Chapter 4

For a week after the party, I puzzled over the encounter with Zoë. A few minutes after she had left me, I had made my own way back to where the rest of the party was hanging out. It didn’t seem like anyone had noticed us missing. I grabbed another beer from a cooler and stepped into the pool, washing away the traces of her musk that still shone wetly on my leg. I tried to figure out what had happened – a cute girl was hot and wet and ready to do ... something amazing with me, but for some reason the moment I was reminded of Nao I couldn’t go through with it. What the hell was going on with my feelings for Nao? Why, after almost a year, was I still infatuated with this girl who obviously hated me? Was it something to do with her seeming so unattainable? Something to do with my competitive nature? Was it the challenge of pursuit, rather than her alone, that I really liked?

I didn’t think it was just physical – sure Nao was smoking hot, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that seeing her in a swimsuit was a highlight of my day, especially when we were doing warm-up stretches – but I was also really attracted to the way she interacted with other people. She seemed to genuinely care about others and was so warm and considerate. She would spend extra time working with the junior high kids to help them master their turns and technique, and seemed to actually be interested in helping them, unlike other older students who only helped out for letters of credit or to lord it over the younger team members. She had a good group of friends, all of whom were friendly to everyone. With her ability, looks and popularity, she could have been the queen bitch of our age group in the pool, but she wasn’t.

My folks had always said that you should choose your friends based on how they treated other people – then you’d know what was real about them. I wanted to be Nao’s friend, I decided. Even if nothing romantic developed from it, at least maybe she’d thrown one of those wonderful smiles my way occasionally. Even though I had said something to turn her off, I really wished she would show me even a glimmer of the warmth that she showed others. I knew if I could find a chink in her armour of ice, I’d be able to show her that I wasn’t the buffoon she thought I was. As it turned out, my chance would come sooner than I thought.

Towards the end of the summer vacation, we had the annual swim team boot camp. It was basically a week-long physical shakedown for the squad before the school year began and an opportunity for the coaching staff to induct the incoming students who had qualified for the club. Since our pool was on the university campus, even though we lived locally, we stayed in the nearby dorms for ‘team building’. Each day was spent either in the water, or in the gym doing weight training. In the evenings we would do group work activities and games.

Nao was back for boot camp. She’d grown up a bit over the holidays. She’d filled out a little more, mostly in the hips. I thought she looked better than ever, with a deep healthy tan that brought out a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The first time she’d appeared in a swimsuit at training after returning, she’d had odd tan lines that were square across the thigh, just below her crotch. The contrast between dark and light skin had the effect of drawing even more attention to her pudenda, outlined in the vee of her one-piece racing costume. I overheard her say that it was due to the Japanese style one-piece swimsuit she’d worn during the summer. Sadly, those deliciously exciting tan lines faded by the end of the week.

Thankfully the freckles took longer to fade.

Most of the evening activity sessions began with some kind of introduction game, to make sure that people were mingling and learning the names of their new teammates. On this particular night the guys were each given a slip of paper with the name of a well-known swimmer written on it, and the girls were given one with a representative country on it. We had to go around to people and introduce ourselves, then try to find the person who had the country or name that matched our bit of paper. After asking almost everyone else in the team, I found myself face-to-face with Nao. She was looking amazing in an oversized sleeveless t-shirt over a sports bra and jogging shorts. She had the sides of her short dark bob gathered behind her head in a short high ponytail, leaving her bangs straight-cut above her beautiful brown eyes.

“Hi,” I mumbled. “I have Uli Müller...”

“Germany,” she replied coolly, showing me her slip.

“Looks like we’re together,” I said, almost apologetically. “At least for tonight.” She looked at me. “I mean, for the games,” I added hastily.

“I guess so,” she replied. Did she hide a grin? An opening!

“So ... how was your summer? I didn’t see you around the pool, but you kept your times up,” I ventured. “I mean, your times this week have been awesome.”

Nao gave me a curious look. “Yeah. Mum and I went back to Japan to stay with my aunt and her family. My cousins are in their school’s swim club, so I spent a lot of time with them.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “So, swimming runs in the family? Are they as good as you?” A vision of a squad made up entirely of swimsuit-clad clones of Nao swam through my mind’s eye, and I immediately wished it hadn’t. I began trying to do the seventeen-times table backwards in my head to counter the incoming boner.

She giggled that lilting laugh of hers. “Not even close, but they are only eight and nine years old. I helped out with their swimming club and in return their coaches let me train in their school pool. Only twenty-five metres long but it helped me get my turns tighter.”

“Ahh, I see. Well, you’ve kept form better than some of the others in the team did during the break. You don’t find training alone difficult?”

She looked down.

“Yeah, well I’m used to it. My dad moves around a lot for his job, so I guess I learned to train anywhere. I used to do gymnastics and dance when I was younger too, but it’s easier to find a decent pool than a decent gym or ballet school, so I chose to keep up the swimming. And even if I couldn’t find a squad, I could always compete against my own times.”

“Must have been hard, moving around like that.”

She sighed. “Well, Dad’s supposed to be off the transfer lists now – done his time and all that. Hopefully we don’t have to move again. I’m kind of settled in now and getting to like it here with you ... guys.” She paused and looked away for a moment of awkward silence. “Hey,” she seemed to catch herself, looking up at me and raising an eyebrow. “You’re not doing too bad yourself. You improved during the break. Less shoulder roll in your freestyle, and longer strokes. Looking pretty good.”

She watched me? Temporarily I lost the ability to speak.

“Oh, um, well, I mean I just um, you know. Swam. Trained. Did swam—swimming. Training.”

Mercifully, at that point I was spared any chance of embarrassing myself further, as one of the coaching staff called for quiet and announced the first game would be something called ‘Knights, Mounts & Cavaliers’.

It was a bit like musical chairs, but without the chairs. We had to walk with a partner in a circle to the music that was blaring out of a boombox. When the music stopped, our head coach would yell “Knights!” or “Mounts!” or “Cavaliers!”, then we would have to assume the position; Guys down on one knee with the girls sitting side-saddle on their other knee for ‘Knights’, guys on all fours with the girls astride their backs like a horse for ‘Mounts’, or guys holding the girl like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold for ‘Cavaliers’. The last pair to get in place would be eliminated.

Nao seemed pretty into the game, her competitive nature, I guess. I didn’t mind her riding my back for ‘Mounts’: it felt like she weighed nothing at all. Once or twice when she climbed off, she slid forward, lifting her leg up to dismount and I caught a titillating glimpse of pale green panty through the loose legs of her jogging shorts. When we would form up for ‘Knights’, I was breathlessly aware that there was only a thin layer of fabric under my hand as I held her steady on my knee. To keep the girls balanced, we had to hold one hand around their waist whilst joining hands with the other. With my left hand I could feel the firmness of her slim torso against my fingers as I tried to avoid being too obvious in my enjoyment of the physical proximity, and with my right I kept my hand neutral as I held hers despite desperately wanting to intertwine my fingers with hers. Her hand felt so soft and warm. I tried to activate all the nerves in my leg to capture the feeling of her firm bum nestled in against my muscled thigh. At the same time, the physical closeness was having an obvious effect. I was glad I had worn a pair of very loose basketball shorts so my recurring boner wasn’t making itself visible. A few times, whilst the coaching staff were trying to figure out which pair was going to be ‘out’, she would lean back, relaxing into me. I was so taken aback the first time, I almost fell over and dropped us both to the floor.