The Manga Girl (3 page)

     
Nick shrugged. “I’m easy.”

     
They stood facing each other for a moment. Lucy rubbed her cheek and shifted on her bare feet. She really did look tired. Nick was kind of hoping for another peck on the cheek, but when none came, he said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll try not to make any noise when I get in.”

     
“The way I’m feeling right now, a brass marching band wouldn’t wake me.”

     
Nick got back home at one in the morning, not drunk, but not exactly sober. They’d shot some pool, hit a few more bars, but when they’d decided to head on to a strip club, Nick had bailed out. He’d taken some stick from the guys over that, but Sid had guessed the reason why - Nick hadn’t been able to get Lucy out of his head the whole night.

     
“I can’t blame you, man,” Sid had surprised Nick by saying. “We’re out looking for hot chicks and you’ve already got one curled up in your back bedroom. Go get her.”

     
The fact was Nick had no intention of ‘getting’ her. Lucy was a paying tenant, and somebody’s daughter, and he had promised her that she could trust him. Besides, if he was reading the wrong signs and he tried something, it could seriously backfire, leaving him in deep shit. He was a college graduate, a house owner, and he had a skilled and satisfying job - so even a desirable little sexpot like Lucy was simply not worth taking a chance on. That said there was no denying the effect she had on him, so self-control would have to be the order of the day.

     
As he crept up the stairs trying to avoid the creaking floorboards, Nick’s sole intention was to clean his teeth and go to bed. When he reached the landing however, he stopped. Lucy’s door was partially open.

     
He remained frozen in mid-stride, wobbling slightly on drunken legs.

     
No,
she just forgot to lock it because she was so tired. Let her be.

     
All he had to do was go to the bathroom and if he had been cold sober he probably would have, but instead he tiptoed to her door and eased it a few inches wider. Holding his breath, he slipped inside and approached her bed. The light was off, but a shaft of silver-blue moonlight illuminated the room.

     
Lucy was laying on her side with her back to him. She hadn’t got under the sheets, maybe because of the heat, but she had managed to slip out of her shorts and was now clad only in her t-shirt and a tiny red thong which disappeared between the cheeks of her smooth round ass. Her shoulders rose and fell gently as she slept. Nick had been furtively ogling this young woman’s body ever since he’d met her, but the voyeuristic nature of this moment caused his cock to stir. This was his first uninterrupted view of the twin swells of her buttocks. The skin was soft and unblemished, and for a long moment he reveled in her feminine presence.

     
When Lucy mumbled in her sleep and stretched out a leg, Nick quietly backed out of the room and went to bed.

***

     
He woke mid-morning, to the aroma of eggs, bacon and coffee drifting up the stairs. The sun was streaming in through the window and outside the sky was blue and clear. Nick rolled off the bed and went to the bathroom, pausing at Lucy’s room on the way. The door was still open and her bed had been made. He gazed at it for a few seconds before doing his ablutions, putting on a t-shirt and jeans, and heading down to the kitchen.

     
Lucy was wearing a loose, yellow, knee-length sundress and as far as Nick could ascertain, nothing else underneath. It was the first time he had seen her in a dress.

     
“Help yourself to some coffee,” she said. “It should be brewed by now.”

     
“Thank you.”

     
As Nick sat and watched her busily preparing breakfast, he could just make out the outline of her breasts, hips and buttocks under the thin material.

     
“What do you usually do on Sundays?” she asked.

     
“Not much. Sometimes I have a little preparation to do for work, but I’ve got a free day today.”

     
“Me too.”

     
She put down two plates and sat across from him, her cheeks flushed.

     
“You really didn’t have to do this,” Nick said.

     
“I know. Don’t expect it every day.”

     
Nick smiled. “It was very nice of you. Did you rest well?”

     
“Back to normal,” she said through a mouthful of toast.

     
This was all very unreal to Nick, eating Sunday breakfast with this young and gorgeous Japanese-American art student. He’d had this place for six months and she was the first woman to have slept here. It already felt like she’d been here forever.

     
“So I was thinking,” she said. “If you don’t have any plans, we could like, go out for the day.”

     
“Go out?”

     
“Sure. Summer’s coming over with my bike this evening, but apart from that I’ve got nothing to do. I don’t paint on Sundays. I was thinking maybe, Corey Hill. Have you ever been there?”

     
“In Brookline? No.”

     
“Me, either. They say the view is spectacular. We could pack some food, have a picnic.”

     
A picnic?
Nick thought.
Sid would just love this.

     
He had been considering spending the afternoon in his workshop - which he had been neglecting recently - but how often did you get invited out by a babe like this?

     
“Okay,” he said. “Why not?”

     
“Great. I’ll get some food ready.”

     
“I don’t have much in.”

     
“Then we’ll hit the store on the way. Do you have a car?”

     
“In for repairs.”

     
“No problem, we’ll take the Green Line.”

***

     
They took the streetcar, and then to Nick’s dismay, walked the impossibly steep hill up Summit Avenue to the small park of Corey Hill Outlook. There were quite a few people around, but they found a quiet corner with a breathtaking view of the Boston skyline. Once he had caught his breath, Nick had to agree it was worth the hike.

     
They ate salami sandwiches, tomato and garlic pasta, and sliced pineapple, and drank beer from a small cooler, and watched as people walked, sketched, played ball, and sunbathed. After they had eaten, they lay on their backs on the blanket, smelled the fresh grass, felt the warm wind on their faces, and gazed at the clouds scudding by.

     
“Can you believe that this is in the middle of the city?” Lucy asked.

     
“It was a good idea coming up here,” Nick said.

 
    
“Mm.”

     
“Even if it nearly killed me.”

     
She laughed at that and he glanced over at her. She was still wearing the sundress and he could see the points of her nipples pressing up against the fabric. She had her eyes closed and had drawn one knee up, causing the hem of her dress to slip back to her waist, and exposing a lot of thigh. Nick observed that she was wearing a pair of lilac satin panties - as did the occasional male passer-by.

     
They talked a little about their families. Lucy had left New York in kind of a hurry, though she didn’t say why. Nor did she reveal what had happened to her mother, although Nick sensed that her indifference was an act. Lucy informed him that her real Japanese name was Natsumi which meant ‘summer beauty’.

     
Nick explained that his parents were up in New Hampshire, that he had an aspiring actress sister in LA, and that he’d inherited the house from a great-aunt who had doted on him.
 

     
“I lost my virginity when I was eighteen,” Lucy said out of the blue.

     
Nick didn’t know how to respond.

     
“How about you?” Lucy prompted.

     
“Honest answer?” said Nick.

     
She rolled over, resting her chin in her hand. Nick was acutely aware of her close proximity and her ever-fruity scent. “Don’t tell me you’re a virgin,” she said, scrutinizing his face.

     
“No,” he answered truthfully. “I was twenty.”

     
“How many since?”

     
Now it was Nick’s turn to roll over. He looked directly into her eyes and saw that they were filled with bold mischief. He smiled in spite of himself.

     
“Are these the kind of questions you should be asking of your landlord?”

     
“Yes, I’m interested.”

     
Even with his limited experience with women, Nick figured that the picnic invitation and the intimate questions had to be leading somewhere - and like a moth to a flame, he was being drawn in.
  

     
“Okay. One.”

     
“One? Oh my God. You loved her and she broke your heart.”

     
They were close enough that all he had to do was tilt his head and he could press his lips against hers. He realized that his heart was pounding again.

     
“Something like that.”

     
He looked deep into her intoxicating eyes for a long moment, wondering if he should make the first move, but Lucy saved him the bother by rolling over onto her back again.

     
“I thought I was in love once,” she said simply.

     
His bubble burst, Nick lay back and then surprised himself by asking, “Did you ever make out with Summer?”

     
Lucy chuckled, one arm slung over her face.

     
“You’ve got a thing about that, haven’t you?”

     
“It’s just the way she seems so protective of you. It’s like she’s jealous or something.”

     
Lucy was silent for a moment.

     
“Alright,” she said. “We tried something once. We slept naked in the same bed. It wasn’t like sex though. Just touching and stuff.”

     
And stuff?
Nick thought.
Who
is
this girl?

     
Abruptly, Lucy jumped up and brushed down her skirt.

     
“I want to head back now,” she said, looming over him, all yellow dress and ruffled black hair. “Summer’s coming around at five.”

     
 
When they arrived back home, Lucy’s mountain bike was leaning against the front of Nick’s house with a note: COULDN’T WAIT. HOPE YOU HAD A NICE DAY. SEE YOU TOMORROW. SUMMER.

     
Lucy handed the note to Nick, smiled impishly, and then wheeled her bike inside.

     
Nick followed her and switched on the TV while Lucy headed upstairs.