<8 An Unexpected Guest
Mouse was up early, while Michael slept in, spent and content. He opened his eyes when she came back into the sunny bedroom wearing a tight black leotard. She sat beside him on the bed, and allowed his hand to glide up the smooth form fitting fabric, caressing her from her thigh to her breast, where he paused to lightly stroke her nipple. He lay back and watched contentedly as it quickly hardened under his touch.
"I don't have time, I have a dance class," she told him. "Now everyone's going to see that," she reprimanded, but with a smile. She bent over to kiss him on the forehead.
"Can't I come and watch?" he asked, breathing into her neck as she held her lips against him. His hands found her narrow waist and held her a moment longer.
She pulled back, beaming. "Sure. I'd like that," she said. "You'll have to hurry, I don't want to be late. This is the best exercise I get all week."
She got up and headed out of the room.
"Usually," she added over her shoulder, with a grin.
* * *
A sprinkle of sweat gave Mouse a soft sheen around her hairline when she had finished. Michael had thoroughly enjoyed watching her, and the other dancers, go through their routines, Mouse noticed. Some of the moves were very erotic, and she enjoyed watching his reactions.
She even enjoyed having him watch the other women, slyly checking them out when he thought neither they nor she was looking. She knew he didn't want them, he only wanted her. She noticed that a few of them sensed and enjoyed the secret attention, too, but they were no threat.
"What do you want to do with the rest of the day?" she asked as they stepped onto the street after the class. She looked at the whiskers on his cheeks and chin, left there when he'd had to hurriedly dress to join her in time. She had since asked him not to shave at all today. A days worth of short growth made him look older, and sexier, to her. She liked thinking of him as a bit of a rogue.
"I think I wore you out too much to spend all day in the Mouse Hole," she suggested. They held hands as they walked.
"Want to act like kids?" he asked.
Mouse glanced sidelong at him, wondering what he meant by that.
"Would you like Daddy to take you to the zoo?" Michael asked a bit nervously, his eyes focused uncertainly on nothing in particular straight ahead of them.
Mouse hesitated. She looked at him steadily as they walked, her slightly furrowed brow demonstrating confusion and curiosity that she didn't really feel. She knew what game he wanted to play. It sent a quick thrill through her. She was surprised at his audacity.
She slid closer to him, slipping her hand under his arm, holding it near the elbow. "Sure, Daddy. Sounds like fun," she answered in a little girl voice, playing along.
* * *
The zoo was just a short walk from her apartment. It was a small affair in the middle of Lincoln Park, near the lake, right in the midst of an array of high rise apartment buildings. Not far from there Clark Street offered an array of shops and eateries.
They made a long, simple day of walking around, giggling at things. He called her "sweetie" and "princess" and "little girl", and she called him "Daddy". Not often enough, or loud enough, to draw too much attention, but the game was constantly being played.
It was a cool, overcast day, an early sign of fall. The weather gave a somber, urgent feel to everything they did. Low, uneven clouds of shifting shades of gray cruised rapidly by overhead. They were a high ceiling of anger and sorrow and urgency personified. They made it seem as if everything was in motion, everything was alive and racing.
Throughout the day Mouse kept stopping complete strangers, asking them to take pictures of Mouse and Michael together, as if they were tourists. She got pictures of them standing arm in arm at the zoo in front of the elephants, holding hands in front of the boats in Diversey Harbor, mugging in front of the place they stopped for hot dogs. They took a perfunctory one in the park with the city skyline in the background. They took one with her securely nestled and snuggling under both of his arms at the rocks on Lake Michigan. She couldn't wait to see that picture, with the gray sky and the angry, dark, churning gray-green lake behind them.
Mouse also found a wonderfully rewarding variation on the "Daddy" game when she found a dress she really liked.
"Will you buy it for me, Daddy?" she asked sweetly.
"Do you like it? Okay, then. Anything for you, princess," was Michael's easy reply.
By the third outfit, he tried to change the rules.
"I think you have enough clothes for one day, don't you, little girl?" he asked. She pouted and pretended to a throw a small tantrum, and he eventually gave in. But she didn't ask for any more clothes after that. Three was enough. For one day, at least.
Late in the day, as the light was fading from the cloudy sky, they wandered into a used bookstore near her apartment, just to kill some time. Mouse immediately hunted down the trashy romance novels. She eagerly flipped through them, reading the juicy bits out loud, to Michael's discomfort. She found it funny, especially his embarrassment as she continued to call him "Daddy" between readings. "Listen to this, Daddy," she cooed, or "Ooooh, Daddy, here's a good part."
The public setting gave it an edge that she pushed to the limit with her little girl voice. He was listening between the lines, too, she realized, replacing in his mind the romantic, indirect descriptions as they were written with the colorfully vulgar language he'd read last night. She was sure he was adding even more words to fill in the the blurry implications with the sharply focused truths of his experiences. She felt a warm wetness spreading in her panties by the time she'd grown tired of the game.
She had to get him alone.
