on the couch beside her husband. He put a hand on her knee and leaned back.

Lacey walked to the bottle. She crouched to spin it. I had an oblique view and felt guilty not looking away. I hadn't felt that pang when Manny had put on her show crawling across the carpet.

"Randy is not a grower," Lacey said. "He shows it all." She looked over her shoulder at the mummy man and winked. The bottle spun. For a terrible and exhilarating moment I thought it was going to point at me. Instead it inched another quarter turn and pointed directly at the space between Marty and Manny.

Lacey smiled and stood. In a sultry strut, she crossed to the space between our hosts and sat down. "Getting weirder," I said to Bailey as Lacey slipped one hand between Manny's legs and began to stroke Marty's cock with the other.

Everyone around the room was watching. Lacey sat with her knees spread just wide enough to tease. Manny opened her own legs a little wide and closed her eyes. She didn't moan, but she did exhale in long, low breaths.

Cleo stood from her spot on the opposite couch and approached the bottle. I saw her eyeballing Bailey as the bottle spun. Cleo had the measure of the bottle, the friction from the carpet, and the force needed. The bottle stopped pointing directly at Bailey. Under my arm I felt Bailey tense.

Cleo rose and approached. She lifted her cape and dangled it between my head and Bailey's. "Butt out, mister," she said.

"No, I don't think," Bailey said. She raised a hand. "I don't know if I'm playing."

"In the circle, you're playing," Cleo said. Her breast was three inches from Bailey's face and the curtain of material hung between me and Bailey.

"Hey," I said. I pushed up from the couch. "She said no."

Cleo turned and squared up to me. "And what are you going to do about it? It's just a game, man. Going to get all macho on me?"

Lacey stood and said "Timers up, we should see how those seven minutes went." Lacey took Cleo by the shoulders and guided her to the steps out of the pit. They knocked on the door of the den and, a moment later, the doors opened. Marco, missing his plaid shirt, led a very tousled looking Suzi out of the room.

Suzi looked down at Mike and registered his unzipped pants, erect cock, and sheepish look. "What happened to you?"

"Spin the bottle, Austria style," Mike said. "What happened to you?"

"You assume something happened?" Suzi said as she climbed down on the couch beside Mike.

"You look like you took a ride on a tornado."

Suzi scoffed. "I didn't do anything I wouldn't do with you."

Mike didn't look mollified. "You'll do just about anything with me."

I looked to Marco for a reaction. He was back on the stool and was getting a cold look from the woman on his left. She was dressed as a sexy Canadian Mountie; short black shorts, a revealing red top, and a hat. It wasn't a perfect homage, but it was recognizable and she had the figure to pull it off. And she looked pissed.

Mike looked past Suzi, saw the blond on the barstool, and then switched back to Suzi. "Did you fuck him?" He didn't sound angry, but there was a note in his voice.

"No, I didn't fuck him." She paused. "Not yet. He played with my tits. And my ass a bit. That's all. His pants stayed on. And zipped up. Unlike yours."

"Now now," Lacey said. "No telling. It's your little secret. What happens in that room, stays in that room."

She strutted down the steps. It was clear she was enjoying her role as MC of the game. She lifted the seconded pirate hat and fished out two new names. "Who goes into the den next?"

She read the first name. "Ooh." Her eyes flicked to me and I felt my face get hot. "Seth." She unfolded the second name with a flourish, read it, and smiled. "Me."

Lacey stepped out of the middle of the conversation pit and up to Bailey and me. "C'mon, Seth." She took my hand and pulled me towards the far side of the living room. "Let me show you the den."

I looked back at Bailey and saw a look of hesitation on her face. The adventure and arousal that had been there was gone. For a moment, I felt vindicated. Then Lacey pushed the door shut behind us.

"So," Lacey said. "Seven minutes, huh." She walked, naked and unashamed, across the room. It was a very comfortable room. The palette was dark; dark wood shelves, dark leather furniture, and dark geometric patterns on the rugs. She slid her finger along the edge of an upright piano as she looked at photographs displayed on the lid and the wall above. Beyond the piano was a bookshelf. The upper shelves were dominated by model boats. Steamers, tall ships, military vessels.

"I'm not going to have sex with you," I said.

Lacey looked my way and laughed. "Did you think that was what we were going to do in here?"

"I don't know what you have in mind. I'm not interested." It was mostly true. I enjoyed the view, but I was not going one step further. I stood behind a large leather armchair. I was very aware that my cock and balls were hanging free from my tattered pants. I was not as flaccid as I would have liked.

She stopped her exploring at the boats and bent to look at them. The curve of her butt was perfect. "These are Marty's," she said. "I remember when he was getting into the hobby. He gave us one as a gift. A replica of the Queen Mary 2. That is where Randy and I honeymooned. Sailed from New York to Southhampton." She straightened and looked at me. "Why wouldn't we have sex?"

I snorted. "Why would we? I'm here with Bailey. I love her. You came with Randy. You said you're married. You went on a honeymoon. Why is sex even an option?"

"Well, we're both naked," she said. "There's that."

"You can be naked without having sex," I said. "Or, at least, I can."

She turned away from the boats and walked towards me. "Are you scared?"

I shook my head. "Not scared. Just committed. Not willing to fuck that up."

"Would you think differently of me if I told you Randy and I are divorced?"

I was confused. "Divorced?"

"Have been for almost a year. But the tradition of Marty and Manny's party and our enduring friendship wins out. Neither of us is willing to lose them. Or this. And the sex was always good. So for tonight we have a truce."

I stepped back as she approached. "I don't really care what weird stuff you guys are into," I said. "I'm with Bailey. I'm happy with Bailey."

She sat on the arm of the large, overstuffed leather sofa. She didn't cross her legs. "I had my tits done after we divorced. Guys' responses have been mixed. What do you think?"

I shrugged. "They're tits."

"Hmm, that is the consensus. Just tits. Bigger, but not better." She felt her tits, pressed them together, and then dropped them. She looked up at me. "Wanna feel them?"

I shook my head. "No. How much longer are we in here?"

"They'll let us know. I'd guess three or four minutes." She paused before changing the subject. "If you weren't here with Bailey, would you want me? I saw you looking me up and down. Were you looking because you want me? Are you uncomfortable now because you don't like this? Or is it because you do?"

"You're attractive," I allowed. "But I'm not interested. I'm uncomfortable because you're all strangers. I'm here with Bailey because she wanted to come. I wouldn't be here otherwise. I've never met Manny or Marty or any of the others."

She pushed herself up from the arm of the couch and walked towards me. I backed up away from the large armchair until I bumped into a large, art deco stereo that doubled as a sideboard. She stepped into my personal space. "If you saw me on the street, would you imagine me naked? Would I look like this in your mind's eye?"

I wiggled away, my arm brushing against her. "Listen, no offence, but I'm really getting tired of this. This whole party. The weird sleepover crossed with an orgy vibe is really offputting." I went to the door and turned the knob. It was locked. "You locked us in?"

She laughed. "No, I locked them out."

I undid the twist lock and opened the door. As I pulled it open, Lacey yelled from behind me "No, Seth, don't go, keep licking my pussy like that you stud!"

Outside, the party had taken the final, predictable turn. I stopped just outside the den and gaped.

The pile of flesh in the middle of the conversation pit was a writhing, twisting mass.

Nearest me, Manny was on the floor with her legs spread. She was sucking Marty's cock while rubbing her clit and pushing home a large, black flesh-toned dildo.

On the couch above them, her legs wide and his narrow butt clenching as he thrust, were Mike and Suzi. She had one of her large breasts cupped in her hand and he was licking it with furious little flicks of his tongue.

Suzi was stroking the shaft of Randy's very large, very thick cock. He was on the couch beside her with his head back and his eyes closed.

To my right, Marco and his Mountie date were in the throes of a passionate make-up kiss. She had his pants pulled halfway down and he had his hands inside her tight red top. Beyond them, Cleo was on her knees with her face between the legs of a woman dressed like an 80s popstar, her unitard was torn at the crotch and the ponytail that spouted from the top her head was lopsided. She looked to be on the brink of absolute ecstasy.

Bailey was at the outside edge of the group. She was standing against the far wall and looking down into the conversation pit orgy.

"Come on," Marty called. He waved a hand in a beckoning gesture.

Lacey pushed past me from inside the den. "You should have waited!"

Marty looked at me and then at Bailey. His eyes lingered on her.

I knew what he had in mind. He looked up at me, searching for my approval. I shook my head and walked towards Bailey.

I reached Bailey and bent. "I'm leaving," I said. "I'd like for you to come home with me."

She didn't immediately react.

"Two minutes," I said. "Make up your mind."

The fun and excitement that I'd almost felt were gone. Lacey was on the couch with her legs spread. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "No," I said emphatically.

My pants were torn almost in half. I tucked myself into them as best I could. I didn't bother with my shoes. I bent, picked them up, and looked back at Bailey.

To my great relief she was standing and rooting through the pile of discarded costumes. She picked up her own skirt, wrapped it around her waist, and looked around at the others. "Marty, Manny, thanks for the invitation. Sorry we're leaving so early."

"Not a problem," Marty said. He had the bong in his hand and was streaming smoke from both nostrils. "Maybe next year."

"Yeah," Bailey said. "Pencil us in." She looked at me, read my face, and nodded.

Out the door and down the steps, Bailey hurried to catch up to me. "Seth," she called. "Seth, wait." The fresh air felt good after the heavy, overpowering stink of smoke, booze, and sex. My feet tingled in the grass and I looked down. There was frost forming on the blades and loose leaves.

At my car I paused and looked at Bailey. "Are you angry?" She asked it with a tone. Defensive, hurt, embarrassed.

I shook my head and unlocked the doors. "Not mad," I said.

When I slid into the car, the last of the pant's seam failed. I felt it go all the way up the back and, a moment later, all that was holding my pants on was the button in the front.

Bailey climbed in and sat without speaking.

I pulled away, wound back towards the highway, and stopped. "Am I taking you to your place or are we both going to mine?"

She looked at me. In the dark, I turned to meet her eyes. She was crying.

"What? Why do you get to cry?" My mood was shifting now that I was out of the orgy. I had been driven by my own embarrassment and my own violated sense of decency. I felt sure that Bailey had a better idea of what to expect at the party.

"You're angry," she said.

"I feel like I was tricked. Betrayed a little. How much did you know about that party before we went?"

She was quiet. I saw headlights coming behind me and turned on my signal. I headed towards downtown and my house. If she didn't want to join me, I'd turn around and take her home.

"I was in Sedona with my girlfriend at the time. Her name is Cassie. She lives in Flagstaff. That's where we met. We were friends at first and did a lot of hiking together and ended up a couple.

"She convinced me to go to the retreat where I met Marty and Manny. They were there to save their marriage. The retreat wasn't a big sex party, don't go thinking it was."

I had doubts. The orgy we'd just left made me think she was downplaying what happened in Sedona. I didn't push.

"It was about sensuality and bonding with your partner. Cassie and I were on the rocks and I knew it. I'm not a lesbian. She is. It wasn't going to work. We did a lot of yoga, a lot of tantric massage, and a lot of very real conversations. There was a lot of journaling and meditation.

"There was sex, but that was more to reconnect than for the sake of sex. Marty and Manny got that. They had a very real awakening as a couple. Cassie and I broke up on the second day. She left. I was sad and lonely and spent the rest of the week with Marty and Manny."

I knew where she was going. I knew what she was going to say next. I didn't stop her. On the highway, I blew past the exit that would lead home. I drove us westward into the night. The lights of the city skyline were to our right as we drove and Bailey kept her eyes on them.

"I slept with them. It was nice. It felt good. In that place, it felt like belonging. Manny was so kind. Marty, well, he liked the casual sex for sure. We kept in touch after we left the retreat. Emails and whatnot. I met a guy, dated, and gradually lost touch with Marty and Manny. I got my job and moved here. I never knew where they lived. For some reason I thought California.

"I happened to bump into Manny at the mall in May. What are the chances? How many millions of people live around here and I bump into her in the housewares aisle while shopping for a toaster oven."

I was quiet. She wasn't looking for a response.

"That is why they sent me the invitation. I haven't seen them in years. Haven't emailed or talked. When I saw her, we exchanged numbers and texted a bit, but nothing very deep. I was dating you, I was happy, they were happy. We didn't really have anything in common anymore, just memories.

"When she texted and asked for my address I gave yours without thinking. I didn't really know what she had in mind. When the invitation came, I had a thought, but I wasn't sure."

She was quiet for a while. "We missed the exit," she said after a moment.

"I know. I'm just driving. Talking. Well, listening."

"That wasn't about me being unhappy in our sex life," she said. "I don't know why I wanted to stay."

More silence. I wasn't fuming, but I was still upset.

"It felt good." She said it in a quiet voice. The admission was almost lost in the hum of the tires on the road. "I felt all their eyes on me when I took my skirt off. The thrill was like when you look at me, but magnified. Multiplied."

"Exhibitionism," I said. "Thrill of showing off."

"I guess so. And it was naughty. Taboo. Dirty."

I didn't reply. I downshifted and drifted off a ramp. Down on surface streets I wound through a tidy neighborhood before pulling into a park overlooking the river. The park was empty and the river was dark. Leaves blew across the lot and danced through my headlights.

I looked at Bailey for a long time. She kept her face turned away for a minute before looking my way. "So this wasn't about us. This wasn't an old flame or a weird old relationship thing?"

She shook her head. "No. When everyone was undressing and playing the games, I thought it would end up being fun. When you wanted to sneak away to a bedroom, I was thrilled. I thought the idea of fucking you there would be amazing. The chance of getting caught. Someone seeing us or joining us." Unbidden, a micro fantasy involving Lacey popped in my mind. Bailey continued and pulled me back. "When we found those other two doing what I wanted to do, I saw your face change. I saw you looking hesitant and uncomfortable. I remembered you were sober and didn't know anyone.

"I reacted exactly the wrong way," she said. "I'm sorry. I thought that if I broke the ice, and we stayed and had a good time, you'd relax and have fun. You didn't. You didn't know the history. It's my fault." She put her face in her hands.

"No," I said. "I don't think it was. We didn't communicate well. It's both of us. I should have said no when they were trying to get us to play strip PartyCart. I should have said no before my pants split or when I was pulled into that room with Lacey. I tried to be a good sport but I was beyond my comfort zone."

We were quiet for a long time. We both watched the river.

"Did you have orgies at the resort in Sedona?" I asked. "Or just the threesomes?"

"Nothing that we did there was official," Bailey said. "The guidance from the resort was always about feelings and emotions, not physical."

"You're dodging."

"There were two instances of sex with multiple partners. Once, Cassie and I joined another female couple after a long meditation and yoga session. It was sensual and slow with a lot of touching and kissing before any clothes came off. When they did come off, it remained sensual."

"And with Manny and Marty?"

"That was just me. It was me lashing out. Cassie had left. I was there alone. Manny saw my sadness and pain and was kind. Marty was gentle. For a man. We spent one night together. There was no follow-up, no encore. I stayed in my room, they stayed in theirs. We bonded as friends without the looming specter of sexual desires."

"So are we ok?" I asked. I turned to face her.

Bailey looked at me. "I should be asking you that."

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. I'm the one that stormed out of the party with your friends. You were invited, I was the plus one, and I made the scene."

"So maybe we're both in the wrong," Bailey said. "But that isn't the right way to look at it, is it?"

"No," I said. "This is what we should have been doing all along. Talking it out. Trusting each other with our feelings. Communicating."

She snorted and smiled. She looked back at the river.

"What?" I asked.

"Communication was the key word at the retreat in Sedona. Everything tied back to that. Yoga was a way to communicate with our bodies. Journaling allowed us to communicate with ourselves. Conversations were, obviously, communicating with each other. There was more, but you get it."

"Sounds like we should go," I said.

"To Sedona?" She snorted and held back a laugh. "Which reason for that not working do you want first?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

"Well, first, a week there was five thousand dollars per person."

I nodded slowly. "On second thought, I'll just keep my thoughts to myself."

Bailey reached across the gear box and put her hand on mine. "Don't," she said. "I know you are kidding, but don't."

I nodded and sat in silence for a while. There was no tension between us. Another car looped into the lot, saw us sitting in mine, and kept driving.

"What are you thinking?" Bailey asked.

"Two things," I said. "First, we probably just cock blocked some young guy who thought he was going to get laid in the backseat on Halloween."

She laughed out loud. "We probably did, didn't we? And second?"

"That I wish I had a backseat big enough to get you in."

Her hand released mine and moved around my leg. She found the torn seam and teased her finger along it. "You don't need the backseat," she said. "You have a whole house for that." Then, after a pause, she said "Our house."

I crossed the river via a city bridge instead of the highway. The downtown was deserted. The traffic lights blinked amber and I didn't have to stop all the way out the far side. Somewhere in the central business district Bailey put one foot on the dash and spread her legs as wide as the tight confines of my car would allow.

The jump from my gear shifter to her spread pussy was less than a foot.

"It's a good thing my pants are already torn," I said as we passed into more residential neighborhoods away from the commercial towers.

Bailey craned her neck to see. "Impressive," she cooed.

I was light on the brakes going up my driveway and nearly punched through the garage door before it was fully up. We both waited for the door to drop before we left the car.

Bailey squeezed around the front bumper and jumped on me at the bottom of the steps that led into the house. She wrapped her legs around me and kissed me deep. Without breaking the kiss I lifted her hips away from my torso and realigned. My knees almost buckled as my cock slid inside her.

I turned and groped for the kitchen door while trying to support her weight.

"Holy shit," Bailey gasped as she bounced up and down with each step up.

"My legs are going to feel this tomorrow," I gasped. I stumbled a bit as I entered the kitchen and Bailey kicked the door shut behind us. I didn't try for the bedroom.

I lowered us to the floor as slowly as I could manage. My knees screamed on the hardwood, but my muscles stopped burning as I laid Bailey on the floor. I slipped my cock from her and looked down.

On her back, she kept her legs spread wide. I could see the slight gape left by my cock. She unbuttoned her little jacket and let it fall open. I pounced on her perfect little tits. I tongued them. Nibbled on them.

She moaned and ran her hands through my hair. "Have I ever told you how much I love your hair? I love that you like it long. It's so good for this." She gripped a handful and held it tight. She didn't pull, not quite, but there was tension that felt good.

I lifted her hips to me and slid my cock back into her. I watched her eyelids flutter and her eyes roll up. She released my hair and ran her fingers through her own. "Oh god, Seth. You remembered."

"I learn fast."

I thrust up, my cock driving with firm strokes along the upper front wall of her pussy. Leaning back, I thought I could almost see her tight skin bulging out against my thrusts. I am sure it was my imagination, but in the moment it felt like the very zenith of my sexual prowess.

I pressed my thumb firmly on her clit and watched her mouth drop open in a look that bordered on agony. "Oh holy shit!" She shouted the words and they echoed around the kitchen. "Holy shit, Seth!"

I was getting close, too. Her tits jiggled on her chest as her breathing heaved. They were too small to flop, but the movement drove me wild. Frantic with my own lusty arousal, I used my free hand to catch her left breast. I pinched her hard, tall nipple between my index and middle finger and held it just a little too tight.

"Cum!" Bailey shouted. Her right hand groped out and found the leg of a dining chair. She gripped it hard enough for the tendons on her forearm to stand out. "Cum in me, Seth!" I looked at her face. Like her arm and shoulder, her face was hard. She strained against pleasure. "Fuck fuck fuck!" The words chattered from her, staccato and fast.

I watched her abs clench, a washboard of muscles flexed against skin. I felt the contractions of her orgasm around my cock. My thrusts, though small already, all but stopped as she tightened around me.

"Oh fuck!" Bailey shouted.

And in that instant, I broke completely.

We were both loud as we climaxed together. I lifted her entirely off the floor and brought her face to mine. My cock slid deeper as she repositioned. Her tongue and mine flopped and ground over one another as we kissed. Her body was sweaty on my lap.

I felt like a broken faucet. There was no end to my load. Wave after wave of pleasure jerked up my cock and just as much of my hot, sticky cum jetted into her. Bailey, gasping and grunting, broke our kiss.

When I was spent, the world spun. Already seated, I sank to my side and sprawled halfway between my kitchen and living room. Bailey settled beside me and pulled her leg out from under me. She lay on her back and gasped. I tried to catch my breath.

"Holy."

Gasp.

"Fucking."

Gasp.

"Shit."

It was all I could manage for some time.

When my heart rate leveled out I rolled onto my back beside her. I looked up and noticed, for the first time, a crack in the plaster of my ceiling.

Bailey's hand groped for my body. She slapped the floor twice before she found my chest. She put her hand on me and patted softly.

"I don't know if that was makeup sex or not," she said. "But if that little miscommunication is the price of sex like that, we really, really need to stop talking to each other."

Eventually we recovered enough to finish undressing, wipe up the worst of our mess, and stagger to the shower.

Under the hot flow, our bodies close, she looked up at me. "Of the women at that party, which would you have slept with?"

"You," I said at once.

"Cheat, you know what I'm asking."

"This is a trap," I said.

"I won't get mad. I'm curious."

"I'm not worried about mad," I said. "I'm worried you'll lord it over me until the day I die."

"You think I'll be around until then?" She looked up at me. Little sprays of water made her eyelids dance over her piercing blue eyes.

"If I say the wrong name, you'll probably kill me tonight."

She smiled and put her head on my chest. She hugged me tight. "It's Lacey, isn't it? The Egyptian goddess. What did she say to you in that room? I saw your face when you came out. There was no hanky-panky. You looked mad."

"She wanted me to feel her new fake tits."

"And you didn't do it? I kind of wanted to feel them."

I didn't answer and Bailey continued. "That's totally fine. She was really hot. Great tits, great ass. I don't blame you."

"You're putting words in my mouth," I said.

"I'm not trying to fight," Bailey said. "I just wondered. There were a lot of different bodies there. Like cars, kind of. Cleo was bigger, roomier. A sedan, but one of the old ones. A Buick or a Caddy."

"I'm sure she'd love the comparison." I paused. "Actually, I'm fine with it. Fuck her. Bitch couldn't take a hint."

Bailey laughed and continued. "Manny is hard and wiry. Maybe more like a motorcycle. Not comfortable, but cool and European." She considered a moment. "Suzi was busty and hippy. Not an SUV, that's kind of cruel, but maybe a..."

"Shelby Cobra," I said. "Sporty and round. Voluptuous."

"And there was Lacey," Bailey said. "I'd say she was something like an Italian sportscar. Sleek and sexy and curvy. A Lambo or a Porsche or something like that."

"Porsches come from Germany," I said.

"I know that," Bailey said. "But they have a look. Like Italian cars. Curvy and smooth and sexy."

"Did you see the chick with the lumberjack?"

"Mmm, that lumberjack," Bailey said. "His shoulders and chest were pretty damn nice. I can just about picture them looming over me in bed." She ran her hands over my upper back and pulled me close. "Mmm, yeah like that."

"That Mountie he was with was good looking."

"Oh, so we're looking at for sexy Asian cars, too?"

I shrugged. "There was a couple dressed like hippies when we got there. They were naked pretty quick. What about one of those VW vans? Or the woman in the 80s popstar leotard? A nice DeLorean, maybe?"

"Ohh, or an '88 Camaro. My dad sold his before I was born, but I saw pictures. That was a nice looking car."

"Hmm, my mom had a woodpaneled station wagon and my dad had a pickup. Neither of those are very sexy."

Bailey kissed my jaw. "You are kind of like one of those pickups. Reliable, sturdy, good looking in a manly way."

"All those fancy cars," I said. I grabbed her butt and gripped her cheeks. "And I choose to go home with you."

She snorted. "Yeah, and what am I?"

I considered. "I'd say a nice little sedan. Something affordable. Attainable. Practical but still has some looks."

She smacked my chest. "Asshole."

I lifted her and kissed her. "Cars schmars, Bailey. You're the only one I wanted there. I noticed the others, but I wouldn't have touched them. That's part of why I left. I didn't want to touch them. I wanted you. And only you."

Later, in bed with the bedroom window open and cold autumn air filling the room, Bailey snuggled close to me. I held her to my body.

"There is nothing better than being naked between nice sheets on a cold night," Bailey said.

"There is," I said. "Having you there to keep me warm is better."

"Hmm, you know what to say, Seth."

"And you know what?"

"Hmm?"

"Next year, on Halloween, we just sit on the porch with Todd and Maud and hand out candy. No parties, no sexy costumes. Just boring candy with normal people."

"Hm." She sounded like she was on the verge of sleep. "We'll see." She rolled and put her head on my chest with her arm draped around me. Bailey shifted her head so that her ear was over my heart. "You know what I hear in here?"

"What do you hear?"

"I hear a good heart." She looked up as I turned my face to hers. "And you know what?"

"Hmm?"

She kissed my lips. "I love you, Seth Bridger."

A bit of the sulk lifted and I smiled. I closed my eyes and leaned my head so my cheek was resting on the top of her head. "I love you, too, Bailey. More than I loved anyone in a long time."

I wrapped my arm around her, kissed her ear, and let myself drift away.