Bert watched the girls outfitted in the tight swimsuits jumping around the pool edge, giggling and squealing like so many jabbering idiots loose from the nut house and wondered what he was doing in Strand coaching these girls in the sport of swimming.
"That's enough," he roared, walking from his cramped office room behind the filtering plant. The girls snapped to attention, their bodies pressed against each other, the squealing for the moment stopped. He knew it wouldn't last. Once they began swimming laps, the girls would be at it again: one would stray over a lane and bump into another and arguments would begin and he would have to tell them to shut up.
"All right," he ordered. "In the water." He watched indifferently as they dove in, shrieking about the cold water, or complaining about this and that. Fuck, thought Bert, snapping his clipboard. I just don't care anymore.
Swimming was too important a sport to be wasted on these girls. In 1964, he had won a gold medal at the Olympics and after standing for the applauding crowd in Tokyo, the heavy medal hanging from his neck while the U.S. national anthem played, Bert realized the seriousness of the sport. After Tokyo, he never swam again. Five hours a day, every day for ten years had been spent punishing his muscles in an endless series of sprints, and distance swims all for that one two minute race in a Japanese pool. He had taken his swimming career, brought it to a peak and there he would leave it.
Shortly afterward, Bert signed up for the Marines and was shipped to Vietnam. Then his troubles began. The first week, his squad got ambushed on a routine mission and when the smoke cleared, he was the only survivor.
Bert got reassigned, but the bloodshed was not easily erased and he wasn't the same. On a R-and-R stay in Thailand, Bert found out he was impotent. He went to a classy bar with friends, picked up a pretty young girl about twenty-five years old and paid for a weekend. Everything was fine until they got back to the hotel room. The girl had slipped out of her clothes and was obediently lying on the bed, when it happened. Bert was frightened at first, but figured it was a case of nerves. He stripped off his clothes and lay next to the Thai girl.
"Hey," she asked, holding up his limp cock. "What's wrong?" She squeezed the bullet-shaped head; jerking the shaft with her closed hand. "I know what work," she said in her broken English. The whore bent down between his knees and slipped her lips over his penis.
"Boy, that's good," said Bert, rocking his hips on the squeaking bed. It was no use, however. Despite the pleasing sensation of the Thai girl's lips, his dick remained soft as putty. "I guess that's that," he groused.
They spent the weekend in the hotel and afterwards, Bert told his buddies what a great gal his whore was. The weekend had been a disaster, however, and when he returned to Saigon, Bert sought out a military psychiatrist.
"I can't get it up, Doc," Bert explained. He had known nothing but success all his life and he had the Olympic medal to prove it. "Now, I can't even get a hard on," he told the shrink. And then his eyes flooded with tears and he wept.
The doctor prescribed some pills and told him that impotence following fierce combat experience was not uncommon. "I'll see if I can get you reassigned," said the psychiatrist. But instead, Bert went back to his company and a week later was out on patrol, when the Cong struck again.
If anything, the experience was more terrifying than before. His squad was securing a small village when the VC opened up. Bert hit the ground as shell and mortar rounds exploded on all side. He flicked on his M-16 and sprayed the jungle. David, a good friend, went down right before him, his face half shot away and something clicked in the back of Bert's brain. He charged into the jungle, slamming another clip into the automatic, screaming like a madman. All around him were the sounds of screaming men, both VC and Marines. He went through four clips of ammo before the fight was over, and when he came out of the jungle, his legs shook uncontrollable. He was drained physically and mentally, his muscles barely able to drag his weapon. Back in the village, he saw the sergeant screaming with rage. The bodies of half-a-dozen Marines were laid out in the dirt receiving treatment from the medics. Bert's friend was not one of them. He was filled with rage that a good man had to die for a filthy village like this one where the people didn't want Americans in the first place.
He then heard a scream. Thinking there were more Viet Cong, he gripped his weapon and charged around the back of a burning grass hut.
"Easy, pal," said a Marine.
Bert saw two men holding down a girl. She wore the black pajamas of the Viet Cong and a thin cloth headband. A Marine gripped the pajama bottom and ripped it away, exposing the girl's thin body. She yelled in the singsong language of her country, probable cursing the Marines, but to Bert's war weary eyes she was beautiful. Her breasts were small, hardly more than two oversized nipples, and her cunt was small, topped by a thatch of curly black hair.
One of the Marines turned to Bert. "Hey, you're the guy who ran into the jungle," he said grinning. "We'll give you first crack at this VC. I figure she can't have too much disease. She's only thirteen."
In a horrible instant, Bert had a flashback. He saw the disappointed look on the Thai's face as she held up his limp dick in the hotel. He didn't want the other guys to know he was impotent. They might think he was queer or something. The he remembered his buddy lying back in the village, his face shot away, and Bert turned, his heart black with hate. Maybe this girl had pulled the trigger that killed him. He tightened his hand on the gun barrel half-wanting to jam the barrel up the VC's cunt and blow her guts through the roof of her mouth.
Then a funny thing happened. His dick got hard. The desire for sex churned through him and he dropped his gun, elated at his discovery. He dropped his pants.
His erection was enormous; even the VC girl thought so. She stared wide-eyes at him jumping forward and she shrieked, fearing for her life. His blood pounded crazily as he dropped to his knees and placed his palms on her thighs. The skin was smooth and soft and hairless. He squeezed her thighs and stared at her pussy. "She's wet," he mumbled. Fear was a great aphrodisiac. He lay down between the V of her outstretched thighs and gripped her ass cheeks. Her tiny breasts invited his hungry mouth and he bent down, dragging his tongue across her bulbous nipples. The girl screamed once more, her body wiggling like an eel's as Bert brought his dick up her thighs, up to the furry ball of her cunt.
I can fuck again, he thought, trembling with delight. He thrust against her mound, surprised to find her juicy cunt lips would open so easily. He had never raped a girl before and though he didn't consider the VC to be human, the sensation was very new. He did not think of the Thai girl or even of his own physical, mental exhaustion. He pushed his cock into the girl's slit and gasped, for she was warm and wonderfully wet.
In he went.
His hand found her butt cheeks, and he gripped them like handles on an urn, pulling up on her hips then pushing down into the soft channel.
Bert sweated terribly. His eyes traveled upward, resting upon the VC's shallow face. Her eyes stared down with hatred, but that changed as he stretched her buttocks apart and spread her tight pussy open with his thrusting cock.
"Hey, she likes it," exclaimed Bert. The guys holding her down weren't listening. But there was no hiding the vulnerable twist of her lips, or the moist, desperate look in her eyes.
Bert had no time to lose. Tightening the muscles in his thighs, he surged forward, driving his cock into her little cunt. She took him in and in, thrashing on the ground, screaming and crying as his penis found her cherry. That's fanny, he thought. This VC wanted to kill me and she's a virgin. He lunged forward. The hymen flap resisted, the inflamed nerves shrieking with pain, then in one violent stroke, his penis pushed back the constricted vagina and he went in, his pubic hair now brushing against hers.
"Wow!" he gasped. Her channel was soft and slippery, like butter left out on the counter. He thought it was blood from her hymen, but, no, that wasn't the source. My goodness it's her cunt, thought Bert. She's all weepy wet from the first cock ever to enter her fully. The girl groaned in her silly language and Bert didn't have to hold her ass cheeks; the broad was fucking for real. Her vagina hugged him like a sock. Her juices covered his long, thin penis and her cunt squeezed against him, softly, lovingly.
Bert didn't want it ever to end. His dick had never been harder. He had never been more in control. Sperm swelled through his cock as he fucked the depths of her cunt, yet didn't come. Despite the awful pain, he continued stroking, holding back, refusing to fill her virgin cunt with semen until he had her begging and screaming. Bert's obsession with domination tingled like electricity through his body. The girl melted before him and she was begging in that strange, mysterious singsong voice of hers for him to finish. Her twat wiggled in a violent, spasmodic jerk; her hips left the ground, her cunt shrunk down on his cock, holding him now, milking him. Passion inflamed him, dictating his moves. Half-insane, seized with unbearable pain, Bert drove his cock into the weeping cunt channel. "Here!" he shouted. And as her skinny, pubescent body lunged for his spurting dick, Bert ripped her butt cheeks open and drove his index finger into her asshole.
"Aaaahhhhh!" the girl screamed.
Bert laughed. He had surprised the hell out of her asshole. The fucking broad had not expected him to enter her backside. The finger lanced through the tight muscle ring in one explosive shot. The effect was astonishing. The girl's asshole opened, her cunt closed down. He had timed it just right and as she gripped his penis, his balls flapped against her weeping slit and his sperm exploded into her vagina.
"Ohhhhh!" groaned Bert, laying his cock in her vibrating cunny, his finger working her asshole. Her sperm drained out in one long continuous strand; it had a jarring, exhilarating effect on Bert, a free, reborn sensation of being once again in command of his life, his destiny.
The girl had felt something, too. When at last her cunt released him, her body slumped down against the ground. Her sphincter was loose as her cunt. He dragged his collapsed cock and watched his sperm dribble from her slit. He had never come so hard. His balls kept pumping out sperm as his dick continued spurting. He popped his finger from her asshole, and watched the girl squirm on the ground, her eyes staring aimlessly, her jaw hanging slack.
Bert struggled to his feet and found his thighs wobbly and barely able to hold his weight. He reached down and pulled up his pants. "Man, you ruined it for us," complained a Marine. "She's wasted. No fight left in her at all."
Or me either, Bert wanted to say. He didn't though. It might make him sound weak to his buddies.
At the day's end, the squad, what was left of it, marched back to their camp where they were airlifted back to Da Nang. A strange thing happened once back. The top brass decided to award Silver Stars for bravery to the entire squad, an unprecedented move by the Marine Corps. Bert didn't understand why; perhaps, morale was down because so many Marines had been killed lately. Handing out medals was one way to keep the men's spirits up and maintain discipline. There had been rumors of mutiny. So he had a Silver Star. Big deal, it was only a piece of metal. Still, it kept him out off the jungle patrols and behind a desk where he pushed piles of meaningless paper around. At night, he searched out the prostitutes that hung around Da Nang, but the sex wasn't the same. Even the young girls, jaded and unresponsive to sex, did not excite him. After his Vietnam duty, he was sent to Pendleton and later got an honorable discharge.
His bout of impotence was behind him, but Bert felt vaguely discontent. His life had never been fulfilling in the same, exalted way it had been during combat. He could not shake the memory of the captured Viet Cong girl. Bert went to bed with lots of girls, but always the sex was the same old thing. The more girls he tried, the less interesting it got. The girls were unable to detect his unhappiness. His sexual prowess was never challenged; if anything, his performance was something to emulate. Several women had even proposed marriage to him, but Bert declined. He wasn't interested.
The return to civilian life proved uneventful. Bert drifted from one job to the next, never staying long in any one place. He left his Olympic medal and the Silver Star at his parents' home on the Strand and moved around the country. A day never went by when he didn't think about the VC girl in the jungle. She was real to Bert; more real than anything he found in civilian life. He took girls to bed, but after they left, he would lie back, close his eyes and dream about the girl back in Vietnam. He remembered how terrified she was; terrified and angry, a killer. A strange combination for a girl barely in her teens. And a virgin, too! His mind went over each detail again and again until his penis went erect.
He pictured the girl's cunt in his mind and a terrible urgency overtook him as Bert grabbed his cock and jerked the iron-hard shaft, reliving the terror and exhaustion he had experienced. His cock would grow and his balls churned with sperm, and then he would come in a soft dishtowel he carried for these occasions. After the orgasm had drained off his passion, Bert would lie in bed wondering why his life was falling apart. He had hated the war; so why was he attached to this one single incident? Combat situations produced strange reactions in men. But others had lived through wars and gone on to happy marriages and good jobs. Why couldn't he?
A Pendleton psychiatrist had told him the reason for his strange obsession had nothing to do with combat; that the root of the problem went deeper and he would need psychiatric counseling.
Bert had taken the advice, but the civilian shrink he went to seemed more interested in his Olympic medal and Silver Star than he did about Bert's emotional stability and he quit after one session.
Instead, Bert got a letter from the family lawyer telling him to come home immediately. His family had been killed in a freak accident.
He had been out of town and the letter was a week old when he got it. He jumped on the first available plane and got back to the Strand just in time for the funeral. Bert never had much feeling for his father, a crusty, hard-line retired admiral. But the old man was well-known in the community and half the town had turned out for the funeral.
Which is how he got his coaching job. The old swimming pool had been rebuilt and the recreation director was looking around for a new coach, preferably one with a name to lend prestige to the $10 million complex. Bert was a natural choice.
When the director approached Bert, he was surprised at the former star athlete's cynical, indifferent response. That not the Bert I knew, the director thought. But hell, the pool needed a name and Bert was a big drawing card so he was hired on the spot. Must be the death of his folks, the director thought, that makes him act so weird.
The Strand was very lucky that Bert happened to come across Alice Dilly one early morning. Bert had spent two lackluster months coaching the swim team. It was dull, monotonous stuff, worse than he remembered it years before when he swam for hours a day. It was sickening and Bert was going to quit that day. His mind was made up and there was no changing it once a decision had been reached.
On his last day, Bert rose early and headed down to the pool. His assistant, John, a simple-minded high school punk had told him that the filters were acting up and not enough chlorine was getting into the water. Bert decided to check the equipment and was down in the cellar compartment checking the gauges when he heard a splash.
He looked up, not thinking, and saw Alice's sleek figure undulating through the opalescent water. The water magnified her features: her breasts looked fuller, the nipples thicker. "My God," he said. Transfixed, he watched her dolphin-kick across the pool; his eyes followed every graceful stroke; her tits moved weightlessly, her flat belly sucked in and out, her slender buttocks flexing with a sudden savagery catapulting her up and down. He thought it was an hallucination. He feared for his sanity. "That can't be," he gasped, blinking.
But it was. Over the hum of the filtering machine, came the noise of water splashing in the pool. Maybe it's a prank, he reasoned, remembering how impulsive the high-school girls were these days. He watched the girl's slim body disappear from sight, waited for the sound of the flip turn at the end of the pool. God, didn't she know that he was downstairs fixing the filters? She had to, thought Bert. His car was parked in the lot. Anyone would spot the car and realize that he was at the pool.
Then it hit him. The fog! It had been so thick he needed a flashlight to find the front door. The girl probably didn't even see his car. Suddenly, he was terribly excited. His body was sweaty and his cock went hard, growing stiff as a baton. Through the thick viewing glass he watched; nothing but empty, chlorinated water. Then like an apparition she floated by again, her gentle flutter-kick supplying movement.
She's beautiful, he thought, gripping his cock. The years melted away and he felt young and vital again. He never had the nerve to swim naked like this girl was doing. Always his life had been tightly structured; swimming was not fun, it was a highly competitive sport whose only reward was winning. It had burnt him out, made him hateful, empty inside.
Bert never took his eyes off the girl's naked figure. Even after the swim which lasted only a few minutes, he stood in the cramped quarters watching. His cock had been hard for ten minutes, yet it didn't ache in the least bit. On the contrary, he felt strong and self-assured, horny in fact. It was the best erection he had had since Vietnam.
"I wonder if she comes here often," he asked himself. His watch read almost eight-thirty. The fog would soon be lifting and there was no point hanging around any longer. The girl was gone. He released his cock and leaned against the wall looking out into the flat, calm water wondering if she would return. "Damn," he whispered, opening the door and stepping up out of the filtering-plant compartment. The pool was immense; a huge, lonely expanse of cement and water that was as lifeless and empty as a tomb.
"I hope she comes back," he said softly. As he reached the front door, Bert decided to stick on as head coach. At least for another couple of weeks.