Later that night, Taylor went for a walk in Belinda's garden. He was almost directly underneath the balcony that jutted out from her second story bedroom, when he heard a noise from above. He quickly dodged under some bushes.
Upstairs, Belinda walked out onto her balcony. She stared out into the darkness. Suddenly, she also heard a noise coming from above her. Bel craned her head up and peered at the roof. Standing on the red tiles was Isaac, his silhouette outlined sharply against the full moon. He tilted his head back and bayed to the moon.
“Arrooooooh!”
Belinda groaned, and buried her face in her hands, muttering, “Ay me!”
Down in the bushes, Taylor whispered, “She speaks! O, speak again bright angel!”
“O, Taylor, Taylor! -Wherefore art thou Taylor? Deny thy brother and refuse thy Ike”
“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?” Wondered Taylor.
“’Tis but thy brother that is my enemy. What’s Isaac? It is not hand nor foot nor arm nor face nor… any other part belonging to a man,” continued Belinda, giggling. "What's in a name? That which we call an Isaac by any other word would smell as disgusting. So Isaac would, were he not Isaac called, retain that pungent odour which he owes to rubbish bins."
Just then, a rose thorn from the bush he was sitting on pricked Taylor.
“Yarooooh!” He yelled in pain.
“Shut up, Isaac!” Belinda yelled upwards.
“Well… actually, it was me,” Taylor called up.
“What?!!!” Belinda screamed in shock. She was so surprised to see Taylor that she fell off the balcony and towards the swimming pool below. Luckily, she was in the school diving team and knew how to act in an emergency.
With grace and style that left Taylor gasping, she fell into an exquisite triple back-flip, double somersault, and a quadruple twist, ending in a perfect pindrop with minimal splash.
Taylor didn’t hesitate. He dived in to the swimming pool in a desperate attempt to save Belinda from drowning. Once in the pool, however, it was evident that Taylor was the one who needed saving.
They were floating, huddled together, Belinda treading water fast enough to support both herself and Taylor, when Tay noticed something white, looming towards them.
”Iceberg, right ahead!” He screamed.
”Tay, that’s just a plastic bag floating in the pool”
But they crashed into it anyway. They were floundering, struggling to stay afloat in the freezing waters of the pool.
In the background, the neighbours turned up their CD player really loudly. It was Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On.” Perfect.
Tay managed to drag Belinda onto the plastic bag, to keep her afloat, but the bag was too small to support both of them. Tay was in the water, holding Bel's hands. Belinda was lying on the plastic bag.
”You’re here, there’s nothing I fear...” Warbled Celine Dion in the background.
Tay clutched Belinda’s hands tighter, and said emotionally, ”Bel, I want you to promise me one thing... That you’ll get through this alive. And you’ll get married and have lots of babies...” He trailed off.
”No! No!” Belinda pleaded. ”I’ll never let go..."
One of Taylor’s hands slipped from Belinda’s and fell down. He suddenly realised that he could touch the bottom of the pool with his hand.
The neighbours turned the Celine Dion CD off abruptly.
Tay stood up. ”What are you doing, Tay?! You’ll kill yourself!”
”The water’s only knee deep, Bel. We’re in the shallow end.”
”Oh.” Bel stood up too. She picked up the plastic bag and threw it high to her right. It hit Isaac, who was still baying to the moon on top of the roof. It set him off balance and he fell off the roof on the other side of the house. They heard a few crashes, bangs and screams, before a long silence. When they were just about stop listening and assume that Ike hadn't survived the fall, they heard a faint, "If we're going to cut all the branches off, why don’t we just cut it off down here?”
”Darn!” Said Tay. Isaac had survived the fall.
Suddenly the neighbour’s CD player resumed playing. This time they were playing the Jaws theme song. At the same time, the two teens in the pool saw a shark coming towards them. They screamed in terror. Taylor heroically pushed Belinda behind him and confronted the shark. There was a clash and it threw them against the pool wall. It had attacked.
Suddenly the shark flipped onto its back, revealing an orange Malibu sticker on its stomach.
”It’s all right, Bel,” Taylor reassured her. ”It’s only your brother’s surfboard.”
They sighed with relief, and the neighbours changed their CD to ”Hero” by Mariah Carey. ”And when a hero comes along...”
”Taylor, you were so brave. You're a hero," murmured Belinda. Taylor moved towards her as the music changed to "I Will Come To You" by Guess Who.
”Hey, they’re playing our song. Cool,” thought Tay as he kissed her passionately. ”Pash” by Kate Ceberano came on the radio next door.
Belinda’s next-door neighbour peered over the fence and when he saw that Taylor and Belinda’s clothes were now floating some distance away from them, he turned the dial on the radio. ”Coco Jamboo” by Mr President came on.
”Oops. Wrong song," He thought. He tried another station. This time "2 become 1" by the Spice Girls poured out of the speakers. "'Cause tonight is the ni-ight when 2 become 1..."
Taylor shivered. He couldn’t work out whether it was the fact that he was stark naked in an unheated swimming pool at night in the middle of winter. It was either that or Belinda’s tender touch on a very hard part of his body. He pushed her hard up against the side of the pool. He kissed her all over. ALL over.
He said “I wanna have sex with ya, Bel."
She said “Sure. My mum put me on the Pill when she heard I was roped to Isaac.”
‘Cool. Let’s get to it then.”
Belinda laughed. “Tay, you are sick. Sick. Very sick. Do you know that?”
Taylor grinned charmingly. “Of course I do.” He kissed her.

i deleted another dodgy-ish bit from the story here. email me here with if you want the gory details!

Afterwards, Belinda and Taylor floated, still naked, on their backs around the deep end of the pool and talked.
“So, how did thing go with Isaac this afternoon?” Taylor ventured a question. “I felt so awful, being powerless to help you. What was it like?”
“Oh. It is beyond description, it was so disgusting.” “Really? Is sex with Ike that bad?”
“Oh, you don’t think he actually wanted to have sex with me!” Exclaimed the frustrated Belinda. “No way. He informed me that my job was to keep the bed warm while he had sex with the toaster. Twelve times. And I had to watch it all. Oh! It was just awful!" She burst into tears.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor consoled her. “I’m sure Ike’ll get sick of you pretty soon, once he realises that there’s a thing called an electric blanket, and until then, we can keep seeing each other secretly until then. Ike wouldn’t even notice if we had sex on the kitchen table, right in front of him."
“Hmm...” Thought Belinda. “We should try that sometime. Ike would be oblivious to it. He is virtually insane."
Next door, “Virtual Insanity” by Jamiroquai came on the radio. All was right with the world.

[ 13 ]