I was having breakfast as usual sitting at my kitchen table watching the world go by while listening to, and occasionally watching, the news on the TV.

I’d been alone since my wife May passed from pancreatic cancer nearly two years earlier. I’d retired from the army after twenty-two years of service to care for her full-time in her last months.

At forty-three I still considered myself relatively young and fully intended to go back to work. At some point. I just hadn’t gotten around to doing anything about it yet.

I had great views out of the kitchen window since May and I had remodeled the house not long after buying it. The lower floor was surrounded by old yew hedges and we’d turned the place upside down almost literally: the bedrooms were now on the first floor with the lounge and kitchen/dining room above.

I would strenuously deny being called a ‘nosy neighbor’ but I admit I did sort of pay attention to people’s comings and goings.

The family diagonally opposite me had moved in about a year earlier and their weekdays followed a regular pattern: Mom left for work first in her VW Golf, the young daughter next, on foot, presumably to catch a school bus, then the father last in his Toyota Sienna.

I always looked forward to seeing the girl. I guessed she was about fifteen or sixteen and would either wear a shortish skirt with dark tights or black leggings. She was a pretty little thing but what I loved was the way she generally ran down the road in the mornings. It wasn’t the run of someone who was late, it was a run full of exuberance and the joy of life, with her arms and legs waving and her hair and her skirt fluttering in the breeze of her own making.

I will also freely admit that I wished her skirt would flutter a little higher and I cursed the person who had made tights fashionable.

A few times she would come back about fifteen minutes later. I supposed that she’d missed the bus, and then her father would leave with her in his car.

That’s what happened this morning, except that the father drove off on his own. The girl came out, started to walk down the road, turned back, started off again, and then just stood there looking lost and desperate.

I was up and dressed and thought I might try to help if I could. I hurried downstairs and along my drive but she seemed to have gone. I went to the end anyway and she was just around the corner.

I looked at her and she seemed to be in a right state.

“Hi,” I said in what I hoped was a friendly tone. “are you all right? I’m George by the way, I live in here.”

“Erm ... no, I guess I’m not. Not really,” she said, still looking a bit panicked. “I missed my bus and my dad had an important meeting so he couldn’t take me.”

“Are you at Woodford High?” I asked her. It was the only local school that I knew and it wasn’t too far away.

“Yes.”

“I could give you a lift if you’d like?” I offered. Again she seemed indecisive and I guessed she’d had it drilled into her not to take lifts from strangers.

“I’m sure Mark wouldn’t have a problem with it,” I said, trying to let her know I wasn’t really a stranger. I’d introduced myself to her dad when they’d first moved in and his name had obviously stuck, even though we hadn’t really spoken again since. She looked hugely relieved.

“That would be so kind of you ... George. Sorry, I’m being rude, my name is Pearl.”

“Lovely to meet you, Pearl,” I said, and put my hand out. We shook and I marveled at the softness and warmth of her young hand.

I pulled my Mustang out of the garage then got out and went round to the passenger door.

“I love your car George, it’s so cool!” she gushed, looking it over admiringly. I have to admit it made me feel pretty good. I was very proud of her: a ground-up restored 1965 Ford Mustang with a small block V8 tweaked to 300bhp and a four-speed manual transmission. For those not into classic cars it was Poppy Red and very, very pretty.

I opened the door for her which made her giggle. God, she looked and sounded so cute when she did that.

She chattered on about this and that as I drove her to school She was such a bubbly effervescent girl and I loved listening to her. Then she fell quiet.

“So you normally get the school bus do you?” I asked her, for something to say. She frowned a bit.

“Yes,” she said, in a not-very-happy tone.

“Problem?”

“There are some horrid boys on the bus and they ... try to feel me up sometimes.”

“God, that sounds awful. Did you tell the driver?”

“Hah,” she replied derisively. “he’s just as bad. He tries to look up my skirt as I get on and off the bus!”

“What about your parents?”

“I’ve tried to talk to them about it but, when they found out that the boys hadn’t actually done anything, they lost interest.” I thought that over for a while.

“I could give you a lift ... well, I could give you a lift every morning if you’d like? If it’s OK with your folks of course.”

She turned around and gave me a smile that made my whole day.

“Would you? Really? Wow, that would be great.”

“Not a problem,” I told her, and I pulled up opposite the school gates with five minutes to spare.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, same time,” I told her. “If it’s OK with your parents obviously.”

“Thank you, George,” she said as she released the seat belt. And then she leaned over and gave me a tiny peck on the cheek. “You’re so sweet,” she added, and then scampered off in that wonderful coltish way of hers.

I sat in my car trembling. I had a boner. Fuck, she could almost be my granddaughter! I could still feel her soft lips on my cheek. My boner was going nowhere!

I drove home by a very circuitous route, fast enough to require all my attention and, by the time I got home, it had finally subsided.

Over the next week or so I took her to school and we talked about all sorts: music, TV, her school friends, what she wanted to do when she grew up, and even politics. She was very, very bright and so enthusiastic about everything. I loved it. It was the highlight of my day. And each day she would give me a little kiss that I treasured.

One day we were talking about cars.

“I can’t wait until I can learn how to drive,” she said excitedly.

“How old are you Pearl?”

“I’m sixteen.”

“If you get your learner’s permit you could start.”

“I know, I did get one, but Dad won’t teach me,” she said a little bitterly.

“I could teach you.”

She went absolutely quiet and I looked across at her. She was looking at me like I’d offered to fly her to the moon.

“You’d let me drive this?” she asked incredulously. We’d talked on and off about my car and she liked it a lot!

“Well..., “ I said with mock uncertainty. “it’s quite powerful...” Her little face dropped and I instantly regretted teasing her. “so maybe you could start by doing just the steering.” She squealed and threw herself at me, as much as the seatbelt would allow anyway, and put her arm around my waist.

“God George, you’re so cool,” she said fondly. “I wish you were my daddy!” That brought a huge lump to my throat and another one to my groin, just inches below her little hand!

The next morning she was bouncing up and down with excitement and, to be honest, so was I. I got into the driver’s seat and patted my lap.

“You’re really going to let me steer?” she said, grinning like a lunatic.

“Yep,” I replied with an equally wide grin, and I started her up and blipped the throttle.

“Ooooo!” she squealed, going full-on jazz hands and hopping from foot to foot.

She was wearing her leggings and when she sat on my lap the sensation of her little buttocks on either side of my dick was exquisite. I let the clutch out gently, hoping to distract her from my rapidly swelling erection, and she squeaked again but kept us pointing the right way, mostly anyway.

I kept it pretty slow that first morning and dropped her off around the corner from the school.

“That was pretty damn good for a first attempt,” I told her. She swivelled her head around.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” she said, punctuating it each time with a little kiss on my lips.” I was speechless and hard as a board. She jumped out and ran off. I drove home and immediately masturbated with my eyes shut tight, reliving in my mind the feel of her perfect little buttocks on my cock and her beautifully soft lips on mine.

I felt hideously guilty afterwards, but it was like a drug, and I knew I’d do the same thing tomorrow ... and the day after...

The next morning she had the skirt on and my head was swimming it felt so gorgeous. I put my hands on her tummy and she wriggled back against me and let out a huge sigh.

“I wish my daddy would cuddle me like this,” she said wistfully, and then seemed to remember about the driving. “OK, let’s go!”

After a week I was very happy with the way she was handling the steering.

“Next week you can do the gears,” I told her on the way home. She bounced up and down and I nearly lost control of the throttle.

“George...?” she said when we got back. She was still on my lap and I was very, very happy for her to start up a conversation.

“Yes, sweetie. What is it?”

“My folks don’t get home for another hour. Could I come and hang out at your place?”

“Of course, you can,” I told her without even thinking about it. We went upstairs to the kitchen and I got her a glass of juice. Then we went into the lounge and sat on the couch together, and I do mean together: she sat with her thigh tight up against mine.

“Will you cuddle me please George?” she said softly, looking up at me with big sorrowful eyes. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight.

“My daddy never cuddles me anymore,” she whispered, snuggling her head into my chest and putting her arm around my waist. “I wish he would.”

She rolled over slightly and wriggled around until her groin was pressed hard against my leg just below the hip. I could feel the heat of it even through my pants and her leggings. I was already fully erect and then she began to make tiny, almost imperceptible movements of her hips and I realized, with a surge of joy, that she was rubbing her pussy on my leg.

I sat there, gently stroking her shoulder, barely daring to breathe, as her movements got slowly faster and faster. Then the arm around my waist gripped me tightly and we both stopped breathing entirely. The only movement at all was her pussy throbbing against my leg. She’d cum! I thought my heart would burst with happiness, and I held her tight as I felt the tremors pass through her little body.

She sat there, so utterly blissed out, that for a time I thought she’d dropped off to sleep. My erection was almost painful in my pants but I wouldn’t have disturbed this gorgeous girl for the world. I don’t think I’d ever felt so trusted and close to someone as I did at that moment.

Eventually, she roused herself and sat up and looked at me.

“Thank you, George, that was lovely,” she said, looking into my eyes and then she leaned forward and kissed me. It was a ... fond kiss rather than a passionate kiss, but it lasted a long, long time, and it was truly wonderful.

Pearl mastered gearshifts with the same ease as she’d shown in steering and I had to admit to myself that I was just putting off the time until I let her take over with the pedals. The following morning I suggested it to her as we drove to school.

“I don’t think I’m quite ready yet,” she answered, and wriggled her little bottom.

She came into my house again after school and this time we just cuddled. I tried not to be disappointed and it was lovely beyond words but...

The morning after that my heart soared with joy when I saw her running towards me in her little skirt but this time with bare legs. I was hard before she even got into the car. I was acutely conscious of the heat from her bare legs which seemed to burn through my pants. It could have been my imagination but I swore that she was deliberately rubbing her pussy on my erection all the way to school.

On the way home the heat emanating from her young body seemed even more intense. It was almost as if ... surely not ... she couldn’t have!

When we went up to my lounge she was breathing heavily and was quite red in the face.

“I love sitting on your lap George,” she said, looking at me with what I can only describe as a look of longing. “Can we do it now?” There was nothing on earth I would refuse this sweet nymphet, and certainly not that.

I patted my lap. “Of course sweetheart.”

She backed towards me and, just as she sat down, she flipped up her skirt and I got the briefest glimpse of a pair of the most beautiful, pale, naked buttocks I’d ever seen. I’d been right - she’d removed her panties before leaving school!

She wriggled up me until she was almost sitting on my stomach. I was stroking my hands over her back and breathing in the intoxicating scent of her hair when I felt her fingers tracing a path back and forth along the length of my erection.

“Do you think I’m pretty George?” she whispered.

“I think you’re beautiful Pearl,” I croaked, her fingers driving me crazy. “absolutely beautiful.”

“I don’t think my daddy likes me,” she said, very quietly and quite sadly.