Babysitter Auditions Pt. 01: Kylie

I hung up on my wife, feeling exhausted. We'd needed a live-in babysitter for a while, but Lorelei had fought me on it tooth and nail for months. We had the space, we had the money—more than enough of both; she just didn't want to hire anyone. I had tried everything I could think of to get her to agree, but her spike heels were dug in and she would not budge. Finally, I told her I was done asking her permission, I was going to hire someone whether she liked it or not. She gave in—gracelessly, but she gave in. I started to thank her, but she cut me off to snarl at me, saying she wouldn't sit there and listen to me gloat. I cut her off mid-syllable.

I shook my head, trying somehow to clear it. From the outside, most people would say I've had a charmed life. It was, once. My dad always said, "Find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life," and I got lucky. I've always loved to write, but the opportunity to make a living as a writer can be very hard to come by; I had it fall into my lap. As a freshman, I was assigned Mike Freeman as my roommate, and he quickly became my closest friend. Aside from Lori, he has been ever since.

A few days after we moved in, I walked into our room to find him sitting at my laptop intently reading one of my early attempts at a novel. Before I could say anything, he looked up. "You left it open," he said, looking completely serious for the first time in our relationship. "This is really good."

"It's a beginner's effort," I snorted, not sure how to react to the situation.

"Of course it's a beginner's effort," Mike snorted back. "Everyone begins. Most people just can't go anywhere worth going. You can, if you get the support you need."

"How would you know that?" I asked, my emotions running in all directions at once.

"My dad's a senior editor for Doubleday."

*****

Mike and I hadn't gotten to the "what are you going to do with your life?" stage of conversation before that day, so while I had known he was an English major, I hadn't known it was because he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. He had known I was a business major, but he hadn't known that was a "scandalous misuse" of my gifts, as he put it that afternoon. I had wanted to major in English or history, but my family had pushed me hard to get an "employable" degree. By the time Mike got done with me that day, I had agreed to go to the registrar and change my major to a double in English and history.

For the rest of our college careers, I had Mike in my corner, pushing me and cheering me on. He talked me into going home with him for Thanksgiving our freshman year and pitched me to his dad. His dad was intrigued; he read what I brought with me, then pursed his lips and said judiciously, "You have promise, kid." By the time I graduated, I had a book contract with Doubleday and John Lewis Freeman as my editor, and I had learned that if he pushed for one of his authors to get the big push, nobody at the imprint wanted to push back. He'd proven too many times that he knew what he was talking about. To my surprise, he did with me, too. By the time my second book came out, Doubleday was eager to promote it.

John Lewis Freeman was my editor through nine novels in four different genres, which was probably the only reason Doubleday let me try four different genres. These days, only Isaac Asimov can pull off that sort of variety and keep growing his audience, and Asimov's dead. The marketing people don't think they can market a young author who keeps putting his books in different sections of the library. John L. backed me up, though, and by the time he died in a plane crash, my sales had proven him right. No one at Doubleday felt any need to change me—they just assigned me a new editor (one Michael John Freeman, as it happened) and let me keep doing what I was doing.

*****

It was a good thing I graduated with a book contract and a meaningful advance, because I also graduated with a fiancée who became my wife three weeks later. Lorelei Ryan was pre-law, so we might never have met under normal circumstances, but Fate took a hand. On my first day back on campus for my junior year, I was sitting cross-legged on the grass daydreaming in the sun, and she was walking past looking the other way—until some idiot on a bike nearly ran her over. She jumped aside and lost her balance, and the first I knew of any of it was when a red-headed bombshell landed on me.

Obviously, with her momentum, I ended up on my back with her on top of me; I've always enjoyed working out, but I can't imagine the kind of core strength it would have taken to hold my position. We reassured each other neither of us was seriously hurt, but then Lorelei started to shake. I sat back up, pulled her into my lap, and held her until she was calm.

When I asked her how she was feeling; she was silent for a moment, then (to my shock) began telling me about the professor who was sexually harrassing her. We talked until dinner time, went out to eat, and ended up snuggling on the couch in my apartment. With my support, she had the confidence to file a complaint against her professor—a complaint which gave a number of other women the courage to come forward against him, leading to his departure. For years after that, she called me her white knight.

My dating history up to that point hadn't been great—I'd been burned badly a couple times—so I was unsure of myself, but Lorelei had no qualms about going after what she wanted, and she'd made up her mind she wanted me. Before that first day was out, she'd given me her number and told me to call her Lori "like my other close friends do." Though I'd only met her, my cock was already aching to know her as intimately as possible, so I didn't argue. She was tall, slender, and athletic; her tits were perfect handfuls high on her chest (she wore a 34B bra that was probably just a trifle small), she had an insanely tight little round ass, and she could have been Candice Swanepoel's prettier sister. As far as I was concerned, she was perfect.

Fortunately for me, she also liked Mike and his girlfriend, Eden Layne. The first time we went out together as couples, she and Eden disappeared for a few minutes while we were waiting for our food. Mike and I wondered what they were talking about. We found out later they were scheduling our place for fucking since neither of them would have much opportunity in their own apartments. Lori got priority because we hadn't actually fucked yet. When she showed up the next day, sank to her knees and pulled my pants down, I was surprised, but she had it planned. By the time she was done, she'd had me cum in her mouth, on her face, on her tits, and in her pussy, and I was hooked.

*****

Our first decade or so of marriage was wonderful. My advance was big enough to get us started; I had to work a regular job to support us until the book came out, but it sold well from the start. I put her through law school, and she went to work for a consulting firm. Lori worked long hours, but not unreasonably so, and of course I could arrange my own schedule to fit hers, unless I had publicity commitments. I would have loved more time with her, but we weren't hurting, and her sex drive was as high as ever. When Hope came along, and then Joy, Lori took maternity leave and then went back to work knowing that I would be fine taking care of them. We had to juggle things a bit more, and there were times when one or the other of our sets of parents would come stay with us—when I had a book tour, for instance—but in general, everything was fine.

A year or so after Joy was born, things started to change. Lori started losing interest in me, growing distant and gradually cold toward me. Her schedule kept her out of the house more and more. Not long after Joy's third birthday, Lori told me she'd gotten a promotion and she would only be home on weekends because she would be traveling every week. I asked her to reconsider—begged her, really—but she mocked my pain and walked out the door.

At that point, finding time to write and still be a parent became brutally difficult. I got help from my parents, who were worried about me, and her parents, who were worried about both of us—all four of them were worried about the girls. Joy began having night terrors, and Hope occasionally became defiant, which was a huge change for a little girl who had always loved to be helpful any way she could. I knew we needed help—well, I needed help; I didn't know what to say about Lori one way or the other. I hired a private investigator to confirm my suspicion that she was having an affair, and confirm it he promptly did; at least he also confirmed that she actually was traveling, but that came at the price of discovering that her trips were as much fuckfests as business trips.

I started pushing to hire a live-in babysitter so I could stop wearing out the grandparents; they loved our daughters, but their visits ought to have been time for them to enjoy the girls, not to be put to work as caregivers. I didn't want to strain all our relationships beyond repair, and I was deeply afraid that was on the horizon. Lori mocked me for talking about a "live-in babysitter" instead of a nanny; I don't like the word "nanny," and I made no apology for that. I don't know why she fought me so hard . . . but then, I don't know why I let her for so long, either.

*****

I used several different avenues to identify potential babysitters, and ended up with an initial list of eight candidates. I decided I could take a couple weeks off writing so I wouldn't have to rush the process, and I scheduled all the interviews on separate days. If everything went well, I should be able to hire someone just before finals started at the university to start once their finals were completed. That seemed ideal to me, and I hoped it would to the candidates.

The first interview was with a sophomore psych major named Kylie Morgan who had just turned 20. When I opened the door to her and introduced myself, her eyes went wide. "You're R. J. Andrews!" she exclaimed in delight. "I love your books!"

Startled, I stepped back and invited her in on pure reflex. "All of them?" I asked in surprise. They all sell well, but I tend to think of myself as having multiple fanbases—I don't expect most of my readers to like every genre I try.

"Yes!" Kylie said happily. "You even got me interested in military sci-fi!" I blinked at that, and she grinned. "Yeah, you've gotten me into Weber, Ringo—though I like Ringo best for the sex—Bujold, Flint . . ." She shook herself and refocused her eyes on me. "If I brought you one of my copies, do you think you'd be willing to autograph it?"

I didn't answer right away; I was distracted. I had taken my first good look at Kylie, and I couldn't look away. She was tall and blonde with a face like an angel and a body built to stop traffic. Her tits were big enough they seemed to be straining the buttons on her blouse, and the way they moved as she moved, I was sure they were just as God had made them. Even buttoned up, her top offered an enticing glimpse of cleavage, just enough to promise a man could get lost in there. Her skirt, long enough to look professional but not by much, showed off a slender waist, wide hips with the promise of an apple-shaped ass, and perfect legs.

When Kylie's words finally penetrated, I snapped my eyes back to hers. She was smirking a little—she knew I'd been looking her over!—but she obviously liked it. I cleared my throat. "Sure," I said. "I'd be happy to. Now, may I show you around the house?"

She nodded in delight and followed me eagerly. She fell in love with the kitchen, which has mostly been my realm; I love to cook, while even at her most domestic, Lori could barely boil water. "I could feed a small army from this kitchen," Kylie breathed. "Would you want me to cook?"

"It had never occurred to me," I said. "I have no trouble cooking for us and I enjoy it, but I'd be happy to share that with you if you wanted."

"Please," Kylie said. "Cooking and baking are one of my great sensual pleasures, and using a kitchen like this would be a pleasure all its own. Do you like East Asian food? Or South Asian?"

"I like every kind of food I've yet tried," I answered, surprised. "I've never really cooked Asian food, but that's more about what I know how to do than anything. Why?"

"Oh, those are just the kinds of things I make most often—Korean, Thai, the various Chinese cuisines, Indian," she explained. "I just wanted to be sure that if I cooked, say, pad krapow gai, you'd be happy to eat it."

"I have absolutely no idea what that is—" I began.

"It's a spicy chicken stir fry with Thai basil," Kylie interrupted with a grin.

"—but I'm sure I'd love it," I finished.

*****

Kylie's eyes grew wider and wider as the tour continued. She almost drooled at the sight of the pool. "Would I be able to use it?" she asked eagerly. "I just got a new bikini for the summer." I almost drooled at the thought of Kylie in a bikini, so I confined myself to a nod. I tried to tell myself she hadn't noticed, but the hint of a smirk in her grin and the faintly calculating look in her eyes told me her enthusiasm wasn't only at the prospect of swimming.

She cooed over the pictures of the girls, and made pleased comments about their rooms. She talked about her experience caring for her nieces and nephews, as she was the youngest of five girls. "I was an oops," she commented at one point. "My parents were thrilled; they were 42 and 20 when they got married, and when my dad turned 60 they stopped using birth control because they figured he was too old. I was born a year later. They hadn't planned on a fifth, but my dad was so pleased with himself that I've always been sort of his favorite. Mom got her tubes tied after me, though. It's probably a good thing; he may be 81, but he still goes mountain climbing, and if she hadn't hit menopause, he could probably still get her pregnant." I had no idea what to say about that, so I just nodded.

When I led Kylie into the guest suite and told her that would be her space, I thought she might faint. She looked around slowly like she was struggling to believe her eyes. "Isn't this the master suite?" she finally asked.

I suppressed a grin. "No, that's quite a bit larger, actually. We call this the guest suite—it isn't really, because it's in the same part of the house as all the other bedrooms, but I've never been sure what else to call it. I think on the blueprints it's labeled the secondary master suite, which just sounds stupid to me."

Kylie wandered into the bathroom and gasped. "I've had bedrooms smaller than this," she murmured. "That shower looks amazing."

"I should note," I interjected with a grin, "the master bath includes a hot tub, which you would be welcome to use as long as you checked with me." She nearly swooned on the spot.

*****

When we got back to the dining room, I sat down with Kylie to talk through some practical details. "You need to understand that our situation is . . . difficult," I told her. "My wife travels during the week; she's only home on weekends." I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice and say that calmly, as if nothing were wrong. I thought I had succeeded. "My schedule is flexible when I'm in the middle of a book, but I have deadlines to meet and contracts to honor, and I've been falling badly behind. When the publicity responsibilities start ramping up, I won't be able to be here and available for my girls all week. I didn't want to put Joy in daycare, but I haven't had a choice. We've been leaning on our parents to cover for us, but we're burning them out. That's why we need you, or someone like you.

"What that means, I'm afraid, is that we would need you to be here as much as possible. We'll keep Joy in daycare, I'm not asking you to act like you're her mother"—I tried not to wince when I realized what I'd just said—"but I need someone to take at least a full share of the responsibility of being the primary adult in the house. Obviously you have your classes, but I would be asking you to spend most of the rest of your time here. Not that you can't go out at all, but you would need to schedule that with me; I wouldn't want you tied up away from home when I needed you here with the girls."

The corner of her mouth twitched in a tiny smirk. "So if I wanted to be tied up, it would need to be here?" Kylie purred. "That could be fun."

"Uh," I said. "Moving on—I hate to have to say this, but the rule will have to be no boyfriends in the house. I realize this would all put a real crimp in your dating life, but—well—you understand the reasons, right?" Kylie nodded firmly, with neither hesitation nor complaint. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on to the next item on my list.

*****

I sat back in my chair feeling tired, but very pleased with how the interview had gone. We had worked through every issue I could think of, and Kylie had responded maturely, thoughtfully, and confidently in every case. I stood up to stretch my shoulders and asked, "Do you have any questions?"

She looked up at me with an expression I could not interpret and asked, "Are there any other . . . positional duties you would like to discuss? Or any other employee benefits?"

"I'm not sure what you're thinking of," I began, puzzled. Kylie stood up and moved close to me—close enough that I could feel the heat of her body. She laid a slim-fingered hand on my forearm.

"I caught what you weren't saying when you told me your wife travels during the week and is almost never home except on weekends," she responded quietly, intensely. "She's cheating on you, isn't she?"

Taken aback, I blinked. Before I could stop and censor myself, I heard myself say, "Yes, for three years now, with her boss. I've proven that. I'm not absolutely certain that that's why she got the promotion and started traveling all the time—many times on the same business trip as him—but I have no doubts." I looked at her, wide-eyed.

"I told you, I'm going to be a counselor," Kylie replied softly, her deep blue-green eyes locked on mine. "It's because I'm good at this stuff. I heard the bitterness in your voice. I'm betting you don't have much of a sex life anymore."

It's none of her business, said a little voice in the back of my mind, but there was something enthralling about her gaze. "No. It's been a very dry couple years. And since I realized she was cheating . . . well, I haven't wanted . . ."

"I understand," Kylie told me, her voice still quiet but even more intense. "And I understand why you don't want boyfriends coming over, or your babysitter spending nights away. But Mr. Andrews," she continued with a small, hungry smile, "I'm a woman with a high sex drive. I don't actually have a boyfriend at the moment, because I haven't found one who can satisfy me. I love cock, and I need a lot of it." I stood dumbfounded as she reached down to stroke my bulge through my pants. "And you have a lot of it to offer," she added, her smile turning to an almost predatory smirk. "If I can't go anywhere else to get the cock I need, I would have to get all of it here. So I would have a problem to solve, if I come to work for you; and you have a problem; and if you have two problems, sometimes they solve each other." A slip of pink tongue peeked out from between her lips and licked them slowly.

"Did I happen to mention that I have a thing for older men?" Kylie asked, her voice openly hungry now. "Or that I think you're really hot?" She undid my belt buckle, opened my fly, and slipped her hand into my boxers. She wrapped it around my rod and started fondling me, whispering, "And this feels like a really nice dick." I stared at her, speechless. After a moment, she continued, "And I think you deserve some pussy. Not the overused pussy of a woman who's sharing it around, but a nice . . . tight . . . hot . . . wet . . . college-girl pussy . . . a horny, slutty, cock-hungry coed cunt . . ." She grabbed one of my hands and guided it under her skirt, into her panties, into her dripping slit. Her skin was shaved perfectly smooth and baby-soft. She leaned forward to breathe into my ear, ". . . belonging to a college girl who badly wants to fuck you."