Chapter 1

It was a little after eight and I had just stepped out of the shower and was getting ready for a night in front of the telly before bed when the phone rang. I figured it was far too late to be a sales call, so I answered it.

“Bob, it’s Jillian. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need a favour. Chloe’s having a slumber party tonight—a few friends, that’s all—but I’ve just had a call from the hospital. My sister’s been in a car accident. It sounds pretty serious. I really need to go and see if she’s okay and I was wondering if—”

“You want me to keep an eye on them?” I said, with a wry smile. Jillian Davis was my next-door neighbour, and while her daughter, Chloe, was supposed to be a fully-fledged adult at nineteen, she was just a little on the wild side. I understood completely why Jillian would be worried about the state of her house if she left Chloe and her friends alone for any length of time.

‘Babysitting’ a bunch of young women wasn’t the way I’d planned to spend my Friday night, but Jillian was a good woman and a good friend—there was no way in all good conscience I could say no.

“Do you mind? Are you sure? I know Chloe has been a little off the rails this past couple of years, but she’s trying to be better. That’s why she’s having this slumber party. I know she’s probably too old for that sort of thing really, but she missed out on all that after George passed away and she went crazy. She won’t be any trouble, I’m sure, but—”

“But you’re worried. I understand. Do you want me to stay over there with them, or just check in on them from time to time?”

“If I get Chloe to make up the spare bed, do you think you could come and stay? For tonight at least? I don’t know when I’ll be back and—”

“No problem. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be right there.”

Jillian and I were of a similar age—early forties—but while she’d married young and become a housewife and mother, I was a middle-aged bachelor-boy with a few notches on my belt. Not that I’m a player or a cad; I’d just never found the right woman to settle down with. I’ve never counted how many relationships I’d had that seemed to fall apart just before commitment became an issue—I think it would depress me if I did.

But Jillian’s husband had died of cancer far too young, leaving her a widow and a single mom. He also left her a large insurance payout and pension which meant she didn’t have to worry about money.

I have to admit up front that I liked Jillian a lot. She was a good-looking woman who kept herself in good shape and we’d got on well ever since I moved next door to her but if I said hadn’t thought about all the things a man could do with a lonely, sexually-frustrated widow, I’d be lying.

“You must be keen to get on the road,” I said. “Don’t wait for me, I’ll let myself in with your spare key. Just give me a call when you get to the hospital and let me know how things are going.”

“Thanks, Bob. I really appreciate this. I owe you. I’m sure Chloe won’t be any trouble, but if there are any problems, just text and I’ll call you back when I can. And I’ll call you as soon as I get there and find out what’s going on.”

As I got dressed, I heard Jillian’s car pull out of the driveway and hit the street with a slight squeal of tires. That didn’t mean she was stressed though—she always squealed the tires. I grabbed a shaving kit, just in case, picked up my Kindle and walked next door.

I was mildly surprised to find the door cracked open—I guess Jillian was a little stressed—so I put the spare key to the house (the one that Jillian trusted me to keep safe) back in my pocket, pushed the door open and stepped into the house.

“Chloe? It’s Bob. Anybody home?” A rhetorical question if ever there was one. The racket coming upstairs would have been audible at the end of one of Heathrow’s runways.

“Come on in! We’re all up here!”, screamed Chloe over the din.

I closed the door behind me and stepped further into the hall. I wasn’t completely sure what to do next. On the one hand, I thought I should go and check that everything was okay with Chloe and her friends, but on the other hand, her mother had just left—how much trouble could they have gotten in to in the few minutes they’d been in the house alone?

Plus, I didn’t feel completely comfortable venturing into a room full of young women who sounded ever-so-slightly over-excited.

I decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

“I’ll be in the lounge if you need me,” I called up the stairs.

As I turned to make my way to the living room, a voice from the top of the stairs said, “Sorry, what? I didn’t hear you properly.”

I turned to look and saw Chloe standing at the top of the stairs in an outfit that would have gotten a rise out of a dead man. She wore a white crop-top which stopped just above her navel and which was made of such thin material that her nipples were very noticeable through it. Her only other item of clothing was a cute pair of white panties with some pattern on I that couldn’t make out from this distance.

Well, I say cute. A better word might have been tiny.

Chloe was very much a younger version of her mother. Same long brown hair, same big brown eyes, same full, sensual lips and the same cute little pointed nose. She took my breath away every time I saw her at the best of times, but now...

I knew she played sport regularly, although I didn’t know which, and it was very clear from this outfit that she had the tight, toned body of an athlete. With one exception. Those breasts filling out that crop-top certainly weren’t seen on most athletes.

I inhaled sharply and it occurred to me that my half-formed lust for Jillian might have led me into a situation that was a bit more complex than I had anticipated.

When I got my breath back—which I hoped wasn’t more than a couple of heartbeats—I repeated what I’d said earlier.

“Okay, no problem, Mr J. We’ll try not to disturb you. Much.” Then she giggled and ran back to her room.

“It’s Bob,” I said as she disappeared. “How many times do I have tell you to call me Bob?”

She replied as she always did. “At least once more, Mr J.”

I parked myself in an armchair in the lounge, switched the television to a news channel for a bit of ‘background noise’—something I’d gotten used to after nearly twenty years of teaching—unlocked my Kindle and settled down to finish a book I’d started earlier in the week.

I’d hardly gotten through a couple of pages when my phone beeped the receipt of a message. I figured it must have been Jillian, so picked up the phone and unlocked it.

mr j could you bring us some cokes upstairs please chloe

I rolled my eyes. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but it still surprised me that she’d send a text message rather than shouting down the stairs. Hell, she could even have come downstairs, it’s not like it was very far.

I sighed, put my Kindle down on the coffee table and walked to the foot of the stairs. I took a deep breath and shouted down the hall, “How many drinks, ladies?”

Chloe replied immediately. “Five! No, Six!”

“Coming right up.”

I headed for the kitchen, where I filled six glass with ice, took the unopened bottle of Coke from the fridge and started to pour. I arranged them on a tray, picked it up and headed back to the stairs.

I thought back the first time I had met Chloe, five or six years ago—I wasn’t sure off the top of my head. She must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time. A gangly, skinny little kid with braces on her teeth and legs and arms that had grown too quickly and were too long for her to cope with. Her father had died shortly before I moved in and she was just starting to go off the rails.

I guess she was ‘rebelling’. Against what? What have you got? The loss of her father obviously made her think that life was short and she intended to get the most out of it while she could.

The image of Chloe in her tee-shirt and panties flashed across my mind as I climbed the stairs and I had a worrying thought—there were five other girls in her room with her. What if they were all similarly attired?

I might be headed for a heart attack in the next few minutes.

The door to her room was half-open. I called out, “Room service!”, pushed the door open with my foot and stepped inside.

Standing in the corner of the room, directly in my field of vision, was a woman wearing a pair of panties.

Skimpy, black panties.

Just skimpy, black panties.

For what seemed an eternity—but couldn’t have been more than a second or two—the world seemed to freeze. I felt all eyes on me. The giggles and chatter from the girls ceased.

No one moved.

Then the naked girl screamed, grabbed a shirt from the bed, covered her breasts and ducked for the cover of the side of the bed. The room full of girls began cackling and roaring and laughing and shrieking.

I felt my face burning and my eyes focused on the spot where the girl had been standing. I couldn’t see anything else in the room.

“Whoops. Sorry,” I mumbled, then put the tray down on a desk beside the door, turned, and retreated from the room with waves of mad laughter following me down the hall.

When I got back to the lounge, I tried to calmly assess what had just happened. The girl—no, the woman— hadn’t been Chloe, of that much I was sure. But whoever she was, she certainly had a nice body. Beautiful tear-drop shaped breasts, a tight, toned tummy and slender, athletic legs.

Yes, she was certainly, All Woman

In the confusion, I hadn’t even seen Chloe. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the room at all, to be honest.

I was still in something of a state of shock when my phone rang. I picked it up without looking at the screen and my voice cracked as I said, “Hello.”

Jillian laughed, and said, “Cracking up already, Bob? I thought you said you could handle a few girls.”

Oh, no problems so far, Jillian. Are you at the hospital already?”

“No, I had to stop for petrol and thought I’d just check to see how you’re coping.”

“I’m fine, Jillian. You take care on the road.”

“I will. At this time of night it should be clear anyway, but I’ll be careful. Call you again when I get there. Listen, Bob, a word of advice. Don’t let those girls take advantage of your good nature. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.”

“Don’t worry, Jillian. I can handle them.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re not in the classroom now, Bob. The rules are different. Okay, look, I’ll see you tomorrow but if something comes up, just text.”

I picked up my Kindle again, but couldn’t concentrate on the book. I kept thinking about what had happened earlier. Then suddenly, and with more than a little commotion, Chloe, now wearing a pair of jeans and a tight, knitted cardigan over her crop-top, led a parade of four other girls into the room. I mentally slapped myself when I felt a pang of mild disappointment to see that they were all now fully clothed.

Chloe held a glass of Coke in her hand, and she thrust it at me as she said, “Here. This was supposed to be for you, but you ran out before we could do the introductions.” She smiled as I reached out to take the glass

“Thank you,” I said, returning her smile.

“Anyway, I want you to meet my friends.” The friends all grinned and waved.

“So, Mr J, this is Jenny,” she said, gesturing to the first girl in line. “You’ve already met her. Sort of. But I don’t think you saw her face.” She grinned broadly.

Jenny stepped forward and offered her hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr Johnson,” she said with a mischievous glint in her eye.

I shook her hand, nodded and said, “Jenny.” I tried to keep my eyes locked on hers, but I couldn’t keep from glancing down. She was now wearing skinny jeans and a fitted sweater. She also wore a cute red and white bandanna covering the top of her head with her blonde hair in a plait coming down over one shoulder. She almost looked like some kind of farm-girl. There was a soft chorus of giggles from the others.

Chloe introduced the next in line as Taylor. We shook hands and exchanged greetings. The third in line was Beth and last of the gang of five was Sara.

“She’s the baby of the bunch,” Chloe said as she introduced Sara. “Still only eighteen.”

Sara punched Chloe on the shoulder, laughed and said “Bitch!”

“We’ll try and keep the noise down so we don’t disturb you,” Chloe said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “You girls have fun. Just ... Not too much fun. Okay. Or I’ll be in trouble with your mom.”

The girls all giggled again.

“Seriously though, thanks for doing this, Mr J. Mom was in a panic and I know she wants to trust me, but I haven’t exactly made it easy for her.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Beth.

Chloe shot her a dirty look then continued. “But that’s all behind me. I haven’t touched any drugs for nearly six months and I’ve cut down on the boozing. And I haven’t even been near any bad boys lately. And it’s all thanks to these four. The very best friends a girl could have.”

She smiled at the others then turned back to face me. “But I know that you being here gives Mom a little bit of peace of mind, so we won’t cause you any trouble. I promise. Will we?”

The question was directed at her friends who all shook their heads or nodded and generally indicated they agreed with Chloe. Then they grinned and bounded out of the room with a chorus of, “See ya later!”

I gave up on the book, unable to concentrate on it properly, and settled back to watch the television for a while. There was nothing on the rolling news that I hadn’t already seen earlier in the day, so I picked up the remote and surfed through the channels looking for something worth watching. Eventually, I settled on some old film I’d seen a dozen times before.

After an hour or so—it might have been a little less—I realised that the low rumble of music from upstairs had stopped. I couldn’t even hear any high-pitched chatter or giggles. I briefly wondered if the girls had gone to sleep but decided I’d have been surprised if they had.

I went to stand in the hallway and strained to hear any sounds from upstairs. I could just make out a few whispered words and muffled giggles, although I couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying. At least, I couldn’t until someone said clearly, “Shit!”

There were some less muffled giggles and a cry of, “Take it off!” rapidly followed by a couple of people going “Shh!”

If I were a betting man, which I generally wasn’t, I’d have said that there was a game of strip poker in progress.

I listened for a few more minutes but heard nothing else intelligible. Foolishly, I crept up the stairs. The landing was dark with the only light coming from the gap where the door to Chloe’s room was ajar.

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears as I walked very slowly across the landing to Chloe’s room. As I drew closer, I could see four of the girls sitting in a circle on the floor.

I couldn’t see Sara, but of the others, only Beth wasn’t completely topless. Beth had on a lacy black bra that wasn’t doing all that great a job of containing her more than ample assets.

I could see Jenny clearly, and her breasts looked just as good now as they had earlier. She still had her bandanna in her hair too, which made her look extra cute.

Chloe had her back to me. Taylor was on her left, between her and Jenny and opposite Beth. Her breasts didn’t look as large as Jenny’s or Beth’s but were no less mesmerising.

As I watched, Beth dealt cards to Chloe and Taylor, but skipped Jen. I choked as I realized what that meant. Jenny had already lost everything. Obviously, they didn’t count her bandanna and she was sitting there with nothing left to bet.

Suddenly, from behind me, Sara said, “Hi, Mr Johnson!”

She was fully clothed—apparently a non-player. She must have been to the bathroom or something. The other four looked up from their game to see me spying on them. I panicked for a second, then stepped forward into the room and said, “Just wondered if anybody needed anything?”

The girls looked around at each other, then Jenny shook her head and said, “Not right now, thanks.”

No one appeared to have the slightest concern for their nakedness or my apparent voyeurism.

Without turning around, Chloe dismissed me with a wave and a friendly, “We’ll let you know if we need anything, Mr J.”

I turned and retreated once more to the safety of the lounge.

I have no idea how long I sat in the lounge staring at the television but not watching it. My mind was reeling and thoughts of naked, nubile young women—women in the prime of their youthful womanhood—were irrepressible. It had to have been at least fifteen or twenty minutes, I suppose. The credits started rolling on the film I’d been watching and I didn’t even notice.

Then Chloe came walking in, fully clothed. “Mr J, we’re getting ready to start another game.” She paused, then added, “And we want you to play too.”

I looked up, speechless. Then finally said, “I ... I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Chloe.”

“Oh, come on! Sara said she’ll play if you do. It won’t hurt anything. Nobody will know about it. Mom won’t be home until tomorrow morning at least, so it’s not like she’ll walk in on us or anything. And besides, we’re all over eighteen. All adults. It’s not like you’d be breaking any laws or anything. Come on, Mr J. We really need you for the game.”

“I don’t know, Chloe. If anybody ever found out—”

“But nobody will find out. Come on. Please! You know it’ll be fun.”

I knew it was insane. That’s what I knew. Incredibly insane. They might well have been ‘adults’, but I was still more than twice their age. But then I thought of all those tight, toned bodies and those soft, round breasts ... And thought about being there and being part of that game.

To hell with it.

“Okay, Chloe. I’ll play,” I said as I pushed myself up out of the chair. “But I warn you, I’m an excellent poker player. I never lose.”

She squealed, jumped forward and gave me a huge hug. “Thank you!”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the hallway and up the stairs. When we walked into her room she bowed deeply, sweeping her hand in front of me, and said, “Ta-da! Told you!”

The girls all clapped and cheered in response.

We sat cross-legged in a circle on the floor, and Jenny explained the rules. Five-card draw, ante one piece of clothing. The player with the weakest hand takes off their ante and hands it to the player with the winning hand. If you later won a hand from someone who holds one of your clothes, you could trade their ante for your clothes back. And when you lost your last piece of clothing, you were out. It sounded more complicated than it was and, to tell the truth, the rules tended to get made up as the game went on anyway.

The game progressed pretty quickly and Taylor was the first one out. She was on my left, and even though that meant I couldn’t get a clear look at her in all her naked glory without making it obvious I was staring, it also meant that her leg rubbed against mine.