This is a series of stories that are a sort of sequel to two text-adventure games. Each installment is a complete story on its own, but for a full understanding, the reader may want to start with Chapter 1.
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I was out to lunch with a couple of co-workers; Steve was in Sales with me, and Patrice was a sweet older woman in Fulfillment. Over the last several weeks, I had encouraged both of them, and many other CKE employees, to try out working with my personal trainer Courtney, and I wanted to see how both of them were doing. Courtney's business was struggling, and I had taken it upon myself to lead a word of mouth campaign. As we looked around for our server, who had of course disappeared right when we wanted our checks, I asked about their progress.
"Oh man!" moaned Steve. "I quit, dude. That woman is way too much. I mean, she is nice to look at," that was an understatement, "but she yells all the time. I had to give up." I reflected that Courtney only actually yells when you are not giving your all. And, looking at Steve's pleasant but mildly pudgy visage, I could guess that giving his all was probably not in his wheel-house.
"I've lost ten pounds," Patrice said quietly. "And I warm up on four on the treadmill now." She went on to detail how much more weight she was lifting as well. Aside from the weight, her gains so far were modest, but for a woman like her, who was thick in too many of the wrong places, as well as the right, they clearly made her feel a lot better about herself.
"When she yells at you, Steve," Patrice said softly, "she is just telling you that your goals are in reach, just work a little harder."
"What I was hearing when she yelled like that," replied Steve, "was punch the fuck out of this nightmare and swing by Dunkin' Doughnuts."
Patrice and I shared a look.
Shortly thereafter, I took a trip to San Francisco to visit my big client out there. I had been grumpy to find a few things out of order with how they were being cared for and had missed my afternoon flight back. I instead took the red-eye overnight and went straight to the office. After I turned in my reports, and lodged a few complaints, the fact that everyone I spoke to had two faces that overlapped each other told me I needed to take the afternoon off and rest. Courtney was going to have the opportunity to yell at me the next day, and I would need the energy.
As I turned into the cul de sac where I lived, I glanced at my nextdoor neighbor's house, and wondered if it was time to test if my little local Rumor Mill campaign had had the effect I wanted yet or not. Why not? There was noting to lose, and my fatigue seemed to drop away at my anticipation.
Changing into casual clothes, I went into my back yard and quietly climbed the huge oak against the fence between our properties. Though it was still the middle of the afternoon, the multiple laptops on which my neighbor usually worked all day were shut down and stacked beside her favorite chaise. My neighbor Linda was actually swimming in her pool, which I had not thought really happened that much. The view from the tree got better when she started to walk out of the pool. Today she wore a most extraordinary swimsuit that I had not observed before. (I really did not spend a lot of time in this tree watching her. Really. But almost every single time that I had observed her, she was wearing, or not wearing, something different.) That day, it was a mismatched bikini, simultaneously modest and wildly daring. The bottom was a small pair of white boy shorts with a wide belt of matching fabric and a large, non-functional silver buckle. The top... the top was also white. It was solid under her right arm, but then split into three strips to wrap around her. The top was about an inch wide and swept up diagonally to the base of her neck, then back around and across her back. The bottom ran horizontally around her torso, well below her breasts. The middle band provided the only actual coverage, such as it was. It ran straight around her breasts, and was barely wide enough to conceal her dark aureoles. The rich curves of her perfectly engineered breasts were utterly exposed, both above and below the center band of fabric.
As she left the pool and the water cascaded off her lean but sumptuous curves, I could not escape the impression that it did so unnaturally slowly, as if even the water itself was reluctant to release its hold on this vision. Further, I could make out that the fabric of her top was just barely translucent when wet. I could clearly discern the shadows of her delicious nipples. Linda walked idly, humming to herself, toward her chaise, wringing out her long, jet black hair. Even as I watched her sleek round ass while she walked, I began to gently step on the branches of my tree that overhang her yard. She picked up a huge towel and began to rub herself vigorously, and I stepped on the branches harder.
By the time Linda finished toweling off and turned around, the agitation of the branches has dropped a host of leaves into her yard, and especially into her pool. Linda had a very definite complex about her pool not being crystal clear.
"Fucking goddamn leaves!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot hard. It sent amazing ripples through her amazing breasts, jiggling them briefly in the tenuous containment of that extraordinary top. She seized her phone, and looked it it, flipping back and forth between apps. A smile grew on her face for a moment and she actually ran a fingertip along the middle band of her bikini top to correct some slippage from her earlier stomp. But then she looked up at the leaves all over the surface of the pool and she scowled again. She dialed a number on her phone.
"Hello? Denise? It's Linda Tarlington. Yes, hi! How's the boy? Good!" she said, her voice that of someone who regularly cultivates a useful contact.
"Denise, my pool is full of the darned leaves again. Yes, already. I need Danny to come out ASAP. When can you schedule him?" There was a pause and Linda actually pulled her phone away from her ear and glared at it. "What?!? What do you mean fully booked? From now until our next regular cleaning? What the hell, did you guys run a new ad campaign or something?
"Never mind. I WANT these leaves out of my pool. Cassie? No. No way," Linda grumped into the phone angrily. She seemed to catch herself and her better nature made her seem to change what she was going to say. "Denise, I don't want you to think Cassie does a bad job. She's a nice girl, and cute. Have her work weekends when the husbands are home. They'll love her. Ha! That's why she doesn't want to work weekends? I guess she's smart, too. But Denise, she takes forever and she will not shut up while she works. No. I'll just try to do it myself. Please do put me on stand by for Danny."
Linda tossed the phone onto her chaise and started to putter around the pool. I knew what she always did with Danny after he cleaned her pool, and smiled at the fact that she was now irritated about the leaves and at the same time frustrated about the absence of Danny. What I did not understand was how could she be so bad at simply getting leaves out of the water? She sucked at it, but wanted it done, and was frustrated at the fact that it was suddenly her problem. "Goddamn leaves!" she practically shouted.
I slipped down out of the tree. It looked as it my little plan spreading the (completely true) rumor that Glistening Waters Pool Service had a young greek god of a pool boy, named Danny, who was hung like a horse was working. Every lonely housewife for three towns around, eager to at least get a look at him while he cleaned their pools, had scheduled with Glistening Waters. Which meant he was not there at a moment's notice to clean Linda's pool and be very handsomely rewarded.
