CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Sidebar Travis
I had just finished practice when my roommate Pablo came through the door. "Hey, Travis. Wanna earn some beer money?"
Pablo was from Brazil, and like me, he had been recruited to swim for the George Washington University swim team. His specialty was the middle distances, while I wasn't any good past 200 meters. We both only had a handful of meets left before our college careers would be over, and neither of us had a clue what we were to do then.
I had found college to be particularly daunting and for almost my whole time at GW, I had to have tutoring and struggled to keep my GPA high enough to compete. Much to the consternation of coaches, teachers, and particularly my father back in Austin, Texas who feared that I'd lose my scholarship every marking period.
"What do I have to do?" I asked, responding to Pablo's question.
"Help move some furniture and help fix a few things, I think. Maybe a couple of hours in the evening one day next week."
I got up and cracked a couple of beers, and as we drank, Pablo explained that one of his friend's mother had asked if he knew anyone that could help out an older woman friend of hers for $100 apiece for about two hours.
It sounded good to me. My part-time job in the Student Union paid $3 an hour, and because of practice and swim meets, I could only work about ten hours a week. Not near enough to keep our fridge stocked.
Mrs. Boyer lived off a small side street that connected to Virginia Avenue in an exclusive neighborhood in North Cleveland Park which was only about a fifteen-minute drive. So at four p.m. the following Wednesday, we found ourselves walking up the wide steps leading to a nice two-story brick house with a white-pillared porch located next to the Embassy of Uruguay. I turned to Pablo and pointed to the pale blue stripes of its flag and said, "Nice neighbors."
It only took us a few minutes to move and relocate the three pieces of furniture and erect a tall step ladder to clean and replace some burned-out lights in the huge chandelier that hung from the two-story high foyer. Mrs. Boyer, who insisted that we call her Liz, smiled and gave us each $150 in cash. It appeared that she lived alone in the big house since there didn't seem to be any evidence of a Mr. Boyer and Liz didn't choose to enlighten us on that subject. As Pablo went to put the ladder away. Liz pulled me closer and in a low voice said, "I always need a strong man to help out, but I don't need two. If you want to come back, I'll have more again next week." Then she held a single finger to her lips as if that were to be our little secret.
I called her the next week and she said to come on over. When I arrived she had company. She introduced me to her friend who insisted that I call her Lanny, which I learned later was a shortening of 'Dulaney.' Again some modest jobs were easily dispatched, so we ended up just talking. The women seemed fascinated by my swimming career and they had me describe my training regimen in some detail.
Lanny thought my body looked "sculpted" and asked what exercises I did to achieve that. It seemed to surprise her when I said that it was all the result of just swimming, and I pointed out all of the muscle groups that were involved in the freestyle and butterfly strokes I swam. I saw Lanny look at Liz, and some silent communication passed between them, but I was clueless about what it might have been.
That was the same week that I busted up with my girlfriend. Darla and I had been an item for almost two years, and - I guess- like most men when I was thrusting my seven inches into her, oh so sweet, pussy, I thought I was in love with her. Other times, when she seemed to be impatient with my lack of ambition, not so much.
It had come to a head over that very subject. It had been obvious to me that she was more than ready to get an M.R.S. degree, but she needed some assurance that I was ready to, not only fuck her but support her and any future children we might have. My lackadaisical response to those needs was the last straw. She called me some unrepeatable names and that was that. I was devastated, then surprisingly... relieved.
The following week, Liz seemed to be 'all ears' as somehow we got on the subject of my breakup with Darla. Liz came over and sat next to me on her sofa and put her arm around my shoulders and rubbed my back. She asked about the prospect of getting back together with Darla or perhaps some other girl, but I said, I'd had it for a while. I would be graduating in a few weeks and, at least for me, the pain wasn't worth the gain.
Her response was a softly uttered, "Mmmm, we'll see." I hadn't done much of anything during my last two visits, but Liz still gave me $150 each time, and she insisted that I return the following week.
That weekend, I swam the race of my life and ended up qualifying for the Nationals, which would be held in Indianapolis the following month, by which time I would have already graduated. This extended my stay in Washington a couple of more weeks, so I kept returning to help Liz with her 'chores.'
Because of extended practices, I wasn't able to go at 4 p.m. the next week, but when I called, Liz said to just come over when I finished. There was a team meeting after practice, so I didn't get there until after seven that evening, but when I arrived, I was in for a surprise.
Unlike all of my previous visits, Liz wasn't dressed as she usually was. Normally, she was attired in an expensive-looking skirt and blouse with low-heeled comfortable-looking shoes and her blonde streaked hair pulled up in a bun or fastened with a clip. This evening, it appeared that she was dressed for bed!
For a fifty-something woman, Liz Boyer was damned good-looking. She wasn't tall enough to be considered 'statuesque,' but her thin, delicate frame could give one that impression. Her figure curved in all the right places and as I now regarded her, dressed in a flimsy white silk nightgown, I noted that her alabaster breasts were much more than the proverbial 'mouthful."
Liz had also slipped on a green dressing gown, but it was only loosely tied and did nothing to hide Liz's female charms. She said she was just having a drink after dinner and she invited me into a small room just off the kitchen that I can only describe as a sitting room. There was a loveseat and two chairs in front of a small fireplace and a sideboard with an impressive array of liquor bottles. Liz didn't bother asking, but just poured me two fingers of Drambuie in a crystal glass and led me to the loveseat.
She took one of the other chairs and asked me about the Nationals. I was pleased that she seemed genuinely interested in the one thing that I was really good at, but her questions always left me a little puzzled. As a general rule, unless you happened to be related to one of the swimmers, I didn't think there were many fifty-year-old women fans of the sport.
