Swimming Lessons (2 page)

“
Burgers OK?” She asked,
yelling over the waves.

It had been a long, hot day with nothing but
water and soft drinks from the vending machine. He’d have been
happy with pretty much anything right now. “Burgers are great. Come
on up!” He indicated that they could eat in the shack. Jean was
careful climbing the stairs with her load, but she didn’t fall.

She unloaded the bags of
food, handing him two small dollar-menu burgers and a giant serving
of fries. “I got you water. I didn’t know if you were into soda or
not. You obviously work out pretty seriously.”

Sam smiled. He did work out regularly, and
he was glad it showed when it was supposed to. “Thanks!” was all he
could think of to say. He started in on the first burger while Jean
talked.

“
How long have you been
doing this?” She asked.

“
Two years. I started when
I was still in high school, and I’ve kept at it. Mom keeps telling
me I need to go back to school, but I don’t think that’s for
me.”

Jean nodded, unwrapping her sandwich. “Yeah,
I’m going to State. This is my second year. It’s hard, but I’m
getting through it. If you want a job that pays well, you need a
degree.”

Sam nodded, he’d
heard
that
plenty
of times. “What are you going to school to do?”

“
I’m taking English
courses. I’m going to travel the world teaching English in poor
countries.”

“
Like a
missionary?”

“
Sort of, but with
grammar, not religion.”

Sam chuckled at that. “That sounds like fun,
there must be lots of places that need teachers. You could go
pretty much anywhere.”

Jean nodded. “That’s the plan. Teachers
don’t make much money doing it, but the travel opportunities are
unlimited, and it helps people. You have any big plans for the
future?”

“
Not really. I help people
every day right here.” The truth was that Sam was terrified of
college. He’d barely been able to graduate high school, but when
he’d heard that even the Army wouldn’t take him if he didn’t
finish, he’d stuck it out and survived.

He’d always dismissed College as just out of
his league though. Still, he got paid pretty well for lifeguarding,
and he had his own apartment. He was getting by. Somewhere in the
back of his mind, he knew it wasn’t a long-term career, but that
was a problem for the future.

As he thought about Jean’s words, he noticed
her eyes scanning his shirtless chest. He was buff. He was smooth.
He was tan in the way only a lifeguard can be. At one time, he
would have been shy about sitting here shirtless eating dinner with
an attractive girl his own age. Not anymore.

Before long, the food was
gone and it was time to walk down to the water. Sam closed the
window to the tower, and headed down to the sand below. Jean stayed
behind, in the tower, to change into her swimsuit. Moments later,
she emerged, wearing a white two-piece swimsuit, and nothing else.
She left her bag of clothes and things inside the lifeguard tower
and put the padlock in place, but didn’t click it
locked.

Sam turned and headed down to the water.
Jean hurried to catch up, grabbed his hand and held it all the way
to the water’s edge. He never said a word. When he’d offered to
teach Jean to swim, Sam was genuinely being helpful; he really
hadn’t intended anything romantic. Now that they were holding hands
on the beach, Sam started having other ideas. As they approached
the water's edge, Sam asked, "Don't you just love way the sand
squishes through your toes? That always just takes away anything
that's bothering me.”

Jean nodded, but didn't say anything.

Sam continued, "How come
you never learned to swim? Did your family move here from Alaska or
something?"

Jean laughed at that, "No. We've always been
in the area. I had a broken leg the year we took lessons in school,
and after that, I just sort of never got around to learning. After
a while, it got easier and easier to just avoid the water."

Sam looked her in the eye, and they both
spoke the same words simultaneously, "...until today!" They both
laughed, and stepped into the water.

The water had warmed up a bit since that
morning, and it felt good as it lapped at Sam's feet and ankles.
"Before we go out into water that's a little deeper, let get used
to the temperature and waves right here." He pointed down. The
water was maybe a foot deep, barely covering their ankles.

Jean said, "Sounds like a good idea. No
point in getting carried away right off the bat." She chuckled. It
was only a foot deep, but she was already visibly nervous.

Sam bent over, put his arm down beneath the
water, and lowered himself into a sitting position. He was sitting
in the water, with his legs sticking out before him. Everything
from his belly button down was underwater. He gestured to Jean that
she should join him sitting there.

She reached down and
placed her hand on Sam's bare shoulder. His skin was still dry,
warm to the touch, and nearly as smooth as her own. She lowered
herself down into the water, on one knee, then twisted so her butt
submerged beneath the gentle waves. Finally, she put both arms
behind her for support the way Sam had done, and
relaxed.

The waves were still very
gentle, but they were still waves, random and relentless. The big,
rearing waves broke a hundred yards or more from the sandy beach.
The gentler ripples that made it in this far pushed against their
bellies: up, down, up, down. They tried to push them back a little,
then pull them forward, but they weren't strong enough to have any
real effect.

Sam looked at Jean’s face. She was looking
out at the big waves, out beyond the breakers. Suddenly, she was
shaking in fear. She reached over and held onto Sam's arm. She slid
over closer to him, and focused on his shoulder rather than the
waves.

Sam, assuming this was a
romantic gesture, kept his hand underwater, but slid it over until
it made contact with Jean's thigh. He slowly slid his hand down her
leg under the surface. He dragged his hand back up to her thigh,
and rolled over, hoping for a kiss next. He smiled and looked into
her eyes, seeing that she was scared nearly to the point of panic.
This wasn’t the time.

”
What is it?" He asked. He
stood up immediately and reached down, helping Jean to her feet.
She put her arms around him, still shaking.

"There's more to you not being able to swim
than just not getting around to it, isn't there?" He asked.

Starting to sob now, Jean nodded into his
shoulder. She couldn’t even look at the waves now. "Yes, when I was
five," was all she could get out.

He took her by the shoulder and pushed her
away gently, "Hey, you're a big girl now. Whatever happened in the
past, it's in the past. Let's not talk about it now. I kept you
safe once today, right?"

She smiled at him, bravely.

He continued, soothing as
if he were talking to a frightened child, “And I will again if
needed, but don't worry about that, we won't be doing anything
where I need to save you. We'll both be in total control today. I
promise. I didn't realize you were so afraid. Now I think what we
were doing is even more important. Let's sit back down where we
know how shallow the water is and just relax a bit. Is that
OK?"

Jean didn't like it, but she was serious
about learning to swim. She totally understood that she was being
irrational about her fear, but that didn't make it any easier to
conquer. They both sat down again. At first, Jean held on to Sam's
strong bicep as if her life depended on it.

As she started to acclimate a bit, she told
her story, "When I was five, I watched our next door neighbor drown
in their pool. I was in the backyard playing with my new puppy, and
she came outside. She was the same age as me. We'd both been told
never to go into her pool without an adult around, but this time
she was alone. She walked right over to the pool and jumped in. I
think she was showing off for me. I didn't know she was going to do
it, or I'd have yelled for her to stop. Anyway, she jumped into the
deep end. After a minute or two, I realized she wasn't coming up,
and went inside to tell my grandmother. Grandma was in the bathroom
doing laundry and wouldn't listen. By the time I made her
understand, it was too late." She looked like she might cry again.
"She was only five. Her parents moved away just a few weeks
later."

Sam listened silently, taking it all in.
He'd heard plenty of stories like that during training.
Unsupervised kids were the worst, regardless of whether you were
guarding the pool or the ocean. He replied in the same soothing
voice, putting his hand on her shoulder this time. ”There’s nothing
more you could have done. If you'd gone over to help her, you could
very easily have wound up dead too. It sounds terrible, but that
sort of accident happens all the time. Drowning is one of the
leading killers of small children."

Jean had obviously thought
all this through many times before, and knew it already. Logic was
in her mind, but these waves were real. She stopped talking and
just sat back in the waves. She'd gotten used to the temperature,
and now the only sensation was the water breaking against her
belly. Becoming a little more confident, or maybe just being
daring, she leaned back a little, resting on her elbows instead of
the palms of her hands. Now the waves started breaking against the
bottoms of her breasts, and the sensation went from one of relaxing
pulsing to a more erotic massage. She held the position, and
started to enjoy it.

Sam reached over and put
his hand on Jean’s belly, and patted it reassuringly. He rolled
over on one elbow, leaning over Jean’s supine form. He hesitated a
moment so she could get an idea of what was coming, then leaned in
a little more and kissed her on the cheek. She turned her head to
face him more directly, and he kissed her again, this time full on
the lips.

Sam glanced down at the
rest of her. She was gorgeous there, lying in the sun with the
water running up over her breasts, cleavage, and occasionally, her
shoulders. Whenever a wave touched them, she'd take in a big gasp
of breath. Sam watched those breasts rise and fall in the
waves.

She looked at him from her
reclined position and said; "I felt your hand on my leg earlier. I
kind of freaked out at that point, but it was the water, not your
roaming hands."

Sam nodded, understanding that to be a
signal to continue.

Sam looked at Jean
longingly. This girl, whom he’d never met until the accident this
morning was laying here, vulnerable and more than a little
terrified of her surroundings. Although he knew she was in no
danger, as far as she knew, she was trusting him with her life for
the second time today. That kind of trust and responsibility really
meant a lot to Sam.

He started to feel
attracted to this girl, and it was more than the physical
attraction that he usually felt towards girls on the beach. He
hadn’t even noticed Jean’s looks this morning, but right now, he
was more attracted to her than any girl he’d even been
with.

Sam smiled and pushed
himself up onto his knees. The waves were breaking behind him, and
occasionally running up his back, but his face was toward Jean. He
again placed his hand on her leg, near the knee this time, and his
hand started exploring the length of it. She had great smooth skin,
and he hadn't noticed until this afternoon that her tan was dark
and even as well.

He slid down a little bit
and ran his hand down to her ankle. It was small and smooth, and
Sam was careful to feel the contours. He lifted her foot out of the
water a few inches. Jean gasped, thinking he might be trying to
dunk her or something. He wasn't: he raised it a couple inches out
of the water and kissed the top of her foot. Jean blushed and
laughed out loud. "You
are
a romantic, aren't you?" When he released her
foot, she put it down and raised the other one. "Here you go, part
two!"

Sam kissed the foot and set it back down
under the water. He looked up at Jean. She saw him take a couple of
deep breaths, hold one and put his head down under the water. The
next thing she knew, she could feel him nibbling at her foot and
leg under the water, like a fish. His back and torso was up out of
the water, but he was bent way down under the water, chewing her
like a dog playing with a bone.

Once the initial confusion
passed, Jean just couldn't stop giggling. Sam moved up slowly, inch
by inch. He got her calf, her knee, her thigh, her hip, her belly,
then he raised his head out of the water and kissed the area
between her breasts. He continued on up and planted another
squarely on her lips. This was a slow and gently passionate kiss.
That one took all the whimsy out of the ones that came before. He
was quite serious about all this.