February flash tale #1 - "Appropriate"

Blowing Rock, North Carolina

August

Dressed in a red bikini she bought specially for the trip, Rosalie stands on her tiptoes and peers over the fence. All she and Peter can hear is the noise from next door.

“Jesus.”  Rosalie and walks back across the grass, stepping around an over-sized beach ball.

Peter passes her a highball glass, before sitting down on a lawn chair. “Well?”

Rosalie takes a gulp of the drink and says, “Look for yourself.” She grimaces. “On second thoughts, don’t.” She puts down her glass and adjusts the strap of her bikini top, looking back towards the privacy fence with a reserved expression.

The noise from next door starts again. A woman’s high-pitched shrieks, and a man’s laughter.

Peter holds up his hands. “Tell me. What’s going on over there?”

Rosalie sits down. “There’s a woman running through a sprinkler.”

“Oh.”

“She’s naked.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Well, you can see her breasts.” Not that the woman has much to show off, Rosalie doesn’t say. “She’s got panties on.”

“Huh,” Peter says. He gives Rosalie an innocent look. “She pretty?”

Rosalie glares. “Not the point.”

Peter smirks. “I’m just kidding.”

“Not your type,” says Rosalie. Which must be true. The woman next door is a petite blonde, her hair arranged in childish pigtails. Quite the opposite of Rosalie, who proudly owns her curvy figure and more than generous breasts. Rosalie glances down to confirm the cleavage accentuated by her red bikini top; better to cover up, with a promise of what’s inside, than to leave nothing to the imagination.

She closes her eyes, remembers the neighbor’s white panties that could only be describe as ‘puffy’. Rosalie sniffs derisively. No, not Peter’s type. He had pursued Rosalie for months, first as a business partner and then romantically, which had culminated in arriving in Blowing Rock, supposedly a great opportunity for Rosalie’s Powerful Women and Business Success initiative.

She points an accusing finger at Peter. “The whole point of coming here, booking the Air BnB…you told me that Blowing Rock was conservative. A bedrock of family values, you called it.”

“It is.”

“Judging by next door?” Rosalie sniffs. “Hardly.” She takes a sip of her drink and then rests the highball in the mesh drink holder.  The cocktail isn’t to her taste; too sweet, reminding her of the Shirley Temples she used to have as a child.

“Blowing Rock is the real deal,” insists Peter. “I did my homework. Lowest divorce rate in the country. Crime rate is barely on the scale. Everyone goes to church.”

“I guess the girl next door didn’t get the memo.” She notices Peter’s water bottle for the first time, and she taps the side of her glass with a fingernail. “Hey, you didn’t make yourself one.”

Peter nods. “That’s just for you.” He looks intently at her. “You like it?”

“Sure,” Rosalie lies. She’ll water the plants with it when she gets the chance. “Anyway, if the neighbors are anything to go by, this was a wasted trip.”

Peter smiles at her. He gets up, walks over to the striped beach ball, picks it up. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I know this town.” He winks at her. “Grew up here, actually.”

Rosalie laughs. “You never said!”

Peter nods. “It’s true. Just down the road. So I know this is the perfect town for you.”

Rosalie sighs. “You asked me for the perfect customer for my program, and I told you, women who are sick of being treated like they’re inferior, who want to strike out on their own. Women with brains and ambitions.” She points towards the fence. “That woman next door? Hardly.” Now that she thinks about it, there was something surprising about the expression on the man’s face. Indulgent. Almost paternal. The woman shrieked and giggled, acting like a three-year-old, looking as though she didn’t have a sensible thought in her head, and the man just smiled.

“I remember.” Peter walks back over to Rosalie, still holding the beach ball. “Now, be honest, you didn’t like the drink, did you.”

Rosalie looks down at the highball. She shrugs. “A little sweet.”

Peter smiles. “That’s okay. You only had to sip it.”

“What’s that’s supposed to mean?”

Peter lets the ball fall from his hands, and it bounces on the tidy grass, thudding lightly over to Rosalie before it knocks against her legs. He grins at her. “Wanna play?”

Rosalie frowns, and then she covers her mouth with her hand as she produces a tremendous yawn.

“There it is,” Peter says. He crouches in front of her, takes the ball and balances it on her knees. “Only takes a sip, Rosie.”

Rosalie blinks. Her eyes feel tired, heavy. “What are you talking about?” She yawns again, and this time her hands stay by her side. She frowns. “And my name’s not Rosie.”

But the correction isn’t as strong as she intended. That’s the problem with slurring words.

No, not slurring. Lisping.

She tries again, staring at the striped ball on her lap as she tries to enunciate. “My nameth…noh…”

Peter takes her hands in his own and holds them gently. “This is the perfect town for you, Rosie. The perfect town for a woman who thinks she knows better, who thinks she should be in charge.”

Rosalie shakes her head, both to disagree and to clear her thoughts. Because Peter is being rude, and because Rosalie’s mind feels as sticky as syrup.

“Trust me,” says Peter. “Sure, it’s nice to bring you home, I can’t wait to introduce you to my father. But really, this is the most appropriate location for a woman like you.” He suddenly raises her hands in the air and then brings them down on top of the beach ball. “I’m sorry, I mean, a girl like you.” He beams at her. “A sweet, empty-headed girl, just like your friend next door.”

“No…” Rosalie shakes her head again. “I’m not…that girl’s silly.” Thah gir-thilly. She blushes at her terrible diction, before the very idea of phrasing and language fades from her mind.

“You’re going to have such fun living here,” says Peter. He smiles as Rosalie stares at the ball. “It’s a pretty ball, isn’t it. And it’s yours. Your very own bouncy ball.”

And there’s something in Peter’s tone, the lightness of it, the softness, that makes Rosalie feel afraid, before she feels a responding lightness in her mind, and her lips form an uncertain smile.

“You’re going to be such good friends with Donna,” says Peter.

And Rosalie presses down on the ball, understanding that Peter knows the neighbors. That he grew up here, he knows all about the town. That he expects her to be just like the dumb girl next door.

Peter stands up and steps back. “Throw?”

Rosalie looks down at the ball. Can she? Can she try? The thought fills her rapidly shrinking mind with a question that is delightfully, thrillingly uncertain. She puts clumsy hands on each side of the ball and then throws it at Peter, and it bounces on the grass before Peter catches it.

“Good girl!” Peter exclaims.

Fireworks of pleasure light up the emptying mind of a woman who had come to Blowing Rock to champion the cause of independent, intelligent women.

“I throwed it! She shouts – I foe-dih! - And surely, she has never felt such pride. Not when she wrote her book, not when she grew her YouTube audience with her insightful, engaging videos.

“You sure did, Rosie.” Peter puts the ball down and comes back to her. “And you know what else is bouncy?”

Without waiting for an answer, Peter unhooks and removes Rosalie’s bikini top. He is deft, confident, as if he has been treating women like this for years. As if to him, they are nothing but over-sized children that he can dress, or undress, as he pleases.

Rosalie should be shocked. She should protest. Instead, she gazes down at her own substantial breasts, as if she’d quite forgotten what was there.

“Donna doesn’t have big, bouncy boobies like you, does she.”

Rosalie blinks, a finger reaching her mouth as she compares herself to the girl next door. She shakes her head slowly. “Nuh-uh. I got…” She grins shyly. And there is a glimmer of reserve left in her mind, the merest suggestion that this isn’t appropriate behavior or language.

Until Peter instructs Rosalie to stand with a gesture and then encourages her to jump. “Show Daddy how bouncy you are, Rosie. Be a good girl and show Daddy your bouncy boobies.”

Rosalie almost frowns. She only sipped the special drink after all, it was really nothing.

But it was enough. In the next moment, she beams at Peter, and she does as she’s told. Her past life has gone, everything she learned and instinctively understood about feminism and equal right fades into oblivion, leaving Rosie with just one desire.

To be a good girl for Daddy.

She jumps up and down, clumsily but with growing enthusiasm, for a few seconds.

“Look at you, Rosie! What a bouncy girl!” Peter claps his hands and Rosie shrieks and giggles. “Imma boun-thee giwl, dah-dee!”

Peter takes her in his arms. “You sure are,” he says softly. “And don’t worry about being nakie,” he says, as if Rosie has the intellectual capacity to consider such things. “When we go out in public, you’ll always be wearing a pretty dress. But for now, a sweet toddler playing in the back yard?” 

He kisses her forehead. “You look adorable. Now, let’s go next door and meet the neighbors. I think you two girls are going to be best friends.”

THE END

A big-breasted woman laughs unkindly at the sight of one of Ngatea's special girls running around topless, but quickly ends up joining her. – Byron

(Yeah, I changed the location 😊 – Sebtomato)