The Pool Boy Page 3

  “Right this way then. It’s not far from here.”

  He followed behind.

  * * * *

  We passed the statue of David and foxtail lilies and found the mouth of the cobblestone pathway that led towards the lake and beyond. The pool boy stayed behind me, careful not to bump into me. We skirted a smallish incline with very little shape to it, wove to the left, wove to the right, and then began to make a slight decline, step by step, carefully through two rows of English box hedges.

  At the top of a second hill you could see Lake Erie in the distance; a tranquil mass with white-and-gray gulls and colorful sailboats on the choppy waves; water surrounded two lighthouses that looked like bulbous erections of all different colors. We didn’t take the extra one or two minutes more to observe the lake. Instead, we continued downward, following the narrow path, to find the nearby pool. The rank wafting smell of grease, oil, and galactic and nameless algae that seemed to hang in the air irritated my nose, and probably his also.

  I turned around once, noted Tacoma’s tight package (six inches of soft, hidden cock), smiled, and asked, “Are you okay back there?”

  “Yes, Robert. I’m enjoying the stroll. It’s a lovely view so far. You have a very nice estate. Twelve acres, correct?”

  “Yes. Did you look it up online?

  “I did.”

  “The downward slope is quite steep. Be careful. Don’t twist an ankle.”

  “Hardly a challenge. We did rougher things in the Navy.”

  I thought, Of course you did, rough Tacoma, and answered him with, “Good to know, lad. That’s what I like to hear.”

  In silence, we walked for another fifty feet or so, downhill, following the rancid smell of the pool, closing in on its obnoxious aroma which began to turn my stomach, and possibly Tacoma’s.

  * * * *

  In the distance, at the bottom of the sloped hill, sat the silent and ugly pool surrounded by cement and empty Adirondack chairs.

  Tacoma stood beside me with his hands on his hips. “It looks infected with disease, bacteria, and algae.”

  “An eyesore for the sinfully wicked.”

  He joked, “You should have called the CDC to handle this. Something like COVID-19 lives in there.”

  “Nicely said.”

  The pool was eighty feet of green-brown water that glimmered in the afternoon sun. Once a beautiful and glimmering pool it now looked like a muddy pond in a field of sun-glowing white. A disgrace. Filth. A blemish in my glamorous life.

  The stink was bad, therefore we stayed back a few paces from its edge with palms against our mouths and noses. A rotten-cabbage aroma wafted about in the air. Our throats and eyes stung. It was the kind of smell you might find in a truck stop lavatory or in the secret rooms at a bathhouse in a Pittsburgh alley. Shit with urine. A hustler’s asshole. An unimaginable stench you read about and wished to never breathe. Pure ugliness. The devil’s bathtub.

  I stood by Tacoma with my right hip brushing against his left one, pulled my hand away from my mouth, and asked, “Can you save it?”

  Tacoma released his palm from his mouth. “Of course, I can. It’s disgusting, though. How many bodies are inside it?”

  “Good one,” I replied. “You’re quite clever. Two or three. I can’t recall.”

  “Bugs are everywhere.” He saw the mosquitoes and flies on the pool’s surface, breeding and languishing in the sun, vacationing.

  “Exactly. They’ve been there for two weeks. The pool has never had this problem before. Maybe COVID-19 is evolving in it.”

  “That black sludge on top is nasty.” Tacoma replaced his hand to his mouth, covered his lips, dimples, part of his chin, and most of his nose.

  “Of course it is. Why do you think I’m hiring you?”

  Chapter 7: Necessary Wage

  The pool boy didn’t look stunned at my comment because I had obviously confused him throughout his interviewing process. His history proved that he could tend a pool, and well. Plus, he seemed responsible and capable of making decisions on his own. Truth said, I heard what I needed to hear from him. He wasn’t making atom bombs or doing brain surgery on the job, merely keeping my pool clean.

  I held out a hand for him to shake, sealing the deal.

  At first he was strangely apprehensive, perhaps challenged by my offer, but then shook and admitted, “I think I’m going to like it here, Robert.”

  “Good. I think you will, too. Let’s first get away from this smelly God damn pool. I’ll show you the rest of the property. Plus, there are more things to discuss, like rules and your wage.”

  * * * *

  The lake house stood in the distance: a long, box-like structure that resembled an old motel from the fifties, but wasn’t; two floors of white clapboard; many floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the lake and the property; four small balconies with chairs, tables, and sliding glass doors; a glassed-in gym on the second floor. We could not see the U-shaped drive in the front, the four Colonial-style pillars, and verandah out front.

  Upon our ascent into the West Garden again and the rear view of the lake house, Tacoma walked in front of me and the queer gods in heaven granted me a view of his taut bottom. The pool boy’s ass twitched to and fro: two muscular molds shifted from left to right with a masculine rhythm that I found tantalizing; unyielding action that caused a vibration in my cock.

  I said from behind him, “We’ll go through that door over there, to your right, and into the house.” Although he couldn’t see me, I pointed to a narrow door the same color as the house.

  We walked into a narrow hallway: somewhat illuminated by natural light, on the cooler side, with white walls and a red-brick floor. Tacoma was dazzled by the signed photographs on the walls and began to search out authors that he might know like King and Grisham and V. C. Andrews. He found a few and pointed them out, “Koontz and Patterson…I like them both.” Passed up the gay icons such as Picano, White, and Leavitt. No surprise.

  “How clever of you, Tacoma. I’m impressed. Have you ever read any of these authors?” I pointed at signed photos of Clive Barker, Robin Lippincott, and a scrummy picture of the very popular and adorable Christopher Rice.

  He shook his head as he walked to the door on the opposite side of the hallway. “I’ve never heard of, or read, those authors.”

  Disappointment filled me. He had no idea who the authors were on the wall. Maybe I could teach him a few over the summer. “I didn’t think so. Perhaps you can attempt a few of their books this summer, including one of my modern, romantic beach books. Enlighten yourself. Open your mind. Try new reads and writers. Choose different pathways in writing and reading.”

  “You write about knights and Indians and Scottish heroes, with lords and lasses and pirate ships, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “They’re all written on a third-grade level. They don’t compare to the many writers’ works on the wall—master storytellers in our lives of here and now, but Danielle Silver is holding her ground.”

  “I can try one out.”

  “There’s a living room to the left of the hall that you can use anytime you’d like. There’s a television and three large sofas. Plus, a sitting-room.” I pointed towards the closed door. “To the right is a tiny dining room with a kitchen. Make yourself at home.” We walked into the dining room together, shoulder against shoulder, barely fitting through the entrance. Once inside, he could see how small it was with its expensive Italian chairs and matching table, fine china, and reflecting flatware.

  I placed a palm on one of his solid shoulders, gave him a light push forward, and said, “Into the kitchen, my new friend. I want to show you the heart of this house. I hope you will make yourself very much at home.”

  Pots hung from the ceiling. A butcher block decorated the island in the center. White-and-glass cabinets circled the area. Black-and-white tiles made up the floor. Stainless-steel appliances lined one of the long walls that overlooked the West Garden.

  He seemed oblivious to t
he niceties of the kitchen and asked, “How much does this job pay?”

  I spun him around with both palms and placed his tight ass against the edge of the wooden island in the center of the room. With a hand outstretched to his chin, and my stare locked on his dimples and perfectly white teeth, I cupped tender skin and bone along his jaw and answered him, “Didn’t I already tell you that in the garden?”

  Maybe he was too nervous with my interviewing process and didn’t hear?

  He shrugged.

  I repeated, “Three hundred dollars a week, my friend. How does that sound for a summer job?”

  He seemed fine with the arrangement and nodded. “Not bad. You’re being generous. I don’t want to be foolish and bite the hand that will be feeding me, but why so much money for cleaning a pool?”

  “Sometimes it’s more about being the pool boy than cleaning the pool.”

  Quiet, he locked his eyes with mine, shook his head. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what to say. It seems too generous, if you want to know the truth.”

  I lowered fingers from his jaw. “You don’t have to understand anything around here. You just have to keep the pool clean. It doesn’t sound too difficult for you, does it?”

  Still quiet, he looked from me to the expansive kitchen with its white marble countertops and terra-cotta decorations. “Do you have a cook?”

  “No. I like to do that myself.”

  “It’s a great room. Nothing like I’ve ever seen.”

  As I stared at his chiseled looks, I thought the same thing. In my mind I devoured him like sweet, imported candy from Germany or Switzerland.

  Chapter 8: Sweat and Gym

  We walked up to the second floor and then along an expansive hallway with two bedrooms to the left, another door to the right. I pushed open the shiny, black third door and presented the gym to him. There were cycles and two weight benches, a pull-up station, barbells galore, and a treadmill: the finest equipment for guests and past boyfriends. Top of the line equipment that was expensive and needed by the young men who found their way into my home and who needed to sweat, stay fit and tight, keeping their healthy and hardened looks.

  “You can work out in here whenever you’d like. The door is always unlocked.” I leaned a little too close to Tacoma, arm brushing arm, shoulder touching young shoulder, purposely. “It’s expected of you to at least keep fit. There’s no need for a flabby pool boy. God has only given us one body to use. Treat it well. Besides, who knows, you might have to save my life in the pool.”

  He lightened up, excited by the equipment in the gym. “I must be in heaven or something. Is it Christmas morning?”

  Me too, blessed gay-god above, I thought as he bent over and looked at something inside the room. Maybe a set of barbells. Who knew? I was far too busy checking out his rump and licked my lips at his doable bottom.

  “This room is amazing, Robert.”

  “I wouldn’t call it amazing. More useful than amazing.”

  “It’s like a resort here.” He turned to me and grinned from ear to ear, then turned away again to admire something else.

  “I guess you could call it that.” I watched him move around the room, passionate about his findings, drawn to everything he could see. He tested some of the equipment: sitting on things, pulling things, pushing things. Eventually, I found him on the weight bench, sitting with his legs spread, showing off his package and tight abs and hard nipples in the tee he sported. I rubbed a spot of saliva from my lower lip and felt as if I were twenty again, filled with new life and semen, testosterone, horny as fuck, and ready to drop my shorts for him, and get busy with the young man, screwing the afternoon away with him.

  That didn’t happen. Reality kicked in and he said, “I like how it overlooks the lake.”

  “An ingenious idea of the builder, Katherine Louise Pennypacker in 1952. Just high enough above the trees to see Cape Singer and two lighthouses. She was brilliant, wouldn’t you say?”

  He moved to the large window and I followed. Like a young child he tried to find the lighthouses but couldn’t. I moved slowly up to his side. Once there, I placed my right palm on the nape of his back as if we were beginning a dance, pointed in the distance, just over the treetops, and asked with a hushed voice, “Do you see the two lighthouses? They sit just above the three tallest pines.”

  “No.” He shook his head with a moderate conviction.

  A perverted, desperate, and older man would have moved his palm down the length of his spine and cupped a firm cheek. I stayed a gentleman, though, allowed my hand to remain flat against his spine. Heat spread between my flesh and his tee. Rather disrespectfully I ground into his side, hip against hip, felt my left cheek and lips next to his thin earlobe, almost grasped one of his pumped and sweetly-smelling biceps, and pointed out the two lighthouses by three close clumps of pines along the lake’s shore in the distance and told him, “Do you see the pair of lighthouses now?”

  And he did, telling me, “I see them now.”

  “Aren’t they spectacular?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like erections against the lake.” The nonsense slipped out of me without notice; shame on me. What was I thinking?

  He turned his view to me, questioned, “What did you say?”

  Trepidation filled me. I left my hand on the base of his back, feeling comfortable with it there, blushed. “I was writing out loud, young man. Sometimes I do this. My apologies. The lighthouses, my friend, don’t they look like cocks?”

  He chuckled in an immature tone that sounded boyish, and answered, “They kind of do resemble dickheads.”

  Because I was an employer and not his boyfriend, or afternoon fling in the sun, I pulled my palm away from his back and stepped a foot away from him, replied, “We must go over the house rules now. Do you object?”

  He stood and faced me, paralyzed with a sullen look on his face. Was he scared or intimidated? I wasn’t sure. Was he questioning my remark about the erection-like lighthouses in the distance? Perhaps. I didn’t wish to scare him off and understood his shyness, maybe he disliked being questioned too much, or browbeaten. Therefore, I eased the moment and decided to wear kid-gloves with him, and said, “The house rules, lad, they really aren’t too much to ask of you.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then let’s begin. Listen to me closely. I hate to repeat things. And follow me, because I’d like to show you where you will be sleeping. Every young man needs to know where his bed is, of course.”

  Chapter 9: Masculinity and House Rules

  A maze of balconies on the east side of the palatial house allowed us to walk through them, all of which overlooked the blue-green lake and gardens. The summertime air smelled and tasted fresh. Eventually, I turned a knob into a private, spare bedroom that was decorated in shades of blues. “Here is where you’ll be staying. I hope you like it.”

  His bedroom was nothing grand but was very gentlemanly with a hint of masculinity. A window seat overlooked the lake, there was a mirror, then two expansive closets and a dressing table. A reading chair and Louis XIV writing desk stood in one corner. One wall was covered with bare shelves where the pool boy could keep his music or books, or personal items at close reach. The room felt handsome, of minimal space, and perfect for a twenty-two-year-old man. Home away from Beverly Hills and Hollywood, comfortable.

  As he looked around, I showed him into a small bathroom connected to the main bedroom, the en suite where he could shower and shave and masturbate in private, or do whatever a young man does.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  He opened the shower curtain, stepped inside, stepped back out, seemed pleased. “It’s better than anything I ever had in the Navy.”

  “Good to know. I’m sure you’ve had better in Beverly Hills. You reek of family cash.”

  He exited the bathroom area and stepped up to the bed where he would sleep and dream of threesomes and foursomes of naked men, and plopped down on his back: arms and legs w
ide like a snow angel, bulge in the center of his shorts, mounded and ready for mouth- or hand-use. “Trust me, I’m from the wrong side of the tracks. My parents aren’t loaded.”

  “It can’t be so.”

  “It is so. Not everyone who lives in Beverly Hills is wealthy. It’s a mistake to think they are. My father is a garbage man. My mother teaches college literature. They aren’t starving, but they aren’t living like Hollywood glamour, either. Going to the Navy was cheaper than going to college.”

  I changed the conversation. “Well, now you’re safe here with me. Luxury at your beck and call. Money out the wazoo. I want you to have the time of your life while you stay here this summer with me, Tacoma. Whatever you want…whatever you need, I’m sure I can get it for you. Can we agree on that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Do you have any questions?”

  He looked up and over his flat but muscled chest and dick-bulge. “Not at the moment.”

  “Now sit over here with me. There are other things I need to tell you.” I patted the window seat to my right. The stunning view overlooked the shimmering lake and beyond. Northward, in the picturesque blue-green distance, gulls hung in the clouds, dipping and flying, free.

  For the first time, I realized that the room smelled of Reynolds from his previous stay: sweet sweat, abs layered in heavy perspiration, skin bathed in lemons, honey, and hot water, and baby powder for his tired feet. I was still angry with him because of his quick exit from the estate. I needed to retire from the room, find shelter and fresh air elsewhere in the house.

  After the pool boy sat down beside me, I swallowed his scent, felt edgy and horny next to him yet again, so close and yet so far away. I enjoyed the silence, his breathing, the way he looked around the room, taking it all in, his wide eyes and infatuation with the room, his liking for a new place to sleep and relax, a personalized space just for him.

  We sat there for a minute, digesting each other’s smells, old and young mixing, resting and taking in that new experience.