Public Pool

With one eye squinted, I opened the other to a teary-eyed blur and raised a palm across my brow to shade my face. The sun beat down on the bleached concrete and reflected off the cool neon of the pool. Sweat beaded on my skin.

It’s fucking hot out here.

As I scanned the side of the pool, I should have been entranced by the colorful spandex tightly stretched against the taut, soft pudenda of frail femininity. The girls’ golden skin was freshly oiled – disturbingly the same shade.

Where is individuality in the conception of beauty?

They all reached for their water bottles at the same time and took dribbling swigs of heated hydration.

Lapping dogs, smear yourself with oil and bronze your self-obsession.

Conform.

I followed pointed, colored toes to the other side of the pool. Across the sparkling hole was something much more interesting than these regurgitated harlots. Pale, leathery skin standing over the grill with her back to everything; her flesh sagged down her sides creating unique crevices that the folds disappeared into. Around the overburdened, gray one-piece, a pink tutu skirt was stretched around her stomach.

What are these things that resemble vegetables? Eggplant and cauliflower are some of my favorites, to name a few.

This is unique.

I was in the process of admiring how much the back of her legs resembled the texture of cottage cheese when she turned, holding four hotdogs between the fingers on her left hand. A single dog was wrapped in her right.

I stood as she took the first bite, swallowing half of the dog whole and spreading that cake-hole for the rest.

I licked my lips and imagined eating processed meat from between her sausage fingers, licking up every last drop of spicy mustard.

I stepped into the pool.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

As I moved towards her, the concrete shell sloped down and the water got deeper but she was closer.

Before I realized it, only my eyes and top of my head were above water. I was looking straight up at her moose-knuckle. She took a second dog from her left hand and looked down at me, smiling as she crammed the entire hotdog into her mouth.

I breathed deep, stupidly ignoring the predicament – my lungs took a generous suckling of water. I began thrashing about violently, drowning, trying to grab onto something – something to save me.

I choked a single word:

“Help!”

The three remaining hotdogs fell from her hand as she shuffled those meaty thighs straight towards me and leapt into the air.

Bellyflop?

She eclipsed the sun and suddenly, everything was clear. I saw the dark figure descending upon me before the impact pinned me between her frontal assault and the concrete of the pool. The last thing I remember was taking another lungful of water.

I woke with my head in her mouth, somewhere between the forth and fifth molar, immersed in the blood-stink of her meat chops. She was still chewing when she gave me CPR. She swallowed when I spit water from my lungs and exhaled while I gasped for air.

That night, I had to floss to remove all the pieces of onion and relish from between my teeth. With every chewy chunk, I retched and choked on the contents of my stomach.