Annie Girl
Copyright© 2024 by Alex Weiss
Part I
Romantic Story: Part I - A chance encounter with a young teenage orphan in a store parking lot leads to big changes in Sean Copeland's life when he invites her into his home, and into his heart.
Caution: This Romantic Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/ft Tear Jerker Anal Sex Oral Sex
The dashboard gauge read one hundred eight degrees outside, but I guessed that it had to be closer to one fifteen in the middle of all that black asphalt. Inside my 4Runner, however, it was a pleasant seventy-two. After receiving an urgent phone call from one of my customers, I parked outside a Walmart to avail myself of their free WiFi while she waited on the line with me to resolve her issue.
“Hang on just a minute,” I said. “I’m logging in right now.”
Her voice came through the Bose speakers loud and clear. “No problem. I’m going to put you on mute, okay?”
I logged into my AWS account and, sure enough, one of my app servers had crashed. I restarted it and waited for the indicators to turn green.
“Nina, are you still there?”
She unmuted. “I’m here, Sean.”
“Do a hard refresh and tell me if it’s back up.”
A few seconds later, her triumphant voice filled the cabin. “Yeah, that did it! Everything’s working fine now!”
After the call, I sat in the parking lot for a while longer to read through the diagnostic log and figure out what had caused the app to crash. With nearly two hundred apps to maintain, there was always some little bug to hunt or service interruption to resolve. It was rarely anything serious, though. All my apps were browser extensions. Tiny apps with tiny code bases that made debugging them a breeze. I found the source of the error in no time and pushed a quick bug fix up to the app server from my code repository.
Just as I packed up my laptop and prepared to continue home, someone banged on my window, scaring the shit out of me. A short young girl dripping sweat stood just outside, looking highly agitated. Her muted voice barely carried through the glass.
“Can you help us?”
I rolled down the window. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s sick,” she said, pointing to a dilapidated RV parked a few stalls away. A heavyset, white-haired old woman, who looked to be in her seventies or eighties, stood in the parking lot nearby, swaying on unsteady legs.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
The girl turned and, seeing the old woman, rushed back to take hold of her arm, gesturing for me to come. I got out of my idling vehicle and followed her into the RV. As hot as it was outside in the blazing sun, it was so stifling within the RV’s confined interior that I had trouble breathing. The air was thick, with a sick, fetid quality. An obese man wearing nothing but boxers, who looked to be as old as the woman, lay slumped in a banquette on the other side of a tiny dining table covered in fast food wrappers.
“Call 911,” I said as I slowly approached him.
My voice sounded far calmer than I felt. Perhaps because I knew there was no need to rush. I was no doctor, but I could tell right away that the old timer was gone. His dull eyes peered into the void of the great beyond from behind half-closed eyelids, and his mouth hung open in an expression of eternal surprise. Pinkish vomit covered his hairy chest and bulging belly. I leaned over the table and carefully laid my fingers against the side of his thick neck, confirming what my eyes already knew.
In a quiet voice, the girl asked, “Is he...?”
I turned to face her. “Did you make that call?”
“We don’t have a phone,” she said, her eyes fixed on the old man’s corpse.
Oddly, neither she nor the old woman seemed distraught by the old man’s demise. They simply stood quietly off to the side, the young girl stroking the thin skin on the back of the old woman’s liver-spotted hand. Both of them sweated profusely and my own shirt was already sticking to my chest.
“We can call from my car,” I said, then indicating the old woman. “We need to get her out of this heat.”
The girl retrieved an Army-style duffel bag from the sleeper above the cab and guided the old woman to my brightly colored SUV, where I helped her into the back seat. The girl slid in next to her while I dialed emergency services from the driver’s seat. After a brief conversation with the dispatcher, where I explained the situation, he asked if I was able to get the old man onto his back to perform CPR. I explained that I couldn’t, as he was wedged behind the table and quite heavy. The dispatcher told me to sit tight, paramedics were on their way.
Although the AC blew cold air, sweat still dripped from our faces and I soon became aware of a strong, unpleasant odor. The smell of unwashed bodies and sweaty hair. The same aroma from inside the RV. I studied the old woman through the rearview and felt concern for her health. She had bruises on her forehead and there was clearly something wrong with her. She acted confused and talked to the girl as if she were a stranger, asking if the cats had been fed. Not once, however, did she mention or inquire about the dead man, who I assumed was her husband.
I considered the young girl seated beside her as well, who appeared to be in her mid-teens. Their granddaughter, perhaps? Her short dark hair had been butchered into something resembling a pixie cut, and I wondered if she cut it herself. She had a round, pretty face and I found her large amber eyes not just expressive, but striking. Lucky for her, I suppose, given her excessive weight, which was unfortunate but unsurprising considering the fast food wrappers in the RV.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
The girl looked at me through the mirror and said, “She’s fine.”
“She doesn’t seem fine. Is it the heat?” I guessed, but she shook her head.
After twenty minutes, I called the dispatchers again and was assured that paramedics were en route, though they refused to give me an ETA. After hanging up, I caught the girl watching me through the rearview.
“Do you need anything while we’re waiting?” I asked.
After a moment’s consideration, she shrugged. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like water or something?”
She wiped sweat from the old woman’s forehead, then licked her own parched lips and nodded. We were a hundred yards from the store. I thought about quickly running inside, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to leave the two of them alone in my brand new SUV with the motor running. Plus, I figured I should probably stay put in case the paramedics arrived.
“Do you have any money?” I asked her.
The girl shook her head. I lifted the armrest over the center console and fished around inside for a few of the small bills I kept for toll booths. I passed back a handful of singles.
“Here, take this and go buy some water for you and your grandma.”
She took the cash and opened the door, saying, “She’s not my grandma.”
“She’s not?” I asked, but she’d already shut the door.
I watched her go, green flip flops snapping the soles of her feet with every step, and I could just see the tattered ends of denim cutoffs peeking from beneath her oversized, tie-dyed tank top. Short, thick legs moved quickly to carry her across the parking lot to the store. She had an unusual gait that caused her pelvis to tilt forward when she walked, and I realized she was slightly pigeon-toed.
EMS arrived a short while later, their yellow ambulance meandering through endless acres of parking lot until they finally spotted me waving at them. It didn’t take them long to confirm that the old man was deceased. The girl returned with a white plastic shopping bag. With no way to help the old man, the paramedics shifted their full attention to the old woman. The girl stood nearby in the shade of a small, wispy tree and cracked open a cold can of Dr. Pepper. Just then, a pair of police cruisers pulled up to the scene.
As I watched uniformed officers secure the RV and surrounding area, and confer with the paramedics about the elderly couple, a cold, clammy hand took hold of mine. The young girl stood beside me with a frightened expression.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Pretend you’re my dad.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
I tried to pull my hand away, but she held on with a surprisingly firm grip. The paramedic pointed at us, and one of the cops headed in our direction.
“Hey, let go,” I said under my breath.
“Please!” she begged, her vivid amber eyes wide with desperation. “They’re going to send me back to foster care.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking about? Don’t you have any other family?” She shook her head vigorously. “Look, I’m sorry, but that’s not really my problem, okay? Now, will you please let go.” I managed to twist my hand free of her death grip just as the cop arrived.
“You the guy who called it in?” he asked, glancing at the girl.
“Yeah.” Just as I said that, the girl took hold of my hand again. “Hey, stop that.”
“Please, daddy, I’m scared.”
“I said, stop it. And I’m not-”
“Hey, it’s okay, sweetie,” the cop interjected with a calm, reassuring smile. “You’re daddy’s not in any trouble. I just need to get a statement from him, and then you can both go home.”
I looked into her beautiful, pleading eyes. Her pitiful expression caused me to hesitate for just an instant, but it was all the time she needed. Seizing on the opportunity, she pressed herself against me and wrapped her arms around my waist.
“I love you, daddy.”
I stared at the top of her head, my mouth agape. Then, without thinking, I put my arm around the sweaty girl. What the hell are you doing? I asked myself. When I looked up, the cop lifted his eyebrows and bobbed his head with a knowing smile.
“I’ve got two that are about her age,” he confided. “They never stop being daddy’s little girl, do they?” His expression changed to one of concern and he jerked his head in the direction of the RV. “She didn’t see the, uh...?”
The girl spoke up before I could respond. “No, I didn’t see anything,” she said, then pointed at the 4Runner where paramedics still tended to the old woman. “Daddy saw that old lady wandering around outside the camper and went to see if she was okay, but he told me to wait in the car. My name’s Annie, by the way.”
The cop nodded and jotted that down, chuckling softly. “Okay, Annie. And what’s your last name, sweetheart?”
She lifted her face to mine, and those big, beautiful eyes of hers held me captive. I heard myself say, “Copeland”
“Annie Copeland,” the cop read back.
After that, I gave him my name, some contact info, and a brief statement about what I saw inside the RV, and that was that. The girl, Annie, clung to me the entire time. When attempts to communicate with the old woman proved unsuccessful, the paramedics strapped her to a gurney and put her in an ambulance.
“What’ll happen to her?” I asked the cop.
“They’ll take her to the hospital for an evaluation and see if they can locate any family members. If they can’t find anyone to come get her, then they’ll contact adult protective services. Either way, she’ll probably end up in a nursing home.”
“Do you need anything else from me?” I asked, but he shook his head and put his notebook away.
“Paramedics said it looks like the poor old guy suffered a massive heart attack. If anything comes up, someone might reach out to you. Otherwise, I think we’re done here. You’re free to go.”
I thanked him and got into the SUV with Annie. When we pulled away, I gave her a sideways glance.
“Okay, where am I taking you?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, to a friend’s house or a teacher’s?”
She shook her head and said, “I don’t go to school.”
When I asked, “Why not?” she only shrugged. “What about a neighbor then? Or a church member?” More shakes of her head. “Don’t you have anyone I can take you to?”
She lowered her head and quietly sipped her soda. “No.”
She said it in the softest, saddest voice I’d ever heard. I slowed to a stop at the other end of the parking lot and twisted in my seat to face her.
“Annie,” I said, getting her attention. “You said that woman wasn’t your grandmother. Who was she?”
“My foster mom.”
“Your foster ... But, she’s so old. How’s that possible?”
Annie explained that she’d been fostered out to a middle-aged couple named Gordon and Patty Barth, after Annie’s mom, a single parent, passed away. A few years later, Patty ran off, leaving Gordon to look after the girl by himself, until he was pulled over one night with several kilos of meth in the trunk of his car. Gordon left Annie in the care of his aging parents with whom he shared the house, Helen and Gordon Barth Sr. With Gordon Jr. looking at a fifteen year stretch at the state penitentiary, Gordon Sr. decided to hold onto the girl so that he and his wife could continue collecting welfare checks from the state.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
Two states and six hundred miles away it turned out, in some rural Mississippi backwater I’d never heard of before. After determining that it would take ten hours to drive there, I set down my phone to consider my options. There were only two that I could see. I could turn around and hand her over to the police, but without any family members or a guardian to come get her, she’d likely be shipped back to Mississippi and placed in a group home or fostered out to someone else. Or, I could take her home with me.
How would that work? We could pass as related. Perhaps a long lost niece, second cousin, or recently discovered lovechild. I was forty-seven and recently single after splitting with my long-term girlfriend of eighteen years. We never married and had no kids. I never wanted kids. I didn’t really like kids, to be honest. Mostly because I didn’t have the patience for them.
After living on my own for the past year, I’d come to cherish my freedom and privacy. I owned a nice house in a hip neighborhood close to the city center and worked for myself as a software developer. My life was comfortable, if not predictable, but I was okay with that. Why would I want to disrupt all that by inviting a teenager into my house? And what would my friends and neighbors think?
On the other hand, Annie intrigued me. She seemed well-mannered and even-tempered. Polite even. Soft spoken and sweet as could be. Capable too. I sensed a sharp mind at work behind those engaging amber eyes of hers. The girl was no dummy. Could I help improve her odds in life? Teach her how to code, maybe? Give her some kind of future that didn’t include living in a trailer park, pumping out four kids from four different baby-daddies?
After a moment of honest self-reflection, I admitted to a selfish motive. Although I wasn’t eager to dive headfirst into a new long term relationship, I still found myself lonely for companionship. To have a feminine presence in the house again would be wonderful. Someone I could talk to. Someone to share a meal with. Someone to settle onto the couch with to watch a movie.
I’d been on a handful of dates since my breakup, but had yet to find a relationship worth pursuing. Too many women my age carried excess baggage, including children. They were working professionals with responsibilities at home that made them unavailable a lot of the time, except on certain weekends when their exes had shared custody of the kids.
There was something else, though. Something disturbing which troubled me greatly. Despite how young Annie was, I was undeniably attracted to her. I don’t know why, but it was there and I couldn’t help it. She had a pretty, youthful face and soft, feminine curves that appealed to me. The mere fact that I entertained such inappropriate thoughts about a girl so young filled me with self-loathing and guilt, and I felt deeply ashamed for it.
For that reason alone, I needed to turn her over to the police. I set my hand on the shifter, pulled the shifter into drive, stepped on the accelerator, and turned the wheel to point us back the way we’d come. From the periphery of my vision, I saw Annie turn her head. I looked at her, at that pretty young face so full of dismay and betrayal. I stared deeply into her beseeching amber eyes and sighed, telling myself that I was doing the right thing. Then, just before I turned away from her, my gaze slid over her body and settled on the smooth, flawless skin of her bare, chubby thighs.
I spun the wheel back in the other direction and drove us out of the parking lot.
What are you doing, man? What the fuck are you doing? Was this kidnapping? Child abduction? Were police going to show up at my house later? Was every phone in the state about to start blaring an Amber alert with my name on it?
I doubted it. According to Annie, she’d rarely seen a social worker come to visit in all the years was in foster care, but even if they decided to show up now for some reason, they’d probably assume she simply ran away. Her parents were dead and she had no other family. No one, it seemed, wanted Annie, which is how she ended up in foster care to begin with. If that was true, then was there anyone out there to look after her?
What about those cops? What if they discovered something in the RV that connected Annie to that old couple? What if Helen Barth had an unexpected moment of clarity and asked about her foster daughter? What if they checked the Walmart security cameras and saw Annie emerge from the RV and approach my 4Runner?
They were all low-probability risks, but risks nonetheless. Even if it wasn’t technically kidnapping, I’d still made a false statement to the police. Plus, the optics of the whole situation were just plain awful. A middle-aged man lying to police so he could sneak away with a young teenage girl. An orphan, no less. The immediate implication would, at minimum, land me in an interview room where I’d be subjected to some harsh interrogation.
By the time we arrived at my house, I’d rationalized most of that away. I was simply giving a poor, unfortunate girl a temporary place to crash while she sorted out her shit. Sure, I might have technically lied to the cops about who she was, but that was a relatively minor error in judgment. A misdemeanor, for which I’d probably get a slap on the wrist. At the end of the day, I was just trying to be a good Samaritan. It wasn’t like I was doing anything nefarious. Was I?
“Annie, we need to talk,” I said when the garage door finished closing behind us. We still sat buckled into our seats.
“About what?”
“About what you want to do. Long term, I mean.” She kept her head down and her eyes focused on the floorboard. When she didn’t respond, I continued. “Look, I can take you back to Mississippi if you want. We can go right now. I’ll drop you with child protective services and you can explain about the mix-up with your foster family. They can try to find you another home. Another family. Maybe a forever home, with a mom and a dad who love you and want to adopt you.”
I paused and waited. For a long time she remained silent, in apparent consideration of what I’d offered. I honestly wasn’t sure what I wanted her to choose. I’d allowed myself to get caught up in a situation I hadn’t planned for, and for which I was wholly unprepared. Finally, under her breath, she asked me a question.
“What if I end up with another family like the Barths?”
“Yeah, that’s certainly a possibility,” I admitted.
I thought to say more but held my tongue. I didn’t want to inadvertently nudge her in a particular direction. She allowed herself a look at me.
“What do you think I should do?” she asked.
I shook my head. “You can’t ask me that, Annie. You have to decide for yourself.”
My answer caused her to look away again, seeking answers in the footwell. I fought to keep my eyes under control, but found myself sneaking peeks at her from the corner of my eye. Surreptitious glances at her curvy profile and the smooth, bare skin of her thick legs. To save myself the embarrassment of getting caught staring at her, I focused on the dashboard.
“Do I have to decide right now?” she asked.
I took a deep breath. “I’d prefer if you did,” I answered truthfully. “The longer you stay here, the more complicated it becomes. People will start asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“What kind do you think? About who you are and what you’re doing here with me.” I was a bit more cross there than I’d intended to be. Another deep breath calmed my agitation. “Sorry. I just don’t know what I’d say to them.”
“Can’t you say we’re related?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. We’d have to work something out ahead of time, though. Something plausible. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “Believable.”
“Exactly.”
Turning in her seat to face me, she said, “I don’t want to go back.”
“Okay...” I said it in a questioning tone. My eyes flicked to the door leading into the house. I was suddenly aware that I still clutched the steering wheel and let go of it, allowing my hands to fall into my lap. “So, what do you want to do, Annie?”
After a lengthy interval of silent contemplation, she asked, “Is it okay if I stay here?”
“Is that what you want?”
“I think so.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice trailing off. “Why? Are you going to ask me to leave?”
I clenched my jaw and fought to keep my tone of voice from betraying my frustration, but I didn’t do a very good job. “I didn’t say that.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“You seem mad.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you sure?”
I exhaled a deep breath and turned to look at her, forcing a smile. In a calm voice, I said, “I’m sure.”
Annie held my gaze. I sensed from her demeanor that she wanted to ask me something. I faced forward again, lest my eyes betray me, and waited patiently for her to get it out. Summoning the courage to speak, she finally asked the question I hoped she’d ask.
“Is it okay if I live here with you?”
I tried not to smile. Instead, I lifted my eyes as if considering her request. Then I unbuckled my seatbelt and opened the door.
“Sure.”
Annie and I worked on our cover story over dinner. She sat on one side of the tobacco-colored granite peninsula and I stood on the other.
“You can’t be my daughter. It won’t work.”
“Why not?” she asked between heaping forkfuls of pasta carbonara. I still hadn’t touched mine.
“Because, everyone knows I never had kids. It would invite too many questions.”
“What if I was your niece?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m actually thinking more distantly related than that. Like, maybe a second cousin once removed, or something like that.”
“Okay,” she said, apparently fine with whatever decision I made. “Do you have any Coke?”
“No. Would you like more water?” She contemplated the still-full glass in front of her and shook her head. “Okay, so you’re my second cousin’s kid, Annie.”
“Annabelle.”
“Sorry, what was that?”
“My name’s Annabelle.”
“Annabelle. Okay, sure. Whatever. So, you’re my second cousin’s kid, Annabelle. But why are you here?” I asked rhetorically.
Annie – Annabelle – shrugged. “I don’t know.”
I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it. What if I was your godfather?”
“Isn’t that a movie?” she asked, dousing her plate with so much parmesan cheese that I could no longer see the pasta underneath.
“No. I mean, yes, it is, but that’s not what I’m talking about. A godparent is someone who agrees to look after you in case something happens to your parents.”
“Like what?”
“Like, you know, if they die.”
“Oh.” Annabelle bopped her head around. “Hmm, okay.”
“Yeah, that could work,” I agreed under my breath, then gave the young girl a serious look. “What’s your mom’s name, Annabelle? Your real mom, I mean.”
She paused mid-chew with a blank look on her face, then swallowed. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember.”
I blinked several times in surprise. “Really? How old were you when she died?” I asked, but she shrugged again. Oh man, that poor girl. I tilted my head. “How old are you now?”
“Fourteen.”
My stomach flip-flopped. Holy hell. Fourteen. Had I really been having those kinds of thoughts about a fourteen-year-old? What the hell was wrong with me? I quickly appraised her again, trying not to be obvious.
Jesus, she didn’t look fourteen. Not by a long shot. She could easily pass for fifteen or even sixteen. Not that that made it alright, but it was a hell of a lot better than perving out on a fourteen-year-old girl. Fuck me.
“I think,” she added after some additional thought.
“Wait, you don’t know how old you are?”
“I mean, that’s how old they said I was.”
“So, you might actually be older,” I suggested hopefully.
She gave me a funny look and another shrug. “Yeah, I guess so,” she conceded, and I felt a tiny bit better. “Do you remember anything about your real parents?”
Once again, she shook her head. “No, not really.”
“Wow, that really sucks. I’m so sorry, Annabelle.”
She nodded her acceptance of my sympathies, then dove back into her pasta. I watched her eat until she cleaned her plate. My own appetite was thoroughly quashed. When she finished, she took note of my untouched plate, then looked at me expectantly. I slid it across the peninsula to her.
“Yeah, sure. Help yourself.”
For the first week, we stayed inside the house. Partly to settle in, partly to feel each other out, but mostly because I wasn’t prepared to unveil my counterfeit goddaughter to the world yet. Plus, I wanted us to work on our backstory some more, until it became second nature. Not to mention, it was hot as hell outside and I didn’t have a pool.
Because I worked for myself, I had no set schedule and no office to commute to. My business operated largely on autopilot, requiring very little intervention on my part, so while I pecked at the keyboard in my home office, working on yet another browser extension, I gave Annabelle free rein of the house. All the space she could ever want to explore her new home and get comfortable in it.
It surprised me that, rather than sit in front of the television and veg out all day, she seemed more interested in my small library, and spent most days holed up in her room, reading. An affinity for books would certainly help explain her obvious intelligence. That also got me thinking about school. If she really was fourteen, then she’d be going into what? The ninth grade, I suppose, when the new school year started in a couple months. Unless she turned fifteen before then, in which case she’d be a tenth-grader.
Fuck. Just thinking about that made me ill.
School, however, posed a bit of a conundrum. How would I get her registered? What kind of paperwork would I need to fill out? What kind of documentation did the school require? A birth certificate? A social security number? Of course, I had none of those things. No identifying papers of any kind. Annabelle was a ghost and it was bizarre to think that I was the only person on the planet who knew who and where she was at the moment.
Despite the guilt I felt for my inappropriate thoughts about Annabelle, I was unable to divorce myself from my attraction for her, and I absolutely could not get her out of my mind. In fact, she occupied a rather large portion of my thoughts each day. I often daydreamed about her, concocting dumb little scenarios. Schemes that would afford me an excuse to talk to her and spend time with her. Do you want to help me cook dinner? Are you up for watching a movie? Oh, I thought I heard you calling for me. Hey, I have an idea I wanted to bounce off you.
Thankfully, I’d managed preserve a shred of dignity by not following through with any of those silly plans. At least, so far.
Regardless of my forbearance in that regard, I still caught myself following her with my eyes whenever I managed to catch sight of her. Long baggy shirts and short shorts seemed to comprise her entire wardrobe, and although it was often the soft bounce of her chest that initially drew my attention, my gaze inevitably fell to those smooth, shapely legs of hers. Legs that were always bare from the very top of her thighs to the very bottom of her feet. If I was especially lucky, I might even catch a rare glimpse of her big, round butt.
There was no doubt in my mind that she was aware of my interest in her. She had to be, even if only on a subconscious level. I’d lost count of the number of times she suddenly shifted her eyes in my direction, as if feeling the weight of my gaze on her body. Sometimes, she even anticipated my stare, catching me before I had even turned to look at her. She was at least gracious enough to spare me further humiliation by pretending she hadn’t just caught me looking at her. Or, perhaps she didn’t fully grasp what the looks I gave her said about me and my interest in her. Was it possible that she had no conception of just how inappropriate that kind of attention from me was?
Not likely. Even a girl as young as Annabelle should have had a pretty solid understanding of what a pervert looks like.
A check of the school district website revealed that the deadline for registration would soon be upon me, but I still didn’t know whether to register her as a freshman or a sophomore. For that, I needed to know when her birthday was. It seemed silly, but I wrestled with whether or not I should go to her room to ask her. It felt like a needless intrusion. I wanted to give her space and not make her feel like I was constantly invading her privacy. After considerable deliberation, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask her a quick question.
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