Back in Black

James fucked around for a while until he heard the buzzer on the dryer go off and went downstairs to pick up his last load and empty the lint catcher. Karen watched as he did that, possibly checking to make sure that he cleared out the lint, but didn’t say anything as he trundled off with his clothes. After putting away his whites, he checked the time--it was 4:45 PM. He had almost two hours before his dad and the rest of the family would show up for dinner, so he decided to go for a swim before dinner.

After washing his face again, he covered every part of his body with sunblock as he could reach, James reached for his old, baggy swimming trunks when he saw the new swimming briefs his aunt had bought for him--his original self would have never worn it as it left very little to the imagination. He wasn’t sure what she had in mind when she’d gotten it for him. He had been half sure it was a trick to embarrass him, so he’d never even tried them on.

However, this time he wasn’t an insecure, body-shy boy, so he put them on and admired himself in the mirror for a moment. He then grabbed the sunblock and headed down to the kitchen where Karen was still working on dinner and in the process of preparing a roast for the oven.

James held up the tube of sunblock. “Hey, mom, could you put this sunblock on my back and anywhere else I’ve missed?”

Karen had just finished covering a marinated beef roast with French onions. “Sure, honey. Just let me just get this into the oven.”

James sat the sunblock by the sink. “Here, let me do that.” He then opened the preheated top oven and picked up the clay bakeware holding the roast.

Shocked, Karen let him take it. “Okay. Thanks, honey.”

She put the lid on it and let him put it into the oven and close it.

“Do you want to set it for one and a half hours?” James asked.

She nodded, surprised again. “That’s right, it’s four pounds?”

He set the oven timer for an hour. “Anything else?”

“Uh, I have some steamed vegetables and potatoes, but they won’t take long.”

“We’re having mashed potatoes?”

“Yes, I just need to peel them, cook them in the pressure cooker, then put them in a bowl and use the potato masher.”

“Do you want help with that?” There really wasn’t anything difficult to do, just some basic prep work, but he offered anyway.

Karen shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Are you going to go for a swim?”

She reached for the sunblock.

“Yes, but I have to clean the pool first.” His dad usually had the pool guy come out to clean and shock the pool every couple of weeks, but James figured that it would be an easy way for him to help out around the house. Besides, the more frequently you cleaned and maintained the pool, the easier it was.

“That sounds good, James.” She squeezed out some sunblock onto her hands and started applying it to his bare back, noticing that even the pimples there had disappeared.

After checking to make sure that she didn’t miss any spots, she closed the tube and gave it back to him. “Okay, you’re covered, but don’t overdo it.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t!” James reassured her as he went out the back door and walked to the outdoor storage cabinet near the pool deck.

Karen watched James head outside when the phone rang, picking it up, she noted the Caller ID. It was her sister Jacqueline--and answered it with a grin, putting her on speakerphone. “Hi, Jackie!”

“Hey, Karen!” Her sister’s voice came out loud and clear.

“You’re still coming for the Fourth of July?” It was a tradition with the two of them, but she wanted to be sure.

Jackie replied. “Is Old Bill going to be fine with it?”

Karen laughed. “He’ll survive. The girls will be glad to see you.”

She and her sister talked about plans for the first full week of July--Jackie was flying in on the Friday before the Fourth and Karen insisted that she stay with them. The guest room and bathroom in the basement still weren’t finished, it was always on her ‘honey-do’ list, but William wasn’t exactly enthused about doing any of it. She asked Jackie if she would mind having her share a room with one of the girls, again.

“That’s fine, I had a great time with Amanda last time,” Jackie reassured her.

The two of them then talked about work and family for several minutes. Karen was still working for the public library, but without a Master’s degree, she probably wouldn’t be able to do much more than working at the counter, pulling and shelving books, and reading to the children, though she especially enjoyed the last part. Her kids had just finished their last day of school on Thursday and today was their first full day of summer vacation, even though Amanda and Cherly had an informal tryout. Her sister usually said that her life was boring, but her reply was that she preferred it that way.

On the other hand, Jackie was a real estate broker with her own office and a few realtors working under her. She married a wealthy property developer after college, but the marriage crashed and burned in just a few years when she caught him having an affair with his secretary. Fortunately, they didn’t have any children and he ended up offering her a very good settlement when it was discovered the secretary was pregnant. These days, Jackie was focused on building her business and wasn’t looking for a replacement husband.

Always interested in gossip, Jackie pressed her. “So, how are you doing now? Anything interesting happening?”

Karen hedged. “Uh, well, I guess.”

“Come on, spill it. Is it Bill? He didn’t get a stripper pregnant, did he?” Jackie had heard about William and his friends’ tendency to visit ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ and the night that he had fucked up and had sex with an ‘exotic dancer’, coming home drunk and half-naked.

“Jackie!” Karen gasped, “No, nothing like that!”

“Then, what is it?”

Watching James as he emptied the pool skimmers, Karen answered without thinking. “Well, I guess James is being weird.”

Jackie felt let down. “What? That’s it? What do you mean ‘weird’? Do you mean weirder than normal?”

“Absolutely,” Karen laughed.

Jackie pressed for more information. “How is he being weird?”

Karen hemmed and hawed before admitting to the day’s events so far. “Well, he just went outside to clean the pool and swim, in just those swimming briefs that you sent him. Not in his normal t-shirt and baggy trunks.”

“Really? No!” Her sister was clearly as surprised as she was, though it wasn’t quite the big shocker that she was hoping for.

“Before that, he was doing his own laundry and offered to help me in the kitchen.”

“Wait? This is your son, James that we’re talking about, right?”

“I know, normally I have to spend more time nagging him to get him to do anything around the house than it takes to do,” she conceded.

“Well, he could be finally adjusting to puberty or maybe...,” her sister began to speculate.

“But that wasn’t the weirdest thing that he did today.” Karen decided to unload what was her mind onto Jackie. “Today, I walked in on him while he was naked.”

“In his room?” Jackie hushed. “Was he masturbating? I guess that would make...”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” Karen laughed. “Actually, he was doing his own laundry and ended up cleaning the living room naked.” She could almost swear that she could hear Jackie blink on the other end.

After what almost seemed like a minute, her sister finally spoke. “What?”

Clarifying the situation, Karen explained. “I came home after he had cleaned up the living room and caught him going up the stairs, stark naked --as in wearing nothing but his birthday suit.”

“Wow,” Jackie giggled and then laughed for a while, “I’m not sure which is weirder, James voluntarily cleaning without an armed guard, or ‘Mister Body Shy’ wearing anything less than a t-shirt and baggy shorts.”

The two women laughed for a while before Jackie continued. “So ... how was it?”

Karen played dumb. “How was what?”

“You know what I mean,” her sister let the sentence hang for a bit before finishing it, “ ... his penis.”

“Oh,” Karen paused as if weighing what to say. “It was normal.” She downplayed it.

Jackie insisted. “Was it bigger or smaller than Bill’s? How thick was it?” The sisters had once discussed, after more than a couple of glasses of wine, their spouses’ respective attributes, in and out of bed, and Jackie’s then-husband Tom had managed to come up a bit ... short. William was probably a little larger than most men, but his physical attributes didn’t outweigh his arrogant and selfish attitude.

“I can’t believe that you’re asking; it’s not as if I measured it!” Karen bristled.

“Hey, I’m just asking as a concerned aunt.” Her sister soothed her. “Maybe he was feeling insecure about it and that was part of the reason he’s been so body shy for the past few years.”

Mollified, Karen finally answered her. “Well, he has nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s not like he’s unusually small or freakishly huge. I’d say he’s got a couple of inches on Bill, lengthwise, and looked about an inch or so wider.”

“Hmm, I think I might have to verify this for myself, sis.” Jackie joked.

“Oh, you!” Karen flushed, pretending to be annoyed. “Actually, I think that the biggest reason for his body shyness has been his acne. It seems to have cleared up overnight and his self-confidence has soared.”

“I guess that could be it, too.” Her sister pondered for a moment. “Have the girls noticed anything?”

“They’ve all been out, so they haven’t seen the ‘new’ James.” Karen worriedly drummed her fingers on the counter. “Do you think that it’s temporary, or another phase, or...?”

“Hey, how would I know? You’re the one with kids!” Jackie tried to reassure her. “Maybe he’s going back to the sweet little James we knew, or maybe he’s just trying to turn over a new leaf before high school. If you’re really worried, you could always talk to Genevieve, isn’t she a child head shrink?”

Karen rolled her eyes. “She’s a pediatrician. Jillian is a child therapist. And I don’t want to make James feel awkward if he’s finally getting back to normal ... or at least a bit more normal.”

Trying to play it off, her sister giggled. “You know that I’m just kidding around. So, is everyone going to be there this year?”

“I believe so, but I’ll double check.” Karen made a mental note to call everyone to find out.

“Well, if so, I’m sure that William will high-tail it out because he’s ‘practically swimming in estrogen’ or something like that.”

“Probably,” Karen acknowledged.

The two joked a bit longer and finally exchanged goodbyes. Karen turned back to finishing dinner. She looked out in time to see James diving off the springboard into the pool.

After cleaning the filters and checking the pool’s pH, James could finally enjoy swimming in the cool water. Instead of just lazing about, he swam several laps at gradually faster speeds, trying to use it as a form of low-impact exercise to get his muscles ready for his new exercise program. 30 minutes later, a tired James slowly made his way back to the shallow end of the pool.

He leaned back against the edge, marveling at the changes in his life. He had gone from being an despairing old man just counting the days until death, to suddenly being young and healthy again with his whole life ahead of him. It was a dream that even the most powerful or wealthy would give up everything for, but all it cost was just $20. If he didn’t take advantage of this opportunity, he would be a complete fool.

While James was certainly planning to excel in all of his high school classes, he couldn’t quickly leverage academics into tangible financial success—he didn’t have wealthy or permissive parents that would allow him to open a brokerage account. He couldn’t start a business when he was only 14. Looking at the limitations, he felt athletics would be the quickest way to create opportunities to change his future. His body was his most viable asset at the moment. But as Gin told him, it would only come after a dedicated effort, which would have to start this summer.

As he rested in the water, James started to refine his fitness plans and how it might play into competitive athletics. While he wasn’t interested in becoming a bodybuilder per se, a lot of the same principles could be used in shaping his body into something that was both aesthetically attractive and physically dominating in sports. Fitness, like wealth, wasn’t an end to the means, but a means to the end--being able to live life to its full and creating opportunities.

At 6:00, Karen opened the kitchen door and called out to him. “James, come on in and get ready for dinner!”

He turned to his mom and waved, before pulling himself out of the water and drying off. Before he headed inside, he adjusted his semi-erect penis so that it was more obvious.

The whole point of wearing those and not the baggy ones around her was specifically for her attention. He was trying to be subtle about this, she’d already seen him erect and he’d seen the signs of arousal on her, so he knew that there might be an opportunity there. But, he had to play the long game on this, not wanting to initially scare her off.

Walking in, he dropped off his wet towel in the laundry room. “I’m going to take a fast shower and get changed. Would shorts and a t-shirt be okay?”

She paused and studied him, her eyes briefly noticing his slightly tumescent state, before asking, “James, why don’t you put on something a little dressier, like slacks and a collared shirt?”

“Sure.