“I’ll totally do it,” Katie said.
The three of us turned and looked at her, each one of us questioning everything. There was nothing in her face that hinted at a joke, and we all knew it. But just because she was willing to do this one thing didn’t mean she’d do more. How could it? It didn’t mean a thing.
“Well, I’m down then,” Mark said, getting up from the couch. “You two gonna wimp out? We’ll be fine on our own.”
“Are you sure they’re not home?” Thom asked. He was always the cautious one.
“They’re on vacation until Sunday,” I said, giving Mark the evil eye. There was no way I’d let him go without me. How could I?
We sat in silence for what felt like far too long until Katie — that little instigator — got up, glanced at us over her shoulder, and slipped out the sliding glass door to my backyard. Mark followed behind her, shooting finger guns at us in the process, and I was left with no choice but to go too. Thom trailed right behind me.
Part of me still didn’t think it would happen. It wasn’t that we were all prudes or anything; it’s just that it was a step in a direction we had never taken.
It didn’t help that all three of us were in love. Madly, passionately, and tenderly in love. Katie was cute and funny, and every one of us would have cut off our left arm for a chance to be with her. None of which she knew. At least as far as we could guess.
By the gate between our yards was an old wheelbarrow. Katie stopped, turned to face us with defiance in her eyes, and put up one hand to signal us to stop.
“We have to undress here. So if we gotta run, we can run back here and grab our clothes. I’ve seen too many movies where some asshole comes and takes everyone’s shit, and the kids are left naked in the pool like a bunch of idiots.”
I could see the steam rising off the water in the next yard. The lights were off, but there in the moonlight, the neighbor’s pool beckoned us like Shangri La. The waterfall that fed it fell from the hot tub above, and the patio surrounding it was a garden of Eden. My parents played bocce in our yard, but the neighbors had created something else entirely, and all of us yearned for it like it was a dream slipping away in the morning dew.
Mark pulled off his shirt first. Katie gave him a high five and then dropped her dress to the ground. I started to strip too but stopped at my boxers as I watched her out of the corner of my eyes. I stared as she stood in her panties and bra and time slowed to a standstill as I held my breath. Skinny-dipping meant naked, didn’t it? But God did I not want to look like an idiot taking off my shorts only to have the three of them jump into the pool in their underwear.
When Katie unhooked her bra, I nearly fainted, and when she stepped out of her panties, her body already in motion, I followed as quickly as I could. The splash that came from her dive was nearly silent, especially compared to the noise of three boys chasing after her like foxes after a hare. When I came up for air, I could see her standing in the shallows, her perfect breasts glistening as water dripped down her soft skin.
My heart beat, and my cock twitched. Or maybe it was the other way around.
It was then that Mark decided to dive beneath the water, lift Katie on his shoulders, and then flip her backward into the deep end. For a moment, I felt panic followed by jealousy and then confusion. But I followed after her until the four of us were a bunch of splashing fools playing about in the water like we had done a thousand times before.
My relief over our innocence was cut short when Katie came up from the deep only to wrap her hand around Thom’s neck, kiss him on the nose, and whisper something in his ear. Mark looked at me in half panic, and I looked back, feeling much the same. When they broke apart laughing, I wasn’t sure if I should cry from relief or disappointment.
“You guys really are such fucking romantics; you know that? We’re fucking seniors; we’re supposed to be having fun, not getting all emotional about the end of school and shit. You all need to get laid. Like, seriously laid.”
If the tension was high beforehand, it was now through the roof, and I could barely stand it. Thom moved to the pool wall and pretended to look up at the moon, but I suspected he was hiding his hard-on. It’s what I would have done.
Without thinking, I snuck up behind her. Maybe my brain snapped, or perhaps I remembered we were friends, and she was a human and not something to only love from afar. I wrapped my arms around her, kissed her on the cheek, and began to lift her into the air to toss her into the pool before she turned and kissed me again.
“They’ll never start anything,” she whispered, her naked body pressed against mine beneath the water. “But you’re different. You’re not afraid, right? Besides, everyone knows that you fuck.”
“When you put it that way, “I said, my heart about to explode in my chest. I kissed her again, my hands sliding to her ass as I felt her brush my hardening cock with growing intention. “Should we ditch them and go up to my room?”
“Where’s the fun in that? Come on, you three are all so cute together and such good friends. Besides, we’ll probably never hang out all again once before we go to school. Shouldn’t we have some fun? Don’t we fucking deserve it?”
I looked over at my two friends, who were staring at me like I had betrayed their sacred trust, but all I could do was nod. Katie wasn’t interested in me. Or Thom. Or mark for that matter. She didn’t love us on our own.
As that thought clicked into place, something inside me shifted.
Because Katie was right, Mark and Thom and I were better together. We had known each other forever, and we finished each other’s sentences. We knew the same jokes and could recite all the same songs from memory.
“Are you guys going to come over here or just stand around and watch?”
I kissed Katie’s neck as she waved them closer, and by the time my mouth found her breasts and my lips found a hardened nipple, Mark was behind her, and Thom was next to us, trying to figure out where to put his hands. When Katie turned and kissed him, I thought he might drown, but soon she kissed Mark as well, and nothing would ever be the same again.
“Fuck, that was hot,” she said. “I’ve never kissed three guys at once before. And you are all so damn hard!”
Without another word, she slid beneath the water, where one at a time, she took us into her mouth as if everything was just a game. We gawked at one another, unable to believe it was happening until she came up laughing. But when I kissed her, she pulled me close as she stumbled back against the edge of the pool. She reached behind her, never letting go of me, and pulled a float towards us while she ground against me; the other two boys kissed her neck at the same time, and her moans were delirious.
I lifted Katie, helping her sit on the edge of the float, and she lay back and opened her legs, giving us all a view of her naked body in its full glory. I didn’t pause before kissing one thigh, pushing two fingers inside her, and then opening my lips on her clitoris as she gripped my hair. Mark moved up to her mouth and her breasts while Thom worked on her other thigh before taking my place on her perfect pussy.
“Holy whit, this is fucking perfect,” Katie moaned, letting us overwhelm her. “Don’t fucking stop; Jesus, don’t any of you stop.”
When I looked up a few minutes later, she had somehow managed to get Mark’s cock in her mouth, and I felt myself grow dizzy. I kept sucking her and licking her, loving her moans even as she took my best friend down her throat, and I wanted to fuck her and leave her and cry into her pussy until I vanished into the water, never to return.
Instead, I helped her roll over and slide back into the pool. Mark knelt on the float, his cock within reach of her eager mouth, and Thom slid up next to him, not wanting to miss out. I watched as she stood in the shallow water, blowing my friends and wiggling her ass at me as if to dare me to go further.
“Are you going to fuck me?” she asked, turning to look me in the eyes. I looked down and saw my cock against her skin. She had managed to rub against me in just the right way that it would hardly take any movement for me to be inside her.
“Are you sure?” I asked, holding myself in one hand and her ass in the other.
“Of course, I’m sure,” she said, pushing down onto me. “I love you.”
That was all it took for me to plunge into her, feeling her open around me beneath the warm water as she turned back to my friends. I kissed her neck and fucked her faster and faster, trying to hold onto that singular moment for the rest of my life. I was inside the girl I loved, fucking her for the very first time, and she loved me too. She had said the words, and no matter what else might happen, they were true, and I would never forget them. I pushed deeper inside her and thanked God for my good fortune even though I knew nothing lasts forever.
“I love all of you,” she said, taking a deep breath as she gripped Mark and Thom in each hand. “I love you all so much. You’re like my best friends in the world.”
The boys leaned in and kissed her before slipping back into the water. I moved as if in a dream when Thom took my place. Katie reached out and pulled me in for a kiss as my friends took turns fucking her, but all I could see on her face was adoration.
“I do love you,” she said, moaning louder and louder. “So so much.”
“Oh fuck!” Thom cried out as he gripped her tightly. Katie winked at me and then pushed back onto him with a hand between her legs.
“Fill me up, handsome; there’s a good boy. Don’t stop until you got nothing left.”
For a moment, I thought Thom might slip and fall, but instead, he gripped her hips as he came cried loudly into the night sky. Mark was right behind him, nearly pushing Thom out of the way so he could finish as well, and I felt the chlorine water mix in with my tears to sting my eyes.
The pain was a pleasant distraction, and I welcomed all of it.
“Get up on the float,” Katie said, looking at me with a knowing expression. I tried to smile as I slid out of the water, and when she took my cock into her mouth, I leaned back and closed my eyes. When Mark finally pulled out, she lifted herself onto the edge of the pool, climbed on top of me, and took me within her one last time. She placed both hands on my chest as she began to ride me, and I looked up at her like maybe she was magic.
“You feel so good,” she moaned, rocking her hips back and forth. “You feel so fucking good inside me.”
I wasn’t sure if I felt anything, but there she was, the girl I adored and desired, riding my cock under the full moon as I looked into her beautiful eyes. When she kissed me, I forgot about my friends, and at that moment, there was no one but us two, holding each other as the cool night wind dried our skin while we fucked for all the world to see.
“I’m gonna cum,” she whispered, breaking the spell as I cupped her ass with both hands. “You feel so fucking good, God, I love you. I love you so much.”
I pulled her down and kissed her mouth as I finally let go, her clenching muscles too much for me to resist. She loves me, I said over and over again as I came inside her, kissing her soft lips and holding her naked body against mine.
She loves me, and I love her, and we’re cumming, and maybe that’s enough.
Looking back, I know that it’s true even if I left for college with a hole in my heart the size of Katie.
But the image is burned into my mind, and I’ll never let it go. Her lips are against my ear, her body above me, and my cock inside her, as we loved one another the only ways we knew how.
And it was almost enough.