Drown With Me

The summer sun's heat plays off the pool's playful waters. The scent of dry air and wet chlorine, hot food and cold drink wafts on the faint breeze. The sounds of splashing water mingles with the chatter of the patrons sitting nearby. You shake up another margarita, pass it to the customer perched on a barside stool, and drop the money in the cash register.

There's nothing quite like owning your own poolside bar.

On one hand, because your outside bar has a pool, the summer months mean your business is plentiful. And on the other, because your pool has an outside bar, there are no children screaming or splashing around, and no rowdy teens pushing each other into the pool and blatantly disregarding other swimmers. Everyone needs to be over 21 to drink at the bar, so no one under that limit bothers turning up. Instead they aim for the local beach or a nearby family pool. The result; a cheery atmosphere where people can cool off in peace, and enjoy a cold drink of beer, cider or whatever cocktail you can muster.

Of course, even the most idyllic paradise has its problems. The Dazzlings, a trio of swimsuit-clad delinquents from who-knows-where, have volunteered to be yours.

The sound of hard plastic slapping on the counter catches your attention; a girl's ID being thrown decisively onto the bar. Adagio Dazzle, a woman who seems to be made purely out of puffy orange hair and sass, gives you a smirk.

Out of the three Dazzlings, two have been a source of irritation since day one. Weeks ago, you tried to use their apparent youth as an excuse to shoo them out of the bar, but somehow their IDs insist they're in their early thirties. You had to double-, triple- and quadruple-check those cards to make sure they were real, but nothing about the IDs seemed fake.

"The usual?" you ask, pushing the ID back towards her; you aren't giving her the satisfaction of checking it yet again.

"You know it," she replies coolly.

It's strange to think of them as over thirty, considering how young they look. It was as if they'd gained some sort of unnatural longevity on their eighteenth birthday. There was a brief time you thought they had to be vampires, but that was quickly disproven; they waltz around your pool-bar in broad daylight all the time.

You begin by drizzling some lime juice and sugar into a glass, then adding in a few mint leaves.

So, what else can you do? Technically, none of them have done wrong, and they always pay for their drinks. Sure, two of them occasionally try flirting and manipulating the other customers, but that's not really any of your business. In fact, there have been several times other guys at the bar have brought them drinks with the intention of getting lucky. More sales for you.

You jam some cracked ice into the glass, and splash a moderate amount of rum over it.

And the third girl? She keeps to herself. She rarely ever buys drinks, preferring to stay in the pool; the only reason you know her name as Sonata Dusk is because of her seldom-used ID. You'll often see her dip under the pool's surface, only to come back up a few minutes later, coughing and spluttering. It's safe to assume she's the odd one of the group.

You top off the drink with soda water, and garnish it with a sprig of mint and a straw.

Honestly, you think Adagio asks for a mojito every day because she knows it's one of the most time-consuming drinks to make. It could be worse, you suppose; it's far more stressful to make a mojito in, say, a packed nightclub with a bar surrounded by other thirsty patrons rather than a chilled poolside bar where everyone's laid back.

But yeah, screw Adagio.

Finally, you pass the drink to the paying customer. Adagio takes it and gives you a smile with no latent smugness whatsoever. Cough.

"So, what's new for the Dazzlings?" you try to force some conversation as you stuff the money in the register. They're pretty much regulars now, so you might as well treat them as such. "Still trying to work on this charm magic you mentioned once?"

Honestly, you never thought you'd say a sentence quite like that. It was only a few years ago the very idea of magic, however scarce, was discovered. Since then, people just kind of... accepted it. There was never enough of it in this world to pose too much of a threat, and if there was, the consequences were far away from this summertime retreat. No point in worrying about it. But it's a talking point, nonetheless.

"Sonata isn't, she quit a long time ago. But Aria and I continue to experiment," Adagio pushes the mint leaves around with her straw absent-mindedly, then takes a generous sip. "We used to be able to bend anyone to our will with a song. But things change. Now we have to rely on other means."

You check the pool area that stretches behind Adagio - though you have to crane you neck quite a bit to see past all the hair. Aria's already trying to flirt with a sunbathing hunk, and Sonata's nowhere to be seen. You suspect she's already at the bottom of the pool again.

"What's the deal with Sonata?" you ask. "Is she training as a free-diver or something?"

"Nah, she's just being nostalgic." Adagio doesn't add more that that. Either she's not telling you the whole story, or she simply doesn't care. You'd believe both. "But enough about her, let's talk more about me."

Pushing her already half-empty mojito to the side, Adagio leans forward on her stool and gives you the half-lidded, flirtatious stare you've seen her give many other men around the pool. Because she's leaning forward, her breasts are pushed up slightly by the counter itself, and the resulting cleavage peering from her bikini top is about as subtle as a neon sign that says "wanna fuck?".

"I've been trying a new technique to get other people to do my bidding," she explains. At least, you think that's what she said. You're too busy appreciating how her chest moves as she's breathing. "Is this working, or would you prefer a more hands-on approach?"

The world is full of people like her. The beautiful types who think that, just because they're pretty, the world owes them something. Those that think having sex with someone means they rightfully own them, because why else would they do something so intimate with you? Love? Pfft.

The rule-of-thumb with girls like her is that you're free to acknowledge their flaunting - within reason, of course - but don't touch unless you can deal with the repercussions.

"You're hot, but I don't think we'd work out," you try not to make it sound like a flat-out rejection, although that's exactly what it is. "You can probably do better than me."

Adagio takes it about as well as you expected her to.

"Of course I can do better than you!" she brushes you off, immediately sitting up on the stool, ending her bikini's peep-show. "I just thought the gentleman who's been mixing mojitos for me all summer wanted to, just this once, take a load off. I was being nice."

You can't help but notice how she said the word 'nice'. It sounded like a snake hissing.

"I appreciate that, I really do," you reassure her. "But like you said, it'd be a just-this-once fling, and I couldn't possibly jeopardize the relationship of my..." - this last part's gonna be hard to say with a straight face - "favourite regulars."

Are you giggling? Is your face creasing up? No? Good.

"Ugh. Whatever." The apparently-thirty-year-old woman is behaving more like the stroppy teen that she looks like. "I'm not mad at you for turning me down, I'm just mad that it didn't work."

"What didn't work?" you ask. Instead of an answer, Adagio sucks down the rest of the mojito and pushes the empty glass back to you just in time for Aria Blaze, clad in a tighter-than-appropriate bikini of her own, to reach the bar.

"Adagio, I got bad news about our latest technique," Aria says. "When I tried to flirt with that hunk back there..."

"Let me guess, our theory of being able to tap into our charm magic via sex appeal is a complete bust?" the great poofy-haired sass-girl replies.

"Uh... yeah. How'd you know?"

"Forget it. Just get Sonata out of the pool and let's go." With that, Adagio, scoots out from the stool and walks for the exit, trying not to make it look like she's storming off. Which she totally is.

"C'mon, Sonata!" Aria calls out over the pool, loud enough for her voice to reach the girl at the bottom. "We're leaving, it's back to the drawing board!"

The third member of their group rises from the water with a gasp. "Aww, already?" she moans. "We only just got here!"

"We'll come back another time," Aria rolls her eyes. "We just need new ideas on how to charm people first, or else we're just wasting our time here."

Sonata sighs to herself, before slowly paddling over to the pool ladder.

You've seen this girl climb that ladder so many times before, but you never get tired of watching it. Two silky, powder-blue hands hold the metal frame steady as she lifts herself out, highlighting the two glinting spiked wristbands. The water droplets run down her wet ponytail, and onto her tight one-piece swimsuit. The sunlight catches the soaked, purple fabric of the swimsuit, which adds a glistening sheen to her lithe form under it. On most days, you would even notice her chest heaving from her breath-holding routine, but she hasn't spent nearly enough time underwater today for that to be the case. It's a shame that she doesn't talk to you much; of all the Dazzlings, she's the one you'd most want to talk to. She's also the only one you'd genuinely consider having-

"Sex on the Beach, please!"

"Huh?"

It takes a moment for you to snap back to reality. A customer's giving you an expectant look, already clutching the right amount of cash for the aforementioned cocktail. By the time you finish mixing the drink, the Dazzlings are long gone.