To the Last Squintila

Freddy looked at his face in the mirror inside the tiny, not very well lighted cabana-dressing-room which was just off the pool and the Jacuzzi. Freddy could barely breathe, his heart beating a million miles an hour with Janet Murkowski sitting in the Jacuzzi, the top of her head showing through the steam and the aquatic green lights. Her father would not be home until Sunday.

Freddy had told her he’d be right back. “You said that…” he whispered. “You left Janet Murkowski in the Jacuzzi...”

Freddy knew it, his brother knew it, the guys in the locker-room sort of knew it, his mother and father probably knew it, and it was true, Freddy had measured himself and at his finest and most ferocious, Freddy maxed out at four and eleven sixteenths and that was actually giving himself a squintila or two.

He looked himself in the eyes, a half smile shared at that very moment, two selves saying What the fuck to each other, and out the dressing-room he walked--seeing Janet, her head in the bubbles staring up at the nighttime sky, he broke into a jog. She was waiting for him, wasn't she? She was real. He took his shoes off as he got closer, his shirt, he hopped on one leg then the other and took off his pants and stepped gracefully as possible into the scalding water.

Janet laughed. ”I’ve heard all about you,” she said.

Freddy twirled his socks around his index fingers, sent them spinning into the wet-cement scented air. “You have, have you?” he said, not knowing what she had heard, but being pretty sure, as of now, it couldn't be all bad.

--300 Words--