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“Mom, gimme a break! I only got back from college two days ago. How about a little time to relax?”

“If you’re not going to work for you father, you’re going to stick with our deal. I won’t have you laying around the house all summer.”

“All summer? I’m talking about a week’s break, Mom. One week. Not a weekend. I’ll start with the handyman services next Monday. I still haven’t seen any of my old crowd or anything,” I argued.

“Two days should be rest enough. Amy Daniels needs pool help in a bad way. I told her you’d stop by and see what you can do. Think you can find time for her in your busy day?”

Amy Daniels? “Uh, when does she need me?”

* * *

“What’s the verdict, Alex?”

She’d been following me around for the last hour, like a nervous kid. The pool was a dark green swamp. I was trying to get to the root of the problem, but she was seriously distracting. I’d always had a thing for Mrs. Daniels, in a huge way, and her current outfit was reminding me why. She was wearing a bikini with a diaphanous waist wrap that left far too much of her MILFish body exposed for me to maintain my concentration on the task at hand.

I’d glance at her at every opportunity, taking in every little detail of her bodacious body. Her bikini top squeezing her skin, the flesh of the tits bulging at both sides of her bikini top. How the wrap around her narrow waist hung at the swell of her hips. The way her skin glowed, moist with perspiration, little drops of sweat rolling down her cleavage. The fine down of nearly invisible hairs on her forearms. Bowed lips, with fine lines of worry at their corners, as she listened to me explain each issue. I could barely tear my eyes off of her.

She and Mom were friends, good friends, had been ever since she and her husband first moved into the neighborhood four years earlier. They’d been newlyweds – he was about my parents age; she was a lot younger, just a couple of years out of college and the perfect arm-candy a go-getter needed to move ahead in the business world. Or so Mom said when they had first moved in.

“Mrs. Daniels, how long has it looked like this?”

“Since the end of pool season last year. Cash has been kind of tight, and we put off the work as long as possible, since we weren’t going to use the pool,” she admitted guiltily.

“Your pump is shot, the filter lines are clogged, and the scum on the bottom has gotten too good a hold to simply scrub off. No telling if the automatic cleaner is working at all. I imagine the filter itself is a complete mess. It’s probably going to take a couple of weeks to get it clean. I think you’re going to need professional help.”

She was wringing her hands; I thought people only did that in movies. “I’ve already talked to the pool people. They want more than $4,000 to fix it. And they quoted three weeks to get the parts in and get it cleaned up. I was hoping we could have it done this weekend. And four grand is way out of my budget.”

“This weekend? I don’t think I could get it done that fast if I worked day and night on it. And it would still cost thousands of dollars.”

She sat down on the spa wall, her pretty head in her fine, long-fingered hands. “Dale’s going to kill me. It took me two years to convince him to put the pool in, and I promised I’d take care of it. Now we’ve got this huge party planned, and if it isn’t perfect I’ll never hear the end of it.” She looked up at me, with her big green eyes. “Isn’t there anything we can do? Please?”

I sighed. For Amy Daniels, I knew I’d do whatever it took. “Let me look into it, and I’ll see what can be done. No promises.”

She laughed, jumping up and giving me a big hug. “Thanks, Alex. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. I promise, you won’t regret it.”

The hug was definitely worth the effort of doing a little research. Four years ago she’d been this sexy older woman, tall and beautiful, who would come by the house regularly to cry on Mom’s shoulder. When I was 15 years old, she’d been my favorite fantasy. At nineteen, my freshman year behind me, she was sexier than ever, a body of dreams, with long brown hair and the biggest green eyes I’d ever seen. I was taller than her now, by several inches, and she seemed smaller, frailer, someone who needed taking care of.

It was almost lunch time, so I headed back down the street. Mom fed me while I spent a little time on the internet and making a few phone calls. By the time I was finished I had a possible solution. “You’re killing me Mom. This pool job could kill half my summer. It’s a mess.”

Mom laughed. “Don’t be a drama queen. Just fix her pool, Alex.”

* * *

Mrs. Daniels was working on her tan, and she got up as soon as I opened the gate to the back yard. Same bikini, sans the cover-up. Wow.

“Alex! Any ideas?”

“Maybe. Instead of cleaning the water, we could empty it. I could give the inside an acid wash, and refill it with clean water. I can probably clean the pool lines, with a simple fish tape, some acid and a pressure hose. The pump is a bigger issue, but I can replace the motor instead of the whole pump. That could get the price way down. I’ll have to clean out the filter, and all the pipes. It’s going to take a while. Won’t know about a lot of things until we get to them, though.”

“How much are we talking?” she asked.

I had completed my preliminary pricing and figured about $400 for the motor, $200 in chemicals, a couple of hundred in supplies, o-rings, baskets, and lube, and $300-$400 more if I had to replace all 8 filter elements. If the automatic cleaner was still working and the salt-water chlorine converter was functioning, it would still run at least $1200 in materials, and of course something for 3-4 days of my time. I wasn’t working for free.

“I can probably keep it under $2000, and I’ll have to work on it all week,” I told her. “I should be able to get it done in time.”

I thought that would be great news, but she was still acting distraught. “$2000? Any way we could do it for under $1000?” she pleaded.

“A thousand?” I asked, incredulous. “The new pump alone would be over $1000!”

She came closer, putting her hand on my chest. “Alex, please. As a personal favor? I’d owe you one.” Her hand burned where it contacted my chest.

A favor from Amy Daniels? Stay calm. Om-Mani-Padme… “How am I going to buy at least $1200 in material, for a thousand dollars, Mrs. Daniels? As much as I’d like to.”

“Call me Amy, Alex. You’re a college man now.” Her hand ran down my chest, coming to rest on my belt buckle. “How about a barter system? Maybe I can do something for you, if you do this for me,” she said. She was looking me in the eye, and I had a strong feeling that I knew what she was talking about.

And it wasn’t milk and cookies.

It made me a little nervous. Strike that – a lot nervous. This woman was several years older than me, and a good friend of my mother. On the other hand, she was my life long fantasy, and hot, really hot. Then again, she was married. But let’s not forget, hot. She was way out of my league. And I dreamed about her more than any woman alive. Hot.

“What did you have in mind, Amy?” I asked, reaching out and bravely placing a hand on her waist.

“How about if while you were working, I was sunbathing topless? If you could do the job for a $1000, I think I could ‘accidentally’ forget to wear my bikini top when you were over.”

Not quite the offer I was hoping for. $200 out of pocket, and working 4 full days for free, all to get a little peep show? Hopefully I could negotiate better. “I could knock it down to $1500 for an offer like that,” I countered.

She pouted cutely. “And if I let you put sun-tan lotion on me? I’d need to be lathered up several times a day.”

I was slow to answer, thinking of rubbing my hands over her perfect body, especially her big, round, firm boobs. So close to my fantasies, but still so far away.

She was watching me and upped the offer. “You know, Alex. I’ve even been thinking of doing a little nude sunbathing. I’m sure a clean pool would put me in the mood for it.”

The offer was hard to reject. She was my fantasy after all. I moved a little closer, putting my other hand on her hip, and running both hands along her sides, feeling her warm, slippery smooth skin. “It’s a hell of an offer, Amy. Really. I wish I could do it. Believe me. But the parts are going to cost at least 12 to 14 hundred. And I don’t have the kind of money to make up the difference. At $1200, I’d be working for free for a whole week.”

She was thinking hard, and she moved closer, pressing her chest against me. “$1000 this week, and $200 more two weeks from now. Say yes, and we can start the lotion now.” She reached behind her neck and untied her top, lowering her hands quickly to hold the small bit of material against her large tits.

Dad owned his own business. He was in general contracting, with several sizable government projects. He’d always harped on me about three things required to succeed in business. One, have written goals, and refer to them often. Two, be scrupulously honest and fair, and you’ll be able to live off repeat business and referrals. Three, all of life is negotiating, every business owner has to be his own best salesman. Nothing’s done until something’s sold.

God I wanted her. Time to see if my negotiating skills were up to par.

I reached out to her, placing my hand on her cheek, my thumb rubbing across those luscious lips. “Make it $200 in two weeks, throw in a blow job each morning, an afternoon in bed once the job is done, and you have a deal.” I don’t know where I got the courage to spit it out, but I did, taking my chances. I had her over a barrel, and maybe my dreams could come true.

She stepped back abruptly. “Are you kidding? I can’t do that!”

Jesus. Me and my big mouth. Time for the either/or close. “Amy, I really can’t work for free. If you like, for $900 I’ll fix the pump and filter for you, and I’ll tell you what you need to do to clean the pool. It’ll only take about 3 days of hard labor to get it cleaned up. Either that or I can do the whole job for you, and we can get a little creative on how to pay it off. Which would you rather do?”

She turned her back on me, and I watched her re-tie her bathing suit top. “I don’t believe this is going to work, Alex. I’m disappointed in you. I think you’d better leave.”

I suddenly felt lower than low. Why had I run my mouth? “Sorry I couldn’t be of help, Mrs. Daniels.” Fuck. For three hundred dollars I could have been rubbing her down right now. So close to my dream. And I’d still have had a chance later. Now I’d slammed the door shut. Damn it!

I guess my sales technique needed a little work. Or a lot.

* * *

“So? How did it go?” Mom asked when I walked into the kitchen for a soda.

“It didn’t. She needs a lot of work done, but can’t even afford to pay for the parts. I guess she’s going to shop around, or maybe try to do it herself.” I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“Really? That’s too bad. Are you sure you couldn’t work out a deal? Maybe she could pay you over time.”

“We explored the idea, but I still can’t afford to buy the parts on my own.”

“You could charge it on my card. That would give you close to 30 days to pay it off without any interest. Maybe she could make payments.”

I was rummaging through the pantry looking for a snack. “I’ll keep that in mind if she doesn’t come up with a better solution on her own. In the meantime I’m going to fix that board in the fence, and you might put the word out to your other friends that I’m available for odd jobs.”

“Ok. But I’d still appreciate it if you did what you could for Amy. She’s having a difficult time right now. She could use a little sunshine in her life.”

“Alright Mom. I get it. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, to see what I can do.”

* * *

It was vacation. I’d stayed up late, and was hard at working avoiding getting out of my warm bed, when Mom knocked on the door. “Are you awake, Alex?”

I rolled over and sat up. “Sure. What’s up?”

“That was Amy Daniels on the phone. She wants to know if you can go over first chance you get.”

I looked over at the clock. 10:08 AM. Damn it. “Got it. Thanks. I’ll go right after I clean up.”

“Good. And remember what I said. Do what you can, and you can use my card to charge any parts if you need. Please, Alex.”

“Ok, Mom. I’ll do what I can.”

* * *

Amy Daniels met me at the door, a little more conservatively dressed than the previous day. Just a little. She had a black crochet cover-up on, that was more holes than material, and I could see she had a white bikini on underneath it. It might have been sexier than the bikini alone.

“Hi Mrs. Daniels. Mom said you called.”

“I did. Come in, please,” she turned and walked into the kitchen. “Can I get you a drink, Alex?”

“Light beer if you have it.”

She didn’t comment on my being underage, or drinking before noon, or any other such nonsense. She brought me my beer, and I saw she was working on a drink of her own. “Have a seat.”

I sat on the couch, and she sat down next to me, turned sideways.

“I’m sorry about yesterday. It was just that your suggestion caught me off-guard.”

I turned to face her as well. “Me too. I don’t know what came over me. I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness. I was way out of line.”

Her lips turned up in a poor imitation of a smile. “Of course. It was all just a small misunderstanding.” She took a deep drink from her glass, and put it back down. “I know it’s my fault. I started with the whole sunbathing nude, and putting lotion on. It’s easy enough to jump to conclusions from there. But I’m not like that, you must know. I see how you look at me, Alex. I have for years. And I understand. I thought that a little show might be all it takes, but I forget sometimes you’re not just a kid anymore.”

“Please, Mrs. Daniels. You don’t need to explain. I’d like to do this for you, if I can. Let’s just figure out how. Anyway I look at it, it’s going to come to at least $1200 in parts, maybe as much as $1500, and that’s if we’re lucky.”

“I know. I made a few more calls, and I understand you are really doing your best. I had one company in here today, and to get it done by this weekend they wanted over $4500. It just seems crazy! That much to fix a pool! It was only $25,000 to put it in. Your estimate of $2000 was more than fair, I’m sorry about the way I behaved.”

“No more ‘sorries’,” I reminded her. “How much money can you come up with now?”

“A little over a thousand.”

I heaved a sigh. “Could you make up the difference in the next 30 days?”

“Another $1000?”

“No, the rest of the cost of the parts, maybe $300.”

“I can get you at least $250 in the next couple of weeks, and the rest after that.”

“Ok. I can work with that. That takes care of the money for parts. Now what can we do about the rest? We have to come up with an answer quick, because if I’m going to get this job done in the next three days, I’ll be working non-stop until then, and we don’t have a minute to waste.” I was hoping she was still willing to go along with the topless/nude sunbathing.

I could see her blushing. “To start, the sunbathing and lotion part is still on the table. If you’d like.”

“That’s a very nice start.” Hell, I’d settle for that, if that’s what it took, but it was too early to tell her that.

She looked down, unable to meet my eyes. “I can’t, I really can’t be giving you blow-jobs every morning. Would a hand-job be enough? Maybe during your lunch break? I’ll be happy to feed you while you’re working here.”

Daily hand-jobs? “Amy, that would be wonderful.”

She seemed to perk up at my words, and she reached her hand out and put it on my knee. “Really? You’d settle for that?”

Not much of a salesman. It was obvious I could have pressed for more. “Amy, if that’s all you’re comfortable doing, I’m not going to force you into anything more.”

Her smile was back. “Thank you Alex. I was thinking, if you’d like, after the job is done, you could come by once a week to take care of the pool. I could pay you $20 each time, and another hand-job, to kind of make up for things.”

Jackpot. I’d hit the horny teenager lotto. I took her hand in mine, and gave it a squeeze. “I’d love to be your pool-boy, Amy.”

She turned away again, suddenly nervous. “I guess that takes care of the daily payments. What are you going to need for the final payment? An afternoon in bed is simply out of the question.”

“I’ll tell you what. Let’s get started. I have to get the pump motor as soon as possible, since nothing else can be done until that’s fixed. If I somehow manage to get this pool clean in time for your party, you can decide what’s fair as a final payment. I trust you.”

She looked at me steadily. I wasn’t sure what was going through her brain. She took a long sip from her cup. “That sounds fair. We’ll base it on how good a job you do. I’ll do my best to make sure you’re not disappointed.” She scooted closer. “Do you need your first payment now?” She looked down at my crotch.

Pinch me. I’m dreaming.

“I’d love to, but we really need to get that pump fixed. I’ll take the cash now, and we can leave the rest of the payment for later. I should warn you, I’m going to need some help from you if we’re going to get this done in time.”

“What kind of help?” she asked hesitantly.

“Some jobs need more than one person. Especially scrubbing the pool. You don’t mind helping with a little of the work, do you?”

“If it’ll get the pool clean, I’ll do whatever I have to.”

“Then we have a deal. Can you write out a check? If so, I can be back with the parts I need in about an hour.”

“Let me get my pen.”

* * *

“Mom! Can I borrow you’re credit card? I’ve got $1000 from Mrs. Daniels, which you can deposit. She’ll pay the rest in the next few weeks.”

“You worked out a deal? That’s great! Thanks so much. I owe you for this one. I promise you, I’ll make sure you get paid better in the future. Every job won’t be a charity case.”

Paid better? That might take some doing. “No problem. I didn’t have anything lined up for the next few days, and when we’re done, I’ll have a regular job taking care of her pool each week.”

“Terrific. Here’s the card. And make sure you do a good job. And be respectful.”

“I’ll do my best, Mom. I promise.”

* * *

Two hours later, I was back at the Daniels’, tools in hand, cursing the installer that had placed the pump in such an awkward position. Amy was standing nearby, watching me struggle. She was still dressed in her bikini and cover-up, and I wanted to remind her about the sunbathing nude deal, but didn’t have the guts.

“Damn it!” I growled, giving up on my current attack. “I’ll have to remove the surrounding pipe. Nothing’s ever easy, is it?”

“Nothing worth doing,” she said. “But I know you’ll get it done.” I felt her gentle hands come to rest on my shoulders.

“Damn straight I will. If someone got it in here, I’ll sure as hell get it out.” It was already after 1:00, and a sizzling 94 degrees outside. If the water was just a little less swamp-like, I might have chanced diving in to cool off.

“Let’s take a break from this for a minute,” I suggested.

I saw her step back nervously. “Oh.” She looked at me expectantly. “A break? Does that mean, uh, you want your payment now?”

I stood slowly, stretching. “You’re killing me, beautiful. I want it more than you could possibly imagine. But I’ve got to get this done, or we can’t empty the pool, can’t work on the inlets and pump line, can’t do much of anything.” I walked past her, toward the deck. “Do you have a heavy duty extension cord we could use?”

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