The Tennis Player

Chapter 3

Clark hadn’t really sounded all that cocky, saying that, but his eyes were giving him away. They made it clear he was amused. What that did for me was get my blood a little hot, make me ready. I had a competitive nature that I tried to keep on the lowdown most of the time. He was thinking I’d be easy. No way!

We played a full set, six games, and unfortunately, it was easy. For him. It wasn’t a slaughter. I was in every game. But he seemed fresh at the end and I was dying. Well, gasping, really, but it felt like dying. I’d run my legs off. He kept hitting balls about an inch out of my reach after I’d raced across the court to get them. Or he’d pull me up to the net with a backspin drop shot, I’d get there just in time to barely get my racket on it and flip it back into his court, and he’d lob the return over my head so I’d be racing back to the baseline. Over and over. I’d thought I was in pretty good shape. Hell, I was in pretty good shape. But now I was dead. He’d won, 6-2, and I’d swear he’d let me win the two so I wouldn’t be too dejected.

I should have been mad, or at least upset, but was too tired to feel anything but beat. I came to the net to shake his hand, and I looked into his eyes to see what he was feeling. Cocky? King of the hill? Arrogant?

I was surprised to see something I could only call anxiety. “Good game,” he said, and his voice seemed tentative, a little unsure. He stuck out his hand.

If it was worry I was seeing, what was that all about? He should be happy. He’d just beaten the 9th grade’s top jock and done it more than convincingly; he’d done it handily. He was hardly sweating. I was a total bag of sweat juice.

I realized something. He didn’t really know me. He said he’d spent time watching me, so he knew I was a pretty good athlete, and he knew I won most of the time whatever it was we were doing. Was he worried that I’d be mad he’d won? Was he worried the relationship, the brand-new relationship we were forming, might suffer from this? That I might go home mad and not come back?

He’d never had a friend at school, and we were on the verge of forming that relationship. Maybe it meant more to him than I’d thought.

I hadn’t given much thought to how he was feeling about my coming over, my working with him. I’d only been wondering why he was doing it, not what emotions he might be feeling.

Was he really concerned I might not want to spend any time with him now? Did he think losing the game to him would affect me that much?

It takes much longer to write all that than to have it pass thought my gray cells. When I came out of my head, his hand was still extended, and his eyes were still worried.

I grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. I smiled at him. I was pissed I’d lost, pissed at myself. I was surprised he’d beaten me, and at the ease with which he had. But even if I was competitive and did like to win, I didn’t get mad when I lost. I had a happy-go-lucky attitude toward life, and winning or losing an inconsequential game wasn’t going to affect me much.

“Great game,” I said. “But for once, you’re going to talk to me about this. No more beating around the bush. No more ‘later’. How did you do that?”

The tentative smile he was wearing broadened. “Beat you? Okay, fair enough,” he said. “I’ll tell you about, uh, about tennis. But in the pool. You’ve got to be uncomfortable; you look like a soaked rag mop that got run through a wringer one too many times. You need to cool off. Let’s go.”

He wasn’t kidding. He gave me a look I could only define as both fun and challenging, and he took off running toward the pool, shedding clothes as he ran. When he reached the pool, he only had his shorts and socks on, and a few seconds later, those were gone, too, and there was a large splash as he cannonballed into the water.

There were two good things about being as wiped out as I was. As I copied him in nakedizing myself on my way to the pool, I realized that, even knowing getting nude outside like this was crazy, I had nothing to worry about. If anyone inside could see me, they’d already seen Clark doing the same thing, and so it was probably standard behavior here, and secondly, I was so whipped from the tennis, I didn’t even worry about if anyone inside could see me. I didn’t have the energy left to even erect a hard-on.

Man, that water felt good! It was just the right temperature, cool rather than warm, and it was so clear and blue and felt so velvety on my skin that, if I had any lingering emotions about getting thrashed in tennis, they were gone soon after I hit the water.

I floated more than swam, just recovering. I floated on my stomach, then turned over and floated on my back, which was easier as I could still breathe that way. I’d take a deep breath, hold it, then let it out slowly until I’d start to sink. Inhale again, and I rose back up. I felt like I could do this all day. Eyes shut, just perfect.

And then I had a thought. A horrible one. Floating on my back, everything was visible. I quickly opened my eyes and found Clark nearby, grinning, his eyes focused on my equipment.

“Clark!” I shouted.

“Right here to help if you sink. I’m keeping a close watch on you.” Then he laughed. “And wow! Betsy Ross could have used your pubes when deciding what shade red to use for the flag. I’d say you have a very patriotic bush.”

We were in the shallow end, and I quickly dropped to a standing position so the vital parts were under water, which was so clear that I could see him easily and he could see me. At least the water was moving, sloshed by our movements, so everything was a little distorted, a little blurry.

I ignored the bush comment and went straight to the heart of the matter. “You were staring at my dick.” I said as accusingly as I could make it.

“Yeah. As I said before, nice one.”

“You’re not even embarrassed!”

“Why should I be? I’m 14. We all like to look at this age.”

“Maybe so, but most of us would at least have the decency to blush and stammer and be embarrassed at being caught.”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking he head in disagreement. “You were looking at me. You didn’t seem embarrassed at all. Just horny.”

“Clark!” I didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t anything like I’d thought he was. After years of knowing someone just through observing them, seeing how they behave, you’ve constructed an opinion of them. The one I’d formed of Clark had been about as wrong as it could be.

I had to change the subject. He seemed to like talking about this stuff, and it just made me uncomfortable as all get-out. I knew what would be better to discuss.

“You said you’d tell me how you beat me, and I want to know how you did it so easily. I’m no great tennis prodigy, but for my age I don’t suck. I almost always win when I play kids my age or younger. You made me look silly. So talk.”

“Okay, okay. But not here standing in the water. Up on the patio.”

I didn’t even argue that he’d said he’d talk in the pool. He was about to explain, and I was ready to listen even if it took another minute before it happened. He waded through the water to the steps and got out. I followed him. On the patio, he grabbed some towels from a pile on a table, tossed me one and kept one for himself. He sort of half-dried himself, then sprawled out on a lounger. This guy who hadn‘t spoken for years and who we all thought was shy and introverted was showing about as much modesty as a nympho in a nudist resort. Shy? Not him!

I dried off and chose a lounger close to him. But when I lay down on it, my towel just happened to fall across my lap. His was covering his feet. Barely.

I looked at him, and he grinned. Then he started talking.

“I grew up here. It was just a big house when I was little. The pool, stables and tennis court were added to the original house, but that was all well before I was born. My grandmother wanted . . . well, that’s not part of this. You wanted to know about tennis. The court always fascinated me when I was little, and when I was six, I started hitting the ball with my grandmother. I took to it right away. So, when I was seven and my grandmother had seen how much I liked the game, she hired a coach. I’ve been taking lessons ever since.”

“Well, no wonder you’re good,” I said, feeling vindicated.

“If you have some athletic ability and match that with high-level coaching and a competitive nature, and when your coach makes sure you don’t develop any of the bad habits that go with playing the game without any coaching, you can get pretty good. That’s what happened with me. I was playing with my coach five days a week. I got good.”

I interrupted his soliloquy. “If you’re athletic, why didn’t you ever join us on the playground at school?”

“That’s a different subject. I said I’d explain, but I’m not ready to do that yet. I’m just talking about tennis. Jeeze! Impatient much?” He rolled his eyes to show he wasn’t being serious, then said, “Anyway, I got good. Hell, anyone would with all the practice and coaching I had. My coach thought I was good enough that she entered me in some tournaments, and then last year, I competed in the state Under-14 tourney.”

“I didn’t know there was one of those,” I said.

“It doesn’t get much press. It’s for boys younger than 14, of course, and boys that age aren’t all that good. They’re too short to serve hard, and not as fast as older, longer-legged boys are so can’t cover much of the court. The ones entering the tournament with me mostly had parents who were members of country clubs with tennis programs. They were quite competitive, but still only 13 and not great players.”

He stopped, and I had to ask. “Okay, so how did you do?”

“I won. I’m the state champion at the U-14 level.”

I was stunned. “Holy shit!” Then I blushed because I rarely swore. “Really?”

He nodded. “Well, as I said, boys our age aren’t near the level of older boys.”

“But, but . . . I just won a couple of games with you! And I’ve never had any coaching at all, and in fact haven’t even played that much tennis.”

He grinned. “I was trying something new.”

“What?”

“Playing left-handed.”

“Damn! I thought that looked odd. I, uh, well, it looked odd becasue I’ve seen you writing, and it was right-handed.”

“You’ve seen me? You were watching me?” He grinned again.

I wished he wouldn’t do that. He was already attractive, enough with his ordinarily stern, stolid face. When he grinned—damn! I was thankful for the strategic placement of my towel. Which brought my attention back to his.

I needed to get that grin off his face. “Okay, so when are you going to tell me the rest?”

“Soon. Sooner than I thought.”

“Why not now?”

“I’m not ready, and I’m not sure you are, either. But soon.”

 Why did I have to be ready? This guy was driving me crazy.

That was my second day at Clark’s house. The next day, a Friday, we did some research on Eisenhower, and we made good progress. We found it worked well if he looked up things on the computer, read the pertinent parts or anecdotes to me, and I took notes, both of the good stuff he read and the websites where we found it. That way we could get back to those sites in the future if needed.

We were an efficient pair working together. I felt a connection, and the way he’d occasionally turn and grin at me, I think he felt it, too. We were feeling like a team.

“Let’s go swimming,” he suggested after we’d been working for a couple of hours. “That was fun yesterday, and we’ve made enough progress for one day.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Uh, are we going to wear bathing suits this time?”

He gave me a look and then sounded confused and maybe disappointed. “Why would we? Didn’t you like it yesterday?”

“Well, sure, but I felt awfully exposed. Someone might see.”

“No one’s here but us and Robert.”

“Robert?”

“The chauffeur. Didn’t he tell you his name when he was driving you home?”

“He didn’t say anything till I asked him a question, and then all he said was he liked his job, and he didn’t answer questions.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. His name is Robert, Robert Lawson, and I always swim in the nude, no matter who’s home. If he sees me, so what? It drives my grandmother mad, too, which I like doing, but she can’t complain because I was the one who stopped her seeing me naked when I was ten, not her. Robert won’t say anything about you being nude, not even about you being here. You weren’t shy yesterday. Why today?”

“Well, yesterday it was different. It just sort of happened, a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’m not shy, really. But what you said does beg the question: why are you here alone with Robert?”

“God, you’re nosy! Later. Let’s swim!” And with that, he was out the door, down the stairs and out on the patio, where he undressed.

It still felt strange to me, undressing outdoors, but if he could, I could. He might beat me at tennis, but there was no way he had more experience at stripping. I had to at least match him at something just for my delicate ego’s sake.

The water was still perfect. So was he. His body still gave me a thrill, and I was at least half hard by the time I got in. I could tell he wasn’t lying to me about swimming naked as he was tanned where most boys aren’t. I could see the effect of all the tennis he played, too. He was slim but had muscles showing under his skin. His shoulders were broader than his waist, and he looked, well, the word ‘perfect’ comes to mind, but he was just a boy like me; how could he be perfect? But then I was underwater and could forget about how he looked. My state of arousal was not as obvious there, so not quite as embarrassing. Looking at him the way I had been doing . . . my thing has a mind of its own.

It shouldn’t have been embarrassing anyway because he had gotten hard too, maybe from seeing how I was looking at him. The difference was, he didn’t take any pains to hide it.

We swam and played in the water. We swam laps, we had splashing wars, we even wrestled a little in the shallow end. Doing that, he knew I was aroused because of all the body rubbing that occurs when wrestling. By then, I wasn’t even embarrassed anymore. What I did learn from that was how strong he was. He didn’t have huge muscles, his body was trim and well-proportioned and looked like other boys who’d play a game as skins in gym, but he was definitely strong.

It was time for me to go when we were still in the pool. I told him that, that Mom would have dinner almost ready. After we got out, he said, “You don’t really need to go, do you?. Why don’t you stay for dinner? It’s late enough.” I was still toweling dry, ready to get dressed. He could have been doing the same. Instead, he finished drying but didn’t reach for his clothes.

That made me undecided. Should I dress? Or not?

Was it impolite to dress when your host doesn’t? I wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was concerning states of nudity with 14-year-old boys. I, at least, did some strategic towel hanging, hiding parts of myself while drying off.

I needed to answer him. “Dinner? No one’s here. Are you going to cook?”

“No. That would be a disaster. I can’t even boil an egg. I’ve had a pampered existence.”

“Well, don’t look at me. I can boil an egg, but not much more than that. What, you’re going to have Robert come in and do it?”

“Robert never comes inside. Ever. No, when I’m alone here, which isn’t that rare, Grandmother has restaurant-quality meals brought in—the number I’ll need for the time I’m alone; they’re in the freezer. We have a microwave, and I do know how to use that.”

I looked doubtful and wrinkled up my face. “Well, I don’t know about this. I think you may be trying to poison me. I’ll call my mom and see if it’s okay.” Which I did after dressing. Clark dressed when he saw me doing it. I did it because phoning my mom and talking to her while I was naked seemed indecent somehow.

While I was on the phone with her, Clark told me to ask if I could spend the night. That gave me a little jolt, but I did it, and she asked to speak to the adult there. I looked at Clark, and he asked for the phone. I gave it to him.

“Mrs. Murray, I’m Clark Gleason, and I’m working on this research paper for school with Ronnie. He may have mentioned that to you. My dad is away right now, and my grandmother is out this evening, so there’s only me to talk to, but there is an adult outside, our groundskeeper, and, well, I thought if Ronnie and I could work on the paper after dinner, it might be late before we finished for the day. Makes sense for him to just stay, and then we can get back to it tomorrow. He’s very enthusiastic about the paper.”

There was a pause, and then he said, “Yes ma’am; he is eager. We’re making great progress.”

Another pause, then, “We’ll both be safe, and if there were any trouble, Robert, the groundskeeper, is very capable of handling anything; he’s very effective. Security is part of his job. But there won’t be any trouble. I’d have Grandma call you when she gets in, but I’m afraid it’ll be kind of late. I’ll have Ronnie call you in the morning.”

He listened for a bit, then said, “No, we’re already warming dinner in the oven. That’s all taken care of.”

He listened a bit more, then handed the phone to me. Mom was hesitant, but I was looking at Clark, and he looked so damned eager, and that made him look cute, so it was hard for me not to go along with him. I felt a little excited, too.

I convinced her to let me stay over by talking about the big red A we were going to get on the paper. She gave in. I’d been pretty sure she would. I know how to manipulate my parents, what buttons to push. I’m good at it. Years of experimentation, seeing what works and what doesn’t.

He had me choose the dinner. That was difficult because there was a lot of stuff I’d never heard of, like Salmon a la Florentine, or Moroccan lamb stew. I finally decided on shrimp cocktail, which I love, and a pork piccata with capers and bowtie pasta.

We ate at the table they had in a nook off the kitchen. He set it with what he called their best china and real silverware. He used glassware with stems for our drinks, which were Cokes with ice. Then he set a single candle in the middle of the table and lit it.

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