Chapter 9

The bus ride home began in a state of spiritual euphoria but soon turned into physical agony. I had been half-hard from the time Nao had taken my hand on the beach to well past the time she’d kissed me. Her fragrance lingering on my jacket didn’t help deflate matters any. I’d thought the case of blue balls I’d suffered after that games night on camp was bad, but this was unbelievable! It felt like my whole pelvis was collapsing in on itself with the intense gravity of a black hole forming.

After the thirty-minute bus ride home I ended up limping from the bus stop to my house. What was worse, when I let myself in the front door, I was confronted by my parents who wanted to know everything about my ‘big night’, whilst I tried to conceal my discomfort. My mother was so excited you would have thought I had won freestyle gold at the summer Games and set a new world record! She wanted a blow-by-blow account of the evening’s events, but thankfully my father picked up on my pained expression and curt replies (maybe he understood from experience - eww!) and ran interference for me with the suggestion that since it was close to eleven, I should head off to bed and tell them all about it the following day after morning training.

I collapsed into the shower, directing the hot water over my painful groin. Any notion of self-abuse was overridden by the horrible cramp that ran from between my legs into my lower abdomen. As I sat on the cold tiles letting the steaming water wash over me, an idle thought popped into my head unbidden; ‘Is this what PMS feels like?’. No wonder girls complained about it so much – I felt like I was going to die. How did they put up with this every month? I understood now why women were supposed to ‘glow’ when they were pregnant. It was probably the overwhelming happiness at the prospect of nine months without experiencing this torture! Eventually the hot water ran out, but by then the pain had subsided enough for me to dry off and tumble into bed. Exhausted, I slept dreamlessly.

Blearily I shut off the alarm and sat up. Thankfully, the pain between my legs had vanished. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, making the twenty-minute journey to the pool on the seat of a mountain bike whilst feeling like my shattered testicles were trying to withdraw into my body. I grabbed my swim bag and headed down the stairs to the garage.

I settled into an even rhythm on the pedals as I felt the cool autumn pre-dawn air wash over me. The streetlights still shone under a light pale sky. Luckily the ride was pretty level, with only a small hill at the end near the campus. It was a pretty good warm-up and I usually got to the pool with enough time to change into my speedo, rinse off and be poolside for the five-thirty start.

During the ride I replayed the events from the previous night in my head. In the end I think I’d only had about four and a half hours of sleep, but I was too buzzed by the memory of Nao’s hand in mine, her head against my shoulder and the softness of her lips to really feel fatigued. What had she said when I’d admitted I’d never had a girlfriend? ‘We’ll have to see if we can do something about that.’ I felt a burst of warmth in my chest at the thought, followed by a nervous clench a few moments later. What if I’m reading her wrong? But then, what about that kiss?

I arrived at the pool and chained my bike to the racks. I went into the locker room, changed, then swam a few warm-up laps before handing my lane over to someone else and taking a seat in the grandstand to wait for the pre-session coaching talk. I was staring into space, thinking about the previous night for the umpteenth time when Derek dropped onto the seat beside me.

“Dude, ‘sup?” Derek had a way with words.

“Just chilling. Had a good ride and warm-up swim.”

“How was your Friday night?” he asked. Why was he asking me about Friday? I hadn’t said anything to anybody at school about my date with Nao, for fear that she would change her mind. Even though Derek was a close friend, I wasn’t sure that Nao would be happy for me to share with him the previous night’s events; especially after her experience with Josh running off his mouth.

“Uhh ... pretty average,” I replied cautiously. “How was yours?”

“Alright. Dinner at Sarah’s then a movie on TV in the basement. I don’t know what it was, but we enjoyed ourselves.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Hey, she heard that Josh is gonna need stitches.”

“Who did she hear that from?”

“Tammy, who else? So, you know it’s gotta be true,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “But someday that girl will actually be right about something. Wouldn’t it be nice if this was it?”

“Yeah,” I replied weakly. If Josh’s experience with Nao in the pool had been even a quarter as bad as my discomfort the previous night, I could maybe feel some sympathy for him. Possibly. But probably not.

“So, you know what this means right?”

“No more episodes of ‘Uncle Josh’s Dirty Story Time’ for the juniors after practice?”

“No, you idiot. Nao’s free again. Available.”

I didn’t reply.

“Hey, did you hear me? I said, Nao’s on the market again.”

“Dude, she’s not ‘on the market.’ Don’t make it sound like she’s a piece of meat.”

“Oh good, so you still care.”

“Piss off.”

“Oh no. Not this time. Sarah and I talked about it last night. We decided that we were going to give you today to ask her out, or Sarah’s going to tell her how much you like her,” he informed me.

“You decided what?!”

“Yup. I’m sick of your whining and pining and longing sideways glances which, by the way, are not subtle or discreet. Or sideways, actually. And Sarah is sick of me complaining about how pathetic and annoying you are, so she told me that if I can’t get you to tell Nao how you feel, she’ll tell Nao for you. And she won’t be subtle or discreet about it. Or sideways. So, you have until the end of practice today.”

“With friends like you, who needs pricks like Josh around?” I spat. The head coach blew his whistle, signalling everyone in the pool to get out for the pre-session pow-wow.