THREE TIMES A LADY (5 page)

Goddamn right, it was.

In any event, here Nicholas was, finally ready to become a man.  And what was the one thing all men needed?

Why, a
woman
, of course. 

Nicholas finally came to a stop thirty seconds later and hopped off his ten-speed next to a rusted-out bike rack in front of Miller’s Hardware Store before glancing to his right.  Thirty yards away, Claire Bishop was smoking marijuana cigarettes with a small collection of her friends behind a McDonald’s dumpster on the south side of the strip-mall, just like she
always
did around this time of day.  Fucking drug addict. 

Pulling up his shirt in the front in order to let in some air, Nicholas smiled to himself despite the disgust he felt inside for the girl’s smoking habit.  He’d been watching Claire Bishop for months now, and after a great deal of planning on his part, he’d finally decided she’d be the one.  The
first
one, at least.  After that, who knew?  He’d just need to wait and see where life took him from there. 

Behind the dumpster, Claire took a healthy hit of a joint and blew out a huge cloud of smoke before giggling happily and passing it along to one of her friends.  Even through the haze, it was easy to see just how pretty she was.  Her long brown hair hung freely over her soft shoulders (the hands-down style at the time since nobody had yet heard of David Berkowitz or the preferred physical makeup of his victims) and even from this distance Nicholas could tell that she had a body that just wouldn’t quit.  Absolutely
perfect
for his intentions for the day. 

Twelve years at most, the girl wore tiny blue polyester shorts that showed off long tan legs and just a hint of well-rounded buttocks peeking out from each side.  A midriff-baring shirt featured spaghetti-thin straps hanging over her shoulders, which served as the backdrop for her glorious hair.  Best of all – most
exciting
of all, to Nicholas, at least – her pert, slightly upturned breasts had already blossomed like daffodils turning their faces to the morning sun.  No bra, of course.  Who in the hell needed a bra when you had tits like that?

Nicholas nodded approvingly at the way the girl’s hard nipples poked like tiny diamonds through the flimsy fabric of her flower-patterned shirt.  Nice piece of ass, that much was for sure
.  A real fine piece of machinery he wouldn’t mind checking under the hood.
  Still, hot as she might be, Nicholas knew that not even Claire Bishop presented any match for him when it came to looks.

Nicholas wasn’t conceited – no way in hell his mother would ever stand for such self-centeredness, not on his part, at least – but even he knew that his sparkling green eyes looked like shining emeralds encased in a face that had been carved out of solid granite.  His strong jaw line was set firmly beneath high cheekbones that did a fine job of accentuating his pleasant features, and his short brown hair never seemed out of place, not even when he rolled out of bed first thing in the morning.  Not an ounce of fat to be found anywhere on his body.  Not so much as the
trace
of a blemish on his handsome face when so many other boys his age were suffering from the dreaded ‘pizza-face’ syndrome brought about by their own raging hormones.  What’s more, Nicholas knew that he would only grow even
handsomer
as the years passed.  Hell, his genetics
dictated
that much.  Just take a look at his mother.  Apples – even the rotten ones – never fell too far from the tree.

Nicholas breathed in deeply through his nostrils and caught a faint whiff of the marijuana the girls were smoking before closing his eyes, feeling a renewed sense of excitement flood through his crotch at the thought of his mother.  Perverted as though it might sound to others, Nicholas had already memorised almost every last inch of Annabeth Preston’s exquisite body from a distance, and he would’ve happily jumped at the chance to memorise the inches of her that still remained a mystery to him.  The inches of her in which he’d always been the most interested.  The inches of herself that she selfishly covered up in her lacy undergarments each night shortly before bedtime. 

Nicholas opened up again his eyes and shook his head while he leaned down to chain up his bicycle to the rack, realising that it was probably just the testosterone shots to blame, mixed in with more than just a dash of his thoroughly screwed-up psychology.  That being said, the simple fact of the matter was that
everything
about his mother seemed to drive him crazy these days, even more so than when he’d been eight years old.  The seductive shape of her gorgeous mouth.  The soft swell of her ample breasts.  The way she’d sometimes kick off her blankets on hot summer nights to expose a beautiful figure usually encased in little more than a sheer white negligee that clung to her shapely body like plastic wrap and made Nicholas’s entire
soul
quiver with desire.  To make matters worse, his mother had recently ramped up the dosage on Nicholas’s daily testosterone shots – ‘to make things more natural’, she’d said.  To make up for the areas in which he was sorely lacking, thanks to her.  Only time would tell where
that
would eventually lead him, but to be honest that time felt like now.  Like,
right now
.

It felt like
today
.

Just as Nicholas had known she would all along, Claire Bishop made the first move.  And why would he be surprised by that?  Luckily for him, he’d never been the kind of boy who’d ever needed to put in too much work when it came to girls, which made his life that much easier.  Not that anything in his life could possibly be considered
easy
, of course.  Not with a mother like Annabeth Preston. 

‘Hey you!’ Claire Bishop called out to him as Nicholas pretended to check the air pressure on the back tire of his ten-speed.  Apparently impressed by her boldness, her stoner friends giggled as one.

Nicholas acted as though he didn’t hear her at first, of course.  Had to play things cool with the women, after all.   Show them you weren’t all that interested.  If you played things that way, it only made them want you that much more.  At least, that’s what he’d read recently in
Playboy
– not that he was the sort of boy who looked at the steamy publication simply to read its sterling articles.  Any guy who said they did was just lying.

‘Hey you!’ Claire Bishop repeated, louder this time.  Nicholas continued to ignore her and pressed down on the back tire of his ten-speed again, testing its firmness with his thumb.  Even at her young age, though, it was obvious that Claire Bishop wasn’t the kind of girl used to having to say things twice, especially to boys.  Or to men, for that matter.  And where in the hell was the great big surprise in that?  After all, when you had the figure of a twenty-five-year-old swimsuit model at the tender age of twelve you learned quickly how to use it to your greatest advantage.  Sex was the one commodity Claire Bishop had to sell in this world, and from the look of things she had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about trading in on it whenever she could.  ‘You with the yellow shirt!’ she continued, as though she could possibly be talking to somebody else.

Nicholas looked down at his shirt and lifted up his eyebrows thoughtfully on his forehead. 
Oops, busted.
  His shirt was yellow, all right – complete with a little man on horseback who was swinging a mallet and positioned tastefully just above his left breast pocket.  How very observant of her.  Nicholas guessed what he’d heard about dogs wasn’t true, after all.  Turns out some of them
weren’t
colourblind.  And now it was time to give the mutt its treat for performing such a remarkable feat of intelligence.  ‘Yeah?’ he asked, finally turning in the girl’s direction.

Claire Bishop narrowed her big blue eyes at him.  ‘Come over here,’ she said.  ‘I want to talk to you real quick.’

Nicholas crinkled up his face. 
Play it cool
, he thought. 
Stick to the game plan here.  Don’t show her how badly you want her.  How badly you want to
be
her.
  ‘Talk to me about what?’ he asked. 

Claire Bishop pouted her pretty lips and made a petulant face. 
DSL
s, Nicholas had heard the guys at the gas station call those kinds of lips.  Plump, juicy – ripe for the taking.  ‘Just come over here, would ya?’ the girl said, practically whining now.  ‘I want to talk to you.’ 

Nicholas blew out a slow breath and tried his best to keep the sharp knife-edge of irritation out of his voice.  Even though the girl’s tone grated on his last nerve, he knew that you caught more flies with honey than with vinegar.  ‘What makes you think
I
want to talk to
you
?’ he asked.

Claire Bishop turned to her girlfriends and whispered something, and they all giggled again.  ‘Because I also want to give you something,’ she said, sticking out her chest in an unsubtle suburban mating call and winking at him. 

Nicholas smiled at the flirtatious gesture despite the overwhelming annoyance he felt.  He just couldn’t help himself.  Because whenever a girl winked at you and stuck out her chest like that it meant just one thing…

Somebody was getting lucky.

And – in this particular case and on this particular day – it also meant someone would be getting extremely
un
lucky.

To his everlasting credit, Nicholas somehow resisted the urge to rush over and take the dick-teasing whore right then and there on the baking pavement in direct view of her drug-addict friends.  Still, this was good. 
Exactly
what he wanted, so he started in their direction anyway.  Slowly, of course; casually.  Still playing the game.  He’d let Claire Bishop think she was in charge for the time being but he’d be damned if he’d go running over there at her beck and call like some sort of lost puppy dog.  That just wouldn’t be cool.  Wouldn’t be something a
real
man did.

By the time he joined the girls behind the dumpster, the gaggle had huddled up again, doing that maddening group thing all girls did.  Nothing more than pack animals, Nicholas knew, each and every last one of them.   Still, all pack animals needed a leader, didn’t they?  Goddamn right, they did.

Consider the job filled.

The overwhelming scent of marijuana filled Nicholas’s nostrils as Claire Bishop looked up at him and said, ‘You’re pretty cute, you know that?  Way cuter than most of the guys around here, at least.  What school do you go to?’

‘St Christopher’s,’ Nicholas lied, feeling entirely confident that a public-school slut like this wouldn’t know anybody there.  Or at least not enough people to call him out of on his lie.

‘Cool,’ Claire said, buying it hook, line and sinker.  ‘You smoke weed?  We’ve got some real killer shit here.  Got it over on the east side.’

Nicholas lifted his eyebrows.  The truth of the matter was that he
hadn’t
smoked marijuana before – never any interest in it, really.  Not only did he not care for the smell, he already had enough drugs coursing through his system on a daily basis to tranquilize a goddamn
elephant
, and he certainly didn’t need any more to throw off his already-delicate chemical balance.  That being said, there was no way in hell he was going to tell
Claire
that.  Not when he was this close to finally becoming a real man.  ‘Nah,’ Nicholas said.  ‘Not any more, at least.  Marijuana’s for kids.  I only fuck with hard drugs now.’

Claire Bishop widened her big blue eyes at that, clearly impressed by what he’d just said.  Not to mention by the
way
he’d said it. 
Mr Cool
all the way; that was Nicholas, all right.  A regular Marlon Brando. 

Claire stuck out her chest again in an obvious attempt to regain control of the situation on the pure strength of her budding feminine wiles.  Clueless little thing, wasn’t she?   Lifting up her own eyebrows into twin question marks on her smooth forehead, she said, ‘Oh yeah?  Is that a fact?’

Nicholas nodded.  ‘Yeah.  It is.’

‘Like what, tough guy?  What kind of hard drugs do you fuck with?’

Nicholas shrugged.  ‘I don’t know.  Heroin.  Speed.  A little bit of coke every now and then.’

Another direct hit.  From the admiring looks on the girls’ faces, Nicholas could tell he was playing this like a pro.  Not too shabby for his first time through the course, if he did say so himself.  But right now he had more important things to worry about.  More
exciting
things to worry about.  And he needed Claire Bishop to help him along.  If only the silly little bitch would hurry the fuck up already so that they could get this aggravating dog-and-pony show on the road.

‘You got any drugs on you now?’ the girl asked.  ‘Me and my friends like to party too, you know.  Don’t bogart all the good shit for yourself.’

Nicholas looked away from her, over her, past the top of her head and out at the traffic that was whizzing by on Reynolds Street forty yards away.  Like he had somewhere more important to be.  Somewhere
cooler
to be.  ‘Nah,’ he said finally.  ‘I don’t have any good shit on me right now, but I’ve got some close by.  I guess I could show you if you want.  But you have to promise not to tell anybody.  You can
never
tell.’