Growing Up

She spritzed her neck with Prada Candy perfume and nodded to herself in the mirror as she mussed up her blonde mane. "Yep. Not a chance."

She walked slowly down the stairs, watching his every move, wanting to enjoy that moment when he turned around and his eyes popped out of their sockets. But that didn't happen because his other, more sexy girlfriend, the TV, hogged his attention. Okay, if that was how it was gonna be, so be it. Bring it on, bitch.

She sauntered over to where the TV sat on the wall and stood right there beside it with one hand on her hip and the other against the TV. He glanced in her direction, then looked back to the TV, then looked at her again like he couldn't believe what he just saw. Here it comes, she thought.

He looked back at the TV in disbelief, then scowled to the heavens. Using all force in his lungs, he screamed, "For fuck sake" at the top of his voice and flung his controller in her direction. "I was one fucking head shot away from getting a gold camo. What is fucking wrong with you?"

She stood there for a moment in absolute astonishment, looking from him the what was left of his controller on the floor beside her. Was he fucking kidding? She looked away to try to compose herself and took a few deep breaths, but no serenity was coming to her. She stormed out through the kitchen doors, slammed them shut, and marched down the back garden, fuming with every step. What the fuck was wrong with him? She was also embarrassed that she was returning to the gazebo without Jason, something she told Mr B she wouldn't do. She got about halfway to the gazebo and stopped. "Dammit, forgot the fucking beer."

She couldn't believe she had to go back in there. Yeah, he'd probably apologize, but if he thought he was getting any of this, she thought, gesturing to her body, he had a big surprise awaiting him. You don't throw stuff at her and get away with a milk toast apology. She decided to slide the doors open quietly and get in and out without him being aware, but the fridge door was too loud. She heard his footsteps approaching. She pulled out a six pack and looked over to the doorway to the living room with her chin pointed in defiance as she waited for the groveling.

Jason waved a controller in the air. "And you made me break my fucking controller. Now I have to try and get the gold camo with this piece of shit."

All she could do was stare, her jaw frozen with rage like she was a statue. She stormed out and this time, slammed the sliding door closed even harder. "Fucking asshole." That's what she said about 30 times as she took long angry paces back to the gazebo, trying to think of what she was going to say to Mr B when she got there.

She led with "fucking asshole" and when Mr B smiled, she felt all the rage building up inside her till she couldn't keep it inside anymore. "What is the fucking matter with you males? We do fucking everything for you and what do we get back. Gold camo bullshit. It doesn't even make fucking sense. Gold is bright and fucking shiny. How can it be a camo? Do any of you know how to treat a girl and not send us running in desperation and frustration?"

She took a few deep breaths. Just getting it all out seemed to calm her a bit. Then she looked over to Mr B. What she saw in his face caused a pit in her stomach the size of a softball. In his eyes, she saw Claire walking out the door, and it was all his fault. "Shit, no," she said. "Not you. I didn't mean you." She ran over to him, put the six pack on the table and sat beside him in the swing seat and wrapped her arms around his neck. The emotion flowed out of her in the form of tears. "You were a prince to her the whole fucking time. I'm sorry. That came out wrong."

She poured her regret into the eyes of Mr B, begging for him to tell her it was okay, that he was fine. He wasn't a crier, he never was, but he was floored, and she knew it, and she knew it was her fault. If she'd said that on any other night, he would have waved it away as the inner turmoil of a teenager basically being a bitch. But this was the night when he told himself she'd be back by now. This was his line in the sand, not in a threatening way, not like if she didn't come back after one year, they were through. Claire could come back anytime as far as he was concerned. She was the love of his life. This line in the sand was the time for him to just accept it: she was probably gone forever. Kaylie knew this, and she knew that even long after her explosive words had faded from memory, he'd still wonder, was it his fault? Was it something he did or didn't do that drove away the only woman he'd ever loved? She wished more than anything that she could go back in time five minutes.

Instead, she twisted off the top of a bottle of beer and put the other five in the cooler with the ice. Before shutting the lid, she took one single cube and slipped it into her mouth, a symbolic attempt to cool off. Then she leaned in and wrapped her arms around his torso and let her head rest on his chest. "You know how you know you're a good guy? Because you're here. My dad left. Claire left. And your asshole son and the only boy I've ever loved and would do anything for, he's not here when he should be. You know you're a good guy because you always do the right thing even when they don't, and even when that makes it easy for them to take you for granted and stick the knife in."

He kissed her forehead. "Thanks, Kaylie. The same goes for you."

She looked up at him quizzically. "Who did you think I was talking about?" He laughed and she knew they were good. Or they would be soon.

He reached over to the table and picked up his beer and looked at Kaylie. "So, I think I get the drift about the gold camo and how he pissed you off and everything, but I still have one question? Did he really see you wearing this and let you walk away?"

She laughed and scanned her body. "I know, right? Do you have any idea how many guys from our school would love to get with this?"

"Yeah," he said, "I think I have an idea."

She put her feet up on the swing chair, her knees near her breasts, and leaned back so she could look up into the sky. "Shit, I forgot my watch. What time is it?"

"Getting close to midnight. Almost time to kill the lights."

She stared into the dark sky and let out a sigh. "I'm so fucking stressed right now."

He looked her up and down, making her feel a little self-conscious, causing her to draw her knees tighter to her breasts. Then he said, "I think the last ten minutes or so is the most total curse words I've ever heard you utter."

She smiled. He always had a great way of making his point without sounding like he was delivering a lecture. "Yeah, I was thinking about that today, about us being adults now and how it's probably okay to curse now."

"Adults curse but, you know, not that much and usually to make a point."

She arched an eyebrow. "And you think I don't have a point to make?"

"Now that I think about it, yeah you fucking do." They both laughed.

"Anyway, you know what? This is nice. We've never really had any one-on-one time like this as adults, just sitting together and drinking a beer."

A stretch of silence followed, ending with him saying, "You're not getting a beer."

She made a dramatic pout before launching into her debate. "Well, A, I never asked for one. B, stop reading my mind. And C, half a beer?"

"No."

"It's insane. I'm stressed. Alcohol is known to calm people down. There's alcohol in thousands of medicines."

"Thousands?"

She repressed a smile and powered on. "Let's not get caught up in the numbers, just focus on the principle. Would you rather I have my first beer in some dark field somewhere or under the supervision of a responsible adult?"

He arched an eyebrow at the "first beer" comment. "I could get in trouble, you know."

"Oh, please! Are the alcohol patrol forces in some kind of stealth offshore dinghy waiting to pounce? Anyway, wouldn't you like a night off from being that guy who always does the responsible thing? Not as a way of life or anything, just one night. I know I'm sick of always being the good girl with the good grades and polite words, the one who always makes sure everything is done the proper way. Tonight, I'm going to be a bad bitch. Watch out, world."

He looked down into Kaylie's eyes and at her outfit. "You definitely wore the right clothes."

She smiled. "One sip, okay?"

He was breaking, she could see it. She reached up for his bottle, but he pulled it away. "Not so fast. I was your age once and I know all the tricks." He offered the bottle opening to her mouth and she accepted the pathetically small mouthful of beer he allowed her. It was a nice moment though, him doling out what he surely assumed was her first mouthful ever.

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

She pushed out her bottom lip and nodded. "It's actually pretty nice."

He held up the bottle and read the label. "Steinlager. I discovered it while on a shoot in New Zealand when I was in my twenties."

"What were you like back then? Were you always the sober responsible adult we see before us?"

He looked away, but not before Kaylie got a read off his face and started laughing. "Oh, this is good. Now don't try to weasel out of this with diplomatic-speak. Come on, let's hear the good the stuff for once."

He laughed. "Not without my lawyer."

"Come on," she said. "No judgment. I promise. We have a couple of hours to kill. Does Jason know about any of it?"

He shook his head matter-of-factly. "No. You wouldn't want him to be like I was."

"Okay, so we need a new understanding because I mean, secrets can be bad, but they can be good too. Secrets build bonds. So, if he were ever to learn about this stuff, and he finds out I knew, I'll just say I sometimes can't tell him stuff that you told me in confidence... during a meteor shower... as you fed me beer." She put on her sweet puppydog, give-me-what-I-want smile.

He chuckled as he shook his head and held the bottle to her lips. "So, no judgment and no telling. Agreed?"

"Okay, now you're getting into it. Isn't it good to tell someone these things?"

"Maybe. I'm taking a leap of faith here."

"So," she said. "You were once a bad boy. What happened to him?"

"You know what happened," he said.

"He met Claire, had a kid, and decided to be a proper grownup. So, now I can place the growing up part of your life at about 25."

"Yep. Twenty-five. Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"Oh, I am dripping with anticipation. Don't hold back. I'm a big girl now."

"I'm just not sure where to start."

"Well, did you ever tell a girl she could be a model just so you could get her into bed?"

"Yes."

"Was it worth it?"

"Yes."

"I like this game. It's like truth or dare except only with truths and it's always your turn."

"Wait. I don't get to ask you questions?"

"There's no point. I'm a good girl. Boring."

"I'll make a deal with you. For every ten questions you ask, I get to ask one."

"I have a better idea. Every time I get a sip of beer, you can ask one. That should make things interesting."

He laughed at her sneakiness, but didn't disagree. "What's your next question?"

"Okay, on the bad boy scale what's the highest you reached out of ten?"

He didn't even stop to consider. "Ten," he said.

"And you didn't know where to start?" She laughed. "Start there. What happened?"

"Well, I had this friend, who was not actually a friend at all, but he asked if I would do a photoshoot free of charge, the friend rate. I told him I couldn't for legal reasons, but said I'd give him half price. At that point, I was charging $75 an hour, so I charged him $40."

"Wait, were you gay?"

"No, no, no. He wasn't the subject. His girlfriend wanted some photos done supposedly to try her hand at modelling. The real reason was to give him an album of her pictures for Christmas, but he didn't know that."

"Ahh, so they were sexy pics."

"Of course, but fully clothed: bikinis and short skirts, that kind of thing. Clean but provocative. Suggestive."

"Go on."

"So, I was taking these photos and she started talking to me. Well, flirting with me. She was a bad girl, I knew it from the start, but I was playing it professional, giving her curt answers and focusing on the work."

"How did you know she was a bad girl?"

"You just know."

"Oh, give me a break. Come on, don't cop out on me. Gimme some details."

"The way they look at you. You've seen guys look at you, haven't you?"

"All of them! Does that mean they're bad?"

"All guys are bad. There's your first lesson as an adult. They'll all want to fuck you. And because you have a boyfriend, that changes nothing. In fact, fucking you when you have a boyfriend makes it ten times better."

"Wow. I can understand how the human race has lasted so long now. Okay, she eyed you up and down. Girls do that. It doesn't mean they're bad."

"Sure. It's not just the looking. That's just the start."

Kaylie flashed a smile. "I think I'm thirsty." She leaned in close to him, feeling less self-conscious of her revealing outfit with each sip of beer. He held the bottle to her lips for a good length of time this go around. Some even dribbled down her chin, which she caught with her thumb and sucked.

It meant it was his turn for a question. "Have you ever dressed so that a guy other than Jason would look at you?"

"Of course! I'm a girl."

"But I mean a specific guy."

"Oh." Kaylie could feel herself blushing and straightened her back in protest. "But, it wasn't that I was trying to make something happen. There was this girl named Marie at school who acted like she was so fucking hot. It was annoying. I just wanted her to see her boyfriend drooling over me."

"And did he?"

"Like a Basset Hound." They both laughed.

"Okay, so you're taking her pictures and acting uber professional, and then what?"

"Then she sort of asked me how these contracts work. We talked around the subject a bit, and I eventually asked her what was her specific interest? She asked me, what if she wanted photos that he didn't pay for and she couldn't afford to pay for. She eventually got around to telling me she wanted some really sexy pictures but for herself, and asked could I do half and half, but not tell him what I'd done."

Kaylie rolled her eyes. "Yep, she's bad. Run, good guy, she's gonna turn you bad. Get out of there now."

He laughed. "She was way late on that score."

"Oooooh," she said. "Sidebar, sidebar. What was your first time at let's say, above seven out of ten?"

"Ummm, not very exciting, but having sex with a friend's mom when I was...let's say 18."

"Oh, we may have to circle back to that one, but briefly, did you seduce her?"

"No, the other way around pretty much."

"So, what was her interest in you?"

He let out a sigh and checked the sky for asteroids. "This was a really stupid idea," he said.

Kaylie slapped the side of his arm. "No quitting just when it gets fun."

He took a few breaths before answering. "I had a reputation," he said. "Without going into details, my nickname in some circles was, Horse."

"Okay, that doesn't surprise me," she said, looking back to the house where her boyfriend was. "It's true what they say: the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So, what did you decide about the slutty nudie shots?"

"It was convoluted, but I told her technically, I had to give him what he paid for and if I divvied it up, I'd have to tell him about the naked ones because he was the client."

"Wow, how principled of you."

"Yes, but I also wanted her to work for it. I wasn't going to make it easy."

"But you wanted it, too?"

"Have you ever heard of putting horns on a guy?"

Kaylie scrunched her forehead. "No."

"It basically means you make his girl want to fuck you when she could way more easily just fuck her boyfriend. She can never take back that she fucked you instead of her boyfriend because she specifically wanted you, and it involves getting her to admit that, and even say she'll fuck you anytime you want because you're an absolute stud, even though she's going to stay with her boyfriend. From that point on, anytime you see him, you can smile because you know there are horns there even if he doesn't."

"Fuck me," Kaylie said, her mouth wide open. "You were hard core bad guy."

"When you're full of raging hormones, you want to have that feeling of being sexy even when you can't have sex. And my hormones were raging out of control. Plus it gives you an air of superiority over the guy."

"So, you said you couldn't do this deal with her."

"Yes, but I told her he paid me quite a good rate, so I didn't mind doing a few extra for her for one dollar. And that made her the client for those pictures, so I didn't have to tell him."

This was getting good. Kaylie was loving the benefits of being an adult. "Don't stop!"

"So, we were getting to the end of the original shoot, and she was in her bikini, and I was transitioning into the second part. I played my expert-photographer card, where you act like, yeah, this next part is normal, we do this all the time in the business. I told her not to move, she was perfect like that, but I needed to adjust her bikini to get rid of a line. And she said to do what I had to do, but in her tone and the grin she wore, I heard, oh fuck, yes, touch me anywhere, anytime."

Kaylie stole a sip from his beer and said, "I'll owe you. Keep going."

"I slid my finger right along the edge of her vagina-"

Kaylie blurted out, "You mean her pussy."

"I slid my finger right along the edge of her pussy to smooth the line and then I did the other side."

"Was she wet?"

She was so fucking wet, which isn't unusual in a photoshoot. It's a very sexually charged event by its nature. But what is unusual is when they moan and don't even move except to spread their legs."

"And that was it? She fell before your feet?"

"God no, I made her work for that. When I had her top off, I convinced her that to get her nipples just the right amount of perky and glistening, she couldn't just pinch them herself; It's like how you can't tickle yourself. I'd have to suck them. And she just said, mmhmm in the sexiest way possible. I also suggested that to make her more comfortable being naked, I'd take off my pants. Of course, then she saw I had way more than her boyfriend. And the way she stared at my cock with her mouth hanging open confirmed it. Wayyyyyy more."

"And that was it?"

"No. She was waiting for me to make the first move, and that was never going to happen."

Kaylie kept sipping the beer she'd taken from him to cure her dry mouth. "What was her breaking point?"

"When she asked me what her boyfriend would say if he knew I was touching her in places that are supposed to be his alone, and I said, 'Well, your boyfriend sent you here. Maybe he likes this kind of thing. Some guys get turned on by their girlfriend getting raked by a guy who's much bigger than him.' At that point, she got up, turned to me, slid her fingers along my cock, and said, yeah, maybe he does."

"She just took over?"

"It was time. She wanted one more picture, she said. She wanted a picture of her blowing the biggest cock she'd ever seen for her private viewing. I sat down in an armchair, opened my legs, and told her she was going to be doing a lot more than blowing me."

"Holy fuck! I'm so amazed I never met this guy before tonight. How do you keep him hidden? Did you get her to say all those things about you being a better fuck and how she'd be your slut whenever you wanted?"

He had a smile on his face that Kaylie had never seen before. "Yeah, the whole checklist."

"Did you ever fuck her again?"

"A couple of times when he was particularly annoying. One time at a party they went to together. She and I went out back for a smoke and found a dark, quiet corner. I asked her did she think her boyfriend was walking around the house looking for her, and she said probably. I said I thought she should go back and kiss him, give him an idea of what my cock tastes like. She just smirked and got down on her knees."