The Tranquility Anthology

=Golden Trunks=

Alex was a wealthy bachelor at the day-spa.

It was a place where his presence shocked absolutely no one. After all, being the son to the leader of the free world came with its perks.

Exiting the boiling hot sauna, he heard the sweet sounds of summer pour in through his ears from 'outside', his mind only half-processing them as it was dazed by eucalyptic-laced steam.

The bottom hemisphere of the Earth was, after all, facing the sun at the time of his stay at Tranquility Base. The moon followed shortly behind.

Outside, just a floor-length window away and a few metres to a door nearby, was the pool.

The day-spa was where men with gold chains, six figures on card and crippling marriage issues, tended to waste their time. The pool, as those same men liked to describe it, was for 'everyone else.'

Alex peered through the window at the sight. A scene snatched from a seventies pool party.

A large, curved and cyan blue pool stood proudly in the centre, the water splashing about as various guests were using this perk to their full advantage. Some dived from the diving boards, some held breath contests underwater and some were playing water polo with people going as far to stand on the shoulders of their teammates to heave a ball over the net.

Others were relaxing, in shaded deck chairs, or beside the pool edge, white smiles and sunglasses on every single face. Palm trees dotted everywhere.

Alex being Alex, he paid particular attention to the women. Their feathery, bouffant blow-outs and flower-patterned swimsuits, some puckering for a cigarette with bedroom eyes towards the men they were talking to in the 'daytime'. Reds, oranges, and pinks.

To suit the general consensus of these men, they became bendable figures with a fresh new pack of lies. Telling them anything they wanted to hear to lower their defences, and strike while their iron rods were hot.

What bloody brillant scheming.

Alex prided himself on being able to detect most of their deceptions. He was exceptionally good at sensing them all.

Except for one's.

A figure moved across the window, from his right to his left, the black universe in her backdrop beside the rows of occupied deck chairs.

A Barbarella silver swimsuit. Flowing and flaming auburn red hair, and with a walk reminding everyone that she'd probably forget you after the first five seconds of knowing you.

However, not to Alex. No, their first night together at the bar, he'd ended up whispering in her ear while she carefully caressed the ring on his pinky with a smirk.

She'd gifted him a small golden locket charm, the same with which he began fondling with in the pocket of his trunks. He kept it on him everywhere.

But last night, he tossed and he turned. His psyche's subcommittee sang to him in its scary voice, twisting the events and interactions into something bad.

It was the particular fault of running into his mother just as he'd left the bar, on his way to meet her in her suite.

"I'm warning you Alexander, she is bad news. She wants nothing from you but our money. Don't let her deceive you..."

Had she forgotten him yet? Was she deceiving him like the others were deceiving those very same men 'outside'?

Shoulders squared and a confident hand running through his greaser quiff, he trotted lazily to the pool outside.