Chapter 2
Holly waited until the last swimmer had left the pool and then she climbed down from her perch on the lifeguard's chair. She started walking toward the locker room when she felt a sharp stab against her bare foot.
She bent down and, lifting her foot, picked up a small flat stone. She stood for a moment, fingering the rock between her thumb and index finger, and, suddenly feeling an outrageous rebellion, she sent it skimming over the surface of the olympic-size swimming pool. It had been a good throw and the stone flew in a straight, even path a few inches above the water, hurtling directly toward the pool wall on the opposite side from her. Almost imperceptibly, the stone dropped and grazed the water, then it rose up into the air again, and fell, skipping two ... three times before it sank, leaving a pattern of expanding ringlets radiating out across the glassy, sun-sparkled blue water.
Holly stood for a long time, staring at where the stone had disappeared; yet she was not thinking of the stone. Something had been troubling her all day, a vague, undefined edginess which, try as she might to find its cause, was as lost to her as the stone beneath the waters of the pool.
"Is something the matter, Miss Granger?"
Holly whirled around to see Keith Edwards behind her. The handsome young man had his hands jammed in the pockets of a pair of old cut-off blue jeans, and his perceptive blue eyes stared out from beneath a shock of unruly red hair. He had been watching the shapely young brunette for some time, glancing from the inviting swell of her hips, concealed beneath the sun-faded blue of the recreational center's uniform to the sculptured length of her tanned legs, and through her white blouse to the silhouette of two voluptuously billowing tits. Now, however, he was looking at her dark, liquid eyes with concern. "You look sad about something."
"Not really," Holly said, shrugging. "I was just ... thinking."
"Oh," Keith replied, looking down at his battered sneakers. "I'm sorry I interrupted you...."
"Interrupted?" Holly smiled. "That's all right, Keith, you're not interrupting me. I have to go back to the locker room anyway." She paused a moment. "Say, aren't you supposed to be practicing your running?"
Keith Edwards looked back up, but he avoided Holly's eyes, gazing instead at the sapphire blue waters of the swimming pool.
"Believe it or not, I'm through for the day. Ran all over the park today. I was just going to the locker room myself. You need any help locking up the pool?"
Holly couldn't help feeling sorry for Keith. He'd had a difficult time mixing with his contemporaries since he had moved into the neighborhood and started coming to the center, primarily because he was a loner who had little need for others his age. Holly had taken him under her wing until he could find his own way. Normally she enjoyed his company and his quick, searching intelligence, for he was nearly the same age as herself, but the nagging edginess which she felt demanded that she be alone.
"Gee, thanks for the offer, but I'll be fine. I have a few other things to do before I close up."
"Want me to stay and keep you company?"
"No, I ... I need to be alone, Keith."
He furrowed his brow. He could tell something was troubling the usually cheerful girl who was a very popular member of the center's staff. "You sure you're all right?"
"Yes." Holly nodded absently. "I'm feeling a little strange today, that's all."
"Okay." After a moment's hesitation, he turned around and walked toward the locker room set back among the trees a hundred yards from the pool. Holly watched him as he walked. She was acutely aware of how much she had come to like Keith Edwards and felt a pang of guilt for not having sat down and talked with him, as he had so obviously wanted. But she couldn't, not just now.
Holly shook her head, silently repeating to herself, "Yes, I'll be all right." Then she turned and walked quickly away from the pool toward the low, barracks-style building next to the locker room which housed the center's offices.
She followed a shaded trail that wound between the trees to the office, unaware of the brittle crunch her feet made as they padded across the carpet of fallen leaves on the path. She didn't know what it was that was bothering her. It was as yet just an unsettling suspicion that something was wrong, a vague sense of foreboding. And though it had only really surfaced today, she thought it must have subconsciously troubled her all week long.
Several yards away from the office, Holly suddenly stopped, looking up curiously. For an instant she wasn't even sure what had attracted her attention; then, listening intently, she was able to distinguish the sound of a girl's voice coming from the bushes at the end of the building to her right. She waited for a moment, then started toward the source of the sound, unconsciously beginning to tiptoe as she grew nearer.
Then she stopped again as another even more provocative sound came to her ears, catching her breath. Though she couldn't be certain, she thought she'd heard a girl's giggle-yet a specific and disturbing kind of giggle, lusty and sensual. After a moment, she continued, even more cautiously, and after ten paces stopped once more at the corner of the building, craning her neck carefully to look around the corner into the bushes.
Holly could hardly believe the shocking sight that greeted her. Sitting on the ground in a clearing right in the center of the shrubs was Denise Layton, the pleasingly nubile young daughter of the councilman who had started the whole concept of the Recreational Center. Denise always spent most of her free days at the center, generally doing nothing but flirting and flaunting her well-developed body at any boy she could. Flanking her were two older boys about Holly's own age, Steve Roland and Mike Slade, who had attended the same school as Denise and who were known to Holly as troublemakers. Though it seemed almost too shocking for Holly to even imagine, the two guys were simultaneously "feeling up" the sensuous young blonde.
Muted by her own surprise, Holly stared wide-eyed as Mike pulled the young girl's shirt up over the white skin of her belly.
Another giggle issued from the teenager's throat, but she made no move to stop him. Then Holly almost gasped aloud as Mike lifted the shirt up to completely expose the young girl's softly billowing tits. She was not even wearing a bra, and in spite of her young age, she was surprisingly well-developed. Her tits stood up with almost bursting firmness, needing no support, and the contact with the air had caused her pink little nipples to swell to instant rigidity.
To Holly's further astonishment, Steve Roland reached down with both hands, almost the instant the swollen, nipple-peaked mounds were exposed, to eagerly cup and massage them, his fingers tweaking teasingly over the ripe little nipple buds to cause further giggles and shrieks to purr from the young girl's lips. And before Holly had time to absorb that shocking development, Mike moved back into action with even more stunning effect.
"Hey," he said laughingly, pushing one of Steve's hands away. "Let me get in on this too." Then he bent down quickly to plant a wet kiss on the nakedly swollen little nipple.
"Ohhhh!" the blonde-haired girl moaned, her eyes widening and face flushing crimson as she peered down, watching Mike begin to hungrily suck and lick at the tingling little bud even as Steve continued to stroke and massage the other nakedly upthrust tittie. Then he also stopped and began to kiss and lick at the sensitive skin of the young girl's neck and blow softly onto the tender little lobe of her ear.
For a few moments longer the girl unprotestingly let both boys kiss and fondle her tits at will. Then she gently pushed Mike's face away and in a quick motion pulled the shirt back down over her titties and over Steve's hand, which still remained lewdly upon them.
"Hey, come on, Denise," Mike said, "pull your shirt back up."
The blonde shook her head, another giggle bursting from her lips. "No," she said in a gusty voice. "No, we can't. Not here. If I'm even seen here...." She let the words trail off, the consequences speaking for themselves.
"Then tonight," Mike said, looking down at her eagerly. "Why don't you meet us in the pool equipment room tonight?"
The young girl hesitated. The equipment room was a safe place to make out. All of the young people who used the center knew that. It was easy to break into and was so full of equipment that it was hard to make out any bodies from their surroundings. She peered back at Mike, a lewd grin still on her soft pink lips, debating the proposition in her mind as Steve continued his own obscene cAress of the vibrantly swollen flesh up beneath her tight-fitting shirt, his lips and tongue continuing to wander hungrily up and down the tender skin of her neck. Then the blushing girl's gaze descended wantonly to her own lower body as Mike placed one of his hands on her inner thigh just above the knee and moved it slowly upward toward the loose-fitting legbands of her blue shorts.
"Come on, Denise," he repeated. "Whatta you say? You gonna meet us tonight?"
For a moment longer Holly remained looking through the bushes, stunned to immobility by her shock and indignation at the sight of the two young men's hands roving freely over the passive girl's voluptuous body. The obscene display held her spellbound. She seemed to have even forgotten to breathe, and she hadn't the slightest idea of how long she'd stood there staring at them. Then suddenly she bolted around the corner and stood looking in through the shrubs. As they saw her, the three young people gasped in surprise."
"What is going on in here?" she asked in a quivering voice.
No one answered. They gazed back at the swimming teacher in shock almost as great as her own had been when she first stumbled upon the lurid scene. Her eyes met Denise's with a mingling of compassion and anger, then with only anger, and she shifted her gaze to encompass the two young men.
"I asked you what is going on in here?" Holly asked, trying to conceal the trembling in her voice.
"Nothing, Miss Granger," Steve Roland said.
"That's right," Mike echoed. "We weren't doing anything. Just talking."
"I know very well what you were doing," Holly hissed. "Now pick up your things," she continued, gesturing with her eyes toward the carry-all at her feet, "and get out of these bushes."
The young men hesitated but an instant, then quickly Steve reached for the carry-all. Holly wasn't even sure when it had happened, but somehow he'd managed to extract his hands from beneath Denise's shirt. Moving even more swiftly, Mike passed him on his way out of the bushes. Rising and smoothing her shirt as she came out, Denise started to follow as the young men went past Holly.
"No, you wait," Holly said, stopping the young girl.
Denise paused, hanging her head guiltily, then looked up furtively. "We weren't really doing anything, Miss Granger. Honest. We were just fooling around. Nothing was going to happen."
"You must know by now what is very well going to happen if you keep up with that sort of fooling around," Holly said sternly, adding, "and what can happen if anyone else sees you and tells your father about this."
The girl stared at the ground sullenly. "Yes'm." After a moment, she glanced up, her eyes suddenly filled with fear. "You're not going to tell on me, are you?"
"What do you think I ought to do?"
"Please, Miss Granger. I know I let them go too far, but I wasn't really going to do anything."
Holly was silent for a moment, watching the trembling young girl with mingled sternness and compassion. She had been much like this girl at that age. Then she half turned away, looking thoughtfully down at the ground. "I think the supervisor of the center should handle this," she said after a moment.
Ignoring the girl's protest, the swimming teacher started quickly along the building where Warren Friesen had set up an office. Holly's heart was pounding furiously in her tits, and her breathing was hoarse, the air escaping her lips in short, audible gusts. In her mind's eye the shocking picture of the young girl's nakedly exposed, lewdly massaged titties hovered with stark clarity, a compelling, almost savagely disturbing vision.
Though she couldn't quite understand why the event should have had such an effect upon her, it seemed the dread that had gnawed at her all day long and, more subtly, for the past several days, had begun to sort itself out from her other feelings and was making itself felt in a very hungry way in her little pussy.
Warren Friesen leaned back in the rickety canvas-bottom chair until his shoulders touched the drab olive wall of his office, then he propped his feet up on his desk. Looking out the window from where he sat, he could look past the end of the building to the pool and the locker room where one of the center's custodians was kneeling over a pile of life preservers and checking them to be sure everything was safe for the afternoon swimming class. Warren could feel the warm afternoon sun beating down on him through the windows, and he closed his eyes, expelling a soft sigh. This was his third summer as supervisor of the Bay City Recreation Center, two more than he had expected to survive, yet when he'd been asked to take the job again this year, he hadn't been able to refuse. Suddenly he heard the hurried footsteps approach, a knock on his half-opened door. A nervous voiced called his name.
"Warren?"
He opened his eyes and saw Holly Granger standing in the doorway.
"Well, hello, Holly," he said, taking his feet off his desk and turning around to look up at her deeply troubled face. Then, in spite of himself, he let his eyes drop quickly to the hugely inviting swells of her tits, pushed up high together by her tightly constricting bra.
Warren had never concealed his interest in Holly. During the first few weeks she had worked at the center, he had tried to find an opportunity to get her alone, but for some reason he'd had no luck whatsoever. He knew he wasn't a bad-looking man, and he had his share of women on the string. He'd finally concluded the reason for her constant refusals must be either that she was on the rebound from an unpleasant experience, or that she had someone fucking her in the city, whose existence she had denied when Warren inquired, but who had kept her happily satisfied and to whom she was trying to be loyal. Yet, despite his lack of success, Warren had kept Holly Granger in the back of his mind, and he still liked to think that one day, maybe one day he might get his hands on that voluptuously flaring ass of hers.
He sighed again and looked back up at her strained face. "What can I do for you?"
Holly averted her eyes, and Warren could see the trembling of her full pink lips as she tried to find the words to speak. "It's those two young men," she said finally in a quivering voice. "Steve Roland and Mike Slade."
"Oh really?" Warren said unenthusiastically. "What are they up to now?"
"I found them behind some bushes with Denise Lay ton." She paused, looking almost desperately into his eyes. "Warren, I honestly believe that if I hadn't shown up when I did, they would have raped her."
Warren stared silently at the sensuous brunette for a moment, then he stood up and walked out of his office into the reception room. A moment later she heard his voice boom out over the center's public address system. "Mike Slade and Steve Roland to the supervisor's office immediately!"
As he came back into his office, Holly looked up at him. "You're not going to have them come over here now?" she asked nervously.
"Yes. Of course I am," Warren said, watching her evenly as he sat back down.
The two of them waited in tense silence until, a few moments later, the two young men rounded the end of the building, their faces immediately paling at the sight of the swimming teacher.
"All right, boys," Warren said. "What's this about you and that girl-Denise, was it-behind the bushes?"
For a moment neither of them answered.
They looked shamefacedly down at the floor, fidgeting with their hands. Then Steve lifted his eyes cautiously. "Aw, shit, Friesen. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were just fooling around with her a little."
"Yeah," Mike said. "She's the one that came down here. We were just flirting with her when Miss Granger saw us and got the wrong idea."
Warren looked back at the voluptuous brunette. She hesitated for an extended moment, and when she finally did speak, her voice bordered on the hysterical.
"They were not just 'fooling around,' " she said. "They had her shirt up ... around her neck, and she wasn't even wearing ... a bra. She might as well not have been wearing anything above the waist."
Holly's voice trailed off swiftly. Steve Roland jerked his head sharply up toward her, and for the briefest instant the young man's eyes met hers. It was an exchange of the most subtle nature, and Warren could not nearly have fathomed its ramifications during the short time of its passing; he had only an inkling. Then Holly looked back at him.
"They weren't just 'fooling around,'" she repeated. "I wouldn't have brought it to your attention if it had been ... that simple."
The brunette waited for a moment longer, looking incomprehensibly distraught, her face almost as white as her flimsily clinging blouse that out-lined the lush curves of her tits. She was trembling all over, and it looked to Warren as if any minute her dark eyes might truly become liquid and fill with tears. She bit her lip, as if she were about to say something else, then instead turned abruptly and walked out of the office.
Warren returned his gaze to the two young men. "Is that true? She was not wearing a bra?"
Steve nodded. "Yes, sir."
"She have nice tits?" Warren asked with a smile.
Their eyes shot up to his, then nervously, Steve replied, "Yes, sir."
Warren watched the two thoughtfully for a moment before asking his next question. "Tell me one other thing."
"What, sir?" Mike asked.
"Was she like that when Miss Granger saw you?"
"Sir?"
"Did you have her shirt pulled up when Holly ... er, Miss Granger first saw you?"
Steve frowned, looking sharply at Mike, who gazed back knowingly. It had been a long shot, but from the expressions of comprehension on the two young men's, faces, Warren knew he was on the right track.
"No, sir," Steve said at length. "When Miss Granger saw us, Denise had already pulled her shirt down. She only let us keep it up for a little bit, but that was a few minutes before Miss Granger came."
"That's what I thought," Warren said with a nod. He sighed, looking back out toward the swimming pool, his mind tossing back and forth this strange little aspect of the incident, still unclear and vague but nonetheless the single most intriguing factor of Holly Granger's personality that had come to his attention during the time he'd been acquainted with her. Then he turned back to the boys and sighed again.
"As for you two, I guess I should banish you from the center for a few days or put you on clean-up duty. But I'm not going to. If I hear anything like this happening again, I'll call the girl's father. And believe me, he'll take care of you two better than I ever could. Do you understand?"
They nodded.
"Good. Then get out of here before I change my mind."