“Thanks,” she said after a moment, and I got the definite impression she’d paused in order to make sure I wasn’t being a bitch. A careful one, this Lia, careful and sharp. And maybe a little paranoid. I was really starting not to like her. “You can borrow it sometime, if you want.”
“That’s nice.” No way would the top fit me, though. We turned, skirting the sea, moving faster now out of the more crowded areas. Ahead lay the tumbled area of grass at the south end of the beach, where they had it roped off to protect some endangered birds or something. “Where are we going?”
She chuckled and nodded ahead. “To the lifeguard shack.” They only put a lifeguard down this way because it was where the paddle boarders went, though as I shaded my eyes and gazed out at the sparkling water I could only see four or five people bobbing around out there. “Carter thought it might be a fun place to fuck.”
I couldn’t hold in a gasp. “The lifeguard might not agree,” I pointed out. I also thought their idea of fun place needed a little redefining, perhaps: the shack was a simple lean-to on top of a little knoll up from the paddlers, just a plywood roof really, shading a chair on the sand. Some trees screened the little hill.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.” She glanced over at me. “Or, rather, you and me both. Are you up for a little acting job, or are you just a pussy, here to pick up garbage?” Heidi, I saw, had turned her head to listen to us.
“I’m game for whatever,” I shrugged, a little wary of Lia’s tone.
“Okay,” she said evenly, “then here’s the idea. We distract the lifeguard. Lifeguard comes out to deal with us. We keep her distracted while Carter and Heidi sneak into the shack and get it on. The goal is for both of them to get off without the lifeguard figuring it out.”
I laughed. “You guys do this kind of thing often?”
“Nah. Just when we get bored.”
I thought about that. “How long will we need to keep the lifeguard busy?”
Lia’s reply was a fiendish grin. “Depends on how long Heidi keeps Carter busy.” She raised her voice. “You guys are going to sneak around from up the hill?”
“I was thinking about it,” Carter yawned, “but it’s all rocky up that way.” He’d left his flip-flops behind with the shirts.
“I don’t really see another way around,” Heidi mused, “unless we want to go through the roped-off area? And I don’t want to.” She sniffed. “The rocks in there are just as big and covered with bird shit.”
Carter considered a moment, then nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.” He turned to Lia and I. “You ready?”
“I was born ready,” she replied, low and savage, while I just nodded. I had no clue what was happening, but I loved it.
“Cool.” Carter adjusted himself again, his stiffening cock easy to make out through the shorts. I wasn’t the only one getting excited. “Let’s do it.”
“It’s like a dance,” Lia muttered to me as we watched Carter lead Heidi up toward the back of the little hill with the lifeguard shack.
“What is?” I blinked at her. “Them fucking?”
She giggled. “That too, but no. Them and us.” She took my arm, her hand tight on my skin, and drew me toward the broad flat beach in front of the shed. “We watch them, they watch us. No talking, just paying attention. We know to wrap up our distraction around the time they’re about to cum, and they know whether to speed up or slow down based on how well we’re doing with the lifeguard.” She shrugged. “A dance.”
“You guys do this a lot.” It wasn’t a question.
“I almost get off just as much setting him up to him fuck other people as I do when he fucks me,” she confessed. “Almost. Especially when it’s in public.”
“Wow.” I’d had no idea anything like this existed, and I certainly wouldn’t have expected my mild-mannered lab partner Heidi to be a part of it. “We’re going to, like, fake a drowning?”
“Hell no. That’s sick. Bad karma.”
I glanced up the hill. I could no longer see Heidi or Carter. “What, then?”
“Most of the lifeguards are women,” she explained, “and they’re pretty easy to monopolize because they usually don’t mind talking.”
“About what?”
“Today, I’m going to ask her to lend me a tampon,” she whispered. I knew at once that it wouldn’t work: no woman on her period would wear bottoms like hers, and any other woman would surely know that. But she didn’t seem in the mood to listen. “They keep some up at the first-aid post, and we can offer to walk with her. That’s an easy seven, eight minutes.”
“Um,” I began, but by then we were crossing the sand before the shed and we stopped to look up the hill. I could see a shape on the chair in the shadows up there, with the big floppy white hat a lot of the guards wore.
“Hey!” she called, her brassy voice cutting over the waves and gulls, “lifeguard! Can you do me a favor?”
The hat stirred, turned, and then sprang up as the guard rose from the chair. “Yeah?” Lia’s fingers dug into my arm as she stiffened.
“Oh shit. It’s a guy!” she hissed.
“He’ll still get you a tampon?” I guessed, watching as a skinny college kid ambled down toward us. “Or we could just show him our tits?”
“Goddamn it.”
I got a sudden inspiration when he was about halfway down. “Wait. Just… let’s see if this works.” I lifted my voice and pulled my right foot off the sand like it was a bed of coals. “I think I hurt my leg pretty bad!” I wailed at him.
“Nice,” I heard Lia whisper softly, her arm moving around behind my back. As if she was helping me limp.