The Manga Girl

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

After their electrically-charged start, he saw little of Lucy over the next few days. They were both on busy schedules, neither bothering with breakfast and each taking care of their own evening meals. Often, one or the other would return home late and when they did run into each other, their conversations remained cordial but Lucy seemed oddly distant. To Nick, it seemed that something had changed.

“Of course, something’s changed, you moron!” Sid had told him over a couple of beers one Friday. “The chick was leaving her door open for you. She called you into the bathroom where she was butt naked! What more do you need to know?”

“Wait up. You were the one that said I didn’t stand a chance,” Nick said.

“That was before. I can’t believe you didn’t get the message she was sending you.”

“I don’t know. There’s more to Lucy than that. I feel like she’s testing me. But it’s like putting your hand in a fire. Every time I get close, I feel I’ve got to pull back.”

“Well, it makes no difference now, old buddy. You blew it.”

“What makes you the expert?”

“Duh? The girl basically offered herself to you, and you didn’t come through. It’s not going to happen again. Good-looking babes like that don’t chase, you know.”

“It’s more complex than that.”

“Really? Okay, well tell me this - is she still leaving her door open?”

“No.”

“I rest my case.”

Nick had gone home with Sid’s words of wisdom ringing in his ears. How could he have been so blind? He let himself in, noting that Lucy’s bicycle was not in the hallway. He ate, checked e-mails, surfed the net, and then decided it was time to turn in. Upstairs, he paused outside Lucy’s door, which yes, was closed. Sid was right, he’d blown his chance. He turned to go to his own room but then something made him stop and turn back. His pulse rate accelerating, he wrapped his fingers around the door handle.

This was going against the rules, he knew. Despite the s****l tension that had been building up - for Nick, at least - this was an invasion of privacy.

Better to go to bed, he thought, letting go of the handle.

But instead of doing that he stayed put, staring at the door, his mind racing. It was risky. She could come home at any moment.

Okay, in and out. Just a few seconds.

He opened the door, flicked on the light, and stepped inside.

Nick was amazed at how Lucy had managed to transform the room in just a few days. She had hung a woodblock print of an elephant above the bed, the beside lamp had been replaced by an orange paper Chinese lantern, the bedspread was a turquoise silk sheet patterned with jasmine blossoms, and on the window ledge was a row of tiny bonsai trees.

When did she move all of this stuff in?

In the near corner was her artist’s desk upon which were a neatly arranged selection of acrylic paints, brushes, sketch pads and pencils. Her work in progress was an exquisitely detailed painting of a boatman on a river, the sun setting behind the jagged mountains, its yellow rays seeming to actually ripple on the water.

This girl’s got talent, Nick thought.

There was a stack of drawing tablets on one side and Nick opened the top one and began flipping through. These were rougher, pencil sketches of cartoon girls. The style was simpler but no less skilful. All of the girls were wide-eyed and pretty and they all seemed to wear the same petulant expression. As he turned the pages, Nick discovered that a lot of these girls were in a noticeable state of undress.

He closed the book and sat at Lucy’s desk. There were two desk drawers on the left hand side. The top one, which was unlocked, was filled with an assortment of art equipment. The lower one was also unlocked - doesn’t she ever lock anything? - and another sketchpad lay inside. Nick set it on his lap and opened it.

The first drawing depicted another cartoon-style girl, but with a startling difference - she was naked and tied to a wooden frame, her arms and legs stretched wide, her breasts thrust forward, her stomach taut. Curiously, even though it was just a cartoon, Nick found himself becoming aroused. As he gazed, something else about the girl became apparent. At first he didn’t get it, but the slant of the eyes, the dark fringe-cut and yes, as he remembered from the bathroom, even the delicious shape of the n*****s…My God, he thought. It’s Lucy!

He began turning the pages with renewed interest - Lucy, bent over a trestle, strapped down, legs splayed; Lucy in a sailor suit, offering her naked bottom to be spanked; Lucy suspended by the wrists, then staked out on a table, and then another one, with a man striking her buttocks with a wooden paddle.

Nick kept turning, aware now, that he had a full erection underneath the pad. The man - Lucy’s punisher - appeared in all of the remaining sketches as if he had only recently entered her amorous imagination. Nick flipped back and forth through the bondage scenes, his heart racing. Surely not? he thought. He looked again and then stared at his own reflection in the mirror and swallowed hard. There was no doubting it - the man in the drawings was Nick.

He replaced the sketchbook and stood. The only thing he hadn’t checked out was her closet, and even as he chided himself for breaking all the rules of decency, Nick found himself going through her clothes drawers. Almost without exception, her underwear was sheer and sexy. He picked up a tiny g-string and held it up to the light. It was light blue, almost see-through, and had a little bow stitched into the waistband. He crumpled it in his hand, and on impulse, slipped it into his pocket.

Back in his own room, sleep was impossible. Lucy had been on his mind constantly since he had met her, but now her face and body were practically etched onto the insides of his eyelids! He kept seeing her in the bath, picturing those magnificent floating breasts, and now he visualized her lying in her bed and fantasizing about bondage sessions with him!

He lay with the sheets kicked down to the bottom of the bed, his rigid member poking out of his boxers, Lucy’s g-string in his hand. What was he going to do now? She hadn’t invited him to her room, hadn’t exactly presented him with a whip and asked to be punished. In fact, he had the distinct impression that she was turning cool towards him.

But those sketches!

Around midnight a car pulled up outside and then he heard the front door open. His heart quickened and he lay very still. He listened to Lucy padding upstairs and then to the sound of water running in the bathroom. She sang a song in Japanese as she bathed, her voice soft and lilting.

How could this sensuous creature, with her art and her miniature trees and her easy going manner, be concealing such dark and wild s****l fantasies? He wasn’t even sure now, if he had really seen those drawings. Was his mind playing tricks on him?

Lucy’s singing stopped, and he heard her light footsteps on the landing and then her door clicking shut. There was no sound of the lock being turned. Was she waiting for him? Nick let out a tremulous breath and slid out of bed. It was time to find out.