The Pool Boy Read online

  Chapter 43: Scolding

  The warm fog from the night before lifted and vanished, and the August heat felt heavy. As expected, the sun became fully alive, blistering around the estate at nine o’clock the next morning. In fact, everything bubbled hot, climbing well above average temperatures for August; a painful summer day next to Lake Erie.

  The forecast called for a thunderstorm later in the afternoon, which would probably cause a tempest on the lake. I was concerned about high winds and a steady downpour but, truth said, I had something else to worry about in the meantime. I knocked on Tacoma’s door with a hard fist, turned its brass knob, found that it was locked, and called out in an irate tone, “Tacoma, I need to speak with you! Now!”

  I heard nothing inside the room except silence. No young man rolling around on his bed. No open window. There was no movement at all inside the room.

  Time to knock again and yell, “Tacoma, are you in there?” which is exactly what I did.

  I knew that he was alone in the bedroom since I had spotted Katz already up, using the bathroom down the hall.

  Eventually, his bed squeaked under his weight. It sounded as if he were stretching or climbing off the thing. I pictured him spreading his legs wide, yawning, and opening his eyes for the very first time on that day.

  I knocked a third time, harder, and called out, “Tacoma, this is important! Open the door!”

  The pool boy’s bed squeaked again, and he mumbled from inside, “Hold on. I’m coming.”

  I waited patiently at the door for him to appear, which was only a few seconds later. He opened the door wide, stood with nothing more than a white sheet wrapped around his waist, covering what looked like an erection underneath. His crew cut looked greasy, needing a shampoo. Sweat on his shoulders made them look like glowing-sunshine knobs. His skin was still golden brown but his chest slumped forward because of a previous night on the town that could have easily been considered dangerous. Tacoma surely had to be suffering from a bad hangover.

  “What?” he groggily asked, staring me down.

  I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. Then I ripped the sheet from his waist, tossed it to the bed, and told him, “Firstly, sheets are for the bed, not for you to wear!” I didn’t pay attention to his erect cock and the dark curly hairs that created a triangle above it; at the corner of my right eye, I did see it go limp. Nor did I admire his thick thighs and nicely developed hips. Any other time I would have taken a moment out and gawked at such delicious-looking male merchandise, drooled, and labored over his every line, curve, and structure, finding those personal body parts beautiful. But on that morning, when the sun was already too hot to even piss in, when an outraged writer needed answers to bad behavior that occurred the night before, I wanted to do nothing more than to bark at him. “And secondly, don’t make me bang on your door three times to get your attention, young man!”

  “What the fuck?” he questioned me, fully awake now. Then he tried to cover up his cock, balls, and the triangle of hair between his legs by using his hands to shield his bare goods, but failed. His limp dick and balls still flapped around.

  Ignoring his nakedness, I stood and faced him: my breath practically in his mouth, my eyes wide and on fire, rage built in my chest like a dragon’s. “Where were you last night, Tacoma?”

  “Out.”

  “Where?” I snapped.

  “Cannonballs in the city.” A mixed bar for college students on Marketham Avenue. It was well-known. Straights and gays went there. All young people in their early twenties.

  “And what time did you get home?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “How does 2:20 sound?”

  “It sounds like you’re my father. It sounds like you’re putting me through an inquisition. What the fuck is this all about?”

  “I’m not your father, Tacoma. But I am the owner of this house, and you’re my employee. There are very few rules to follow that you’re well aware of. Am I right about this?”

  “Yes, sir,” he looked down at my crotch then, lowering his head and eyes.

  I got into his face a little more and breathed on him. My lips almost touched his lips. If they were any closer, I could have smelled Katz’s dick from the blowjob Tacoma had given him the night before. Our chests almost collided. “You can’t tell me you were responsible for your actions last night, because you don’t even know what time you got home.”

  “No. I can’t.” He shook his head.

  “How drunk do you think you were?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  I calmed down, took a deep breath, and found some Zen. There was no reason to yell. No reason to be fired up. “Of course you don’t know. Do you remember even half of what you did?”

  Again, he shook his head.

  “What were you thinking getting that blitzed last night? You could have killed yourself, especially putting your life in Katz’s hands and riding on his Harley drunk and without a helmet. Do you know he parked his cycle in my front yard instead of in the drive last night?”

  A frown formed on Tacoma’s adorable face. He even looked delicious when he was sad. His head fell forward even more.

  I took my right hand and rubbed it through his mussed hair, down a cheek, then lifted his chin. “You let me down. Do you know how worried I was about you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “More than you’ll ever know.” I paused. Silence came over me. Calmness. And then I whispered, attempting to console him, “I was more worried than mad.”

  “I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

  “I figured as much.” I paused again. More silence. “You won’t do that again, right?”

  “No, sir,” he mumbled, shook his head. “Never. I’m sorry.”

  “Because if you do…I don’t know how crazy I’ll be. I don’t know how scared I’ll be. Do you get that, Tacoma? Do you?”

  He looked at me with his brown, puppy-dog eyes. A frown gathered on his handsome face that looked irresistible…kissable. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “How bad are you suffering this morning? How horrible is your hangover?” I asked, moved my hand down to his left shoulder, then up to his left cheek, and felt his unshaven and rough skin on his jaw because he had yet to shave.

  “Completely awful. I don’t even know what we were drinking last night…or what we did. I just know what bar we went to.”

  “Can I get you anything?” I melted before him. I needed him around, desiring his presence in the house, his friendship, his charm and laughter, his boyish needs, his beauty and…

  “Nothing. I just need to sleep it off. I’ll be fine, Robert.”

  I brushed fingers across his pouting lips, his chin, and then his other cheek. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. You just scared the shit out of me. I don’t ever want to be that worried about you. And I don’t want to see you in that much danger again. Do you get that?”

  “I do. And I’m sorry,” he whispered, head still down, shoulders slumped, hands covering up his private parts.

  “I’ll leave you alone now. Get some sleep. I’ll check on you in a little while.”

  I exited his bedroom, walked into the hallway, and closed his door behind me. There, I leaned into the door with all my weight and thought to myself: Damn you, Robert. Damn you for being nice to him. You can’t even yell at the boy without falling for his good looks. He has you tightly locked around his pinkie finger. He has you right where he wants you, manipulated. Damn you for being a fool. Damn you for…

  Wicked Katz broke my concentration, naked and exiting the bathroom. I saw a flash of his hairy chest, long cock, and bare bottom rush into his bedroom. He locked the door behind him.

  Half of me believed that he had heard everything between the pool boy and me. A sane part of my mind believed that our voices in Tacoma’s bedroom couldn’t travel that far down the hallway. Whatever. What was done, was done. If he heard us, he heard us. If he didn’t, then he didn’t.
Truth was, I didn’t give a flying fuck about Katz, and despised him. The sooner he left, the better off Tacoma was. And me.

  Chapter 44: Sofa-Jumper

  Tacoma slept half the day away, mothering his hangover. I spent hours working on The Next Fall. Katz hung out at the pool sunbathing and swimming; the pool boy’s replacement for the day. How upsetting. How wrong. How distasteful.

  Eventually Tacoma came to life around three in the afternoon and I ordered subs, salads, and drinks from a local eatery who delivered the spread to the estate. The three of us ate the meal down by the pool.

  Following the late lunch, the two young men swam and wrestled in the water for hours. I sat and watched them, enjoying their fun.

  Truth told, I could have exploded on Katz because of his rude behavior from the night before, but didn’t. Why bother when his visit was so short and he was leaving the estate the next day? I was very much aware that he kept Tacoma out late, and placed my employee in an ugly situation, driving drunk with him on the back of his Harley. I knew that he brought Tacoma home after midnight. I knew that he was loud when getting home the night before, capable of waking the dead with his laughter. I also knew that Katz was dangerous and irresponsible and much trouble. But his stay at the estate was minimal. Two days. Which really wasn’t a lot of time. Minimal. Only minimal. And I could handle him for that long, and his monstrous antics.

  Between rounds of eating and play in the pool, I learned more about Katz Strong. The men sat in the Adirondack chairs beside me and talked about their childhoods together. Katz was a smart kid, attended private schools, and came from a well-to-do and large family. One of his brothers went to Yale. And one of his sisters, I think her name was Marlena, attended Harvard. His parents were scientists, prize-winners. Inventors of something or other in medicine, but I didn’t catch the specifics during the conversation. Katz didn’t have to work a day in his life, spoiled. He reeked of his parent’s money. The youngest child out of many. Rotten beyond rotten.

  I learned that he was a sofa-jumper, or at least that was what Tacoma called him. Someone who spent the night on a different friend’s sofa, night after night, because he didn’t have a place of his own, besides a bedroom in his parents’ West End Colonial, which he hated and rarely used. Katz reached out to his nearby friends with his cell phone and asked to use their sofas on a regular basis. He rode his motorcycle from friend to friend and crashed at their places when he didn’t stay at his parents’. That’s how he ended up at the estate. He sniffed out the details that Tacoma was in town for the summer and decided to stay at the estate for two nights. He invited himself over. How interesting. How methodical, and annoying.

  After chat-time, the two boys wrestled more in the pool. Their wet-slick bodies rolled and twisted together underneath the water. They looked beautiful in the blue-blue liquid, like a painting of sorts. They did that for hours. They ate more. And I watched them until the sun set, a golden-purple-red hue in the distance, over the lake, presenting nightfall. How amazing they looked together as the sun fell. Stunning. Almost as handsome as the declining sun itself. The storm had blown away. There were no clouds in the picturesque sky. Katz seemed to be the storm: building, unpredictable, and quite dangerous.

  Chapter 45: Torture

  Hours later, the day wasted, night at hand, closer to midnight than not. I moved down the hallway and into my study, pushed on the familiar panel of books, and entered the secret control room where I could view most of the house with the use of the thirty cameras. I sat down in the single chair, booted up the system:

  Password: nipple-ring72

  View Camera Number: 21

  Spare Bedroom 1—Second Floor: yes

  Second Password: the-pool boy72

  Confirm: yes

  Zoom In: yes

  Percentage: 70

  Mouse Accessible: yes

  I viewed Kent Tacoma sleeping in his room, the last room on the second floor. He lay naked on his large bed. A summer sheet covered his ankles. I saw his crew cut on the pillow, eyes closed, head tilted back. His nostrils moved, which told me that he snored a bit, and his eyelids twitched because he was dreaming. I focused the camera on his stomach and studied its muscular ridges and bumps. I observed his hard pecs and nipples, and the cords along his neck. Once again, he looked like boy-next-door, beautiful in the blue-silver moonlight. His legs were slightly spread apart, and I viewed half of his right thigh and part of his limp dick, which looked soft and long. His chest was hairless, arms too, but down and above his sleeping dick lay the same hue of hair that grazed his head, triangular in shape, untrimmed. I scanned his chest again, decided to snap shots of his nipples and printed them out:

  Take a Picture: yes

  Autofocus: yes

  Ready: yes

  And for the next hour I continued to take many pictures of him.

  Click. Click. Click.

  An arm resting over forehead; mouth slightly opened; stomach in a convex position; legs bent; bolt between his legs semi-hard. The photographs looked spectacular, professionally done, and eye-rewarding. My prize at sleep. My lover. The man I wanted to keep forever. Motionless on the bed. My visitor for the summer. My torture that I couldn’t have as my own. At least not as of yet.

  Chapter 46: Camera 7

  In the library, I made myself a drink. Two drinks. Took the third drink into my study. Enjoyed the silence. Got a strong buzz on. Good for me. Eventually I carried drink number three into the secret camera room with me, sat down, and pressed the F8 and the shift keys at the same time on the keyboard. I wanted to pull up Camera 7, Katz’s bedroom. The flatscreen in front of me flashed and quietly beeped once, and questions appeared on the screen, which I answered:

  View Camera Number: 7

  Spare Bedroom 1—Second Floor: yes

  Second Password: the-pool boy72

  Confirm: yes

  Zoom In: yes

  Percentage: 70

  Mouse Accessible: yes

  To my surprise Katz’s room was empty, completely void of the questionable guest. No one was inside. Nothing.

  Quickly, I pressed numerous keys for the kitchen’s camera. Empty. Void of Katz.

  I accessed the living room’s camera. Nothing. Empty. No Katz.

  I tried the bathroom’s camera on the first floor. No Katz.

  Then the bathroom on the second floor. Still no Katz.

  I tried the four balconies. Zilch. No sign of Katz.

  I tried the two cameras (18 and 19) surrounding the pool area. Nothing. Katz wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  I tried the East and West gardens. No Katz.

  Then I pulled up the driveway camera and focused on Katz’s Harley, which was still on the lawn where he left it. That proved to me that Katz was still on the estate. Somewhere.

  Then something told me, Try Camera 21 again, Robert. Tacoma’s bedroom. Do it. Quickly. So I did.

  And then I wished I hadn’t.

  * * * *

  Katz was seated on the side of Tacoma’s bed, stirred the pool boy awake with a little shake to his right shoulder. He said something to the pool boy that I couldn’t hear, because I had never installed audio devices in the house.

  Tacoma came awake, rubbed fists into his eyes. He mumbled something in return; more inaudible words.

  Feeling jealous and unneeded, I observed as they held hands and talked for over five minutes. Katz hovered over Tacoma. They pressed foreheads together. They kissed once, twice, three times. And then Tacoma—breaking another God damn rule of the house! always breaking God damn rules! such a fucking rule breaker!—took out a cigarette from the table beside his bed, and passed it to Katz after lighting it with another God damn Zippo. Each dragged on the cigarette, sharing it. They smoked it for the next few minutes, continuing their talk. And once the cigarette was down to nothing more than a tiny butt, Tacoma extinguished it in a tin ashtray that he kept hidden in another drawer.

  Following the cigarette, Katz leaned over the pool boy and kissed him
again. He slid his tongue into the pool boy’s mouth, nibbled Tacoma’s lower lip, and laughed.

  As I watched them, my heart plummeted into my stomach, sick and shivering pain rolled up the length of my spine. I couldn’t help myself and gasped. What was happening? What could possibly occur between the two young men behind Tacoma’s bedroom door?

  Everything I didn’t want to happen, of course.

  As their kissing grew stronger and more intimate, and their tongues twisted together like fighting snakes, they became feral animals in the night. I watched their actions closely, although I shouldn’t have.

  Camera 21 came alive: sweaty torsos, hungry mouths, fingers on nipples, fingers on abs, fingers on cheeks, pulling hair, lips on earlobes, teeth on earlobes, and lighthouse-shaped erections that seeped pre-ooze. The two young men turned into sexual fiends. Hungry for each other. Sexual. Unstoppable.

  In my opinion, they didn’t look to be lovers, though. Katz was brutal with his movements, aggressive and impulsive, violating Tacoma. He slipped out of his boxers and jumped onto the bed next to the pool boy. He pulled the sheet away from Tacoma’s body, hurriedly crunched the fabric into a ball, and tossed it to the floor. He nipped at Tacoma’s suntanned-dark and smooth nipples with the sharpness of his teeth, and he pushed on Tacoma’s ribcage with a palm, forced him to the bed’s surface, and kept him trapped against the mattress. Katz jumped on top of Tacoma, straddled him, and lay waist to waist with the man. He bent over Tacoma and bit his bottom lip. It looked intoxicating, rough, and unkind. Their lips moved together uneasily as Katz kept Tacoma pinned to the mattress with the strength of his hips and mouth. Their erections pressed together, stem to stem. And their bodies began to thrash on the bed as they continued to kiss, lust-driven, hard between youthful and muscular legs, prepared to fuck each other.

  I stared with anger, fear, and jealousy as their rippled bellies and tight navels and long shafts and sweaty thighs melded together in the night, leaving me perturbed and outraged. Fury built within me because I had suddenly realized the truth of their drunken dialogue of the night before, and whispered out loud, “They’re lovers…boyfriends…something intimate. They’ve done this before…many times.”