“Yeah, kind of,” Janice said. “But it’s nice. Really free, you know?” She allowed herself a look around, and Betty did the same.
“I think so, too,” Betty added, surprised to find she felt no inclination to cover up. The other people she’d noticed along the way had her feeling more at ease by the second – old, young, over- and underweight, more women than she’d have guessed, and few of them shaved clean.
“You’ll be amazed at how quickly you get used to it,” Meagan said. “Oh, Dan, over here!” Betty looked over her shoulder to see a tall, blond man heading their way. “Betty, Janice, meet my husband, Dan.”
“He was in your shoes two years ago,” Rob added.
“I still remember thinking it’d be humiliating, too,” Dan said as he shook Betty’s hand and, she noticed, looked her only in the eye. “But it isn’t, is it?”
“It’s wonderful,” Betty sighed.
While Dan and Meagan chatted with their parents, Rob, Betty, Nick and Janice jumped into the pool. It was too crowded for actual swimming, but the cool water felt delightful. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” Betty said.
“I never thought of it before,” Janice said. “But right now I don’t feel like ever wearing a swimsuit again!”
“You don’t know how right you are,” Rob said. “Anytime I do need to wear trunks in a pool, it feels like wearing your clothes in the shower.”
“Great, we’re spoiled for life,” Betty quipped.
“But hey, we can come back here every summer from now on,” Rob reminded her.
Betty laughed, but she felt tears of relief coming to her eyes again. Naturally, all three of her friends took note. “Betty, what’s wrong?” Janice asked.
“Yeah, if you don’t feel comfortable, we can leave,” Rob said. “Just say the word!”
“I don’t,” Betty reassured him, her eyes as dry as they were clear. “Far from it. I’m feeling beautiful.”
“You certainly are beautiful!” Rob put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. “But I was thinking all the way up about what you said the other night, about being humiliated like…” Rob stopped short of saying his brother’s name, but he instinctively gave Nick a look, and they all understood.
“Like Audra did to me?” Nick asked.
“Nick, I’m sorry I told her,” Janice said. “I just -”
“No! It’s fine!” Nick reassured her. “Betty, you had a right to know why I don’t like your friend very much, really.”
“She’s feeling less like my friend by the day,” Betty said. “Especially after what Janice told me. I already knew she could be an awful bully, but I’ve never heard of her actually getting violent. But of course she wouldn’t tell us about that.”
“Well, she personally didn’t get violent with me,” Nick said.
“Aw, bro, don’t make excuses for her!” Rob said. “Believe me, they know what she is!”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Nick said. “In fact, what she did hurt more than anything the guys did to me. I never trusted them in the first place.”
“Let me see if I understand this,” Betty said. “If you don’t mind talking about it, Nick?”
Nick chuckled. “It’s kind of hard to feel like I’ve got anything to hide with you right now.”
They all laughed their agreement, and Betty went on. “Audra led you on and made you think she had the hots for you?”
“For weeks,” Nick said. “And this after bullying me mercilessly back in grade school. She knew she’d hurt me, but she didn’t know how bad – I mean, that did real damage for my family. Ninth grade, I’m finally starting to get my self-worth back, you know?”
“Right when I lost mine,” Betty said.
“Why?” Rob asked.
“I’ll explain later.” Betty’s heart was flying with the realization that he couldn’t figure it out even as she was naked with him. “Sorry to interrupt, Nick.”
“No problem. So, ninth grade, all that kid stuff finally behind me, and Audra comes on all apologetic, trying to convince me she’s learned her lesson now that we’re big kids and she regrets what she did, and oh by the way, Nick, you’ve sure grown up and become so attractive, and maybe we can go out sometime?”
“Right,” Janice said. “But I didn’t think to ask you if it took her a while to convince you?”
“It did,” Rob said. “Nick isn’t stupid, and he’d seen her true colors. It took weeks.”
“Glad one of us thinks I wasn’t stupid,” Nick said. “Anyhow. Finally she convinces me that she needs help with her homework, and could I come over and study with her? I’ve got to hand it to Audra, that was brilliant, convincing me she wanted my help.”
“She’s really good at manipulating guys,” Janice said.
“Yeah, you’re in very good company there, Nick,” Betty agreed.
“And when I get to her house, she greets me at the door in a bikini,” Rob said. “She told me she’d just been trying it on, and thought I might like to join her in the pool in the backyard before we start our homework? And of course I said I’d love to, her pool parties with her friends were legendary and naturally I’d never been invited. Now I’m getting suspicious, it seems a little too good to be true, but I guess Audra always was a genius at teasing guys like that!”
“Yes, and she’s absolutely shameless about it.” Betty said.
“Right. So she tells me, all right, come on back. I tell her I don’t have a bathing suit with me, and she just gives me a wicked grin over her shoulder. And I swear I knew right then I ought to turn back! I mean, there’s no way she’s going skinnydipping with me. But she’s holding the back door open for me and I figure as long as I keep my clothes on, what’s the worst that can happen?” He paused and sighed, Janice gave him a hug, and he continued. “Then, as soon as I get out the back door…”
“Janice told me,” Betty said, when she realized he was still struggling to go on. “How many of her friends was it?”
“I didn’t know. Didn’t really want to know, once I realized what was happening. At least two guys grabbed me, one arm each, and a third one – named Jason, always my worst enemy, going back to second grade at least, he comes out from behind a tree with a rope at the ready and ties it around my waist while the other guys were holding me down. A bunch of her girlfriends were there, too, but I never knew how many. Probably some more of the boys, too.”
“And they tied you to the tree?” Janice asked, though she already knew the answer.
Nick nodded. “Yeah, and Audra’s standing right by there, saying, ‘come on, you didn’t really think I had the hots for you, did you?’ Then the guys and some of the girls took turns smacking me around, like a human tetherball, if I ran either way there’d just be someone else waiting there to slug me, and I ended up just wrapping the rope around the tree and couldn’t get away from any of them.”
“They didn’t let up until he was crying on the ground, and even then they didn’t untie him,” Rob added. “They just all went in Audra’s house and he was left there to untie himself. Took him something like ten minutes to do it, too, since he was in such bad shape.”
“And Audra never got in trouble at all,” Nick said.
“I told her,” Rob said. “Believe me, by then we were used to her getting away with anything.”
“Not even to mention the guys,” Nick said. “Being a shy boy who wasn’t any good at sports, I was used to it from way back. But that didn’t help.”