Chapter 1: No Longer a Girl

Chapter Cast:

Darren, Male, 53
- Narrator, retired, father of Gwen and Victoria (Vic)
- 5’11, beige skin, 195lbs, cropped greying brown hair
Audrey, Female, 15
- High school student, daughter of Duncan and Theresa
- 5’9, pale skin, 135lbs, light-green eyes, straight auburn hair over her shoulders
Joyce, Female, early-80s
- Wife of Herman, grandmother of Audrey, mother of Theresa
- 5’6, beige skin, 115lbs, bobbed salt-and-pepper hair
Herman, Male, early-80s
- Husband of Joyce, grandfather of Audrey, father of Theresa
- 6’0, beige-olive skin, 180lbs, thin short gray hair

Audrey arrived to stay with her grandparents on a Friday afternoon. It was spring break in New York, where she lived with her parents somewhere near Buffalo. It was cold there when she left. Near Houston, Texas, where I live and where her mom’s parents were my next-door neighbors, it was in the 90s in the middle of the day. It had to be quite a shock to go from snow flurries to swimsuits in about three hours. Little did I know that I was the one in for a shock.

Audrey was fifteen when she arrived that Spring. Tall and slender, she had auburn hair left loose over her back when she stood up from the back seat of the cab and waited for the driver to grab her luggage from the trunk. I was on my screened-in front porch, wearing only my boxers, smoking a cigarette and sipping scotch as was my afternoon vice. I saw her arrive and, as had been the case over the years, I felt nothing towards the girl.

By nothing, I mean that she was just a girl to me, not a person of curiosity or arousal. Her pale skin, a quality I’d loved when I thought sexually, couldn’t draw out the briefest interest from me. Even though her tight, lightly-faded blue jeans shaped her rounded, maturing hips, my eyes only glanced her way to note her presence, then I returned my gaze to the book held on my lap.

I was retired at fifty-three. Widowed, my wife dead almost a decade earlier. I’d never remarried, only dated a few times. Hadn’t had sex in six years. Or was it seven? I’d lost interest, especially as my own daughters grew up and took most of my attention.

My girls were about Audrey’s age, Gwen fifteen, and Victoria fourteen. Usually, when the neighbor’s granddaughter visited each Spring, and sometimes in the Summer, she would hang out with my girls around my pool. I enjoyed the break it gave me those days, and it got my kids out of the house and out of my hair. I looked forward to Audrey’s arrival each time, if only because my daughters really liked her.

Audrey’s arrival this year was different. My girls were also on break, but my sister, their aunt, had offered to let them join her in Aruba and they eagerly said goodbye as I left them at the airport earlier that day. I was nervous, as any parent would be, but I was looking forward to a week alone with my book and my scotch and my afternoon cigarettes. I’d not thought about Audrey arriving and not having my kids to keep her company.

I glanced up from my book again to see the neighbor’s door open. Herman, Audrey’s grandfather, exclaimed his excitement as he pulled the teen into his arms in a vigorous hug. He was tall and in his early 80s. A gentle and kind and quiet man, from my interactions with him. He was balanced out by his vivacious and gregarious wife, Joyce. The woman was also in her early 80s, in good shape and proud to wear yoga pants which showed off her toned frame. Back when I still thought about sex regularly, I fantasized about fucking Joyce more than a few times, despite her age. These days, those thoughts came less and less and even as I saw the woman push past her husband wearing nothing more than a towel wrapped tightly around her body, I did little more than note that she was a beautiful woman despite her age and returned to my book.

I was making myself a sandwich an hour later when there was a knock at the door. I put down the slice of bread I was coating with mustard and peeped through the eyehole. I saw Herman and Joyce outside. I opened the door.

“Darren! Glad you are home!” Joyce gushed, wrapping her arms around me as she always did, even if we’d just seen each other an hour before. “Audrey has come in for the week! Would you and the girls like to join us for dinner?”

Before I could even speak, Joyce had rushed past the casual greetings and into the point of their visit.

“Uh,” I paused, “well, the girls just left this morning to visit my sister, and, uh, I was just making dinner for myself, and—”

“Oh, just you?” Joyce broke in, shifting her weight to her other side and bumping her husband who moved six inches to his right without comment like a man who had been bumped that way a million times. “Well, all the more reason to join us and not be alone!”

“I...” I let out a sigh and tightened a small grin. “Sure. Give me a few?”

Joyce agreed and I closed the door quickly. I was still in only my boxers, but they were the type which buttoned up and looked like shorts if you didn’t know otherwise. I figured it was nothing to worry about, answering the door in the drawers, but I expected I should add a layer to go next door.

I put away the sandwich items and put on a collared knit shirt and dark slacks. I didn’t change my flip-flops. Hey, they were comfortable, and it was like, ninety degrees.

Moments later, I knocked on the door and waited a few seconds before it opened.

Audrey greeted me with a nonchalant shrug. “Hey,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Hello, Audrey. Glad to see you made it in okay.”

She shrugged again, “Yep.” Her eyes cast back behind me, then she said, “Oh, right. Your daughters aren’t here.” She looked disappointed, then moved back with the door to let me through.

I wasn’t exactly the most comfortable person around teenagers, even my own, so I didn’t really know what else to say. I nodded to her and stepped towards the dining room.

I’d visited the neighbors many times over the years, so it didn’t surprise me to find the invitation to dinner involved me waiting an hour or two before we’d actually eat. I sat on the couch and waited for Herman or Joyce to join me. My stomach growled in frustration, but I tried not to let it show.

Audrey sat across from me in an overstuffed chair, her legs drawn up under her body. She looked anywhere but at me, the trademarked bored teenage expression overdone on her face. I’d seen my daughters with that look so many times I chuckled before I could stop myself.

“What?” She asked with narrowed eyes.

I shook my head. “Nothing, just ... something funny I saw earlier. Not you.”

“What was it?” Audrey folded her arms across her stomach. It was the first time I became aware of how much Audrey had grown over the past year.

She’d been a slender, small-framed but tall girl at fourteen. If I even noticed then, I’d have probably seen that she had been flat-chested, her hips barely curved, the teen possessing the body of an immature girl which would bloom late. I’d seen enough of her to notice, if I was into such things then. She regularly wore two-piece bikini suits when swimming with my daughters in the pool. She’d definitely been a girl the last time I saw her.

In front of me, cross-arms exaggerating the difference, sat a blossoming young woman. While her face still showed signs of her youth, the two curvy mounds above her forearms made it clear that her body was no longer that of a little girl. I could tell she was wearing a bra under her white cotton t-shirt, but I didn’t know, nor particularly care, how much of the large, round shapes were made up of young breast and how much by padding in the bra.

My eyes cast away quickly, not wanting Audrey to see that I’d noticed her breasts.

Too late.

“Yeah, I saw that.” She scolded me. “Look somewhere else all you want. I know where your eyes were.”

I looked back at Audrey and kept my gaze on her face. She had very bright, light-green eyes which radiated warmth even as the look on her face was cold and judgmental. “Sorry. I really didn’t mean to. I won’t do it again.” I was sincere, even though I knew my eyes would probably slide over that forbidden territory on their own without a lot of effort.

She sat with her arms crossed and her gaze unmoving. It felt like we were having a staring contest. It took all my energy not to notice her breasts again, especially when she squeezed her arms tighter, causing the prominent mounds to move up and grow larger.

Finally, she blinked and then shrugged, looking away. “Fine.”

Audrey uncrossed her arms and her legs moved from under her to drop down to the floor. She started to shift them from side to side, slowly. “Bored.” She said, as if she expected me, or someone, to do something about it. The frown on her face was obviously for effect.

“Where are your grandparents?” I asked, ignoring her statement.

“Out to get groceries.”

“Ah.”

I glanced around the room. Having been there many times before, I knew the living area featured a lot of gaudy, expensive trinkets, with large, bright paintings covering the walls without shelving. There was a wet bar along one side, and I noticed a poker set next to the decanter and rocks glasses.

“Play cards?” I offered, willing to try anything to keep from returning my eyes to Audrey’s breasts.

“Strip poker,” the teen replied evenly.

“Ha,” I chuckled without enthusiasm. “That’s not happening.”

She folded her arms again, and I swear she knew she was framing her chest and tempting me to have another look. Her eyes watched mine and I avoided temptation this time. Audrey said, “Your loss.”

I again ignored her and said, “Regular poker?”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

I stood and poured myself three fingers of good brandy which I knew Herman kept in the decanter. He and Joyce had assured me many times to help myself, and I did so this time thinking I’d need the smooth liquor to deal with a stubborn teenager.

“Pour me one,” Audrey demanded from the chair behind me. “Big one.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m allowed to drink. They let me when I stay here,” she assured me.

“I’m not pouring you alcohol, Audrey,” I told her firmly.

I grabbed my glass and pulled out a couple of ice cubes from the small freezer built into the wet bar, dropping them quickly into the dark, rich liquid and returning to my seat with the poker set in hand.

Audrey hopped up and in seconds had poured her own drink, returning to sit on the far end of the chair closer to the couch and the table in the middle of the seats. “I can pour my own, thank you.”

I shook my head, but I wasn’t in a mood to argue with the teen in that moment. I figured Herman and Joyce could deal with it when they returned.

I pulled out the deck and shuffled the cards, quickly dealing out five to each of us. Audrey sucked back half her drink as I sipped mine, trying, once more, not to notice her maturing curves. Audrey’s silky auburn hair flowed over her shoulders and somewhat obscured my view, and I was thankful for small miracles.

The first hand was won by Audrey, three kings to my two jacks, and as she collected the chips from the table, she said, “Your shirt.”

“What?” I asked, clueless.

“You lost the hand. So I told you to take off your shirt.”

I frowned. “We’re not playing strip poker, Audrey.”

Her patented shrug. “Fine.”

The second hand I won with a pair of fours. Audrey removed her socks. I didn’t connect the two things immediately.

After the third hand, won again by me with an ace high, I froze when she started to remove her t-shirt. “Audrey! I told you, we’re not playing that!”

She didn’t stop. “You’re not, maybe. But I want to.”

I could only suck in my breath as the teen pulled away the shirt and revealed her upper half, her young breasts held snuggly by a white bra, a thinly-padded wireframe with an inch or two of lace at the top. The girl had a splash of freckles across her upper chest which disappeared into her cleavage below the bra line. There was no way I couldn’t look, and there was no chance she wouldn’t notice.

“See. You want to play this as much as I do.”

My voice caught in my throat. I was uncomfortable talking to teens in normal circumstances, but as I watched the girl slam back the rest of her brandy, I couldn’t utter an intelligible syllable as I let my eyes stick on Audrey’s bra-covered breasts.

She was blushing. I didn’t notice it on her face so much, but the reddish-flush across her upper breasts, the part uncovered by bra, was obvious. She didn’t meet my gaze at first, letting her body be largely exposed to my eyes. I tried to look away but I was unable for long seconds.

Finally, Audrey moved and the spell was, for a moment, broken. She grabbed the cards and shuffled. I became terrified waiting for her to finish sending cards my way. Her grandparents would be home any moment. I was sitting in their home, drinking with their fifteen-year old granddaughter, and the girl was wearing only a bra over her breasts. I feared what she would take off if she next lost a hand.

So, for three hands, I kept that from happening. I tanked each turn, throwing away a chance at a flush, discarding a pair of tens another time. I did everything possible not to find out what Audrey would expose.

By accident, I won the next hand. Perhaps, I realized later, Audrey had ensured she would lose. I’d never know for sure. But when she lost, she stood, my mouth frozen, my eyes watching her fingers twist around the button on her jeans. Loosened, she moved her index finger and thumb to her zipper.

My pulse raced, my heart pounding, terror and raw excitement burning inside me. The zzzzzzzzrrrp of Audrey’s zipper sliding down was the best and worst sound I’d ever heard.

The front door opened and Audrey’s motion reversed, double time. Before a single clack of Joyce’s heels hit the tile entranceway, Audrey’s pants were in place and her shirt was sliding back down over her top. I felt guilty watching her bra-covered breasts disappear quickly even as my throat felt thick with terror of us being caught.

“Audrey?” Joyce’s voice called out.

“We’re in here,” the teen said, suddenly back to her bored tone, expression, posture as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t almost removed her pants in front of me.

I slammed back my brandy, trying to clear my throat and calm myself. My fingers shook the glass as I swallowed. Audrey smirked at me as my glass pattered when I tried to set it down.

I felt a bit sick, honestly.

“Ah, Darren, there you are,” Joyce said as she strode confidently into the living room. She sat down her slim purse and I stood on shaky legs to receive the hug I knew she’d give me. Hug concluded, Joyce stepped back, eyeing me a moment. “You okay? You look a bit peaked!”

“Fine,” I said, gravely and thin, “just the brandy.”

“Ah, Herman’s special blend. It’ll get you like that,” Joyce replied, accepting my lie. She turned to her granddaughter. “And you, too? Promise me it’s just a quarter-glass. No more than that.”

“Promise,” Audrey said, more sweetly than any word she’d uttered to me.

“Okay,” Joyce nodded, hugging her granddaughter. “No more tonight, I think. I smell it on you.” She glanced down at the table. “Ah, the poker set. Maybe after dinner,” she said, turning to me, “you’ll stick around and we can all play a few hands. Audrey here has quite the poker face.”

I nearly choked on my tongue. “Uh, no, no. I’ve ... uh ... I’m expecting to hear from my girls in a couple of hours, I’d like to be home to take the call. Thanks ... uh, thanks, though.”

Audrey’s grin was a bit mischievous. She also looked a bit disappointed.

“Well,” Joyce said, heading towards the kitchen, “we’ll have things up in a jiffy. You two keep playing.”

She left us alone and I could only stare at my feet.

I felt Audrey’s eyes on me the whole time.

“Sorry,” the girl said. She sounded sincere. “I ... I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“No,” I replied quietly, not quite meeting her eyes, “no, you should not have.”

We sat quietly. I had no idea what to say or do, so I avoided anything which might lead the teen to do something else so disturbing.

“I just...” the teen said just above a whisper, “I just got them, you know. All my friends got theirs years ago, but not me. No, not me. Not little Audrey. Flat as a board until about eight months ago. Who turns fourteen and doesn’t have boobs?” She sounded a mix of angry and sad.

I shrugged, uncomfortable on so many levels. I didn’t reply.

“How old were your daughters when they got theirs?”

I sucked in my breath. “No idea.”

“I don’t believe that...”

“I dunno, Audrey,” I tried to keep my voice low so her grandparents would not hear me, “twelve, thirteen maybe?”

“Yeah, that’s about right. I noticed when Gwen got hers first a couple years ago, and then the next year, Vic’s got big. So unfair...”

I shrugged again, “Maybe so...”

“Sorry,” she repeated. “I just ... I don’t really talk to anyone like this. I dunno why I’m telling you.”

“You just drank three shots of brandy in two gulps.”

She grinned. “Yeah. I did.”

I returned to silence.

“Listen ... please don’t tell my grandparents ... I’m really sorry ... and they’d be really mad...”

“I won’t. Just ... please don’t tempt me again.” I hated the way I replied the instant it rolled off my tongue.

“Tempt ... Yeah, I guess I did tempt you. Not like my age would keep you from wanting to see ... I get it ... I’m, uh ... I’m sorry.”

“Accepted,” I said, rising and moving to the wet bar to refill my drink, “can we please drop this?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Darren?”

It was the first time I’d ever heard the girl use my first name. “Yeah?”

“Sorry.”

I didn’t know why she kept apologizing, especially after we had just agreed to stop talking about it. I turned to acknowledge her apology once again, and my eyes were drawn to the way Audrey was bent over the coffee table as she collected the cards and chips.

Her ass was slender but spread fully in her tight, faded jeans. It was the backside of a young woman, shapely, inviting. The crotch of her pants were drawn up tight against her body, and it took little imagination to think about what was hidden just inside. I wondered if Audrey had apologized again, hoping I’d see her like that. She showed no signs of noticing my gaze, and it was with great effort that I tore my eyes from the nicest ass I’d seen in a very long time, and with shaking hands, poured myself another drink.

Dinner was filet mignon cooked rare, sauteed squash and onions, parsley potatoes, and for dessert, a flaming crème brulee, made from scratch by Herman. Audrey showed nothing of our earlier interactions, and I pushed down the confusing mix of reactions I’d had to her obvious teasing. If she looked at me at all as we ate, I didn’t see it.

After the meal, I had a headache, and I hadn’t lied about expecting a call from my daughters, so I excused myself before I could again be invited to stay late.

My head swam from the alcohol and the temptation of Audrey. I took the call from my sister and spoke briefly to my girls before I undressed and plopped myself on the bed.

I couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of Audrey’s bra-covered breasts and bent, shapely ass swamped me with desire. For the first time in over two years, I jerked off. It was like greeting an old friend after too long apart. As I spewed jets of cum into the air to splash down on my stomach, thoughts of the teenager next door and what might have happened if I’d have encouraged rather than discouraged her played out in my mind. I was met immediately with regret and shame which mixed awkwardly with the glowing pleasure of my orgasm. Sleep found me then, and though I don’t recall them, my dreams were troubled, but also erotic.