"Oh-h, no w-way, Karen! Honest. We're absolutely perfect together. Every time."
"Yes, I suppose you would be. You're so much alike either of you could almost predict what the other would like. What about a phony confession then, if you think that's all it would take to make Tannsy experiment-"
"Lie to her, you mean? No way. Tannsy and I have never in our lives told each other a lie. About anything. If she found out I'd done that it would hurt her worse than breaking a promise. She might never trust me again and she'd miss that more than not doing it with each other. And so would I."
"Well… as I said, we can't always come up with the right answers. You can't just bluntly cut it off, you know. You certainly don't want that sweet little girl herself coming up with some awful hang-up for having been trapped into the actions of a nasty-dirty little girl."
"Hey-y!!"
"As society would regard it, you dumb shit, sit down! As people would make her-r feel for having done nothing more than give in to a natural urge she's mistaken for society's highly touted lo-ove. I'm with you, you know, that she'll outgrow it. Until she does, why not just go on enjoying each other? Very discreetly, of course."
"Because I'm always so goddam afraid we'll get found out by somebody outside, the way everybody's always like spotlighting us all the time trying to find out who my new girl is as if it was their business. You know how people talk about girls like-girls who do it with their own brothers."
"Oh, yes, I know. You're not talking much about Cissie here, Clarkie. How does she fit in?"
"Oh, Cissie's all right. It isn't hurting her. She just likes it with me once in a while for special kicks. Like I wish Tannsy did. And yet I don't, too; does that make sense?"
"Sure, I can dig your confusion. I assume you've talked about it with Tannsy?"
"I've tried to but she always turns it off. She thinks if we're careful we just won't get caught."
"From her viewpoint or yours?"
"…. What do you mean?"
"Tannsy's acute sense of fair play is one of the great qualities that make her such a sweet little thing. She knows as well as any of us how sexually active you've always been and I'd bet anything it bothers her considerably that you must do without during these long periods you're apart."
"Hey, it does. She's said so herself. -But that's exactly what makes me keep making those dumb promises that I don't w-want anybody but her. As I don't when she's around."
"Fine. Keep making the promises, and keep them, but for when you are both at home. Being suddenly a woman in opposition to her sense of fair play, Tannsy's prime objection isn't to the act of you making it with some other girl so much as it's the thought that you might prefer some other girl above her. Her accidence to Cissie shows that. Don't you think maybe that coming at the problem from your viewpoint instead of hers, like telling her it's just too long for you between visits and that you'd like the freedom of making out with others while she's gone-for relief, of course, never in preference-"
"Hey-y, that's just exactly what would tick off that fairminded mind of hers. And I sure as hell wouldn't be lying, either. Man-n, why didn't I ever think of something as simple as that, myself, as well as I've always known her. It's beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, Kar-ren! You're beautiful!"
Clark scrambled around the desk, banging kisses on Karen's surprised mouth and all over her face, holding her head in both excited hands. Karen struggled furiously, finally breaking loose and shooting an apprehensive glance through the block window. Clark followed her glance.
"See?" he teased gaily. "Nobody there."
"He could have been there, you idiot, but I don't especially care to be put in a position where I'd have to start putting it out for your entire crew to buy their silence, either. I'm not exactly Elaine Compton."
"Aw, Karen, I wasn't being smart-ass. It was just when you showed me what to do about Tannsy so easy it was so-it felt so good I forget somebody might see us. I'm sor-ry."
Karen cut Clark off with a rueful grin. "I guess I understand your impulse, baby, it just took me by surprise. Forget it, hey?"
"Impulse, nothing. I've been looking for an excuse to do that ever since we came in here."
"There you go again, you blarney idiot, get the hell out of here. -Yes, do get out of here. Go round up the fellows, Captain, before you and me both get our pretty asses in slings for not working. Get that look off your face; I know how you guys regard my rear end. -Same way I've always looked at your-rs, hey baby."
"Want to do something about it instead of working?"
"Af-ter you've fixed it up with Tannsy and can get your mind on it, Junior, I'm not the charity commission. Split!"
Karen came out a few minutes later, walking directly to the coaching stand on the sidelines. She didn't especially look at him as she cheerfully scanned the alert faces on the starting blocks but Clark got the warm feeling he used to get from her gentle secret smile when he and she had set something up for after practice.
"Anybody for a fa-ast hundred? Free-style?" The super-innocence in Karen's laughing-like bleat made everybody feel she had to be talking about a fast hundred strokes in fucking. She picked the starting gun off the lectern, swinging the muzzle from the water to the ceiling in a sneaky-like arc straight up the front of Clark's body, again like pointing a subtle finger especially at him as she used to do it when they had a thing going. She held the gun pointed in the air, calmly waiting until everybody was ready, then fired and pushed the automatic time clock button simultaneously.
Showing off for Karen as they never would for Coach in mere practice, the team really pressed in on him this time. Determined not to let anybody beat him, especially after such a great talk with Karen, Clark really poured it on, flipping quickly at the far end of the pool and bearing down equally hard on the back fifty. As he touched the electronic sensor at the head of his racing lane he noticed by the clock above that he had bettered an already fantastic hundred meter time by almost two tenths of a second. He dragged himself over the edge of the pool apron and flopped to his back.
"All-l ri-ight!" Karen was screaming happily. "Now that was a heat that couldn't be beat."
Even the corny rhyme Coach used as a prelude to dismissal sounded beautiful.
"Fletcher, get your back off that cold tile. If all you guys will promise never to tell Coach, I'm going to call that heat good enough to warrant an early day so you can all get on over to Ship's big party. If-f you're dumb enough to go to a pool party in October… As if you'll be staying in the water very long anyway."
With a great big "Yay-y!" for their pet coach as she went into her office, the fellows grabbed sweat suits and sneakers and cut for the door. All except Faithful Husband Clark Fletcher who sat on his dead ass watching them with his already benumbed feet dangling in the cold cold water.
Jerry Shipley stopped suddenly and spun around as if to come back and insist again that he come to the pussy party and help him check out his new flock of cunt-broads. Wavering, but then pretending not to see Jerry even as he felt so lousy for treating his best friend like this, Clark scrambled to his feet and went into the water in a long shallow dive. He stayed beneath the surface for nearly the whole fifty meters and when he came out of the water Jerry was gone, too.
Clark cast a yearning glance through the block window and his hollow loneliness deepened. He had thought she might be sticking around to test out her own theories in spite of her old man being right here in the same building. But then she probably understood that one better than he did, too. She'd made it sound like it was for her own satisfaction that he should wait until he talked with Tannsy but she probably knew as well as he did that if he was to try it and fail with Karen Somers, the very greatest piece of cunt in the whole damn world, he might as well forget it forever. He'd never be able to get it on with anybody again, including his two great sexy little sisters.