When Jules had first moved to Knoxville for grad school, she got the job managing the pool to help put her through school. Her Teaching Assistantship didn’t pay her enough to live on, and she didn’t want to take out loans. Therefore, she relied on her years of supervising and managing pools throughout high school and college to land an easy gig that paid a regular salary with city employee benefits. Her first day on the job, she self-diagnosed several of the most experienced lifeguards with an authority complex. They had worked there for years and weren’t used to being told what to do, and they weren’t used to even pretending to be professional. They were disrespectful to her, and she quickly decided the best way to deal with it was to demonstrate a strong work ethic and professional attitude, and to never stray from that line.

She had fired the worst offenders within her first few weeks, and ended up covering a lot of the lifeguarding herself because of it. Within her first few months at the pool, she had increased the amount of money the pool brought in, while decreasing the overall number of employee hours, and her bosses had decided to reward her with more responsibility. They wanted her to teach classes about city policies, which primarily meant teaching sexual harassment and sensitivity training. They also relied on her Lifeguarding, CPR, and First Aid Instructor status to teach and certify most of the city employees in first aid and CPR. All of these responsibilities kept her away from the pool more often, and gave her less control of the delicate balance of maintaining high standards. The end result was that she had been working this job for almost two years and still struggled to get her lifeguards to avoid saying things like “fuck” and “cunt” within earshot of kids and mothers, much less getting them to come to work on time.

But with Ben, she didn’t have to worry about any of that. He was kind to everyone, and she knew that if he was on the schedule, she could be away from the pool that day, because he kept things under control. He was a good worker, and the other lifeguards respected him. The first night she actually talked to him like a normal human being, instead of pretending to be a hard-ass, she realized that she did so because she was attracted to him. She became aware of her attraction that night, after he locked the front door to the pool and stood in front of her as if sizing her up. It was when he looked into her eyes and smiled. That night, she knew things had changed between them.

It wasn’t only his maturity she liked. She also wanted his sexy body.