Compromised

It all started a few weeks ago.

OK, I'm going to make no excuses here. I was young and male and single. I was going through a dark and depressing part of my life, where I was having to face up to some harsh realities about someone I had regarded as one of my closest friends and a potential lover. Bluntly, I was waking up to the fact that several promises that I had taken on faith had been based on a tissue of lies that were now being torn apart with a brutality that was taking my breath away. Suddenly, the most committed relationship I had ever had, was no longer with the owner of that soft, sweet voice on the end of the telephone or those words on my computer screen. Those early days where we took solace in the gradual discovery that we were kindred spirits, separated by thousands of miles and united by mere chance. Those 'phone calls where we shared our hopes and dreams for the future, exchanged our mutual ideologies and discovered fresh common ground. Those long, long conversations where we shared our erotic fantasies and always finished off with gasps and moans, as we each listened to the other frantically clinging to that series of moments and movements that would bring about our powerful orgasms, bask in an afterglow that we could never quite share with each other and delay that final, brutal and very lonely click and buzz of a telephone being hung up, leaving us to our sweaty sheets and our very individual loneliness.

OK. Yeah. I admit it. It was an internet relationship and was probably doomed right from the start. How can someone really get that close to someone they've never even met? I could kid myself for hours about the fact that the lack of a physical presence made communication and mental interaction that bit more important and thus deepen the connection between two people. Oh, I knew all the excuses. I'd made them too often. But an internet relationship – like any relationship – is dependant on communication and communication is dependant on honesty. And... yeah... she had lied. She was married. She was married, there was no future and one day... without warning... it was all over.

I didn't take it well.

Masturbation after that was half-hearted at best, and I found that the desire to even do that much had virtually disappeared. Days on end would go past, with no desire to do anything at all. My erections were half-hearted and short-lived and would slink back into flaccidity, when I simply ignored them. That's all my cock ever did at all, in fact – just slink. From three times a day (and that was on a slow day) it was now getting no attention at all. On the couple of occasions where I did set out to chase down that solitary orgasm, I was left all too conscious of the similarities, rather than the differences with how it had been during that long-distance relationship – with the exception that without the click and buzz of the 'phone to trigger it off, the bleakness set in right from the first moment I'd lay hands on myself.

I needed some kind of a distraction to take my mind off what I had lost. Not alcohol, because I don't drink alone and not drugs because... well, alcohol is my drug of choice. Not a choice made through judgement or morality – I just wasn't overly inclined to experiment in that direction. I'd had the occasional misadventure with weed, a disappointing experiment with coke and a highly enjoyable night when I'd taken some speed while I'd been out drinking with a couple of friends – but on the whole, I was a social drinker and that was it.

Exercise seemed right. Get the endorphins flowing and do myself some good at the same time. So one evening I decided to go swimming. And I knew the perfect place to go. I'd been planning to pay a visit for ages and one night – in a moment of rare motivation – I decided that it was time to go.

It was on Clerk Street. There was an old cinema that had been unable to keep pace with the competition provided by the various multiplexes that were springing up all over the city and had gone out of business. Boarded up and abandoned, a tragic victim of those soulless places – in my self-pitying mood, I felt like I could relate. Anyway, for a long time it seemed unlikely that it was ever going to recognise its potential again. It didn't look like there was anything in its future that would be kinder than a demolition crew and something new – some office block – springing up in its place. A soulless building to replace it and finish off the job that had been started by the soulless multiplexes that had usurped it.

And then, one day, it had been bought. And shortly after that, builders and workmen were going into the building and tearing out its heart. Seats were dragged out and taken away, deliveries were made, painters went in, came out... And then there came the day when the exterior was cleaned up and suddenly there was a new vitality to the building. It seemed cleaner, brighter, happier. The final boards were removed, the windows were cleaned and the cinema suddenly became a place that people wanted to visit once more. Only... now, it was no longer a cinema.

I heard all the rumours, long before it was reopened. No two people could completely agree on what was happening. It was a health club, said some. There were jacuzzis and saunas and gyms and all sorts of things like that. Others swore that it was being stocked from top to bottom with bondage equipment and was being turned into a brothel, a dungeon, a massage parlour. Many people were convinced that someone actually lived there. One room had apparently been a dance hall and had now been converted into the apartment of a reclusive, eccentric millionaire.

I think a lot of people were disappointed when it was revealed that the health club rumour was the most accurate one – complete with all the theorised jacuzzis, saunas and swimming pool.

As usual, I was in a particularly bleak and cynical mood on the night I went to the club, but despite that, I was pleased with what I found when I first walked in. Someone really had loved this place. The main foyer had a similar feeling to the open, welcoming place it had been before it was closed down. There was a staircase on the left hand side that – I remembered – used to lead up to a pub. It was a staircase that provided a weak spot in the cinema's security that I'd exploited on more than one occasion. When I was 18, I would go up to the pub on the pretext that I was going for a drink, then I'd walk up the rest of the stairs and into the cinema itself, through a doorway that had no ticket inspector on guard. I'd seen more than one film that way.

There were to be no films tonight. And there was to be no use of that staircase, if the velvet rope barrier was anything to go by. And there was to be no cheating, either. Instead, I got there about an hour or so before it was due to close for the evening, paid my admission and followed the signs for the swimming pool. I got changed quickly, left the changing room and dived into the water at the deep end, without even bothering to use the board.

I had chosen a time that suited my mood best. Late one Monday evening, when it was likely that there would be fewer people there. And thankfully, it seemed to have worked pretty well. There was just myself, a lifeguard and another swimmer present, but I didn't really pay them any attention at all, at first. I was too absorbed in seeking out oblivion through the mindless repetition of covering the length of that pool, over and over again. I was going to exhaust myself. I was going to propel myself through that water for as long as possible, and eventually I was going to go home, fall into bed and sleep. Perhaps get the first proper night of sleep I'd had in nearly two months.

And so, for the first couple of lengths, I ploughed my way through the water with a kind of single-minded intensity. Focused purely on that simple goal. But that kind of intensity can't last. Muscles start to flag, the body slows down and a more comparatively sedate stroke takes over. And it was on the beginnings of my fourth or fifth length of the pool that I started to become more aware of my surroundings and of the two other people who shared them with me. Well... initially... of one of those two people.

Specifically, I saw the other swimmer properly, for the first time. She was about midway between the deep and shallow ends of the pool, climbing out the water as I approached. I saw a sleek length of thigh, curved to perfection as she got out, and suddenly I was captivated. One foot on the top step and the other leg in the process of coming up to plant the other foot just ahead of it. And automatically, the obsessive compulsive part of my nature started kicking in, referring back to my studies of muscular anatomy and I found that one part of my mind – probably the only part that wasn't being eclipsed by a sudden wash of hormones – was placidly naming the muscles that were being used at that moment.

"Flexion of the hip," I thought. "Hamstrings. Semimembranosis, semitendonosis, biceps femoris. Mmm... Nice glutes."

The edge of her costume was sliding back, showing one cheek of those beautiful gluteals as she climbed up the steps. I noted the water pouring down the bare flesh of her back where the costume didn't cover her and the voice in my head said something about postural muscles and quadratus lumborum and erector spinae. It went on to add a couple of footnotes about the beautiful shape of her scapulae and how perfectly formed her spinal column was. Christ, I swear that while most men go on about tits and bums... well, I could never claim to not like those too, but the movement and shape of a beautiful woman's back – there's a kind of grace or... something... indefinable about those other areas that most other men don't even notice. The bones and muscles of the back. There's thighs, calves, quads... And there's abs. Oh God, yeah, there's the abs. The human body is beautiful, but... just once... let me lay my head on the firm stomach of an athlete or a dancer.

As she stepped fully out of the pool, she paused for a moment, raised her arms and ran the fingers of both hands through her hair. I had a moment to notice the subtle shifting of the musculature in her back and shoulders and hear my head placidly rattling off seemingly random words like trapezius and deltoid. And then, to my astonishment, I noted a stiffening in my own body. Without any warning, my cock was suddenly making its own appreciation known in its own very sincere and very blunt way.

It was a pleasant surprise, at least. I wasn't a youth any more and spontaneous erections - while they still happened – just weren't as commonplace as they had once been, so when they did happen, I was inclined to be welcoming to them if they weren't drawing any inappropriate attention. I simply kept swimming and when I touched the end of the pool I swung round and in the brief moment between concluding one length and beginning another, I had the luxury of treading water and catching a breath. That was all I needed in order to make a quick adjustment of my trunks and shift myself into a more comfortable position, and then I was moving again. No harm was done, no sensibilities were outraged and nobody but me even knew there had been a problem. And I still had plenty of time to continue swimming and allow things to relax and settle down again.

It was all fine, again. I've never been a particularly skilled swimmer, but I knew how to at least move forward once I was in the water and I've always had plenty of stamina. Breathing's a problem that I've never really been able to overcome, but hell... I had never harboured any dreams of going to the Olympics, anyway. I did stifle a short laugh at one point, as it occurred to me that I had a bit of extra "drag" going on now, but surely it was going to go away soon enough.

I reached the shallow end, swung round and started back again, just as the other swimmer was climbing out once more. Good timing, I thought. She was clearly practicing her dive, or something like that. So once more, I had plenty of opportunity to admire that tall, slender form leaving the pool and walking back to the diving board. But suddenly, I wasn't so sure that she was so unaware of my attention and my admiration. As I swam back up the pool, it seemed to me that she was walking more slowly than before. Timing her path to the diving board and putting on a display for me. She really was stunning, though. Tall and athletic, with long, dark hair that – as before – she had to slick back from her face as she walked.

And then the lifeguard blew her whistle and shattered the moment. Halfway up the pool now, I came to a halt and treaded water, while I glanced over at the clock. There was still half an hour to go, before the pool was due to close. So... why..? I looked back at the lifeguard, who simply looked blankly at me, then turned away and pointedly looked up at the clock, herself. The inference was clear. It was time to get out of the pool. Which posed something of a problem. There had been absolutely no lessening at all in my erection. If anything, it had managed to get even harder.

The thought of climbing out of the pool in that condition had absolutely no appeal at all. I swam slowly over to the side, trying to buy some time. Some time to subside. Some time for the other swimmer to enter her changing room. Some time for the lifeguard to busy herself with something else.

The swimmer paused at the entrance to her changing room to sit on a bench, pick up a towel and start to unhurriedly rub at her hair as if she had all the time in the world and the lifeguard waited at the entrances to the changing rooms and started tapping her foot as she looked at me. I was out of options now. But I can be brazen, sometimes. I decided to climb out the water and act like nothing was wrong. Just walk to the changing rooms and hope that neither woman was going to be looking too hard in my direction as I left.

Of course, my optimism far outstripped the reality of my situation and despite my resolve, I could feel the heat burning in my face as I passed them. The swimmer was still drying her hair and while she was being discreet about it, I strongly suspected that she was somehow aware of my condition and wanted to get a good, long look as I left. And there was no pretence of discretion from the lifeguard at all – she fixed her eyes directly on my crotch with a look of firm disapproval. I walked past her with my eyes locked on the door to my changing room and made my bid for safety, privacy and freedom. As I hurried through the door I saw the lifeguard disappearing through another door, while the other swimmer finally stood up and headed toward her own changing room.

And so I made it to the changing room without further incident. I grabbed my towel and shampoo, stripped out of my trunks and headed straight for the showers. And predictably, my cock was as hard as ever. It bounced ahead of me, pointing the way to the showers as I walked. And just for a moment, I couldn't resist taking it in my hand and squeezing it.

God, the thrill of having an erection. To be so hard, so strong, so firm. To have such an overwhelmingly thick and potent presence. To be so proud, visceral and animalistic. There's no way to describe just what it feels like or what it means. Yeah, I will always admit it – when it's so uncompromisingly erect and ready, I am deeply in love with my own cock.

It doesn't have to do anything, really. There's no need to masturbate, to fuck, to chase that orgasm down like I'm trying to somehow vindicate its presence. No need at all. It's just a great feeling for it just to be there. To feel its weight as it bounces, it's motion as it swings. There's no need to masturbate. And yet...

And yet, now that I was away from the burning gaze of the lifeguard and the slightly mocking glint in the eyes of the other swimmer, the humiliation and embarrassment I had experienced weren't so crippling and wasn't it possible that it had actually been exciting? And now that I had some privacy, how much more exciting would it be..?

I squeezed it again, then let go and turned the shower on. Immediately, the hot water started cascading down my back and I braced my hands against the wall and leaned forward, luxuriating in that jet pouring over me. I arched my neck and turned my face into the flow, then straightened up and stretched, trying to release the tension between my scapulae... those muscular stresses that will only ever be completely relieved by a decent massage.

And then I leaned back against the wall and ran both hands down my chest, over my abs and down to the root of my cock. One hand stayed there and while my fingertips reached round and cupped my balls, my other hand travelled up the shaft, very slowly. Fingertips crossed over my glans, exploring it, looking for some precum. Some of that slick moisture to spread out over the glans. The hot water had washed it away though, so I squeezed the shaft again and milked myself, trying to encourage it to flow. And... yeah... there was some of that moisture now and... and oh, God, I was pouring. When had I last had a wank? Had it really been so long ago that this was the reservoir starting to overflow with the first bit of encouragement in days? Was it really getting to be such a rarity?

All the more reason to enjoy this, then. And with that thought, I remembered the reason that it was happening at all. So... I'd had a stiffy and two women had been made completely aware of it. But had it really been so terrible? They had both set themselves up so they could both have a good view as I walked past. Hadn't they? So they could hardly have been offended by it, could they?

I found myself smiling and used my left hand to cup and gently squeeze my balls, once more. My right hand ran the length of my shaft and I shuddered as I threatened to cum almost right away. I didn't want that, though. This felt too good and I wanted to draw it out for as long as possible.

I stood under the hot water with my eyes closed, enjoying the sensations of my own hands on my body. I squeezed and caressed my cock and eased my foreskin back, very slowly. I kept myself on the edge of orgasm for a long time and behind my eyes, visions of the other swimmer danced. That sleek, black swimsuit and those long, tanned legs. I started to fantasise about her. I summoned her more completely into my head. I started to pump harder, as I imagined her slinking into the showers and walking towards me, dropping to her knees, brushing my fingers away from my cock, taking it in her own hands, bringing it to her mouth...

"What the hell's going on here?"

My own gasp of shock was accompanied by a squeal of surprise from somewhere else, but it was a moment or two before the significance of that caught up. Complete horror overwhelmed me, my eyes flew open and I stared wildly about, trying to make sense of a new set of circumstances. The lifeguard was striding into the shower room, dragging the other swimmer with her, by her hair and even as I struggled to rationalise this, I managed to consciously register the squeal I'd heard. But that could wait. Suddenly, it was of vital importance that I try to cover my cock with both hands and conceal what I had been doing. Yeah, like that would make anything any better.

"I'm waiting," the lifeguard said and I gaped at her. The swimmer tried to pull her hair away, then fell over when she was unexpectedly freed. She turned to face the lifeguard and I was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was close enough to me that we were almost touching.

"OK, then since neither of you can tell me, maybe I better tell you," the lifeguard finally said. "You!" A finger stabbed in my direction, "were masturbating in a public place, while you!" Same finger stabbed in the swimmer's direction, "were watching. I'm at a loss here. I don't have the slightest clue which of you is the more pathetic. Wanker or spy."