Shelter, Chapter 3

by Glassbottom

She sat there looking up at me from the shade of the tree, traces of the sun falling upon her through the low-hanging leaves. God, she was beautiful, sad but hiding it with attitude beautiful, walking the walk before her time beautiful, and there was nothing she could do about it.

She was a little piece of heaven.

"Well," Billie said, "you did remember my name," Billie said, a smile spreading across her mouth as smoke crept out at the corners.

"I didn't think you would remember."

"Of course," I said, trembling all over, trying hard not to look at her the same way I had looked at her two weeks before, as something I just wanted to grope and feel against my body, as something I wanted to strip down and taste with my mouth. But you try to do that, you try when she's sitting right there looking like that, like something that's been gifted to you as if in a dream.

"Of course I remembered your name," I said. Then, all of a sudden, I felt very weak, a little nauseas, almost like a dizzy spell but not quite. "I'm sorry," I said, a blur coming to my eyes. "I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here at all. Sorry what I did to you. I'm going..."

I opened my car door and leaned against it a moment, and I started to get inside.

"Wait," Billie said, and there was an insistence in her voice. "You don't have to go." I turned my head in her direction.

She was on her feet looking at me. Her eyes appeared softer, as if to invite inside rather than keep me at a distance. She slipped on her flip-flops and stepped down off the hill and approached me, carrying a dented pack of cigarettes. She got very close to me. She looked around, looked down, then looked up at me.

"I never told nobody about what you did," she said softly.

"Thank you," I said.

"I thought about it a lot. I thought a lot about the way you just up and did it. It's the way adults do everything, ain't it? Without askin' or takin' a moment to find out if you're even interested. It could be anything. It could be church they're draggin' you to... or a movie you don't care about seein'...

"Or maybe this man who's goin' out with your mama," she said, her eyes glaring into mine, "he says 'Baby, you're the prettiest little thing on the face of this Earth. How'd you like to take this big thing in your hand and play with it 'til it squirts, huh?'."

"I'm sorry, Billie," I said. "I'm sorry about what I did and about what's been done to you."

"Don't be sorry," she said. She pulled a lighter from her shorts, a cigarette from her pack, and she lit up right there in front of me.

"You're allowed to do that here?"

"I'm far enough away they don't say nothin'," she said, "and if they come out after me, I toss it anyway. Join me?"

She held out her flat little pack, obviously mangled from being concealed. I held up my hand and I took out one of my own.

"Thanks, Billie, but I don't want to take from your stash," I said. "Anyway, I really am sorry about – "

"No. No, don't you understand, it's me. I'm the reason people want to touch me."

I looked at this girl, looked her up and down, took it all in, and I knew what she was trying to say, but I wasn't going to allow a ten year old girl to say such a thing about herself.

"Billie, it's not you," I said. "I know what I did, and I know other people have molested you, but you are a child..."

"In the spring, the PTA had one of those things where all the classes got up there and sang a couple of songs. So I was up there with my class in this really stupid ugly dress that my mom bought me but I wore it for her and what do you think happened? The same thing that always happens. The men... they all looked at me. Not the other girls. Me.

"I'm not talkin' about strangers, the kind of guys they warn you about in school. I'm talkin' about dads and grandpas and uncles and older brothers, all of them... and I guess the way some of those women was lookin' too, well, you ought to know what they see."

I was looking at her, listening to her but not listening hard enough, hearing the words but not allowing them into my thick skull. Maybe I was too busy looking at her to listen, at least until she came to that last part, talking about how I ought to know, and then I looked down at the concrete, at the weeds growing out of it.

"I just know it's me," she kept on, "like they can see inside me. And I'll be ridin' my bike around, and I'll look to see if men are lookin' at me, and most of the time they are. Funny thing is that I expect them to... and I'm... kind of... disappointed if they're not... makin' eyes at me."

I heard it in her voice, a quiver, a change in pitch, and I looked up as she wiped away a tear that was rolling down her cheek.

"Please don't cry," I said.

"Who's cryin'?" she shook her head. She took a puff, let it out, and wiped her nose with her arm.

"You know I never thought I'd see you again," I said, "and then this waitress where I had lunch today says to stop by and volunteer at this Youth Center... and here you are."

"Who was this waitress?" Billie asked.

"Jennifer," I said.

"Oh, her," Billie nodded. "She's nice."

"Oh, yes, very nice."

In silence, a breeze passed between us for a moment, a gentle breeze that rustled the leaves and stirred Billie's curls ever so lightly. She looked in my eyes and, watching her wonderful lips, I could see she was preparing to say something to me.

"Georgia."

"Yes."

"A few times since you kissed me and... touched me under my skirt... I've thought about it and... "

My heart began pounding. I was hanging on the words she was going to say next. I wanted her to say it and I wanted her not to say it, but I wasn't sure what I wanted her to say more.

"I played with myself," she said softly, just loud enough for me to hear.

I closed my eyes and the pictures flashed in my mind, pictures of this girl lying on her bed, perhaps clothed, perhaps naked, with her hand down her panties, rubbing that little clit that she doesn't even have a name for.

"Oh my God," I said.

"It felt really good," she said. "It always feels good playin' with myself, but thinkin' about you made it different. It made it feel better than it has in a real long time."

I was actually frightened by what she was telling me. For one thing, it was too real. It was a fantasy come true, but for what purpose? Look what I did? I fondled this kid, but in retrospect it made her hot? For another thing, this was a ten year old girl. Not sixteen, not fourteen, not even twelve, but ten years old, and she was telling me this stuff straight out.

"I been thinkin'," she said. "Like I said, the problem with adults is them always doin' what they want, takin' what they want, doin' what they please, and no one ever asked me what I want."

"You're an amazing girl, Billie," I said. "I agree with you."

"I think I know what I want," she said.

"What's that?"

"I want to touch someone and have them touch me, but I want to be the one who says what happens."

"You're a little girl, Billie," I said. "You're a child."

"Oh, I see," she shook her head. "So I ain't allowed to be in charge."

"No, Billie," I said. "I'm saying you should just try being a kid and not worry about that stuff."

"Try being a kid?" she snickered. "I don't think I could ever be a kid again. I've cleaned up too much of my mother's vomit and took care of my sister with my mom passed out... and I've done way too many things a little girl should never have to do, and I'm still doin' 'em.

"My mom goes to these meetings to help her stay sober and it's all like this religious stuff, but she spends almost as much time doin' that as she did gettin' drunk.

"Fuck bein' a kid. I can't do kid things and enjoy myself anymore. But I wanna do what I want, not what someone else wants me to do."

Wow. What an idea. If I had only thought of that when I was her age. Or even at twelve, or fourteen, or fifteen.

By the time I got out from under my mother and stepfather's roof, I was willing to do anything to please anyone, even if it meant denying myself my own sexuality. It was easier to live as a heterosexual and be readily accepted, get wedded to a decent guy, fake all of the emotions, rather than fall flat on my face.

I always took the easy way out. Always.

"I don't think my cousin is comin'," Billie said. "Will you give me a ride home?"

"You actually want a ride in my car after what I did to you?"

"Why not?" she shrugged. "Oh, did you want to go in and look around?"

"No, that's OK," I said. "Maybe another time."

I got up and I walked around the car. I opened the door for her. I watched that perfect round ass in the tight red shorts, I watched it park itself in my passenger seat. I closed the door.

Two weeks and she was in my car again. Almost like it was destined to be. And not only had we met again but she had opened up to me.

I think it was fair to say that there was more to Billie than what met the eye. Of course what met the eye was almost unimaginable. But listening to her talk, her thought processes, the thought processes of a ten year old girl who had grown up way too quick so far and was way too beautiful and sexually attractive for her own good, one could not help but feel something strong for her.

And yes, it was fair to say that I was crazy about her.

"You know," she said, after I got in the car and started it up, "I really don't live that far away. I walked here."

"So why am I giving you a ride?"

"Because I want you too."

"Ah, I see," I nodded.

"Your car is dirty," she said.

"No, it's not," I said. "It's pretty neat."

"No, it needs washing," she said. "You gotta come to our car wash tomorrow. Pete's Burgers."

"Which way should I go?" I asked her, sitting at a stop sign.

"Turn right and pull over and stop."

I did what she said. I turned right. I pulled over. I stopped in front of a sidewalk in front of a tall fence covered in vines. The sidewalk and part of the street were shaded with trees. Across the street was a school. The playground was empty.

"Will you be at the car wash?" I smiled. "Oh yeah," she said. "I'll make sure your car gets nice and clean. And you can watch me. I know you'll like that." She leaned over and whispered. "I'll be wearing a teeny bikini."

She straightened back up and looked in my eyes. She looked like she was waiting for something. My mind was busy visualizing her in a little bikini washing my Malibu and I wasn't ready to start giving into sudden impulses. "Georgia," she said, "I want you to kiss me."

I turned in my seat and looked at her. She let a soft smile shape those beautiful lips. I didn't know if she was doing this just to get my heart racing again, to get me excited, but she was certainly tempting me.

"You want me to kiss you," I said back to her.

"Or I can kiss you?" she asked. "If you think I can't, you'd be surprised."

Billie undid her safety belt and she reached for me. I unfastened mine and moved over as much as possible. I felt her hand on the back of my neck. Her right hand caressed my face. She looked into my eyes, then drew me in for the kiss. Our lips met and it was tender and sweet, what she did to me. I let her do it all.

I was keeping my hands to myself.

Billie reached down and took my left hand and placed it on her thigh where it was firmest. I caressed the smooth tanned flesh up and down as we kissed and then she pulled her lips from mine and gave me another quick peck on the mouth, and then, looking deep in my eyes, she took my hand further up the inside of her thighs as she spread her legs.

It was so warm there. Not warm, hot. And with her fingers she pressed my fingers against herself. She trembled, this time not fighting against it.

And as I looked into those incredible eyes, I saw them roll back a second as she blinked, and I heard a long... continuous... sigh...

"Oh, Billie..." I said.

"I've got to go," she said, gasping. "But I will see you tomorrow."

"Oh, yes," I said. And I let her get out. Oh my God, what was I doing? What was she doing? What were we doing to one another?

I drove home. Dresser, second drawer. Vibrator. I used it again and again that night. Every time I tried to do anything else, my mind went back to Billie.

I lost count.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)