It got so bad I ached for him. It had to be embarrassing to have that thirteen-year-old kid poking her immature little butt at him all the time, no matter how cute she was… and no matter how cute her butt was, for that matter. It got so I intercepted her a few times just to save Eric the embarrassment and fuss.
Well… maybe I had a bit more in mind than saving him embarrassment.
Anyhow, irritated and watchful as I'd become, I still almost missed it when it counted. In fact, I did miss it until it was too late to do anything.
I was on my way back to my room. I'd been in Eric's apartment straightening up for him and giving it a little of the feminine touch. And he'd been lounging in his armchair with his feet out on the ottoman making exaggeratedly contented sounds.
"Goddamn, Lee, I'm really going to go for this! Why the hell don't we take a quick run down into Arkansas and get a J.P. to do the honors so I can really get used to the service!"
I'd laughed and made some wisecrack about what was he waiting for. And then I'd hurried out, because he'd suggested exactly what I wanted; and here we were, not even having gotten our license yet or started waiting!
So I wasn't paying close attention when I passed the head of the stairs. Nancy was coming up them and shrank back against the banister when I passed the top. I kept right on going without even looking at her face and it wasn't until I had my hand on my own doorknob I realized what I'd seen out of the corner of my eye.
The child had been wearing spike-heels, for one thing. Her hair had been piled up on her head for another – masses of black ringlets until she could hardly have reached the top with her hand! She had on hose and an indecent miniskirt – I mean, it was so damn short you could see bare thigh above her stocking when she raised a foot on the stairway – and a sleazy blouse with the top two or three buttons unfastened and the neck pulled off one shoulder. It was pulled so far down you could see the white swell of one little boobie! And no Goddamn bra!
Well! I like to twisted that doorknob off! And I turned around to holler at her. But she'd flitted her hot little ass right down the hall where I'd come from and was at Eric's door. And I don't know what the hell she said, but his big, blunt hand came out and closed on her arm and he yanked her inside so fast both her feet were off the floor!
I didn't know what to do! I was so furious at the way the kid was got up that I couldn't even think straight. I kept asking myself what could make her go to Eric's room in that kind of outfit. Obviously, an invitation! And why had he yanked her inside like that? Clearly because she'd gotten there at the wrong time. And what was going on in there?
Well, I don't have to be clairvoyant to figure that out!
I knew if I went to the end of our sun porch nearest Eric's apartment there was a tiny service hallway leading in to where a bunch of flues came together. And I knew there was a place where the flue from Eric's heater went through the wall and the cover guard didn't fit. Well, all right, I'd peeked through it sometimes when he'd first come there, just to watch how beautiful he was when he was reading his paper or something.
So I scrambled into that service tunnel and found the right chink and got my eye up to it. I'd already missed the preliminary sparring. They'd got down to brass tacks by the time I had them in view. And I found myself looking at an entirely different Eric from the man I meant to marry!
He wasn't lounging in his armchair, of course. Not right then. He was standing in the middle of his living room, his feet wide-planted and his hands on his hips, glowering down at Nancy as if he were a Greek God and she was just a lowly mortal. He was giving her the eye, all right; he wasn't missing anything about the way she was dressed. And naturally, he was seeing it from a man's point of view, missing the sleaziness and seeing it as sexy.
He was looking at the way those young, budding, saucy little tits of hers held the blouse out and the way the tiny, flat nipples showed through as shadows. He was looking at the way the too-tight skirt wrinkled across the front and bulged over her new-found love mound and hugged her hips and clearly announced she wasn't wearing panties or a garter belt. And he was… Well, he had a hard-on that wouldn't quit!
But he gave her a disgusted look and said, "Okay, you want to distribute God's blessings; what the hell have you got I'd give a damn about?"
She simpered and made her hips wiggle. "In the old days the kings had girls the same age as me, Eric. They didn't want to waste time on old bags twenty or twenty-one."
He just shrugged. "In the old days, maybe the broads knew enough to make them worth a king's time. Maybe they got some education about what men wanted by the time they got your age."
"What… What do you mean?" She sounded as unsure of herself as she had sounded cocky a moment before.
"I mean you come in here flaunting a couple of tits the size of olives and a half-developed ass and expect me to start panting! What the hell! What do you know about what a woman puts out to make a man feel good?"
"I…" Her voice hardly carried as far as the wall. "I want to learn," she whispered. "I could make you happy; I know I could!"
He looked as cruel and overbearing as he sounded. "Horseshit! You don't give a damn! First thing you have to do you'll start crying and screaming and go running off to mamma!"
"No! No, I won't! I promise! Try me!"
His eyes narrowed and his lip curled at the corner. And he grinned at her – an evil, lecherous, triumphant grin. "Well… Well, why not? Maybe the right way is to start 'em young!"
"Oh, yes, Eric! Of course it is!" She was ready to climb all over him. She jerked her blouse open and stuck a tit toward him. "Just feel!"
He roared at her. "Whaaat! What's there to feel! That's not going to do anything for me, you dumb cunt! You're the one who's going to do the work, not me! You're learning; remember?"
"Yes," she replied in a low, quavering tone.
"Yes what? goddamn it, where's your manners?"
"Y-y-yes, sir!" She was so scared she was stuttering. She'd eat his shit right now, I thought. Christ! Maybe he's going to make her do that! Maybe that's the kind of monster he is under that beautiful, gentle front he's put on all this time!
He growled at her. "All right, slut! That's more like it! Now, get your Goddamn clothes off!"
"But… I…"
"Off…! Off…! Off! You dumb shit, don't make me repeat myself! I don't want to have to look at that cheap crap! You understand?"
"Yes… Yes…! All right…!" Tears streamed from her eyes and she sobbed. "Only don't yell at me, please…"
"And stop your goddamn sniveling! Think a King would put up with a fucking bawl-baby?"
She sniffed and choked back the sobs, tearing her clothing off with nervous, fumbling fingers and rolling it up in a tight little bundle and hiding it behind a pillow on his couch. She straightened and let him stare at her. For a thirteen-year-old, she was about three years ahead of herself in development. I mean, a sixteen-year-old would have been better filled out, of course, but she wouldn't have had much better lines.
Nancy's boobs were just about perfect cones. They angled up from her ribs as steeply at the underside as they did down at the upper. They promised to fill out to juicy plumpness real soon, too; the flesh already looked as if it were ringed by bands that were too tight, with the tissues bulging between them. Right out at the tips, they weren't cones, though. They were rounded and fat-looking, faintly pink and shiny-textured. And in the middle of the pink, round, soft, darker-pink little mounds looked as if they'd been stuck on like raisins stuck into dough.