I hadn’t seen Aidan all week. He was becoming so popular on the comedy circuit that he had three separate paid gigs on top of his usual work. Meanwhile, I was busy catching up with overdue coursework. On Saturday, we agreed to meet up and do something relaxing together, but I had just enough time for a quick swim first.

I limited myself to thirty minutes. As I was climbing out of the pool, a couple of friends from the swimming society jumped in, challenging me to a friendly 200-metre freestyle race. I didn’t want to be late for my boyfriend, but it would only take five extra minutes. I’m glad I agreed, as I was already warmed up and beat both girls by a length.

I stepped back into the locker room. Trying to save time, I removed my swimsuit as I stepped into the shower area. A slightly chubby young guy wearing tight swim shorts was facing the wall. I stood under a shower at the opposite side of the room. He turned his head around briefly when he heard the water starting up, then turned away again without a word. The flow would stop automatically after a short delay. He would switch it back on, but I noticed he didn’t seem to be washing himself.

I thought it was weird, but I minded my own business, at least for the moment.

I would normally blow-dry my hair after dressing, but I left it wet to save time. I then discreetly looked back into the shower. The guy was still acting the same way.

Now I was curious. ‘Are you all right?’ I said from the doorway of the shower area. ‘You've been in here a while.’

I must have surprised him. ‘Er… f-fine, yes, thanks.’ He turned his head to look at me but his body remained facing the wall.

‘I'm not convinced about that.’ I tried a different tactic. ‘Are you a student here?’

‘No, but it's my first time here.’

‘How did you get in, then?

‘My brother paid me in. He's in the gym.’ I'd almost forgotten we had a gym because I never used it.

‘So why aren’t you out there swimming?’

‘Just… not ready yet.’

With an inkling about what was up, I pushed a little deeper. ‘Is it your first time in a mixed locker?’

He nodded, still with his head barely turned to me. ‘School’s putting in one next year.’

‘School? How old are you? Are you allowed to be in here?’

‘Sixteen. It's eighteen for the gym. I’m only allowed in the pool.’

‘Turn around to me.’ He froze in place. ‘Just turn and face me,’ I coaxed.

He slowly complied, moving both hands in front of his swim shorts. It didn’t do much to disguise the long bulge from the middle to one side.

What I thought was up really was up. ‘I see your problem.’

He spoke quickly. ‘It’s not going down. I was fine when my brother was here, then two girls came in and started changing and they were just… I didn’t look, but then… this happened. And they went out and you came in and I knew you were behind me without anything on. Look, it’s just not going to budge and I can’t go out there like this.’

I nodded and tried to sympathise. ‘It’s normal when you first come in here.’

‘I don't know how I'll cope at school next year.’

I tried again. ‘I felt the same. You’ll just learn to ignore it. Well… obviously I don’t have your equipment but my clit would get hard knowing there were naked men next to me.’ Even as I spoke, I realised the comparison was futile because I didn’t create a bulge in my swimsuit.

‘Is it hard now?’ he asked.

It absolutely was. Even though I couldn’t control it, I felt guilty being aroused by a schoolboy. I didn’t want to fuel his fantasy, but I didn’t want to leave him this way.

I lowered my voice. ‘Here’s what we’ll do. Face the wall again, take care of… um, business, and I’ll be the lookout. If I see someone, I’ll cough loudly. Got it?’

‘Are you meaning… do it here?’

‘I'm not touching you or watching you. You're too young and I have a boyfriend.’ Anticipating his next question, I quickly added, ‘I'm not getting naked again either. Be quick. We don’t know how long we’ve got.’

He faced away and did as I instructed.

There was no sweet spot in the shower area where I could see both the entrance to the locker room in one direction and the exit to the pool in the other, so I would need to keep turning my head.

I never saw his penis, but I could tell by his arm movements that he’d popped it out of his swim shorts and was giving it all he had. On the couple of occasions I’d watched Aidan masturbating, there was always the sound of slapping skin, but this boy was remarkably quiet. I hadn’t planned to do it along with him, but my hand somehow found its way into my panties.

A few minutes later, I heard the entrance door creak and I coughed. We both removed our hands from our genitals. She was going into the bathroom area rather than the changing room.

‘Keep going,’ I prompted, ‘we won’t have very long before she’s out.’

We both carried on our self-stimulation, still with the boy facing the wall. It didn’t take long for me to silently climax and I closed my eyes as I enjoyed my orgasm. Only after that moment did I realise I should simply have offered him a towel to cover up, directed him to the bathroom and let him take care of himself there.

Still, when I opened my eyes, I found he’d finished as well, leaving a sizeable load on the wall.

‘Woah,’ I remarked without thinking. ‘Is that all you?’

‘All me.’

‘Is that… normal?’

‘Pretty much.’

In my shock, I realised one hand was still down my panties. He definitely saw me remove it, but he didn’t comment and I resisted licking my fingers in front of him.

‘How does that feel?’ I asked.

‘Pretty good.’ He looked down at himself. ‘It'll hopefully go down in a minute.’

I pointed at the wall. ‘You’ll need to rinse that.

He switched on the shower, filled his cupped hands with water and threw it against the wall until his semen disappeared down the drain. I placed my hands under the shower to wash my own fluid off them, shook off most of the water, and wiped the rest on my top; it needed to go in the wash anyway.

‘I need to meet my boyfriend. Enjoy your swim.’

‘Thanks.’

I walked back into the changing room and he went the opposite way into the pool. As I was about to head to reception, a man entered the locker room and the woman in the bathroom came out.

‘Excuse me,’ he asked us both, ‘you haven’t seen my brother, have you?’ After a pause, he added, ‘Sixteen, really shy.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think he’s in the pool now. Go through.’

‘Great. He’s forgotten his goggles again. He’s that age: girls on the brain, no room for anything else up there.’ He walked through the locker room and shouted, ‘Jamie!’

Like his little brother, he had a chubby body type, but I was so much more attracted to the mature version. I hoped I’d see him around more often.

As I left, Dawn pointed at me from the reception desk. ‘Oh! Naughty naughty!’

My heart rate increased. Had she seen what I’d been up to? Surely not; there was nobody else about. Still, I didn’t want to defend myself before being accused. ‘What have I done?’

‘Oh! Not you, me. I forgot to sign you in.’ The relief swept over me. ‘I’m such a silly sausage. Nice swim?’

‘Not bad, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

‘See what I mean? Saturday morning is the new Sunday morning. People think the pool is quieter on a Sunday morning, so that causes everyone to come and make it busy, so it leaves Saturday much quieter. So it’s better to come on a Saturday when it’s actually dead and not on a Sunday when everyone thinks it is.’

If I had more time, I would have told her I’d heard it a hundred times and that if she kept saying it, the opposite would eventually be true. I instead left her with, ‘Thanks. I’ll remember that,’ and made a quick escape.

Only on the walk up to Aidan’s house did it sink in what I’d just done. I’d told a sixteen-year-old boy to masturbate in front of me and ended up orgasming along with him. I then tried to rationalise it by listing the small saving graces: I’d helped stop the social embarrassment of his erection, we didn’t touch each other, we didn’t see each other’s genitals, we didn’t hear each other orgasm. Even with all that said, there were better ways I could have dealt with the situation. And what if he said something to Dawn or his brother? At least he didn’t know my name, but they could probably work it out from my description.

The jumble of thoughts continued as I entered Aidan’s street. I convinced myself I would need to tell him everything, even if it meant an argument or even the end of our relationship. I decided just to get it over with when I walked in, then it wouldn’t be eating away at me.

I rang the buzzer and waited to be let in, trying to figure out how to say what I’d just done. Should I come straight out with it or work up to it?

When Aidan showed me in, I was surprised to find Matt in the living room.

‘Hello,’ I said, then hesitated. I settled for asking the obvious question, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hi. I've… we need to tell you something,’ said Matt.

‘Oh,’ I said, looking at Aidan. ‘Well, I need to tell you something.

Aidan jumped in. ‘We should definitely go first.’

‘Go on, then.’ This would buy me some time to figure out the best words for the situation.

They told me they'd ended up kissing after the comedy gig the previous night, each boy adding another part to what the other said. They made it clear that Matt had come around that morning to discuss the matter and hadn't stayed the night. Both were very apologetic and promised it would never happen again.

Oddly, it made me feel better as I mentally balanced up their story against mine. For a start, I hadn't touched the guy I was with, whereas they'd kissed for ages by both accounts.

Once I was certain they'd finished the story, I tried to sound forgiving rather than relieved they'd done something worse than I had. ‘I can hardly be mad. You've had your dicks in each other's mouths before.’

‘I know,’ said Matt, but that was all arranged and you were there to supervise it and make sure we didn't go too far.

‘You didn’t even go that far this time, so I suppose no harm, no foul. Anyway, we all agreed penetration should happen at some point. Why don't we talk about that?’

‘First, what did you want to tell us before we told you that?’

‘Oh, that.’ I had to think on my feet. ‘It doesn't seem so bad now. It was just I had more coursework than I thought I did, so I'll be busy for another week or so yet.’

‘I see,’ said Aidan, ‘was that all it was? It sounded more important.’

‘That was it. I just read a section wrong, so I’ll need to write more words than I expected. Anyway,’ I said, hoping to change the subject, ‘we need to talk about sex. Like playing safe, dull as that is. Aidan and I are obviously safe with each other and it's not that I don't trust you, Matt…’ I trailed off as I couldn’t figure out how to finish that sentence, but he was way ahead of me.

‘I suppose now would be a good time to tell you,’ he said. ‘Just before the blindfold day, I got tested just in case you changed your mind about penetration. All clear, as always. I can’t get pregnant either. A lot has been done down there; it’s not happening.’

‘Okay,’ I said, before thinking for a moment. ‘Well, if you boys are both happy, you need to get on with it. You, um, don’t mind if I watch again?’

‘I can’t speak for Aidan, but I’d be offended if you didn’t.’

‘And I can’t speak for Matt, but I’d be offended if you didn’t join in.’

My encounter in the locker room was still eating away at me, but as the boys leaned in to kiss again, I put it aside for the moment.