“Oh, well, I don’t have a swimsuit or anything,” she says.
I grin, “I didn’t say I had a bathing suit.”
Yup, that did it. I swear, the poor woman is acting like she is going to pass out. Her knees are a bit wobbly, but I can tell she is thinking the idea over. I can see her very slowly inching her way towards the end of her desk. “Oh,” she says, her voice raspy and nervous. I smile; my smile has always been the sealer of the deal. “Okay,” she says finally, and it’s like it almost killed her to say it; she can hardly speak.
We walk through the main part of the gym and enter into the pool area –an enormous room with a lap pool. I don’t act shy about it, and I immediately strip down and dive into the pool. She takes her time removing her shoes; she acts really skittish after removing her shoes. She’s too scared to actually take off her clothes, so she hesitates. “Awe, come on, I’ve stripped down already,” I say playful and splash a bit of water at her feet.
She smiles and laughs slightly, “hey, easy, this is an expensive suit. You better not get it wet.”
I just smile back at her, and she starts undressing. “Look away,” she demands, so I do. After a moment, I hear her make her way into the water. She taps me on my shoulder, and I turn to see that she has undressed completely with the exception of those glasses of hers, but she’s kneeling slightly so the water is up to neck –I guess it makes her feel a little less exposed.
It doesn’t take long after this. We splash around like a couple of kids for a bit, but soon we work our way closer to one another and I go in for a kiss. She makes a quick transition from timid and shy to slightly forceful after I kiss her, and her arms go around my neck. I feel her wet breasts press against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, and the two of us wind up floating over to a corner of the pool. I gently push her back against the side of the pool and let my cock press against her thigh for a moment while our lips remain locked.
She removes her glasses and places them at the side of the pool, and we continue kissing for a moment before I slide my cock between her legs –eventually entering inside her which is a smooth and easy transition in the water. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” she says excitedly with a slight groan.
I keep one arm wrapped around her waist, and my free hand plays with her nipples. I nibble at her throat and pull her hair; she starts groaning loudly, and I press my lips tightly against hers, muffling the sound. Eventually I hear her cries start to escalate, and I know she’s having an orgasm. I pull out of her and cum in the pool; no one will be the wiser, I’m sure. She gasps as we pull apart, and she reaches and grabs her glasses so that she can look at me. She touches my bare chest and kisses my pecks, giggling slightly, “I hate that I’m moving,” she says.
“Me too,” I say, but it’s a lie. I’m glad she’s leaving; I don’t know anything about her, and a no strings attached fuck party in the pool was a pretty nice tension release. It was also one hell of a welcome back party for me.
33
“That’s right, clean every last bit of that shit up!” Tyler screeches as I scrub his carpets; it’s not like they were clean before I lost my lunch on them. I had another long night of drinking, which inevitably has led to a rough morning, and this time Tyler is not being at all sympathetic to my hangover. This has got to be the third time I’ve thrown up somewhere other than the toilet in his apartment since moving in, and it’s not like I have been here that long either.
“All right, all right,” I groan, “I’m sorry, man.”
I notice that Tyler is wearing a suit, and he’s working on straightening his tie. Where is he going? “You’re sorry? Are you kidding me? I’m getting sick of this, Jonathan. I’m trying to help you out, man, but you keep on and on with this crap.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I say again while I finish scrubbing up the stain –evidence of my wild night at the apartment by myself. It’s like I can’t help it. Every time I get a little extra money, I spend it on alcohol. Half the time Tyler is here, and he swipes my alcohol away, but he and Marty had gone out and I had decided to stay home… so Tyler hadn’t been here to stop me. He shouldn’t have to stop me, though. Seriously. I’m a grown man; I should be able to control myself. He shouldn’t have to feel like he has to babysit me.
He takes a deep breath while I throw away the paper towels and put up the carpet cleaner. “You’re going to sign up for a new AA group. That’s it. You’re doing; I’m making that decision for you. If you want to keep bumming around my apartment, your ass is joining AA. You shouldn’t have ever left the old group. You still have a problem, and I’m not going to let you drink yourself to death in my home.”
“All right, all right,” I say, “you’re right. I’ll look for a new group.” He is right. I have a problem, and I am going to wind up killing myself before too long. He already had to bail me out of jail once, and I know he didn’t have the money for that –not that he would let me pay him back. He just told me to forget about it, although that has become some serious ammunition he uses towards me. While throwing away the mess, I notice there are some flowers sitting out on the kitchen counter. “So what’s the deal, Tyler, you got a date or something?” I ask, hoping to change the subject away from my drinking problem.
Suddenly Tyler looks ridiculously uncomfortable. “No,” he says, “not exactly.”
“What then?” I ask.
“Um…” he hesitates for a minute, “It’s my sister’s birthday. I always go to the cemetery on her birthday.”
Damn. “Oh,” I say like a moron. I don’t really know how to respond to that. He had told me fairly recently about his sister; the two of them had been in foster care together after their dad had died and their mother had gotten hooked on drugs. Gabe had known his sister, apparently. On the end table next to the couch where I’ve been staying is a picture of Tyler, his sister, and Gabe; that picture is the only reason Tyler even mentioned her. I feel bad that I didn’t know he had a sister or that she had died; I also feel bad that I had no idea Tyler had been a foster kid. I have been really stuck in my own little world; I guess, in a way, I really needed this sort of reality check. I’m more part of Tyler’s world than our friend Marty’s now.
Tyler seems more in a hurry now to leave, but I don’t want him to feel like an outsider anymore –which is apparently the way Marty and I had always made him feel. “Would you mind if I went with you?” I say before he can run out the door.
“Why?” he questions as though I have some sort of secretive motivation behind asking.
“I never met her, but she’s your sister, so maybe I feel like I should show some respect,” I say, and this sad looking grin appears on his face.
“Um, yeah, sure,” he says and then quietly adds, “my mom might be there…”
‘Your mom?” I question; he had made it sound like she was out of the picture.
“Yeah, well, she shows up sometimes on her birthday. It’s really the only time we ever talk. It’s kind of an unspoken tradition,” Tyler says. “We both know each other’s going to be there every year, and whoever gets there first just kind of waits around –pretending like we weren’t waiting on the other to show up.”
I’m not sure if I’m up for this weird family reunion, but I’m not going to back out on him now. I suppose that explains why he chose to get dressed up to go to a cemetery just to drop off flowers. “Yeah, let me get changed,” I say and go digging through the boxes of clothes I had picked up from Brandi’s mansion –my former mansion that she got in the divorce.
“I have a request,” Tyler says, now sitting on the couch while I attempt to find a tie that matches the suit I found amongst the cluster of random items I’ve yet to unpack.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Can we take your car? Mine went caput on me last night, and I was going to have to walk,” he says.
“Sure… you sure you want to take the pink Volkswagen? Your mom might thing we’re a couple if we pull up in that,” I say
with a slight wink; I’m not sure how many more gay jokes I can take, but between the car and Tyler always calling me his house-wife they seem to come pretty easy.
He laughs. “I don’t mind screwing with her, to be honest.”
I finish getting dressed and the two of us head down and load up into the stupid ass bitch car –the only thing I really managed to get during the divorce. Fuck Brandi and her stupid pink high school car; she’s driving around in my damn Ferrari. We head to the cemetery, and we walk up this hill to a grave that seems separated from the others. “It’s a good spot,” I tell him as he lies the flowers down by the grave. He just stands there, staring. His sister had been killed coming home from her waitressing job; she had tried to fight off the guys who were trying to take her money, and she had obviously lost.
I ask him about her to get him talking to break the uncomfortable silence, and he has plenty to say about their time in foster care, the two of them renting an apartment together, and their general lives. It was always just the two of them. We’re there for only about fifteen minutes before this beat up Honda truck pulls up; it’s red with the exception of the blue driver’s side door. This older woman climbs out and slowly makes her way over to us, and I can tell instantly that it’s Tyler’s mom. He looks just like her, but I decide not to say that; I’m pretty sure the two of them have a really awkward relationship.
They hug each other when she reaches us, but it’s quick and uncomfortable. “Mom, this is my friend Jonathan,” he says and the woman smiles at me; her teeth are nasty, and it’s clear she is a former user. I’m not sure exactly what sort of drugs she used to be on, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. She has permanent scars on her arms from injections, but it’s obvious she’s clean now.
The two of them stand there talking about her for a while and then we just part ways. Tyler and I load up into the Volkswagen, leaving his mom behind at the cemetery. He’s really quiet, but I don’t say anything to break the uncomfortable silence. As we pull up to the apartment he says, “Thanks for coming with me, by the way,” and then jumps out of the car before the conversation can go anywhere. He hurries ahead of me, but I give him some space. When I return the apartment, he’s in his room; I assume it’s a rough day for him and that he wants to be left alone. I decide to leave him be, and I do what I can to pick up around the apartment and keep myself busy.
I pull out Tyler’s laptop and look up some information about a local AA group. I figure I should try to make myself one less problem Tyler has to deal with. I think about his mom –maybe that’s why he’s so willing to deal with me? Maybe that’s why my drinking pisses him off so much more than it does Marty. He probably has dealt with my kind of shit his whole life –a user. I shake my head, feeling pretty shameful –realizing I’m probably making him just relive all the shit he went through with his mom as a kid. I decide that I’m done. I need help.
34
I enter into the gymnasium of the local high school; it’s kind of a weird place for an AA meeting, but it’s not like I’ve been to a lot of them. My old AA group I had only attended a handful of meetings. The head woman leading up the support group is this uptight looking woman named June. She only looks uptight, though. She’s actually a total former party girl who just pulls her hair back too tight and dresses to impress; this is not exactly the kind of group of people I would care to try to impress.
The chairs are sitting around in a circle, and there is a table with some snacks and sodas set up. I ignore the food and go sit down next to June. I’m the first to arrive, so the two of us sit and talk. She encourages me to be open and honest and all that sort of shit with the group in order to take advantage of the support group. A few minutes into our conversation this geeky looking guy –tall and scrawny yet he gives off a business guy vibe. He plops down in the chair next to me and gives me this goofy grin. “You’re new,” he states the obvious and then sticks his hand out to shake, “Bobby.”
“Jonathan,” I say. He seems friendly enough; in fact, he’s the only one who bothers to talk to me as the room starts to fill up and people take their seats.
June starts the meeting off, and she puts me on the spot slightly by pointing out that I’m new. I have to do the whole, “Hello, my name’s Jonathan, and I’m an alcoholic,” bit before we get underway. I keep my mouth shut after that, though, because I’m not in much of a sharing mood just yet. I kind of feel like I got to get to know the room before I start airing all of my dirty laundry.
Today’s topic is really fitting though, so I am almost tempted to share despite it being my first meeting. June has everyone talking about how alcoholism has affected our work environment. I lost my job –my dream job as a professional boxer. Alcohol was a factor –although not the primary cause. I decide not to share, but the guy Bobby raises his hand. After he starts talking, I realize that I know him –not personally, but I know who he is. Bobby was the former DA –a big time lawyer who lost his job after a couple of DUI’s. Now, he’s working a desk job as an assistant for this tiny one-man law firm. “I’m back to square one,” he says, “but I’m thankful that I’m able to have a job at all after the media blasted me the way they did. It’s my fault, I realize that now. I am doing a job I haven’t done since I was fresh out of law school, so it really pains me to be back on the bottom working for a lawyer that I never would have blinked at, but it’s a job. I’m grateful for it, and on the bright side, he’s going to have me taking my first case soon since I lost my job as DA three years ago.”
There is a small round of applause given to him and a few congratulations shared; apparently he’s about a year sober now. I’m hoping I can get there; I can kind of relate to the guy with the whole media frenzy thing. His name is Bobby Duplex, and I remember seeing that on the news… and kind of laughing about it with Brandi. Now I feel bad because he seems like a stand-up guy.
Once the meeting is dismissed, pretty much everyone hangs around for snacks and sodas to chit-chat. A lot of people here have been attending the same group for years, so I feel kind of like the odd man out. Bobby is cool though, and we wind up standing beside one another talking after the meeting. “So, Jonathan,” he says, “What do you do?”
“Right now I’m a trainer at a women’s gym,” I say.
He laughs slightly, “I bet that’s fun. I wouldn’t mind working with a bunch of women in sports bras and yoga pants.”
“They all hate me,” I say, and he laughs.
He pauses for a second like he’s studying my face. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
“I don’t think so,” I say and look down. It’s Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason; I’d rather keep myself anonymous, but Bobby figures me out.
“Holy shit, you’re Jonathan Trial! I saw your match against Donte!” he says excitedly, “I was there! Front row and center. Hell, man, that was rough. I was there the night you two got into it in the locker room.”
I look away and slam my soda down on the table. “I got to go,” I say, thinking that I need to find a new AA group.
I head out of the gym, but June catches me in the hall. She seems determined to not let me leave. “Jonathan, I heard you and Bobby talking,” she says, “I can talk to him to make sure he doesn’t tell anyone else about that if it makes you uncomfortable.”
I frown. “I’m sorry,” I say, “I probably shouldn’t have come here.”
“No, you certainly should have,” she argues, “this is a safe place, Jonathan, and we’d hate to see you leave. This is a good group of people. And we’re here to help each other.”
I nod, but I’m not convinced. I tell her I’ll be back, but I’m pretty sure I won’t. I head out to the parking lot, and I got to crank up the stupid pink car… and it stalls. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I start banging on the steering wheel and throwing out as many curse words as I know. I’m so tired. I’m exhausted. I cannot take anymore setbacks. After spending about ten minutes banging on the steering wheel and cussing at the car for not starting, I hop out
and pop the hood. When I open up the hood, I stare at the empty space for another ten mintues, confused out of my mind.
“Hey, man, it’s one of those old school Volkswagens,” it’s Bobby; he had apparently stood aside watching me have a nervous breakdown. “The engine is in the back, not the front. The front trunk is for storage.”
I knew that, but in my current state of mind I had not been able to process it. “Right, right,” I say and head around to the back of the car.
“You have no idea how to get that car started up again, do you?” Bobby asks me.
A part of me wants to tell him to fuck off, but I decide against it. I rather not be stranded in the parking lot of a high school. “Not really,” I say.
“I got some jumper cables in my car. Give me a second,” he says and disappears, eventually returning in this nice silver Honda. He sets up the cables, and we sit around waiting for the car to jump.
“Thanks,” I grumble.
“No problem,” he has this goofy smile plastered on his face. “Listen,” he says, “I’m sorry if I said something to tick you off; I’d hate for you not to come back because of me.”
I sigh. “I guess I just didn’t want to be here in the first place,” I admit.
“I know how that is,” he says, “I’ll keep my mouth shut about the boxing thing, though. It’s none of my business. I was just surprised to see you here. I’ve always been a fan.”
“No offense, man, but you don’t exactly look like the kind of guy who would go to a boxing match,” I say.
He smiles again and goes digging for his phone. “My old man was a boxer,” he says and pulls up an old picture from one of his social media pages. “He wanted a sporty kid, but I just wasn’t cut out for that sort of thing. Don’t get me wrong –he was proud as hell when I passed my bar exam, but he definitely wished he could have had another boxer in the family. We used to go to matches together all the time, and we still do from time to time. He’s just gotten a little old for that sort of thing. I’d never get in the ring myself, but I love a good fight.”
Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection Page 138