Chapter 3

If my first contact with Cindy Johnson had given me a taste of what I was missing, my second experience got me well and truly hooked. I spent hours at a time in my office at work dreaming up different ways I might have the beautiful young girl, imagining ways I could insinuate myself more deeply into her life, to engineer more opportunities to be alone with her. Alone and naked ideally. My sane mind tried to remind me that this sort of thing would only ever end badly, if not prison-time badly then certainly somewhere close. But that smarter me was completely repressed now, my lust just reassured me that you just didn't hear about the times when things like this ran smoothly, because, well because not being discovered is what meant they were running smoothly.

Despite my new determination to get closer to Cindy I didn't see her again for over a week, not for want of trying on my part. That weekend I had been volunteered to help my sister in-law and her new husband move into their new apartment across town, an exhausting chore which lasted all of Saturday and the bulk of Sunday. What was particularly aggravating was that, just by spending a short time with the couple I could tell I'd be moving half of the furniture out of the apartment by the end of the year. My wife's sister had a disastrous track record with relationships, and this one was no better.

There was one bright side to the whole ordeal though. On Sunday morning, while waiting at the new apartment for the "lovebirds" to arrive I found myself staring out of the lounge window at the playing fields next door. There was a High School girls soccer match in progress and my interest was duly piqued.

There was no denying that the girls (my best guess is that they were sophomores) were a fit and attractive bunch, and watching them play caused my cock to twitch appreciatively. But none of them filled me with the sheer, giddying lust that the younger Miss Johnson did. Even when one girl was injured and helped off to the pitch side right below my window and a trainer began stretching her toned tanned legs in very appealing ways, the thought that first came to me was to wonder what Cindy would look like in such a position. I had it bad.

I paid particular attention in the following week to Emilia's talk of her Volleyball team, and of her team-mates. She seemed to have rapidly become close friends with her neighbor, and by all accounts Cin was proving to be a very good player.

Come Saturday we were having a family breakfast together in the apartment, Emm already dressed in her volleyball clothes, an oversized varsity hoodie covering her top, when the doorbell chimed. My daughter leaped to answer it and returned with Cindy in tow.

I briefly wondered where the girl had got her school hoodie from, unlike her friend's it was tight, with a zip up the front and it hugged her body in a far more appealing way than Emm's shapeless version. Her hair was loose around her shoulders although I could see she had a number of hair bands around her wrists to fix it up out of her way at some time later.

She smiled warmly when she saw me and her hand, instinctively, went up to touch her cheek and she bit her bottom lip before meeting my eyes again and flashing me a dazzlingly toothy smile.

The sweet moment was cut short when my wife re-entered the room from the kitchen, a look of panic crossed the fourteen year old's face but was quickly replaced by something else. A shamed flush.

If my wife noticed anything amiss she certainly didn't say so, she simply greeted our neighbor and informed the girls she'd be ready to take them to their tournament in a couple of minutes, before disappearing to our bedroom to finish getting ready.

I tried to stay close so I could hear the two girls chatting as I tidied the breakfast things away without seeming weird. I only managed to meet Cindy's eyes once and my attempt at a flirty wink was brushed off, the young girl staring pointedly at her hands, nodding robotically as my daughter chattered.

Tracey emerged from our room shortly and called to the girls to gather their things. I met the trio at the front door and attempted to give Tracey a goodbye kiss. She was less than eager to reciprocate however, perhaps because I had rebuffed her request for sex the previous night, under the pretense of exhaustion but really because I didn't feel like fucking anyone but Cindy, and hadn't for the best part of a month.

"Ugh no." She said exaggeratedly. "You've got terrible morning breath, and the designer stubble really doesn't suit you."

I was a little affronted, but not particularly bothered, we'd always had a very frank talking relationship and I knew a small annoyance like this was nothing. However, as the girls left I did notice Cindy looking daggers at my wife's back, clearly horrified at what she thought must have been a humiliating exchange for me.

I busied myself about the apartment for the rest of the morning. After doing a little cleaning I was just getting into one of my new favorite porn videos when my wife arrived back, interrupting me before I'd even really had a chance to warm up. Instead I watched some vacant and innocuous television for a few hours, dozing off.

My wife woke me by kicking my feet from where they had been propped on the coffee table.

"You need to leave now if you're going to pick Emm up at six." She said matter-of-factly.

"I didn't know I was the taxi this evening." I complained half-heartedly, but I was already on my feet, planning to change into Jeans and a t-shirt from the jogging pants and holey sweatshirt I'd been wearing all day. There was never much point in objecting at times like this, and besides, I imagined I would also be giving our neighbor a ride home too, a definite upside.

When I arrived at the unfamiliar High School on the far side of town the girls were in the middle of some sort of medal ceremony. Clearly the girl's school had done well, as Cindy and Emilia were both owners of shiny silver medals, which were draped around their necks as they stood beside an unfamiliar team of teens receiving their golds.

I stood watching the twee, unnecessarily long, ceremony when a familiar voice chimed in my ear.

"God, anyone would think they won the fucking Olympics."

I turned to my side and my elder brother elbowed me playfully in the ribs, before darting back as not to get hit by my flailing arm. It was an old and well polished routine, though we might not have performed it quite so quickly as we did thirty years ago.

"Niall, what are you doing here, does someone in the team owe you money?" I joked.

A dramatic and exasperated sigh came from the far side of my elder sibling and I looked over him to see his daughter Maisie at his side. Maisie was small and slight, a year younger than my own daughter, but the two had been firm friends since forever.

"Did you forget, Uncle Craig?" She asked, looking at me with faux sympathy. "Emm is coming to sleep over at ours tonight, for my birthday, so we can head out to Six Flags first thing tomorrow." She paused and tilted her head as she regarded me. "Does this mean you've not brought my present either.

She was right of course, both my wife and I had dropped the ball big time. I remembered the phone conversation I'd had with Niall now, and telling Tracey so she could write it up on the planner in the kitchen.

Before I had a chance to offer an explanation though my daughter had bounded across to hug her cousin and wish her a happy thirteenth. Luckily, although the date had also slipped Emilia's mind she had a full change of clothing in her gym bag and it was agreed that she would be fine to head home with her uncle and cousin rather than coming back, ten miles in the wrong direction through busy cross town traffic, home with me.

"You'll still be able to drive Cin home though right dad?" My daughter questioned as she climbed into the back of my brother's SUV.

I feigned a look of surprise, like the idea that I'd have to drive the object of all my desires home alone hadn't immediately sprung into my head.

"Oh yeah, of course I can sweetie, she only lives across the way after all. I'll go wait by the change rooms for her, you have a good time tomorrow, don't get too sick." With that I slammed the car door shut and watched as they drove off. Almost jumping up and clicking my heels together with glee I turned and headed back to the gym to find Cindy.

The young girl wasn't hard to find, she was zipped into her tight hoodie again, a pair of yoga pants covering her legs on what was turning in to a cool early spring evening. Her gym bag was over her shoulders and the strap was pulling down between her breasts, separating them, making them seem like they were jutting out even more than usual. She had her cellphone in her hand and her small fingers were moving on the screen in the blurringly fast way only the young can when messaging their friends. She looked up at me, her hair still slightly damp from a post game shower, held back by hair bands, but with a few strands falling to the side of her wide cheekboned, perfectly proportioned face.

"Hi Mr. C, Emm just messaged me to tell me what happened, is it okay for you to give me a ride back, I can call my dad now if not." She asked, her expression pensive. She shifted from one foot to the other, keeping the phone in her hand.

"Of course it's no problem Cindy, I'm going to be driving right back to your apartment, no reason to bother your dad, especially as the mix up is all my fault. Come on, let's go."

We set out back to the parking lot, the nervous young teen clutching at her bag and walking a good six feet from me all the way back. I tried to draw her out a little as we walked through the dusting of other players and parents heading to their own cars but she answered questions about the games and her own performance equally monosyllabically.

We got to the car and I popped the trunk for her bag. I opened the driver's door and sat down. Watching in side mirror I saw Cindy make to open a rear door and then think better of it, opening the passenger side and taking her seat beside me. I smiled reassuringly at her and we pulled away.

The silence in the car was thick for a good ten minutes. I focused mainly on the unfamiliar suburban roads, but occasionally I'd glance across and catch the teen watching me, before shooting her gaze back out of the window, pretending to be studying something on the far side of the street. Eventually Cindy's sweet high voice broke the tension.

"Do you and Mrs. Craft fight a lot Mr. C?" With her tone she tried to make it seem like her question was no big deal, just a conversation starter, but the way she studied my face as I answered told me otherwise.

My bad side saw where this was going with remarkable speed and without a pause to call the integrity of my response into question I found myself answering. But not truthfully, answering in exactly the way I believed the young girl needed to hear.

"We didn't use to Cindy, but things aren't great between us any more. They haven't been for quite a while. I try to make the effort but more often than not it gets pushed back in my face. Sometimes I wonder if there's someone else." None of this was true, up until last month I would have said my wife and I had a perfectly normal relationship for people who've been married over a dozen years.