She lay back on the faded mauve bedspread, the pleated skirt of her crumpled red netball uniform barely covering her knees.
"Where's your Mother?" he asked her.
She pouted, lifting one leg to examine the chipped scarlet polish on her grubby toe nails. The sweet-sour scent of girl sweat filled the tiny attic bedroom.
He sat at the computer, pretending to work, trying to hide furtive glances at the exposed crotch of her white panties.
"Gone shopping," she sighed. "Boring!"
She dropped her foot back on to the bed and stretched out, regarding him through half-closed eyelids.
"Alan, do you like me?"
"Of course I do, what's not to like?"
"Do you think I'm pretty?"
"Pretty? Nah."
She glared at him and threw herself back down on the pillow, her long, blonde hair fanning out behind her head.
He knew this was his chance. If this wondrous combination of sexy innocence was ever to be his, this was a defining moment.
"Little girls and chocolate boxes are pretty. Women are beautiful. You're very beautiful."
She stretched out on the bed and purred like a contented cat. Home run, he thought triumphantly.
"Beautiful women are desirable. Do you think I'm desirable?"
Desirable? In the three months since he came to board with her and her mother why should he find this 18-year-old desirable? When she sunbathed on the back lawn under the apple tree in her blue and white spotted bikini, the dappled shadows playing on her long brown legs while the white tops of her tiny breasts peeped out above the lace, why would any man want her? When he watched her suck a lollipop, why would he imagine what else those active lips and pointed tongue might do?
When she tumbled out to the kitchen from her bed late on a Sunday morning in yellow summer pyjamas, and stretched out languidly on the old couch exposing her dimpled navel why would he ever feel a lurch of lust, the stirring of an erection?
And when he read the morning paper on the veranda and she leaned against his shoulder to see a movie advertisement, the top of her pyjamas falling forward giving him a glimpse of a vanilla-coloured breast and cherry nipple, why would he feel desire?
"I said, am I desirable?" she growled loudly.
"What do you think? Of course you are."