After half an hour, Rian saw that her girlfriend’s eyes were beginning to wander and flit curiously over to the buffet of Italian hot bodies tanning in the sun, so she unsnapped her bikini top, slipped it off, and tucked it into their beach bag.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Jade shouted, snapping her head around to look at Rian in total surprise. The Italian posse all sat up when they heard her nervous shout, and giggled.

Carla called out, “Oh, Jade, honey, your woman is simply heeding the call of beauty. This is how real women enjoy the beach in the French and Italian Riviera, you know.”

“A topless beach, maybe, and in the Riviera, not the Florida Keys,” Jade grumbled. She retrieved the bikini top from their beach bag, and asked Rian to put it back on.

Jules and Diane were coming any minute now, and she didn’t know how well this would play with them. Rian pouted, though, and said, “Look, baby, I’d never have gotten the nerve to do this, in the first place, if not for all these women. Let me try it just this once, ok? Let’s not argue, please.” Then she handed the sunscreen to Jade. She cut off Jade’s protests with, “Here, spread this lotion over me, please.”

Later, when Jade heard male voices from somewhere in the path that led from the parking lot on the opposite side of the road, she became even more anxious.

“C’mon honey, why don’t we walk out into the water? I swam out there earlier and it’s really shallow.”

Rian smiled at her bemusedly. “What’s the matter? Nervous about a few guys joining us here?”

Soon they heard a bunch of female voices mix in with the male ones, which sounded like they were getting closer.

Jade was standing up now, and holding out her hand to Rian.

Rian raised her hand up to block the sun from her eyes after she removed her sunglasses and slipped them into the bag. She held out her hand to motion to Jade to hand her the sunglasses Jade was holding on to loosely. “Ok, we’ll go out into the water only if you take off your tank top and remove your shorts.”