Note: This story was a collaborative effort. I only wrote Jocelyn's part; my friend Pete wrote Sean's part.
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As long as the ancient boiler pumped out hot water, Jocelyn wasn't moving from the shower. While her body stood motionless, her mind leaped over her various aches in a detached, nearly clinical, manner. She was in good shape physically, maybe the best shape of her life, but four matches in three days -- all of them three sets, all of them grueling -- had turned her body parts into a chorus all singing the same note: agony.
The Labor Day weekend tennis tournament had seemed like such a good idea, a chance to get to know some of the people in the condo complex better and maybe to find some new partners. Everybody was scheduled to play Friday night and Saturday with total games won determining who would play in the semifinals Sunday. A barbecue would follow the finals on Monday. Jocelyn had seen some of her neighbors play and had no illusions about getting past Saturday. And that was fine with her. Get some chores done on Sunday and relax at the barbecue Monday.
She should have known those plans would dissolve when the rain came Friday night, washing out the first round of the tournament. Rain in the Bay Area in September? Happens about as often as a "Nuns Gone Wild" video, she had thought.
The rain meant everybody had to play two matches on Saturday and Jocelyn was shocked when a cross-court backhand in the third-set tie-breaker gave her her second win. The good news: She was in the semis. The bad news: She had to play the next day.
Somehow she ignored her screaming muscles to win in three sets Sunday and split the first two sets Monday. But that "mind over matter" stuff only goes so far. The last set was a death march. Her calves and thighs cramped repeatedly, her elbow sent searing bolts through her on every stroke. It wasn't about winning anymore, it was about surviving.
And when match point bounced harmlessly past her -- a lazy forehand that couldn't have been more than five feet away -- all she felt was relief.
Now it was the hot water's turn to give her relief. Jocelyn adjusted the Shower Massage to its strongest pulse and let it pound on her aching body. As she turned the shower head to direct the throbbing stream at her thighs, a blast hit directly on her clit. The sensation startled her out of her thoughts of pain. "At least that part is still working," she thought with a smile.
When the water finally began to run cold, Jocelyn climbed cautiously from the shower, wrapped herself in a towel and walked into her bedroom. Living on the top floor of the building, she had grown careless about closing her drapes and now, as she looked into the mirrored doors of her wall-to-wall closet, she could see the reflection of a man in the window of the unit across the courtyard. Her first instinct was to go back to the bathroom and get her robe. But then the memory of the pulsating water hitting her clit returned.
"Do I really have the guts to do this?" she thought.
* * * * * * * * *
At some point during the last three days, Sean had managed to turn his Labor Day weekend into a complete disaster. Then again, it probably wasn't a single moment that had turned the weekend sour. It was most likely just a combination of every single bad thing that had happened from 5 o'clock Friday afternoon till now.
Sean didn't really know where to begin, and he didn't really want to give himself the manual recount. But of course, he couldn't help it. There was the disastrous blind date on Friday night courtesy of a friend at work who was convinced that some girl named Shelly was the one for him. Right for him except her high pitched voice, her snort-filled laugh and her apparently aching need to discuss religion over dinner.
Then again, it might have been the car accident on the freeway the day after. A nice meeting with the back of a conversion van when he hadn't been paying attention. Sean cringed at the thought! of the estimate from the mechanic that he had received.
Sunday brought about torture of a completely different sort. He had been getting ready for his normal Sunday afternoon run when he had run into a woman that had made his heart almost stop. She had been making her way toward the tennis courts. Her attractively lithe body had caught his attention immediately and held it so strongly that he had to close his hanging mouth in shame when she caught sight of him. Thinking back on how hotly his cheeks had burned once he realized made him embarrassed even now. Seeing her walk off toward the courts was a painful reminder of how poorly his love life had been going.
Today had been quiet so far, and Sean had taken some time to purge himself of bad karma by staring at the television for a few hours. Rubbing his eyes, he looked at the clock on the wall. It read 9:07 p.m. Resigned to the fact that his Labor Day weekend was a complete bust, Sean got up from his couch and headed for his bedroom, eager to bring an early end to the weekend.
As he walked by his apartment's porch window, something grabbed him out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the window to get a better look. The primitive part of his brain knew exactly what he had seen, but the more civilized part could not believe it and needed to make sure.
Sean's eyes adjusted, and when they came to focus on the unit across the courtyard, he thought that he could feel his eyes bulging out of their sockets. In that apartment stood a woman. She had his back to him, and was wrapped in a bath towel. There was no towel around her head though, and her dark brown hair hung down to the middle of her back.