I was glad to see Angela showing off, laughing and joking. She’d been in such a down mood for the last couple of days, and I couldn’t blame her. I was also glad to see that Jenna was having a good time, and wasn’t bothered by the fact that Emmy and I were old friends of Andy’s and had known him before she had. It showed the confidence she had in their relationship, and that made me happy for Andy.

“You said ‘Up until recently’,” Jenna said to Angela. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

Angela glanced at me, and Jenna caught it.

“Something about Leah?”

“I saw her naked,” Angela admitted. “And she is built like you can’t believe.”

“More than you?” Jenna asked, looking Angela (who was still wearing her tiny bikini) up and down.

“Well, yeah, but different,” Angela hedged.

“You saw Leah naked how?” Jenna asked, more and more curious by the moment.

“She’s an exhibitionist,” Angela said with a shrug.

“Says the woman who’s practically naked herself,” Jenna replied.

“This whole ‘exhibitionist’ thing,” I said. “It’s just not true at all.”

“Well, Angela has been staying with you for less than two days, and she’s seen you naked,” Jenna said to me.

“I saw her naked within my first minute here,” Angela added, none too helpfully.

“Plenty of people have seen Leah in the nude,” Emmy contributed.

“I have,” Andy piped up from his end of the couch. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Seriously, am I the only one here who hasn’t seen Leah naked?” Jenna demanded.

“When did you see me naked?” I asked Andy, not doubting his word, just not knowing when it could have happened.

“Like I said, it was a long time ago, when we were kids. You remember the time my cousin took us to the beach?” Andy asked.

Suddenly, the memory came rushing back, and I had to cover my face with embarrassment as I recalled that day so long ago.

“O.K., I’m going to need details,” Jenna said.

“You have never told me this story,” Emmy said, dogpiling on. “I would very much like to hear it.”

“Andy’s cousin came to town to visit and he asked me if I wanted to go to the beach with them. Andy either didn’t know or didn’t tell me it was a nude beach.”

“Wait, wait,” Andy said. “There’s a lot more to the story than just that,” he protested.

“It seems like you remember it better than me, so why don’t you tell the story?” I suggested. “I think I’m gonna need something stronger than this,” I said, holding up my now-empty wine glass. “Anybody want a cocktail?”

“I’ll have whatever it is you’re gonna make,” Andy said.

“Me, too,” Jenna added.

“Emmy? Angela?” I asked, looking at the two in turn, but both shook their heads.

Andy held off on telling the story, giving me time to mix up the beverages. When I’d handed Jenna and Andy their Manhattans and sat back down, Andy began his tale.

“Like I said, Leah was the first real friend I’d made in California, and that first year, even though I made other friends, she was still the one I spent the most time with, I guess. You know, at that age, most boys and girls don’t really hang out with kids of the opposite sex, right? The whole ‘girls have cooties’ thing. But Leah never seemed to care, and we had a lot in common. Our dads were both in the Middle East and not home, we lived pretty close to each other, and our moms got along, so sometimes when my mom needed to leave me with someone, Leah’s mom was O.K. with me spending the afternoon or evening over at their place, and the other way around, too,” Andy said, giving the background. “The next couple of years we both made other friends, but we still hung out a lot, you know?” he said, taking a moment to sip his drink and think about how to tell the story.

“And then, when Leah’s dad was killed when we were in fifth grade, Leah spent a lot of time over at our place while, I dunno, your mom took care of things or whatever,” he said, looking at me.

This was the part of my life that I least wanted to remember, and I’d done a pretty good job of not remembering it much at all, so it was strange to hear somebody else talk about the worst part of my childhood from their perspective.

“Leah was really angry all the time, and I mean, I guess I can understand why,” Andy said, gazing off into the distance, bringing back those times. “But she was never mean to me. She got into a few fights at school, with other kids who were complete assholes and talked shit about her dad, but now that I think about it, the teachers and school officials must have given her a lot of slack, since she never got suspended or anything. Did you, Leah? I don’t remember you getting in trouble at all for beating up, what was his name? Mark?”

“Matty,” I corrected Andy. “Matty McDaniels or something like that. Now that you mention it, I was taken to see the Principal, but I don’t think they even called my mom,” I said, trying to remember details from a time I’d done my best to forget.

“Yeah, that was it. Matty. His parents pulled him from school, and he never came back. I heard he went to school in Temecula after that,” Andy said. “But anyway, even though Leah was angry at the world, I guess you could call it, we still got along like nothing had ever happened.”

Hearing Andy talk about that time was bringing up painful memories, the loss still difficult even though it was half my life ago.

“So anyway, I think it was a Saturday, Leah was going to come over to our place, but my cousin, who was, um, twenty at the time?” Andy said, making it sound like a question. “Anyway, my cousin Beth had gotten into town the night before, and she wanted to go to the beach, so my mom talked to Leah’s mom, and both were O.K. with Beth taking us to the beach down in San Diego for the afternoon. Now, you have to remember, we were both spending almost all our free time in the pool at Leah’s apartment complex, and we could both swim really well, so our moms weren’t worried, right?” he said, looking at me for confirmation.

“When he says we were in the pool as much as possible, what he isn’t saying is that was true for almost everybody we knew. Half the kids in our grade had backyard pools, or like me, lived in a place that had a pool. The Boys And Girls Club pool was right by our school, too, so everybody knew how to swim,” I explained.

“So yeah, we were all super good swimmers and tanned like you wouldn’t believe,” Andy confirmed. “Anyhow, we grabbed our towels and Boogie Boards and jumped in Beth’s car and she drove us to this place that had a long, gated road down to a secluded beach.”

“Blacks Beach,” I said with a wry grin.

“Yeah, neither of us had any idea that Beth wanted to go to a nude beach,” Andy said.

“Your cousin took you guys to a nude beach?” Jenna asked, astounded.

“Beth is… well, a sort of wild child,” Andy said with a shrug. “I guess it never occurred to her that maybe it wasn’t appropriate for two eleven-year-olds to go with a twenty-year-old to a nude beach,” Andy explained. “But we didn’t really understand what was going on until Beth laid out the blanket and took off all her clothes.”

“You did not see the other nude bathers?” Emmy asked, trying to imagine the scene.

“Like I said, to get there, you had to walk, like, a mile or something down this steep road with a locked gate at the top, so that means you really need to want to go there to even be there, and that keeps the crowds basically non-existent. There really weren’t very many others there at all.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Until that creep,” I said, remembering.

“Uh yeah, getting to that,” Andy said, taking the story up again. “So Beth ditches her T shirt and shorts, and wow- no bathing suit underneath. Now, I’d never seen a naked woman before, but, like, she was so much older that somehow it kinda didn’t register. I can’t really explain it,” he said with a shrug.

“So we’re looking around, and that’s when we notice that nobody else has a bathing suit on, either. We look at each other, and I’m like, freaking out a little bit, you know?” Andy says. “But Leah, she’s like, ‘Fuck it,’ and takes off her shorts and T shirt, right? But then also ditches her two-piece. And she’s looking at me like, ‘Say something- I dare you.’ She’s standing there, completely naked, and all I can think is that her tan lines make it look like she still has her swim suit on. But eventually, I take off my clothes, too. Because it was like she was daring me to do it, you know?”

“See?” Emmy said. “Exhibitionist.”

“Well, it wasn’t like that,” Andy protested. “It was more like, I don’t know, Leah was gonna do whatever the fuck she felt like, and that was it. And just then, she felt like getting naked, just like everybody else was. So there we were, the two of us, staring at each other’s naked bodies, but then, Leah said, ‘I’m going in the water. What are you going to do?’ So we raced into the waves, and from that moment on, it was just like any other day at the beach. Us being naked stopped being a thing.”

“Until the creepy guy,” I said.

“Yeah, until the creepy guy,” Andy agreed. “We were sitting on the blanket, having some snacks that Mom had packed for us, when Leah stood up and said, ‘I’m gonna tell that guy to quit staring.’”

“There was this older guy, who had his towel a little bit away from where we had our blanket, and he just kept staring at Andy and me,” I explained.

“I think he was mostly staring at Beth,” Andy said.

“No, he wasn’t. He was staring at the two of us. When we went to play in the surf, he watched us and didn’t look at Beth sunbathing on the blanket even once.”

“Oh, wow,” Andy said. “I guess I didn’t realize that. So anyway, Leah gets up and walks over to this old guy, who stands up as she approaches. It’s too far away for me to hear, but she makes a fist at him and holds it up, I guess, like, threatening the old dude, you know? Next thing, he’s grabbing his stuff and leaving.”

Andy stopped to take a big sip of his drink, finishing it off.

“And here’s the part I’ve never talked about, to anyone, ever,” Andy said, gathering the courage to tell the next part of the story. “So Leah walks back to the blanket and just stands there, still angry, her hands on her hips, you know?” Andy says, looking around to make sure everybody was listening. “She just stands there, watching this old guy leave, but ready to take action, I guess, if he doesn’t.” Andy got up off the couch and stood there, facing the rest of us, his hands fisted on his hips, his feet shoulder-width apart. “Like this, right? So she’s standing there, right next to the blanket,” he said, moving over by the couch and standing near Jenna to make his point.

“And I’m sitting on the blanket, you know, just, I mean, right there, and I can’t stop staring.”

“Oh. My. God,” Jenna said, covering her mouth as she realized what Andy was trying to explain.

I will admit that I was a tiny bit slower, but when I got the image, my reaction was similar.

“So Leah’s watching this guy go, and I’m eye-level with Leah’s, um…” Andy said.

“Her pussy!” Jenna exclaims, covering her face with amusement.

“Yeah, that. So I’m looking at Leah’s, um, pussy, and it struck me right at that moment. Girls are beautiful,” Andy said, his face as red as I’d ever seen it. My face was pretty hot, too, I have to admit. Angela was mimicking Jenna, also covering her mouth with her hands. Emmy had the broadest grin, enjoying every moment of Andy’s revelation and the mortification it was bringing both Andy and me.

“So I look up at Leah, and she seems like she’s seven feet tall, and capable of anything. She just chased this old pervert off, and now she was standing there, completely naked, and completely not giving a single damn. She didn’t care she didn’t have any clothes on. I don’t think it even occurred to her to give it a moment’s thought. In that moment, she was Supergirl, Wonder Woman and every other super hero chick all rolled into one. But no spandex anywhere in sight.”

“So, what- what did you do after that?” Angela asked, wrapped up in the story.

“Well, I mean, nothing, really. The guy left, we finished our snacks, then did some more Boogie Boarding until it was time to go home,” Andy said.

“Did it feel kinda weird to wear clothes afterwards?” I asked.

“Yeah, you too?” Andy asked. “It did feel strange, putting my shorts back on. So, I never asked you, but what did you say to that guy?”

“I think I told him that if he didn’t quit staring and leave, I was gonna punch him so hard in his nuts that he’d remember it for the rest of his life,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Well, it worked,” Andy said with a laugh. “He could tell you meant business.”

“I would have, too,” I said. “I would totally have used his nuts like a speed bag,” I said, mimicking a boxer in training.

“That is one hell of a story,” Jenna said. “So what happened after that? I mean, like, was it life-changing?”

“It was for me,” Andy admitted. “That was the day that puberty hit me. I couldn’t stop thinking about Leah’s, um…”

“Pussy?” Jenna suggested, helpfully.

“Uh, yeah,” Andy said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“So you were in lust with Leah,” she asked, for clarification.

“Well, no, and I guess that’s the funny part,” Andy said. “I mean, I’d suddenly realized that girl parts were really good to look at, sure, and Leah’s formed the basis of what I imagined all girls looked like under their clothes, you know? But I didn’t suddenly feel any different about Leah herself than I ever did. We still hung out, like nothing had ever happened, and we didn’t really ever talk about it, either. Even though she’d gone from ‘just like me’ to ‘magically different from me’ in a very specific moment, and with her she’d taken all girls into this, like, other realm of existence, she was still Leah, and I was still me.”

“So was that the night you learned to jack off?” Jenna asked, clearly loving giving Andy a hard time.

“No, but it wasn’t long after that,” he admitted sheepishly.

“So how about you, Leah?” Jenna asked. “Did anything magically change for you that day?”

“You want to hear something funny?” I asked. “Until Andy brought it up, I’d forgotten all about the whole thing. The pervert, the swimming, the beach, all of it. Completely forgotten. If you’d asked me who the first boy I ever saw naked was, I’d have told you it was five years later and my boyfriend Chris.”

“How could you forget something like that?” Angela asked, amazed.

“Like Andy kinda said, fifth grade and sixth grade were really bad for me, and I think I’ve pretty much tried to forget all of it.”

“Andy said your father died?” Angela asked.

“Yeah, he was a Marine, killed in Iraq. In Fallujah,” I said.

“Wow, that must have been tough,” Jenna said, sympathetically. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, it sucked big-time, all right,” I said. “I still miss him.”

Nobody knew what to say, but finally Jenna broke the uncomfortable silence by asking Angela, “So tell us about your naked Leah moment.”

“God, I’m gonna need more alcohol,” I groaned.

“I just want to get to the bottom of this exhibitionist streak of yours, Leah,” Jenna said. “Now we know it goes way back, right?”

“Anybody else need a refill?”

“I could use a refill,” Andy said, getting up to follow me into the kitchen.

Once we’d gotten away from the others, he apologized. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories, Lee. I’m sorry for doing that,” he said in a voice too low for the others to hear, calling me by the nickname he hadn’t used in ten years or so.

“No, it’s cool,” I said, also keeping it quiet. “You know, I really had forgotten all about that day. And I guess I’d kinda forgotten how much time we used to spend together, too.”

“I can kinda understand why you’d try to block a lot of those memories away,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t all bad.”

“Did you really stare at my girl parts? We were eleven!” I said, but really, I wasn’t feeling all that indignant. It was a long time ago, and looking back, I’d scoped out his equipment at the time, too.

“Yeah, I really did,” Andy admitted. “I can’t really remember what Beth looked like naked, but I can vividly recall how you looked.”

“Well, that may be about the only part of me that still looks about the same,” I said with a laugh. “I’m a whole lot bigger now. I was as flat as a boy back then.”

“Mos def,” Andy said with a smile.

I handed Andy his Manhattan, and told him, “You know what? Thanks for telling that story. I mean it. You’re right, it wasn’t all bad back then, and thanks for reminding me that you were a big part of the good stuff that happened.”

“You’d really forgotten all that?”

“Yeah, I really did,” I admitted.

We rejoined the other three just as Emmy came back into the room with her acoustic guitar. “I have a song I have been thinking about recently,” she said, strumming idly. “I wrote this song back in high school, for Andy, but I have never played it for anybody. If you do not mind, I will play it for all of you tonight.”

“You wrote a song for me?” Andy asked, stunned.

“Yes. Would you like to hear it?”

We all said we would, so Emmy sat up straight and started playing the tune.

“Andy, Andy

When will these clouds disappear?

Oh Andy, Andy

Where will it take us from here?”

Andy and I had both broken out laughing by this point, but it took a little longer for Jenna and then Angela to recognize that Emmy was trolling us all with the old Rolling Stones tune.

“I can’t believe you wrote that song for me!” Andy said, smirking. “In fact, I’m pretty convinced you didn’t.”

“You really had me going for a minute,” Jenna said.

Emmy just laughed, and finished the song, substituting ‘Andy’ for ‘Angie’ as she sang. When she finished, Jenna got right back on track.

“So- Leah’s exhibitionism,” she said to Angela. “Details.”

Angela looked to me for some sort of signal, but I just gave a wry smile and shrugged, so she figured that meant I was O.K. with her telling Jenna and Andy about my towel misadventure.

Angela kept the story pretty factual, except when she described how I looked. “So there she was, naked as the day she was born, holding two bags of Japanese takeout, looking down at her towel. She said ‘Curse you and your sudden but inevitable betrayal!’, then casually walked over to the kitchen counter and set the bags down like nothing was wrong. She walked back over and was just about to pick up the towel when Emmy came into the living room and asked ‘Leah, why are you naked?’ like it was a thing that happened all the time.”

“It seems to,” I said with a sigh.

“So, just to be clear. I’m the only one here who hasn’t seen Leah naked?” Jenna asked, enjoying herself way too much.

“Are you sure you have not?” Emmy asked. “Most people have.”

“Thanks, babe,” I said as the rest laughed.