The Pool Boy

Chapter 6: His Skin

Chapter 6: His SkinTacoma was still seated but looked left and right as if he wondered where the pool was hidden, as if we were playing a game like hide-and-seek.

“Follow me,” I suggested, helping him out of his chair from behind, touching both of his shoulders again, enjoying the strength of his bones and muscles under my gentle grip.

He stood with ease. I stepped in front of him and rolled fingers down the length of his left arm, then his right arm, caressing the fine brown hair on both, and then allowed my stray fingers to dance along his tee-covered chest, southward to his navel. Crossing a line, being selfish, needing and wanting him, I pressed a palm between his solid and rounded pecs, and stared spellbound into his cocoa eyes. I was hypnotized by Tacoma; the aged and experienced author bedazzled by a youthful prince who didn’t back away from me.

As I led him to the pool I said, “You have to be careful, Tacoma. I don’t want you to fall in the pool. It’s in a dreadful state. Just a warning.”

“Yes, sir,” he breathed. His chest rose and fell. Softly. Gently. Just right for a young man of twenty-two, and for an older man such as myself in need of youthful flesh.

“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 c**k), 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. s**t 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?”