The CP is intended to be an anthology series, one that I will add new stories to periodically; probably every few weeks. Each story will be stand-alone and have its own main characters, though some people will appear in several tales. The connective tissue is provided by a public pool, located in an East Coast college town.
The protagonists are people who work at the pool or visit it. The stories are planned to span a number of different Literotica categories.
A brief introduction to both the series and the pool may be viewed
here
.
F.S.
I was following her long, braided ponytail, as mesmerized as any cobra had ever been by a pungi. I'd seen her before of course. It was hard not to notice. Admittedly we were both habitually at the pool early, when it was quiet. This was before class for me and - I kind of assumed - for her as well. It was the twilight zone between Memorial Day and college closing for the Summer, and on weekdays the pool was only open to Marshall College students and people taking swim classes. I think they struggled to find enough lifeguards to cover a greater number of visitors until the high school was out. But she would have stood out in even the largest of crowds.
It had been a happy coincidence that I'd parked my battered Corolla while she had done the same with her equally disreputable Jetta. I wasn't stalking her, but by luck I ended up walking the fifty or so yards to the gate in her wake.
She was tall, and her willowy, yet muscular legs seemed to span an infeasible length between her khaki shorts and white flip-flops. The shorts themselves weren't immodest, as far as these things go, yet just tight enough for me to appreciate the undulations of her ass as she walked. But it was the rhythmic, sinusoidal sway of her hair that obsessed me. She had a lot of it, the color somewhere on a spectrum between light brown, and dark strawberry blonde. It was thick, and her lengthy braid looked like it could do service as a mooring line for a large ship.
Her wide-necked shirt revealed bright purple shoulder straps, I had noticed that her swimsuits were always purple or dark blue. They also tended to be at the minimalist end of athletic. She carried a similarly purple Bogg bag, then it seemed that few people didn't nowadays.
She reached the front desk and pulled out a card. I kept a respectful distance. I would have loved to have caught her voice, imagining it to be as smooth as her graceful swimming strokes, but she and the guy behind the glass simply exchanged a wave.
I stepped forward, handing over my own ID, and was admitted with an, "Enjoy your swim." Replying, "Thanks," I walked to the changing rooms. My parking lot 'friend' disappeared into the women's room as I approached the men's. An intemperate and frankly creepy thought of following her crossed my mind, before I told myself not to be a douche.
As fate would have it, we both left our respective locker rooms at the same time. I obviously registered in her peripheral vision as she turned to her right, looked at me, and nodded in recognition. Her orange swim cap was distended at the back by her mass of hair, giving her a slight alien look.
To be critical, her face lacked perfect proportions; her brow was on the large side, and its extent seemed to cramp her lower face. But she returned my smile warmly, in a way that suggested equanimity of temperament. We had gone through similar wordless rituals on other occasions. Today, something moved me to speak.
"Hi, I'm Logan," I said rather nervously, extending an arm toward her.
She took my hand, shook it warmly enough while smiling back, but then turned and walked toward the pool without saying a thing. Part of me was flummoxed by her mixed messages, the rest couldn't take my eyes off her toned butt, shown off by her thong one piece, purple as I had noted earlier. The grace and - to my mind at least - sensuality with which she walked to the pool's edge was only exceeded by her porpoise-like plunge into the water, scarcely causing a ripple. She had completed half a length of powerful, elegant front crawl before I took my next breath.
A pressure in my jammers made me guiltily seek both the cover and shrinking effect of cool water, and I dove in as well. I'm a strong swimmer, but I hadn't quite reached thirty meters before she passed me on her return length. I'd seen her prowess in the water before, but there was something physical about the way she powered fluidly past me, not an ounce of effort wasted. My own strokes felt frenzied and uneconomic by comparison; it was like she had been born to swim.
And so we plowed our parallel furrows for many minutes. It seemed she did four lengths for each of my three. Turning at the far end, I saw a flash of purple and assumed she had finished her session. Slightly self-consciously, I switched to breaststroke, all the better for binocular vision. As I neared her, I could see her shoulders heaving. It was at least some comfort to my pride that she had clearly put a lot of effort into her swim. And her face was even more scrunched up from her exertions, her nose wrinkled.
She stood dripping and arms akimbo, a sharp 'V' of violet pulled tight against her crotch, leaving her disdain for pubic hair beyond any doubt, and barely covering her most intimate organs. The chestpiece of her swimsuit was more modest; a plain amethyst panel, drawn tight over sculpted flesh and two modest mounds, which were rising and falling with her deep breaths. From my angle, she seemed impossibly tall and her body impossibly sleek, her slightly tanned flesh accentuated by a thousand droplets.
Her form was perhaps somewhat removed from the rounded softness and womanly curves prized by many, and her face deviated considerably from more rigorous standards of beauty. But, to me at least, she was perfect. Perfect, but also unattainable.
As if to emphasize this elusive quality, before I reached the poolside, she pivoted right and started to walk. It was clear that she was heading for the diving area. Fully realizing, and somewhat ashamed of, my lemming-like behavior, I hauled myself out of the water and padded in the direction of my nameless muse. My conscience did try to intervene, but my fascination for the woman was too great.
I reached the side pool just in time to see her execute a perfect forward somersault from one of the two low springboards. Once more it seemed as if the water parted smoothly at her command. I rated my diving more than my swimming, and testosterone was getting the better of my higher mental functions at this point. I ascended the ladder to the high springboard.
I could see the eyes of the lifeguard on me. I recognized her. She rather stood out as the only black guard, and she was also older than most of the rest. I'd seen her swim too, and she rivaled Purple Girl for both competence and grace. She was now smiling reassuringly at me. It helped a little.
I reached the end of the board. It had been a while, maybe two years, and the height seemed greater than I had remembered. Or maybe my teen self had had a more relaxed relationship with fear. But, glancing down, I saw the subject of my - probably unhealthy - obsession turn and look up as she made her way to the ladder on the opposite side of the pool. No way was I not going to make the dive now.
I considered an unadorned plunge. But I felt that I had to at least try to match the complexity of her movements. Taking a deep breath, I hopped, bounced, felt myself swing up and forward, and managed to remember to tuck, letting angular momentum do the rest. Feeling that I'd timed it right, I re-extended my body and nailed the entry. Sure I'd made more of a splash than her, then I was a lot heavier I told myself, as I surfaced spluttering.
At first I couldn't see my intended audience, then she came into view, standing beside the lifeguard on the right, and clapping. This was positive. She made some complicated hand signal to the woman sitting above her, who reciprocated. I wondered whether it was some sorority thing. Then my diving partner headed for the boards again, walking past the two low ones and beginning to climb the highest.
I made for the poolside ladder and turned once I was on dry land. She leaped, and her body became a whirring blur. Was that three rotations I had counted? Fuck! Again her entry was flawless and she surfaced smiling. I began to feel that things were going well. But it was also clear what I had to do next. I walked around to the other side of the pool, and began my second ascent.
As I climbed, there was a beeping sound, and the lifeguard picked up a walkie talkie. She seemed concerned about what she heard, putting the handset down heavily, and an expression of indecision crossed her face. She looked at both me and the woman in purple, and seemed to reach a conclusion. Either way, she got down from her perch and started to run back toward the main complex, taking the communicator with her.
Sitting on the side of the pool, the other woman shrugged, then looked at me expectantly. I didn't what to disappoint her. My mind raced to different dives I had done in my teens. Yes! That one maybe. I signaled her a thumbs up, walked to the end of the board, and turned one eighty. This had been my pièce de résistance in high school. I could still do it, surely.
I bounced, I leaped, I tucked, and then it felt as if my head had been rung like a church bell and everything went black.
I was cursing as I ran, why did I have to deal with this school shit, and why today, of all days. A day when basically no one who was meant to turn up for work at the pool had actually turned up. No, not no one, I told myself. There was Simon, sitting moodily above the main pool with at least three layers of clothes on. But it was just him and me. And now I also had to...
