Chapter 16: The Swim Meet

When Shelly’s mom opened the door and, along with a bright sun, there was a smile that greeted her from the other side. “Hi, Mrs Fields. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Oh hi, Ellen. It’s so nice to see you too.”

The mother turned to the stairs and shouted out cheerfully. “Shelly, Ellen’s here!” She then turned back around toward the person at the door, smiled broadly and said, “Come on in. It seems like forever since I’ve seen you last.”

“Yeah, we just got back from vacation. How have you been?”

“Good, and you?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“So how was your vacation?”

At that instant, Shelly came bounding down the stairs. “Hi, Ellen.” In her hand was a large bag that held her towel and a hodgepodge of other pool items. She was wearing a wrap over her bikini. The bikini was on the fairly modest end of the spectrum, but it was much more revealing than Ellen’s one-piece navy blue outfit.

Ellen quickly turned her head and said “Hi Shelly.” before she turned back to the mother and answered the question. “It was really fun. We took my little brother to see Disney World.”

“Oh, I bet Joey loved it.”

“Oh, he did Mrs. Fields. The only time he got upset was when he found out he was too small to go on the big roller coaster rides.”

Mrs. Fields chuckled. “Yes, that sounds like Joey. And how about you, did you have a good time?”

“Oh sure. You see my wonderful tan?” Ellen held out her left arm and gave an exaggerated pose, she first turned out her left shoulder, and then jutted out her right shoulder, “I got this at Palm Beach.”

Shelly’s mom chuckled again, before asking. “And how are your parents?”

“Oh, they’re fine, but I think they’re happy to be back.”

“Oh, I bet. That was a long time since you were away. So, I see you two are going to the pool.”

Right then the silent partner of this whole conversation sighed. Shelly wanted to get out of there, but other than the sigh, she didn’t say anything and just stood there and listened to Ellen’s reply, “Yeah, such a perfect day for it too. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, you did pick a perfect day. It’s been so hot and humid around here lately.”

“It was the same in Florida.”

“So, I heard you two went to the mall. Did you two get anything interesting?”

I KNEW she would do this! Shelly screamed inside her head. When she had told her mom that she was going to the mall with Ellen, instead of having Ellen’s mom pick her up at the house, she deliberately walked all the way over to Ellen’s. She had wanted to see if her mom would take her at her word for it or if she would try to validate her story that it was ‘truly’ Ellen she went out with. It was just more proof that her mom didn’t trust her.

“No, not really, Mrs. Fields. I just got a t-shirt from Abercrombie & Fitch.” Ellen swiveled her head toward her friend and gave Shelly a smirk of a smile before adding, “You know me, I’m just a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal.”

“Well, I’m sure you look nice in it.”

“Thanks, but did Shelly show you that pretty pink blouse she bought? Shelly said it was too expensive, but I told her it looked great on her and she should get it anyway.”

Shelly’s lips curled up into a little grin as she listened to her friend’s commentary. The reason was that Ellen had told her no such thing, but Shelly was sure Ellen had embellished the story for her sake, corroborating once again that they had gone to the mall together. Ellen always had this innate ability to know what was really going on behind the scenes and she was always there to back her up whenever Shelly needed it. This was one of the reasons Shelly loved her so.

“Nooo,” A disappointed mom groused. “she didn’t show me!” The mother then looked back at her daughter “Why didn’t you show me the blouse?”

Shelly responded with a shrug, “Sorry Mom, I guess I forgot all about it.” That was a lie. The main reason was that Shelly was still pissed off at her mom for the way she treated Tommy. She also wanted to keep the blouse in her back pocket as proof if her mom accused her of sneaking off with him instead of Ellen that day.

By this time, Shelly was getting a little antsy as she waited for the conversion to end. Not that she was afraid that Ellen would let slip that they had plans to rendezvous with Tommy. Ellen was too suave to let that happen. No, Shelly was just eager to see Tommy again and she didn’t want him to wait around too long, so she said, “I’ll show you later, but we gotta go now.”

The mother turned to look at her daughter curiously. “Why? ... What’s the rush?”

“Oh, there’s no rush, Mrs. Fields.” Ellen smoothly forced in and then Ellen leaned conspiratorially toward the mother and whispered not so surreptitiously. “You know what I think it is, Mrs. Fields. I just think Shelly’s just jealous of our fabulous relationship and how we always get along so well together.” She grinned slyly at the mother. “Don’t you think so?”

Shelly rolled her eyes and said sarcastically. “Yeah, right!”

The mother just laughed, and replied with a smile, “Well, I won’t take any more of your girl’s time. You two go and have a wonderful time down there at the pool.”

“We will, Mrs Fields. And it’s good to see you again.”

“You too, Ellen. And please come around more often and say hello to your family for me.”

“I will.”

Finally safely out the door, Shelly grumbled to her friend, “I wish she was as friendly with Tommy as she is with you.”

To which Ellen wryly replied, “Well maybe she just gets along with me because I didn’t steal your virginity like he did.”

To which Shelly bashfully grinned and smiled as she recalled that wonderful day.

They noticed Tommy right away. He was just down the street, standing at the corner of Fallen Timber Drive right at the intersection where the street dipped down to the community pool. All he had was some trunks and a towel draped over his shoulder. He was looking down, looking a little bored, and was kicking away at some stones on the sidewalk, trying to be careful not to have the stones hit his exposed toes since all he had on were flip-flops.

“Tommy!” Shelly excitedly yelled out.

He lifted his head and a smile brightened his face, “Hi, Shelly. Hi, Ellen.”

“Hi, Tommy.” Ellen looked at him slyly and asked, “Have you been up to anything lately?”

Tommy shrugged his shoulders and replied, “No, not much.”

Ellen’s face broke out in a big smile and replied, “That’s not what I heard.”

Under her breath, Shelly scolded her friend. “Ellen, be nice!”

“Hey, I’m nice. I’m always nice.” Ellen said with her sneaky smile.

“Tommy looked over to Shelly trying to get a clue what was going on between the two, and finally decided it was best to just let sleeping dogs lie.

“Come on, let’s get going.” Shelly shouted out. She wanted to get Ellen off the subject of what had Tommy been ‘UP’ to. She also wanted to get the three of them further away from the house that contained her mother.

So the three of them started off with Tommy’s flip-flops snapping away and they walked down the slope and toward the community park. As they approached the park, Tommy curiously looked around. He had been down there a couple of times before, but never when the pool was open, it being closed from Labor Day to Memorial Day.

The pool was all fenced in with a dark, stained redwood fence that was meant to stop voyeurs from looking in. As they opened the redwood gate, the first thing they saw was all the lounge chairs strewn haphazardly. To the left there was a small enclosure that had showers, changing rooms, and restroom facilities. Beyond the strewn chairs there was a large pool that was mostly full of kids jumping and splashing around. Lastly, there was a lifeguard tower at its midpoint on the left hand side. An older teenage girl sat in the lifeguard chair and looked down from her chair, monitoring all the occupants.

As they traversed the patio they all looked around for some empty lounge chairs. There weren’t any that they could see, but then Ellen shouted out, “Oh look!” and pointed over to the right. “I think Mrs. Meuller is leaving. --- Quick, let’s go snag them.”

Tommy looked over to where Ellen had pointed to and noticed a mother with a kid. The mother was seemingly packing up their stuff. He wondered if that was Mrs. Meuller and how Ellen knew her.

Ellen led them to that same woman who was in the process of packing their pool accessories into a large beach bag. There was a five year old boy, wrapped in a beach towel, who stood beside her. It was obvious the boy had just gotten out of the pool because his hair was all wet and he was dripping a bunch of water onto the concrete patio.

“Hi, Mrs. Mueller. Hi Kevin. Are you two leaving?”

The woman looked up and smiled, “Oh, hi, Ellen! Yes, we’re leaving now. When did you get back?”

“Just a couple of days ago.”

“Is Joey back?” The soaked five year old asked.

“Yeah, he’s back Kevin, and when you two get together, he could tell you all about Disney World.”

“Cool.”

“Hi, Mrs. Meuller.”

“Oh hi, Shelly.” The woman replied to Shelly. She then looked curiously over at the boy who stood beside the girls.

Shelly noticed the mother’s inquisitive gaze and quickly introduced Tommy. “This is Tommy. He just moved into our neighborhood last year.” As Shelly gave her introduction, she wondered if word would soon get back to her Mom.

Tommy greeted the mother, “Hello, Mrs. Meuller. Nice to meet you.” and then looked down at the boy and said, “Hi Kevin.”

“Hello, Tommy. Nice to meet you too.” The mother answered back.

This was followed by a short and somewhat quiet “Hi.” from Kevin as he looked up warily at the older boy.

Tommy looked down at all the paraphernalia the mother had taken to the pool. Not only did it include the beach bag, but they had brought an ice chest too. “Would you like some help taking your stuff back to your car?”

Mrs. Meuller’s smile got much bigger in appreciation. “Yes, that would be great. Can you get the ice chest for me?”

“Sure.”

The mother took the rest of her beach paraphernalia off the lounge chairs.” Here, you girls go ahead and take the chairs, and Ellen, have your Mom call me so we can set up a playdate for Kevin and Joey.”

“Sure thing Mrs. Meuller. I’ll tell her.” The two girls had already started placing their beach towels and bags down on one of the chaise lounges. “And thanks again for the chairs.”

Tommy picked up the ice chest and followed the mother and her child out the gate and toward the parking lot, he then heard the mother ask. “So what brought you here to our nice neighborhood, Tommy?”

“My dad got married and we moved into my stepmom’s house.”

“And your stepmom is?”

“Oh, her name was Mrs. Emerson, she’s Mrs. Bridges now.”

“Oh, that’s right. I did hear that Lisa got remarried. She has a daughter, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, her name is Emily.”

So that means you have a new sister. How are you two getting along?”

“Oh, Emily’s great, although she does seem to hog up the bathroom a lot.”

Mrs. Meuller chuckled and replied, “You’ll find that all women do that.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Well, I hope you like it here.”

“I think I will.”

They stopped by a bronze sedan at which point Mrs Meuller promptly took out a key fob out of her purse and unlocked the doors. “Go ahead and put the ice chest on the floor of the front passenger seat, then I want you to go back and have some fun with the girls. And thanks for helping me, Tommy.

“Sure, it was no problem. I was glad to help.” Tommy replied and then followed the woman’s instructions, closing the door after the ice chest was tucked away. He then looked over to the little boy still wrapped in his beach towel. “Goodbye, Kevin. Goodbye, Mrs. Mueller.”

“Goodbye, Tommy, and thank you again.”

A timid, “Bye.” came from the young child.

Tommy walked back to the lounge chairs the two girls were now lying in. He noticed that there was now a third lounge chair by Shelly’s side that was piled with all their stuff. He figured the girls must have snagged that one too. He looked over at Shelly, peeked over her shoulders, and noticed she had taken off her wrap. He stood there and admired his bikini clad girlfriend.

Shelly had noticed Tommy too and she also noticed where he was looking, this brought a smile to her face.

Tommy knew she had just caught him ogling her body, so he quickly said, as a cover for his lecherous proclivities, “Let’s go in the pool.”

Ellen noticed the couple eyeing each other, so she graciously said, “You two go ahead. I want to work on my tan.”

“Come on, Shelly” Holding out his hand.

The two happily strolled off together, moving off to the right to where the pool steps were. Once there they went down the first two steps, and there Tommy looked over to see his girlfriend was hesitantly stepping onto the third step down. He grinned, wrapped his left arm around his girlfriend’s back and pushed them both off the steps and into the water. They both went in with a big splash.

Shelly quickly recovered and stood up in the shallow end. She splashed her arms angrily while shouting out at him. “Tommy, look at what you did!

“What?”

“You got my hair all wet.”

“So?” Taken back from the weird complaint. Isn’t that what a pool is used for? --- Getting all wet! He thought to himself.

“I look like a freak now.”

Tommy continued to look at her, and he didn’t see anything that resembled a freak. All he saw was a beautiful girl’s face with light blue eyes, a slightly upturned nose, and rosy cheeks. And this sight was only enhanced by her wet hair which perfectly framed her face. He slowly shook his head, “No.” contesting her proclamation.

Tommy then looked deep into her eyes, and in all seriousness said,. “I think you look like an angel now.” And then leaned in and gave her a light kiss on the tip of her nose. “But I’m sorry.”

Tommy’s unexpected words and actions instantly melted Shelly’s heart and chased her all her blues away. It also made her stomach do that familiar flip-flop and threatened to bring tears to her eyes. As she looked at him, she realized the boy was doing it to her all over again. He was making her feel like she was the most beautiful and important girl in the whole wide world. She knew that if that wasn’t the case, she surely felt like the luckiest.

Shelly reached out and placed both her arms on his shoulders. Her hands moved up and around his neck, and she pulled his face toward hers. Soon both their lips were being pressed together, oblivious to any of the stares the other patrons might be giving them.

A lack of oxygen (And the other swimmers stares.) forced them to break apart the kiss. They separated their bodies a bit and their bodies started to circle around in the water in a slow motion dance. Each one stared at the other and both were truly content to just gaze into the other’s eyes. They slowly circled around and around, ignoring all the splashing kids around them, and drifted out towards the slope marking the start to the deep end. Shelly got there first and felt her chin about to dip below the water, so she sprung her body up and then wrapped her legs around Tommy’s hips. And, with her heels implanted on his ass, she hugged her body close to him, put her head on his left shoulder, and she said softly. “Wasn’t this a good idea, I had, to come down here?”
The boy snickered back, “Yours! --- I thought it was my idea.”

“Well, yeah, but it was my idea to bring Ellen along with us. She’s providing us with a perfect cover from my mom.”

“Ellen doesn’t mind?” Looking back over his shoulder a little worriedly toward the girl in the lounge chair and then he further elaborated. “That we left her alone like that.”

“Are You kidding? She’s fine. All she just wants to do is ogle all the guys at the pool.”

Tommy smirked, and then an even more worried expression appeared on his face. “Your mom really hates my guts, doesn’t she?”

“No!” Shelly whined out in denial. “It’s not you Tommy” She further explained. “It’s the whole idea of me dating. That’s what she doesn’t like. And anyway, even if my mom doesn’t like you.” She took her head off his shoulders to look at him face-to-face. “I like you!” Shelly then leaned and gave him a kiss. Her legs squeezed their bodies closer together, grinding her pelvis into his crotch. She could feel his cock. It was starting to grow which caused her to smirk. She again squeezed her legs around him, as she felt his cock continue to expand and rub her body at the most opportune place. Shelly leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Of course, it didn’t help any when you stole my virginity.”