Coming of Age

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.

Chapter One

Home for the Summer

It was a hot and muggy day, and Kaylee Montgomery knew that's what you got when you spent a summer in Cincinnati. The world was a smaller place there, shrunken by provincial thought and conservative Midwestern values. Most were born there, lived there and died there. It was hard to escape the orbit of a family hard steeped in Cincinnati, but somehow Kaylee did, becoming the first Montgomery to attend college outside the State of Ohio.

Kaylee was the oldest of two, her brother still in middle school. Chad was a "surprise," given his mother Sandy was told by her gynecologist that Kaylee was going to be an only child. Kaylee welcomed the arrival of her baby brother, as it gave her "alone time" she didn't have when she was on her own. Her father Ted was still protective of her. She'd always be his baby, even though she was grown up and going to college at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ted was a self-made man, tall and broad shouldered. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a school teacher. He and Sandy were high school sweethearts, and Sandy's unexpected pregnancy just after high school graduation put Ted's college plans on permanent hold. Instead, he took a job at a pool cleaning service. After ten years he purchased the company with the help of a financial partner. He built the company up from two to twelve employees and earned a low six figure income that allowed him to buy a Colonial style house in a neighborhood reputed to have good public schools. His lone hobby was his meticulously restored 1969 Porsche 911 SC, his pride a joy since he bought it twenty years ago.

Surprisingly it was Ted who encouraged Kaylee to attend UC Berkeley. He saw her as someone with the potential to accomplish bigger things, and had the foresight to convince his wife to let their baby move two thousand miles away.

Kaylee's relationship with her mother was much more complicated. Their relationship was at an ebb. Kaylee was discovering a whole new world in California, and had a headful of ideas that made her mother's head swim. Kaylee grew up in a primarily white neighborhood, but the co-op that she chose to live in her freshman year was heavily Asian, Latino and Black. Two of the couples in her co-op were gay, and one household member was in transition from a male to a female. Kaylee spoon fed this information to her parents on her living conditions. Her mother's shock at the "diverse" make-up of the co-op dissuaded Kaylee from sharing more details with her mother.

If Kaylee had a mother she could have truly talked to, she would have told her mother that she'd experimented with sex with men, but was emotionally unsatisfied. They lacked the sensitivity she thought was essential to a lasting emotional connection. A casual liaison with a female housemate convinced Kaylee that she was gay, though she had yet to have a girlfriend. She dreaded the task of telling her parents her true sexual orientation.

Kaylee sat in the bedroom that was hers since she was a little girl, curled up in the window seat, listening to the incessant buzz of cicadas and gazing out into the kaleidoscope of red, yellow and orange roses planted in the garden just outside her window. Her long legs barely fit in the tight space and were folded under her. She fingered the fuzzy ears of her favorite stuffed bear, the edges of it repaired more than once by her mother with scraps of plaid material.

She remembered with fondness Princess Di, the family chocolate Labrador, who in a fit of jealousy chewed the bear's ears off. Princess Di was really her dog, and spent every night sleeping (and snoring) under the covers with Kaylee. She had just passed after a long bout with cancer while Kaylee was away at college, and it pained her that she wasn't there to comfort her puppy during her final days. Being in the room of her childhood brought back memories, many good and some bad, and the flood of emotions, along with her reminder of her dearly departed dog, brought a tear trickling down her cheek.

She heard footsteps coming down the hallway towards her room. Her doorknob turned and her mother, Sandy, poked her head in.

"Dinner's ready, honey." Familiar smells of fried chicken and mashed potatoes wafted into her room. "It's your favorite," she said, as if her daughter needed an additional inducement to get up. Her mother saw the single tear streak down Kaylee's cheek.

"What's wrong Kaylee?" she asked, her only daughter always being a little girl in her eyes.

"Nothing Mom," Kaylee replied, though Sandy knew that there was something troubling her.

"We're all in the dining room when you're ready." Sandy closed the door, not wanting to push her daughter. Their relationship was strained when Kaylee was a senior in high school, and her recent return home after her freshman year at college was awkward at best. Sandy wasn't quite sure how to handle Kaylee, as the young woman in the room was a different person than the girl who left home just nine short months ago. She didn't want to think about the fact that her daughter was living with homosexuals, or God forbid, that she was one.

So Kaylee's stomach churned as she thought of her summer in Cincinnati, working in her father's pool servicing business and dealing with the pettiness of her high school relationships. Of course Kaylee was wrong as to the latter. Her friends from high school had also gone off to college, to see life for themselves, unshackled from the cliques and prejudices of suburban Cincinnati, and they too had new experiences to share.

"Kaylee, dinner's ready!"

It was her brother Chad who was shouting. That meant the family was seated and waiting for her. Kaylee put the bear back on her bed and left the sanctity of her bedroom and into the time warp back to her childhood.

* * *

The dinner table looked as it always did. Her father Ted sitting at the head, her mother at the other end, flanked by Chad and herself. Kaylee took her usual seat, and suddenly her apathy to food turned to hunger. A plate heaping with crispy fried chicken, a bowl of mashed potatoes topped with pats of butter, and a gravy boat filled with the drippings of the fried chicken, were sitting in the center of the table. Everyone looked to Kaylee to begin, as the dinner was made to welcome her home.

"Hurry up Kiki!" Chad said, using the nickname that he first coined as a two year old when he couldn't pronounce Kaylee. The name stuck, and was used by her family and friends. Even though Kaylee liked her nickname, she never told her college mates as she wanted to get a fresh start in every respect.

Kaylee took a wing and a thigh and a heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes, dousing them with gravy. Her first bite reminded her that all was not bad when returning home. There was a certain comfort in eating with her family in familiar surroundings. She quickly fell into playful banter with her younger brother, much to the delight of her parents, the unexpected somberness of her homecoming hopefully already in the past.

* * *

Kaylee was always the apple of her father's eye, the overachiever and book smart student that Ted never was. Ted achieved his modest success through hard work, building his pool maintenance business, marrying his high school sweetheart, and saving enough money to buy a house in the suburbs and to help with Kaylee's expenses at school. Fortunately, Kaylee received a generous grant from the university that helped defray the bulk of her college costs.

It was expected that Kaylee would return home for the summer. Summer internships at her level in school were difficult to procure (it being customary to secure an internship after the junior year), so Kaylee knew she'd be spending the summer working in her father's business. The summer was the busiest time for Ted's business, and Kaylee's prior experience made her invaluable seasonal addition to his crew. It wasn't Kaylee's first, or even second or third choice, to spend her summer as a pool maintenance worker, but she realized that her parents had made a significant sacrifice to help pay for her college, so she didn't raise a fuss when her father penciled her into the summer work schedule.

Ted and Sandy were full-time occupied raising Chad and running Ted's business (Sandy was the phone receptionist and bookkeeper). Kaylee required little attention as a child, with her nose often buried in a book. It's not to say that Kaylee didn't have a loving relationship with her parents, she did, but the emotional upheavals in her life made communication with her parents difficult at best.

Kaylee inherited her mother's good looks, tall, blonde and curvaceous, and dates in high school were frequent, with boys always hanging around her house. Her parents never gave a second thought to Kaylee's future. They assumed she'd eventually meet Mr. Right, probably in college, and pursue a promising career in business. They had no clue that Kaylee was questioning her sexual identity.

Kaylee alarm clock chirped at 5:30 a.m. She woke up disoriented at first until she realized she was at home and not in her house in Berkeley. It was still dark outside. She rubbed her eyes and wandered out into the kitchen. Ted was in there, dressed in his "Ted's Pool Service" polo shirt, making a pot of coffee.

"Tough morning Kiki?" he asked his daughter. Ted was a meat and potatoes guy, happy with a six pack on football Sunday and a once a week roll in the sack with his attractive wife. Kaylee realized that her father's interests were limited, and accepted him for what he was. At least he didn't have an agenda with regard to her future. He just wanted her to be happy.

"Uh huh," she grunted, shuffling into the kitchen in her fuzzy slippers.

"Coffee?" Ted asked.

Kaylee never drank coffee at home, but he didn't know if she had changed her habits. He wasn't surprised when she nodded her head yes. His baby was growing up.

The coffee machine gurgled as the last of the hot water passed through the grounds. Ted pulled the pot and poured Kaylee a full mug.

"Cream and sugar?"

"Nope, black's fine Dad."

Kaylee took a sip of the coffee. It wasn't as rich and concentrated as the Peet's Coffee she got used to in Berkeley, but it was coffee nonetheless, and helped her wake up. After all, Cincinnati was in the eastern time zone, so to Kaylee it was still 2:30 a.m.

"Got a full day pumpkin," Ted said. "I've got you going out at 7 a.m., with service calls every hour until noon. Then it's back to the shop to clean the equipment."

"Just kill me Dad," Kaylee groaned.

"Not until the summer's over, then I'll be happy to do it," he joked.

* * *

"Hey Carlton, what's up?" Kaylee asked. Kaylee arrived at the pool service's warehouse and maintenance facility a bit after 6 a.m., and the darkness had just given way to daylight.

Carlton was a young handsome African-American gent, nineteen, and also working at Ted's for the summer. Ted's partner in the business was Carlton's father, Anthony Backland. Ted and Anthony were high school buddies. Anthony was Ted's silent partner, furnishing most of the capital for the business, including financing for their small fleet of trucks. Carlton was home from Dartmouth, recruited to the rowing team and also making Dean's list every quarter.

Carlton stood up, his imposing 6' 4" frame towering over the adorable, but shorter, Kaylee. He dropped his rag into a bucket of soapy water.

"Just finishing up your truck Kaylee. Got to keep it sparkly for you."

Carlton did an extra amount of work on Kaylee's truck, washing the mats and cleaning out the bed of the truck (which hadn't been done in at least a year). Kaylee put her hands on her hips and admired his work. He dressed the tires so they were a shiny black.

"You spoil me," she told him, and meant it.

"Happy to do it."

Carlton had a crush on Kaylee since grade school. Even though Carleton was only one of a handful of African-American students in Kaylee's school system, it wasn't race that kept Carlton from expressing his feelings. It was the fact that his throat tightened up when he tried to say something that came from the heart. He watched her develop from a young girl to a beautiful woman, and his feelings went from affection to infatuation. Kaylee was one of the "popular" girls, which meant that she had no shortage of interest from the opposite sex. Carlton never thought he was in Kaylee's league.

Now they were working together again. The previous summer was torture for Carlton. He had the same job, and each time he saw Kaylee he asked himself if he had the guts to ask her out on a date. Unfortunately the answer was "no" to that question, which left him tied up in knots.

Kaylee couldn't help but look cute. Even in the same "Ted's" polo shirt that everyone else wore, it just looked better on her, molding to her curvy body with her long curly blonde hair spilling over the collar. Carlton was feeling the familiar tightening as he watched her go through the inventory in the bed of the pick-up and trying to think of something to say.

"It's going to be hot today," he finally said to her.

"Huh?" said Kaylee, looking up from her visual inspection of the assortment of pool chemicals in white plastic bottles.

"The weather, it's going to be hot."

Carlton then mentally kicked himself. What a fucking stupid thing to say. Why couldn't he compliment her instead of making some inane comment about the weather?

"Oh right, yeah, hot today," Kaylee mumbled and then went back to her inspection.

Carlton wandered off, feeling foolish again that he hadn't ginned up the courage to ask her out.

Chapter Two

An Unsettling Encounter

Kaylee got into her pick-up truck and started her route. First, the Blackburn residence and then a new account out in Mt. Pleasant, where the homes were estates. Traffic was light, which allowed her to get to the Blackburn's ten minutes early. She parked in their driveway and went through the side yard gate to the pool in the back. The pool was covered when it wasn't being used. She opened the automatic pool cover and then used her test kit to determine the chlorine level. She found that the water needed only a minor adjustment, added the necessary chemicals and then cleaned out the skimmer and the roving pool sweep. She could have done it in her sleep.

She got back into her truck and looked at her route sheet. She punched the address into the truck's GPS and she made her way to Mt. Pleasant, the land of big houses. Kaylee never had reason to drive in this neighborhood before that day, and was amazed by the sprawling estates, one after another, guarded by ornate gates. Her truck took her to a house at the far end of a cul-de-sac. The driveway was guarded by two impressively large white marble columns and arching gates made of pointed metal posts. There was a stainless steel call box mounted on the left of the driveway. Kaylee hit the "Call" button.

The speaker chirped as the phone inside the residence rang. On the fourth ring a raspy voice answered in the tinny speaker.

"Hello?"

"I'm Kaylee with Ted's Pool Service."

"Who?" the voice asked. It was Lena Peters talking. She had gotten only two hours sleep after a tender offer went awry. Her investment bank had a $50 million performance bonus riding on the deal. Her previous pool service was fired by Lena's personal assistant, Shakira Woods. Ted's was chosen by Shakira based on Ted's 4.5 star Yelp rating. Shakira was usually pretty buttoned down, but a fight with her husband left her a bit frazzled at work. She forgot to tell Lena that she fired the old pool service and hired Ted's. Lena was still loopy from the gummies she ate to calm her down from the five alarm fire that was raging in her cratering deal.

"Ted's Pool Service," Kaylee enunciated carefully.

The phone hung up. It was only programmed for a ten second conversation. Kaylee cursed, which was out of character for her. She had obviously woken up the poor women. Would she push the call button again and piss off the lady on the other end of the line or go back home to tell her father that she didn't service the new account he procured. It was Ted's job to push the marketing side of the business, as well as its operations, and new accounts were like hen's teeth in that competitive business.

Kaylee pushed the button. She'd rather face an angry stranger than an angry father.

"Hello?" the same voice said again.

"Ted's Pool Service."

Lena remembered that there was a video camera that Shakira ordered for the gate the previous month. There was an app on her phone. Lena fumbled through her purse to find her iPhone. She opened the "Home Security" app and found the camera for the gate. It looked like an attractive young woman in a truck bearing the "Ted's Pool Service" logo. Lena thought that maybe she'd forgotten the name of her own pool service. But it was Robinson's or Prescott's or something like that but nothing short like "Ted's."

The phone hung up.

Lena could have sworn she heard the word "fuck" right before the phone line went dead.

Lena took mercy on the young girl and used her phone to call the gate and open it.

Kaylee was about to leave (having unleashed a stream of explicatives that would make a sailor blush), when the gates finally opened. Kaylee popped the truck into gear and sped through before it closed. Katie was so flustered by the gate incident that she failed to see the low mounted sign that pointed to the left for the main house and to the right for the pool. She went left.

The driveway wound around to a modern steel and glass structure surrounded on three sides by a reflecting pond filled with near identical rounded flat black stones. Water cascaded into the pond from two tall stainless steel towers integrated into a modern sculpture. A sidewalk crossed the pond from the parking area to the house. There was no sign of a swimming pool so Kaylee went to the front door to find out where it was.

Lena had already gone back to bed, having done her duty in letting the pool service in, even though she didn't recognize the name. She pulled the covers over her filmy negligee, a favorite of hers from her last trip to Paris, and snuggled into her designer sheets. She was so strung out from the four gummies she ate that she almost immediately went back to sleep. Not more than a minute after she dozed off she heard the chime of the front doorbell. The sound reverberated off the glass walls and concrete floors.

"God fucking damn it!" Lena cursed to herself as she got up again. She dragged herself out of the warm bed, threw on a fluffy robe, and stomped to the front door. She saw Kaylee through the floor to ceiling windows and took three more strides to the heavy glass front door. Lena unlocked it and then opened it. The security alarm went off, startling both of them. Apparently Shakira had armed the security system when she left at 3 a.m. It was standard operating procedure, which Lena often forgot.

"Fucking shit!" she exclaimed before she realized she wasn't alone. She raced over to the alarm pad and punched in the abort code.

Lena was ordinarily a steady person, but the string of events put her in a snappy mood.

She went back to the open door, where Kaylee was patiently waiting. Lena noticed that Kaylee was an attractive woman that a baseball hat, polo shirt and faded jeans couldn't hide. A warmth passed through her that she hadn't felt before, but promptly ignored. The snappiness returned.