The water was always cold at the swimming hole.
It was a really interesting spot. The main summer camp that I worked at college was set in this valley in the catskills, and you had to walk up the trail to where the valley narrowed higher in the cleft of the ridges to find the swimming hole. If I knew geography I would be able to explain using the proper terms. If I knew geology I could explain why the creek ran over a small waterfall before continuing on a deep split in the rocks that widened into a shallower pool.
There was a legend about the swimming hole made up probably by some hippy who worked there in 70s about it being a sacred spot of the local mohawk tribe way back in the day.
I didn’t ever really get to hear the whole story because I worked in the kitchen at the camp. It was an interesting job, a lot of the staff had regular interactions with the campers, going on hikes and doing crafts and archery and all that stuff, but we were in that sweltering kitchen for 3 meals a day, and doing prep and clean up between them as well.
Anyway, meals were always served family style and each table had 2 spots available for camp staff, and occasionally camp staff would come up to the window during meal times to get more mashed potatoes or meat loaf, or roasted chicken, or beef stew or scrambled eggs or grilled cheese sandwiches.
And I remember the first time I saw her…
…well…not her…to be perfectly honest, it was her boobs….
She was standing at the window, and I couldn’t see her face, just her perfectly framed set of tits in a _well fitting_ camp t-shirt.
I leaned down and looked up out the window and she smiled at me as she handed me the empty bowl of salad.
I remember hearing about her from some of the other guys in the kitchen. They were unloading frozen pineapples from the walk-in cooler that was behind the kitchen (it was it’s own standalone unit that was behind the back door of the kitchen, the dining hall was built before there were such a thing as a walk-in so there wasn’t enough space in the kitchen for it, but I digress). It was early in the morning and they saw her run by on her morning jog. She was (apparently) wearing jogging shorts and a sports bra, her hair braided tightly in a pony tail. The shorts she had on were quite short, she was definitely a member of the “one inch inseam team” and she had the legs to fill them out as they gently billowed in the breeze as she ran by, her sports bra was gray, with a light mesh that allowed for airflow and imagination.
Well, they didn’t use such delicate verbiage but the description was still there…
“You must be Tyler, I heard all about you”
She was one of the internationals that came every Summer, judging by her height, and her accent I’m guessing she came from Finland or Norway or Denmark.
“All good things I hope”
She smiled as I handed her the refilled bowl of iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots and cabbage.
So I guess I need to explain, the previous season I had developed a bit of a reputation. For some reason it got out that I was really really good in bed. I don’t entirely know how it happened, but I think that it have a good idea. Jill was a friend of mine from college, and was the one that told me about how great a summer job this would be. She had been going there since she was a kid, and then became a counselor when she turned 18. She used to always joke about how I could be “drowning in pussy” if I really wanted, we had that kind of friendship that was made fun by constant low level charged sexual energy but for whatever reason nothing ever came of it. Mostly because I was probably too chicken-shit to make a move, but also because she always seemed to have a boyfriend of some type which she only showed a vague semi-interest in. I think she was afraid to be alone, or maybe she saw some sense of value associated with being in a relationship. In reality she was a lot of fun to hang around with, and she provided me with a decent dose of much needed estrogen and femininity that was severely lacking in my Computer Science program in university.
Anyway, I’m getting off track. I think Jill did me a huge favor by performing a sort of “swag-inception” by talking about her friend Tyler from college during girl talk with the lady counselors at the camp, or whatever 19-22 year olds talk about when they are all bored and horny in a cabin in the woods. Anyway, it was a stroke of genius because by the time I came to camp the following summer, I was “Jill’s friend Tyler (giggle)”
I never got to ask what she said about me, because it was all made up. I was 20 years old and not entirely comfortable with myself or with women yet, in fact, I was a virgin.
Anyway, I watched this nordic cutie walk back to her table and sit down before the chef yelled at me for not paying attention.
After meal service, after everything was cleaned up, after lights out, the staff like to hang out in the dining hall, we’d sometimes put out cake or pizza for a snacky snack. We would hang around and play cards and talk about stuff. I remember when she walked in. She was wearing a hoody with a zipper on the front and a pair of camp shorts. I could tell that they didn’t do her legs justice like the running shorts did but she still looked really nice.
“I’m Lily by the way”
“Hi, Lily, I’m Tyler”
“I know silly goose. I worked with Jill last year, we were really good friends, how is she?”
“Yeah, she had that internship this summer, she was kinda bummed she couldn’t come back”
“Anyway, she told me you might need a friend. Have you been to the swimming hole yet?”
“Yeah, I tried to hike up there one time during my break but I think I got lost.”
“I…eh…I’ll bring you up there sometime” She smiled and blushed a little, it was wicked cute.
I felt my ears flush and I felt really nervous.
“You’re a runner right?”
“Yeah!” she said.
“Maybe we can go tomorrow morning. I’m off breakfast prep so I have the morning.”
“Lets do it” and she walked off out the door to head back to her bunk.
Anyway, I finished cleaning up after staff snack and walked back to my tent. My tent was a few hundred feet from the dining hall in the staff campsite. It was a big canvas tent with an old metal spring mattress on a wooden platform. It was nice because it was cool in the evenings, and I could hear the crickets. Lily was a group counselor so she was in the cabin with her crew. The campers stayed in a big hall with bunk beds and the two counselors had a separate room on the other side of the bathroom that was sort of in the middle. Some of the older cabins had a big 6 head group shower but the newer ones had 3 individual stalls. Anyway, the staff quarters consisted of two separate beds placed end to end along the wall in a narrow room that was as long as the main quarters was wide. Most counselors put up some kind of a barrier between then for some privacy. Lily was getting ready for bed, showering late because that’s when staff was allowed, and putting on her pajamas.
Or at least I thought she was, until I saw her sitting on the wooden platform at the foot of my tent.
“oh, hey”
“I’d like to show you something”
“what’s that?”
“Let’s go to the swimming hole right now, it’s a full moon, we probably don’t even need flashlights”
“…okay”
We started walking up the trail towards the head (top/height/whatever) of the valley and we soon heard the creek flowing as the trail began to intersect it
“The moon is really bright, you were totally right about it.” I mentioned, trying to make awkward small talk.
She smiled and nodded. Soon you could hear the water falling over the rocks in the falls, and in the darkness the sandstone and shale rock began to shimmer in the light. Eventually I saw the swimming hole, the full moon shining in the ripples in the water as the white noise of the waterfall drown out those crickets that seemed to accompany us on the walk.
“This is a really beautiful spot, I’m glad you brought me here”
“Yeah, I love coming up here, I’ve seen it in all hours of the day and night. It reminds me of home, come and sit with me”
She took my hand and we sat down by the water. I could see her hair shimmer in the moonlight and I could see she had a smile on her face.
“Did you ever come here with Jill?”
“Yeah, we used to come up here and talk about stuff all the time. The waterfall is so loud it feels like you can say anything and it will always be kept a secret.”
“What did you guys talk about?”
She smiled and giggled again. She was so gorgeous in the darkness and I wasn’t entirely sure what her plan was or why she decided to take such a liking to me.
“I always asked about American boys, and she would always talk about how wonderful you were”
Jill might have been in love with me, but I was too dumb to realize it at the time, and even when this happened it didn’t occur to me that might be the case, it’s only been in the intervening 15 years that I’ve gotten the sort of clarity about the relationships in my youth that were so fuzzy as I was wading in the thick of it at the time.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/cq2bad/cold_water_in_the_moonlightmfmildunfinished
Is there a Part 2 in the works.