Condensation beaded the glass of my gin and tonic. A sophisticated
drink, because this was a sophisticated kind of place. Even in the heat
of the day, it wouldn't do to appear anything less than cool and
composed, not here, not amongst the beautiful people. I could be one of
them if I had to, knew how to dress, knew the right way to smile, the
right things to say. I lifted the glass to my lips, tilted, and held it
there, taking a long draught. Except, and you'd have to be observant to
notice, the level barely dipped. A private investigator had been paid a
princely sum to teach me how to pull that trick off to perfection,
amongst others. I've never failed to do my master proud.
My reason for being on the terrace of this particular establishment?
Perhaps the root cause is better left unspoken. You'll come, I imagine,
to your own conclusions. I wouldn't insult you by suggesting that
you'll almost certainly be wrong, even if I believe it myself. It
should be said that the subject of this tale is not my reason for being
there, though you'd be forgiven for thinking that I was making excuses.
The fact that this was, to all intents and purposes, a family joint (oh
yes, only the most privileged, but families nonetheless) makes my
motives even more suspicious, when you read what I have to say. I
implore you, though, to consider that coincidences do occur, that there
was a legitimate reason for my attendance that day. I hadn't gone
searching for it. The 'it' will become clear in time, though I suspect
you already have your own ideas.
The first thing I noticed, as I returned the aforementioned glass to
its beautifully printed paper coaster amongst a clink of rapidly
warming ice, was the scent of her. To be precise, there were in fact
two scents, but I had already noticed and discounted the richer, more
pungent of the two as it approached from behind. Only in passing close
to me could I detect the other aroma, more subtle by far, and ever so
much more alluring. I cannot describe it to you, even having earned a
crust for many years as a professional 'nose'. It can only be defined
by its source. It has been written of so many times in the annals of
hack fiction such as this, and yet not one person has been able to
adequately relate it as anything other than 'girl'.
If you know the scent, you'll know what I mean. Subtle, musky, slightly
sweet, suggestive of youth but with adult overtones. It emanates from
the core of their being, and its range is restricted to a short,
intimate zone close to the body. Only because she passed me within a
couple of feet, and because I was trained to detect the faintest trace
of passing fragrances, did I detect it. I held it for as long as I
could, desperately trying to prolong the experience, but ultimately
unable to make the moment last longer that a second or two. Oh how I
longed to lean toward her as she passed, to bring myself closer to the
source, to revel in the assault on my senses. But that would not have
been right, not in this place. Someone would have noticed, even if they
had no understanding of the reason for the change in my behaviour.
Scent had brought me to this place, and now scent had changed my day
immeasurably for the better. Only when that first appreciation had
passed was I able to once more open my eyes (closed, dear reader, only
long enough that I appeared to blink slowly), and allow vision to
complete the picture. Short, lithe and with poker straight, shimmering
brown hair half way to her waist, she was surely a figment of my
imagination. A dream come to life, perhaps, or my subconscious taunting
me. How much had I drunk? I didn't dare avert my eyes to check, but I
knew that it couldn't be more than a finger or two. Not a
hallucination, then. But something formed of pure light, moulded into
the body of a goddess, ripe before her time and walking, hips swaying,
away from me across the flags of the terrace.
The mind is a wondrous thing. It can observe so much in so little time,
as long as you understand how to access the information. Hypnotists
can, but they're not alone. Anyone can have perfect recall should they
simply be trained correctly. And I had been (another piece of the
puzzle...). Within seconds she was out of sight, but as I carefully
worked a diversion into my routine (always have olives brought to your
table), I was already beginning to play those brief moments back,
examining and dissecting them, recalling every possible morsel of
information.
Her hair was held back behind her ears, only the left of which I had
seen. It looked small, curved over at the top, but with a shapely lobe
at its base and blessedly unencumbered by an earring, which is a rarity
in these times. Pretty, as much as ears can be said to be. The side of
her face was visible only in part, but showed rounded, slightly flushed
cheeks, with a slender jaw line below. Her face would, I reckoned, be
cute rather than beautiful. He shoulders were mostly bared, their
flowing lines interrupted only by the thin straps of her sun dress.
They were narrow, tanned and glistening very slightly with a thin sheen
of sweat. It was, after all, a very hot afternoon. Her back plunged
gracefully down to hips which, whilst they had not yet started to grow,
still formed an attractive waistline, which swayed slightly as she
walked. And beneath those hips, outlined to perfection in the thin,
plain material of the dress, was the most shapely behind I had laid my
eyes on that day, week, month, possibly that year. It led to thin legs,
visible from mid thigh beneath the hem of the dress, as tanned as her
shoulders and finished with dainty feet in what amounted to the
slightest suggestion of a pair of flip-flops, no more than a thin
rubber sole attached loosely to her feet with strings of leather.
I revelled in the image of her I was able to conjure in my mind. I had
no need even to close my eyes. As I ran down the list of attributes
from head to toe, my mind latched onto half a thought, which had
remained buried among the overwhelming tide of reactions to the sight
and smell of her. Now it came roaring to the surface, demanding
attention, causing my cover to slip as I choked momentarily on another
half-of-a-half of a sip of my drink.
The dress had been figure-hugging, in a way which was remarkably
suggestive on a girl that age, though you would have to have a certain
mindset to see it as anything other than innocent aping of her mother's
apparel, which was equally close-fitting. What I had failed to
register, as my eyes scanned her form, was that where you would expect
to see the telltale ridge of her underwear beneath the surface, there
was nothing. Did they make those special pants for wearing under tight
dresses for girls that age? I didn't think so. She could be wearing a
small pair of the adult kind, but the more I considered it, the more I
became certain in my mind that the material had moved in such a fashion
as to suggest that nothing came between it and her soft skin.
I sat stunned for a moment, unable to think. Another cover
automatically slid into place as I picked up my mobile phone from its
position on the table and began to fiddle with the buttons as though I
were sending a message. In reality, the movement of my fingers
disguised the movements of my mind. If I was correct, a girl of an age
certain to cause significant incarceration should boundaries be
overstepped had walked past in a figure hugging dress, a pair of
barely-there flip-flops and absolutely nothing else. My waking dreams,
my fantasies, were full of girls such as this, though never did I think
it possible that one may in fact exist. That she would walk past within
arm's reach, and allow the scent of her very body to wash over me was
beyond all plausibility, and yet...
And yet it had happened. And what was more, here she was, emerging with
her mother from the cool, dark interior of the establishment, slender
glass of Coke in hand. She was unaffected by the need for graceful
walking, a feat her mother was unable to match, and as such moved with
more poise, balance and ultimately, beauty. Her face was more
attractive than I had given her credit for, blessed with a button nose,
adorned with a smattering of freckles which began high on one cheek and
traversed the delicate bridge of her nose to the other. Her eyes,
contrary to my expectations, were deep pools of blue. Not the
brilliant, electric blue of Nordic extraction, but rather a dark,
lustrous colour which seemed to draw you in, and was suggestive of
wisdom beyond her years. Our eyes met for the briefest of seconds, but
she was scanning the clientele and moved on as though I made no
impression on her.
The only free table was directly across from me. The mother had come
around to the nearest side, and I thought for one, horrifying moment
that my view of this nymph would be obscured. It wasn't to be though,
as the mother, in search of shade, shifted clockwise around the table
to the next chair on the left and thus provided me with an unencumbered
view of her daughter.
I could see below the table, and that is where, inevitably, my eyes
drifted. Let us be clear - this girl was a beauty, and had I been
afforded no other view of her I would have revelled in the wonderful
lines of her face. But I was given a choice, and under those
circumstances I had very little option but to concede control of my
eyes to my libido. And so my gaze hovered a couple of inches below the
table where, in the shadow of her dress, those lithe legs disappeared.
They were ever so slightly parted, her feet unable to reach the floor,
flip-flops discarded below. Even in the strong light, though, and
perhaps because if it, I could see no further than mid-thigh. I craned
my neck here and there, desperate to see if a better view could be had,
but none could. Her sex was tantalisingly out of reach of my sight, and
I wanted nothing more than to glimpse it, if but briefly. Cover be
damned, I was staring, and I didn't care who caught me. Hormones had
beaten common sense to a pulp, and it was this lack of control which
led to my downfall. I was caught staring. By the girl.
She was looking at me. Waiting for me to make eye contact. When I did,
she frowned at me, telling me off. I coloured instantly, and grabbed my
drink, obscuring her from view, shutting out the unspoken reprimand.
When I lowered the glass once more it was empty but for the ice and a
now rather forlorn-looking slice of lemon. Not daring to look back at
the girl, I caught the waiter's eye and signalled that another drink
was necessary. His obsequious smile made me cringe - he knew I was
drinking slowly. Didn't know why, but knew in a roundabout way that I
wasn't there just for the drinks. Still, he would bring me my order,
and accept the 20 slipped beneath the coaster on my table.
While I waited, I occupied myself with my phone. This time, though,
there was direction: brining up camera mode (the only reason I paid so
much for the thing), I tried my hardest to surreptitiously capture a
photo of the girl's legs. My efforts were in vain, however - the
vagaries of light and shadow defeated the damnable thing, and her lower
half was shrouded in shadow no matter what configuration I tried. The
returning waiter passed me my drink and, professional to the last,
palmed my pay-off without the slightest hint of recognition.
I began to glance around the terrace at the other patrons, letting my
eyes stray past the girl but never linger, allowing me to determine
that she was now engaged in animated conversation with her mother.
Carefully, with discretion upmost in my mind, I allowed my gaze to fall
upon her legs beneath the table once more. Only for a second or two
would I allow it to stop there, before moving on. The girl's legs were
moving around as she spoke, and as I built up a series of images in my
mind, glance-by-glance, I became aware of something both surprising and
exciting in equal measure. Her legs, perhaps of their own accord,
perhaps deliberately, were definitely moving apart.
The next minutes passed at glacial pace. Seconds stretched to minutes,
minutes to hours. The thumping of my heartbeat in my ears drowned out
all sound. Slowly, inexorably, the thin, tanned thighs moved further
and further apart. Occasionally they would draw together once more,
dashing my hopes, but those same hopes were always resurrected a few
seconds later as the limbs would part once more.
Suddenly, so suddenly that it came as a shock after such a wait, her
legs parted that final, fateful few degrees. The rush of blood to my
head almost caused me to black out, and the pounding in my ears reached
jackhammer intensity, for my surmise was correct. There, open to my
view and unrestricted by cloth of any kind, was the core of the girl's
being, her sex. Incredibly soft-looking lips, pinker at their centre
than further around, like a peach with a deep cleft running down the
centre, interrupted by the protruding nubbin of the part that felt best
of all. I stared, uninhibited, until, perhaps only three or four
seconds later, her thighs snapped shut and stayed that way.
The spell broken, I looked up to see her staring directly at me.
However, there was in this look no sign of reproach. It was a coy,
naughty look, accompanied by a flushing of the cheeks. Her mother was
on the phone to someone, and while she spoke, her daughter was teasing
the old pervert across the way. With one last half smile, she looked
away, and rested her chin on her hand, elbow on the table.
I sat all but motionless for the next minute, though it could have been
an hour or a day for all the sense of passing time I experienced. Then
they were on the move, the mother leading the way, back past me and out
onto the street. The girl lagged behind and, as she passed gave me the
coy half smile again, raising my blood pressure even above the peak it
had previously attained. With a long indrawn breath I smelled her
again, delighted beyond words to note that her fragrance was stronger
than before, tinged with spice in a way that it hadn't been. For, as
much as I was excited, she, too, was affected by our encounter. With
one, lingering look I watched her amazing, unrestrained backside sway
excitingly out of my life forever.