Chapter Four #2
His expression was thoughtful. “Not bad.”
“You’re being generous.”
Kai shook his head. “I mean, you’re not going to win any races, but I don’t think you were aiming for that, right?”
I laughed. “Not at all.”
He nodded. “Right, so all we want is the most effective stroke for you to get the maximum benefit from every lap, so that you can get on with the important business of drinking too many glasses of wine.”
Maybe I was being teased, but it actually sounded like a pretty good plan to me. I decided not to waste time arguing.
“The thing about breaststroke is that most of the movement actually comes from your legs,” Kai explained.
“So you need to keep your head, shoulders, hips, and legs pretty much straight, but your body goes at a slight angle so that you’re always kicking under the water.
Keep your elbows up as you bring your arms back, okay? ”
I grimaced, trying to put what he was telling me into the dimly-remembered context of swimming lessons at school.
At the time, the ability to be in water without rapidly drowning had been my primary goal; everything else - including catching stolen glimpses of the other guys in the changing room afterwards - had just been a bonus.
“Try again,” Kai instructed, “and this time try not to sweep your arms too wide. Remember, it’s your legs doing most of the work.”
I pushed off, attempting to keep everything he’d just explained in mind. Somehow, though, the good advice and my bad form simply weren’t compatible. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it felt like I was even worse than the first lap.
By the time I made it back to Kai, I knew the frustration had to be clear on my face. The self-consciousness of the swimsuit and the general awkwardness I’d felt had been sidelined by something far more petty. I couldn’t get the breaststroke right, and I was pissed about it.
“You’re letting your hips drop in the water,” he pointed out, “which means you’re not getting the most from your core and abdominal muscles. Your legs should be behind you, not drooping underneath you.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I muttered, sarcasm dripping.
Kai flicked water at my face. “It’s easier to learn when you’re swimming... so start swimming!”
I made a face at him, but still pushed off again. Tried desperately to make a connection between his straightforward, matter-of-fact theory, and my flailing, splashing practice. I was about ready to admit defeat when I made it back, but Kai seemed more enthused.
“That was better!” he insisted, though I wasn’t sure I agreed. He frowned for a second. “Look, can we try something?”
“Um, sure?” I told him, uncertain what he actually meant.
“Okay, try to lie out flat in the water. As though you’re a plank.”
Gradually I extended my arms and legs, wobbling a little but generally floating.
“Great, now let me just...”
I gasped - and almost choked down a mouthful of water - when his hands slipped up around me. One palm pressed against my breastbone, the other on my abdomen. Mere inches, at most, above the waistband of my suit. I could feel him tilting me, maneuvering me into the position he had in mind.
“What are you...” I started, then flinched as his fingertips scuffed against my flesh. Turned my head, to see his look of thoughtful concentration.
“Right, now try slowly kicking out your legs,” he suggested.
Still trying to tamp down the shock at his touching me, I carefully pulled my knees up, then straightened them out again.
“That’s it, that’s much better,” he praised. “Now - slowly - start with your arms, too. Remember, elbows out of the water as you pull the stroke back, and then under when you bring your arms in, and up.”
In a sort of daze I found myself complying. A slow-motion breaststroke, balanced atop Kai’s strong hands.
“You’re trying too hard to get your knees up toward your chest,” he explained.
I felt his hold on me shift, a deft repositioning as I continued the slow practice. Suddenly, I felt his hand on my ass.
“Try to focus on bringing your feet up to your butt, with the soles facing out,” he said.
My head was too busy spinning, though, to really listen to the technique. His palm was a soft but persistent pressure atop my cheeks; I knew he’d be able to feel them flexing against his touch as I scissored my legs. The thin layer of fabric separating our skin was little more than a whisper.
I couldn’t take it any more. For all that his hold on me was gentle, the sensations spilling through my body as a result were bordering on overwhelming.
I found myself twisting and half-falling out of his grip, an untidy jumble of splashing limbs before I eventually kicked my way back, first to the surface, and then to safety at the edge of the pool.
Deep breaths, my lungs feeling like they’d been punched.
I knew I must look a state, not to mention seem like a crazy person for the practice’s unexpected abort, but it had all become too much, too suddenly.
Painfully aware, too, that my cock was mortifyingly rigid, pushing insistently against the stretched pouch of my swimsuit.
Kai paddled over to me, a look of concern on his face. I fought the urge to turn my body away from him, desperately hoping he wouldn’t see how hard I was. How hard I’d got from merely having his hands on me so innocently.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, still feeling awkward. “Sorry,” I mumbled, “It was just...” My voice trailed off.
“I rushed you,” he finished, sounding apologetic.
“I just wasn’t expecting... well...” How could I explain it without then going into the real reason Kai’s hold on me had proved so triggering?
A beat. “Ah, okay.”
I cringed inwardly. What must he be thinking about me right now?
We were silent for a minute, me still clinging to the edge of the pool, and Kai letting his body drift in the slight currents. Even as my heart rate was returning to normal, my erection was showing no inclination toward subsiding.
“That glass of wine you were talking about before sounds pretty good right now,” he said, eventually.
I smiled, weakly. “You go get a glass,” I told him, “I’ll be out in a minute.”
His eyes examined my face intently, just for a moment.
As though searching for a hidden message, or some truth that might be lying so close to the surface that its topography would be visible through my skin.
Either he didn’t see anything, or he was satisfied with what he read, because after a few seconds he nodded and swam to the side.
“Don’t take too long,” he joked over his shoulder, “else I might drink it all.”
I chuckled back. “Don’t worry, I have more than one bottle.”
“I would never doubt it,” he teased.
There was the temptation, of course, to watch as he pulled himself from the water.
To see the way the muscles in his body would flex and stretch; the way his buttocks would press so alluringly against the fabric of whatever swimsuit he was wearing today.
All the same, I knew I couldn’t follow him out until I’d rid myself of my hardness: there’d be, frankly, no way of hiding it, given what I had on myself was so brief.
Running a slideshow of unpleasant and mortifying memories through my brain, I willed my dick to go down.
In the end, though, it was the thought of being seen - and laughed at - in this condition that seemed to do the trick.
I figured I was in a condition just discreet enough to get out, strategizing how I’d then high-tail it to my bedroom and get changed into something less exposing.
Plans scuppered, though, by Kai. He was there as I dragged myself from the water, body still damp and his hair a tussled mess, holding out a wine glass and carrying one himself.
I took the drink from him, but he hovered still; no indication of sitting until I did first. Inwardly cursing, I gingerly perched myself on the edge of the lounger.
“I tease you, but this is good,” he conceded, after taking a sip.
I raised my glass in a silent toast to that.
Kai sprawled back on the chair, one leg raised, the other trailing off the edge and across the deck. There was a casualness to him that was beguiling; a lack of self-awareness that made his already attractive body all the more captivating.
I forced myself to sit back. Feeling little of the ease that Kai’s pose telegraphed so clearly, but trying my damnedest to at least emulate it. A gulp of wine - followed by a second, and then another - helped a little. Silence coiled between us, though not uncomfortably.
“So, no boyfriend,” he said, suddenly.
My body jolted in surprise, fingers instinctively gripping tighter around the stem of the wineglass. When I looked over to him, there was nothing of tension in his form. Gaze still fixed at the rippling lights of the city below us.
“Um, what?” I replied, eventually. I could hear the shake in my voice, betraying the stress as much as I tried to steady myself.
Kai glanced across. Still, I could see no sign of anything but casual interest.
“I mean, I’m assuming there’s no husband because you’re living on your own. Maybe I’m wrong. But I’ve never seen you here with anyone, or even any sign of someone else. So I guessed there was no boyfriend, either.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but the words weren’t there yet.
Closed it again, as I thought about how to react.
It wasn’t like I wasn’t out: it had been years since I told my family I was gay, and though it wasn’t a topic that was particularly discussed at work, neither was it a secret.
Somehow, though, the feelings I was having now, to Kai’s question, took me right back to my early teenage years.
Crushing memories of the horror at being asked “are you gay?” by schoolmates, when admitting that yes, yes you were could be tantamount to social suicide.
“I...” I started, then paused again. “No, no boyfriend.”
He nodded, thoughtfully. “Right, that’s what I guessed.”