Skinny-dipping it is.

Gary and Ben walked through Bernie's house to the room where Ben would be staying. Bernie and Lil followed, with Bernie giving Gary and Ben pats on the butt as they went along. Ben chuckled, while Gary was quiet. When they got to the room, Gary and Ben dropped Ben's bags.

"I'm not really in the mood to unpack right now. It's too hot. Wanna take a dip?" Ben asked.

"I'm so there," Lil said, tugging at a limp tress of her blonde hair.

"Me too," Bernie said. "I'm so happy Mom put in the pool and double on days like this."

"Okay," Gary said.

"Birthday suits all round?" Bernie said. She looked at the others.

Lil giggled. "Uh-huh." She ran both hands back through her hair.

"Fine with me," Ben said, smiling. "That's your mom's usual house rules."

"Yeah. Wouldn't be the first time I've been skinny-dipping here," Gary said. He looked at Bernie. "Just the first time your mom isn't here to chaperone." He grinned, rising to the occasion. Gary paused and thought about his sister, wondering if she'd be shy in front of Ben. "Lil, did you want to go ahead of us and get in first? I mean, if you'd feel better that way?"

Lil smiled and shook her head. "No, that's OK," she said to Gary. "I'll change in the bathroom. Bernie, want to come help me 'adjust my suit'?"

Ben looked confused. Gary looked blank.

"Let's use my mom's bathroom," Bernie said, leading a giggling Lil upstairs.

Gary shrugged and raised his eyes. "Women," he said.

"Dunno," Ben said. "Shall we change?"

"Sure," Gary said. It took them under a minute to peel off their clothes.

The young men checked each other out.

Ben saw a blond-haired guy with medium build, neither soft nor buff, with only the beginning of a gold-pink summer tan on his cheeks and lower arms. Gary didn't have much in the way of chest hair, but around his pink, uncircumcised penis was a puff of blond hair. Gary's penis was limp but even so, promised to be of above average size. The heat made Gary's balls hang low and his shaft dangle down a little further than usual.

In turn, Gary saw a golden-skinned young man with dark curly hair, shorter and slimmer than himself, with sparse dark chest hair and red-brown nipples, a shade redder than his cousin Bernie's. Ben's dark pubic hair trailed in a thin line up to his navel, and his circumcised penis and balls showed the same limp dangle from the heat. Gary could believe that when erect, Ben's flaccid bronze penis could grow to the size of the dildo Bernie said she'd chosen to match it.

Gary took a breath. "My sister's just had a bad breakup with her boyfriend," he said. "So you might not want to ask her too much about her love life and stuff."

"Thanks for telling me," Ben said. "I'm glad to meet you. Bernie's really in love with you, she talks about you a lot on the phone."

Gary gave Ben a smile. "Yeah," he said. "Bernie's really something." He thought of all that had happened in the past day with Bernie and that Chinese shopgirl Lei and even his own sister Lil. All of them had been brought together, really, by Bernie. And now she was bringing Ben into the mix. His penis twitched, and he hoped Ben didn't notice. "She just told me about you," Gary said. "How important you've been in her life. And..." Gary paused.

Ben raised his eyebrows. "Uh-huh?" he said.

"And that you and Bernie have sex whenever you see each other," Gary said.

Ben looked quietly back. The golden skin of his face blushed to a rose-gold.

Gary saw Ben's penis twitch and swell slightly. Gary shrugged his shoulders. "I said I was OK with it. Y'know, I think she wants to get the three of us together," he said.

"How do you feel about that?" Ben asked. His color was gradually lightening.

"Well, she thinks you're a really good guy," Gary said. "So I think it could happen."

Ben's penis twitched and swelled further. "Yeah, I guess I'll ask her what she's thinking about," he said.

"Anyway, I gotta take a leak," Gary said. "S'cuse me, I think the bathroom's right behind you."

"Yeah, sure," Ben said. "I'm next."

Gary went into the small shower-and-toilet bathroom, leaving the door casually open. Nude, all he had to do was lift the seat before he started peeing. He shook off the drips, flushed, and lowered the seat as he'd been trained. He splashed water on his hands and dried them. "Yours," he said to Ben as he stepped out.

Ben entered the bathroom and closed the door gently behind him.

Gary took a towel from the downstairs closet outside the bathroom, grabbed his clothes off the floor, and headed out the sliding glass back door. He eyed the fences, but they looked pretty high and he didn't see any other houses that looked down on Bernie's backyard.

He dropped his clothes next to a lounge chair and tossed the towel on top, then walked to the deep end.

Gary put his hands together above his head and made a low-arched dive, cutting the water and descending to the bottom, dappled by sunlight on ripples. He swam from one side to the other and back, first in a crawl stroke, feeling the uncommon freedom of his penis swishing through the water, then turning on his back and paddling lazily back toward the other side.