“Mind if I use the bathroom first?” she called down.
“Go ahead.”
He flopped onto his sofa and gazed at the screen. It had only been one day and the girl seemed to have taken over already. And yet, as much as he’d always cherished his bachelor’s lifestyle, he found it quite comforting to just go along with the flow.
Why wouldn’t it be?
She’s a babe.
Channel surfing, he mulled the weirdness of his situation. A couple of weeks ago, he couldn’t have dreamed that his tenant would be a vivacious young girl like Lucy. Even more astonishing was how friendly she had been toward him. Maybe he was just being dense. Sid would have said so, he guessed. Perhaps he had missed all the signs. But there was something else, just out of reach that bothered him. In spite of her sexiness and bubbly personality, he sensed something darker lurking beneath.
His thoughts were interrupted by a shrill squeal coming from the bathroom.
“Nick! Come quick! Aah!”
He raced upstairs and stopped outside the bathroom door.
“What is it?”
“Quickly, come in! It’s open.”
Nick paused for a second and then went inside. The bathroom was full of steam and Lucy was in the tub, the water coated with suds. She had her hair tied back and it was white with shampoo.
“Fetch my towel please. It stings!” she said through her hands.
Nick grabbed the towel off the rack and held it towards her. She flailed out and Nick caught her wrist and pressed the towel into her hand.
He stared at her as she massaged her eyes. Only her head and slender shoulders were visible above the water.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “I got shampoo in my eyes. So stupid.”
Before he left, Nick took a second to take in the view. Temporarily blinded, Lucy had shifted up in the tub and her lovely breasts were now out of the water. They were flushed and glistening wet, and her dusky areolas were large and puffy. It was another blissful moment of voyeurism with his new tenant and Nick wondered how many more he could take before he did something stupid.
He closed the door, and with her image firmly imprinted in his mind, went back downstairs.
Chapter Four
After their electrically-charged start, he saw little of Lucy over the next few days. They were both on busy schedules, neither bothering with breakfast and each taking care of their own evening meals. Often, one or the other would return home late and when they did run into each other, their conversations remained cordial but Lucy seemed oddly distant. To Nick, it seemed that something had changed.
“Of course, something’s changed, you moron!” Sid had told him over a couple of beers one Friday. “The chick was leaving her door open for you. She called you into the bathroom where she was butt naked! What more do you need to know?”
“Wait up. You were the one that said I didn’t stand a chance,” Nick said.
“That was before. I can’t believe you didn’t get the message she was sending you.”
“I don’t know. There’s more to Lucy than that. I feel like she’s testing me. But it’s like putting your hand in a fire. Every time I get close, I feel I’ve got to pull back.”
“Well, it makes no difference now, old buddy. You blew it.”
“What makes you the expert?”
“Duh? The girl basically offered herself to you, and you didn’t come through. It’s not going to happen again. Good-looking babes like that don’t chase, you know.”
“It’s more complex than that.”
“Really? Okay, well tell me this - is she still leaving her door open?”
“No.”
“I rest my case.”
Nick had gone home with Sid’s words of wisdom ringing in his ears. How could he have been so blind?
He let himself in, noting that Lucy’s bicycle was not in the hallway. He ate, checked e-mails, surfed the net, and then decided it was time to turn in. Upstairs, he paused outside Lucy’s door, which yes, was closed. Sid was right, he’d blown his chance. He turned to go to his own room but then something made him stop and turn back. His pulse rate accelerating, he wrapped his fingers around the door handle.
This was going against the rules, he knew. Despite the sexual tension that had been building up - for Nick, at least - this was an invasion of privacy.
Better to go to bed,
he thought, letting go of the handle.
But instead of doing that he stayed put, staring at the door, his mind racing. It was risky. She could come home at any moment.
Okay, in and out. Just a few seconds.
He opened the door, flicked on the light, and stepped inside.
Nick was amazed at how Lucy had managed to transform the room in just a few days. She had hung a woodblock print of an elephant above the bed, the beside lamp had been replaced by an orange paper Chinese lantern, the bedspread was a turquoise silk sheet patterned with jasmine blossoms, and on the window ledge was a row of tiny bonsai trees.
When did she move all of this stuff in?
In the near corner was her artist’s desk upon which were a neatly arranged selection of acrylic paints, brushes, sketch pads and pencils. Her work in progress was an exquisitely detailed painting of a boatman on a river, the sun setting behind the jagged mountains, its yellow rays seeming to actually ripple on the water.
This girl’s got talent,
Nick thought.
There was a stack of drawing tablets on one side and Nick opened the top one and began flipping through. These were rougher, pencil sketches of cartoon girls. The style was simpler but no less skilful. All of the girls were wide-eyed and pretty and they all seemed to wear the same petulant expression. As he turned the pages, Nick discovered that a lot of these girls were in a noticeable state of undress.
He closed the book and sat at Lucy’s desk. There were two desk drawers on the left hand side. The top one, which was unlocked, was filled with an assortment of art equipment. The lower one was also unlocked
- doesn’t she ever lock anything? -
and another sketchpad lay inside. Nick set it on his lap and opened it.
The first drawing depicted another cartoon-style girl, but with a startling difference - she was naked and tied to a wooden frame, her arms and legs stretched wide, her breasts thrust forward, her stomach taut. Curiously, even though it was just a cartoon, Nick found himself becoming aroused. As he gazed, something else about the girl became apparent. At first he didn’t get it, but the slant of the eyes, the dark fringe-cut and yes, as he remembered from the bathroom, even the delicious shape of the nipples…
My God,
he thought.
It’s Lucy!
He began turning the pages with renewed interest - Lucy, bent over a trestle, strapped down, legs splayed; Lucy in a sailor suit, offering her naked bottom to be spanked; Lucy suspended by the wrists, then staked out on a table, and then another one, with a man striking her buttocks with a wooden paddle.
Nick kept turning, aware now, that he had a full erection underneath the pad. The man - Lucy’s punisher - appeared in all of the remaining sketches as if he had only recently entered her amorous imagination. Nick flipped back and forth through the bondage scenes, his heart racing.
Surely not?
he thought. He looked again and then stared at his own reflection in the mirror and swallowed hard. There was no doubting it - the man in the drawings was Nick.
He replaced the sketchbook and stood. The only thing he hadn’t checked out was her closet, and even as he chided himself for breaking all the rules of decency, Nick found himself going through her clothes drawers. Almost without exception, her underwear was sheer and sexy. He picked up a tiny g-string and held it up to the light. It was light blue, almost see-through, and had a little bow stitched into the waistband. He crumpled it in his hand, and on impulse, slipped it into his pocket.
Back in his own room, sleep was impossible. Lucy had been on his mind constantly since he had met her, but now her face and body were practically etched onto the insides of his eyelids! He kept seeing her in the bath, picturing those magnificent floating breasts, and now he visualized her lying in her bed and fantasizing about bondage sessions with him!
He lay with the sheets kicked down to the bottom of the bed, his rigid member poking out of his boxers, Lucy’s g-string in his hand. What was he going to do now? She hadn’t invited him to her room, hadn’t exactly presented him with a whip and asked to be punished. In fact, he had the distinct impression that she was turning cool towards him.
But those sketches!
Around midnight a car pulled up outside and then he heard the front door open. His heart quickened and he lay very still. He listened to Lucy padding upstairs and then to the sound of water running in the bathroom. She sang a song in Japanese as she bathed, her voice soft and lilting.
How could this sensuous creature, with her art and her miniature trees and her easy going manner, be concealing such dark and wild sexual fantasies? He wasn’t even sure now, if he had really seen those drawings. Was his mind playing tricks on him?
Nick stood outside Lucy’s door, wracked with indecision. Steam billowed out of the open bathroom door and the air was filled with the aroma of her lemon scented soap. He had been determined to finally put an end to this torture one way or another but at the last moment it seemed his nerve had failed him.
He was about to turn back when Lucy’s door opened. She had a towel tied around her torso and another wrapped around her head. All of a sudden, she looked extremely small and vulnerable.
“Nick,” she said. “I heard a noise. Is everything okay?”
Nick just looked at her, unable to articulate how much he wanted her at that moment.
“Did I make too much noise coming in? Some friends dropped me off,” she said.
“No,” Nick said hoarsely. “I wasn’t asleep.”
She looked at him curiously and her eyes dropped to the prominent bulge in his boxer shorts. He didn’t try to hide it. He had come this far, it was all or nothing now.
“I thought you said I was safe,” she said, but she didn’t look afraid.
“You are,” Nick said. “If you want to be.”
She reached up, revealing her smooth armpits, and undid the towel around her head. Her damp hair fell around her shoulders and her skin glowed, fresh from her bath.
“I haven’t shown you my art as I promised,” she said, standing to one side. “Would you like to see it?”
Even with the sexual charge that was crackling between them, she still had to be a smart mouth. But it was an invitation, nonetheless.
“That would be nice,” he managed.
Lucy picked up a stack of sketchpads and they sat side by side, thighs barely touching, on the bed. She opened one of the books so that it straddled both of their laps. Nick tried to concentrate as Lucy turned the pages wordlessly, feeling the warmth of her body and the caress of her toes against his feet.
Most of the pictures were landscapes, animals, trees and flowers, and a couple of figure studies, all rendered in the same precise style.
“These are excellent,” Nick said. They really were, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they were terrible - he could have continued sitting next to her forever. She picked up the next tablet. This one was filled with manga cartoon girls, brightly colored with pastels, little nymphets with large green eyes and impossibly bright red, blue and yellow hair.
“I do these for fun more than anything else,” Lucy smiled. She put the book to one side and turned to face him. “So what do you think?”
Nick looked into her fathomless eyes and touched her cheek. “Incredible,” he said. “Just amazing.”
They were just inches apart now, and her breath was hot on his face. He traced his finger down her neck and over her shoulders. He leaned towards her and she raised her face and their lips touched. There seemed no need to hurry and they remained connected like that, unmoving, feeling the energy flowing between them. Then Lucy’s little pink tongue popped out and flicked between Nick’s lips.
Suddenly they were lying down together, exploring each other’s mouths with their tongues. Lucy’s towel came undone and Nick felt her breasts against his chest. Her breathing quickened and she threw one naked leg around his waist, the thrashing of her tongue becoming more urgent.
Nick felt himself losing control as she thrust her hand into the opening in his shorts and pulled out his prick. She was panting heavily into his throat now, making guttural noises and rubbing her now exposed mound against his thigh.
It was all happening too fast. Lucy was going crazy. Nick found himself on his back as Lucy ripped his shorts down and straddled him. She leaned forward and grabbed his hair, pushing her labia against the length of his shaft. She bore down on him again, grinding her body against his, and sticking her wet tongue into his ear. She was like a wild cat. It was more like a fight, than making love. Again, she clamped her mouth over his, banging their teeth together, and he tasted blood. With some effort, he managed to push her off him.
“Lucy,” he gasped. “Slow down!”
She looked down at him, her hair strewn across her face, her breasts swaying.
“You’re going too fast,” he said, trying to catch his breath.
Lucy didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes glazed with lust, she slipped down the bed and began kissing his cock. Grateful for the reprieve, Nick lay back and relished the dart of her tongue around his glans. Then she went lower and took one of his balls in her mouth and sucked on it hard.
“Ah! That hurts!” Nick said sitting up, but Lucy didn’t let go. All he could see was the top of her head as she sucked harder on his testis which was now beginning to ache.
He grabbed each side of her head and pulled her off him.
“Take it easy!”
She knelt at the end of the bed, her body quivering, nipples erect.
“Fuck off!” she yelled, her eyes flashing venom.
“What?”
“I said get out!”
“Wait, Lucy, I want to… but you’re like a tornado. Can’t we slow it down a bit?”
She grinned at him unpleasantly.
“I was right about you,” she said. “You’re fucking gay!”
“Hey!”
“You came here to fuck me, but you can’t handle it. Well, now I’ve lost interest. If you can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can.”
She stood up, and even in his shocked confusion, Nick was stunned by her breathtaking beauty. It was the first time he’d had an opportunity to see her completely naked.
“Go on,” she flung one arm out towards the door.
“Lucy, can’t we…?”
“No.”
Nick picked up his shorts, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Just as he reached the door, Lucy said, “Wait until I tell Summer about this.”
She seemed to have calmed down and her voice was more mocking than angry.
You bitch!
he thought.
Is that what this was all about? You let me in just to humiliate me?
Slowly, he turned to face her. “You want to fuck, then we’ll fuck,” he said in a low voice.
She looked down at his crotch and smirked. “With what?”
Nick didn’t have to look down to know that he had lost his erection.
He was suddenly enveloped in a consuming whirlwind of rage. Lucy had succeeded in dredging up a primordial being that Nick had never known existed. Before he knew what had happened, he was back on the bed and had delivered a backhand to Lucy’s face. Her head snapped around but she quickly recovered and smiled up at him, a feral glint in her eyes.
“Is that the best you can do?” she hissed. “You come in here to rape but because you’re not capable, you have to beat up on a young girl?”
Nick was beyond rational thinking now. He slapped her again and Lucy went for his face with her nails, but Nick grabbed her slim wrists and easily held her down. He sat on top of her, and the blood rushed to his penis which jutted between her breasts.
Lucy seemed to be aware of this because she said, “Come on then, rape me!”
Nick noticed a change in her voice however and he realized she was becoming excited. He thought about the bondage drawings and how he had begun to be featured in them, and he began to understand.
She wants it this way! She’s not into gentle lovemaking and she deliberately goaded me into this.
It no longer mattered. She was lying naked beneath him, her arms pinned, unable to get away. Yes, he guessed this
was
rape, but if he stopped now, what difference would it make? She could still go to the cops and have him charged with sexual assault.
He let go of her hands and roughly twisted her over onto her stomach. Then he slipped one hand underneath her and hauled her up onto her knees. She started to struggle, but Nick barked at her, “Stay the fuck where you are!”
Incredibly, she did.
“Open up, you cunt!” he shouted, slapping the insides of her thighs. Again, Lucy complied, displaying her neatly packaged and hairless mons. Even in his agitated and deranged state, Nick paused to appreciate the view. This was Lucy, the stuff of his dreams, exposing herself to him in the most submissive of positions. Then he brought his open hand down across her buttocks as hard as he could.
“Didn’t hurt!” Lucy cried out.
Nick gave her another one, then another, and from the sounds Lucy made, they were certainly hurting now. Her ass cheeks were coming up bright pink and her thighs were quivering.
“You still think I’m gay?” Nick snarled, landing yet another stinging blow.
“Yes,” Lucy sobbed into the pillow.
“Want me to prove I’m not?”
“Yes,” she sniffed again.
Nick had never laid a hand on a girl in his life but somehow, Lucy had drawn this out of him. He took his stiffened member in hand and pressed the swollen glans against her pussy lips. He was going to be rough and he didn’t care if he hurt her. With a sudden thrust of his hips, he was inside her and discovered that Lucy was already well lubricated - in fact; she was dripping, her bodily secretions coating her inner thighs. He grabbed her hips and started pumping into her. He hadn’t wanted it to be this way, but he was past caring now. Her pussy was tight and warm as he made long thrusts into her body. He grabbed her small waist and she arched her back, impaling herself deeper.
“How’s this for gay?” he asked.
Lucy didn’t reply. She was making little high-pitched yelping sounds with each thrust of his cock. Nick quickly built up momentum. This wasn’t lovemaking, it was animal lust, and he needed release. It came quicker than he expected, a hot rush of his seed flooding into her.
Lucy remained in position, ass up, head down, as his dam broke and he emptied his load into her womb. As his orgasm subsided, so did all of the fury and the passion. Looking down at Lucy’s sore ass and her compliant posture, he suddenly felt sorry for her. In the throes of his pent-up passion, he had blamed her for provoking him, but there was no point in denying the fact that it was
he
who had entered
her
room.