Authors note: For some of you who enjoy knowing this, part of this story is based on truth. Though I have changed a few pertinent facts here and there, I'll let you pick and choose what is truth, and what parts I've added to enhance the story. As always, I appreciate your comments/votes and feedback. So please...drop me a line and let me know what you think as the story unfolds here. MF
The fact I was having to move back into the house I had once lived in was bad enough. But having rented it now for the past five years ever since my mother had passed away made it even more difficult in doing so. It wasn't in the best of shapes to say the least. A messy divorce left me with no choice but to do so. Luckily, or unluckily for me, however you wanted to look at it, the last tenants had left over a month prior to this. I'd been looking for someone else to rent out to when the proverbial shit hit the fan. Not like I hadn't seen it coming, but as they say, timing is everything.
And the last thing I really want to be doing at this point, was having to clean, restore and make the old place livable again. Not to mention the fact...I was once more living in the same home I had left so many years ago. Not that there weren't fond memories of growing up there as a kid, there were plenty of those. But it's an odd sensation to go back to something when you've already convinced yourself you never would.
With everything that needed doing to make it not only presentable, but livable...I took a week off from work in order to set things straight again. Most of the major needed repairs I knew I could do easily enough myself, and thus save even more money. But it was the more simple things that also needed doing that I detested having to do. And that had soured my mood even more so. Dust bunnies everywhere, stained carpets, doors that hadn't been washed or cleaned in god knows how long. The list went on and on. I was already toying with the idea of hiring someone to come in and do that kind of work, while I finished up on the major stuff, when a solution literally fell into my lap.
I had in fact moved out over ten, maybe twelve years ago. And though I certainly had come over periodically to visit with mom, those visits had remained basically just that, visits with her. The old neighborhood as I had called it, was almost a thing of the past. Sure mom stayed in touch with many of them, one or two even close friends. But friends I had once known, or kids growing up...like me, by now had all moved away. They now had families of their own, more kids and grandkids, so I had pretty much lost track of anyone who looked familiar to me, or who I might have known long ago when growing up here. And that was when I bumped into Valerie. Or rather, when she literally bumped into me.
And I'll be perfectly honest. At first, I didn't even recognize her, though she certainly recognized, or at least knew who I was perhaps. Mainly because she'd noticed me moving back into the old home. The last time I remember seeing Valerie. She was eight years old.
**
I had gone over to the local grocery store where I proceeded to buy up just about every cleaning supply imaginable. Those were things I hadn't exactly packed up and moved with me when I separated from my soon to be ex-wife. Another reason for my sour and surely mood as the wake-up call on just how expensive this was going to be hung from a very long tape in my back pocket, with little or no food on the list itself. I was throwing several sacks of this stuff in the back of my car, turned to roll my now empty shopping cart into a nearby stall for empty ones when Valerie's still half-full shopping cart came rolling towards me. She had just then turned after loading a bag into the back of her car, just in time to see her cart rolling away as she began giving chase to it. I stopped it, with my own empty cart before it could slam into the side of my car, scowling at her for a moment, though not really meaning to. Like I said, I was in a bit of a shitty mood anyway.
Her smile was disarming as she approached, apologizing for the errant cart. Immediately shaming me into apologizing to her myself, though more for the look I'd given her more than anything else. That...and the fact she was damn cute. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't a looker by any means. Cute in the sense that she was attractive enough, especially wearing the somewhat skimpy outfit she was currently wearing. Short shorts, a tight fitting tank top that hugged her more than ample breasts. She was the kind of a girl that you'd describe as having some meat on her, without being fat. Hair long, worn in a ponytail, with little if any makeup on, save for some moderate eye-shadow and lip-gloss. An average, but still cute looking girl with what I felt was her best feature, even beyond her large tits, as being an amazing smile.
"Sorry about that," she continued smiling...looking at me as I merely smiled back, apologizing myself, though now she smiled even broader, which was a bit unnerving at first. "You don't remember me do you?" She asked.
Wild thoughts filled my head. I never laid claim to being a saint, and with the problems I'd been having in my marriage for quite some time now, I'd eventually gone outside of that for some much needed satisfaction. Something the ex had been doing for far longer than I had. Still...even having been with a few somewhat younger women, I certainly couldn't remember being with anyone quite this young. So after carefully checking my memory banks to ensure I hadn't hooked up with her during some sort of mind-numbing stupor, I looked at her more closely. A faint recognition just there below the surface.
"Ok, you got me. I think I do know you somehow, but I honestly don't remember from where."
She laughed at that. "Well, I think the last time we even spoke to one another, I was maybe eight years old," she informed me. "I'm Valerie...your neighbor? I'm Jocelyn's daughter."
"Oh my god! You're Joycelyn's kid?" I asked, regretting I had said that the moment I did.
"Not so much a kid anymore," she said only slightly frowning at me now, simultaneously turning in profile so I could better see her voluptuous body, though I had already noticed that. Her smile immediately returned as she turned facing me once again. "I'm eighteen now, just graduated this year."
"Yeah, you're not," I observed, looking at her, and once again regretting the way I just had, my eyes automatically taking her all in again, though I'd done so in simply trying to see her then, as opposed to the way I was seeing her now. I know that it didn't come off that way however, especially the way she smiled at me, almost wickedly. Which in turn, made me blush.
"Thank you," she said demurely, but again her eyes held a mischievous twinkle in them that made me feel like a prepubescent kid again. Thankfully, she was wise enough to suddenly change the subject before the drool fell from the corner of my mouth. "Looks like you bought out the store," she noticed. "Obviously...you've got a lot of cleaning to do."
"Unfortunately, yes. I was even considering hiring someone to do the general cleaning for me...you don't know anyone who'd be interested in doing that do you?"
"Really? You're serious?"
I hadn't meant her...but I could now see she was interested. And then suddenly I was.
