CHAPTER TWO
Paul
The girl is too young for me. The girl is too pretty for me. The girl is too smart for me, and the girl is far too… perfect for me. I tell myself these things as I let the hot water soothe my muscles. They are aching, as they always are, after three or four hours of clearing the seemingly endless ocean of gnarled vegetation in the back yard.
Gwen. Gwendolyn. Gwyneth? I don’t know, but Gwen is good enough for me, and it seems the most beautiful name that has ever passed over human lips. Lips! Dear God, that girl’s mouth! When she makes that perfect little pouty face of hers, she looks just like a china doll. The old-fashioned kind with rosy cheeks, a little pout, and big expressive eyes.
I tell myself to stop this line of thinking, because – ultimately – I’m a man with fifteen years of work under my belt, and she’s a girl who’s just hitting her stride and finding her place in the world. The fact that the very sight of her makes me want a shot at her, just illustrates how superficial and shallow I’ve become. I’m no prize for her. Oh, sure, I have a physique that turns heads and the looks that women find attractive, but that doesn’t change one simple fact. My world is very distant from hers and there’s no reason at all she’d want to travel there.
I know this is true and because of that the idea of pursuing her is simply off the table. It’s that simple. Making the decision certainly helps me focus, too. I can live with wanting something I can never have. As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what being a man is all about: restraint. Wisdom over self-indulgence.
I can do that, and I know it’s the right thing to do. But, damn, if I don’t see her fingers moving underneath her bathing suit every time I close my eyes! That makes it a little frustrating trying to shower and plenty of shampoo ends up in my eyes.
“Jesus, Paulie,” I say to myself. “Grow up and act like an adult.”
How does a man act like an adult with a little girl like that in the house?
Little girl. The words create an immediate effect and I feel my cock responding immediately, going from just being there to unmistakably present and ready. I look down in surprise. The erection is instantaneous, zero to sixty in a second or two. Without even thinking about it, I reach down, but then I stop myself. Thinking about Gwen as a Little is insane, and probably the worst thing I can do. She called me by my name and not Daddy.
I reach for the shower handle and turn it all the way to cold. My breath catches as the freezing water explodes over my skin and drives away the arousal or, at least, the evidence of the arousal. I remain in the cold water for a good five minutes and when I step out of the shower, I am shivering like a man on a journey to the North Pole. The aftereffects of the freezing water give me plenty of motivation to dress quickly and I head to the front room, where the HVAC system I still need to replace does its best work.
Of course, she’s there.
She blushes slightly when she sees me. I try to smile in a friendly way as I adjust the thermostat. Immediately, I’m afraid she’ll think the smile is goofy or – worse – lecherous.
“Uh,” I say. “The hardware store in Petersville didn’t have the right parts, so I’ll have to go back tomorrow.”
She smiles and her blush makes her face a whole lot redder. “Um, you told me that before, uh…”
I feel as if she’s trying to say something, such as ‘when you caught me masturbating’ without having to say that I caught her masturbating.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “On the porch when I got here.”
There’s a really big elephant in the room, and I am having a hard time leaving it at that. I throw in, “I bet you’re going to miss this place, after it’s all fixed up.”
Her blush disappears and her face drains of color. For a moment, I’m stunned at the sudden change. She’s gone from a delightfully playful and beautiful young woman, who’s embarrassed by something actually quite sexy, to a desperate and frightened little girl.
It makes me want to rescue her. Immediately. I want to help her and I want to hold her, and to tell her everything is going to be okay. If I do that now, though, she will be absolutely certain I’m just trying to take advantage of a girl I caught masturbating and calling out my name.
I settle for a compromise and cross the distance between us. I sit on the old oak coffee table and put a hand on her shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Gwen?”
She goes even whiter for a moment and I’m afraid my gesture has frightened her. Just before I take my hand from her shoulder, though, she catches hold of my wrist, and holds on to me, pulling my hand back down.
“I… I lied to you,” she said. Her lip quivers and – again – I want to pull her tightly to me, and to hold her as if she’s the most precious thing on Earth. I want to tell her I’ll take care of her and everything will be all right.
“Talk to me,” I reply. What’s going on?”
“I don’t have a place to go,” she whispers. “After, I mean. They didn’t give me notice and… I lost my job that same day and then you showed up and…”
She’s crying now. I slide next to her and let her cry on my shoulder. I’m angry with the Harolds. I gave them almost six months’ notice. They had no right to give her none. Hell, they had no right even to rent a room to her in the first place. Of course, lying to me was the wrong decision, but she was frightened and the whole thing came out of nowhere. I let her cry and the sound of her weeping overwhelms me.
I already wanted to protect her. I already wanted to care for her. Now, she’s vulnerable and desperate. How easy it would be to make a move!
It would be immoral of course. This conclusion isn’t surprising at all. I force myself not to act on the urge, and that’s surprising because the temptation seems a lot stronger than my morality, at the moment. Somehow I manage to keep things platonic as she cries, touching her only to let my hand pat her back while my other hand gently strokes her hair.
After a few minutes she sits up suddenly. “Oh, my God! You must think I’m such a stupid idiot.”