My mother has this penchant for entering competitions. She loves them. She enters them on the radio, on the TV, on the internet, and out of magazines. Surprisingly enough, she actually wins things, too. Nothing exceptional or badly needed, but she wins. Most of the things she wins finish up being given away as Christmas or birthday presents, but there have been a few nice goodies, like the very large plasma TV she picked up once.
Just after my eighteenth birthday she had another nice little win. A free holiday. Well, to be precise, it wasn't a free holiday. What it consisted of was free accommodation in a timeshare chalet for one week. (I saw the flaw right off. They'd be busy trying to sell Mum a timeshare while she was there. Good luck to them on that.)
Now Mum was rather insistent on collecting anything she won. As far as she was concerned if she won it, it was hers and she wanted it. This meant that we'd be going for a week's vacation to a certain timeshare chalet, like it or not.
Actually, I didn't really mind. It would be fun and those places usually had a number of facilities designed to make the place more of a drawcard. Accordingly, I didn't cry off, protesting work or social activities that I couldn't shirk. Instead I quite happily packed my bag and joined the parents in the car.
It didn't take me long to find out that I'd made a mistake. Certainly there were entertainment facilities at hand. Just no-one to use them with. The whole scam was a case of getting people of my parent's generation to the timeshare facility where the salesmen could get at them. There were no formal presentations or anything, with the whole pitch being low key. There was also no-one of my age there. I mean, who wants to play tennis or go bowling with people my parent's age? Other people my parent's age. Not me.
Fortunately the place did have bicycles available, so I was able to go riding and exploring the countryside. There were some nice places in reasonably easy reach.
A couple of places I came across I couldn't actually reach on the bike. There were some paths that, while OK for foot traffic, were inadvisable for someone on a bike. When I found an interesting path of this type I'd lock the bike to a handy tree and take a hike to see what lay at the end of the path. The intrepid explorer - that was me.
Towards the end of our little vacation I followed one of these tracks and found that there was a river at the end of it. Not really the end of the track, as I could see it continued on the other side of the river. The water was shallow at that point, being a natural ford. (Also being enhanced by human hands at some stage, was my guess.)
What I found interesting was that the river formed a nice deep pool on the upstream side of the ford. The water was beautifully clear and the bottom looked sandy. Watching a small branch float slowly passed I could see that there wasn't much of a current, almost none near the banks.
It was hot. I was hot. The water looked cool and the trees along the banks cast shade and gave shelter. Like I said, I was hot, and that water looked very appealing.
I hadn't seen anybody in the area. All these little rides and walks I took were solitary. I'd see the occasional car on the roads, but no pedestrian traffic. I saw no reason why I should expect any now.
OK, so maybe I should have put more thought into it. I didn't. I ducked under this huge weeping willow and stripped off. Then it was like a duck to water. It was lovely and cool. I swam around, just playing and trying to catch the odd fish. Not that I succeeded. Quicksilver is what they were. My hand would close over one and he'd be gone. I'm quite sure the blasted things were laughing at me. They just hung around, my antics not scaring them in the slightest.
Now it was the middle of the day and I was skinny-dipping in a pool by the side of a track, but the total lack of pedestrian traffic over the past few days had given me an unwarranted expectation. IE. There has been no pedestrian traffic so there will be no pedestrian traffic in the future.
Wrong. The first I knew of how wrong was when I heard someone cough. I almost choked in the water, gasping, trying to crouch down and stick my head up at the same time so I could look around. I didn't see anyone at first, but then he gave a casual wave and I spotted him leaning against a tree near where my clothes were.
He was quite a large man. Not fat, from what I could see, just big. Not bad looking, I'll admit, but I'd just as soon have his absence to his presence. It might have been otherwise if I'd been dressed, but I wasn't. While I was studying him I could see that he was studying me, and the blasted water was horribly clear.
The way he was casually leaning against the tree made it plain that he had no intention of just passing by.
"Um, excuse me," I called out. "Would you mind moving on? I want to get out."
"Don't mind me. You want to get out, you get out. I'm not going to stop you."
"Ah, but the thing is," I said, greatly embarrassed, "I'm not wearing anything. I'd like a little privacy while I get out and get dressed."
"I know you're not wearing anything," came the reply. "That was pretty obvious from the moment I saw you. That's why I'm still here waiting for you to get out."
Bloody hell. A pervert.
"I'm not getting out just so you can have a free peep show," I yelled. "Just go away, please."
"Peep show? Do I look like the sort of person who wants a peep show?"
I have to admit he didn't. There didn't seem to be anything sleazy about him. If I'd met him in other circumstances I'd have been mildly flattered to have him decide to chat me up. But if he wasn't there for a peep show, why wouldn't he move away?
"Then if you don't want a peep show, why won't you move on and let me get out?"
"Because I want you."
He didn't say that, did he? He just did not say that.
"What?" I demanded in an outraged voice.
