Chapter 3: The Pool's Embrace
The evening air was a warm kiss on my exposed skin as I stepped onto the patio. The turquoise bikini felt less like fabric and more like a painted-on idea, two precarious knots and a few inches of lycra holding back catastrophe. My sandals were absurd now, a frivolous click-clack on concrete. I left them by a chair.
Mark was in the pool, a dark shape floating on his back in the deep end. The water rippled around him, catching the fairy lights strung in the oak branches like captive fireflies. His arms moved in slow, easy sculls. He looked powerful, even at rest.
From a lounge chair, Sabrina—in my body—watched. She held a beer in my large, hairy hand, the posture all wrong, too stiff, the bottle looking oddly delicate. Our eyes met. In my own familiar face, I saw a reflection of my own trapped horror. She gave a minute, helpless shake of my head.
“There she is,” Mark called, his voice echoing off the water. He righted himself, standing where it was still over his head, treading water with effortless flicks of his legs. His gaze was a physical touch, sweeping from the top of my damp blonde head, down over the ludicrous triangles of my top, the bare sweep of my stomach, the low-slung bikini bottoms. “Was starting to think you got lost.”
“Just… had trouble finding it,” I lied, my voice a feathery thing. The walk to the pool’s edge was a masterclass in destabilizing physics. Every step sent a secondary, jiggling wave through my chest, a soft, heavy bounce that had its own delayed momentum. My hips insisted on their sway, making the thin strings of the bikini bottoms dig and whisper against my skin. The space between my legs felt intensely present, a warm, vulnerable hollow.
The pool ladder’s steps were cool, rough against my size-five feet. I descended backwards, as was natural, but the action pulled my center of gravity forward. My breasts, unsupported, swung free away from my body for a terrifying second before settling with a soft slap against my ribcage as I lowered myself further. The water, when it reached my thighs, was a shock of coolness. Then it rose over my hips, my waist, swallowing the shocking exposure of my midriff, and finally buoying my chest. The relief of the weightlessness was profound. For a moment, the relentless heaviness was gone, replaced by a gentle, aqueous lift.
I pushed off the ladder, paddling clumsily with my shorter, slimmer arms. My swimming style was instantly infantile. I was used to powerful strokes, to cutting through water with the force of a six-foot frame. Now, I splashed. I kicked, but my legs felt weak, the muscles different, less dense. I managed a few feet before stopping, breathless, in the shallow end.
Mark had watched my floundering progress with an amused smile. “Not much of a swimmer, huh?”
“Out of practice,” I wheezed, the high sound grating.
He dove smoothly, a ripple of muscle, and emerged right in front of me, water sheeting off his broad shoulders. We were close enough that the waves from his movement lapped against my collarbones. He was taller than me even in the water, looming. His chest was a broad wall of dark hair and defined muscle. His eyes, in the shimmering light, were dark and intent.
“Here,” he said, his voice lower. “I got you.”
His hands came up under the water. One settled, large and impossibly warm, on the bare dip of my waist. The other cupped my lower back. The contact was electric. It wasn’t just the touch—it was the location. His thumb rested just above the line of my bikini bottom, a brand on my new, sensitive skin. His other hand spanned nearly my entire waist, his fingers splayed. I could feel every ridge of his calloused palm.
He was touching me. Mark was touching me.
A bolt of pure, animal terror shot through me, cold and sharp. It was followed, instantly, by a traitorous, spreading warmth that bloomed from his touchpoints, flushing down my abdomen and pooling deep in my unfamiliar core. It was a low, throbbing ignition, an internal clenching I had no frame of reference for. My breath hitched.
“Just relax,” he murmured, pulling me gently toward the deeper water. My feet left the textured floor. I was adrift, held aloft only by his hands and the water. My body floated, pressed lightly against his. The full, buoyant weight of my breasts brushed his submerged chest. A faint, rough tickle of his body hair against the sensitive underside was a shock so acute my toes curled.
I was rigid, a statue of panic.
“See? You’re floating,” he said, his face inches from mine. I could smell the chlorine on his skin, the faint scent of his soap. His gaze dropped to my mouth. My new, full, feminine mouth. I instinctively licked my lips, a quick nervous flicker, and saw his eyes darken.
From the deck, Sabrina’s voice, gruff and too loud, cut through. “Beer’s getting warm, Mark. You want another or you just gonna give swimming lessons all night?”
Mark didn’t look away from me. “In a minute, man.” His thumb moved, the barest fraction, stroking a tiny arc on my waist. The warmth between my legs pulsed, a deep, shameful ache. My nipples, tight and hard from the cool water and sheer terror, pressed against the flimsy fabric of my top. I was horrifyingly aware of them.
“You’re shaking,” he observed softly. His hold tightened, just a little. It wasn’t threatening. It was possessive.
“C-cold,” I stammered.
“We can fix that.” He began to move, walking us slowly through the chest-deep water, guiding me with his body. Each step created a subtle surge that made our bodies rub together. The friction was maddening. The softness of my stomach and breasts against the hard planes of him. The water swirled around us, carrying his heat into every secret place.
“You know,” he said, his voice a rumble near my ear, “Justin never mentioned how beautiful his cousin was.”
The words were a sucker punch. This was my best friend. He’d seen me unshowered, hungover, heartbroken. We’d talked about engine blocks and stock portfolios and the utter absurdity of dating in our thirties. Now he was looking at the shell I was trapped in with a raw, hungry intensity I’d only ever seen him direct at luxury sports cars.
“He’s… private,” I managed.
“He’s an idiot,” Mark chuckled, and his hand slid lower on my back, just a fraction, his fingertips now definitely below the waistband of my bikini bottoms, resting on the upper curves of my behind. The jolt of sensation was so intense it blurred my vision. A sharp, sweet tension coiled tightly in my belly. I made a small, choked sound.
His head tilted. “You okay?”
I couldn’t speak. I was a reactor melting down. Terror and this alien, overwhelming pleasure were at war in my nervous system, and the pleasure was winning, fed by every brush of his skin, every confident squeeze of his hand.
“Mark.” It was Sabrina again, standing now at the pool’s edge. My tall body was a tense silhouette against the fairy lights. “Phone’s ringing. Inside. Might be your office.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Mark’s face. He sighed, a warm puff of air against my temple. His hands loosened. The sudden absence of his support made me sink, and I gasped, flailing until my feet found the floor.
“Duty calls, even on a Saturday,” he said, smiling down at me. He reached out and, with a casual intimacy that stole my breath, tucked a strand of wet blonde hair behind my ear. His finger traced the curve of my ear. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He heaved himself out of the pool in one smooth motion, water cascading from a body that was all power and latent danger. The fabric of his swim trunks clung, leaving little to the imagination, and the sheer, intimidating size of him, even in that relaxed state, made my new body’s earlier response feel like a grotesque betrayal.
He padded inside, leaving a trail of wet footprints.
I stood there, water up to my chest, trembling violently. The cool night air on my wet shoulders raised goosebumps. The throbbing between my legs was a guilty, persistent echo. I felt raw, scraped out, and horrifically alive in ways I didn’t understand.
Sabrina crouched at the edge, her—my—face pale under the beard. “Justin,” she whispered, urgent and low. “What are you doing?”
I looked up at her, at my own eyes filled with her panic. My voice, when it came, was a thin, shattered thing.
“I don’t know,” I breathed. “But I think… I think my body likes him.”