"What U doing".
It was a typical message from Chrissy. She was a friend of my daughter and, by extension, a friend of mine. She was around twenty and quite a pretty and vivacious young miss. She was also somewhat high maintenance, liking people to attend to her. She had a tendency to talk a lot and she needed someone to listen. It didn't matter who, just someone. If there was no-one with her to talk to then her phone came out, hence the message on mine.
My guess everyone she'd tried to hook up with was currently busy and she'd finally come to my name on her list. Either that or she wanted to hit me for a few dollars so she could go and buy some cigarettes, a habit she was perpetually trying to break.
I sent back, "Nothing", and she promptly suggested I come and have a cup of coffee at her place, which wasn't too far distant from mine. So it was still either eager for some warm body to talk at (not to, but at) or those few dollars, which I probably wouldn't begrudge her.
I drove around and five minutes later I was knocking on her door. She was smiling and happy, almost indecently pleased to see me, and those few dollars lifted higher on the probability scale.
I was wrong. It was the willing victim who would listen to everything she said and agree with most of it, giving her some common sense advice if asked for it, which didn't often happen.
We sat in the front room and drank our coffee. The TV was on, with Jerry Springer destroying people's lives, but the sound was low as Chrissy didn't need anyone competing with her where talking was concerned.
She told me about her problems, many and varied. Her car was playing up and she needed to have it looked at. (This wasn't a hint to me, by the way, because I am a crappy mechanic. I'll look into the innards of a car and say with confidence, that's the battery, and that's the engine, and that's all I know.) She was unemployed again. She goes through jobs quite quickly, but always seems to find another one. That bright, vivacious, personality gets her the jobs. Her total unwillingness to be on time and at work every day loses them.
She touched on her sister with whom she was arguing again. Told me she wasn't talking to her mother, and that her twin brother was being mean. It seemed he wouldn't pay for her car repairs and she felt he should because he had a job. (He also attended his place of employment every day, arriving in a timely manner.) She'd also argued with her boyfriend, whoever it currently was.
Listening to this I was rapidly drawing the conclusion that my few dollars were safe. She just needed a friendly ear to vent into and mine was as good as any, better than most. I didn't interrupt her to talk about myself.
I'd been sitting on the couch while having my coffee and, after finishing it, I was sitting on the end of it with my arm draped along the arm of the couch. Chrissy had been sitting next to me in the matching armchair, and when her sob stories got under way I just moved my hand a few inches and patted her knee in an avuncular manner. Chrissy was wearing tights so it wasn't as though I was pawing her naked flesh, just patting her knee, and she didn't object.
I was idly watching the TV and listening to Jerry Springer while at the same time listening to Chrissy well enough to interject meaningful sympathetic comments. I was also, rather subconsciously, stroking her leg. I wasn't even paying attention to what I was doing and it came as rather a surprise to me to find that I'd stroked all the way along the inside of her thigh and was rubbing her mons and mound. With Chrissy not saying a word or doing anything to stop me. She seemed to accept it as her due.
