It was late, I’d left the office well after dinner and found myself pretty hungry on the drive home. Rather than pacify my hunger with something from the drive-thru, quick and detrimental to my health, I figured I’d swing by that upscale grocery store that had opened up to see what they had to fit the bill.
“Hi, can I help you?” The kid behind the counter said as I eyed the mounds of shaved ice that filled cases. One of the benefits of living near the coast is a ready supply of fresh seafood.
“I’m looking for something quick and easy.” I replied. He walked around and pointed to a rack of recipe cards and suggested something and pointed out to a stack of fillets laying on the ice. I agreed that his suggestion sounded good and I was soon gathering the rest of the ingredients.
I walked up to the check out and my daughter’s old sitter was running the register. I put my items on the belt and she looked up smiling wide.
“Hey Mr. Thomson, long time no see.” She said.
“Hi Jules, how have you been?”
“Good. How’s Sam?” She asked about my daughter Samantha.
“She’s great.” I said with a wistful sigh. I noticed her smile dissipate to a concerned look. “She spent the summer with me and just went back to her mothers for school a couple of weeks ago. Jan and I divorced two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” She said, letting the beep of the scanner cover the awkward silence. She asked what I had in the bakery sack, and rang it in. As soon as my purchases were scanned she turned off her aisle light and tossed her closed sign up on the belt.
“Mr. Thomson, could I ask you for a favor? I’m done for the night and my mom can’t pick me up. I was going to get a ride home from one of the guys here but he kinda creeps me out. Could I bum a ride home from you?”
“Sure, you still living at your mom’s over on Birch Street?” I said sliding my card to pay for the groceries. She nodded.
“Let me cash out and grab my stuff, I’ll only be five minutes.” She smiled. I let her know where I parked and headed for my car. True to her word I hadn’t so much as started the car and turned on the radio that she came walking out of the store. She waved to someone else that was leaving the and I took a moment to enjoy the young woman Julia, Jules as she preferred to be called when she was our sitter, had grown into. She wasn’t tall, standing just few inches over five feet, her figure was trim with just the right amount of curves. She had filled out a bit, giving way to the heart-breaker she was becoming. Her eyes were a light brown color, her hair brown with red highlights which fell in waves past her shoulders. As she walked past the hood of the car she smiled at me again, her skin shone in the yellow glow of the headlights. She had an easy-going smile she used often, despite years of braces which gave her a slight overbite. She opened the door and turned, giving me a nice view of her backside as she got in.
She said thanks, and pulled the seat belt down, the strap nestled between between her breasts. I inwardly scolded myself for noticing that Jules had grown up nicely.
“You can just head home, I can cut through the backyard and walk home from there.” She said. Her mother lived on the block behind my little neighborhood which made it easy for her to come and go when Jan and I needed a sitter.
“Okay. So what are you doing now? Are you still in high school?” I asked.
“Not as of last June. I graduated, got me a diploma and everything.” She said sarcastically.
“What’s next? Did you start college already?”
She sighed heavily. “No.” She didn’t elaborate further, she turned slightly and looked out the passenger window.
“Sorry. I touched a nerve.”
“No it’s fine. It’s just that my mom and I don’t have similar beliefs in what career choices are available to young women these days. She’s a tad old fashioned in her thinking.”
“Oh? She pushing you to join the elite corps of nurses, secretaries or maybe kindergarten teachers?”
Jules practically spun in her seat and glared at me. “Exactly! She’s got this ‘good little girl’ vision in her head, and thinks that’s how I should be. I should settle down and think about the future. She sees me in an apron and heels cooking for some guy with my two neatly pressed, obedient kids sitting at the kitchen table. I don’t even know where she gets that from, she was born in the 70’s, with disco, bell-bottoms, weed, and bra burning. Oh but when it comes to me, she does a one-eighty and professes some 1950’s lifestyle is the key to happiness. It’s such bullshit!”
I chuckled and looked aside at her. She looked back at me wide eyed and covered her mouth.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” She said.
“Don’t be! It’s your life, you should live it the way you want to. What do you want?” I asked.
She settled back in her seat as I negotiated the turn into our neighborhood. She stared ahead for a moment.
“Don’t laugh, but I want to draw, and paint. I want to become an animator like, for one of the big movie studios.” She turned to me. “Mom thinks it’s a stupid dream. I pointed out that there’s art all around her and she refuses to see that it’s a perfectly normal field of work, one that I would enjoy.”
“So what’s holding you back?” I ventured.
“The usual, money and parental disapproval, mostly money. So I grind away at the store putting as much away as I can hoping to have enough to start next year. Only problem is, I only can get so many hours, so I need to find another job.”
I turned off the ignition and got out of the car. I opened the back door and grabbed my briefcase and my groceries. Jules closed the other door looping her purse over her shoulder.
“Do you know of anything around here that I could apply for?” She asked. I struggled with my bags trying to flip my keys around and she stepped quickly around the car to liberate me of the grocery bags.
“Thanks.” I got the key in the door, swung it open and flipped on the lights. Jules followed me in, carrying the bags into the kitchen and setting them on the counter.
“I mean I can do practically anything. I’m a wiz with word processing, spreadsheets and a lot of other stuff. The problem is I can’t seem to find anything that pays enough to put some money away.”
I listened to her rant as I dug through the bags and stowed the groceries, leaving out what I brought for dinner. I looked up when I noticed that she’d stopped talking. Jules stood at the end of the counter looking into the living room. Piles of old newspapers on the coffee table, a shirt laid over the back of an easy chair, a pair of running shoes kicked off by the sliding door. I realized quickly that she probably hadn’t seen the place in a few years. Jan, my ex, was a lot more tidy than I am.
Jules let out a low whistle. “So now I know who the neat freak was. I don’t remember ever making it this far into the house with my shoes on before.”
I laughed. “Sorry, it’s a little more ‘lived in’ these days.”
She looked at me shrewdly for a moment. “Mr. T? Could you use a hand around here, you know cleaning up, maybe a day a week?”
I chuckled. “It’s not that bad Jules. I clean when I can’t make my way from room to room.”
She sighed and climbed onto one of the bar stools along the raised counter.
“Are you hungry? I picked this up and I’m not sure what I’m doing but there’s enough for two.” I said waving the little recipe card that I picked up.
“Fish tacos? Sounds good to me.” She smiled. Her cell started ringing and she dug it out of her bag. “It’s my mom.” She held up a finger, and answered it.
“Jules’ brothel, the madame is in.”
My mouth dropped open as I looked up at her.
“Well you know mom, it’s not easy making money for college. A girl has to do what a girl has to do. Uh huh. No I got a ride home with Mr. Thomson, you know, I used to watch his daughter Sam for him a couple years ago over on Elm Street.”
A grin spread across her face. “Yes mom, he’s still really cute. Oh don’t worry, there’s no Mrs. Thomson anymore. Yes, really. Want me to see if I can set you up? He’s kind of young for you.”
I had started smiling and shook my head. I could feel a little warmth in my cheeks and was probably blushing.
“Okay we’re going to have dinner, and I’ll head home after. Have fun at work. Yes, he invited me to dinner. Yes mom, I’m sure he’s aware that I’m just a silly girl and completely at his mercy. I won’t let him take advantage of me, besides, he’s been a complete gentleman. He saved me from the evil clutches of ‘Meat Market’ Bobby. That kid would have told everybody at the store we were screwing if he’d given me a ride home. Okay, love you too, bye.”
Jules just rolled her eyes as she put the phone away and then looked up at me and stifled a fit of giggles. “Sorry, but I swear she thinks I’m a complete idiot sometimes.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I pushed some ingredients across the counter. “You make the slaw, while I get the fish on the grill.” I turned to the sink to rinse and dry the fillets. While I patted down the fillets with a paper towel I got the distinct feeling I was being watched. I wrapped the tortillas and tossed them in the oven to warm. I turned, pulled my tie loose and looked at Jules’ progress and noted that there was more of her to see. It appeared she had undone another button on her blouse which now showed an inviting glimpse of cleavage.
“This was Mark’s idea, using the taco seasoning to make the slaw, I can tell. That boy does like his food.” She said, as if to nobody.
“Who?”
“Mark in seafood. He’s asked me out a couple times. He’s a good guy, not my type, always reeks of fish.” She chuckled. “Toss me that lime would you?”
Before long we had a nice little spread on the breakfast bar. I was preparing a taco when Jules stopped me.
“Nope, come over here and sit, no eating while standing at the counter.”
I did as told and walked past her, getting a faint smell of flowers as I sat next to her.
“Oh, do you have any hot sauce?” She asked.
“Sure let me…” I said. She held out her hand and hopped off the stool and walked over to the fridge. She bent over at the waist looking high and low in the door, her tight backside pointing straight at me.
“Do you want something to drink while I’m in here?”
“Sure, can you grab a beer for me, have whatever you want.”
She turned pushing the door closed behind her, the bottle of hot sauce in one hand and two beer bottles in the other. She stopped for a moment on the walk back, and I noticed her nipples had hardened in the cold draft and pointed neatly through her top. I stopped, with the taco half way to my mouth and looked at her.
She flashed her eyes at me. “Don’t forget to spice it up a bit.” I took no time to imagine what her breasts looked like outside that tight white shirt. She walked in what seemed like slow motion setting down the bottles and twisting the caps off. She handed me one and clinked hers to it before taking a long swallow.
When she climbed back onto the stool she crossed her legs, dangling her foot just above mine. The closeness was beginning to make me feel a bit uncomfortable. We ate in relative silence and quickly devoured the contents of every dish.
“That was good. Thanks for joining me, I don’t think it would have made good leftovers.”
“You cooked I’ll clean.” She said sliding off the stool once again. She opened up the dishwasher and started loading it up while facing me, her shirt fell open as she did showing her breasts peeking over the top of a white bra. She made another trip to grab the rest of the dishes, and the look she gave me from behind a fallen lock of hair was smoldering. She was trying to seduce me and was doing her best to not look like it. I just gave her a little smile as I finished my beer. Were those little flowers adorning her bra?
“Mr. T…”
“Call me Jay, please. I think you’ve grown past the Mr. Thomson stage.”
She looked up from the dishwasher, a shy smile on her face.
“Jay?” She suddenly sounded very serious. “Can I ask you something?” Her eyes were wide, she seemed very self conscious all of a sudden as her gaze dropped from mine. “Did you ever… you know, think about me?”
My eyes went a little wider because I got the gist of her question immediately. I swallowed hard before I answered.
“What do you mean Jules?” It was a loaded question, and I was a little scared to hear the answer because it would mark me as complete pervert.
“You know, as a girl, not just some kid who used to sit for you. You know, like a fantasy about…” She looked up at me, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed red. She looked embarrassed by her own question. I knew I’d better tread carefully for both my sake and hers. I ran my hand down my face before looking her in the eye.
“Jules you’re just a kid, and that would have been very inappropriate. You’ve grown into a very attractive girl, but…”
“You think I’m attractive?” She interrupted me and smiled.
“Listen Jules. You’re still just a kid!”
“I’ll be nineteen in a couple of weeks!” She said. “Besides all the guys my age are just boys. All they want is to put a notch in their bedpost and to rack up as many girls as they can like rutting bulls!” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter looking down at her toes. “I don’t want my first time to be with some drunken frat boy in a back bedroom of a strangers house.” She added softly.
I came up with the best thing I could think of on the fly. “Jules there’s no rush. Take your time, it’s not as if it’s a race to notch your bedpost either. For that matter, don’t hang out at parties with drunken frat boys.”
“I know.” She said, still gazing down at the floor. “It’s just that I want my first time to matter. I want it to be with someone that knows what they’re doing.” She scoffed, looking up at the ceiling. “Not in somebody’s back seat.” She looked me in the eye. “I want it to be you.”
I choked on my beer, coughing and sputtering for several minutes, while my mind raced. “Whoa! Wait a minute, you haven’t seen me in a couple years and suddenly now I’m the romantic lead in some fantasy you’ve cooked up?”
She looked at me with those soft eyes again. “It’s not sudden, you have been for years.” She looked down again, a sparkle flickered at the corner of her eye.
“There have been many nights where I got off thinking about you. Giving me a ride home and taking a detour. You find a place to park and start kissing me, and reach under my skirt and stroke me through my panties.”
My mouth went dry, and I realized it was because it was hanging open for the last few minutes.
“You said, ‘do what you want Jules.’ Well, I’m telling you what I want. I want you to take my virginity.”
I stood and walked around the counter to stand in front of her. She looked up with those bright eyes, so full of hope that I would do as she asked. I reached down to the button on her blouse, and did it up again.
“I’m flattered Jules, I really am.” I started. “But it wouldn’t be right of somebody my age to take advantage of you like that.”
“You’re thinking about it though, aren’t you?” She said. She then ran her finger up the fly of my slacks and pointed out that the thought had been bouncing around my mind by the tent forming underneath her finger.
“Do you have a girlfriend Jay?” She took a different tack.
I sighed. “No, not currently.”
“Well there you go. You’re divorced, you don’t have a girlfriend, and a semi-cute girl wants to make love to you. What’s the problem?” She added a second finger to the first, rubbing slowly up and down my now very hard cock. My breathing was getting labored. She had a point, she was of age and nothing else should be keeping me from ripping her clothes off and having her right now.
“First of all, you’re very attractive, not semi-cute. Secondly… I don’t know, this just isn’t right.” I said taking her wrist and firmly pulling her hand away from my crotch. She reached up with her other hand and started to unbutton my shirt. I took that wrist firmly and pushed both wrists behind her. She took advantage of the position instantly and leaned her body into mine; the heat built up quickly as she reached up and kissed my jaw, working her way down to my chin. I released her hands and took her by the shoulders and pushed her away giving her a little shake.
“No Jules.! How would you feel if a guy did this to you? If you were being pressured like this, then you wouldn’t be a virgin would you?”
She looked at me shocked, which quickly turned to anger. She shoved me away, grabbed her bag and left, calling me an asshole and slammed the door shut behind her.
I sighed deeply before reaching for my beer and downed the remainder in one long swallow. I grabbed another and went and flipped on the TV. I chuckled when I flipped through the guide to find that the movie Lolita was on, “how appropriate,” I thought. The noise of the television faded away as I thought about what Jules had asked me. “Have you ever thought about… screwing the nanny?” I completed her statement in my mind. What guy didn’t entertain that fantasy, or one like it? I kept telling myself I did the right thing, while simultaneously thinking about what it would have been like to unbutton her shirt, and take off her bra and nibble my way down her neck and chest until her breasts were within reach. I finally turned the TV off and took a shower.
As the hot water cascaded down over my head I sighed deeply, tonight’s little adventure going through my mind. As I thought about her, and the scenario she posed about sliding a hand up her skirt had my cock at full attention. I imagined her here in the shower with me, which was far too easy to do, water cascading over her breasts, curling back into the contours of her body and not letting go until it reached the tub. I took matters into my own hand as I let the fantasy unfold. We kissed deeply, she apparently had a little practice there as her tongue darted cautiously around, making me chase it with mine. I let my hands slide down her waist pulling her gently towards me, the heat of our bodies increasing with the contact.
“Fuck!” I exploded. The water cascaded over my head as I leaned against wall as my muscles relaxed and my breathing steadied. I finished up my shower and threw on a tee shirt and shorts. I ended up staying up late, and finished the rest of the six pack before bed.
I smacked the alarm a second time, knowing I was only going to make myself late if I didn’t haul my ass out of bed and move. I grabbed my shorts and tossed on a t-shirt and headed for the door, and pulled on my beat up running shoes for a quick run. I walked out into the driveway and stretched for a few minutes before walking down the driveway and starting off at a slow jog. I wasn’t a die-hard runner, but this was cheaper than a gym, and it helped me get the blood going before settling into a desk job all day. I decided to change my normal path, which was usually a couple laps around the park that was a few blocks away from the house. Today I turned right. The subdivision wasn’t very old, maybe a few decades, the builder had decided to name all the streets running north to south for trees, the other directions for presidents. As I cut across Jefferson I saw Maple Street, then approached Birch Street. I don’t know what made me do it, but I turned down Birch and past Jules house. There was no car in the driveway, and the windows were dark. It was early. Jules told me that her mother worked nights. She must not be home yet. I did another lap and went into the house to hit the shower before work.
I was lucky, I had an office, unlike the cube dwellers down the hall. I guess being the senior logistics coordinator gave me a few benefits. I logged into my computer and started my day. The sales boys were trying to open up a new route for us and I was looking at the cost analysis information for the area when I felt my eyes crossing, probably from the six pack the night before. I shook my head and decided I needed some coffee. The break room was down past the cubicles and I made my way greeting people as I went. I poured myself a cup from the bank of carafes on the counter. I turned and wandered over to the huge bulletin board and scanned the postings. My eyes lit upon the section for job postings. There was a temp job opening for one of my department’s assistants. “Hey Mark?” I asked one of the guys who was filling his cup. “Why is there a temp posting for Christine’s job up here?”