This story is a prequel to The Summerhouse
* * * *
Temping as a data entry clerk for fourteen weeks was not that well paid or exciting work, but it was a full-time job and would see the geeky eighteen-year-old student bank almost four grand before leaving Surrey for Exeter University.
The local council had hired Stephen to scan and file thousands of archived documents, and he worked with a small team of school leavers on short-term contracts. He was thin and wiry, and at under 5ft 7in tall, he was shorter than most men of his age. The young student possessed a friendly innocence and a submissive personality; he rarely argued or spoke aggressively and was a popular member at work. He made the hot drinks, he cleaned up, and he carried out his duties diligently.
On the start of his penultimate week at the council, the skinny teenager cycled out of the council's offices, and along the smooth tarmac of the Surrey roads. It was a bright, summery day, almost barbecue weather, and Stephen Morris was two days into a fortnight break from his family. They were in Florida, while he earned money before starting his Electrical Engineering degree on the South Coast.
He had an evening of gaming and pornography planned; the ten kilometre ride home would take under half-an-hour, if he chose the most direct route, and he weaved through the housing estates and cycle paths until he reached the outskirts of the small suburban town. An exclusive street with semi-detached and detached houses that each had a beautifully manicured carpet of lush green and spotless driveways.
He never saw the reversing vehicle emerge from a large detached property on his left. He had the right of way, but the large Range Rover reversed from out of the driveway and knocked Stephen into the grass verge with a loud bang. The young man smashed into the ground and his helmeted head landed onto the pavement with a crash. He yelled in shock, and cried in searing agony, as his legs scraped along the Tarmac.
Pain erupted down the left side of his body. His outside thigh burnt agonisingly, and his shoulder and wrist bruised as they landed abruptly on the ground. "Oh Christ, I didn't see you. You were travelling down there a bit fast." The driver blurted out and tapped his mouth with shaking hands. Stephen vaguely recognised the greying, balding man standing over him. "Shit, I need to be somewhere else!"
"Simon," a shrill voice called, and a buxom black-haired woman, wearing a pale pink tracksuit, stormed down the driveway. "I heard you blame this accident on that fine young cyclist. You weren't looking where you were going, were you? Eager to get back to London, eh? You hurried out of my drive like a bat out of the underworld."
His words stumbled, and the matronly figure crouched down beside the sprawled cyclist. "I just didn't see him."
"You didn't bloody look," she snapped. "Help me get him inside."
"I have a meeting at Number Ten in fifty minutes. I'll be late."
She glared at him. "You'll have a meeting with my cane if you don't do as you're told," she said icily. "Then you can take his bike and put it 'round the back. Then you may go, but you haven't heard the last of this." She looked at Stephen. "Can you stand up?"
He gingerly got to his feet. Blood drizzled down his cut white trousers and shirt, and he hesitantly put his weight on his left ankle. "Just bruised, I think. I wasn't going that fast," he replied. "I really wasn't."
"I know. It's fine. Where do you live?"
"Beech Tree Lane. It's near the college, about two miles away."
"You won't be cycling home, look at the state of you! Do you need to phone someone?"
"My parents are on holiday," he explained as he walked with her to the large detached property. "In Florida to see Disney and Universal with my younger sisters."
"Oh nice," she purred and opened her black front door. "Let's get you cleaned up a bit." She sat him in at the stool of the breakfast bar in the kitchen and brought a bowl of steaming water with a first aid kit from another room. "I'm sorry, but you are going to have to remove those trousers and that shirt. I can't see your wounds."
"I can... I..."
She tucked her straight black hair behind her ears and opened the first aid kit. "Oh, don't be so silly," she snapped and her deft fingers made light work of his shirt buttons, to expose his wiry chest. "You have nothing I have not seen before!" Reluctantly, he slid the frayed shirt from his body and looked mournfully at his wounded arm.
She bandaged his cut elbow and applied lotion to his grazes, and he barely argued when the dominant middle-aged woman demanded that he remove the remnants of his trousers. She massaged soothing, healing balm to his thighs, and her hands slipped underneath the hem of his boxer shorts. She gave him a smile and directed him to the toilet where he could wash his hands.
"I'm going to put some tea on now for me and my niece. Chicken Curry, OK?" She cocked her head. "I've got an appointment at nine in Heathrow, so I'll drop you off home by eight." He hesitated, and she looked at the scrawny teenager. "You are welcome to leave, but you'd have to walk a couple of miles in just your boxers and that might get you some funny looks!" He blushed, and she chuckled as she opened the fridge and took out a multitude of ingredients. "I'm Anne-Marie, by the way."
He introduced himself and they chatted as he helped her prepare the meal. Anne-Marie joked and teased him, as his cheeks rouged whenever she mentioned anything sexual. Half-an-hour later, as she dished up three portions of curry, she called her niece playing music in her bedroom. "Victoria! Dinner!"
"Coming!" The voice called, and the middle-aged woman guided Stephen into a long, thin room at the front of the house, with high-backed chairs and an imposing table.
"Are you Anne-Marie Braithwaite?" Stephen asked as he saw a framed picture on the wall, and she nodded. "I know Victoria Braithwaite from college. We did Maths together."
"Oh, she never mentioned your name."
"We didn't move in the same social circles," he said diplomatically. "Just academically." His interactions with the acerbic tongue of his saviour's niece had come during multiple Maths projects, and he had become accustomed to her short, caustic put-downs. "We worked together in class, lots. She's really good at..."
His voice trailed as Victoria entered the room, naked, except for her slippers. Her long brown hair reached her bosom and her green eyes flashed when she saw Stephen sat at the table. Stephen's gaze lingered at the beauty framed in the doorway. Brazen and shameless, with flawless, hairless skin and a broad smile, the lithe teenager giggled at the young man's expression.
"Sorry love, I forgot you were going into the shower," Anne-Marie said. Stephen stared open-mouthed and only looked away when Anne-Marie entered the room. "Do you want to get something on, so you don't embarrass our guest?"
"No," she replied immediately. "Hiya Stephen. Do you still not know how to do integration and differentiation, which is Chapter one of A Level Pure Mathematics? It's too late to come and ask for Maths lessons now. We did the exam several weeks ago!" She sat at the table and muttered appreciation towards her aunt.
