From Rags to Rich Girls

"We're just so glad you two have become so close. Lucy has never been so well behaved," the father said, dropping his voice slightly on the back half. I could tell Lucy still heard it though from the way she smirked and popped her gum from behind them in the kitchen. My gum was in her mouth, God, when had she swung that?

Suddenly, I couldn't hear anything Lucy's parents were saying to me as I watched the red-headed teen girl leaned over the kitchen counter in those little shorts... that see-though tank. No bra. She was blowing another bubble, snapping it, collecting it from her lips with her wet, pink tongue. I knew the taste of it. I was salivating, a Pavlovian response to her. 

She was in slow motion. I could feel her hands, her mouth all over again like I had just fifteen minutes earlier, when she'd had me pressed against the hallway of this stupid goddamn mansion. Until her parents ruined it. Or maybe they’d saved me, I couldn’t yet decide. 

What the fuck am I doing?

Her father was pressing the money into my palm then, and smiling, thanking me again for taking such good care of his daughter. Jesus, if only he knew. And then I was out the door, standing on the porch of the house, looking out at the fountain in the middle of the driveway. It was one of those stone ones with the etching and the little cherub in the center spouting the water. I could see Lucy leaned against it in some flashy dress... that same flashy dress being unzipped by me... that same flashy dress on her bedroom floor. 

There have been worse gigs. I got paid by her rich as hell parents, five-hundred dollars a weekend, to watch over her and make sure she didn't throw parties or destroy the house, and she got me. She got me and I often wondered if our arrangement was something she looked forward to the way I did. I wondered if I was more than just the glorified college girl babysitter that she happened to like to have sex with on occasion. Increasing occasion, might I add. Would I ever broach the subject? Not while her parents' money was getting me through college and paying my rent. Not before I was sure these feelings were more than just lust...

I stared at that fucking fountain, then down at the money. Then I got in my beater car and tried to push the girl out of my brain. It never worked. This was my routine.

---

I hadn’t been planning on picking up any babysitting jobs, but the tips at the diner had been light that week, so I decided I’d have a look. This was almost always a last resort, because dealing with children was a nightmare for me. Then I stumbled upon a listing that said it would pay five-hundred dollars for the weekend. I barely read the description before I called to inquire. All they’d told me was that they had one daughter, and they just wanted someone to watch her for Saturday and Sunday. Easy enough, right? 

I could tell from the drive over to the address that same day that they were filthy rich. I’d never even driven into this part of town. Their house even had a gate at the front, one you had to buzz into. As I was parking my car next to this extravagant fountain in the driveway, the parents’ number left a text on my phone. It said something about them not being home, and that their daughter was there alone. I furrowed my brows as I hopped out of the car and walked up to the front door. Parents didn’t typically leave their kids alone to let the babysitter in but, y’know, rich people. I shrugged and rang the doorbell. 

What I wasn’t expecting was for the door to be answered by a seventeen-year-old girl. The confusion was written all over my face, it must have been, because she was immediately laughing at me.

“Um. Maybe I have the wrong address-“

“Nope. You have the right place,” the girl said, amusement turning up the corners of her glossed lips. My brows stitched even further together. This couldn’t be right. This girl only looked a few years younger than me, and she was. A nineteen-year-old babysitting a seventeen-year-old. What could go wrong?

She pulled me inside and showed me around for the next ten minutes or so, and God help me I’d never felt so out of place in her museum of a home. I didn’t wanna touch anything for fear I’d leave a smudge on it… including her. 

“You said your name is Lucy?” I asked, feeling like I was in some sort of haze. I’d been expecting a nine-year-old. This was basically a grown woman. Did I mention yet that she was smoking a blunt when I opened the door, because she was. Imagine you’re me, what would a babysitter do? Am I even a babysitter at that point? For fuck’s sake. 

“Lucy, yeah. And you’re Alice? My parents told me you were coming.”

I said something stupid about if she was allowed to be smoking that. She just laughed, I guess it sufficed as an answer. No, definitely not, but they’re not here right now. I should have known she was trouble then; it was practically written on her forehead. I’d always been the type of person who gravitated toward that kind of energy, though, so I was doomed. College girl just trying to survive is seduced by high school senior she’s being paid to babysit—it reads like a fucking FOX news headline. Or at the very least a wordy PornHub title. 

That all didn’t come until that Sunday. I’d survived living in the house with her for all of Saturday. She showed me her room, talked to me about stupid drama at her school. Her butlers cooked for us, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. I was successfully keeping her out of trouble, at least for those first twenty-four hours or so. 

Sunday we were sitting on some lounge chairs out by their massive pool. The whole house may as well have been a hotel it was that ginormous. I just followed Lucy around all day for fear that if I broke off I’d get lost somewhere inside. The sun was hot, the breeze was minimal. I didn’t have a swimsuit. I looked sort of idiotic, I’m sure, sitting there in jeans and a t-shirt, sweating profusely. Lucy was in this little black, high-cut bikini with shiny gold hardware in the details. I know I’m going to Hell already so I can admit to looking at her. I can admit to thinking she looked divine, and to assuming that those two little strips of fabric probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. 

“Do you like girls?” Lucy asked. It made my head turn before I could stop it. It was obvious she’d piqued my interest. I hated being an open book, but I answered honestly.

“Yeah.” I didn’t see any reason to lie, though I certainly see lots of reasons now. And even more reasons to not turn the question back onto her, but I did. As my white T-shirt was clinging to my sweat soaked torso, I asked her the same question.

“Mhm,” Lucy hummed, and then looked at me over the rim of her black designer sunglasses. I could feel her gaze tracing the curve of my hip in my jeans, and then she said spoke again, “You look hot.”

I still don’t know to this day if she meant temperature hot or hot-hot. I laughed shortly, color blooming in my cheeks, though my face was already red from the sun.

“It’s hot, yeah.” Lame. So, incredibly lame. 

“Take those off then.”

She gestured to my clothes. I could tell from a quick glance at her expression that she was dead serious. I shouldn’t have. I really shouldn’t have. But it was so hot. She was staring at me with those big blue eyes, waiting, and my body was burning. 

I got to my feet and pulled off my T-shirt first, letting it fall onto the lounge chair where I’d just been seated. I had a black bralette on underneath. Then I unbuttoned my jeans and tugged those off too. My underwear matched my bra, something I typically didn’t bother to do unless I was going on a date. Fate can be quite resourceful when it comes to choice of panties. Stick your hand into the underwear drawer and draw blindly, and maybe that’ll tell you a little bit about your day. Though, truthfully, I hadn't seen any of this coming.

Lucy looks at me, and I can tell she’s taking in every bend and curve I have. I can’t chastise her because I did the same to her in that little bikini… instant karma. And y’know, at that point I actually thought everything might be okay. But then we got in the water. 

Getting into the water wasn’t exactly the issue. It was the lingering glances we were sharing, the soft hums when we brushed underneath the water’s surface. She had me up against the side of the pool, our feet planted in the shallow end, maybe five minutes later. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. Always a stupid question when it was obvious someone was about to kiss you, but it just sort of fumbled from my lips. Lucy smiled, and her hand was climbing my chest, brushing the curve of my breast in my bralette, and then cupping my face. At this point I’d stopped breathing. 

“We might as well get to know each other if this is gonna be a regular thing,” Lucy explains, her voice soft, her tone almost convincing me her words were rational. Pretty girls say anything and people (like me) just listen. 

She didn’t give me any chance to reply before her mouth was on mine. She was kissing me like she’d wanted to for ages, and I’d only known her for a day and a half. Her lips tasted like Vaseline and coconut oil and her tongue tasted like Altoids and lemonade. I was drunk on her in a matter of moments. In my head some little voice was screaming how wrong it was for me to be making out with the girl I was being paid to watch over, but I couldn’t hear that voice for long once she hoisted me up onto the edge of the pool and started tugging off my underwear. That’s the sort of thing that really shuts off your brain, and suddenly your eyes are closed and all you feel are lips and tongue and breath. All you can hear is humming and kissing and the sound of the pool water lapping against the tile walls, and her whispered directions when she wanted me to shift my hips a bit forward. And you do as you’re asked. And an hour later you’re both naked in her bed, your hair dry and smelling like chlorine, and the sheets damp with sweat and pool water because the last thing anyone was thinking about was a towel.

“I’m alone most of the time.”

I turned my head. Lucy's head was lying on my arm, her frame curled up, facing me. I swallowed before I replied, a bit caught off guard by the statement. 

“Why?” That was all I could think to ask. 

“My parents are always gone. They just leave me here. I don’t have any friends because all they want is my money. Any person I’ve ever dated just wanted my money. It’s always about what I have… not who I am.”

I’d heard straight men talk about how women always wanted to be deep after sex and it never really struck me until that particular moment. But I didn’t mind it, I just felt… a bit helpless.

I muttered an I’m sorry to hear that or something along those lines. I was, but I could have been a little more original. Luckily, Lucy seemed grateful that I was even listening. 

“I know you’re just here for my parents’ money, too, but…”

It’s not like I could deny it. I’d taken this babysitting gig because of the five-hundred-dollars I was being promised at the end of the job. It made it hard to look at her though, as she laid there beautiful and flushed. After I’d touched her, and she’d touched me. 

“I think you seem cool, Lucy. I… would hang out with you without the money,” I said, and was surprised as the words left my lips that I meant it. Lucy was charismatic, out-going, clever. I’d spent almost two days with her by then, and they’d been nice. It hadn’t felt like a job. I hadn’t been thinking only about the money. I’d been enjoying her company, whether I wanted to really admit that to myself or not.

“You’re just saying that,” Lucy muttered back, her blue eyes flickering away from mine. I turned onto my side and brushed a strand of her red hair back behind her ear. That made her gaze meet mine again, and I couldn’t deny the heat that pooled in my chest under those eyes.

“I’m not just saying that.”

And I wasn’t.

---

I lay in bed that afternoon after I drive home from Lucy’s house and all I can think about is that first Sunday. And my gum in her mouth when I’d left the house twenty minutes earlier. As long as I’d tried to deny it, my very real feelings for her were starting to drip through the cracks. I couldn’t keep up this façade of just being her babysitter for much longer. It was eating away at me, from the inside out. I couldn’t keep accepting this money, though I needed it, because I needed her more.

I needed her to know this was more for me than a paycheck. It had been from nearly the start.

With my back pressed into my mattress I’m drafting a text message to the girl. This takes years, or so it feels. Eventually I just decided on Hey, because I couldn’t just dump my heart out without some context.

The text message sat there, while I laid in bed manually breathing until my phone buzzed with her reply. 

Hey, miss me already? :)

Would it be pathetic to say yes? Would it be pathetic to say I’d felt like I’d been missing her my whole life? That every second we weren’t together was Chinese water torture to me?

Yeah, I miss u already, I managed.

And it wasn’t everything I needed to say but it was a start. Another buzz.

I miss u more <3

A start, indeed.