One Rainy Afternoon

"Uh, there is a bit of a problem, Mr Baines."

There was a strange shuffling noise and she appeared at the top of the stairs.

When I looked up, I nearly stopped breathing and had to force myself to look away. Her hair was still wet but she'd taken it out of the hairband and done it in pigtail braids either side to keep it out of her face. Bizarrely, it looked like she'd been in Kiera's make-up drawer too, as there was a hint of her usual eyeliner now back in place enhancing her green almond eyes, which I swear wasn't there when she came in.

The wet jumper was gone and she had on a white buttoned shirt which was, I figured, at least technically in line with the school dress code. It was 'smart' certainly. However, it had a very tight feminine cut that highlighted her amazing curvy figure.

Which meant, of course, that my eyes were drawn to what I already - guiltily - knew were an impressive pair of breasts. Right then they seemed to be straining the shirt buttons, pushed together by a hot-pink bra which was bright enough to clearly show through the shirt.

I wondered what her teachers had to say about her approach to the sixth-form dress code. Not a lot, I guessed; I wouldn't want to be the poor chap who had to take her to task about wearing brightly-coloured underwear and a shirt cut to accentuate breasts which did a good enough job of emphasising themselves without any help from her clothing.

Still, her top half - alluring as it was - wasn't actually what made me feel the need turn my head away. No, it was what was happening further down which was causing this particular problem. Jadie had evidently tried getting on a pair of Kiera's skinny jeans but, being a bigger girl than Kiera in every way, they hadn't really got very far. The waistband of the trousers came half way up Jadie's bare thighs, which, I noted were really rather special even being squeezed together as they were by the too-small trousers.

And then, beneath the shirt which barely extended below her delicious little midriff, her panties were clearly visible. They were a matching hot pink colour, just like her bra. White detailing lined the edges and, from what I could tell, they were cut in a bikini style. No more guessing needed there, then.

"I'm just too fat to fit in any of her stuff!" Jadie said, laughing awkwardly, as she shuffled at the top of the stairs. She put a hand to her mouth and began to chew on a nail, before catching herself and letting the hand drop again. She looked so young, stood there nervously; embarrassed and uncertain. Yet not uncertain enough to be stood there in front of me with her underwear visible.

Before I could help myself, I blurted, "Jadie, don't be silly, you're not fat."

Realising that made it look like I had an opinion on something which I really shouldn't be thinking about, I tried to backtrack a bit.

"I mean, uh, well, those trousers... Kiera's a skinny little thing. You know I'm always on at her that she doesn't eat enough, but she doesn't listen."

"Uh, thanks, I guess, Mr Baines. But you don't have to be nice about it. I know I'm a bit on the chunky side."

I'd heard her make comments about her weight and size before and just passed them off as typical teenage-girl false modesty. I had seriously never considered that she could honestly think she was too fat. She just wasn't. For sure, she would never be described as skinny in this day and age, given that 'emaciated' seemed to be the modern requirement for such a description. She was soft and curvy rather than sharp and bony but no way was she ever... chunky.

And yes, I know that word curvy has been misappropriated by women who are approaching obesity in a pathetic attempt to re-brand their unattractiveness but, with Jadie, that wasn't what it meant at all. For her, it meant quite simply, that she possessed a proper female body that was, unfortunately, incredibly alluring to me. And to any other red-blooded male, I suspected. Not fat. No way.

But now... she sounded so... earnest. She might be eighteen but maybe she hadn't moved on quite as far from those early-teen hormone-driven body-image-crisis days after all. I felt a pang of guilt for assuming that her confidence ran more than skin-deep.

Or maybe she was just fishing. It didn't seem to be the case but, again, my daughter loved to be told how great she looked - to the point where she would deliberately goad me into telling her so. Was this what was happening here? I had no idea.

Whatever, I just wished Jadie wasn't doing it whilst stood there with her knickers on show. My brain was really struggling; half of it wanted to look up and take in the view whilst the other half didn't dare for fear of looking like a dirty old man.

"Uh, Jadie, I don't think chunky is quite the word I'd use," I sort of mumbled, still not looking. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I realised that I'd set myself up again.

"Really? So what word would you use then?" It wasn't a confident challenge. She said it quietly. Still nervous. Like she actually... cared about what I was going to say.

She was tying me up in knots, here. But by this point the illicit excitement at having a conversation with a partially-clothed teenage girl had begun to overcome my embarrassment at being thought a dirty old perv. So, I looked up.

She was now leaning against the balustrade for balance and seemed to wiggle a bit when she saw me look up, which caused her chest to move visibly beneath the shirt. Did she have any idea what she was doing?

"Well, I don't know about exact words," I said, the awkwardness clearly evident in my voice. We'd bantered back and forth a thousand times over the years but this time I was eager to draw this particular conversation to a close. "Let's just say you're a very attractive young lady who will make a lucky boy very happy one day."

"Yeah, right," she said, with a look that I could only describe as wistful briefly flashing over her face. But then, she seemed to brighten a little.

"Anyway that doesn't help me fit into these jeans, does it?" She laughed, shyly, looking embarrassed. "In fact, never mind fitting in to them, I can't even get them off now. My legs were still wet when I put them on and they're stuck like glue."

She made a show of trying to peel the tight stretch denim further down her legs and looked down at me. I was staring. I knew I was staring. I tore my gaze away again.

"Er, Mr Baines. Um... Do you think you can maybe... give me a hand, or I could be stuck in these things forever!" she said, laughing uncertainly again.

Jesus Christ. Was she serious? I had to look up at her again. She was looking right at me, with a look I was really struggling to make sense of. The self-conscious teenager was still there but, really, was that a glint in her eye? Surely not. My imagination was starting to get the better of me again and it needed to stop. Fast. She smiled sweetly, her confidence appearing to grow a little.

"Seriously, I am actually stuck in these things. You'd better come up. I think if I try coming down the stairs like this, I'll end up breaking something."

My head was spinning. Within ten minutes my afternoon had gone from dull and boring to downright dangerous. This was my daughter's best friend. In my house. Okay, nothing unusual about that in itself, except, well, my daughter wasn't with us. And Jadie, despite whatever hang-ups she may have about her body, seemed strangely unfazed about me seeing her in her underwear. And was now asking me to help... take her clothes... off...

I could have said no. Of course I could. I was a grown man; there were a thousand different ways I could have found to make an excuse. But I didn't. Because... well, truthfully, I realised I didn't want to.

So I climbed the stairs whilst Jadie turned round and shuffled back across the landing towards Kiera's room. I nearly tripped over, as I couldn't take my eyes off her gorgeous arse. The bikini-style knickers were thinner and shinier than they first appeared. The sight of the tight, pink material stretched over those fantastically proportioned cheeks, moving as she struggled to walk was intoxicating. There was just the hint of a little crease underneath each buttock as she moved. Christ, I am going to burn in hell, I thought.

As I followed her into Kiera's room, Jadie turned round and flopped down onto the bed, laying back and lifting her feet up to me. Her legs were forced together by the restricting jeans, which being those ridiculous skinny-fit ones which girls had to 'pour themselves into' really were clung fast to her.

"If you can get my feet out, that would be a start," she said.

I gently eased the bottoms of the tight trousers over the heel of each foot, focusing on the task at hand and trying desperately not to stare past the trousers to get another glimpse of those bright pink knickers. Or her chest heaving beneath the shirt. I was succeeding with the trousers but not doing quite so well in diverting my gaze.

"Now pull!" she instructed, as the ankles of the trousers finally slipped over her feet.

I tugged on the bottom of the trousers, but they still didn't want to budge. I got a firmer grip and pulled again. Jadie braced herself with her arms, pushing against the bed.

She wiggled backwards, trying to get free of the material plastered to her legs, whilst I pulled. Finally, there was some movement. The material slid a little further down those beautiful damp thighs and I couldn't deny myself another look. I got rather more than I was expecting.

As she'd pushed herself backwards, her panties had caught against the bed linen... which meant they had been tugged downwards slightly as she moved. What I now saw nearly caused me to fall over.

The tight pink material had been pulled down her hips, perhaps an inch or so all round, which meant that at the front a delightful fringe of closely-cropped dark pubic fuzz could now be seen poking out the top of the underwear. It ran all the way across; an old-school bikini-line in the truest sense of the word.

I was stunned, not least because I'd just assumed that teen girls all shaved completely these days. I knew from my regular internet solo excursions that 'hairy' had become niche-porn; a special interest rather than the default. And I remembered an extremely awkward conversation with Kiera about the issue a couple of years previously when she'd asked me outright whether she should 'shave her kitty' as all the other girls at school were talking about it and said they were going to.

I knew it was one of those conversations which only happened because I had to be her mum as well as her dad but still, I'd been shocked that she'd been talking about such matters at all at that age. Utterly embarrassed in front of my daughter, once I'd got my head round her use of a word I'd never before heard used to describe that part of female anatomy, I'd tried to explain that it was a personal preference and that a lot of men didn't like the bald look.

I certainly didn't; having grown up on 80s porno I much preferred a nice bit of fuzzy hair, but that wasn't the sort of thing you said to your own kid.

Jadie seemed oblivious to her panty situation - and, fortunately, also my interest in it as far as I could tell. She took hold of the top of the jeans and peeled them down further, arching her back and lifting herself off the bed. I was transfixed by her crotch, now waving in the air. The thin material on her knickers moved again, leaving no doubt that there was a full triangle of short-cropped hair under there.

Remembering that I should be pulling on the jeans rather than staring at her now not-so-private parts, I yanked hard and the trousers finally came free. I gently pulled them off each of her legs, and then held them in front of me to hide what was rapidly becoming an embarrassing bulge in my own jeans.

Jadie sat up on the bed facing me and leaned forward slightly, obscuring her middle but meaning I now had to try to avoid looking down her shirt. Which, I'm certain, had fewer buttons done up than it had when it had been underneath her jumper, given the amount of cleavage on show. This time I didn't manage to avert my gaze quite fast enough.

I caught her eye, briefly, and she looked... God, did she really look pleased? Almost like she wanted me to be looking down her top. Was that a momentary shift in her expression; a sense of greater confidence garnered from my attention? Yeah, right. I needed to get a grip.

"Thank god for that. Serves me right for being so fat," she laughed, looking up at me with an expression that was partly tease, yet partly transparent hope for another compliment from me.

I didn't want to go down that road again.

I smiled and wagged a finger. "Uh, uh, we've had that conversation. Not being able to fit into tight cut size eight jeans, does not a fat girl make."

She sighed, exaggeratedly. "I'm such a klutz. I should have looked at the size. I'm usually a ten or a twelve so I'm never going to fit into any of Kiera's things..."

Klutz? I really wondered about teenage vocabulary sometimes. Another thought passed briefly through the back of my mind - she was Kiera's best friend, surely she would know what size she was? The thought flitted away. I didn't want to pursue it.

"Well I can't exactly have you walking round my house in just your shirt and knickers, can I?" I said, before realising that I really didn't want her to answer that.

Thinking quickly, I came up with the only possible way out that I could think of which could get her covered up as rapidly as possible. "You'll have to wear something of mine!"

She looked at me like I was mental, so I attempted to explain further. "There should be some clean tracksuit bottoms in the chest at the end of my bed. They're not exactly the last word in, ah, style or anything but..."

I decided to lighten the moment, for my own sanity more than for her amusement, and continued.

"...they've got an elastic waistband that stretches, like really wide," I said, miming an exceptionally large waist.

Her eyes widened in shock at my implication until she saw the evil grin I was wearing.

"Oh Mr Baines," she said, laughing. "I thought you were such a nice man but you're just... nasty!"

I continued to grin at her.

"Oh well," she said, "Your sexy sweatpants it is, then."

With possibly the sweetest smile I had ever seen, she got up off the bed and - without a hint of self-consciousness - shrugged up the errant panties. There was definitely a greater confidence about her now. Hell. If women were a complete mystery then teenage girls were - what was the phrase - a mystery wrapped up in an enigma, surrounded by a riddle. One minute she was self-conscious and fearful - albeit utterly mistakenly - about her body. Then the next minute she seemed to be flaunting herself in front of me seemingly without a care.

She walked across the landing. Again, my eyes were transfixed on her rear, which was now freed from the restrictions of the half-on trousers. It was utterly magnificent. Round, perfectly-proportioned; a real bottom, with a proper shape without being overly large or comically exaggerated.

It looked firm, too, underneath the pink material. And smooth, not crinkly. Just... spellbinding. As she disappeared into my room, did she really give another little wiggle, knowing I was watching? My mind was playing games again, and it wasn't going to end well if I carried on.

I folded Kiera's jeans and put them back into her closet. My heart was still pounding and I could feel my cock was now rock hard in my jeans. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help but think the way Jadie was acting was somehow different from how she'd ever been before, especially when she was with Kiera. We'd always enjoyed that banter and she did enjoy impressing me with her feats of recalling useless knowledge but I'd never got a sense that she was ever, well, flirting with me. At all.

Did she even know how badly she was teasing me today? I shook my head yet again. Of course she didn't. Because she wasn't. For god's sake, I was the adult here. She was my daughter's best friend. I'd known her for years. Which meant she was just relaxed in my company because she trusted me as completely as she would her own father.

And if she caught on to the fact that I was... aroused by her then she would, quite rightly, be disgusted. Yet... she hadn't seemed to mind at all that I was catching a sneaky look at her chest. Shit. I had to stop that train of thought. It would ruin everything.

I was placing her discarded wet trousers on the radiator when I heard her calling again.

"Mr Baines, you said in the chest, right?"

"Yeah, there should be some grey ones in there."

"I can't find them. I don't really want to be rooting round through all your stuff. I don't want to stumble on your secret porn stash or anything. Can you come and help me find them?"

I couldn't help laughing. This was the girl I'd known for years; always ready for a joke and a laugh. And not afraid to push the boundaries of what might be considered appropriate conversation.

"Hey, who told you about my secret porn stash?" I called back, playing along.

"Kiera did. She sneaks into your room and reads your dirty mags when you're not in," Jadie shouted.

I folded the trousers over the heater and noticed her socks, which she'd also taken off and hung on the floor in typical teenage fashion.

"Yeah, right, nice try. Just a couple of decades behind. Haven't you kids heard of the internet?" I replied.

I picked up the socks and put them on to dry as well.

"Well my dad obviously hasn't, he keeps a load of mags hidden in the garage. Josh found them years ago."

Josh, now nineteen, had left for university a few months back. Like Jadie he was a real high-flyer, getting straight A's at school and going straight on to read Law at Cambridge. I chuckled at the thought of him rooting in the garage for his dad's old-school pornos when there was a whole internet out there to explore.

Mind you, that wasn't as funny as the idea of Keith hiding porn in the garage at home when he spent all that time away. I might have to mention that one, next time we had a round of golf.

I reached down inside my jeans and adjusted my gentleman's area so that my arousal was less obvious. Good job I did, because when I went across the landing into my bedroom I was greeted with another sight which had the blood rushing to where I wished it wouldn't.

Facing away from me, Jadie had got down on all fours to lean forward into the storage chest. Her short, tight shirt had ridden up as she bent over, exposing the beautiful curve of her lower back and placing that delicious, round, pink-clad bottom in full view once again.

As I came into the room she seemed to subtly change position, sticking that phenomenal behind a little further up in the air so the hot pink panties were stretched tight over her buttocks. With her legs parted slightly I could just see the faintest outline of her most intimate parts underneath, whilst her amazing thighs were displayed in all their glory. From the distance I was looking, they managed to look Photoshop-perfect in real life. Creamy. Smooth. Properly shaped, not two sticks. I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth open.

She pushed herself up from the storage chest and sat back, turning right round to sit cross-legged and look up at me. He braids shook prettily either side of her face as she moved and the way she sat looked almost child-like. Although that chest was definitely not child-like. And, again, was that really a glint in her eye? She did have the most stunning green eyes - highlighted perfectly by that little touch of liner and shadow. Her naturally full, long lashes blinked once at me as she looked, eyes wide; her dark, neat little eyebrows raised as if in question.