Before social media, people actually looked into each other's eyes. Was romance different? I like to think so.
Attraction and chemistry are intriguing and sometimes fleeting but when we decide to take a risk and act on those feelings captivating emotional precarious love awaits. Francesca was one of those wonderful people who for a period of time, we shared something rare and special. Could it have been more? Perhaps. If I had been more aware of just how fucked-up my marriage was at the time, probably I would have pushed the envelope right through to its conclusion although I think subliminally, I sensed that this would not have happened at all if things were right at home in the first place.
-=-
Roughly following the school schedule, September through May, our master's swim team practised three nights a week at nine o'clock in the evening. Usually, public swimming preceded us. Regulations meant the pool was required to supply a lifeguard, even though we were all good swimmers. Sometimes it was the head lifeguard, but often it was someone who was new or didn't have much seniority. Far from being the ideal shift, they'd have to clean the pool decks and put things away by themselves. Rarely would they have anything to do with our master's group.
Yeah, I have a thing for blondes, and I spotted Francesca towards the end of September. She was drawing the short straw and working by herself almost every late shift that we were there. A fairly tall, young blue-eyed cutie, she caught my attention. Besides her Reese Witherspoon-like looks, she also had a mouth on her. The attitude and banter that went back and forth between us was pretty humorous. For a nineteen-year-old, she had a fast tongue and a smart wit.
Annoyingly, straggling public swimmers would often still be in our swim training lanes. Standoffish lifeguards took their time booting them out.
I approached Francesca. "Can you get these slow-pokes out of our lane?"
Even upon the first chat, she was cute and coy. Retaining that post-teen awkward look, she still hadn't filled out like a twenty-something woman. "Why don't you just swim over them, they'll get out of there then."
"You might have to render first aid or rescue them then," I remarked somewhat smart-alecky. I found her in-between teen to womanhood lankiness attractive.
Still, she did nothing, so our group got in starting our training. Eventually chasing the leisure swimmers out of the water.
This went on night after night. Similar situations and similar inaction from her. She was being a real little brat.
Despite her brattiness, there was something fun about our interactions.
"Should I drown a few of them tonight, or are you going to grow a pair?" I meant a pair of balls, and Francesca got the insinuation.
"Drown them." She responded dryly.
"Okay, but then if you actually have to rescue one of them, you might be exposed for all the little girl lifeguard tests you cheated your way through." I hopped into the water without waiting for an answer.
Each practice and each week we talked and horsed around more. I'd catch her looking at me when I arrived at the pool. We'd usually come with our swimsuits on already and disrobe on the deck. Many nights, I found Francesca checking me out.
Most training sessions finished with the coach giving us 25-meter sprints. We'd stop at each end of the pool and await further instructions, or technique correction. Francesca hung around our outside two lanes as if she was part of the group, and I'd tease her.
"Are you capable of rescuing me if I drown?" She'd smirk and generate a sassy comeback every time.
"No, but I might watch."
It got to the point where she'd be ready and waiting at the end of practise for us to start our sprints.
She'd stand right above us on the swim lane bulkhead. I'd look up at her from the water below, and whether she knew it or not, be able to see the narrow white edges of her panties through the loose leg openings of her black shorts.
Perversely, I was trying to discern if her pussy was shaved, or if I could see any strands of pubic hair.
Almost every practise, I'd pester her, and she seemed to love the attention of a fit older guy.
Very soon she was drawn to the group post-workout hot-tub unwind and social. Francesca would make sure the deck-washing in the vicinity needed to be redone. Always she'd spray me with cold water.
"You just love my body!"
"You just needed a shower!" Francesca was always fast with a comeback.
"If you want to see me have a shower, you just have to ask!" I jumped at the chance to amp things up and make it more suggestive.
"Hmmph, in your camo-print bathing suit?" Her eyes smiled. This was a definite tease, by Francesca.
"Just come and watch, you'll see!" I challenged then negged her, "Maybe it'd be educational."
Jutting one hip out in a mock how-dare-you pose, her face flushed. I found her body language alluring. This was the first time Francesca did not have an immediate comeback line.
After that conversation, there were more than just a couple nightly dreams of Francesca and me in the swimming pool shower.
-=-
The weeks went by and to say I looked forward to the swim practises would be an understatement. I made myself available, just as often as Francesca made herself present. I began to miss her if she had a day off, but I especially liked Friday nights. I rarely had to get up early for work the next day, so we could sword fight with our words well past the end of the swim sessions.
"Is he your brother?" Francesca pointed to a rail-thin skinny guy who was on our swim team at the time.
I was annoyed. I was much more muscular and toned. I couldn't tell if she was serious, or dissing me. I chose the latter. "No!" I pointed to a younger girl with long blonde hair, playing by the pool slides, "is that your twin sister?"
Poker-faced, I made my expression stay flat until Francesca belted me with a heavy sister-brother-like punch to the shoulder.
"Hey," I gathered my comeback line, "see... you're not near strong enough to really rescue someone!"
Walking over to the next set of folding bleachers Francesca shot me an evil look, then pushed them in with a helluva racket.
'Guess she is pissed that I got her.' I didn't really want her to be mad but was pleased with my self-perceived fast wit.
Typically, I dragged my ass getting into the water. Partly because I didn't like the initial feeling of the cool water against my skin, but it was an old bad habit from my younger days. Being later in the water, meant less meterage and a shorter practise if I could get away with it.
That night I was up to my usual pre-swim butt-dragging, doing prolonged extended stretches with exaggerated arm swings, delaying the water entry when all of a sudden someone nailed me from behind with the most perfectly timed shove.
When I surfaced, I was already shaking the water out of my eyes looking for a bratty girl.
"Hah!" Francesca laughed proudly then walked away down the side of the pool deck wiggling her ass, "It's a good thing you can swim."
She was walking away from my retort, but I remember that ass wiggle to this day. It was a 'fuck-me" tease if there ever was one. I really wanted that ass.
-=-
Before the end of January, the New-Years-resolutioners were already dropping like flies, and the swim team shrunk to nine or ten participants. It looked like Wednesday nights were assigned to other lifeguards, so I only saw Francesca Monday or Friday nights. It got so quiet that oftentimes even up to five minutes before practise, there were only one or two of us on the deck.
A late winter Friday before a long weekend had the pool sparsely populated. I tentatively pulled off my track pants and shirt, thinking possibly the swim workout had been canceled and no one would show up at all. Maybe, I would be the overenthusiastic dummy who didn't check the calendar.
A soft hand touched the right side of my mid-back. "Excuse me!"
Francesca was towing a big empty garbage can. The ones they used to store the pool lane ropes in. With just the two of us on that side of the pool deck, there was plenty of room to get past, but she stopped dead.
I liked her small hand touching my back. "If you keep your hand there, I might just have to teach you some things."
Francesca's hand didn't budge. "What things?"
"Oh all about things, little lifeguard girls shouldn't know." In my mind, I imagined fucking that cute little ass I saw wiggling not so many weeks ago, "maybe even the birds and bees!"
Francesca was silent for a moment then leaned in beside me. "Buzz buzz."
Her hand let go in time for me to see our coach entering the far-end swimming pool area from the lobby glass doors.
'Damn! What a tease and what a close call!'
When end-of-workout sprints arrived, I very much had Francesca to myself to flirt with watching from the pool deck and spending way too much time attending to that corner of the swimming pool.
"You're not very fast tonight!" Francesca was poised for some fun barbs.
"You're wrong, but you're cute when you're wrong." I pushed off the wall for my next two 25-meter sprints.
When I stopped back at the bulkhead, her smile told me that she was ready to play. "If you swim without the camo-suit, you'd be faster."
Francesca got me with that line. I didn't come up with a response until after the next two laps. "If you climb in the water, I might let you undo the draw-string." My eyes found the loose gap of her black shorts and were trying to look up them.
A cross-pool glare from the window of the pool manager's office preceded her answer and Francesca got back to her cleaning tasks.
Hot tub time arrived with no pool manager and very few swimmers. Five minutes after practise other than reception staff in the lobby, it was just me and Francesca. I hopped out of the hot tub dripping like a wet towel and walked up behind her, putting my hand on the hose she was holding. "Want me to teach you what to do with a hose!"
"No!" her response was unexpectedly cross and abrupt.
Okay, I had pushed things too far. All of this was in my head and I completely crossed the line.
