There is no fairy tale ending.
Hosing the soap-subs off his taxi, James could not wait to head home to rest. Completing a 14 hour shift on the road is no joke for a cab driver.
Now all he needs to do is to clean his ride and he can go back and snuggle up in his bed.
As he wiped down the windscreen, something caught his eye. Or rather, someone caught his eye.
It’s 2am in the morning and the carpark is empty. The void deck of the flat he lives in is devoid of life. Not even the resident stray cat could be seen today as the wind picked up speed.
Lighting had been streaking across the night skies for the past hour, bring with it distant thunder. It’s going to start pouring soon.
James’s eyes looked at the beautiful girl trying to balance herself as she walked unsteadily at the other end of the carpark.
She’s young; probably 20 years old give or take. The girl was wearing a school wind breaker printed with her hall name. Looking at her in her black windbreaker and grey shorts, it triggered James’s memories about dropping off students at their hostel during his shift.
He wished he were a student in this day and age. An age where girls seemed to wear shorts for the sole purpose of showing off their long legs. Cock teasers that’s what they are. They are just out to attract attention, to sow unwanted erections.
Walking around in a sports bra and skin hugging tights that show off their camel toes were unheard off during his days as a student in university.
The girl held back her hair and vomited. She patted her chest a couple of times then vomited again onto the floor.
James watched her rinse her mouth a couple of times before spitting the water out onto the grass patch beside her.
She could hardly keep her eyes open as she tried to control her breathing.
Alicia held onto the wall by the corner of the carpark and vomited again. She knew she shouldn’t have drunk so much but it was her good friend’s birthday. She could have chosen to stay over in the hotel room but there were other guys around.
It’s not decent for a girl to spend the night at a hotel with other men even though it’s a group gathering. She has heard about the things involving friends that could go wrong with enough alcohol around.
The recent news about panty stealing and bra sniffing course mates in her school was not helping with her paranoia either. In fact, her university is on the news every week for something similar. Some of the guys who were caught stealing lingerie were known to her. Earlier in the evening, she took extra care with the clothes she brought to the party, making sure that they were kept in her bag after she had changed.
She could not believe that some of her friends openly left their lingerie hanging in the bathroom. God knows what the guys do to them when they are in there.
Anyway, she’s glad she left the party.
Men are sick and she was not about to expose herself to danger in a crowded hotel room with her friends.
Alicia was just a couple of blocks away from her place.
Just a couple of blocks more.
Putting her water bottle into her bag, Alicia removed her windbreaker as it had caught a bit of her vomit. She’s not going to walk back home in that state, smelling of alcohol and puke. Her parents would freak out.
She somehow managed to stuff the windbreaker into her sling bag along with her wet swimsuit and clothes that she had changed out of.
It did not occur to her that the pair of shorts and singlet she was wearing was attracting attention to her body even at 2am in the morning.
James stopped wiping down his taxi. He found himself attracted to the girl in the distance. He’s already a 50 year old uncle but he stills find himself attracted to girls who could be his daughter if he is married with kids.
Alicia started walking towards her block, unaware that there is a man following her.
Reaching the lift lobby, Alicia rubbed her sleepy eyes and tried to sniff her own breath. She needed to get rid of the alcohol breath.
Instead of taking the lift straight up to her floor, Alicia decided to take it to the top of her 25 storey block.
When the lift door opened, Alicia saw a sofa and a collection of outdoor furniture that her neighbour placed outside their home, transforming the public corridor and lift lobby into a cosy outdoor patio of sorts where the neighbours regularly gather.
Alicia went to the sofa and laid down, thankful for the blown light tube above her head that plunged half the corridor into darkness.
‘I’ll just lie down for a bit and wait for the alcohol to wear off.’ She thought to herself.
Lifting her legs with her sneakers still on up onto the sofa along the corridor, Alicia took out her phone. She scrolled through the messages and photos she took during the day.
She stopped at a photo which her good friend Melissa took of her in the boutique hotel room they were spending the night at. It’s a nice picture of her but the angle was not ideal.
It’s a little obscene. Something her parents would frown upon if they see it. A prim and proper Christian girl should never sit in such a manner and allow her photo to be taken even if it’s another girl doing the taking.
Her eyelids felt heavy as she tried to navigate her thumb to the delete button.
Her breathing slowed and the cool breeze from the impending storm was just so hard to resist.
Alicia felt her phone fall onto her chest but she was too tired to deal with it.
‘Just a quick snooze.’ She thought. ‘Just a quick snooze.’
As she sank into dreamland, she did not hear the lift door open.
James was expecting to follow Alicia home and finding out where she lives. Perhaps see her sneakers and her socks outside her door. Something that he could indulge in and use to masturbate. He never expected to come face to face with a sleeping Alicia on a sofa along the corridor.
His heart started beating faster as seeing Alicia this close up made him realise how beautiful she was.
She’s a beauty. Her breasts were a little small but she’s petite and cute.
James stood really still and he just stared at Alicia sleeping, hearing her cute soft snores.
A thousand thoughts went through his mind. He knew this was wrong. Of course it’s wrong. Anyone who has been to school and armed with a single ounce of common sense could tell you that what he wanted to do was wrong.
Then again, what about the fairy tales he was told?
What of the fairy tales that were still being told till this day to kids in school?
A prince came across a sleeping beauty in the woods and decided to kiss her.
A man wandering through the woods decided to kiss a sleeping lady who had no way of giving her consent.
What makes that man so special? Just because he is a prince?
Because he is a prince he could kiss and touch girls without their consent?
And then they marry and live happily ever after?
Looking at Alicia’s smooth skin and soft lips, James thought to himself.
‘I may be a cab driver, but tonight…. I want to be a prince.’
8100 words
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