Chapter 9: Choices

Gretchen's ploys to seduce Errol began slowly and with seeming innocence about a week after she'd almost caught him and her mom doing it. The first time he suspected something might be happening, he was sitting at the kitchen table solving the daily Sudoku puzzle. Gretchen came home from school and dropped her backpack on the table while she poured herself a glass of OJ.

"Hey, Errol. You cooking dinner tonight?"

"Yup, I was planning to. Any special requests?"

"Um, no, not really. I'm feeling kinda like good old fashioned meat and potatoes, I guess."

She came up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, bending forward until her boobs were pressed against him. "Anything interesting in the paper today?"

He didn't think too much about the physical contact, assuming it was innocent, accidental or adolescent. "No, not really. There's some of that pot roast left over from two days ago. How about I make up a nice beef-vegetable stew in a thick gravy for tonight? Maybe add in some dumplings."

"Mmm, sounds yummy!" She let her hands slide down his chest and kissed his hair. "Is Mom working late today?"

"There's a wedding rehearsal dinner in the back room this evening, and she's coordinating the arrangements. She said we can expect her about six."

She shifted her position to where she had his head wedged between her breasts and massaged his temples with her fingertips. Then she bent over to kiss his forehead and said, "Well, I have homework to do. Holler if you need help with dinner."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

She grabbed her backpack and headed for her room. Errol watched her go and wondered if the boob action was intentional. Then it promptly slipped from his mind.

The next close encounter was two days later, and it was pretty blatant. Again, it happened when she got home from school. This time he was sitting on the couch in the living room, answering an e-mail from Luke. His MacBook sat on the coffee table. Lulu was upstairs.

He looked up when she came into the room and greeted her, "Hey, kid! How was your day?"

She dropped her backpack on the floor and sauntered over to him with exaggerated hip movements, pushed him back on the couch and straddled his lap. She rested her forearms on his shoulders and pushed her boobs toward his face, wiggled her butt around on his crotch. She licked her lips sensuously and said in a breathy, Marilyn Monroe kind of voice, "In case you haven't been paying attention, Mr. Hansen, I'm not a kid any more."

Then she kissed him hard on the lips and started grinding herself against is crotch, causing his dick to respond the way it was designed to respond. He grabbed her by the waist and pushed her off his lap. "Right! Point taken, KID!" He shook his head in exasperation and went back to his e-mail.

She laughed, grabbed her backpack and headed up the stairs. Errol sat there with a half-hard dick, taking in the lingering smell of her body. There was nothing innocent or accidental about that one. It was the kind of teasing that could get a girl (and a guy) into serious trouble. If it happened again, he'd have to insist she cool it, because Mama wouldn't like it one little bit. Guaranteed hissy fit!

He didn't have to wait long for her next try. Two days later, Sunday, was his day off. Lulu went to the restaurant at her regular time to help set up for their Sunday brunch, something new they were trying.

Errol was taking advantage of the quiet by sleeping in. A week's worth of accumulated fatigue generally caused him to sleep until nine or ten on Sunday mornings. As was usually the case, he woke up around seven, went into the bathroom to pee, then headed back to his bed to sleep for another hour or two. But this time, when he returned to his room, he had a guest. Gretchen, of course.

She was stretched out on top of the duvet with her hands behind her head. "Morning, sleepy-head. You planning to hibernate all day?"

She was still in her sleepwear, boxer-type shorts with an oversized T-shirt. Her nipples made very prominent bumps on the front of the tee, plus the material was thin enough that he could see the darker shade of her areoles underneath. He was in his boxers and he still had some residual morning wood tenting the front. It didn't escape her attention.

"I may," he conceded, "but I'm sure you're grown-up enough to manage your own breakfast."

She stretched languidly, pushing her boobs out and making the nipple bumps even more obvious. "Um, I'm not really all that hungry. At least not for food, if you get my meaning." She looked pointedly at his tented boxers.

There was no doubt about what she wanted, and just for a moment he was tempted to let her have her way, but common sense intervened and demanded he squash her little game before it got off the ground. He reached down and took hold of her wrist, pulled her off his bed and firmly but gently ushered her to the door.

"What?!" she said angrily as he put his hand in the middle of her back and nudged her into the hallway, "Mom's good enough for you but I'm not?"

Now he was pissed. "Gretchen, if you think you can con me into that kind of game, you need to think again. I really don't need that kind of complication in my life right now." He crossed his arms and gave her a stern look, watching her stomp down the hall to her room and slam her door.

He stood there for a few moments and considered his options. They were few. Faced with the certain knowledge that things were only going to get worse, he took a deep breath and began pulling on his clothes. He took his bag out of the closet and packed his few belonging into it. Then he stripped the bed and dropped the linens on the floor, went into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush and shaving gear, and left the house.

As he was sliding behind the wheel of his Volvo, Gretchen burst through the screen door and yelled at him, "Errol! Errol! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! Please don't leave!"

But a line had been crossed, and once crossed, things could never go back to the way they were. He backed his car out of the drive and drove into town. He almost stopped at the hotel to tell Lulu what had happened, but decided instead that he'd leave it up to Gretchen to explain his departure. He was curious about how she'd relate the story. He turned off his cell phone to preclude any emotional pleas coming his way.

He drove to the other side of town to the boarding house and paid a month's rent for a room on the top floor of the old Victorian house. It's what he should have done weeks ago.

He didn't see or speak to Lulu until he went to work the next morning. Juanita had already delivered the daily supplies and was in the dining room setting up the tables for breakfast. He'd fired up the griddle and he was mixing pancake batter when Lulu came in and stood beside him.

She snaked her arm around his waist and said, "Errol, I'm so sorry about what happened with Gretchen. She was in tears when I got home. She explained everything, and I guess I can't blame you for not wanting to put up with it. She swears she was only teasing you, that she wasn't serious. I sure wish you had come to me with it before moving out of the house."

"Just teasing? That's how she put it?" He chuckled as he leaned over and kissed her forehead. "It doesn't make any difference, Lulu. I can't afford to be playing those kinds of games, so it's best if I just take myself out of harm's way. If I go back, I'll just be an unnecessary complication in your lives."

"Errol, you've been a blessing to our lives. Gretchen is just dealing with raging hormones like any other girl her age. Maybe you should cut her a little slack."

"Maybe, but if I'm not in the room right next to hers, she won't be so tempted to express those raging hormones. And neither will I. I wonder if you can appreciate how hard it is to turn down an offer like that when she's in full display and the pheromones are flying."

Lulu laughed in spite of herself. "Actually, I believe I can, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for you for walking away from that temptation. Not many men would have."

He poured a little dab of batter onto the griddle to test the heat. "Well anyhow, what's done is done. I think I did the right thing. Tell Gretchen I'm not mad at her, okay? You've got my cell number and I'll be staying at the boarding house for at least the next month."

"Yeah, I'll tell her. We're sure gonna miss you. And by the way, you should probably turn you cell phone back on. I expect there are at least twenty messages piled up."

Right off the bat, Errol learned that the "board" part of "room and board" was mediocre at best, and he stopped showing up for meals in the common dining room after only two experiences. The other six guests were nice enough; four bachelor men and two women, all of whom had at least thirty years on him.

The proprietor, a stout lady in her sixties, was pleasant and solicitous, asking him to please join the group for dinner every time she saw him, and reminding him it was included in the rent he paid for his room. He always had a ready excuse for being elsewhere. It quickly became the case that if he was in residence, he was in his room. He simply wasn't comfortable trying to socialize with people he had absolutely nothing in common with. Maybe he wasn't getting his money's worth for the rent he paid, but that was okay with him. Besides, one of the middle-aged women guests cast a predatory eye on him every time they ran into each other. He halfway expected her to offer him money for his services.

His relationship with Lulu cooled just a bit after he moved out, but she still made it perfectly clear that he was welcome to move back into the house whenever he felt like it. He never heard a word from Gretchen and he never returned any of her calls.

A few days after the move, Errol offered Juanita a ride home after work, and asked her if she'd like to go for a ride with him over to Miles City for dinner and a movie Saturday night. It was about forty miles away and he thought it would make for a nice first date. She said she'd love to.

It was his intention to be a proper gentleman all the way, keeping his hands to himself and saying nothing that might be the least bit forward, or even slightly suggestive. He assumed it would take at least three or four dates for her to get comfortable enough with him to consider anything physical. That should also provide him with enough insight to see if she was inclined to anything like a serious relationship, necessitating the need for him to explain some things about his past and projected future.

When he showed up at her house to pick her up, Mrs. Perez was all over him, telling him in her fractured English how pleased she was that her Juanita was seeing such a nice man. It didn't hurt that he'd brought flowers for the lady of the house. Quite the opposite of being an overly protective mother, she practically shoved her daughter into his arms and hurried them out the door.