Hot Tub Love Machine
By Redsliver
Chapter 7
* * *“Wait! Ray! It’s not going to be like that! Ray!” I rushed after my old friend as she retreated to my bedroom. Not out the front door and off across the city. Except, that thought wasn’t penetrating my thick panicked head.
“Well?” she turned on her heel and stared at me.
“Um… Sorry. I was being childish. Part of me didn’t think they’d do that.”
“Well, part of you hoped they would,” Ray accused me.
“Definitely!” I agreed, nodding. “I like boobies. Tits too. Hooters are nice. I once got my eyes on a nice set of seagulls.”
“Seagulls? What the fuck? Oh, you’re being funny,” Ray frowned. “I really wish I’d laughed at that.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said. “But, I’ll get you next time.”
“Did you? Get it for me?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re asking,” I replied.
“Fuck… You’re as smart as Theo,” she said and stroked her dark hair back from her face. “There’s a swimsuit in my bag. My bag is in the living room. You said you’d—”
“I’ll be right back!” I shouted and skidded on the hall’s hardwood floor as I took off to the living room.
“Whoa!” Emi hopped out of my way as I zipped through the kitchen. Anna, Dawn, and Iggy were out of the kitchen. Probably on the back step. I didn’t give them a moment’s thought. I rushed about the living room. It wasn’t by the porch. She hadn’t thrown it on the couch, next to the couch, or in front of the couch. I yanked open the porch closet. I ran back to the TV. I flipped a cushion.
“Shit.” I swore to myself. I looked out the patio door. Dawn was scrolling down the deck curtains, shutting out my neighbors potential eyes. Anna didn’t steal Ray’s bag, right? Fuck.
I hoped to hell shit wasn’t that petty. I didn’t want to referee a fight. I wouldn’t mind watching the girls wrestle though.
“May I present Lady Raymond Anastasia LeBooty!” Emi shouted and caught my attention. She stepped out of the hall and gestured with both of her hands as Ray came out from behind Emi.
“None of those are my name,” Raylene Marie McCormack scowled. She slumped her shoulders and covered her boobs. She was wearing a dark blue conservative one piece bathing suit. She nervously tried to hide her legs behind the other leg. It made her jiggle.
“C’mon!” Emi said. She threw up her wrists and struck a pose. “Like this!”
“I didn’t come here to—”
Ray looked at me. She at least moved her arms aside. Though she didn’t stand up straight.
“You look great, Ray,” I said.
“OK, you head out with the other girls. I’m going to help her remove her makeup,” Emi said.
“What? Why?” Ray retreated.
“Because we’re getting in a hot tub, not making ultra-black goth tea” Emi grabbed Ray by the shoulders. “Holy shit your ass looks great! Lucas! Check out leBooty!”
“Shut up!” Ray said, turning away from me and pulling her swimsuit bottom out from around her worth-checking-out ass. “Emi! Now he’s looking at me!”
“Yeah, he’s got great taste,” Emi said. She wiggled her ass at me. “Most of the time.”
“What does ‘most of the time’ mean?” I asked, but didn’t get an answer as Emi pushed Ray into the bathroom. I shook my head. I gave a cursory look up the open cupboard and was happy to see the brown paper bag had remained untouched. Anna could’ve reached or Iggy could’ve stood on a chair. It hadn’t been foolproof but they listened to me.
I felt good, better, smug as I stepped out onto the deck. A little bit of sunlight glinted in between the bamboo slats of the deck curtains. The view from our neighbors was mostly blocked by Dr LeMieux’s fences and Mrs Harper’s maple trees. Last night we had waited until it got dark. Now we were piling into the hot tub and it was hardly three pm.
Pulling down the shades made it more cozy and didn’t let us think of the world beyond.
“Hey!” Anna said and rushed over to hug me. She whispered in my ear. “Don’t spend too much time alone in your room with Ray. Think of Iggy.”
“It’s OK,” I countered. “Thanks for the hug.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled, blushing profusely as she walked over to the jacuzzi. Dawn was overseeing the maintenance. It was nearly full, nearly ready.
“You guys did a good job,” I said. “Thank you Dawn. Thank you Ig—”
Iggy still had my birthday card with the Pure Love Potion instructions. I tilted my head and looked at her questioningly. She stuck her tongue out at me and crossed her eyes.
“Are we having drinks?” Emi stuck her head out from the kitchen.
“I don’t drink!” Ray said from inside.
“No,” I answered Emi.
“Really? Some of us can be fun.” Emi stuck her tongue out at me.
Ray shut off the pump and I heard the rubber stopper pop. I twisted on Iggy in a second but she was already pouring the sparkling pink crystals into the tub. She had been using the birthday card to hide the dose of Pure Love Potion.
“What the hell?” I asked. Drugging everyone to be my love slave? “I didn’t think this would be like you at all, Iggy.”
“It smells nice,” Iggy said. “And look at my hair! Look at Anna’s! Super shiny! I didn’t change my shampoo or anything, so unless it’s tequila...”
“You guys like the smell?” Dawn said. “I mean, yeah the other stuff. Jesus, did you see Emi’s hair?”
“No?” I asked.
“He was looking at her boobs,” Iggy said, like it was a secret. I looked at her and she waved the empty test tube to all who stood on the deck. “Why not? This is all you used yesterday, right? Just the one dose you had on the bus?”
“It’s supposed to make you fall in love with me!” I pointed out. “Isn’t that… I dunno… Evil?”
“And you still did it yesterday?” Anna asked, glaring at me flatly.
“We’ve all met Katie. Lucas, your mother’s not a wizard,” Iggy rolled her eyes. “She’s a beautician.”
“Small business owner,” Anna corrected. “Big for a small business. She’s got like 20 employees. Mom and I and basically everyone goes there.”
“I don’t.” The girls looked at me like I was stupid.
“Your mom cuts your hair down in the basement,” Dawn countered. “So, I guess, technically, everybody but you goes to Katie’s Cuts.”
“She should’ve thought of a better name,” Anna frowned.
“A simple name hasn’t stopped her from moving from a dive apartment to this place!” Iggy waved at the hot tub. “She knows her stuff. Speaking of…” More magic fingers were directed at the hot tub. “We all ready to dive in?”
“I just wish it didn’t smell like salmon…” Dawn shook her head. I sniffed the air. No sandalwood, no salmon, no cinnamon… Chlorine maybe? That probably wasn’t the bath salt. It was added as a tablet, it was probably some sort of salt and it was now in a bath. I didn’t have to take chemistry in senior year and I didn’t care to ask Dawn.
“You can’t smell it yet,” Anna said.
“Yeah, we’re supposed to let it dissolve,” I said. Dawn climbed up the hot tub and turned on the jets. I looked at her.
“Stirring water dissolves salt faster,” she said.
“Well what now?” Emi asked. She was carrying a stack of red solo cups and a two liter bottle of diet root beer. Ray came behind her with a big plastic bowl and two bags of Doritos.
“We kill half an hour?” I shrugged. “I didn’t plan this.”
Iggy snorted, laughing. I looked at her. “You? Plan?” She laughed again. Anna did as well. Dawn patted my shoulder. I took the mockery with overly pantomimed offense. Emi softly kicked me with her bare toes above my heel.
I looked at my second day of birthday partying. We six all stood out on the deck, in our bathing suits (and me in an additional t-shirt) quietly waiting for Ray and Anna to make eye contact and combust. They pointedly didn’t.
“How come we’re looking all hot and Lucas has his t-shirt still on?” Iggy asked.
“Demographics,” Emi said. “Lucas doesn’t have to compete with other boys for attention. Whereas I have to look hotter than Anna and Anna’s trying to look hotter than Dawn and Dawn’s now shrinking and covering herself making Iggy glow. Plus Ray’s brought new boobies.”
“And the folks watching at home are really just using Lucas as a dummy to impress themselves into and enjoy all of the hot teen girls parading around,” Anna said. She burnt horribly red when we all looked at her strangely.
“What?” Iggy asked.
“I mean, if you were a boy, wouldn’t you want to be in Lucas’s position?” Anna said.
“Cockblocked by Iggy?” Emi laughed. “Oh yeah, deny me, pretty girl! Keep my balls dangerously full of semen. Nurse! Code Blue! Nurse! Fishnet Stockings and Strawberry Flavored Condoms! STAT!”
“I forgot how loud you are,” Ray chuckled at Emi.
“Code blue is for a heart attack, not blue balls,” Dawn said. Standing up semi-confidently again.
“Oh, I guess I’m an idiot,” Emi laughed and fake-punched herself in the temple.
“You’re all idiots,” Iggy said, giggling. “Is it ready yet?”
She hopped foot to foot and ran over to the hot tub. She frowned at the bubbles.
“It’s just a hot tub,” Ray said. “We could hang out on the couch or something? It doesn’t have to be this.”
“Well, it’s kinda fun,” I said. I walked up next to Ray, picked a bag of chips out of the bowl and tossed it to Dawn. She failed to catch it and hastily picked the bag off the floor. I ripped open the other bag and poured everything into the bowl. “Over by the corner there.”
“Or on this convenient little table that will keep people from leaving crumbs in the water,” Emi said. “Oh! Do you have ice?”
“A couple of—”
“Ice cube trays next to the chicken fingers! Right, I remember!” Emi dashed into the kitchen.
“She’s excited,” I said.
“She had a crazy amount of fun yesterday,” Iggy said. She sounded a little off.
“And you didn’t?” I guessed.
“What? Of course I did!” I had guessed wrong. “It just went nothing like I had planned. The plan was terrible. I’m glad it didn’t happen. I was going to go home with Anna after you got too handsy.”
“I get handsy?” I asked.
“Too handsy,” Dawn elbowed me with a smile. “Handsy’s apparently OK.”
“Maybe you didn’t get too handsy enough?” Ray joked. Anna glared at her. Dawn and Iggy did their best not to react positively to Ray.
“Alright! Nope!” I said. I walked over nose to nose with Anna.
“No, what? Don’t tell me you’re going to pick her si—” Anna screamed as I lifted her up and ran the two paces to the side of the hot tub and pitched her in the water. Iggy and Dawn laughed excitedly. Iggy was already slapping her hands down on the wooden lip around the hot tub. She kicked her feet through her wrists and vaulted into the water.
“I still don’t smell anything,” Emi said as she came back with a small blue cooler jingling with a little bit of ice.
“Really, I got the—”
Ray shrieked louder than Anna. She hadn’t seen me ninja stride over to her. She was less awkward to heave up because she was nowhere as tall as Anna, but Ray was noticeably heavier. I did my best not to even jokingly make power lifter noises. That’s a joke I could make with Emi or Iggy, but I knew Dawn would hate it. I wasn’t willing to risk Ray’s feelings after such a long break in our friendship.
I walked backwards a step, the table was closer to the hot tub than where Anna had been standing. I rolled my back over the edge of the hot tub and backwards-suplexed Ray’s shoulders into Iggy’s chest. They both crumpled into the water.
“Shit!” I twisted, not having expected the feeling of the collision. I was about to scramble over the edge and make sure everyone was OK. Dawn grabbed at me to stop me. She grabbed my waistband of my shorts. She dragged those down to my knees.
“Yeah! This is going to be a party!” Emi shouted as she saw my ass. Dawn looked wildly at my cock. I stumbled forward and tried to pull everything back up under the bottom of my t-shirt.
“Oh my god!” Ray came out of the water and slung her hair back, whipping a scythe of water into my face.
“Hell yeah!” Iggy popped up. She immediately hugged Ray. Ray froze like a deer in headlights. “Oh, why are you pulling your pants up?”
“Dawn pulled them down.” I said, my cheeks flushed as Anna’s. She might’ve seen my dick from her thronelike position on the far side of the hot tub. I couldn’t read her face and she didn’t make eye contact.
“I didn’t mean to!” Dawn shouted about my dick. “I mean—”
“Well mean to take off his stupid t-shirt,” Iggy gestured. “Emi you can help.”
“Why thank you, Mrs Lucas,” Emi said.
“I’m not going to take his first name as my last name,” Iggy rolled her eyes.
“What?” I said. But Iggy dunked herself rather than look me in the eye. Ray was pulling her thick dark hair back and tying it behind her head. She didn’t look too pleased at having been suplexed. I was about to apologize but Dawn jumped me.
Dawn and Emi wrestled me, willingly, to the patio deck. I was snaked and wobbled and forcibly stripped of my t-shirt. Anna plowed through the water and leaned over the edge of the hot tub, framing her boobs magnificently as she watched. Iggy slapped a hand down on Anna’s back and dragged Ray over as well. Ray stayed a good pace back from Anna, probably missed the show.
“Victory!” Emi waved my shirt like a captured battleflag. Dawn squatted down and poked my nose.
“I can’t pick you up off the floor and throw you into the hot tub,” she said.
“I can.”
“What?” Dawn caught on as I scrambled up to my feet and slung her in a fireman’s carry over my shoulders. She climbed more than I picked her up. She balanced herself with a tight grip on my elbow and my waistband. I grimaced through the wedgy as I climbed the steps.
“Don’t throw her from that high!” Ray said.
“I won’t,” I promised, and took the stairs down into the tub. My feet slid on the bottom and Anna and Iggy caught-ish me. I took a controlled tumble underwater as Dawn tried to saw me in half with my trunks.
Dawn climbed off; I almost stood up. I think I could still see undissolved salt crystals in the frothing mess of the jets but I couldn’t be sure. I did know my expected breath was water when Emi flying spear-tackled me to get into the tub.
“Sorry! Sorry!”
I suffered and spat and wiped my face as four hands from three girls rubbed my back. Iggy rushed into the house and grabbed paper towel from the kitchen counter. She brought the whole roll and made sure I wiped my spit and snot away. She gingerly carried the waste back to the kitchen trash can.
The girls all hugged me. Dawn rushed in first and her shoulder collided with my ribs. I huffed out a breath all over her.
“Uh… Salmon breath…” She waved a hand in front of her smile.
“Huh?” Anna nearly shoved her nose in my mouth happily sniffing in the smell. “Wow! Yeah! I mean, the good stuff. She thinks it smells like salmon!”
“Good to know the strange poorly labeled chemical got in my lungs,” I said, sarcastically. Hugging Ray and Emi and Iggy in order. None of them force-smelled my breath.
“I’m sorry,” Emi said again. Hanging back after her quick hug. She was not known for quick hugs.
“I’m OK,” I said. “Maybe I shouldn’t’ve been horsing around so much with Anna, Dawn, and Ray. I’m sorry too.”
“I liked it,” Anna said. I think in combat to Ray’s apparent acceptance of my apology.
“Look, let’s sit down,” I gestured. The hot tub was specified for two couples but the stairs, between the benches, made it so it easily sat five. Especially when I was the biggest of those five. Ray had hips and a butt. Maybe she contested me for the widest now. She had sunk as much of herself below the bubbles so I couldn’t’ve been staring.
Iggy and I were going to take the squeezed bench and leave the other four on the long one. It would’ve been what I wanted. I didn’t see the benefit of forcing gasoline to sit next to open flame. I thought first to grab Ray, but then I’d be putting her on the receiving end of all of the girls glaring at her. I slid Iggy into Dawn’s arms and pulled Anna down beside me.
“Really?” Anna hugged me around the neck. She slid her knee over mine and snuggled in performatively close. I didn’t push her off. Iggy seemed to expect it and was all smiles. Ray rolled her eyes but smiled at me. I think she saw what I had saved her from. Anna tickled the back of my neck. I was going to enjoy myself.
Dawn, Iggy, Emi, and Ray sat down across from us. Emi reclined with her toes floating and kicking. She showed off her soles in the middle of the tub. Dawn slid her arms over the back and Iggy cuddled into Dawn’s arm like Anna into mine. Like Anna normally would into mine, Iggy wasn’t emulating the current aggressive destruction of personal space boundaries. I teased the back of Anna’s hair as we all settled down. I didn’t realize I was doing that until I saw Emi and Ray watching me swirl a blonde lock around my middle finger. I settled on an arm around Anna’s shoulders.
“Happy birthday!” Iggy shouted to kill the non-talkative quiet that surrounded us.
“Happy birthday!” The cheers went up. Sincerity and attention. I felt great.
“Thank you! Thank you!” I bowed and grinned. “I’d like to thank all of the little people: Iggy and Emi.”
“Uh…” Ray frowned. I read “Does this make me a big person?” across her face in the absolute worst interpretation of the words. Dawn didn’t even go that insecure.
“And I’m so happy you made it out tonight, Ray,” I beamed. “I missed you.”
“Woo!” Emi agreed, cheering. She eagerly hugged an inanimate goth. “Now we just got to get you and Anna to kiss and make up! Then the whole gang’ll be back together!”
“Not Theo,” Anna said. I squeezed her arm. “You miss him too.”
“I do,” I said. “Please don’t fight and scratch and bicker.”
Her eyes fluttered closed and she smiled. She opened her lids slowly, her adorable blue eyes beamed deep into me. She nodded. I was about to thank her, but she started rubbing her hip, sawing her bare thigh against the bulge in my swim trunks. My thank you came out as a gargled gulp.
“Is she?”
“She’s showing off,” Iggy shook her head at Ray. “All of this started yesterday, we haven’t all gone slutty. It’s just, well, I dunno.”
“I’m not expected to play too, right?” Ray said.
Iggy’s face turned dark. Dawn saw me react to Iggy and move Iggy a little further away from Ray.
“Dude, no one is expected to play,” Emi laughed. “Do you know how badly Lucas would take it if we only pretended to like teasing him? He’s a terrible softy. No tearing out his heart and eating it. Only rule.”
“I can think of a few more rules,” Iggy said.
“So can I,” I said. “No Ray, no one expects anyone to Anna.”
“Good,” Anna stage-whispered in my ear, “I’d hate to think I got predictable.”
It might’ve been sexier for how fire-truck red her face and throat had turned. She blushed her shoulders and the top of her tits as well. I saw she was playing too hard and I reached below the surface and lifted her leg off of my cock. I folded to catch my breath not realizing how much effort it had taken to keep up the conversation and not melt into a cumming puddle.
I did leave my right hand on and in between Anna’s thighs as I took three long breaths. I stood up straight from my impromptu doubled over position.
“You two still haven’t?” Ray was looking wide-eyed. She gestured between Iggy and me.
“No,” Iggy sighed. “Long story.”
“He’s a horny cuss and you’re a hopeless romantic and your wires are still crossed because he’s impatient and you’re implacable?” Ray summed it up.
“OK, short story…” Iggy crossed her arms defensively.
“Iggy, you and me. We’re going on a date, tomorrow.” I said.
“You’re supposed to ask, not tell me,” Iggy was giddy and bubbly despite her rote objection. Dawn and Emi both leaned back and scoffed in exasperation.
“We’ll hit a matinee and then go grab fries and an ice cream at the Shack,” I said. I continued to declare at Iggy. She bounced excitedly in her seat but her frown kept wrestling with her grin. I looked at Ray.
“I am working tomorrow,” she said. Like my mom, her mom also ran a little business in town. Sundae Shack was a cute little ice cream house, a half dozen tables, and for some reason, really good fries. I think Vonnie liked ice cream as a condiment and ended up making the best cheap date site in the city. “I—I’ll have Mom reserve the right back booth. I’ll just make a call and—”
“No!” Iggy grabbed Ray’s leg as she stood.
“No?” I said, with a frown.
“You didn’t ask me,” Iggy said as she pulled Ray back underwater. Ray took a death grip on the rim of the tub, half expecting Iggy to drown her. “I can’t say yes to a question you didn’t ask. I just—We don’t need a reservation for the Shack. And you asked for Ray here to celebrate. She’s not running away to make a pointless phone call.”
“Great…” Ray said, as Iggy hopped out of the water, having finally let go of Ray’s leg. I squeezed Anna’s thigh as I watched Iggy bounce. Water flicking every which way off of her bikini top. To my eyes, it looked like the swimsuit was about to catastrophically fail and reveal to me the tits I had first seen yesterday. That I had seen this morning. This afternoon. Knowing how they looked hadn’t deadened my excitement to see them again. And again. I was smiling dumbly, even as her swimsuit succeeded in keeping her boobs covered.
“It’s OK if you feel like a kidnapping victim,” Emi squeezed Ray’s arm. “We’ll get over the Stockholm Syndrome hump real quick.”
“You’re a doll, Emi,” Ray said flatly. But she started to give Emi a true unfiltered smile.
“Thank you,” I mouthed silently, in the corner of Emi’s eye. Without looking, she thrust a thumbs up at me.
Ray seemed shocked and looked over to see me and Anna. My right hand was still disappeared under the water and Anna’s face was a mask of pleasure. I seemed shocked at how much she had enjoyed my absent kneading of her inside thigh. I didn’t realize how wide she had opened her knees.
“So…” Ray said. “What do we do in the hot tub besides that?”
“Well, you don’t do that,” Iggy explained quickly.
Ray’s face twisted. She didn’t want to be pushed like that but she hated being told she was not joining in. I didn’t know how to address that. I removed my hand from Anna. She gasped and sighed. I inched my hand around her back instead. She dropped her head on my shoulder.
Dawn saw I wasn’t going to salvage the tension. She pushed Iggy down into her seat and leaned around Iggy’s shoulder to look at Ray. “The thing about the hot tub is it keeps us off our phones.”
“Yeah,” Anna nodded. “Sometimes it’s easier to let Iggy and Lucas go off while the three of us go elsewhere. This way, we’re included.”
“Plus,” Emi hitched her elbows over the back of the hot tub and thrust her chest up. She gave her boobs a happy shake. “Titties!”
“And here I was liking you the best, Emi…” Ray said, smiling though.
“Sweet! Dibs on Ray during the makeout sessions!” Emi cackled.
“Yeah right,” Ray rolled her eyes.
“Besides,” Anna said. “I’m supposed to kiss and make up with Ray. Your words, Emi.”
I just looked at Anna. Ray was losing a bit, but not all, of her humor as she vociferously turned down Anna. Ray had thought that Anna was pushing more buttons. Anna wasn’t. And that’s what tickled my brainstem. All of the sudden, I think Anna was serious about kissing and making up with Ray. I put my hand to my mouth and breathed my breath up my nose. I didn’t smell anything special.
“We don’t need your breath to smell it anymore,” Dawn said. Was she always paying so much attention? I smiled. Push and watch the barriers melt away.
“Should I be worried the way he’s grinning at me?” Ray asked.
“No, you get used to it,” Iggy laughed, to cover her transparent jealousy.