Chapter 1

So I bought a house. Late thirties, divorced, wanted a little place of my own and I found this house in one of those little enclaves that dot the countryside a few miles outside of many towns. You know, five or six houses in a little clump, just off a main road. It was a nice house. I had neighbors who pretty much kept to themselves, mostly older retired couples, somebody to wave at when I was driving in from work, or to pass a few words of conversation with when I went for a walk.

And then there were the people next door. It was almost like their life was configured from redneck jokes. The yard was unkempt, irregularly mowed. They had two kids, a girl, twelvish, and a toddler, three or four. His toys were strewn about the yard. The grass was bare under one tree in their front yard, victim to one too many automotive projects. Another tree sheltered a clapped-out motor home with NASCAR logos prominently displayed in the rear windows.

I'd met wife and husband, both pretty decent people at one level, just not exactly ready for high society. She was thirty-something, chunky, ratty brown hair frizzed from over-chemicalled colors and perms. He was chunky also. Beer-bellied, a beard, seldom without a cap on his head, and seldom in the front yard without a beer and a cigarette.

Maybe that explained the reduced price on the house I bought. Still, I wasn't there for status. I could keep to myself and nobody bothered me, but if I was off on the road for a few days, working, I knew they'd watch over the place for me. Life was pretty good.

So there I was on a June Saturday afternoon. I decided that my company mini-van needed a washing, so I was out in the driveway with a water-hose in one hand and a brush in the other, not paying attention to much at all. Washing cars doesn't exactly call for full concentration.

That's why I was startled when I heard a voice.

"Watcha doin'?"

I jumped a little and turned. There was next door neighbor girl, Haley, all five feet or so of her, thinnish, wearing an oversized white T-shirt that hung down to just about cover her shorts. Her hair was short and brown and had enough curl to do a little flip at her neck. Brown eyes. This wasn't going to be a supermodel. This was going to be a very standard brown-eyed girl. Plenty cute in a ' little girl' kind of way, but maybe not destined to be on a swimsuit calendar.

"Uh," I smiled, "Lessee ... Water hose. Brush. Wet car. Oh, I know ... I'm building a fence."

Her face looked amused. "Okay, so I'm not good at starting a conversation," she laughed.

"Don't mind me. I'm just washing my car."

"Want some help?"

"You'll get all wet and messy."

"'s okay. I can go home an' change when it's over."

"Then I'd appreciate the help." She grabbed the hose and wetted and rinsed as I washed off the road dirt with the brush. We worked all the way around the car and she did indeed get wet. In a white T-shirt. Which became transparent. But she was twelve, and I could see through the wet shirt that she had nipples and the beginnings of bulges that presaged titties, but nothing to get excited over.

"Squirt some water on the top," I said, "and I'll wash it."

She complied and I tried reaching across the roof, stretching tip-toed.

"Yah know," she said, "if you pick me up, I can get the roof better."

"That's a good idea," I said. "Here. Hold this." I handed her the brush. I put my hands around her waist and hoisted her up. She was now at roof level and supported herself by leaning across it. Her little butt was at eye level for me. Okay. I peeked. Just a little bit.

"Move me down so I can get some more," she said.

I lifted her back up and sat her ass on my shoulder and moved her. She kept working. Thoroughly wet. Completely oblivious to anything. Just washing a car. We worked our way around the car and finished. I walked to the shed to put away the hose and brush and she followed.

Turning around, I viewed her, wet from head to toe, brown smudges on her white T-shirt doing little to obscure little pink nipples that were pointing outward. "You're a mess," I said. Your mom's gonna kill you."

"Nah," she said. "She won't even know. They left me by myself this afternoon an' won't be home till six or seven."

I guess I showed a questioning expression.

"Oh, they do it all the time. Gone to visit step-dad's brother. I can take care of myself."

"Oh," I said, "well, you know if you need anything while they're gone, you can come ask me."

"Thanks, Mr. Bill," she said. "I'm gonna go change. See ya!"

"Thank you, Haley," I said. I'd no more entered the house than I heard a knock on the door. I opened it. Brown eyes looked up at me.

"Sorry, Mr. Bill, but I locked myself out of the house. I can't get in, an' I need to use the bathroom."

"Well, come in. You know where the bathroom's at." She had previously visited when my ten-year-old daughter was over for the "It's your weekend with your dad" weekends. She went up the hall.

I heard the toilet flush, then Haley reappeared. I looked at her. "You know, if you're not going to get back in your house, we need to do something about those wet clothes. I can put them in the dryer."

"Yeah, but what do I wear while they're in the dryer?" Brown eyes questioned me.

"I can give you one of my old T-shirts. It'll fit you like a nightgown. Would that be okay?"

"Yeah. I suppose so."

"Okay," I said, "go in the bathroom and get out of those wet clothes and I'll pass you a shirt through the door."

I went up the hall to my bedroom and grabbed a T-shirt out of my dresser, then returned to wait at the bathroom door. It cracked open and I stuck the T-shirt in the small hand that presented itself. She took the T-shirt and handed me a pile of wet clothes.

"If you want, you can bop under the shower real quick to get the mud off your face, too," I said, ever helpful.

From behind the closed door came "That's a good idea!"

"Okay," I said. "I'm gonna put these in the washer and do a quick shower myself."

"'Kay"

Walking to the laundry room, I noticed that the stack of clothes included a set of sky blue cotton panties. Oh, well. I was used to doing laundry. Single guy, nobody was going to do it for me. And of course on the weekends when I had my daughter over, I added hers to the stack.

Back up the hall I went to the second bathroom and showered. When I got out I donned my own T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts that I tended to wear around the house, temporarily forgetting that there was a twelve year old girl in the house.

When I walked into the living room, there was Haley surveying my collection of DVD's. She picked one and turned. "Can we watch this?" she asked, presenting a Disney movie.

"Sure," I said. I started the DVD player with her choice and sat back and kicked up the footrest on my recliner and sighed.

"Feels good, don't it?" she commented. She flopped on her belly on the adjacent sofa and wiggled and when she did, the hem of the T-shirt rode up to the top of her thighs. I got a view of closed little girl thighs and her butt cheeks. Nice view. Looked longer than I should have.

The movie started and she started getting fidgety. The T-shirt revealed more. Then she pulled one knee up toward her chest and rolled back to looking at me.

Then she jumped up. "Mr. Bill," she said, looking directly at my face, "can I sit in your lap to watch TV?"

I was a bit taken aback. "Uh, Haley, I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why?" And a little bottom lip out.

"Because you're a little girl and little girls aren't supposed to sit in strange men's laps."

"I'm TWELVE. Almost thirteen! And you're not a strange man. I've known you for a year."

"Yeah, but if people found out about it they'd put me in jail for child molestation."

"Oh. THAT! Mom told me all about that. Even if I didn't sit in your lap, if I told people you'd done stuff to me they'd believe me and you'd be in trouble."

I wondered exactly what her mom had said all that for. "That's right," I said, "so let's not invite trouble."

She looked sad. "Okay. I just wanted to be cuddled. That's all."

"Haley," I said, "it's just not appropriate. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I can help. But I don't think snuggling is something we should be doing."

"I was cold after the shower. You keep it cold in here."

"Yeah, that's why I work so hard, just so I can keep my house cold."

"You're funny!"

"And you're a cute little girl."

"I'm NOT a little girl!"

"You weigh what, like ninety pounds? You're five feet tall? Twelve? Oops, excuse me, ALMOST thirteen ... Little. Female. Girl

"Almost thirteen, you know. And I'm becoming a woman."

"In due time, no doubt," I teased.

"No, really!"

"In what way are YOU a woman?"

She looked into my face and smiled. "I got my period already."

"Oh. That makes a difference."

"An' I know lots of stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"I know what men and women do, you know husbands and wives stuff." She was still working towards a goal, and I didn't know what it was. But if I was reading it right, it was trouble.

I was curious now. "Okay, how do you know this stuff?"

"Seen it." She had a smug expression.

"Okay," I said, "what did you see and where did you see it?"

"I saw mom and my stepdad doing things. They didn't know I was looking." She continued. "An' that's how I know stuff."

"So, exactly what kind of stuff do you know?" I asked.

"What a husband and wife do together."

"How'd you learn all this?"

"Peekin' through the crack in the door."

"Ooooh," I mused, "you peeked? Into their bedroom?"

"No," she said, "Mom an' step-dad do stuff in the den sometimes, an' one night I was in bed an' wanted to get something from the den an' I got up, and the door to the den was almost closed and I could hear them talking, so I peeked. They didn't know I was lookin' an' they were playin' an' stuff."

I looked at her. She was obviously enjoying being able to share this tale. "So what did you see?"

"Well," she said, "they were laughin, so I know they were havin' fun. Step-dad was over Mom on the couch, wearin' his baggy PJ's and they kissed and he got up an' she reached in his PJ's and pulled out his thing and played with it. At first I thought she hurt him because of the sound he made, but she kept doing it and he put his hand on the back of her head and she started sucking on it. He acted like he REALLY liked that." She looked at me to gauge my reaction.

"Yeah. Lots of guys like that."

She continued, "When she stopped, he kissed her. Like, I thought, "GROSS" 'cause his thing was just in her mouth, but they kissed a long time an' his hands were under her night gown an' she was makin' noises like she was havin' fun. Then he did something I couldn't believe."

I had a pretty good idea of possibilities, but I didn't want to spoil Haley's telling. "What'd he do?" I asked.

"He pulled her panties off an' spread her legs and licked her right on her pussy."

Little Haley knew what a 'pussy' was. Interesting information, that.

"An' she REALLY liked that. She was holdin' his head an' pushing his face in her pussy, an' she started shaking an' all of a sudden just stopped. And he went up to her face an' I could see his face was messy, an' they kissed, then he took his PJ's off an' I could see his whole thing, hair an' balls an' stuff. An' Mom climbed on top of him an' put his thing in her pussy and they moved up an' down an' back an' forth an' then he kind of screamed an' just stopped moving. Then Mom got off him an' his thing was floppy an' she licked it an' sucked it. An' they started to get up so I ran back to my bedroom."

"Well, Haley, you saw them having sex. Sounds like they have fun doing it, too."

She looked at me, her eyes a little incredulous. "All that stuff is normal, huh?"

"Yep. Sure is. People can bring pleasure to each other in a lot of ways. You saw them doing oral sex to each other, and then having intercourse."

Her eyes twinkled. "Intercourse is a nice way of saying fucking, huh?"

"Yes, it's a nice way. I think "fucking" is a sort of coarse word. "Intercourse" is too formal, though."

"So what do YOU call it?"

"I call it 'making love' or 'having sex' or just 'doing it'. And I shouldn't be talking with YOU about it. You should learn this from your mother."

"Oh, she told me some stuff. We've had The Talk. I know that when guys get excited, their things get hard, and if a guy sticks his thing in me and stuff comes out, I could get pregnant. An' stuff like that."

"That's mostly true, Haley," I said. "So then you should know why you shouldn't be sitting on my lap."

"But, Mister Bill, snuggling doesn't have to be about sex. Sometimes it's about being warm." She smiled shyly.

She really did have an innocent look on her face. I found myself giving in. "Okay, Haley," I heard myself say. "You can sit on my lap and cuddle. But it's just keeping warm and being friendly. No sex stuff."

She squealed and launched herself into my lap. She nestled down in my arms, turned her face to mine, and said "Okay, Mister Bill, just friends. You know in this neighborhood it's hard for me to have friends.

I noted the silence from the laundry room that told me the washing machine had finished its cycle. Haley climbed off my lap so I could go put the clothes in the dryer. When I came back, I thought perhaps she was finished with her snuggle phase. I sat in my recliner. She stood by my side, looking at me.