© 1996

"Dr. Lombardi, it's your wife on line two, and your four-thirty canceled. You have no more appointments scheduled for today."

"Thanks, Margaret," I said to the receptionist. Then picking up the phone, "Hey, Cath. What's up? "I'm in St. Louis. The airport here just closed due to the snow. My flight from L.A. made it in to here, but my connecting flight is canceled. I'm stuck here, at least for tonight."

"Damn. Well, I guess it can't be helped. Anything I can do for you?"

"No, I'm staying at an airport hotel. I'll call with the number later. Karen is having some friends over for a slumber party tonight. Do you think you can manage?"

"No problem. Fifteen-year-olds are pretty self-sufficient," I said, even though being alone in a house full of giggling, teenage girls was my idea of purgatory. "That is, if you think you can trust me alone with a bunch of nubile young girls," I teased.

"Sure. You're not that much of a stud," she teased back. "You'll have to go to the grocery store. We don't have that much in the refrigerator."

"Anything else?"

"Just that I love you."

"I love you, too."

I looked out the window and realized that it was snowing steadily now. Two inches had accumulated already.

I buzzed Margaret. "What's on the docket for tomorrow?"

"The hospital called and rescheduled tomorrow's surgery for two weeks from now. They are canceling all elective surgery due to the snow. That was the only thing on your calendar."

"Have you notified the patient?"

"Yes, disappointed but understanding."

"Okay, I'm leaving early. I have to go to the grocery store. I have a house full of teenagers this weekend."

"Lucky you."

The store was mobbed. What was it about snow that made the city go wild? All the milk was gone by the time I got there, as well as most of the bread. The people had also made a good dent in the store's supply of toilet paper. I spent forty-five minutes in the check-out line, and another two inches had accumulated by the time I left the store. As I started the car, the weatherman on the radio raised the prediction from eight inches to twelve.

My cellular phone rang.

"Hey, Daddy."

"What is it Karen? I've already been to the store, and if I didn't buy it, I'm not going back to get it."

"No, I was just wondering if you could pick up Allison. Her parents don't want to drive her over in the snow, but you should be going right by her place."

"Where does she live?"

"112 Terrace. You should know that; you've taken her home from swimming practice lots of times."

"Oh, that Allison. Sure, I go right by. Any other of your friends you want me to pick up?"

"No, just Allison. Cheryl and Susan are walking over. Oh, and Mom called. She's stuck in St. Louis."

"I know, we talked too. I'll be home in ten minutes, providing Allison is ready. Bye."

"Bye."

Allison was ready, running out of the house as soon as I turned into the drive.

"Hi, Dr. Lombardi," she said as soon as the car door was closed. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem." I turned to her as I said it, and was rewarded with a wonderful smile. Allison was my favorite of Karen's friends. She was by far the prettiest, stunningly beautiful actually. Much prettier, even, than Karen, and I see Karen through a father's adoring eyes. She was bright and more mature than most fifteen-year-olds. While she had the looks to be a model, she had once told me that she wanted to be a doctor and we had a long talk about the medical profession. I remember being struck with how perceptive her questions were.

Even though Allison had been ready, my prediction was way off the mark. It took us twenty-five minutes to get home. The side streets were treacherous, and the car was sliding all over. At one point, I completely lost control and the car slid down a hill sideways. Miraculously, I didn't hit anything and we came to a stop at the bottom.

I looked over at Allison to see if she was all right, and her face was covered with a big grin and her eyes flashed with excitement. The fear that always follows a close call in a car disappeared. I laughed and apologized. Then, I put the car back into gear, and we drove the rest of the way without incident, but not without a bit more sliding.

When we got home, a disaster was in the making. Domino's would not deliver in the snow, and the girls just had to have pizza. I made the situation worse by calling Karen, "Kitten," my pet name for her, mortifying her in front of her friends. Heroically, I managed to save the day by producing the ingredients for homemade pizza from the grocery bags, and the "Kitten" incident was quickly forgotten.

Making the pizza was fun. The girls did most of the work, and I kibitzed and flirted with Karen's friends. I suppose my presence embarrassed Karen a bit because there were a few "Oh, Daddy!"s out of her, but she didn't seem to mind too much. After dinner, the girls disappeared upstairs into Karen's room, and I went into my study to read.

My reading was interrupted with the sound of a crash. The girls had been having a pillow fight, prematurely because I had always believed the slumber party pillow fight was supposed to be scheduled after lights out, and Allison had taken a tumble down some stairs. She was sitting on the landing, holding her ankle, tears in her eyes.

I delivered the usual rebukes about rough-housing to the assembled girls while I examined Allison's ankle. It didn't appear to be broken, probably just twisted, at worst a sprain. She had full range of motion in the joint, although not without pain.

I helped her to stand, and then with her left arm over my shoulders and my right around her waist, I helped her back up the stairs and into my bedroom. She was wearing some kind of perfume; it smelled pleasant. As we moved I became aware that her left breast was pressed against my rib cage; that was pleasant as well. My hand rested on her hip, and I marveled at her slim waist and the wonderful curve of her hip.

Allison sat on the edge of the bed. I took off her shoe and sock and told her to roll up the leg of her jeans so I could put a bandage on it.

"I think they are too tight to roll up."

I looked, and noticed that they were indeed very tight. They could have been painted on. Her shapely calf was clearly displayed. "All right, then you'll have to take them off."

"Take them off? In front of you?"

"I'm a doctor. You don't have anything I haven't seen a thousand times already, and don't worry, I won't watch you undress." I went into the bathroom to find an Ace bandage. I gave her some extra time to finish taking off the jeans before emerging from the bathroom. I sat on the floor at her feet and started wrapping the ankle.

The skin of her legs was soft, like a child's. The shape of her legs, though, was that of a woman. She sat with her legs slightly spread, and I could see her white, cotton panties which covered the mound of her vulva. A few wisps of hair poked out through the elastic. I glanced up at her face, framed by disheveled, light-brown hair. Her eyes were soft with tears, and she was biting her lower lip against the pain.

I felt the blood begin to flow to my penis and the beginnings of an erection. I forced myself to focus on the medical task at hand, to be professional. It had been a long time since I was distracted by a pretty patient, not since I was a resident. Pretty women often distracted me, but not while I was treating them. What made it worse was that she was only fifteen and my daughter's best friend.

When I was done with the bandage, I went up into the attic to find the crutches I used after my last skiing accident. By the time I returned, Allison was dressed and trying to hobble about the room. I adjusted the crutches to her height, gave her a large dose of ibuprofen for the pain, and told her to keep weight off of the ankle and to let me know if it started to swell. I got a kiss on the cheek for a reward.

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. The snow kept falling; the predictions had been upped again to eighteen inches. There was the expected giggling and slumber party noises from Karen's room and the TV room, but no one else took a header down the stairs.

I had decreed "lights out" at midnight, and no more pillow fights. The talking and giggling continued for some time after that, but I didn't really care.

Around one o'clock, I clicked off Conan O'Brien and decided to go to bed. I stopped in the living room and looked out the front window at the snow. The neighborhood was almost unrecognizable. The road had not been plowed yet and the neighbors' cars were just white humps along the side of the road.

I heard a noise on the stairs and turned. It was Allison, hopping down the stairs on her good leg, banister in one hand, crutches in the other.

"What are you doing up?" I asked.

"I came down to get a drink." She moved across the room, stood next to me, and looked out the window. She was wearing a short, white nightgown. It came down to her mid-thigh, her perfect legs extending out of the bottom. The gown was also low cut in the chest, placing her fifteen-year-old breasts on display. They were not large, but were round and firm and perfectly formed. She looked vaguely angelic in the white gown, but like an angel that was about to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

"It's beautiful."

"It sure is," I replied, not taking my eyes off of her.

We stood there for a few moments, Allison looking out the window, and me looking at Allison. Then she turned, looked up at me and smiled. She then leaned over and put her arm around me and her head against my chest.

"Thanks for having us over. I'm having a lot of fun, despite the ankle."

"You're welcome. I'm always happy to have Karen's friends over." Pleasant as it was, I realized this had gone far enough. I had to stop this before I did something irretrievably stupid. "How about that drink? I think there is some juice in the fridge. We ought to save what's left of the milk for breakfast."

After getting Allison some juice and helping her back up the stairs, I went into my bedroom, stripped down to my underwear and went into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and tried to convince myself that I was normal, that there was nothing wrong with being aroused by a beautiful, fifteen-year-old. She was a young woman, not a child. I didn't do anything to take advantage of her. This was healthy. Well, maybe not healthy, but natural. It did not make me a pedophile, or at least that is what I tried to convince myself of. The next choice would be a cold shower or masturbation. I prescribed the latter.