The First Time

Jack keeps a five-gallon bucket of chlorine tabs in the bed of his truck, and it sloshes when he takes the cul-de-sac's single curve too fast. He's learned to take it slow. Eleven pools on this street, three more on the next, and every one of them has a story attached. But only one story predates all of them—the one he never tells, the one that started everything.

Her name was Monica.

He still thinks about her when he's floating the skimmer across a still surface, watching the leaves swirl into the net. Every pool has its own rhythm, its own particular way the water moves. Hers was the first he ever learned.

---

Five years ago. A different neighborhood, forty minutes south. He was twenty-one, fresh off a breakup, sleeping on his cousin's couch. The job was a favor—his cousin's regular guy had blown out his knee, and someone needed to keep the route alive. Eight pools. A clipboard with addresses. A crash course in pH strips and backwashing.

Monica's house was the third on the list. Big Spanish-style place with a red tile roof and bougainvillea climbing the stucco. The pool was kidney-shaped, shaded by two enormous ficus trees that dropped leaves year-round. He'd been on the route for nine days when he first saw her.

She was on a lounge chair by the deep end. White bikini. Sunglasses shaped like two black teardrops. A paperback novel cracked open on her chest. She didn't look up when he came through the gate, didn't move when he set his bucket down by the equipment pad. Just lay there, oiled and gleaming, one knee bent, her foot tracing lazy circles in the air.

He skimmed the surface with his back to her. His hands were shaking. Twenty-one years old and he couldn't remember ever being that nervous around a woman—not in high school, not with his ex, not ever. Something about the silence of it. The way she occupied that chair like she owned the sunlight.

"You're new," she said.

He turned. She still hadn't moved. The book was closed now, though. He could see the title: something with a woman's silhouette on the cover.

"Yes, ma'am. Miguel's cousin."

"Jack."

"How'd you—"

"Miguel told me." She sat up, slow, and swung her legs over the side of the chair. The bikini bottom was a triangle of white fabric that disappeared between her thighs when she stood. "He said you'd be filling in for a while."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Stop that." She smiled. Wide. White teeth, one slightly crooked at the corner. He found himself staring at it. "You're making me feel old."

"You're not old."

She laughed. A real laugh, startled out of her. "How old do you think I am?"

He felt his ears go red. "I don't—I shouldn't guess."

"Guess."

"Thirty?"

"Thirty-four." She crossed the patio stones toward him. Barefoot. The pool water cast wobbling light patterns across her calves. "Old enough to be your—"

"Don't say it."

Another laugh. She stopped maybe three feet away. Close enough that he could smell coconut oil and something else underneath—clean skin, warm from the sun. Up close, he could see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the way the bikini top strained slightly at the sides. He looked away. Looked at the pool. Looked at the skimmer in his hands.

"I should finish up," he said.

"Should you."

"Yes, ma'am."

She tilted her head. Studied him the way his high school math teacher used to study a wrong answer—patient, thorough, like the problem was interesting to her. Then she went back to her chair and picked up her book, and he finished skimming the pool with his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his teeth.

That was day nine.

---

Day twelve, she asked him to adjust the timer on the pool light. He stood on the equipment pad with a screwdriver while she watched from the kitchen window. When he finished, she brought him a glass of water. Her fingers brushed his when she handed it over. She didn't pull away.

Day sixteen, her husband came home early. Jack was vacuuming the pool, the long pole angled down into the deep end. A silver BMW pulled into the driveway, and a man in a suit got out, loosening his tie. He walked past Jack without a word, into the house. Monica appeared at the slider a few minutes later, wearing a sundress now, her hair down. She smiled at Jack the way you smile at a waiter. He packed up his gear and left. Didn't look back.

That night he lay on his cousin's couch and stared at the ceiling and thought about the way her sundress had clung to her hips. He thought about the crooked tooth. He thought about the way she'd said guess like it was a dare. He told himself it was nothing. He told himself he was being stupid. He told himself he needed this job.

Day nineteen, he found a note tucked under the skimmer lid. Folded paper, damp at the edges. Come back at two. He's gone until Friday.

He stood in the backyard for a long time with that note in his hand. The ficus leaves rustled overhead. The water was still. His truck was parked at the curb, his route half-finished, two more pools waiting. Two more pools and he could be back here by two o'clock. Two more pools and—

He crumpled the note and shoved it in his pocket.

---

Day twenty-two. He'd avoided her for three days. Made up an excuse about equipment trouble, swapped her pool to the end of his route. But the route was the route, and eventually he had to come back.

She was waiting on the patio. No book this time. No sunglasses. Just her, in cutoffs and a thin tank top, arms crossed, watching him come through the gate.

"You've been avoiding me," she said.

"No, ma'am."

"Jack."

He stopped. Set his bucket down. The afternoon was hot, still, the kind of heat that makes the air feel thick. He could hear a sprinkler ticking somewhere next door.

"I can't lose this job," he said. "I need the money."

"I know."

"And your husband—"

"He's in Denver until Friday."

"That's not—"

"I know what it's not." She stepped closer. That same three feet, then two. He could see the faint sheen of sweat on her collarbone. "I know what it is. I know it's a cliché. I know you think I'm some bored housewife with too much time and not enough attention." She laughed, but it wasn't the bright laugh from before. Softer. A little sad. "And I know you'd never make the first move. You're too polite. Too careful. So I'm making it for both of us."

"Monica—"

"Just tell me to stop."

His mouth was dry. The skimmer net was still in his hand. He could feel the sun on the back of his neck, the weight of the afternoon pressing down. Three days of avoiding her. Three days of thinking about her at two in the morning, staring at his cousin's popcorn ceiling, telling himself no.

"I don't want you to stop," he said.

She closed the distance. Her hands went to his chest—flat, deliberate, the hands of someone who'd rehearsed this. His own hands were still gripping the net. She took it from him, leaned it against the lounge chair, and then her mouth was on his.

She tasted like iced coffee and cinnamon. Her lips were soft, her tongue bolder than he expected. He stood frozen for a full second, then his hands found her waist, the bare skin above her cutoffs, warm and smooth. She pressed into him. Through the thin cotton of her tank top, he could feel her nipples hard, her breasts soft against his chest. He made a sound—something between a groan and a gasp—and she swallowed it, her fingers threading into his hair.

"Inside," she said against his mouth. "Now."

The house was cool, air-conditioned, and smelled like lavender. She led him by the hand through the kitchen, past a breakfast nook, down a hallway. His eyes registered things in fragments—a bowl of lemons on the counter, a stack of mail, a framed painting of a sailboat—and then they were in a bedroom, and she was pulling her tank top over her head.

No bra. Her breasts were fuller than he'd imagined, the nipples a dark pink against pale skin. She had a tan line, a clean stripe of white across her ribs where the bikini had been. He reached for her and she stepped back, smiling, and undid the button on her cutoffs.

"I want to watch you," she said. "Take off your shirt."

He pulled it over his head. Felt exposed, self-conscious—he was lean then, not the broad-shouldered build he had now. But her eyes traveled over him slowly, appreciatively, like she was reading a page she liked. She unhooked her cutoffs and let them fall. Black underwear. Simple. One finger hooked in the waistband, and she slid them down, bending at the waist, watching him the whole time.

He'd seen women naked before. He'd had sex before. But standing in that bedroom, with the curtains drawn against the afternoon and the air conditioning humming, he felt like he was learning it all from scratch.

She reached for him. Undid his shorts. Her hand found him through his boxers—stroked once, twice—and he had to close his eyes.

"Lie down," she said.

He lay on her bed. The sheets were cool and smelled like her. She straddled him, thighs warm and strong around his hips. She reached behind her, between her legs, and guided him inside her with a single slow motion.

The feeling of it—her heat, her weight, the way she settled onto him like she'd been waiting for it—made his vision go white at the edges. She leaned forward, hands on his chest, and started to move. Slow at first. Rolling her hips. Her breasts swung with the motion, nipples brushing his skin.

"You're shaking," she said.

"I know."

She laughed—that bright laugh from the first day—and rode him harder. He grabbed her hips and she let him, guiding his rhythm, showing him how she wanted it. Her breath came faster. She bit her lip. Her eyes, half-closed, watched him watching her, and the eye contact was almost too much. He had to look away—at the window, at the ceiling, anywhere—but she caught his chin and turned his face back to hers.

"Stay with me," she said.

He came with a shudder that started in his feet and worked its way up. She rode him through it, slowing, drawing it out until he was gasping and oversensitive and she finally, finally rolled off him.

She lay on her back beside him. Both of them breathed. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked.

"That," she said, "was worth the wait."

He laughed. He couldn't help it. His whole body felt like it had been wrung out and hung up to dry.

"Do you want—" he started.

"Give it a minute." She turned her head to look at him. The crooked tooth again. She was beautiful in a way he hadn't let himself fully see before—not just her body, but the ease with which she inhabited it. "You'll come back Thursday?"

"I—"

"Same time. He'll still be out."

He looked at the ceiling. At the ceiling fan, spinning slow, casting moving shadows across the room. He thought about the note under the skimmer lid. The fear in his stomach. The way his hands had shaken.

"Yeah," he said. "Thursday."

---

He never told anyone about Monica. Not his cousin, not his friends, not the other pool guys he met later on the routes. She was the first, and the first ones stay private. Not because they're special—because they're the ones that taught you what you were capable of. What you'd been missing.

He kept her pool for eight months. Until her husband got transferred to Scottsdale. He saw her one last time, a Tuesday, and she kissed him at the gate like he was just the pool guy—except for the half-second where she pressed her mouth to his ear and said, you'll be good at this, you know. With other women. You have a way of waiting.

He didn't understand what she meant until later.