The Bikini Diaries

The Bikini Diaries

You always see those girls at the beach—the ones who somehow make you feel inferior

even when you're usually a fairly confident person, happy with who you are. Killer tan,

killer boobs, and those long, silky, to-die-for legs, all strapped into some sinfully tiny

bikini that has Fuck Me written all over it.

I'm watching one of those sex goddess types approach even as I write this. God, she's

beautiful I kind of hate her—for making every other woman on this beach look so

dreadfully normal, for making married men and dads stop talking with their wives or

building sand castles with their kids in order to stare.

What is it like to be her?

Is this really who she is—a woman who's so comfortable with her sexuality that she

wants to advertise it, a hot chick looking for a good lay and that's all? Or does she

work so hard to look perfect because she secretly harbors low self-esteem and tries to

cover that with physical beauty? And is it sex she wants, or is that just a trap and she's

really looking for lover?

I prefer to think the former, I suppose, since even- though I'm intimidated by her, I so

envy her. The sexually comfortable her. The her who wants to get laid and nothing

more. And even though I like myself just the way I am most days—right now, just for a

moment, just a brief little second, I want to like her.

Chapter 1

W
endy Carnes closed her journal and dropped it inside the beach bag next to her lounge chair, along with the pen. She couldn't help resenting the feet that she wanted to be that woman—the one she'd just watched walking up the shoreline, all tan and perfect, hard

nipples jutting through the two white triangles covering her breasts, long blond hair

blowing behind her in the sea breeze. She couldn't help resenting it, but she could accept it. It was only natural—everyone wanted to be beautiful and desirable.

And maybe... maybe everyone secretly wanted to know that sort of power. Because that

was what the bikini woman possessed—power. Over all the men on the beach. And some

of the women, too.

Of course, she couldn't forget to factor in pleasure. One glance had told Wendy that the blond bikini babe
knew
pleasure—how to give it and how to take it. Her eyes had nearly sparkled with it.

Beauty, power, and pleasure. What was there
not to
envy?

But then Wendy shook it off. Because she was here for
business,
not pleasure. In fact, she was surprised she'd let Miss Bikini Babe distract her so much. To think she'd even started writing about it in her work journal—that wasn't like her.

Then again, her work seldom led her to places so intoxicating as the Emerald Shores

Beach Resort, edging three miles of pristine white sand along Florida's panhandle, also

known as the Emerald Coast. The word "emerald" got tossed around a lot here with good reason—when the sun hit this particular edge of the Gulf of Mexico, the pale sand

beneath turned the water a nearly electric shade of green.

No, her job usually led her to a downtown Chicago office building, where she served as

administrative assistant to Walter Carlisle, a wealthy real estate investor with holdings all over the country and a genuinely pleasant guy to work for. Walter was serious and

stalwart when it came to business, but he was also a fair and friendly employer who liked to go boating, play Texas hold 'em, and spend time with his wife and their young

grandchildren.

Wendy had been stunned when Walter asked her to go to Emerald Shores on what, in the

office, they called a "scouting mission." Even when Walter had chosen to permanently relocate his usual "scout," Marie Hill, in Seattle to oversee his large collection of property there, Wendy had assumed he'd hire someone new for her position. And who knew?

Maybe he still would. But at least for now, he'd elected Wendy to take on the task of

traveling to Emerald Shores to determine if Walter should sink significant money into the place.

And maybe the job wouldn't be so daunting if Emerald Shores was your run-of-the-mill

beach resort. But it was far from it—it was, in fact, an enormous upscale self-contained community. In addition to thousands of high-rise condo units stretching both along the

beach and the adjacent bay area, Emerald Shores boasted abundant shopping, nightlife,

restaurants, and even a full-scale grocery and pharmacy—along with biking, golf, tennis, and a free shuttle to get you wherever you needed to go. It was a world of luxury that also came with all the conveniences of home, and that was the charm of the vast property—for

vacationers, for full-time residents, and for Walter Carlisle.

When one of the resort's largest investors had pulled out, the Emerald Shores executives had begun vigorously courting Carlisle Enterprises. As a result, Wendy found herself

sitting on an immaculate white beach, digging her bare toes into soft, warm sand, and...

well, now, wondering what it was like to be sex on a stick.

Because even though White Bikini Babe had disappeared out of sight, she remained in

Wendy's thoughts. She'd felt both... intimidated and rebuffed by the woman's very

presence.

So why again did Wendy envy her?

Did she secretly long to be intimidating, to make other women feel bad about

themselves? No—she was a nicer person than that.

But White Bikini Babe was one of the "beautiful people," the type who had it easy in life, or at least easier than most. And Wendy couldn't stop wondering what it was like to be an object of pure sexual desire, plain and simple.

Focus,
she told herself. She wasn't here to watch girls, or guys—she was here to check out every aspect of Emerald Shores from both a tourist and investor perspective, talk with the resort executives about what she felt needed to be changed or updated, and then,

based on their response, she would share her findings with Walter when she went home

next week and make a recommendation that he invest—or not.

After taking a sip
of
the frozen mango daiquiri, complete with umbrella, that a Hawaiian-shirt-clad waiter had just delivered, she lowered the drink to the sand and took up her

journal and pen again—this time making notes that mattered.

Umbrella drinks—too
expensive. People
may be willing to pay $12 for a drink, but I'm
sure they resent it. Lower
the price
by 25% and you still make a profit, people
will likely
drink more, and they won't feel ripped off.

She'd examine later if that was actually an issue worth presenting to the Emerald Shores execs, but she'd decided to bring a journal, keep it with her as often as possible, record anything that occurred to her, and then sort through it all later.

As for why she'd written down her thoughts about White Bikini Babe—she supposed

she'd been venting. And no one would ever see the journal but her, so she could use it

however she wished.

It was when she abandoned the journal once more, taking another sip of the mango-and-

rum concoction, that she noticed a vision in white in her peripheral vision. She looked up to see that—lo and behold—White Bikini Babe now glided back down the shoreline in

the opposite direction. This time her hair blew around her face a bit, making her look

more windblown-and-sexy than sleek-and-hot, but the effect remained the same. As those

lithe tan legs moved smoothly over the sand, Wendy could feel every guy in the vicinity

watching—just as
she
was. Like before: dads, husbands; young men and old.

But this time a group of twentysomething guys who had just arrived to start tossing

around a football all stopped to gape, too, and something about that got to Wendy on a

deeper level. Because the guys were cute—hot, even. And now two of them had

abandoned the game completely to boldly approach White Bikini, and Wendy watched as

they spoke, visibly flirting. Suddenly,
Wendy
wanted to know how to flirt like that.

Because she suddenly wanted such cute beach guys to notice her, to want
her.

And as the conversation ended—maybe with plans for later?—and the white bikini

sashayed on up the beach still looking enviably hot, Wendy finally understood her

strange fixation with the woman. In fact, it hit her like a ton of bricks. ,

Wendy was thirty-four years old. And if there was a window of time in her life to ever

look that good or act that way—to openly advertise herself sexually—it was probably

past. And that meant she would never know what it felt like to fuck a drop-dead gorgeous guy for no other reason than pure physical pleasure.

Unless... unless she grabbed the opportunity right now.

She bit her lip, stunned at her last thought.

She wasn't normally a sexually aggressive person—she saw herself as mild-mannered

and pretty-in-an-ordinary-way, and she hadn't dated since getting her job with Carlisle

Enterprises two years ago.

It hadn't been a conscious decision, but... well, she'd been through a number of

relationships with dreadfully average guys who were crazier about her than she'd been

about them, and she supposed at some point she'd decided they just weren't worth her

time. Given that her job came with long hours. And that the guys she seemed to attract

just weren't very exciting to her.

Of course, at night, in bed, she occasionally allowed herself some pretty wild fantasies about fabulously hot guys—and in them, she was always stunningly sexy. Which, now

that she analyzed it, probably meant she had desires she was shoving under the rug, bored and irritated with the offerings in her life.

And now, suddenly, for the first time ever, as she glanced at the round tan ass of the girl moving away from her up the beach, she wondered—was it even conceivable? Could she,

Wendy Carnes, ever
putt
off stunningly sexy? Could she wear a skimpy bikini like that one? Other sexy clothes?

She didn't see herself as overly prim, but she generally tried to be
appropriate.
When she went to Myrtle Beach in South Carolina with her sister and three nieces every summer,

she always wore a conservative two-piece suit—the same she wore right now. She wasn't

twenty-one anymore, nor did she have the body she'd had then. What a crime that when

she
had
been twenty-one, she hadn't the guts to wear something skimpy and would have feared sending the wrong message. Now that she
wanted
to wear it,
wanted
to send a different message than ever before—just once, just for this week—she suspected her

body was probably too imperfect. A classic catch-22.

Still, it was a pretty decent body for her age. God had blessed her with good boobs and, so far, only one small spot of cellulite on the back of her right thigh. She worked out

regularly, so that helped. And she'd just gotten a new hair color, which everyone said

looked sexy, although that hadn't been the goal—she'd gone from her regular medium

brown to a coppery hue with a few blond streaks.

She stared out at the ocean, pondering the unthinkable.

Except that, to her surprise, it had suddenly become thinkable.

Could
she pull it off? Could she become like that woman? Could she become... someone else?

That hot May afternoon, Wendy made her way up the scenic, winding "beachwalk"—the path dotted with small palm trees and brightly blooming shrubbery—and back to her