Chapter 6

That afternoon I, unsurprisingly, couldn’t focus on work at all. Inside the hermetic little seal of my office I vacillated between staring at the media Cindy had sent me and contemplating all the ways its presence could destroy my life. I knew I lacked the willpower to delete it, that was out of the question. Eventually, after wikihow-ing a tech walk-through I found solution. In a store closet our last IT guy had used as a ‘you never know’ repository I found an old portable hard drive, discarded now for being far too small for our commercial uses, but workable for what I wanted. I spent my last hour at work moving all the incriminating media I’d been send on to the drive, once the office had emptied of all the other employees.

That was Wednesday. I heard from Cindy again on Thursday evening, while I was working late again. It was a fortuitously timed call as I had been sat daydreaming in my office, working myself up to opening my bottom drawer and taking out the drive to relieve yesterday.

I answered the voice call nervously, not knowing where my teen seductress was, or who might be with her. The cautionary tone of my voice must have been evident as Cindy picked up on it quickly.

“You worried someone might be listening in? Don’t worry. It’s just me and Rusty. Here I’ll show you.” She abruptly ended the call leaving me wondering who this Rusty was, perhaps the guy from yesterday (though Rusty didn’t strike me as a typically African American name). I didn’t have to wait long to find out, as my phone immediately started buzzing with a facetime video call. I answered it warily.

I needn’t have worried. Cindy was stood on a patch of grass that I recognized as the park closest to our apartment building. Her silvery hair was held back from her face by a blue headband and she was wearing athletic gear that was on the fine line between practical and inappropriate. As she was wearing it now it was just practical but if she pulled her shorts up a little tighter a line would be crossed. No one else was with her, and I was puzzled until she panned her phone screen down and I saw the leash in her hand. On the other end of the leash was our elderly neighbor Mrs. Maynard’s terrier cross, Rusty. Cindy giggled, clearly pleased to have confused me in a playful way. I felt relaxed.

“Hello Cindy, hello Rusty. It’s nice to see both of you, but to what do I owe the pleasure?” Cindy pouted a little, still playful.

“All business huh Mr. C? Do I need a reason to call you, after all, you are my number one guy.” I was thinking clearly today, and my first thought was to question how I was her number one after what I’d seen yesterday, but my brain was, for once, working faster than my mouth.

“Not at all, you can call me any time, within reason, number one girl. This is a change from our last talk though. Rusty looks like he’s making less demands on you than your friend yesterday was.” Cindy beamed, her smile sharply reminding me how youthful she was.

“Number one girl. I like that.” She was walking now, leading Rusty across the grass.

“You liked that yesterday huh? Good, it was all for you, to show you I’m keeping myself ready for the next time we can get together.” I boggled at Cindy’s odd teenage logic but kept my thoughts to myself. She plowed on, talking and walking.

“He’s not my friend though, not really. And in fact there was a reason I called you, more than just to say hi. I need a favor...”

That was why, the next day I made excuses and left work early. No one batted an eyelid. The boss leaving at lunch time was to be expected, and frankly I didn’t do it nearly enough. I wasn’t leaving to get an early start on driving out to the lake with the family, like I intimated to a couple of people. Instead I drove my car over to the high school both Cindy and my daughter attended. I was pretty confident I wouldn’t see Emilia, but I was expecting to see Cindy. I’d been fully briefed on what was going to happen the night before. Frankly the plan seemed mind-blowingly stupid, and if I had any common sense I would have point-blank refused it. But what this story should have told you by now is that all my common sense had long since abandoned me.

Cindy was exactly where she told me she’d be, and in a brand new outfit she had promised me I’d love, perhaps thinking it’d act as some sort of enticement to do what she was asking. She wasn’t wrong, she looked phenomenal, yet again. She was wearing a perverts’ imagining of what a preppy high schooler might wear. A lemon colored tight woollen sweater and a flared, very short, tartan skirt, also in yellow. The sweater hugged her upper body, while the skirt showed off all of her tanned toned legs, right down to her pure white sneakers and short socks. Also, she wasn’t alone.

The previous evening when outlining her plan Cindy had told me that after leaving the school for a non-existent hospital appointment she would wait for me out front of the main building, way over to the west side, in front of the lawns that surrounded the football field. This was because she knew who would be out there at this time on a Friday afternoon. Beside her, reclining uncomfortably on a ride-on mower was one of the school’s grounds team, a rangy black kid in his early twenties with a manicured looking goatee and a school issue cap on, wearing coveralls (undone and tied around the waist, obviously) and a white vest. This was Darrell, Cindy’s co star from her recent performance.

Darrell was sat close beside Cindy, pulling at her sleeve in what he must have thought was a persuasive way. He was missing, or ignoring, the cues the young girl was giving him that she was not interested in his attention. On seeing my minivan rolling to a slow stop by the curb Cindy pushed Darrell’s hand off her hip and bounced across to my passenger side door. Not to be deterred he slipped off his mower and followed along behind her. Cindy leaned in the passenger window and smiled at me warmly. She spoke loud enough for the approaching Darrell to hear.

“Hey daddy, I’ll just throw my bag in the back and then we can get going to the doctor’s office.”

As she was tossing her bag in the back he was beside her again, his hand attempting to rest territorially on her hip. He smiled and leaned in to the same window, his grin a great deal less authentic than hers, barely reaching his eyes.

“Hello Sir, I’m Darrell, A friend of Cin’s. When she was saying you were coming to pick her up she was insistent you wouldn’t have time to meet me. But I knew I had to come over and say hi. Tell you all about what she’s been up to recently.”