Blossoming Beauty

Part One: Katie's Narrative

Once the braces were removed from my teeth, everything changed. Looking back on that time in my life, it reminded me of the scene in

Forrest Gump

when Jenny yells to Gump, "

Run

, Forrest,

Run

!" And that's what I honestly felt like - I felt like I was freed from the chains that had weighed me down for so long. I was free to run.

The year was 2002. Springtime. Britney Spears had just made a splash with her "I'm a Slave 4 U" music video; George Harrison had died not too long ago. Most significantly, the 9/11 attacks had just occurred in New York. But to tell you the truth, that year was my senior year in high school: I was 18 years old and completely self-absorbed as most teenagers are.

When my braces were taken off, it was as though I had taken off my clothes in front of the male population; they began to notice to my presence, my figure. Before that, I had only been a ghost. Throughout my whole high school career, I had been hiding my body beneath dowdy, baggy clothes; I was embarrassed the way I was filling out. Zits were not an uncommon occurrence on my face. Except for one embarrassing night in my sophomore year, I had almost no sexual experience. All that changed when I met Jack.

I had had the metal on my teeth for nearly three years. My dentist had given me a reasonable timeline for when they could be removed, and he was dead-on with his word: it was time that they came off.

And the timing couldn't have been more fitting.

Towards the end of school, right before summer hit with its sweltering heat, my father, who was 65 years old at the time, was planning to retire. A grand party was planned months in advance, and I wanted to look beautiful for the occasion. My parents had bought a RV and were planning to travel that summer, from San Diego to Boston. But as it was, we were smack dab in the middle of America. Missouri, as a matter of fact.

Anyway, my smile was beautiful (even I had to admit that), and that pulled me out of my shell and towards self-confidence with a gravitational pull that surprised even me. With this newfound self-assuredness, one steppingstone led to another: I began to wear more form-fitting clothes, and I questioned why I had been so staunch in keeping it hidden. I really did have a good figure: I had full 36C breasts; a small, firm tummy, and an ass that drew the occasional stare or pinch from a guy at school.

When I walked down the school hallways, I no longer slumped; I strutted. The tiled halls were now my runway. I hated to admit it, but the stares that I drew from the boys, and, even, sometimes adult men, dampened me and made me proud to be a woman. And that's what I was now: a woman. It had been a long journey, but I had arrived. This is where Jack entered the picture.

My father owned a tennis center. I was his baby, but that thing was his lovechild. He was crazy about it and had every reason to be: He had taken a rundown club and turned it into a breathtakingly beautiful and successful business.

Jack worked there as a coach and the occasional player. Occasionally, I'd hang out at the club when my father was working, and I noticed Jack. Mind you, I didn't notice him in any romantic fashion - he was just a guy that worked for my father. He and I talked now and then, but, honestly, he didn't leave much of an impression on me. He was attractive, yes, but he was way too old for me; at that time, he was 35 years old. We were on good terms, though.

It was a small rural town where we lived. There was this old-fashioned soda shop where I'd go occasionally for a root beer float. That afternoon, walking into the shop, the cool air conditioning hit me like a fresh breath of artificial air. The place practically screamed 1950's: the main colors were a Robin's Egg blue, silver, and white. On the walls were paintings of Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe, you know, the real icons of that decade. They had a jukebox, too.

It was extremely muggy, even for a spring day. I was wearing small denim shorts and a tight, clingy lavender top. My face was made up with a minimal amount of cosmetics: flattering, but not attempting to overcompensate. I had a ribbon in my thick, wavy brown hair. My blue eyes looked even brighter and bigger with the slight mascara I had applied. With my pimples that had cleared the last few months, I rarely wore concealer on my face: my face had adopted a naturally pretty glow, smooth and youthful. I had a few freckles sprinkled across the bridge of my nose, and I intended to do exactly nothing to hide that fact.

As I walked towards the counter, I noticed Jack sitting at one of the booths. He was hunched over a cheeseburger, fries, and a tall glass of Coca-Cola. He hadn't noticed that I had walked in, and so I decided to walk over to him and make small chitchat. I stood by his table.

"Hi Jack, how's it going?" I asked smiling at him. It had been quite a while since he and I had run into one another.

"Hi." His eyebrows were scrunched in confusion. "Oh, oh your

Martin's daughter

! Sorry, I just didn't recognize you. Did you get a haircut?"

"No, I've just made a few changes here and there."

"Yeah." He grinned as his eyes swept over my body. "So, how's your old man?"

"He's fine. You know, you're invited to his retirement party."

He nodded. "Yeah, he asked me a couple of days ago. I plan on going. Do you?"

"Oh yeah, of course, I have to be there."

He leaned back in his booth and studied my figure and my face a bit more closely. I could tell he approved by the expression lying on his face. He smiled and blushed very lightly.

"I don't mean to stare. Sorry, Katie."

I waved his concern away. "No biggie, I've been getting a lot of that lately. How was my father today at work?"

"He was good. He was stressing a bit, but you know how it is. How was school?"

"Don't get me started on that," I said with an exaggerated eyeroll. He laughed. I got the reaction I wanted: a chuckle.

We wrapped up our conversation and I took a seat at the counter. I ordered a root beer float and a plate of fries. Every now and then I'd look at over Jack; he seemed to radiate in the cool haven of the burger shop - a bit like Jesus with his sprouting rays of light, only more seductive. From our respective seats in the restaurants, we'd exchange a glance here or there or hold our eye contact a bit longer than what was normal.

I had to admit he was an attractive man: tall, maybe 6'2" or so (a full foot taller than myself); short, black hair, and sexy green eyes. His body was slight and slim, and, if I remembered right, he had a dark, hairy chest from the time I recalled him taking his shirt off at the tennis center.

I looked over at his table once more, but he had left. The way he looked at me made me think twice about him. He seemed drawn to me now that I was more physically appealing. I loved the attention he spread on me with his wandering eye; it was like he was covering my body with suggestive thought and insinuation. I decided that this was a good thing and that I must see him again.

At that point, my root beer and plate of fries arrived and famished, I dove into the task at hand.

Part Two: Katie's Narrative

Several days later I walked into the main tennis court arenas. It was an amazing sight: children of all ages being guided by their coaches, whipping forehands and backhands with a force and experience beyond their years. They flung the yellow balls with a vengeance, as if they were trying to rid themselves of something ominous inside their souls.

I took a seat in the near-empty stadium. There were a few parents gathered around, talking with one another, pointing, laughing, and being there to support their children. I looked from one end of the tennis courts to the other, trying to spot Jack. At first, I couldn't spot him, but then he came out on the court with a group of young boys - maybe age nine or ten. They set themselves up on a court and he proceeded to give them instructions on different things. I could barely make out his voice, but could decipher it was gentle and soothing, unlike so many coaches in the sports world.

The boys crowded around him with much admiration, Jack's frame easily towering over them. He would swing his racquet at a nonexistent ball, guiding them on how to hold the racquet, getting behind them and showing them how a swing should begin and end. His easygoing and friendly nature with the kids really moved me; to me, just knowing him through my father, he had seemed a bit rough around the edges, but when he was around those children he just glowed in a very paternal and natural way.

I also couldn't help but admire his body. Looking at him from a distance, I noticed just how slim and muscular his legs were. His chest was taut, but also strong, and I could tell he had a lot of strength in his upper body. His lower body, by contrast, was small, and the angle of his back formed the shape of a V. Again, he wasn't aware that I was watching him (I seemed to be a voyeur into his own little world), but I enjoyed just being a spectator.

After a while of knocking balls around, serving, and practice matches, the kids looked a little beat and Jack called an end to the day. The kids rushed to their bottles of water or Gatorade sitting on the sidelines, trying to towel off their necks and arms like true professionals, and then ran off to the locker room, laughing and shoving each other around. Jack jogged up to my seat in the front row and I was a bit startled that he even knew I was there watching him.

He waved as he ran over and grinned. "Hi Katie."

I leaned on the railing and brushed the hair out of my eyes. "Hi Jack. I didn't realize that you knew I was here."

"Yeah, I saw you when I first came in. How've you been?"

"Good, good. You know, you're very good with those boys."

He shrugged his shoulders, embarrassed. "Eh, just doing the best I can." He leaned his elbows upon the railing, looking up at me. "I'm certainly not as young as I used to be."

His gaze somehow made me uneasy and excited at the same time. His eye contact was intense: happy, gleeful, full of life, and sparkling as though he were twenty again. I knew how very superficial he was, not giving me a second look until my cuteness and hourglass figure became abundantly clear to him, but that's the nature of the male animal: they're very visual creatures. I also knew that I wasn't any better: when he frisked me with his eyes at the soda shop, I began to look at

him

differently. I welcomed his attention, especially from someone older and especially from someone working for my father: a double no-no that made my new infatuation all the more exciting.

As the conversation stretched out, he stuck his leg out and we both poked fun at how hairy and skinny his legs were (he was wearing shorts and a t-shirt). There seemed to be a silent bump in our conversation, an uncomfortable and unspoken pause that seemed to speak volumes of our sudden attraction to one another. Our bodies eased and moved in suggestion.

I looked at my watch. "Oh gosh, I better get going. I'm going to miss the bus."

"The bus? Well, can't your old man drive you home?"

I shook my head. "He's going to be working for a couple more hours and I don't want to wait around that long. And I've got homework and stuff to do."

"That's our Katie, always getting down to business," he smiled and laughed. I loved his smile: as his lips drew back in his face, the lines fanned out in a very sexy, older-man-way, testimony to his approach towards middle age. "Well," he inquired. "How do you get to school every day?"

"I walk. It's not far from the house, only about ten minutes or so."

He looked to the side, and I knew some sort of lecherous thought had clouded across the sky of his mind. He never verbalized it, of course, but I think he was visualizing me, a young schoolgirl, walking to and from school, books hugged to my chest. I laughed, privy to his thought he would not say, and he chuckled too, looking into my eyes.

"Well, the public buses are so uncomfortable," he said. "Would you like me to gift you a lift home?"

I blushed. "Well yeah, that sounds great Jack. Thanks."

On the way home, the conversation flowed naturally - it seemed to be a bit easier since we both had our eye on the road and not on one another. I would point occasionally, saying "Turn left here" or "Take a right at the next stop sign." He rested his left hand on the top of steering wheel, turning it with his palm when needed. He was in complete control when he was driving, at ease and confident, and just observing him like this turned me on. He possessed a self-assuredness that no boy my age could ever dream of. His eyes darted from one side of the road to the other, keeping alert. At my direction, he pulled in front of my house and shifted the gear in to 'Park.'

"Is this the place?" he asked.

I nodded. "This is it."

We sat quietly for a minute and his glance moved downward, just for a moment, to my breasts. The strap of the seatbelt fell diagonally between them, accentuating their curvaceousness and round firmness. His eyes looked back up to mine and we laughed in a very low, suggestive manner that seemed to fill up the empty car. He scratched the back of his neck, at a loss for words, but he found the right ones:

"That car ride was over much too fast."

I blushed and looked out the window. I wasn't normally so bold with the opposite sex, but I unclicked my seatbelt and leaned over to his side, planting a small, soft kiss on his cheek. My lipstick left a small stain on his skin, and I attempted to wipe it off with a handkerchief. He gently stopped me, saying he enjoyed the kiss and not to rub it away - he wanted to keep it. His grin was small and sly, mocking me in my state of embarrassment.

"Well," I smiled. "Thanks for the ride."

We said our goodbyes and I slipped out of the car, heading up the sidewalk to my house. I didn't hear his car pull away and, right before I opened the front door, I looked behind me, and he didn't try to hide the fact that he had been ogling at my figure as I scooted away. I gave him a friendly wave. He did the same and started to depart from the curb. I unlocked the door to the house, greeted by a burst of air conditioning.

Part Three: Third-Person Narrative

The following Wednesday was luxurious for Jack. Wednesdays were usually a pretty laidback day any way, as he didn't have as many tennis lessons to teach in the middle of the week.

That afternoon he came home about one o'clock. It was pouring rain, and he felt like just relaxing the rest of the day and watching sports, maybe putting in an oven pizza for himself to devour. That was the great thing about being so athletic, he observed: If you are physical enough, you pretty much get to eat whatever you want and stay slim.

But then he thought about Katie. Young Katie. How would the downpour greet her when she was walking home that afternoon? Not kindly, he surmised. Poor girl. This inevitably led him to think back on the kiss she had given him last week. It had surprised him, her boldness, but it was so welcome and such a sexy gesture. The way she had leaned in so close to him, with all her vibrancy and teen perfume afloat in the air - it was just a few moments of heaven. Even days after their car ride, he could still smell her scent in his front seat: sweet angst and that lovely, flowery fragrance.

He wasn't sure about her generation, but during his generation, taking a big yellow school bus home wasn't the "cool" thing to do. Maybe she felt the same way. Walking also probably gave her a chance to tone her figure even more, tightening those smooth legs he had come to admire so much in such a short time.

Having gone to the same high school as Katie, he knew the last class let out at two-thirty. And he would do something with all these fragments of information: he would glue them all together to make a beautiful painting and make him look even more desirable in her eyes. Or so he hoped.

Jack had a quick lunch, showered (he stunk to high hell with the lessons he taught that day), got dressed in clean clothes, got in his car, and drove to the high school.

He felt somewhat stalker-ish, waiting outside in his car in the school parking lot. But he really wanted to see Katie again, and what's more, he wanted to save her from the rain. He only had to wait about twenty minutes for the final bell to ring. For some reason he was strangely and uncharacteristically nervous about seeing her, if he managed to catch her at all.

Hearing the bell, he got out of his car and walked towards the main entrance of the building. He walked in, thankful for the oasis of the dry air. His eyes darted around, nervously scanning the scene before him: there were row after row of gray, rundown lockers; kids forming clusters in the corners and sides of the hallways, books in hand. A few bewildered teenagers looked in his direction, not knowing what to make of the thirtysomething standing awkwardly in their hallways, this stranger they had never seen before. He grinned to himself: He was just as out-of-place in high school as he had been twenty years ago. Time does have a way of creating a loop.

Then he spotted her coming out of the women's bathroom: she was chatting with another girl, and they were talking and laughing. Suddenly, he felt like a lecherous, old man leering at some high school girl. But then he reminded himself of one thing: what she was wearing, and his erection rose and dripped, and his reservations ceased.

She was wearing tight, low-rise jeans and a pink sweater to fend off the chill of the afternoon. A couple inches of her midriff was exposed, and his lurching cock reminded him of why he was doing all this in the first place. It was a simple but elegant outfit, one he would most likely not forget anytime soon.

When Katie turned in his direction, departing from her girlfriend, she was surprised to see him, and caught a bit off balance.

"Jack? What are you doing here?"

They stood in the frame of the double doors, his frame towering over her. "I came to pick you up and take you home. I got off work a bit early today and I didn't want you walk home in this rain. I'd hate to think of you catching a cold in this weather."

A smile crawled along her decorated lips. "Jack, that's so sweet, thank you. I've been begging my father to get me a car, but he won't give in."

Jack laughed and they walked out the double doors together. He shielded her head with his outstretched jacket, and they ran towards his car, shouting to one another over the noise of the clapping rain.

"Well, your old man is very nice, Katie, but he can be a bit on the cheap side!"

They chuckled and he held the passenger door open for her. He ran around the front of the car and slipped into the driver's seat. They took off down the road once more, yielding to the high school traffic.

Unlike their first car ride together, this one held more sexual tension. There was more silence than there was conversation, and when he pulled up in front of her house, Katie, once more, leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. Not a word was spoken when she did that, and when she tried to glide gently away from him to open her door, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into his arms. They were both slightly damp from the rain, and Katie was damp in her panties for different reasons all together.

His long, lanky arms held her, and he kissed his boss's daughter in a way that should not even be entertained, but now, with the steaminess and the seduction of the rainfall that granted them privacy in his small car, there was no other option but to give into his impulse: he guided her head towards his face, all the while fondling her with his searching eyes. They kissed passionately, their hands caressing each other's arms and hands, their fingers intertwining. Their tongues slipped outside of their mouths, teasing each other, and in the midst of it all, their bodies moved in each other's arms, and they sighed with passion. Her bubblegum tongue was beyond what he could've imagined, and if this was as far as he got with her in a sexual way, he was more than pleased with that, knowing he had made out with such a sexy young woman in front of her father's - his

boss's

- house.