Seymour Leggs

Tease Them With Ease

Chapter 1

If there's one thing Neil Felton loved more than anything else it was water. Not water to drink but water to dive into, plunge his youthful body into, swim in. He was a brand new senior in high school, still eighteen, two months away from nineteen, a sure bet to make first string on the swim team this coming spring.

That's why he enjoyed his part-time job, which involved a few hours a week after class and Sunday mornings. It was a custom-made job, cleaning the pool at the Green Palms Apartments, a job he was never late to, never complained about. As a matter of fact, Neil saw only one drawback – not enough hours, which meant not enough pay. But he was only waiting until the time was right to ask Mr. Walker, the owner of the sprawling Los Angeles apartment complex, for more work. He knew there would be plenty of things he could handle and he wanted to make as much money as possible before the swim team started practice and he'd have to cut the hours back.

Even though it was early winter the sun shone and the days were warm in the semitropical western climate, so Neil came directly from school and changed in the pump house into his official nylon swim-team trunks, and increased his smooth, golden tan while working.

His moderately long hair should have been brown but, due to the constant sun he lavished himself in, it was closer to blond than anything else. His first duty was to dive into the pool with a brush and sponge. Then, he would work his away along the blue-tiled pool edge and clean off the collected grease and oils washed from the bodies of the swimmers.

Even though there was a rule that no one should swim unless they showered first and got all the suntan lotion off their body, it was infrequently followed. Understandably, too – after all, the Green Palms was a pretty large complex. It stretched out in four directions from the pool; "wings" was what Mr. Walker called them.

Each wing was two stories high, the upstairs apartments bad sundecks on one side, and the ground-level apartments had private patios. It was a luxurious, plush place. Palm trees and exotic plants grew with healthy abundance everywhere one looked. Each patio was fenced in for the utmost privacy and landscaped in a manner which almost totally obscured each fence from view.

Neil liked the patio apartments best because from them you could walk directly to the pool. It was convenient and practical, and he knew that if he were grown and married he would choose a place like this to live. Up in the morning and right to the pool for a swim before breakfast.

As a matter of fact, he wondered how many tenants really did that. He was never there in the morning except on Sundays. And the only person he ever saw swimming that early was Mr. Himmel, and that only lasted two Sundays. Mr. Himmel had just moved in but after a few weeks of the athletic life seemed to lose interest.

The only other person Neil saw regularly was Mr. Crocker. He never swam. He was at least eighty, he lived there with his daughter and son-in-law. Mr. Crocker loved the sun though; he was always sitting in the pool area, sometimes watching the sunbathers and swimmers, but most of the time he was sleeping. He was a nice old guy, Neil liked him.

As Neil worked his brush across the last few tiles he looked up and saw Mr. Crocker, fast asleep, sitting in his usual place. He quietly climbed the ladder from the pool not to disturb Mr. Crocker and went into the pump house to get the brush. The brush was an aluminum affair with a twelve-foot handle used to sweep the pool bottom. It hung in the pump house over the filters and pressure tanks, it was always a hassle to get down and outside.