Chapter One:
Sometimes I wonder if it was Fate after all, because so many events seemed to conspire to put me at that place and at that time, and if even one of them was different on that afternoon, I probably wouldn't have crossed paths with her.
First, there was that I got off work an hour early. One of my co-workers needed to pay for some emergency dental surgery, and most of us were letting him pick up an hour here or there from our shifts. I certainly didn't mind going a little early, although the weather made it complicated. That was the second thing. The best forecasts said it wasn't supposed to rain until the evening. Yet, just after 1pm, it started to drizzle. Ten minutes later, it was going hard. I'm talking torrential downpour. And it all happened just a few minutes before I started on my long walk home from work.
I didn't have my own car. Sometimes I was able to use my mother's, but usually she needed it, and that day I was out of luck. And there are buses, but not in a convenient straight line between my work and home. In order to get from one place to the other, I would have to make several transfers, waiting at each, often in the very weather I'd be trying to avoid. On the whole it took twice as long as just walking, which itself takes about half an hour. It was a pain in the ass and I kept telling myself to quit and try and get a more convenient job, but I didn't want it to reflect badly on my cousin, who recommended me.
As much as I sometimes complained about it, I didn't normally mind the walk, except in bad weather, where I was usually faced with the choice of either taking the long bus ride, or calling a cab. And after working a minimum wage job for several hours, with a student debt I was trying to chip away at before next year's tuition got piled on top, not to mention trying to save up for my own place, it didn't feel right to waste two hours wages on cab fare, especially when I'd just sacrificed one.
I might have had to bite the bullet on that, but, luckily, I'd just bought a new umbrella the other day, and even though my weather app said the rain wouldn't start until the evening, I still had it stuffed in the school bag where I keep my work clothes. So, when I saw it starting to drizzle through the window, I was feeling smug about myself---and when it poured, I was in utter relief---that I wouldn't be too inconvenienced and absurdly pleased I'd get to try out my new umbrella. It was only a couple bucks and it had this weird gel-grip handle that I couldn't stop myself from squeezing, then watching it slowly reform back to its normal shape, whenever I saw it.
Holding the umbrella aloft for long periods, that handle was less comfortable than I imagined, but at least it fulfilled its primary purpose... it kept me dry as I trudged through the streets. With the umbrella in place, my major concerns were avoiding the huge puddles as I crossed the street and potentially getting splashed by cars driving through them.
I took a slight detour from my usual route to minimize the second problem, which had already gotten one leg of my pants wet, by choosing a street that wasn't as trafficked as my usual one. In this point in the day, it was downright quiet, and as far as I could tell, I seemed to be the only one walking along that particular road.
My earbuds were in and I had a particularly loud song playing, so although I was dimly aware of someone yelling out, "Hey, hey!" I didn't really pay attention up until my shirt was tugged at and I turned around in some surprise, half-expecting I was being mugged.
It turned out to be anything but. Standing before me was a young girl, probably not even a teenager, who came up to just past the height of my elbow, and was the epitome of the expression "98 pounds soaking wet." I'm not sure if that was her exact weight, but the "soaking wet" was no metaphor. Her dark hair was plastered against her head, and the white t-shirt stuck tight to her skin, except at the front where she'd rolled up the bottom to protect something. That was probably partly why she was bent over, too, not completely, but she looked almost like somebody in pain. With that look, and how her blue eyes were so wide and pleading my heart almost broke.
I pulled one earbud out so I could hear what she was saying. "Hey, guy. Can I walk with you?"
"What?" It was such an unfamiliar request I assumed I must have misheard.
"Can I walk with you? So I don't get wet?" She smirked and looked down at herself. "More wet, I mean."
It didn't seem like that would be possible. For her to be any more wet, it seemed, she'd have to be a sponge and leak when you squeezed her. Well, with one exception. Whatever she had in the wrapped up bottom of her shirt... it was probably wet too, by now, but possibly not completely soaked.
Chivalry, or at least common courtesy, kicked in. "Oh, yeah, sure."
She stepped under the umbrella and wiped back a lock of dripping hair with one hand. "Thanks. This rain really came out of nowhere, didn't it?"
"Yeah. How long were you out in it?"
"Not too long," she said. "When it started I got caught for a minute or two and I managed to get with somebody else, and she took me as far as the corner." She half-heartedly waved to the one I'd just passed. "But she had to turn, so I just waited under that door overhang thing for the first person going my way."
I smirked a bit. "Wait, so you're like, hitching?"
She seemed extraordinarily taken aback. "What?"
"You know, you're like an umbrella hitchhiker," I explained.
"Ohhhh," she said, and then she smiled back, a genuine smile. "Yeah, I guess. It just comes naturally, though." Her smile widened. "'Cause my last name's 'Hitch.'." That explained why she was surprised, she thought I was referring to her name.
"Well, then, how can I refuse, a hitch from a Hitch?" I continued the dumb joke. "Well, I can take you as far as Elm, Miss Hitch, but then you're on your own." It was the first thing I could think of other than suggesting the traditional hitchhiker payment. "Ass, Grass, or Cash," which didn't seem appropriate with a girl her age.
She gave me a "Heh," mostly out of courtesy I think, which was more than the joke deserved, and then told me, "My first name's Astrid."
"I like that name," I said automatically. It immediately made me think the girl in the How To Train Your Dragon movies, even though she didn't look much like this girl. She smiled at the compliment, so I continued. "I'm Karl. No school today?" I was officially off, save for one last exam at the end of the week, but the elementary and high schools ran for almost another month, unless things had changed dramatically in the last couple years without me noticing.
"It was a half-day," she explained. I wasn't sure whether to believe her, considering I hadn't seen any other kids wandering about, but it was raining and, to be frank, if she was playing hooky... it really wasn't my problem. I was just making conversation, and whether she had school seemed like an appropriate thing to ask, at least.
The same went for the next question, which occurred to me when I glanced down at her and noticed her hands, which were still cradled protectively around the bundled up bottom of her shirt, even though the rain was no longer on her. "Your phone's not waterproof, I'm guessing?"
"What? I don't have a phone. Unfortunately." Then she looked down and realized I was referring to what she was holding so tightly. "Oh, no, it's a book! I was coming home from the library when it started pouring."
She unrolled the cloth and revealed what she'd been protecting from the rain at the expense of anything else. The book was an old paperback copy of The Lord of The Flies.
"Oh, nice," I said, genuinely impressed, not at the book itself, but the mere fact that she was reading it.
Her head twitched for a moment, like she was surprised to be getting that kind of reaction, instead of disinterest or scorn. Maybe that's what made her ask, "You've read it?"
"In school, yeah." I was maybe fourteen or fifteen when it was assigned for English, at least to the best of my recollection. Even though I was just in college, already my high school years were becoming fuzzy. Astrid did not look fourteen, though. "How old are you?"
"Twelve," she said.
"Did your school assign that?"
"No, I just like reading. I read loads of stuff, for fun."
I looked down at her, smiling a warm, encouraging smile, and I said, "Well, consider me impressed." Which was probably the worst possible time to say that, because it was right while I was speaking the word that I noticed her nipples.
The Umbrella Hitch - English erotic story
Re: The Umbrella Hitch - English erotic story
Chapter Two:
There's a reason Wet T-Shirt Contests use white shirts, and Astrid's flimsy white shirt was no exception to that rule. Soaked with rain, it had become nearly transparent, and plastered to her skin, it was easy to see everything underneath. When I'd first seen her, I'd noticed this in the back of my mind, but only as a fact that had no real importance, because, with the front stretched out ahead of her, the moist cloth wasn't lying directly against her skin except at her back and shoulders. With the book revealed, so was she... the fabric at the front fell against her chest, and was either already wet enough or it absorbed enough of the water on her skin that it, too, became almost invisible.
This skinny tween girl wore no bra, either... not that she really needed one. She wasn't completely flat chested, but she was close, with just small bumps that could be mistaken for a little extra baby fat left over after a growth spurt that rendered the rest of her body waif-like and just a little bit on her way to being awkward and gangly.
At a distance, you might not have noticed, might have mistaken it for just the color of her shirt itself. But up close as I was, you could definitely see, on the crest of those bumps, a slightly oval darker spot, nipples pressing against the transparent fabric.
I don't think it's fair to assume someone is a pedophile for staring, at first, and staring is what I did. I think guys are just wired to stare at breasts, even if it's inappropriate, even if they're small, even on a young girl. You can pull yourself away, and you should, but it takes a few seconds of conscious thought to realize that, and a surprise nipple can rid you of thought for more than a few seconds.
"What?" I said finally. She'd said something, but it was lost in the nipple-gazing.
If she noticed my attention, she gave me no sign. "I said it's really not that impressive."
I mentally rewound the conversation a few seconds. "Well, it is to me. I was a few years older than you when I read Lord of the Flies..."
She smiled, genuinely, with the bright eager eyes that young people often have. And before I finished my thought, my gaze, which were trending downward, went from her eyes, to her smile and finally back to that developing chest. Yes, there was still a nipple there. Two, in fact. The pause gave her the opportunity to interrupt me with a, "Oh yeah? You like?"
That snapped me back to attention, at least once I realized what she was talking about. "I did."
She looked at the book. "I do too, so far. It's pretty interesting how they're all starting to fall apart. Of course, it's all boys. I get the feeling that if there were a couple girls there things would be a lot different."
Probably, but I wasn't sure exactly where she was going with that. Girls weren't naturally more civilized, and they might even cause more tension for some of the older boys. So I went with a neutral "Maybe." Then I remembered, or thought I remembered, that for the first part of the book they were cooperating pretty well. "Didn't you just get that today? How far are you into it?"
"About a hundred pages," she said. "A little less than half. I'm probably going to finish this tonight. I should have gotten another one but then I would have had to return one too and all the other ones I have out I want to read again."
"Wow, I'm impressed again." What I was not impressed by was my tendency to keep looking back towards her visible nipples. It violated everything my mother tried to instill in my about respect for women as people and not treating them like sexual objects. I only prayed this girl didn't notice, and tried to focus on talking to her like a person. "And I'm glad to see someone meet who likes reading. It seems like less and less people read for fun nowadays." This cynical assessment was actually only a half-truth. More and more people seemed to be reading, really, but they were only reading a few books, the really popular ones, like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games series. And those were fine, but they were a limited menu. It was like calling yourself a movie buff because you enjoy summer blockbusters, or a restaurant critic because you occasionally complain about your order at McDonalds. Maybe technically it might be true that they're "people who read for fun" but... it seemed to me to be less about the reading and more about the enjoying something everyone was talking about. People who read a lot of different things, knowing that for most of them they might never meet another person who read it without being forced? Those people seemed to be rare, and to me, precious. Of course, maybe Astrid was one of those lowest-common-denominator readers, and this book was an anomaly, but I decided to err on the side of optimism.
"There are some avid readers in my class," she said. "But we don't get along."
"Really? I've always found I got along much better with people who read for fun." Also with girls who's nipples I could peek, I always got along great with them, at least as long as they didn't realize. I flashed back to a girl named Melanie who, when I was twelve, bent over a shared desk with a low-cut top during a group project. I had a crush on her the rest of the year. Now that I thought about it, her body was similar...
I realized what I was thinking about, and what I was automatically staring at because of it, and forced myself to look at her eyes. Luckily, this time, she was looking away, like she was looking over in the direction the other readers in her class lived and thinking dark thoughts. "Yeah, well... some are okay, but a few of them are, like, booktubers... they collect ARCs and make review videos and they make me feel bad about not having followers and reading things that aren't the newest thing. And with some of them, if you don't like a book they love, or you like a book they hate, or you ship the wrong couples, it's like, they, like, act like there's something wrong with you. And I pretty much do all of those things. So... they're kind of jerks, in my book."
I immediately liked her a little more. "Oh, well, if they're jerks," I said, as though that was reason enough. "You're too good to hang around with jerks anyway." Of course, remembering how things went at that age, it was probably just a temporary spats and they'd be BFFs in another few weeks. What if my words accidentally soured that process? I figured it was unlikely, but just in case, I added, "At least, while they're jerks. Sometimes, people are only temporarily jerks." I was talking too much, but that was good, because it kept me from thinking about, and looking at... no, there I went again, evaluating the sole contestant of this impromptu preteen wet t-shirt contest. "I feel like I'm saying the word 'jerks' a lot. It's started to lose all meaning. Jerk. Jerk. Jerk." Each repetition was said with a slightly different intonation.
I thought I was being stupid and awkward, but she laughed, which made me feel better, and I said, "I just need to get 'jerk' o.... out of my mind." Phew, that was close. I almost said 'jerk off.' She probably wouldn't know what it meant, at her age. Maybe she'd think it was a like a bug spray for jerks. Jerk-Off. I could then legitimately offer to spray her with jerk off. Oh, God, I thought suddenly, as a decidedly non-innocent vision of that passed through my head, this innocent child smiling as I coated her face with milky white... no, blasted all over her shirt so much that once it sank in, it made the fabrics see-thru enough to let me see her nipples... the same nipples that were right there below me. I began to get hard. What is wrong with me? I heard myself saying, in my head.
I still didn't think I was a pedophile... I guess I could understand how it happened, how if you were hard up enough, and I was, your brain might confuse a body part or situation as sexy because if they were older, it would be. And then, knowing you're doing something wrong, it only made it worse, as the mere fact that it was taboo seemed to make it even hotter. But even though I was thinking some abominable things, I reassured myself that I couldn't be a pedophile because I never searched out kids when I wanted to get off. This was just a freak impulse, like when walking over a bridge and part of you wants to jump off. And it would be equally stupid to give in to either impulse. But I was confident it would pass as soon as I was out of the situation.
I tried to force my gaze forward, remember the thread of the conversation. We were talking about boobs. No, books. With a k. At least that was comfortable territory for me, at least with a fellow reader. "When I was young I used to hide my reading, because there were jerks there, too... they were already calling me a geek, and I didn't want to, you know, live up to the stereotype. So I did all my reading at home."
"I do most of my reading at home, too," she said, her voice chirping up in excitement. "But that's mostly because it's too loud at school. And also we don't have... AIIIYE." That wasn't an acronym, it was a scream, generated as a minivan passed us and tore through a puddle, sending water flying in our direction. Because Astrid was on the side of me that was nearest to traffic, she got the brunt of it, although it mostly got her pastel blue pants and running shoes. It got some of my slacks too.
"You okay?" I asked. She'd tensed up and her mouth was half-open in a grimace like you sometimes get when water's really chilly, but as wet as she was a little more cold water shouldn't have made much of a difference.
Her face relaxed as she suddenly looked downward. "Yeah... it's just... my book." I followed her gaze, trying, and failing, to avoid looking at her still visible nipples on the way down.
"It doesn't look too bad," I said. And I wasn't just being polite, in the second or so she was aware she was about to get hit, she'd instinctively shielded the book... sure, it had gotten a little wet at the side, but I didn't think it would do any permanent damage. "Here, why don't you walk on the other side of me. That way if it happens again, my body will protect you."
"Thanks," she said. "But I'm already so wet." Hearing her say those words was not what I needed just then. "I can take a splashing, it just caught me by surprise." Yes, the responsible thing to do would be to warn a girl before you splash her with something.
"It's okay. Really. Protect the book." I stepped forward and let her circle around the back, all the while keeping the umbrella tilted so that it protected her more than me.
"Thank you," she said softly, and the big smile she gave me as she looked up at me, that made me feel warm and sunny inside, even though it was still a mess outside of the small circle protected by my umbrella.
I switched ear buds, then. I had taken the one out on the side she was on and let it dangle, but now that she switched sides, it only seemed right to put it back in and take the other one out. It might have been more polite to leave both out, but then it would have been a pain to retrieve when I needed it. The volume was low enough that it wasn't really interfering with my ability to hear anyway.
The movement, though, that got noticed. It was hard to subtly do with only one hand, the other holding the umbrella. "What are you listening to?"
"Uh, you know, music." It was mostly that I was just taken by surprise by the question, rather than deliberately trying to be a smart-ass. When I listen to music on ear-buds, it's always like it's happening in my own little world, and generally nobody cares, so somebody asking about it... well, it's just unexpected.
"Can I?" She pointed to the ear-bud I just removed. I did have a moment's hesitation, some tiny fear of my musical tastes being judged by a preteen, but pushed it aside and nodded. She grabbed it, then made sure her next step took her closer to me, leaning in.
**
There's a reason Wet T-Shirt Contests use white shirts, and Astrid's flimsy white shirt was no exception to that rule. Soaked with rain, it had become nearly transparent, and plastered to her skin, it was easy to see everything underneath. When I'd first seen her, I'd noticed this in the back of my mind, but only as a fact that had no real importance, because, with the front stretched out ahead of her, the moist cloth wasn't lying directly against her skin except at her back and shoulders. With the book revealed, so was she... the fabric at the front fell against her chest, and was either already wet enough or it absorbed enough of the water on her skin that it, too, became almost invisible.
This skinny tween girl wore no bra, either... not that she really needed one. She wasn't completely flat chested, but she was close, with just small bumps that could be mistaken for a little extra baby fat left over after a growth spurt that rendered the rest of her body waif-like and just a little bit on her way to being awkward and gangly.
At a distance, you might not have noticed, might have mistaken it for just the color of her shirt itself. But up close as I was, you could definitely see, on the crest of those bumps, a slightly oval darker spot, nipples pressing against the transparent fabric.
I don't think it's fair to assume someone is a pedophile for staring, at first, and staring is what I did. I think guys are just wired to stare at breasts, even if it's inappropriate, even if they're small, even on a young girl. You can pull yourself away, and you should, but it takes a few seconds of conscious thought to realize that, and a surprise nipple can rid you of thought for more than a few seconds.
"What?" I said finally. She'd said something, but it was lost in the nipple-gazing.
If she noticed my attention, she gave me no sign. "I said it's really not that impressive."
I mentally rewound the conversation a few seconds. "Well, it is to me. I was a few years older than you when I read Lord of the Flies..."
She smiled, genuinely, with the bright eager eyes that young people often have. And before I finished my thought, my gaze, which were trending downward, went from her eyes, to her smile and finally back to that developing chest. Yes, there was still a nipple there. Two, in fact. The pause gave her the opportunity to interrupt me with a, "Oh yeah? You like?"
That snapped me back to attention, at least once I realized what she was talking about. "I did."
She looked at the book. "I do too, so far. It's pretty interesting how they're all starting to fall apart. Of course, it's all boys. I get the feeling that if there were a couple girls there things would be a lot different."
Probably, but I wasn't sure exactly where she was going with that. Girls weren't naturally more civilized, and they might even cause more tension for some of the older boys. So I went with a neutral "Maybe." Then I remembered, or thought I remembered, that for the first part of the book they were cooperating pretty well. "Didn't you just get that today? How far are you into it?"
"About a hundred pages," she said. "A little less than half. I'm probably going to finish this tonight. I should have gotten another one but then I would have had to return one too and all the other ones I have out I want to read again."
"Wow, I'm impressed again." What I was not impressed by was my tendency to keep looking back towards her visible nipples. It violated everything my mother tried to instill in my about respect for women as people and not treating them like sexual objects. I only prayed this girl didn't notice, and tried to focus on talking to her like a person. "And I'm glad to see someone meet who likes reading. It seems like less and less people read for fun nowadays." This cynical assessment was actually only a half-truth. More and more people seemed to be reading, really, but they were only reading a few books, the really popular ones, like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games series. And those were fine, but they were a limited menu. It was like calling yourself a movie buff because you enjoy summer blockbusters, or a restaurant critic because you occasionally complain about your order at McDonalds. Maybe technically it might be true that they're "people who read for fun" but... it seemed to me to be less about the reading and more about the enjoying something everyone was talking about. People who read a lot of different things, knowing that for most of them they might never meet another person who read it without being forced? Those people seemed to be rare, and to me, precious. Of course, maybe Astrid was one of those lowest-common-denominator readers, and this book was an anomaly, but I decided to err on the side of optimism.
"There are some avid readers in my class," she said. "But we don't get along."
"Really? I've always found I got along much better with people who read for fun." Also with girls who's nipples I could peek, I always got along great with them, at least as long as they didn't realize. I flashed back to a girl named Melanie who, when I was twelve, bent over a shared desk with a low-cut top during a group project. I had a crush on her the rest of the year. Now that I thought about it, her body was similar...
I realized what I was thinking about, and what I was automatically staring at because of it, and forced myself to look at her eyes. Luckily, this time, she was looking away, like she was looking over in the direction the other readers in her class lived and thinking dark thoughts. "Yeah, well... some are okay, but a few of them are, like, booktubers... they collect ARCs and make review videos and they make me feel bad about not having followers and reading things that aren't the newest thing. And with some of them, if you don't like a book they love, or you like a book they hate, or you ship the wrong couples, it's like, they, like, act like there's something wrong with you. And I pretty much do all of those things. So... they're kind of jerks, in my book."
I immediately liked her a little more. "Oh, well, if they're jerks," I said, as though that was reason enough. "You're too good to hang around with jerks anyway." Of course, remembering how things went at that age, it was probably just a temporary spats and they'd be BFFs in another few weeks. What if my words accidentally soured that process? I figured it was unlikely, but just in case, I added, "At least, while they're jerks. Sometimes, people are only temporarily jerks." I was talking too much, but that was good, because it kept me from thinking about, and looking at... no, there I went again, evaluating the sole contestant of this impromptu preteen wet t-shirt contest. "I feel like I'm saying the word 'jerks' a lot. It's started to lose all meaning. Jerk. Jerk. Jerk." Each repetition was said with a slightly different intonation.
I thought I was being stupid and awkward, but she laughed, which made me feel better, and I said, "I just need to get 'jerk' o.... out of my mind." Phew, that was close. I almost said 'jerk off.' She probably wouldn't know what it meant, at her age. Maybe she'd think it was a like a bug spray for jerks. Jerk-Off. I could then legitimately offer to spray her with jerk off. Oh, God, I thought suddenly, as a decidedly non-innocent vision of that passed through my head, this innocent child smiling as I coated her face with milky white... no, blasted all over her shirt so much that once it sank in, it made the fabrics see-thru enough to let me see her nipples... the same nipples that were right there below me. I began to get hard. What is wrong with me? I heard myself saying, in my head.
I still didn't think I was a pedophile... I guess I could understand how it happened, how if you were hard up enough, and I was, your brain might confuse a body part or situation as sexy because if they were older, it would be. And then, knowing you're doing something wrong, it only made it worse, as the mere fact that it was taboo seemed to make it even hotter. But even though I was thinking some abominable things, I reassured myself that I couldn't be a pedophile because I never searched out kids when I wanted to get off. This was just a freak impulse, like when walking over a bridge and part of you wants to jump off. And it would be equally stupid to give in to either impulse. But I was confident it would pass as soon as I was out of the situation.
I tried to force my gaze forward, remember the thread of the conversation. We were talking about boobs. No, books. With a k. At least that was comfortable territory for me, at least with a fellow reader. "When I was young I used to hide my reading, because there were jerks there, too... they were already calling me a geek, and I didn't want to, you know, live up to the stereotype. So I did all my reading at home."
"I do most of my reading at home, too," she said, her voice chirping up in excitement. "But that's mostly because it's too loud at school. And also we don't have... AIIIYE." That wasn't an acronym, it was a scream, generated as a minivan passed us and tore through a puddle, sending water flying in our direction. Because Astrid was on the side of me that was nearest to traffic, she got the brunt of it, although it mostly got her pastel blue pants and running shoes. It got some of my slacks too.
"You okay?" I asked. She'd tensed up and her mouth was half-open in a grimace like you sometimes get when water's really chilly, but as wet as she was a little more cold water shouldn't have made much of a difference.
Her face relaxed as she suddenly looked downward. "Yeah... it's just... my book." I followed her gaze, trying, and failing, to avoid looking at her still visible nipples on the way down.
"It doesn't look too bad," I said. And I wasn't just being polite, in the second or so she was aware she was about to get hit, she'd instinctively shielded the book... sure, it had gotten a little wet at the side, but I didn't think it would do any permanent damage. "Here, why don't you walk on the other side of me. That way if it happens again, my body will protect you."
"Thanks," she said. "But I'm already so wet." Hearing her say those words was not what I needed just then. "I can take a splashing, it just caught me by surprise." Yes, the responsible thing to do would be to warn a girl before you splash her with something.
"It's okay. Really. Protect the book." I stepped forward and let her circle around the back, all the while keeping the umbrella tilted so that it protected her more than me.
"Thank you," she said softly, and the big smile she gave me as she looked up at me, that made me feel warm and sunny inside, even though it was still a mess outside of the small circle protected by my umbrella.
I switched ear buds, then. I had taken the one out on the side she was on and let it dangle, but now that she switched sides, it only seemed right to put it back in and take the other one out. It might have been more polite to leave both out, but then it would have been a pain to retrieve when I needed it. The volume was low enough that it wasn't really interfering with my ability to hear anyway.
The movement, though, that got noticed. It was hard to subtly do with only one hand, the other holding the umbrella. "What are you listening to?"
"Uh, you know, music." It was mostly that I was just taken by surprise by the question, rather than deliberately trying to be a smart-ass. When I listen to music on ear-buds, it's always like it's happening in my own little world, and generally nobody cares, so somebody asking about it... well, it's just unexpected.
"Can I?" She pointed to the ear-bud I just removed. I did have a moment's hesitation, some tiny fear of my musical tastes being judged by a preteen, but pushed it aside and nodded. She grabbed it, then made sure her next step took her closer to me, leaning in.
**
Re: The Umbrella Hitch - English erotic story
Chapter Three:
Despite that everpresent fear of mockery that's followed me throughout my life, I'm not that ashamed of the fact that I listen to mostly varieties of pop, sometimes the edgier stuff, but mostly with female vocalists. I especially ones with a bit of an off-kilter look or sound, though I like plenty of mainstream ones too. Taylor Swift, Lorde, Bea Miller, Digital Daggers, a few really obscure indy artists are among those who populate my favorite playlists. My mom thinks it's great that she's taught me not to look down on female artists, to give them the respect they deserve but are often denied by a male-dominated industry (though she wishes I'd pirate music from the bigger names rather than support the RIAA and millionaires getting even richer). But for me, it's not about feminism or anything like that.... it's just... if I'm going to have someone in my ear singing about love or sex or pain, I'd rather it be a woman. And it's the kind of music I can easily lose myself in.
I mentally prepared myself with responses to anything negative Astrid might say about it, not so much to defend myself but to project the idea that I didn't care what anyone thought. It turned out that I didn't need to. "Sounds a little like that song from Portal, 'Still Alive,'" Astrid said about the song I had on.
She had a point. There was a slightly computerized quality to the voice that they had in common, like it came out of the uncanny valley... I hadn't noticed until she mentioned it, but it was part of the reason I liked it. There was something in the rhythm and music too that sounded like something out of a classic arcade game. "Yeah, I guess it does." I also really liked the song 'Still Alive,' but then, I enjoy gaming. Actually, my attitude with games was sort of like music... I usually gravitated towards female characters, and I'd never admit it, but it's mostly because, if I was going to be staring at a person's backside for hours at a time, it might as well look pretty, right? I've even got a separate play list with songs from video games (even ones without female vocalists), some in-game music and some that I just like because I heard them in a video game, like my set of old-timey music from Fallout. 'Still Alive' wasn't on any of my playlists, but that was more of an oversight than anything else. "I really should put that on my playlist too."
She nodded. "It's a fun song."
"So you play games?" I mentally berated myself for the stupid question. Most kids play games, right?
"Yeah. Mostly just single player games though, because my mom... I mean, we don't always have Internet access."
I nodded, thinking I understood. When I was young, cutting off the net was the usual go-to punishment for anything from too much talkback to not cleaning my room. Astrid seemed nice, but most kids got into at least a little bit of trouble.
She pointed to her ear. "So what's this song called?"
"'Plastic Stars.' By Freezepop."
She repeated it, and then her lips moved quickly and silently, as though she was doing it again and again until she was sure she remembered. I smiled to myself that I'd passed muster with the girl, and then the smile faded as I wondered if that really said good things about my taste. But, whatever, I like what I like, I got over being too worried about it years ago.
More concerning than sharing a 12-year-old's taste in music was my surprising new tendency to nipple-gaze at one, anyway. Which I'd just tried to do again, but at least now that she was leaned in closer to me it was harder to see anything without craning my neck. That, I managed to avoid. "So how far are we from your place?"
"Not too far," she said. "How about yours?"
"Still a little bit," I said, deciding to be just as vague as her. We walked a little further, mostly in silence, but the wind started to pick up, and she pressed up against me, just side to side, but I could feel her trembling. "You okay?" I tilted the umbrella toward the wind, and more carefully defending her than myself. The top of my head started to get wet.
"Yeah... it's just cold. Sorry."
"No, it's okay." It was an unseasonably cold wind, even though it was late spring... the normal temperature wasn't too bad, but when you added wind and rain, yeah, there were bursts of surprising chill that came and went. I was wearing a thin hoodie, though, so it wasn't so bad for me, and even below that, my shirt was more substantial than hers, which I hadn't forgotten was thin enough that her nipples showed through. The image of which I was now infesting my brain, even when I wasn't looking at it. Like a perfect little GIF looping in my mind, I could practically picture drops of water hitting the fabric, rendering it transparent, and then sliding off. I shook it off. "You could switch sides again," I suggested. "Then my body would block the wind... but you'd be at risk for puddles."
"No, it's okay," she said. "I'll stay on this side. Wind can't keep up forever, right?"
We kept moving, but the cold put a damper on the conversation. She seemed to edge closer and closer to me, close enough that she was rubbing her shoulder on my arm, and when a fresh burst of wind came in her direction, she turned into me. I imagined those erect, barely-clothed covered nipples pushing up against the arm I used to hold the umbrella, and even convinced myself that I felt them, although rationally I knew that I probably couldn't through the hoodie, and those parts of our bodies probably weren't even in contact.
It was only a momentary lapse, and after that I felt guilty for imagining it, especially when she was obviously uncomfortable from the cold. There wasn't anything I could really do about that, short of giving her my hoodie which, I considered, but it not only would look weird, but would also be tricky to pull off without getting both of us soaked. So instead, I thought the only thing I could do to help would be distracting her from the cold... and maybe it would distract me, too, from those unwelcome thoughts.
"So, Lord of the Flies," I said out of nowhere, to reintroduce the topic of conversation. We both still had one of the earbuds in, but it had moved onto a song that was mainstream enough that she recognized it without feeling the need to comment on it, so we needed something new to discuss. "Let's say you were stuck on an island with your classmates. How do you think it would go?"
"What?"
"You know, just for fun. How do you think it would go?" It was something I always liked doing when I read, imagining the situation happening to me.
She frowned, sort of. It was more a wrinkling up of her mouth in thought that resembled a frown rather than a frown of sadness. "Well, I guess I would be Piggy."
"Nope."
"Yes, I would."
"No," I said, as we waited at a streetlight to cross. "Firstly, I'm not asking you who would be Piggy, who would be Ralph, who would be Jack..." Those were the only names I remembered, except there were also a set of twins who's names got mooshed together. "You haven't read the whole book so you don't know what happens to all of them anyway. It wouldn't be fair. I just want you to tell me what you think would happen with your class."
"Okay..." she said, drawing out the word as she thought.
"And secondly," I continued, "There's no way anyone would call you Piggy. Piggy was ugly and overweight and he wore glasses, and none of that applies to you."
She was quiet for a few more seconds and I looked down at her and she was looking up at me. "Thank you," she said finally. "But you're wrong."
"I know sometimes it's hard to see your own... beauty," I said. "But look, I've got no reason to lie... I've never met you before, I'm probably never going to see you again, so, trust me, there's not a thing wrong with you." I was lying. Not about her looks, I couldn't see anything that might be considered unattractive, especially around her nipple area. But I would have said the same thing even if she was ugly, or overweight, just because I'm not an asshole. And who wants a kid to feel bad about themselves?
"Thanks," she said again, "but I meant... I do wear glasses."
"Oh." I shrugged. "Well, two out of three aren't bad."
"I'm not as bad as Piggy, I can see okay without them. I need them for class, though, to read the board. And I could probably use them to start a fire. That's why I said I'd be like Piggy."
Oops. Okay, well, I didn't think it would hurt to give her a self-esteem boost even if she hadn't compared herself to Piggy for the negative attributes. "Okay, that's not a bad thing, then."
We moved through the intersection. "And also because... people kind of think I'm annoying. I'm always the one who has to ask people if I can join in."
"Hmph. Well, I don't see it. You seem pretty pleasant to me. It's probably the jerk factor at play." She smiled. "Okay, so you're on an island with a class full of jerks, and you're the only one who can start a fire. What else?"
"Well I probably wouldn't be the ONLY one who could start a fire," she said, but then continued thinking. "Well, I think at first most people would be doing stupid stuff like taking selfies or trying to call home, but there wouldn't be any service, right?"
"Right." At least, I didn't think so. GPS and things like that might work, but being in range of a tower seemed unlikely unless there was another, more civilized, island very close by.
"I think I'd try to stay close to Jimmy, since he was in scouts. But then Layla is dating him and she doesn't like me so I think she'd be threatened even though I don't like him like that. But maybe on an island he'd see how shallow and useless she is, I don't know."
"Uh-huh." I didn't really care, honestly, about the exact social dynamics of twelve-year-olds, but I didn't want her to know that. For me, the methods of survival was more interesting.
Luckily, that was her next topic. "Water would be most important, right? So, I don't know, maybe we could set up something to catch rain, if it rained while we searched the island. If we couldn't find it, we wouldn't last long." We took a few more steps while she thought. "I think we're better off than those kids since we've seen things like Survivor and how they build shelters and everything." I had my doubts about that being all that much of a help... it's one thing to see someone build a shelter on TV, another thing to do it yourself. But I didn't want to rain on her parade... she was wet enough today.
Instead, I went another way to keep her talking, keep her distracted from the cold, keep me distracted too. "Yeah, but everyone has to cooperate. Do you think that would happen?"
"No, probably not. I mean, we'd probably stick to the same cliques as we have now, mostly. Except all the popular people would be trying to get us to do the work for them. Then maybe they'd all run off and go hunting, even though fishing makes more sense." She smiled a little. "A few of them would probably eat some poison berries or something when they couldn't find any meat."
I smirked. "Wow, that got dark fast."
"It's a dark situation." But she said it with amusement in her voice, like she knew that I knew we were both not being serious.
We crossed another street, practically skipping at times, and jumping over a large puddle that had pooled at the other side, in a natural depression before the sidewalk began again. A few steps on the other side, I felt her pull very slightly against my arm. "Um..." she said.
"What?"
"I guess this is where I get off."
**
Despite that everpresent fear of mockery that's followed me throughout my life, I'm not that ashamed of the fact that I listen to mostly varieties of pop, sometimes the edgier stuff, but mostly with female vocalists. I especially ones with a bit of an off-kilter look or sound, though I like plenty of mainstream ones too. Taylor Swift, Lorde, Bea Miller, Digital Daggers, a few really obscure indy artists are among those who populate my favorite playlists. My mom thinks it's great that she's taught me not to look down on female artists, to give them the respect they deserve but are often denied by a male-dominated industry (though she wishes I'd pirate music from the bigger names rather than support the RIAA and millionaires getting even richer). But for me, it's not about feminism or anything like that.... it's just... if I'm going to have someone in my ear singing about love or sex or pain, I'd rather it be a woman. And it's the kind of music I can easily lose myself in.
I mentally prepared myself with responses to anything negative Astrid might say about it, not so much to defend myself but to project the idea that I didn't care what anyone thought. It turned out that I didn't need to. "Sounds a little like that song from Portal, 'Still Alive,'" Astrid said about the song I had on.
She had a point. There was a slightly computerized quality to the voice that they had in common, like it came out of the uncanny valley... I hadn't noticed until she mentioned it, but it was part of the reason I liked it. There was something in the rhythm and music too that sounded like something out of a classic arcade game. "Yeah, I guess it does." I also really liked the song 'Still Alive,' but then, I enjoy gaming. Actually, my attitude with games was sort of like music... I usually gravitated towards female characters, and I'd never admit it, but it's mostly because, if I was going to be staring at a person's backside for hours at a time, it might as well look pretty, right? I've even got a separate play list with songs from video games (even ones without female vocalists), some in-game music and some that I just like because I heard them in a video game, like my set of old-timey music from Fallout. 'Still Alive' wasn't on any of my playlists, but that was more of an oversight than anything else. "I really should put that on my playlist too."
She nodded. "It's a fun song."
"So you play games?" I mentally berated myself for the stupid question. Most kids play games, right?
"Yeah. Mostly just single player games though, because my mom... I mean, we don't always have Internet access."
I nodded, thinking I understood. When I was young, cutting off the net was the usual go-to punishment for anything from too much talkback to not cleaning my room. Astrid seemed nice, but most kids got into at least a little bit of trouble.
She pointed to her ear. "So what's this song called?"
"'Plastic Stars.' By Freezepop."
She repeated it, and then her lips moved quickly and silently, as though she was doing it again and again until she was sure she remembered. I smiled to myself that I'd passed muster with the girl, and then the smile faded as I wondered if that really said good things about my taste. But, whatever, I like what I like, I got over being too worried about it years ago.
More concerning than sharing a 12-year-old's taste in music was my surprising new tendency to nipple-gaze at one, anyway. Which I'd just tried to do again, but at least now that she was leaned in closer to me it was harder to see anything without craning my neck. That, I managed to avoid. "So how far are we from your place?"
"Not too far," she said. "How about yours?"
"Still a little bit," I said, deciding to be just as vague as her. We walked a little further, mostly in silence, but the wind started to pick up, and she pressed up against me, just side to side, but I could feel her trembling. "You okay?" I tilted the umbrella toward the wind, and more carefully defending her than myself. The top of my head started to get wet.
"Yeah... it's just cold. Sorry."
"No, it's okay." It was an unseasonably cold wind, even though it was late spring... the normal temperature wasn't too bad, but when you added wind and rain, yeah, there were bursts of surprising chill that came and went. I was wearing a thin hoodie, though, so it wasn't so bad for me, and even below that, my shirt was more substantial than hers, which I hadn't forgotten was thin enough that her nipples showed through. The image of which I was now infesting my brain, even when I wasn't looking at it. Like a perfect little GIF looping in my mind, I could practically picture drops of water hitting the fabric, rendering it transparent, and then sliding off. I shook it off. "You could switch sides again," I suggested. "Then my body would block the wind... but you'd be at risk for puddles."
"No, it's okay," she said. "I'll stay on this side. Wind can't keep up forever, right?"
We kept moving, but the cold put a damper on the conversation. She seemed to edge closer and closer to me, close enough that she was rubbing her shoulder on my arm, and when a fresh burst of wind came in her direction, she turned into me. I imagined those erect, barely-clothed covered nipples pushing up against the arm I used to hold the umbrella, and even convinced myself that I felt them, although rationally I knew that I probably couldn't through the hoodie, and those parts of our bodies probably weren't even in contact.
It was only a momentary lapse, and after that I felt guilty for imagining it, especially when she was obviously uncomfortable from the cold. There wasn't anything I could really do about that, short of giving her my hoodie which, I considered, but it not only would look weird, but would also be tricky to pull off without getting both of us soaked. So instead, I thought the only thing I could do to help would be distracting her from the cold... and maybe it would distract me, too, from those unwelcome thoughts.
"So, Lord of the Flies," I said out of nowhere, to reintroduce the topic of conversation. We both still had one of the earbuds in, but it had moved onto a song that was mainstream enough that she recognized it without feeling the need to comment on it, so we needed something new to discuss. "Let's say you were stuck on an island with your classmates. How do you think it would go?"
"What?"
"You know, just for fun. How do you think it would go?" It was something I always liked doing when I read, imagining the situation happening to me.
She frowned, sort of. It was more a wrinkling up of her mouth in thought that resembled a frown rather than a frown of sadness. "Well, I guess I would be Piggy."
"Nope."
"Yes, I would."
"No," I said, as we waited at a streetlight to cross. "Firstly, I'm not asking you who would be Piggy, who would be Ralph, who would be Jack..." Those were the only names I remembered, except there were also a set of twins who's names got mooshed together. "You haven't read the whole book so you don't know what happens to all of them anyway. It wouldn't be fair. I just want you to tell me what you think would happen with your class."
"Okay..." she said, drawing out the word as she thought.
"And secondly," I continued, "There's no way anyone would call you Piggy. Piggy was ugly and overweight and he wore glasses, and none of that applies to you."
She was quiet for a few more seconds and I looked down at her and she was looking up at me. "Thank you," she said finally. "But you're wrong."
"I know sometimes it's hard to see your own... beauty," I said. "But look, I've got no reason to lie... I've never met you before, I'm probably never going to see you again, so, trust me, there's not a thing wrong with you." I was lying. Not about her looks, I couldn't see anything that might be considered unattractive, especially around her nipple area. But I would have said the same thing even if she was ugly, or overweight, just because I'm not an asshole. And who wants a kid to feel bad about themselves?
"Thanks," she said again, "but I meant... I do wear glasses."
"Oh." I shrugged. "Well, two out of three aren't bad."
"I'm not as bad as Piggy, I can see okay without them. I need them for class, though, to read the board. And I could probably use them to start a fire. That's why I said I'd be like Piggy."
Oops. Okay, well, I didn't think it would hurt to give her a self-esteem boost even if she hadn't compared herself to Piggy for the negative attributes. "Okay, that's not a bad thing, then."
We moved through the intersection. "And also because... people kind of think I'm annoying. I'm always the one who has to ask people if I can join in."
"Hmph. Well, I don't see it. You seem pretty pleasant to me. It's probably the jerk factor at play." She smiled. "Okay, so you're on an island with a class full of jerks, and you're the only one who can start a fire. What else?"
"Well I probably wouldn't be the ONLY one who could start a fire," she said, but then continued thinking. "Well, I think at first most people would be doing stupid stuff like taking selfies or trying to call home, but there wouldn't be any service, right?"
"Right." At least, I didn't think so. GPS and things like that might work, but being in range of a tower seemed unlikely unless there was another, more civilized, island very close by.
"I think I'd try to stay close to Jimmy, since he was in scouts. But then Layla is dating him and she doesn't like me so I think she'd be threatened even though I don't like him like that. But maybe on an island he'd see how shallow and useless she is, I don't know."
"Uh-huh." I didn't really care, honestly, about the exact social dynamics of twelve-year-olds, but I didn't want her to know that. For me, the methods of survival was more interesting.
Luckily, that was her next topic. "Water would be most important, right? So, I don't know, maybe we could set up something to catch rain, if it rained while we searched the island. If we couldn't find it, we wouldn't last long." We took a few more steps while she thought. "I think we're better off than those kids since we've seen things like Survivor and how they build shelters and everything." I had my doubts about that being all that much of a help... it's one thing to see someone build a shelter on TV, another thing to do it yourself. But I didn't want to rain on her parade... she was wet enough today.
Instead, I went another way to keep her talking, keep her distracted from the cold, keep me distracted too. "Yeah, but everyone has to cooperate. Do you think that would happen?"
"No, probably not. I mean, we'd probably stick to the same cliques as we have now, mostly. Except all the popular people would be trying to get us to do the work for them. Then maybe they'd all run off and go hunting, even though fishing makes more sense." She smiled a little. "A few of them would probably eat some poison berries or something when they couldn't find any meat."
I smirked. "Wow, that got dark fast."
"It's a dark situation." But she said it with amusement in her voice, like she knew that I knew we were both not being serious.
We crossed another street, practically skipping at times, and jumping over a large puddle that had pooled at the other side, in a natural depression before the sidewalk began again. A few steps on the other side, I felt her pull very slightly against my arm. "Um..." she said.
"What?"
"I guess this is where I get off."
**