Simone

Big grin on her face, Simone practically sprinted out of the bedroom, descending the stairs two at a time. Standing where she had sensed the purity, she looked directly in the area around the deacon’s bench.

“I know you’re here Charles, I sensed you,” she purred. “Either you’re hiding in one of Elizabeth’s shoes,” twinned and situated beside the bench, one shoe sans lace, she paused. “What is with you and shoelaces?” she asked rhetorically.

Sitting on the bench, she gathered Elizabeth’s shoes and checked them one at a time before setting them on the seat beside her. She strummed her fingers along the seat of the bench.

“I guess that only leaves under the,” she caught a flicker of movement from the parlor, the skirting under the loveseat moved, an almost imperceptible rustle of fabric. She grinned, doubting very much he was aware she had seen the flutter.

“You must be under the deacon’s bench!” she said, making a show by jumping up and moving the wooden piece of furniture.

Hands on hips, she moved into the parlor, bare feet making a soft slapping sound against the hard wood floor.

“I just don’t know where he could be,” she sulked, positioning herself for optimal viewing near the love seat and allowing her robe to open, revealing her lithe and marvelous body. Slipping the silk material off her shoulders, the robe dropped to the floor, fabric pooling around her feet.

Coy smile on her face, she brought her hands up her sides, cradling her breasts, pulling the up before releasing them and allowing gravity to pull them down with a bounce in the firm flesh, nipples erect.

“Why do you hide from me Charles?” she asked, a little pout on her lips.

Licking the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, teasing the nipple of her left breast, she batted her long lashes.

“Oh my god,” whispered Charles, lying on his stomach, concealed by the shadows under the love seat, eyes locked on her as she sensuously touched herself. He knew this was for him, just for him and he was as hard as stone.

“Dude,” hissed Dustin, “You’ve got to look away, she’s going to sense you,” he added, tugging at Charles’s foot, trying to pull him away from the glorious spectacle in front of him..

“I can’t, she’s so beautiful,” confessed Charles, rapt, kicking Dustin’s hand free.

She sat down on the floor in front of the love seat, cross legged. She knew exactly where he was, his innocence radiating like a beacon from the shadowy recess under the edge of the fabric.

Dustin moved away, to the back of the love seat, torn. Did he drag Charles away, or leave him? He knew what the women intended. He frowned, uncertainty gnawing at his resolve.

“Won’t you at least come out and take a look at me,” she invited, voice seductive and laden with promise, repositioning her legs so her knees were up and parted, letting him peek at the delicate patch above the groove in her privates.

Charles desperately wished he had his glasses. He could make it out, but the details were slightly fuzzy.

Reaching down, she touch the soft flesh just beneath the neatly trimmed hair. “I know you haven’t been with anyone before,” she said. “She’s so soft and warm and would very much like to meet you,” she added, little chuckle in her voice.

Charles looked back at Dustin.

Motioning frantically with his arm, Dustin tried as best he could to urge Charles to join him. Charles shook his head and smiled before climbing out from under the love seat.

“There you are,” she said, warm welcoming smile on her face as he climbed to his feet.

He was at a loss for words, even marginally out of focus he was caught in the swell of her beauty.

She motioned him closer with her index finger, pink tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t have my glasses,” he mumbled, taking a few steps closer. “My eyes, I have trouble seeing.”

She tilted her head and frowned. Reaching down, she touched the side of his face with the pad of her right index finger.

He was amazed, it was as if a veil had been lifted and the entire world came into sharp focus.

“What about now?” she asked, smiling down upon him.

He stared up at her, mouth agape as he beheld her loveliness, eyes drinking in every detail of her perfect flesh.

She extended a hand down toward him. Shambling forward, feet moving of their own volition he approached her hand and climbed onto it.

Closing her hand around the boy, she rose to her feet. Looking around the parlor, she laughed softly. “I know you’re here somewhere Dustin. You’ve proven a formidable opponent and do not think we shall under estimate you again.”

Lurking behind the leg of the love seat, Dustin swallowed hard.

Bending down, Simone gathered her robe off the floor, with her tiny prize in the other hand, she returned upstairs.

Dustin

Dustin shook his head. He couldn’t blame Charles, Simone was born of seduction, had refined the art and breathed it into every word she spoke. Charles never stood a chance, like a young naïve deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car. In fact, Dustin himself nearly surrendered himself to her and he wasn’t even looking at her.

Should he try and go save John and Charles? Would Charles just give himself up again? Dustin was torn, but so too, he was frustrated. He needed another person to help enact his plan, to help secure the hair tie while he launched the paper clip with the tethered line. He was just too small. He paused. Unless he could find some way to anchor the hair tie between two points. Walking out from under the loveseat, he moved back toward the foyer. Seeing Elizabeth’s shoes on the displaced deacon’s bench, he frowned as he contemplated. He might be able to thread the hair tie through the eyelets of the shoes and then be able to drawing the paper clip and shoot it toward the mail slot built into the door, but getting up on the deacon’s bench could be problematic.

Hefting the paper clip, he tried to throw it like a spear, but the drag of the attached shoe lave prevented it from even reaching the seat of the bench let alone finding purchase on one of the shoes. After the third attempt, he knew there was little hope of success. He wracked his brain. Looking up at the top of the stairs, then to the deacon’s bench, he nodded. As a child, he had possessed a small plastic toy, a parachutist with four threads tied to the corners of a sheet of plastic. A running start, maybe. He scowled. Even if he could find a big enough piece of plastic, he had no means of tying it to his body. The toy had used sewing thread and all he had was a shoelace. If he had sewing thread, he probably could throw the paper clip high enough to snag it on a shoe and wouldn’t need to think about some crazy BASE jumping stunt.

Thread. Any significant length of thread would do. Dental floss would be more durable, but if he could get a piece of thread. A slow wily smile crept across his face. Tucking the equipment under the bench, he returned to the parlor, moving to the long curtain hanging to the floor on the left side of the large window. Within arm’s reach, there was a hem stitch along the bottom edge of the curtain. Testing it, he nodded, the stitch was not particularly tight and he believed if he could cut or break the thread, he might actually be able to unravel the stitch and it would give a long unbroken length. Loping back across the parlor, he fetched the paper clip from its cache, removing the attached lace, and returned to the curtain. Using the unbent loop, he latched it onto the thread and gave it a mighty yank, pulling the thread slightly away from the drapery material. Removing the metal clip, he grabbed the thread with both his hands and pulled, but the thread would not budge any further.

Stepping up onto tip toes, he held the thread between both hands and began to gnaw it, like a beaver felling a teeth, chewing through the delicate filaments composing the thread. Once he was through, he moved to the next stitch and again used the paper clip, this time, the broken end pulled through. Again and again he repeated the process moving along the length of the bottom of the curtain until he had reached the opposite end where the thread was once again securely attached. As before, he plunked down onto his bum and chewed away at the line until it was severed. In all, he estimated he had over a hundred feet of line, much finer and lighter than the thick shoe laces. Rolling up his rope, he grabbed the paper clip and walked back over to the deacon’s bench. Once there, he fastened the line to the end of the bent metal clip before heaving it like a javelin onto the seat of the bench. Pulling it back, the paper clip grabbed nothing and fell back to the floor. He skipped out of the way, though he nearly crapped himself with the noise the clip made striking the hardwood floor. Still as a church mouse, he listened for any sound of movement from upstairs. Hearing none, he repeated the process, this time catching the paper clip when it fell back after failing to bite. Again and again he repeated the throw until on the fourteenth throw, he was met with resistance when he pulled on the thread. Giving the thread several tugs, he tested it with the entirety of his weight before trying to climb onto the bench. Slipping the hair tie over his shoulder and feeling the line would hold, he scaled the side of the bench pulling himself onto the top. Disengaging the entangled clip, he looped the hair tie through the eyelet and tied it off on the opposite side using the remaining lace on Elizabeth’s other shoe. Next he tied the end of the thread through an eyelet so that he would accidentally shoot the clip and line away. Using the hair tie, he launched the clip with the thread line toward the mail slot in the front door next to the deacon’s bench. It took several tries to get the angle right and even when he hit the slot, the clip failed to catch on the lip. His concern remained the clicking sound of the paper clip hitting the door or the floor and he was worried it would draw attention, though he surmised the woman were experiencing Charles and otherwise occupied. When the clip landed in the slot and actually hooked onto something, he gave a fist pump and a “Yeah!” Testing the soundness of the line, one end on the mail slot, the other on the shoe, he removed the lace from Elizabeth’s shoe and the hair tie and wrapped them around himself, before lowering himself onto the line and crawling hand over hand, feet locked around the thread toward the door.