The de Winter's Tale.
Copyright © Naoko Smith 2015
Many thanks to Sara, curl4ever and Oggbashan for beta reading and giving me their insights into this story.
It was the best job in the world!
To start with, the pool belonged to Jeff Somers -- the millionaire writer who created the Dara Cruft character. Carl had of course grown up playing the spin-off games from Somers' books -- and surreptitiously reading the books. To actually have a job taking care of Jeff Somers' swimming pool was enough to make the kid in him punch the air with joy.
The job was designed as a sinecure to cover the summer break from college. You had a little money, a room over Somers' garage, meals with the rest of the household staff and you were
supposed
to take as much time off as you liked to write fiction.
Presumably Somers gave you tips on writing? Carl had what he later realised was a premonitionary qualm when the Head of English, Prof. Jones, said: "and of course, you will have guidance from Dr. de Winter." He thought the manic gleam in Jones' eye was just a reflection of light on his glasses but there was no disguising the reverential awe in Jones' voice.
Still, any guidance on his stories would be good, right. Even Jones' pedantic lectures about the use of the semi-colon had value and Carl had heard other students say de Winter gave top quality critique.
Carl laughed to himself about most of the feedback on his writing. He already had successful stories under a pseudonym on erotic writing websites and a substantial fanbase. What he wanted was Somers' advice. How did you write something that hit the big money like Somers had done?
Carl knew, of course, that a degenerative disease meant Somers now used a wheelchair. Was it to sublimate his wish for a more active life that he still wrote the Dara Cruft stories in which she loped effortlessly through jungles rescuing near-extinct species of moss and fungi? Carl did feel it for the old man, who had been a minor star on tennis circuits in the early days. You could sometimes still find an old copy of one of his books with a photo of him on the back wielding a racquet. Laughing with his blue eyes as well as his mouth, a sweater knotted carelessly over his broad shoulders, his thick blond hair swept back from a patrician brow.
He had looked something like Carl, although it was swimming that was Carl's sport. For Christ's sake! He was a junior league swimming champion and he had a summer job looking after a freaking swimming pool! Carl still swam regularly for exercise, although he no longer put in the long hours per day necessary for championship standard. Sure, they had murmured about Olympic hopeful to his parents but Carl was well aware that even if he hit that big time; even if he won one or two or three gold medals, it would all be over in a very short time. He would be left to make a living coaching the next set of hopefuls -- and some overly ambitious hopelesses. He wanted an easier route to fame and fortune.
"Feel free to use the pool yourself whenever you like," Somers said to Carl. "I usually use it myself mid-morning for half an hour, with my physio."
The big wheels on his chair were running smoothly along the marble floors of the hallway. Everything about the house was designed to suit Somers' mobility. The main living quarters were on the flat, with kitchens and staff quarters built into the basement.
Carl wondered if Somers was trying to tell him not to use the pool during that time. He felt supremely conscious of his own fully fit muscular body, walking in a lazy stride through the hall beside the man in a wheelchair.
"I'll make sure I have the pool clean by then, sir," he said.
Somers tilted his head sideways at Carl. His hair was thinning and white now but he still wore it swept back off the patrician brow. His brow was lined, you could see the suffering etched into it.
Carl had that uncomfortable feeling that came over him sometimes. He had the knack of seeing how other people's lives might be from the inside. What kind of pathetic struggles with pain and the indignity of loss of physical control coiled in Somers' mind? Carl didn't want to feel it. Then he saw a laugh twinkling in Somers' rheumy blue eye at odds with the assumptions Carl was making about him.
"Don't worry about that," Somers drawled. "Use the pool yourself whenever you like. Neither my wife nor I will mind. We just like to encourage a fresh writer if we can."
Carl realised that the old man was explaining his routine, in case Carl should find it difficult to see his spindly legs -- just now neatly encased in beautifully pressed navy blue wool slacks -- floating uselessly in the shimmering water.
"My wife will be back this evening," Somers added. "She'll be tired after her journey. She says she hopes you won't mind waiting till tomorrow to meet her." He seemed to look with particular meaning at Carl as he said this.
Carl wondered what Mrs. Somers was like. Some chubby motherly woman, perhaps, not quite so faded and lined as Jeff Somers? Keen to make sure Carl ate properly. He made a polite reply. He mentally sketched then rejected a story scenario featuring a plump MILF type who brought an apple pie to the fit pool boy and made it clear she needed servicing as well as the pool.
In the morning, he rose early and dutifully took the cover from the pool, inspected its sparkling waters and wrote a few hundred words of a story about a female spaceship officer to show Somers. Then he thought he would go for a swim, before poor old Somers had his turn in the pool.
He walked to the grassy slope of the closely mowed lawn from the garage. As he came up the fresh green slope, the swimming pool was laid out in angular splendour before him. It was right by the house but a neatly trimmed privet hedge hid it from the windows, forming a dark green backdrop. The white stone edging of the pool sparkled in the sunlight, the waters in the turquoise pool gleamed.
Centrally placed, right before his eyes as he came up the slope, a woman lay on a white sunlounger in a jade green swimsuit. The lounger was tilted so he saw her whole body as he came towards the pool. Her long dark hair cascaded around a magnolia petal face. She wore dark glasses so he couldn't see her eyes.
Her mouth was perfect. The upper lip had some kind of tuck in it. Combined with the full lower lip it made her look as if she were perpetually pouting in anticipation of your cock pushing at that plump lower lip.
The jade green swimsuit was ruched about the bosom to enhance breasts that didn't need any enhancement. They were sweet melons hanging in the dusky green of her costume, their full curves further emphasised by the trim figure of her narrow waist. The swimsuit was cut high in the leg but again, her long shapely muscular legs needed nothing to showcase their beauty. Water drops were scattered like glistening jewels on her pale clear skin. Her toenails were jade green tips to her pale toes, matching her swimsuit.
