Annie XXX: Pooling Resources

(Chronological index: Ray as College Junior)

Ray drifted for a while after the breakup with Deliah. He maintained his studies but his social life went no further than the TV lounge.

Annie gauged that his depression had passed on the night of the chocolate syrup. Now he was just apathetic. He kept the curtains closed and the lights off and shaved only at random. It was kind of like midterms, but with a lot more sleep.

After a few weeks of this, his pet confronted him. She put on her slinkiest little black dress, the slightly mismatched high heeled shoes and spent some careful time on her hair.

Ray came into the room, tossed his book bag on the bed and turned to go back out. She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled as for a cab.

"Oi! Lonely guy! Come here!"

He turned back around. She kicked the desk lamp on. The light worked as a spotlight in the dim room. There were little sparkles in her dress and a couple in her hair.

"Annie? You look great. What's going on?"

"Aw, thanks," she said with a little bow. "Let's go out!"

"Out? Why?"

"Ray, I once described our relationship as being based on shit. My master, I said, puts up with about as much shit as he wants, then he puts me in the cage."

He sat down at the desk and reached to pick her up. She skipped away from his hand. He let his hand drop back to his lap. "Annie, you're not in trouble. I'm just…"

"I didn't say I was in trouble," she replied. "I just think I've put up with about enough of your shit. Get up. Get out. Meet people. I don't care if we go change Michael's diapers for Susan or see a movie or…or anything! OUT!"

"Or you'll put me in a cage?" he said with a teasing smile.

"Or I'll start inviting people HERE!" she threatened. She pointed over her shoulder. "I can shout 'beer' out that window and you'll have ten strangers in this room in fifteen seconds. Twenty, if practice is over."

"Oh, God," he moaned. "Not jocks."

"Angry jocks. Once they find there's no beer."

"Okay, I surrender," he said with raised hands. "We'll go out. Someplace nice."

"And you'll shower?" she asked.

"What? I showered this morning!"

"Right before going to Calculus," she said with a nod.

"Yeah."

"You take Calculus on Thursdays," she pointed out. She let him do the math. He didn't say anything, just grabbed his towel and started to strip.

She politely didn't do her endzone dance until he was out of the room.

----

Susan and Thomas were out of town. On reflection, Annie realized that hanging out with a loving couple probably wasn't where Ray needed to be.

Ray stared off into space, trying to think of someplace to go. "No, no, figure it out on the way," she said. Her waving motions actually got him moving towards the door.

"On the way where?" he asked as he picked her up.

"We'll figure that out on the way! OUT!"

He got to the car and started driving. She stood on the carrier and looked from him to the road.

"We could go to that electronics store at the mall," he threatened.

"Fine, great, good," Annie said.

"What? You hate that store!"

"I hate the way you ignore me in that store," she corrected. "But maybe you can leverage your hardware skills into a conversation with another human being."

"So… I have your permission to go to Zappit and Wrappit? To take you? And then ignore you?"

"Provided you talk to a human," she allowed. "At least once an hour."

"Alright," he said. He showed more animation than he had in quite a while, so Annie considered it a victory.

--------------

Ray came to a complete halt at the door. Annie wrapped some of his hair around a fist and leaned out to see around his head.

A young woman stood in the stereo section. If she wasn't at least a former cheerleader, Annie would eat dogfood for a week.

Platinum blonde hair framed a freckled face with about thirty dimples. Her breasts were pneumatic, her other curves complementary. She was pulling display units out to look at their backs. Her expression was puzzled and edging into frustrated.

Annie swung back and forth but couldn't see any of the store's salesmen. She grabbed his earlobe and pulled her face into the shell of his ear.

"You should go help her, Ray," she said.

"You'll never stop teasing me about trying to meet her," he muttered.

"I'll give you a pass on this one. Besides, you can't look at toys without talking to a person. You promised." He hadn't, but his defenses were down in the face of such lusty beauty.

He finally shook his head and walked over. "Um, you look like you're trying to find something? Can I help?"

"Oh! Hi! Do you work here?"

"No. But I probably spend more time here than most of the sales reps. Are you thinking of buying a stereo?"

"I have one," she explained. "But I got it home, and there's no sound. I can't figure what I did wrong. I was going to ask what I needed to do, but no one's in this department."

Thank god, he thought. He almost swore he heard an echo of the sentiment coming from his shoulder. Annie was laying close to his neck, trying to be inconspicuous.

"And then you decided to look at the display units to see if you did anything different?" he asked.

"Exactly!" she said with a wide smile. "And I thought that up all by myself!"

"It's only logical," he said. "So, did you find anything different?"

"No," she said. Her smile dimmed. "I just can't understand it."

"Well," he said. "Maybe you have the cables in the wrong connections, or not in tight enough, or… It could be a few different things."

"Oh," she said. She chewed her lip and looked around the room. Annie kicked Ray's neck.

"I, uh, I could take a look at it for you. If you want?"

Blondie looked at him suspiciously. "You are volunteering to come all the way to my apartment and see to my stereo?" she asked. "Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose?"

Before he could say anything, Annie jumped up and tugged on his ear. "You can't go to her place!" she shouted. "We're going to get ice cream!"

"OOOH! You have a sylph!"

"Yeah," he admitted. He reached up and plucked his pet off his shoulder. "And, well, I did promise her ice cream."

"Promised!" Annie shouted at him. She looked up at the other woman. "He promised. He really did."

"Oh, she's adorable. What's her name?"

"Annie," Ray said. "And I'm Ray."

"And I'm Cindy," she said, offering her hand. He shook it. She turned down to face the sylph. "Annie?" she asked, speaking slowly. "We have ice cream at my place. Would it be okay if you had some of that while Ray fixes my stereo?"

"I dunno," Annie replied, just as slowly. "What flavor is it?"

-------

Annie didn't crow about clinching the deal. Somehow that made it worse for Ray. As he followed Cindy's car back to her place, he could feel waves of satisfaction radiating from his sylph.

She just sat and watched the car in front of them.

"Okay," he finally said. "Okay, thanks."

"For what?" she asked. She seemed genuinely surprised.

"For sealing the deal with Cindy," he said. "She thought I was being forward, and a little creepy, and you became my babe magnet. Voluntarily. So… Thanks."

"Oh. Hey, I just wanted you to spend more time with a human being." She waved dismissively. "We still don't know if she has a boyfriend. Or a husband. Or if she teaches someplace on campus."

"Oh," he said soberly. "Right."

"So, no expectations of sexing," she said. "But you are actively engaged and socializing." She licked her finger and made a gesture. "So that's an upcheck for today."

"Yeah, maybe tomorrow you can get me a date with someone else that's off bounds. Like a grandma," he muttered. She made another check-off gesture.

Cindy waited on the sidewalk as he got out of the car. The house she parked at was a quad-plex. There were a few muscle cars beside the place but no one visible on the porch, balconies or lawn.

"We're on the second floor," Cindy said. "Can… Can I carry Annie for a bit?"

Ray opened his mouth to turn her down. That would lead to a discussion of how careful he was about Annie, and how hard it was to trust another person. Her tendency to pee on strangers was his last resort.

To his utter surprise, Annie answered before he did. "You'll have to be very careful," she was saying. "Have you ever carried a sylph before?" A stunned Ray followed in their wake.

Cindy lived in the second floor apartment. She carried Annie inside, telling Ray to wait in the hall for a second.

Annie sat patiently in the blonde's hand as she found her roommate.

A busty blonde was sunbathing topless on the balcony. "Hey, Crystal! We have a visitor who's going to fix the stereo. Put your shirt on."

The roomie complied as Cindy carried Annie to the kitchen. "We have vanilla and French vanilla," she said, taking a carton from the freezer.

"What the hell is that?" Annie asked. "I've never heard of that brand."

"You've never had frozen yogurt?" Cindy asked, shocked. Annie stared up in horror.

"Where's the guy from the store?" Crystal asked as she walked inside.

"He's in the hall, until you cover up," Cindy. "I was giving Annie, here, a snack."

"Oooooh! A sylph! Where'd you get her?" She reached out. Cindy spun around to block her from the sylph.

"GET RAY!" Annie shouted.

"Oh, yeah!" Cindy opened the door and introduced Crystal. They both followed him to the stereo system.

The box and Styrofoam were still beside it. Ray knelt down and looked it over. Cindy stroked Annie's hair while Crystal watched.

"We checked the power," Cindy explained. "And the cables and everything. But when we push 'play,' nothing happens." Ray nodded. He reached for the owner's manual.

Even from the bubblehead's hand, Annie could see the problem. There was no cassette in the window.

Ray had to have seen the problem, but he wasn't going to embarrass the cuties. "I'll, uh, check to see if maybe some of the connections are loose. Could be some tarnished surfaces."

"Someone said ice cream?" Annie said, giving him time to think of a polite way to point out the error.

"Oh! Yeah," They took the sylph to the kitchen.

"Can I hold her?" Crystal asked.

"Okay." Cindy handed her over, then lectured her roommate on sylph handling. "Cup her in your palm. Use your thumb gently as a seatbelt."

The hand holding now her smelled strongly of coconut oil, tanning lotion. She hoped it didn't stain her dress.

Then again, if it did, Ray would have to buy her a new one. She glanced up at the double cleavage over her head. He might even be in a good enough mood to buy two dresses.

She had little experience with yogurt. Deliah had done something with it to make tandoori chicken, she kind of remembered.

The girls scooped up teeny tiny bits of the stuff in spoons and offered it to her. She tried very hard not to think of someone offering treats to a puppy.

It didn't taste anything like the chicken had. "Interesting," she allowed. They giggled and offered her some more.

"And it's good for you," Crystal promised. "It's high in minerals and low in fat."

"Fat free?" Annie glared. "NO one said anything about fat free!"

Her accusation of betrayal was interrupted by music coming from the other room. They squealed happily and ran out.

Annie gripped the thumb against her waist and tried not to barf as she bounced.

"My hero!" Cindy squealed.

"What was it?" Crystal asked.

Ray tapped the eject button and took the cassette out. Annie approved, it showed them where the cassette went without making it a blonde joke.

"I just pushed all the connections real tight," he said.

"Well," Cindy said, "this at least deserves a drink. What's your poison?"

-----

The girls were fairly good hostesses. They took turns paying attention to Ray or Annie. They even found a tiny bottle lid for her to drink some wine from.

She bit her tongue when she drank and they giggled. Obviously, they were impressed by the fact that she behaved just like a real person.

Looking away from the duo, she spied an odd structure in the back yard. "What's that?" she asked.

"That's the pool," Crystal said, giving her a little pat on the head.

"You guys have an indoor pool?" she asked with envy.

"Access to," Cindy said. "Why?"

"Oh, Annie's half-mermaid in the water," Ray said. "Sylph density is…" He drifted to a stop before Annie could interrupt. Even he realized that the details were not going to be useful in this arena.

"OH! I'd love to see Annie swimming!" Crystal said. "You'll have to bring your swimsuit over some time."

Annie shrugged and stripped her dress off. "This is how I swim," she said with a shrug.

-------

Crystal found some cut-offs that her brother had left behind on a visit. Ray went into the bathroom to change.

From Cindy's expression, Annie knew that 'brother' was a secret code for 'former boyfriend.' Well, Ray had protected their self-esteem, he deserved a face-saving response.

Annie had a brief respite from well manicured grips when the women ran to their rooms to change.

She windmilled her arms, twisting back and forth. She had spent large parts of her summers with Ray in one pool or the other. Dad had erected a wading pool with a screen for her to swim in during the day.

During the night, when swooping birds were less of a threat, she joined the family in the big pool. She been able to swim across it unaided and as deep as the second rung of the ladder without help.

She realized she was really looking forward to the swim. Even naked with the bleach brains.

------

Ray knelt down beside Cindy and took her hand. She sat on the pool edge as he showed her how to hold her hand to make a diving board.

Annie whooped and jumped, slicing into the water with silver bubbles streaking behind her. Cindy and Crystal clapped at how far she went before surfacing for a breath.

The sylph tried not to feel like a performing seal. But she was happy to not hear Ray explaining sylph lung to muscle ratio. The boy was learning tact.

"She dives so well. Did you teach her?" Crystal asked.

"Actually, she taught me to dive," Ray admitted. Annie ran up against the line of floats and paused for a rest.

Her master was slowly letting the girls talk him into showing how he dove, sylph-taught. She smiled and ducked under the rope.

She really didn't need the rest, she told herself. She just hadn't stretched enough before the swim. Nothing was wrong with her muscle tone.

Just before she pushed off for the other end of the pool, Ray climbed up onto the board. She paused to watch.

Later, they deconstructed the event. Ray really had learned to dive from Annie, on the board in his father's pool.

Dad had never trusted fiberglass, so he'd installed an oak board, suitable for a pirate's plank. It took a considerable effort to get a bounce out of it.

All that muscle memory returned to Ray here. Three firm pumps and then a crouch. The board bent readily.

Later, much later, he'd describe the critical moment. "I knew I was in trouble when my heels were still on the board but my toes were in the water."

Annie saw his eyes go wide the moment he realized that he was about to catapult himself across the pool, perhaps into orbit. He lifted his right foot, probably thinking to step to the side, and started to lean in that direction.

That meant the spring action of the board only lifted one foot up in the air.

He pinwheeled through the air like a propeller, a long and useless cry for 'Nooooooo!' echoing in the enclosed space.

Annie could only stare as he fell to the corner of the pool, slamming down against one side.

"RAY!" Annie screamed. She ducked under the rope and looked again. There was a spot of blood on the cement. She charged to the edge, knifing through the water.

Once there she climbed onto the lip of the drain channel and ran towards her master's last known position.

The bunnies had stood and walked to where he'd gone down. They stared stupidly down at the bubbles coming up.

He was still out of sight when she got about four feet from the bubbles and dove in.

Ray was coming to the surface just as she reached his corner. He blindly bowled her over as he rose. She tumbled in his wake, then followed him up.

Crystal and Cindy grabbed his arm and held him against the edge as he coughed and spat.

"Ray?" Annie called. He reached out without looking and lifted her to the side of the pool. "Ray? Are you okay?"

"I think I saw my guardian angel on the third spin," he said. He coughed. "And she was pissed!"

The claim of a divine vision put even more worry into the girls' expressions.

"It's okay," Annie assured them. "He's joking. He's fine."

----

His trunks had disappeared somewhere in the chaos. They got him wrapped in a towel and back into their apartment.

Crystal found some bandages and they covered the scratches on his hip, under Annie's close supervision. When everyone was sure he was okay, everyone finally relaxed.

Cindy asked what he'd been trying to do when…whatever happened? That's when they figured out that his dive training involved oak.

That's also the point when all the females started to have respiratory problems. At the third muffled snort, Ray waved his hands. "Go ahead and laugh," he said. "It's funny. It'll be a great story to tell your friends."

"Aw, come on, Ray. It's not that-" Crystal couldn't finish before she was overcome by the giggles. The dam burst and all three of the girls collapsed.

Ray limped off to dress. They were still on the floor when he came back, collected his sylph, thanked them for the wine and left.

Annie managed to stop laughing as they got back to the dorm. "Are you going to see them again?"

"And have them remember that every time they see a swimming pool, diving board, cutoffs or a pinwheel? No. No, Annie, I don't think so."

"Aw," she moaned. "I thought it was going so well. Until, you know." She lay back in his palm, spread her legs and arms and screamed.

"Funny," he muttered.

"Come on! You'll laugh about this some day."

"Two thousand and twelve," he said.

"Okay," she agreed. "I think Dad's gonna laugh before that, though."

"No."

"Yep."

"NO!"

"Yes, yes, yes. Ray? You have to know I have to tell SOMEONE."

"Dinner and a movie? Your choice of restaurant?" he offered.

"My silence cannot be purchased," she said with regal dignity. He flung himself down on the bed as usual, moaning as the bruises hit the mattress.

She took pity on his expression, jumped out of his hand and walked towards his chin. "But if I can choose the movie, too? It can be leased."

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