AUTHOR'S NOTE: All characters in this story are at least 18 years of age.
*****
I: ERIC AND KATIE
*Knock, knock, knock*
Was that a knock at the back door? David strained his ear to listen.
*Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock*
It was. Someone is at the back door. Who would knock at the back door? David got up from his living room recliner, walked through the dining room and into the kitchen, where he saw a young couple standing at the sliding glass door. What were they doing in the back yard? Why didn't they just come to the front door?
David slid the door open. "Yes?"
"Hey, is it all right if we use your pool?"
"Umm ... I'm sorry, do I know you?"
"I'm Eric, this is my girlfriend Katie. I live right up here on Harbor View."
"Well ... ummmm ... and you ... you want to go swimming in my pool?"
"Yeah."
"Uhhhhh ... well ... I ... I guess." David had not met the two 18-year-olds before, but he saw that Eric had swim trunks and a tee shirt on, while Katie wore shorts and a tee shirt, so while he was prepared for swimming, she didn't appear to be. David was a little concerned that he'd just consented to having skinny-dipping teens in his pool, when Katie, in response to David agreeing to their unusual request, lightly clapped her hands and said, "Cool!" Just then she whipped off her shorts and tee shirt to reveal a bikini underneath.
Poor David, 38 years old and single, didn't get many opportunities to be around supple young female bodies, and the sudden vision of Katie in her bikini almost took his breath away. She was painfully cute, that was for sure. Soon she and her boyfriend were frolicking in his pool, and David stood in the doorway still rather amazed that these teens had had the audacity to let themselves into his gated, fenced-in back yard, investigate his pool and, finding it to their satisfaction, brazenly knock on his back door to ask if they could swim.
"Hey! Hey!" Eric called to him from the pool, "What's your name?"
"David."
"Hey, David, could you get us some towels. We forgot to bring any."
"Uhhh ... OK."
David went inside and fetched two beach towels, then brought them out. "Here you go," he said, laying them on the patio table. They didn't respond, in fact didn't even acknowledge that he'd come back outside, but continued laughing with each other and swimming. Just as David was about to go back in, Eric said, "Hey! Put them over here by the pool."
"Umm. Oh. OK." So David brought them to a spot near the pool's edge. Once again, he did not receive a word of thanks or even any kind of acknowledgement that he'd responded to the request, so, after standing poolside feeling awkward for a moment, he went inside.
He returned to the living room to continue watching TV but could no longer concentrate on the program. He pondered how unusual it was to have these teen visitors and how surprising it was that they would enter his yard without permission.
After a while it dawned on him that he could no longer hear their voices outside, so he went to the kitchen door to have a look, but he didn't see them. Sliding the door open, he poked his head out and looked around. All was quiet. He walked out, still looking for signs of Eric and Katie, but it seemed they were gone. Their wet towels had been left lying on his concrete patio, so he picked them up, wringed them out, and took them inside so he wouldn't forget about them.
Well ... that was certainly strange, he thought. It was about the most interesting thing that had happened to David all year. He led a pretty boring life. Thirty-eight years old, never been married, no kids, hadn't dated a woman in years, worked a drudgerous 8-to-4 office job, had no close friends and no social life to speak of ... David was about as uninteresting as they come. He had had very few sexual experiences, and all of them were clumsy, embarrassing, or otherwise bad. He had no skill with the ladies and garnered very little respect from the men. He was polite, but always allowed others to bask in the social spotlight. In other words, he was a wallflower.
In truth he found human interaction of almost any kind stressful. Since he was no good at socializing and therefore found little reward in it, he spent his time off work at home alone, enjoying his books, movies, and TV shows, and the soothing pleasures of housework, yardwork, taking care of his pool, and of course swimming in it.
The next afternoon when he arrived home from work, David went into his house and started to slip his shoes off when he heard faint voices. Stopping to listen, he realized they were coming from the back yard. He walked through the house and into the kitchen, and saw through the sliding glass door that Eric and Katie were in his pool. What? he thought. What nerve those kids have.
He slid the door open. His uninvited guests heard the door open, and right away Eric "greeted" David with "Hey!" Before David could speak, Eric continued, "Can you bring us some towels again?"
This took David quite off guard. Instead of David putting Eric on the spot by demanding to know why they had helped themselves to his swimming pool, Eric had immediately put David in a position of having to answer. "Uhhhh ... well ... OK."
So David put the confrontation aside for the moment, and went to get towels. They were already in the pool anyway, and would indeed need towels when they got out. David got two fresh towels, since the ones from the previous day had still not dried completely. He brought them out and set them near the pool; once again, Eric and Katie ignored him and continued enjoying themselves, wrestling with each other, laughing, kissing, etc. David stood poolside for a few moments, trying to think of a way he could broach the subject of the teens entering his yard without permission even once, let alone twice, but he couldn't think of a tactful way to begin the discussion. The longer he stood, the more he felt like a pervert since any observer would interpret his lingering presence as voyeurism. So he decided to postpone the discussion until a more opportune moment. He started back toward the kitchen door, when Eric said, "Hey! Dave! Got anything to drink? Got any soda or anything?"
"Ummmm ... well ... um ... I have some diet soda."
Both of them wrinkled their noses at that suggestion. "Ew", said Katie.
"Uhhh, well ... I mean ... I have water, milk ... juice."
"What kind of juice?" asked Eric.
"Grapefruit, and apple."
"Want some apple juice?" Eric asked Katie.
"I guess," she said.
"Bring us some apple juice."
"Uhhh ... OK," came David's feeble reply.
As he poured juice into two plastic tumblers, he thought, What is the deal with teenagers these days? Is this how they all act? What in the world makes them think they can just go into a man's yard, use his pool and then treat him like a waiter? Maybe David should have been more clear yesterday that when he agreed to let them swim, he meant it was OK on that particular day, not just any time. But still, today when they came, they could have at least brought their own towels and drinks.
After he came outside with the two glasses of apple juice, David paused awkwardly as he considered where to set them. He thought if he put them on the patio table, Eric would likely ask him to bring them to the pool. But as the two were getting quite rowdy in the pool, splashing about, he thought if he set them poolside, they might get knocked over or get chlorinated water splashed into them.
Fortunately, Eric noticed David standing with the juice glasses and decided the issue for him. "Oooh," he said to Katie, "Here's our juice. Bring 'em over here, Dave." The two swam to the edge of the pool, where David stooped to hand the glasses to them. From that vantage point he could see down Katie's bikini top, and once again felt a shudder, almost like someone punching him in the gut. David's mouth was suddenly dry, and he reflexively cleared his throat. He started to walk away as the two teens gulped their juice, but then he heard Eric grunt as though to get David's attention to say, "Wait a minute." David turned back, watched them finish quenching their thirst, then they handed their half-empty glasses back, with Eric saying, "Put them over there on the table for us." As soon as David had the glasses back in his hands the teens were back to their frolicking and splashing around, absorbed in each other's attention and ignoring David.
So David went inside and sat down at the dining room table where he would be able to see Eric and Katie once they got out of the pool. He would pass the time reading a newspaper until then, and then he'd go outside and have a little chat with them about securing proper permission before swimming. While he was at it, he might propose that the teens actually earn pool privileges by helping him with some mowing or yardwork or something.
A few minutes later he was startled when the kitchen door suddenly slid open, and Eric, clad only in his dripping trunks and a towel around his neck, said, "Hey! You got any suntan lotion?"
"Uhhhh ... yeah."
"Bring some out." With that, Eric quickly slid the door closed and disappeared from sight, presumably to rejoin Katie.
David found some suntan lotion and brought it outside. He found the teens sitting at the patio table, Katie in one chair, semi-reclined and resting her legs in Eric's lap as he sat in another chair. Eric reached for the lotion, and David handed it to him. Now that the teens were out of the pool, David thought this would be a good time to lay down some rules on pool usage. As he stood thinking about how to begin the discussion, he saw Eric begin to rub suntan lotion on Katie's legs. Once again, David's throat became dry, and his thoughts, already ill-formed and unorganized, became even more scattered from the sight of live human hands actually rubbing Katie's delicious-looking thighs.
Then Katie spoke. "Is this all you got? Juice?"
"Um. Well ... I mean ... except for diet soda, yeah."
"Go get us some soda. Not diet," she said.
"Ummmm ... uh, go ... go get you some?"
