Posted by Ripper X on July 27, 2003 at 01:12:03:
Howdy Gentle Reader,
Todays tale is REALLY dated, but its also a really kick ass story as well. Just keep in mind that caller ID's didn't always exist, nor *69ing somebody, and that at one time a teenager was still innocent. Anybody care to take a guess at the date of this gem? I'm thinking it was penned sometime in the late sixteen hundreds.
Anyways, editing wise I basically left it alone. I debated on changing the leads age, and actually started to but decided against it. Hopefully I corrected all of my changes but let me know if I missed one. The girl is 17 but its two weeks away from her 18th Bday. So I figured What the hell!?! Lets live life in the Danger Zone! (Insert TopGun Soundtrack here)
While this story starts out kind of stuffy, it becomes one of the best examples of an author setting a fast pace for the reader (HEY THAT'S YOU!).
Enjoy!
-RIP
Katie Reed sat by the pool at the country club. She had been coming there ever since her parents had ascertained that she could comport herself in a dignified manner. Now she sat at the table underneath the umbrella and listened to her parents drone to her Uncle Eben.
Not that Eben was really her uncle. That is how she was taught to address all of her parent's friend - as Aunts and Uncles. One big happy family. Still she liked Uncle Eben, especially since he never treated her like a child and he always made time to talk to her.
Wait a second - did her Mother just say something about the Mink Club?
"We thought that we would meet Bitsy and Martin there for drinks and dinner. Bitsy mentioned that her sister, Edie, might be coming also. Eben, you are always welcome to join us."
"Evelyn, thank you for the offer but ever since Margaux moved out I have not been fit company for man nor beast. It would be a shame to miss our Katie dressed up for the Mink Club though."
"Oh, Katie would be bored out of her mind at the Mink Club!"
"No I wouldn't Mumsy - not really! Please let me go!"
"Sweetie, this is not the soda shop down the street where you listen to Elvis records - this is sophisticated dining. Not at all fun for a child."
"Mumsy!" Katie's eyes were entreating. "I am NOT a child. I am about to turn eighteen and will be going to college in a few months. One minute you are telling me to comport myself like a lady and the next you act like I am still practically in diapers!"
Her father spoke. "Young lady, if we had any doubt about your maturity level you have just proven our case."
"But Daddy..."
"No buts, and not only are you not coming to the Mink Club but you are now grounded and forbidden to leave the house."
Katie found herself being angry at the horrible injustice of it all. Almost eightteen years old and not allowed to do one single thing! Even Uncle Eben thought she should go. Well, if her parents thought she was a child then why fight it. Katie stood up.
"May I be excused? I would like to change for the pool so I can go swimming with all of the other infants!"
"Don't be cheeky, Patricia Katherine and it is MAY, MAY go swimming. And, yes, you MAY be excused."
Katie's mother was making her bat shit (not that she would ever, EVER say that). "Uncle Eben, I want to show you the dive that I have been working on. Please, please don't go anywhere!"
"I would not think of missing your dive, Katie Angel." Eben smiled at Katie and gave her a wink and then turned to beckon the waiter to bring him another Martini. Butterflies danced in her stomach.
As she changed she thought of her Uncle Eben and how she hoped someday to find a guy so suave and sophisticated - not like the Neanderthals she knew back in high school.
After she changed into her suit, she looked in the mirror and felt a tingle run throughout her body. She knew that she did not look like a child. Her black swimming suit did not show a scandalous amount of skin but it did cling to every curve and if there was one thing she had it was curves. She was busty like her Mumsy and had round hips and a full behind a lot like Marilyn Monroe and her tummy was nice and flat. Nobody would think she was an infant now!
She slipped into her cover-up and realized that she forgot to bring her swimming cap. Katie knew that her mother would not let her swim without it - it would be unladylike and the chlorine would cause havoc to her hair but she hurried to the diving board and then called out to her family. She pretended not to notice that her mother was pantomiming "where is your swimming cap" as she slipped out of her cover-up and ascended the ladder. She glanced over to make sure that her Uncle Eben and father were watching as she quickly executed an artful and graceful dive into the pool. For a second she imagined herself to be a mermaid far away from all these proper people, swimming in pristine water. Before she surfaced, she noticed her hair float around her like a brunette cloud. As she climbed out of the pool, her mother was waiting for her.
"You look like a drowned rat," Mrs. Reed observed as she handed Katie her cover-up and as if to make her point again repeated the comment when they returned to the table, "You look like a drowned rat."
Eben smiled and winked at Katie again. "I don't know, June, she looks more like a mermaid to me!"
Katie blushed and knew once again that Uncle Eben would always understand her.
.
Katie kissed both of her parents on the cheek as they left to go to the Mink Club. She dutifully promised not to stay up too late or stuff herself with junk food. While she was still angry to not be allowed to go, she rather relished a night away from her parents.
Freedom! She had already taken a shower earlier to wash the chlorine off but now she was going to take a bubble bath - a long hot decadent bubble bath. No father to ask if she had drowned, no mother to tell her not to use to much bubble stuff because it would corrode the pipes. Just her, a couple chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk, and a Harlequin Romance. Oh, and the radio.
As she slipped into the tub, she sang along with the song on the radio. "They asked me how I knew, my true love was true. I of course replied something here inside cannot be denied."
She savored the feel of the hot water and silky bubbles and she sighed. She lifted one long leg out of the tub and watched the bubbles slide off as she slipped down deeper into the water.
The Harlequin was a good one. It was about a British nurse who was in love with a doctor but he, due to a misunderstanding thought that she was fast! Of course she was a virgin and it all would be sorted out in the end and they would kiss and be gloriously happy once he found out that she was the sort of girl that a respectable guy could marry. Katie had to wonder though exactly how fast you had to be before you had the reputation for being too fast and if the nurse really had loose morals, could her doctor love her anyhow? The story made clear that the doctor was a real playboy when not at the hospital so why would he judge the nurse for behavior that he indulged in - and what about the women that he indulged in that behavior with?
These questions preoccupied Katie a lot. Not that she ever would be - oh, what was the word, promiscuous - but sometimes she had pretty wicked thoughts. Like when she was parked with Charles Young and he tried to touch her through her sweater and she had to tell him no but part of her really wanted to say yes. A couple times she had allowed him for just a couple seconds and they both liked it a lot but then he wanted to take it further - underneath her sweater - and for a few seconds she wanted to say yes so badly that she almost gave in. She came to her senses at the last moment but still it really distressed her that she had even considered it. And usually after a date those moments were the ones she replayed in her mind again and again while she laid in bed. What would happen if she said yes or allowed him to put his hand higher then her knee? What would happen - not that it was a possibility - if she went into the back-seat with him?
Katie looked down at her hand on her lower belly. The bubbles had all melted away and her milky breasts bobbed above the water line. Sometimes she touched her secret place but she always stopped after a couple minutes because she felt guilty and trashy. Sometimes that made it dreadfully hard to fall asleep because she was so restless but the alternative was to keep touching herself and that was worse because she would find herself thinking really bad thoughts that were so unlike her.
The phone began to ring in the next room. Maybe it was her parents and she would be in a heap of trouble if they thought she had left to go to the soda shop. She jumped out of the tub, grabbing a towel to wrap around herself and raced to the phone. When she got there she breathlessly said, "Reed Residence."
Silence and then after maybe five seconds a soft click. What a pain. Well, she was starting to prune up in the tub anyhow. She realized that the gap in the drapes allowed any passer by to see her in nothing but a towel. With a little squeak she ran back out of the room.
She found herself laughing at what a pill she was sometimes. Still it reminded her of a recurring dream that she had been having. In the dream it is the middle of the night and she walks over to her bedroom window, pushes aside the curtains, and bares her breasts. If she did just that in reality the only person who might see her would be the old widower next door. Every time she had the dream she woke up feeling a throbbing between her legs and had trouble returning to sleep.
Katie walked into her parent's room and opened up their closet. She can still hear the radio in the distance and fragments of lyrics reach her. (Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear and it shows them pearly white) She looks at her mother's dresses and she pulls out a red cocktail dress. (Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe, scarlet billows start to spread). The towel falls to the ground and Katie slips the dress on, struggling to fasten the zipper on the back. The dress is a size too big but her breasts fill out the bodice as she looks in the mirror and sings along with Bobby Daren. (Now d'ja hear 'bout Louie Miller? He disappeared, babe
After drawin' out all his hard-earned cash.And now MacHeath spends just like a sailor Could it be our boy's done somethin' rash?) She likes the reflection she sees in the mirror - even her hair which was pinned up before her bath makes her look adult and sophisticated. She slips on a pair of her mother's highest red heels to top off the look and she thinks that it makes her legs look like Marilyn Monroe's in The Seven Year Itch.
The phone rings again and she is sure that this time it really is her parents. She almost trips on the high heels while racing to the phone.
"Reed residence."
A whispering voice sings a song that she has heard her father croon to her mother. "I've got a crush on you, SweetiePie All the day and nighttime hear me sigh ..." She does not recognize the voice but maybe that is just because he is whispering.
It is a little weird and she finds herself falling back on good manners. "May I ask who, um, WHOM is calling and whom you wish to speak with?" Katie secretly hoped that the call was for her - maybe a secret admirer but did not believe that for a second.
The voice continued to whisper. "I wish to speak to the most beautiful woman in the world."
Katie giggled. "You have the wrong number."
"Really? What a shame. Sorry to trouble you. Good-bye."
"Bye bye." Katie hung up the phone with a sigh. It would sure be nice to have a man like that - and he probably was a man too because the song was older. She would love to be someone's Most Beautiful Girl. Before she could get more than a few feet away from the phone, it rang again.
"Reed residence."
"Hi again Reed Residence."
"I told you that you have the wrong number."
"Maybe not. I went to redial my number and could not help but think what a pretty voice you have. Maybe the girl I meant to call has some competition over at the Reed residence."
Katie's heart skipped a beat. "That's silly. You don't even know me. Why do you keep whispering anyhow?"
"I know what a sweet voice you have and to answer your question, laryngitis. I am a singer and my doctor told me not to put too much strain on the old pipes while I recover."
"A singer, really? I love music."
"Yes, Ma'am. I was supposed to sing at the Mink Club until I lost my voice."
"You have got to be kidding - my pa- friends went there tonight!"
"Wow, it IS a small world. Am I going to have to keep calling you Reed residence or are you going to tell me your name?" She could make out a teasing quality in the whisper.
Katie was feeling flirty and sassy. "Why do you need to know my name?"
"I have a really deep need to know the name of the newly crowned, Most Beautiful Girl in the World. How about if I guess it . . . how about Venus, a worthy name considering your title. Are you a goddess of love? 'Venus, Goddess of love that you are . . . ' Am I warm?"
Katie giggled. "Noooo!"
"Hmmm . . . I've got it. Chantilly Lace. 'Chantilly Lace has a pretty face and a ponytail hangin' down. A wigglin' walk and a gigglin' talk makes the world go 'round....' You definitely have the giggle down and where there is a giggle there is sure to be a wiggle."
Katie was embarrassed and tried to cover it up. "You want to hear something funny? My mother won't let me listen to the song because she does not believe it is by The Big Bopper - she says it sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis and he is banned in our house after he married his thirteen-year-old cousin." Jeepers, why did she have to mention her mother and start sounding like a juvenile.
The man did not seem to be bothered though. "Well, thirteen is a little young but who is to say? I think that if people are soul mates age is irrelevant."
"Oh, I agree!" Maybe this conversation could still be salvaged. Not that she wanted to talk to him but she did not want to come off like a ten-year-old either.
"So how old are you, Chantilly?"
"Twenty-one." Jeepers.
"Funny, I would have guessed you to be younger. Especially since you still apparently live with your parents."
"Ok, ok, I am seventeen - eighteen in two weeks!" Good-bye sophisticated man.
"See, now that wasn't painful, was it? Young but definitely old enough to be my soul mate without me thinking that I am robbing the cradle. If my name was Jerry Lee you would be over the hill."
Katie laughed at that. "You are so silly."
"I think you are the silly one for lying about her age. The funny thing is that in a few short years you will be making yourself younger."
"Look, it might seem silly to you but not to me. Everyone acts like I am a child. I know I am an adult and maybe you know it but my parents need to be told that."
"Actually Chantilly, I cannot say for sure whether or not you are an adult until I talk to you longer. Would that be ok?"
Katie plopped down on the couch, cocktail dress and all, and twisted an errant lock of hair around her index finger. "Well, it is really weird talking to a stranger like this."
"I rather think that it is nice. We can be completely honest and never have to worry about having to face one another. Have you ever wanted to talk to someone that you can confide in totally?"
"Yeah . . . I mean, yes. That sounds nice."
"You sound nice, too. What do you look like? Let me guess Shirley Temple curls"
"Ha ha. Medium length brunette hair usually either in a ponytail . . . "
"Like the song!"
"If you want to hear then stop interrupting - or sometimes parted on the side and held back with barrettes."
"Sounds beautiful."
"How tall are you? Hmmm, what is the average height of a little girl? Five feet or so?"
"5'5!"
"Aha. Big blue eyes! I bet I am right about that one!"
"Ok, you've got me there!"
"I would rather have you here!"
"What!"
"That is what I would say to my girlfriend and I thought you wanted to be treated like an adult."
"I do but . . . "
"Ah, Chantilly, maybe you are a little young for me!"
"NO! I am sorry. You just caught me by surprise. It is ok!"
"No, I am the one that is sorry that I offended you. It is not like we are going to meet, not unless you want to, so I thought you would not mind my flirting."
"I don't! You are right about the color of my eyes."
"Are your eyes your best feature?" Was that a hint of disinterest that she heard in the whispering voice?
Katie knew that she did not want the stranger to go away - she was having fun. "Yes, that I have a really nice body."
A hint of renewed interest in the stranger's voice. "Do you now? Tell me more."
"Well, um, it is just that - well I have a big bust and long legs and my derriere is round."
"Derriere?" The stranger laughed. "So what are you wearing, Chantilly? Just so I can imagine the girl that I am talking to?"
"A red cocktail dress."
"No, seriously."
"I AM serious. That and red high heels."
"Really? Maybe I should call you Little Red Riding Hood. You know that story, don't you?"
"Sure, from when I was a child. I left the nursery school stuff behind a long time ago."
"What a shame. When you think about it it is a great story. Maybe it does not seem that way now because the surprises happened long ago - all the suspense is gone - but can you remember the first time you heard it while safe in your bed? The first time you heard it and you wondered when would old Red realize that she was in danger? When would it occur to her that Granny was nowhere to be found and that her lily white throat was vulnerable? Red told the beast everything that he needed to know, 'I am going to grandma's house' which begs the question, was she stupid or did she want what the wolf had to offer?"
Several seconds passed before Katie realized that she had been listening so closely to the whispering voice that she had almost fallen into a trance. When she spoke her voice sounded husky to her own ears. "Want what the wolf had to offer? Why would she want that? It doesn't make sense."
"Doesn't it? Maybe she was sick of being safe. Maybe the well-worn path to grandmother's house had gotten old. Maybe she wanted to really enter the woods - the primeval forest..."
"The what?" Katie realized that her voice had become a whisper also.
"Primeval - ancient, primitive, older than time. Where the wolf has his lair. I believe that Red wants to lie down with the wolf and in submitting become reborn. That is why she told him where she could be found, because she wants to throw off her cape and bare her throat to the beast so that she could be saved from the well-worn path."
Katie's head was swimming, her heart was pounding, and there was a moist stickiness between her legs, and an aching, throbbing sensation in the center of her being. She yearned for something . . . something out of reach.
Her gaze fell on her mother's red crystal lamp. It did not suit the decor at all but her mother, usually so style conscious loved it. Scarlet crystals like huge teardrops hung down from the edges. Katie used to hold them up to her ears like earrings.
When Katie was twelve she used to sneak out of the house late at night so that she could run until her lungs felt like they would burst. She would revel in the sense of freedom, the possibilities of her life. Now, not even six years later she did not sneak out anymore and yet she remembered how it felt to run as hard and fast as she could with the fantasy of someone close on her heels. "Red just wanted to run," She thought, "She just wanted to run until her lungs were about to burst."
"But she didn't bare her throat, the hunter came along and killed the wolf." Katie heard her voice speak as if from far away.
"Not in the original versions. Red's last words before entering the belly of the beast were 'What big teeth you have?' And I like to imagine that she tossed back her head and bared her throat."
Katie shuddered but the dampness between her legs grew - the sweet aching neediness. She heard his intimate whisper caress her skin. "I can imagine you on that bed, in your red cocktail dress and high heels, your firm chest swelling against their confines, causing the wolf to swell in return but that is as far as my imagination goes. Can you answer a question for me?"
"Yes, of course." It all was so dreamlike.
"Would you bare your throat to the beast, would you fight the wolf with all that you had, or would you hope for a passing hunter to save you? What would you do, Katie?"
It was as if she could suddenly feel his hot breath on her throat and she shuddered with desire, shuddered long and hard, and then realization hit and she shuddered with something even deeper. "You, you called me KATIE! How did you know my name was Katie?"
"You told me." Was there a hint of mockery in his voice?
"No! No, I never told you that. I know I never told you that." Panic started to tinge her voice.
"Don't you like to be called Katie anymore? How about Patricia Katherine?"
Katie let out an abbreviated scream and slammed down the phone as if to shut him out. She stared at the phone, panicked. "I have to call my parents - I have to make them come home. But what will I tell them? That I might have invited the wolf in? How can I tell them that I was bad? I will tell them that I heard a noise and that I am scared! That is it!" As she was debating this, the phone rang again. "Maybe it is my parents wondering why the line was busy - maybe it is my mother!"
"Reed Residence?" Her voice was scared and tentative as she prayed to hear a friendly voice on the other end.
"Katie, are your breasts heaving in fear?"
"Go AWAY!"
"Katie, is your snatch wet with excitement at the thrill of the chase?"
"Please leave me alone. Just leave me alone! I am SO sorry!"
"Why are you sorry?"
Katie gasped out her next words. "I am sorry that I bared my throat to the wolf."
"Why? Why fight your nature? You cannot help being a tasty morsel and I cannot help being a wolf. There is only one question left. Guess it."
"I don't know." Katie started to desperately hatch a plan - keep him on the phone because if she kept him there until her parents came home then he could not really harm her. "Please tell me."
"Do I have to huff and puff and blow the house down or did you leave a door or window unlocked?"
Katie looked at the front door and stared, she could not tell if it was in the locked position! She raced toward it, tripping as the phone cord gave out - she landed with a loud moan.
Cruel laughter against her ear. "Walking in heels is such a pain or so I have been told."
Her thoughts became more frantic. "He knew that I tripped! Is it because he could hear me . . . or see me?" Again her eyes flew to the front door and this time she could tell that it was locked and then her eyes flew to the window, to the gap in the drapes which she scrambled to close.
For several seconds, there was only the sound of her quiet sobs and heavy breathing. The breathing of a trapped animal. What could she do? She could hang up and call her parents, or the police . . . But what if he was close by? She had to keep talking to him. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because you would taste so good, your fear and your desire would taste so very good. I can smell you. I can smell the salt of the sweat on your skin, the musk of your sex, the copper of your blood..." "
"I don't desire you!"
"I don't believe you. So Katie - what will it be? Surrender? Fight? Pray? Hope for a savior? Let's find out, shall we?" Katie heard the most frightening sound of her life - the sound of the wolf hanging up the phone. Click . . . dial tone.
Katie scrambled to her feet and began racing around to make sure the doors were all locked. She raced to the back of the house and lost a shoe - laughing hysterically at her shift to ‘Cinderella' as she kicked off the other shoe. She found an open window and slammed it shut, terrified at any moment that she would see a face. She thought she would lose her mind if the face was that of a wolf - lose her mind but not be the least bit surprised.
She raced back to the phone. Now she could call the police and then her parents. As she reached for the phone there was a knock on the door. Her chest contracted so hard that she could barely breath.
"Who's there?" Too quiet to be heard on the other side of the door. Louder Katie, speak louder she told herself. "Who's there?"