I didn't pay any more attention to the new people moving into the empty apartment than I usually did. I was the accountant, I didn't much care who the people were, I only cared that they paid their rent. So when the girl came to the office asking for a key, I had no idea who she was.

"My mom's supposed to be home," she told me, "But sometimes she forgets. She won't let me have a key."

I tried not to look at her strangely, but she looked quite old enough to me. If she was old enough to stay alone, she was old enough for a key.

I got her name and went to check the files to make sure she actually lived there. She did, apartment 7007, just her and her mother. I saw her age too - she was plenty old enough - although she still did have a bit of the little girl look to her.

"Bring it right back," I warned her. "It's the only spare we have."

She smiled sweetly and said okay.

As she left, I rolled my eyes in annoyance. I hated when the leasing agent was out of the office. It was so much easier to stay back in my office and deal with the numbers. They never interrupted, they never argued, they never talked back or asked for keys.

Fifteen minutes passed before she returned. She'd changed clothes, now wearing tight jean shorts, a cut-off t-shirt that showed her bellybutton and several inches of tanned skin above it, and flipflops. Still annoying but kinda cute.

I'd never been interested in women in a sexual way - no one would ever call me a dyke - but for some reason, I did find the female form to be very beautiful. I'd much rather look at a slim, toned female naked than a naked man. It used to bother me until I finally realized what the attraction was all about. I didn't want to fuck these beautiful young women, I wanted to BE that young and beautiful again. Here I was pushing 30 and looking at her long, smooth legs and tiny breasts pushing against the tight t-shirt, and I felt like her grandmother.

She had come to my back office to bring the key and she started looking at all the pictures I had on my long file cabinet. Mostly there were of my niece and nephew but there were a few of me. One in front of a castle in Heidelberg, one on the beach in Hawaii, one with some of my friend on the strip in Vegas, and my chilling favorite, one of the escalator in the atrium of the World Trade Center. I liked to go places.

First she asked me if those were my kids. I said no. Then if I was married. I said no. Then if I wanted to be. I said no. Then why not.

I wanted to scream at her to go away because I was trying to work. I didn't want to be rude to her, so I bit my tongue on the retort, although I did say, "You ask too many questions."

She didn't take that wrong at all. She turned and gave me one of the sweetest, most innocent smiles I'd ever seen. I couldn't help but smile back ruefully.

"J. Richards," she commented, running a finger across the top of the name plate that sat on my desk. A long slender finger, hot pink nail polish chipped carelessly. "What's the J stand for?"

"Jamie," I answered.

"That's pretty," she said, continuing her help-yourself tour of my office.

"What do you do?" she made it around behind my chair and leaned on my shoulder, looking at my computer screen.

"Besides answering your annoying questions?" I teased.

"Yes," she said seriously, propping one elbow on each of my shoulders.

"I'm the accountant," I told her, shrugging her out of my personal space. I didn't like to be touched by strangers.

She moved away just a little without apology and leaned over my desk beside me, flipping through my rolodex.

"Don't you have something to do?" I hinted.

"No," she answered. I reached over and pushed her hands off my things. With only a hand gesture, I motioned for her to go back to the civilian side of my desk.

"When's your mom coming home?"

She shrugged and slide down into the arm chair, her long dark hair tossed back over her shoulders. "I never know. If she gets drunk, I might not see her till tomorrow."

"Shouldn't you be at home?" I tried one final time.

Her face looked suddenly sad and hopeful at the same instance, now apologetic for bugging the crap out of me but afraid to stop.

"She never got the electricity turned on in our apartment and it's going to get dark in a little while, and it's a brand new place and I don't know anyone in this whole town and..."

For the first time, she really looked like the scared, lonely child I'd thought she was, needing someone to take care of her. Even I couldn't be that mean.

I stayed thirty minutes late that first day, until she saw her mom drive in.

That night, I thought about her a lot. After I'd stopped trying to get rid of her, she actually turned out to be decent company.

It became a regular thing every day that first week. She came earlier and stayed later. She was just very lonely and I learned that her mom was a full-blown alcoholic and sometimes hit her, they rarely stayed in one place more than a few months, she had no idea who her father was, and she hated boys because one had raped her a year ago. She'd tried to tell her mother about it but her mother had just slapped her and told her not to go around asking for it.

That was the first time I touched her. She tried very hard not to when she told me, but she cried a little and I offered her a hug. She came around my desk in a hurry and sat across my knees. I was glad the office was already closed because that felt really awkward. It was so strange that as beautiful as she was, she was so starved for attention and affection.

She tucked her head under my chin and put both arms around my neck. Her hair was so soft and so fine that it tickled my nose, and she smelled like baby powder. I let my hands slide up and down her sides as I held her, meaning it to be just a comforting touch, but I was suddenly appalled to find myself getting wet as I touched her incredibly warm skin.

I stiffened and it broke the moment. She started to climb off my lap but before she turned away, she kissed me very gently on the lips. I tried not to show any reaction, but I felt cold chills break out all over me.

Trying to throw off the general weirdness, I sat her on her feet, cleared my throat and asked her if she'd be okay during the weekend.

She shrugged, "I guess so. Momma will either be home and drink till she goes to sleep, or she'll stay out all night and go home with someone."

"Will you be okay by yourself? You have food in the house?" She'd told me two days ago they finally had the electricity on.

"I'll be okay," she said, looking unhappy. "I've done it alot."

"Then what's wrong?"

She smiled shyly, "I wish I could come stay with you."

"Uh..." I started, not knowing how to answer that. All kinds of feelings bombarded me. Some selfish (No! stay out of my house!), some altruistic (poor thing, all alone like that), and some downright immoral (Damn! her skin is so soft!)

"I know," she answered for me, "You can't."

On a probably stupid whim, I wrote my number on a sticky note and gave it to her. "If your mom goes out, tell her to call me and you can come hang out with me, ok?"

She brightened like sunshine coming from behind a cloud and agreed.

"But your mother has to say it's ok," I reminded her.

Friday evening, I really expected her to call. I couldn't believe that I was actually nervous, like a teenager on a first date. I had to get my mind out of the gutter and back to real life. My German shepherd and I watched movies half the night and shared a bucket of popcorn.

Saturday was a normal day. I went running for an hour on our backstreets, then came home and cleaned house and did the laundry. I put the dog out in the backyard so I could get a shower and head off to buy some groceries.

After undressing, I caught a glimpse of myself in the full length mirror on the back of my closet door and I stopped to look. In only a few months, I'd be thirty. I didn't feel thirty. I really don't think I looked thirty. Nothing was sagging yet, I noted with relief, not in the front or the back. I didn't seem to have trouble getting dates. That's how I traveled so much, I never tied myself down to one person.

My body was still nice, but I couldn't help but imagine how I would look standing next to Angie. Yeah, that was her name. I rarely thought of her as anything but "her" but I said her name again, liking the quiet, unassuming way it rolled off my tongue.

I really was curious to know what she looked like naked, although I had no right to be. It was just that her breasts were so small, so high, and the nipples got so hard that they showed clearly beneath the t-shirts she liked to wear.

Did she shave between her legs, or trim it close? Was it very dark and fine like the soft hair on her head?

Yeah, I've seen women naked before, at the gym especially, but a person wasn't supposed to stare, it was considered rude. I wanted to stare at Angie.

Dammit, while I was confessing, I might as well tell it all. I wanted to do more than stare. I wanted to explore that perfect young body! I wanted to touch it, not only to see how it felt to my fingers, but to see how it responded to my touch.

Nearly frantic, I lay back on my bed and spread my legs. I was so wet just thinking about her that it only took three or four strokes against my clit before I arched my back in a powerful orgasm, wildly wondering how Angie would look as she came.

I fell back and panted, staring at the ceiling, deeply ashamed at myself for those kinds of thoughts. Okay, I had them, they passed, onto reality once more.

The phone was ringing when I turned off the shower and I jumped guiltily, a kid caught with my hand in a cookie jar. I wrapped a big towel around myself and grabbed the extension by my bed.

"Jamie?" It was her.

"Yes?"

"Mom's going out. She said you could babysit me but she wasn't going to pay for it." This was said with deep sarcasm.

"I was supposed to talk to her, remember?"

"She said if you come get me now, you can talk to her but she is leaving in thirty minutes."

"Tell her I'll be right there."

I only lived about three minutes from the complex. I tugged on some jogging shorts, a long t-shirt, and ran a comb through my dripping hair. I really wanted to meet this asshole of a mother I'd heard so much about.

She was standing impatiently beside her care when I pulled in. A red-head - natural or otherwise, I couldn't be sure - she had a look on her craggy face like she ate dill pickles all day. She wore enough make-up for all three of us and she was dressed in a leather skirt short and tight enough that I could've counted butt hairs if I'd been so inclined.

"You this Jamie person?" she said in a cigaretty growl just dripping with culture. Angie stood quietly by, seeming embarrassed.

"Yes ma'am," I said, trying to be cordial. I came closer and offered my hand but she looked at it like the flesh was rotting off.

"You know I ain't paying you to mind my brat, dontcha?"

"Yes ma'am, I understand that. Angie is old enough not to need a babysitter."

She eyed me suspiciously and I suddenly felt like a bug under a microscope. A guilty bug.

"Then why are you doing it?"

In my best sympathetic voice, I answered, "Because she and I are friends. We're just going to hang out so she won't have to sit alone and be bored."

"You ain't got no boys coming to your place, do ya? I don't want the little bitch knocked up."

"No ma'am!" It was my turn to be indignant. "I would never let anything like that happen!"

"Fine, then just bring her back in time for school and move out of my way so's I can go."

Rushing off to her Jerry Springer appearance, I supposed, as I stepped back.

When the old lady drove away, Angie apologized for her mother.

"It's okay," I told her, "She's her, you're you, no reflection, no disgrace."

That clearly pleased her and may have been the first time she realized that could be true.

"Get your clothes and come on."

On the way to the supermarket, we discussed what we would have for dinner. I found out that Angie's only dinners at home were frozen. She didn't know how to do anything put push buttons on a microwave. I'd been craving fettucine carbonara most of the week and it was a sure bet she'd never had that, so I got all the ingredients for that, some crusty French bread, stuff for salad and even pancake mix for breakfast. I felt so domestic.