Chapter 6: Amazing

I sat on the sofa with my laptop. Girls’ clothes. What do they wear these days?

There was a certain amount to think about: how many girls are like Thea and Nancy? Well, they’d said they’re standard sizes, albeit not many are quite as lean. Or perhaps fourteen year olds are? Would girls’ clothes be sold in narrow age bands like that?

They had to be clothes they can move freely in, not restrictive like dresses or knee length skirts.

Of course they were going to wear them for me, to tease me. Or arouse me. Were those different?

What did I want the clothes to achieve? They wouldn’t have their usual context, now I’d be seeing their bodies with no clothing at all, every day apparently! In Summer at least.

They had to come off and on easily, was one thing.

Colours. Blue for Nancy, to go with her eyes, blonde hair and golden skin. Easy one. Thea? Brown hair, grey eyes that anything would go with, delicious light-brown skin ... so - brown? A bit unexciting, for her. Except, it could ‘disappear’. Multicoloured?

They could both carry off bold colours. And shapes too. They didn’t need their clothes to conceal or highlight anything...

I didn’t know what they ought to wear. I looked through sites without finding inspiration. Nothing looked right, or might look right on them.

Where was the skatepark? Had they walked? I imagined them whizzing round, balancing, hair flying, laughing with their young friends...

I had a look. A couple of miles away. Well they’d have walked that easily enough. Or skated it, I supposed. I’d managed to get hold of the car’s card and hide it, so I knew they hadn’t taken it. Although ... they’d been rather giggly hadn’t they.

The garage doors are electric and hardly make any noise. The car is silent. What had they been doing with my phone, for more than a minute?

I went and opened the garage: no car! I ought to have guessed!

I stomped back and grabbed my phone. There they were at least, in my contacts. I pressed ‘Nancy’, and in a moment it rang, three times, then there was the sound of rushing air, and a gleeful girl.

“Hey Colin,” she laughed.

“I’ve got a good mind to call the police!” I raged.

“You weren’t using it.”

“That is not the point!” I rasped. “How did you get into it anyway?”

“We put the app on.”

“And the user name and password?”

“We had the username from your phone, and it’s the password from under your router isn’t it.” She giggled at my naiveté.

Thea was giggling with her. Her fellow car thief would be holding her phone in front of her, instead of to her ear. “We’re being dead careful with it Colin!”

“You’re to bring it straight home!” I commanded.

“Sarah and her sister need a lift home,” I could hear the fake innocence in Nancy’s voice.

“To make sure they’re safe,” Thea added her manipulation.

What could I say? Was there a single thing I could say that would make a difference? And if I could make a difference, what would it be anyway? I wasn’t going to leave this Sarah and her sister to walk home, was I? It would be getting dusk soon. “Well be careful,” I gave up the unequal struggle, “and don’t be too late or you’ll get stopped.”

“Thanks, see you later!”

The pointless call over, I couldn’t just relax and watch TV. I went through to the kitchen to make a soothing hot chocolate. While the milk was heating, my eye fell on the unswept corner under the worktop. Things had come to a pretty pass, when teenage girls were noticing my house wasn’t being cleaned properly. I’d let things go, being on my own, and with nothing seeming to matter.

I went and found the dustpan and brush, in its cupboard. I swept out the corner. Then that was cleaner than the next bit along; which I swept, but then that was cleaner than the next bit ... I realised I needed to get the hoover out and do it properly. After my chocolate.

While I was sipping, back on the sofa, I wondered about making the girls do some cleaning. As they jolly well ought to! But would they? Properly. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would interest them, lacking risk and excitement. Chances were, they might start with good intentions but get bored and gradually stop. Or skimp it. Or, of course, they might laugh and say ‘god no Colin, dream on’!

Would I do the cleaning? History suggested not. And would I like to be hoovering and scrubbing while the teens were off adventuring in my car? Or busy having naked lesbian sex on the lawn?

Thea had suggested a cleaner hadn’t she. Someone who’s fulfilled by it. There are people like that, who get satisfaction from a steady, straightforward activity making a visible difference.

I tried putting ‘local cleaner’ into the Google search engine, and immediately got a long list of companies. On closer inspection, they were agencies. I went onto the first one and filled out a form. At the end, it said I’d get quotes by email. Fair enough.

I finished my chocolate and took the mug back to the kitchen. The girls weren’t back, so I got the hoover out and went round the edge with the brush attachment on the hose.