Chapter 18

Soon, the journalists of the ‘Man’ began to clap. Their witch in a turquoise suit looked great, standing next to the competitors warming up their muscles before the start. But instead of warming up, Alice stood almost motionless, looking at the opposite edge of the pool.

The boys, looking at her, had no doubts that she spent her free time not like them, in the Tavern, but working hard on her physical condition. However, they were aware that having a beautifully built body does not mean that it can swim well.

They began to argue that the competition was controversial, not very fair, as there were two women and four men taking part in it, and the distance was as long as two lengths of the pool.

For a moment they forgot about the hatred, anger, the fragile male honor and the painting she forced them to do. They really hoped that their chief editor not only looked great, but she could swim, and that'd be good enough.

“And racing on electric brooms and jet mops will also be?” Simon cooled down first.

“The witch not only has functional grey brain cells, but also she has a beautiful body. There is something to look at!” Michael commented with delight.

"Plastic surgery works miracles today." Simon summed up with irony.

"Dude..." Thomas said, outraged. “Does every good looking chick have to be ‘made’? If she can afford a very good car, then she would have money for silicone and a good plastic surgeon! And yet, there is nothing to look at.”

“Fact! Almost flat as a bread. Maybe her ass is touched up?” Simon guessed. “Or...”

“They artificially stretched her by half a meter.” Thomas said ironically, looking at the shorter friend. "You could use that method too." He added with a laugh.

Alex and Adam, disregarding the opinions of their colleagues, began to cheer for Alice, who was leading the struggle from the very first moments. At first, only centimeters, but her advantage grew every second.

To their great joy, she won. In beautiful style, almost a quarter of the length of the pool ahead of everyone, even the chief editor of a sports magazine, who was a professional athlete more than a dozen years ago, with significant success.

Their greater joy was that their previous editor Leo Walker had left them and went to the magazine he was writing for. In that moment, they had forgotten about the editorial disagreements for good. They were proud that it was their chief editor who kicked the asses of the competition in a beautiful style.

They couldn't take their eyes off her as she came out of the pool. Up close, she looked dazzling, especially in her wet suit and dripping hair. Almost immediately, Alice noticed that her colleagues didn’t take their eyes off her, as did the cameraman of the local TV station. Then, under everyone’s eyes, she put on her tunic back.

Alex, Adam, Thomas and Alice took part in the next discipline of the competition, the relay race. To the surprise of her subordinates, she was still doing well.

Throughout the length of the pool, she was cheered on by the spectators and her colleagues from the editorial office who had gone earlier. And they were not disappointed!

The supreme team gave her all, and the fight was really tough, because all teams put on their best fighters. And this time, the journalists of the ‘Man’ won with just a few centimeters.

Tired but happy, they went to sit down for a while. After a break of several minutes, a water polo tournament was about to take place. In order to not discuss sensitive topics with the competition journalists sitting next to them, Alex and Adam gave up on their rest.

Instead, they decided to practice bouncing the ball, and basically show the large female audience their beautiful bodies. Besides, they hoped that Alice would join them for a while. They wanted to take a closer look at her muscles.

However, she had already changed her clothes and didn’t step away from Nicolas’ side.

“Sit down, playboys! This is not a runway!” Michael was nervous. Being undressed, he couldn’t compete with his younger, physically fit colleagues. He disliked having anyone other than himself in the spotlight.

“Join us!” Alex, who was seductively throwing back a storm of wet hair, was encouraging him, and he realized that this gesture was upsetting Michael.

"Friends, should I get you a strip session for a women's magazine?" He was irritated by the behavior of his friends. “Maybe a session for some gay journal?” He added after a moment. He also knew exactly what to do with them.

“Why not?” Adam was having a good time. “We have something to show!” He tensed his torso in front of Michael's nose, whose face flushed red with anger.

“Enough! We are not alone here! Please bear that in mind!” As usual, Thomas stepped in just in time.  “Are you going to introduce a new discipline to today's competition, combat fighting? The ring isn’t here!” He stood between Michael and Adam. “End of discussion! Where is the ball? I’ll play with you!”

Moments later, Simon and Jack joined them. Finally, Michael, who didn’t want to talk to the competitors sitting next to them, stepped in too with a sour face. Every now and then, he surreptitiously glanced at Alice, who was still talking to Nicolas.

Everyone had a great time until Adam, trying to distract his friend from the naked girls hanging around the pool, hit Alex in the face with a ball. The blow turned out to be quite strong.

Surprised, Alex lost his balance for a moment and almost fell. A frightened Michael stood by him immediately.

After a while, all the colleagues gathered around him. His face didn't look too good. A dark red halo appeared around the eye, the eyelid immediately began to swell, and blood flowed out from the nose.

Alex himself panicked. Without protesting, he calmly sat down. He tried to get into balance as quickly as possible. He didn't understand why he still had some black spots in his one eye vision.

At training, he was often hit badly, hundreds of falls on skis, and even hit a tree, but he never lost balance due to a ball hit. In addition, he couldn’t see much with his right eye due to the swollen eyelid.