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Birthday Suits

Dan French

    “Hey, boys. Do you want to meet Lizzy and me down at Stiles Pond and go for a swim?”
    Phee called out from the kitchen porch just as Steve, David, and I were walking down from the sheep shed with cans of creosote and paintbrushes in our hands. Phee was my stepmom and mother to my brothers, Steve, age nine and one year younger than me, David, two years younger, and my sister Elizabeth, who was three. We boys had just finished creosoting newly cut fence posts to prevent them from rotting. Tomorrow, we would dig post-holes and put fence posts up around a newly carved-out field to be used as a pasture for our cows and sheep. Our hands and arms were stained with brown splotches that even turpentine didn’t clean without at least a few days of scrubbing. Our clothes were filthy from lugging fence posts around.
    Steve said to David and me, “We still have time before feeding the animals.” Our heads nodded in return. We put the tops back on the creosote cans, wrapped our brushes, and toted them back to the tool shed.
    Stiles Pond was big enough that some might call it a lake. We owned a small pondside cabin, about a mile away through the woods by foot, and longer by road. In the middle of August, the water was so warm you could swim for hours.
    The three of us changed into our swim trunks and headed up the dirt road from the far end of our farm. Phee and Elizabeth had already left by car. We walked up the road about half a mile, with maple, oak, and a sprinkling of beech trees on either side providing us with shade. We veered right along a small cut-off path that eventually led down a steep hill to our cabin, a spare one-roomer with a small screened-in front porch.
    Phee’s station wagon was already out in front of the cabin. We could hear Liz’s squeals of delight as she splashed in the water. The beachfront was really a dash of sand in our tiny cove. We had hung a rope from an overhanging tree branch for swinging and jumping into the water.
    “Well, hi, boys!” called Phee.
    We yelled out a chorus of “Hi” as we all dove in one mad pile into the cool water, refreshing and cleansing after a day’s work. Sounds of summer filled the air - splashes and screams of delight from other beachfronts, an ice cream truck at the public beach playing its enticing tune, and rowboat oars and canoe paddles smacking the water. The sun beat down. Nothing was better.
    Phee looked on. She wore a one-piece bathing suit over her lumpy body. After five or ten minutes, she called out, “Let’s play a game. Davey, come over here.”
    David giggled and swam over.
    “What’s the game?” he said.
    “Well, it’s a game of dare. I dare you to take off your swim suit and have me hold you up to show everyone out on the pond,” she chuckled.
    “Why would we do that?” queried David. He frowned in thought.
    “Just becauseÉCome on, try it.”
    “I’d rather swing from the rope and jump into the water.”
    “Well,” said Phee. She had a mischievous look. “First, we’re first going to play my game.” She grabbed David, tore off his swim trunks, and thrust him up into the air for all to see his eight-year-old, naked body. David wriggled and writhed, to no avail, and after a bit, she let him go, and with a splash, he hit the water.
    Phee tossed his swim suit at him, and then said, “See, dear, now wasn’t that fun?”
    A couple of canoers looked on and laughed at the spectacle. I watched, squirming. I didn’t want my ten-year-old weenie and behind being held up naked for all to see. Should I say I had to go pee? Swim out further so she couldn’t get me? Wait my turn and grin and bear it? Why did she want to take our swimsuits off and hold us up for the world to see anyway? My mind roiled. I had a pit in my stomach.
    Phee saw Steve out of the corner of her eye, turned, and in one swift motion enveloped him in her arms.
    “Next!” she exclaimed, as she pulled off his swimsuit amongst thrashing legs. She held her trophy aloft for all to see – Steve in his birthday suit, screaming, “Mom, Mom, what are you doing?”
    Relieved it hadn’t been me, my body relaxed. Maybe two was enough.
    Much faster than I thought she could move, Phee released Steve and grabbed me by my trunks. “Now dearie, it’s your turn.”
    She reached to get my trunks off, but I clasped them with both hands, and pulled up. I hung on tight, embarrassment flooding over me.
    “Come on, now, honey, it’s just a game,” Phee cooed, as she struggled to undo my grip on my swimsuit. “What are you, a spoil sport? See, Davey and Stevie did it, and they liked it.”
    We were like two alligators thrashing in the pond, but Phee was a lot bigger than me. I called on Thor to help me out, but Phee had gotten my trunks halfway down and kept pulling. I wanted to swing Thor’s sledgehammer, but I didn’t have it within my grasp. Instead, I screamed, a crazy, guttural scream from deep down. I don’t know where it came from. Phee looked at me funny, and loosened up, just long enough for me to wriggle free, pull up my trunks, and dive into the water. My chest heaved and water got in my lungs because I had forgotten to take in air before I dove in toward deep water where she couldn’t get me. I came up spluttering water, ashamed that I had made such a fuss. The canoers were still watching, but they weren’t laughing anymore. They just stared.
    Phee said, “Well, I don’t know what all the fuss is about, it’s just a game.” Turning to Liz, digging sand with her shovel, Phee said, “Come on, sweetie, let’s head back to get dinner ready.”
    Liz replied, “Why do we have to go so soon?”
    “It’s almost dinnertime, sweetie. I need to get cooking.”
    I felt guilty that I had spoiled the fun, but I also stayed in the deep water where I was safe. I should have let everyone see my weenie and behind. But I was glad I hadn’t. Steve and Dave didn’t seem to mind that the game was over. I looked out; the canoeists had paddled off.
    After Phee and Liz left, we had a contest to see who could swing and land in the water the farthest out from shore. Nobody said anything about what happened. It seemed best to leave things alone and get on with it.
    I left Steve and Dave playing in the water and headed up to the cabin. Still unnerved by what had happened, I couldn’t figure out why.
    Antlions lived in a spit of sand beside our cabin. I often watched as an antlion dug a tiny pit in the sand and buried itself at the bottom by flicking sand up and out. Once the antlion concealed itself, it waited for an ant to fall in. I usually snuck up, quiet, so as not to scare them away, and check their pits. I then watched and waited.
    Today was different. I wanted immediate action. I forced an unwilling ant into one of the pits. As the ant scrambled up the walls to get out, the antlion flicked sand over the ant. The ant fell back down to the bottom and started the scramble up once more. The antlion flicked more sand to send the ant sliding back down. This desperate cycle repeated, until finally, the ant tired and paused at the bottom. The antlion snatched the ant and dragged it under the sand to devour.
    I smiled, even though I felt a bit guilty I had sent an ant to its death. My head cleared. Time to head back. I called out, “Hey you guys, let’s go. We better make it back and get the chores done before dinner, or we’ll be out working extra afterwards.”

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