Chapter 1

"Surprise," everyone yelled in unison as Tammy Korning walked into the Upper Westside apartment.

"Ah, shit!" she screamed. And the room fell silent.

Everyone stared at the lovely young blonde incredulously, not believing that she was about to throw a fit at her own surprise birthday party. The fact that she was just turning eighteen had something to do with this no doubt. But the roomful of older people mostly Seventh Avenue fashion types were not quite so understanding.

"Hey, Mark," one of the guests shouted, "is your youthful fianc‚ about to throw one of her tantrums?"

"Just because we gave her a surprise birthday party?" another voice chimed in.

"Excuse me," Mark Browning, successful young novelist, and man-about-town, grabbed the willful young blonde, and pulled her down the hall, and into their bedroom.

"What the fuck are you trying to pull?" Mark screamed, the vein on his forehead protruding. "I went to all this trouble to invite the people you work with over for a special surprise party in your honor and instead of being pleased, you throw a fucking tantrum!"

"I don't like surprises," she said, standing her ground. "They make me perspire."

"What?"

"You heard what I said."

"For Christ's sake, girl," his eyes were pleading, "don't do this to me. Not now. If you have to torture me, let's do it later. I need these people. If you can't do it for yourself, at least control yourself for me."

"So, now we're being honest," she smiled. "You want them to back your new novel, don't you?"

"It takes a lot of money and contacts to try publishing a novel on your own, sugar," he tried a syrupy approach to calming the unpredictable, but lovely young woman.

"And why should I play your little game? It is, after all, my birthday. You are making it into something for yourself."

"Haven't I helped you plenty?"

"It's been pretty mutual, I think."

"Don't talk to me like that. Everything you own, I bought. When I found you in the park three years ago, you were hungry, and a regular raggedy Anne. You've certainly come a long way baby."

"Don't go acting like Jesus Christ on me now," she sniffed. "You got plenty in return for what you did for me. So you gave me clothes, and a nice place to live, and got me that fashion job on Seventh Avenue. I would have eventually done all that for myself. And even if I didn't, there are plenty of men around willing to look after a cute little blonde like me."

"You are incorrigible, you know that?"

"Don't usethose big words on me, mister!"

"And who got you out of that mess with your father?"

"The police could have done that just as well as you."

"You weren't eighteen, my dear," Mark was trying to calm his temper. His instinct at that moment was to put his powerful fingers around the pretty young girl's throat, and throttle her. "The police couldn't have done Jack Shit!"

"I'm sick of arguing," she announced. "It's my party, and I don't have to sit in here with you and take shit. I'm eighteen now, and I can do as I please."

Tammy Korning turned, and walked out of the bedroom to join the party. Mark Browning sat on the bed and stared after her. "That little witch," he thought to himself, "why did I ever get mixed up with her? She's going to ruin my life."

But Mark knew somehow that he would never be rid of her. Nor would he ever really want to. Tammy was a habit. like cocaine, she was an expensive habit both in terms of money, and emotional balance. And like heroin, he wondered at times if he was going to live through his addiction to her.

The three years they had been together seemed like a moment, and yet, it felt to him as though an eternity had passed since that day in the park.

It was a lovely, warm, and sunny spring day, and Mark decided to walk back from the library through the park. He was used to spending the mornings in the public library on Fifth Avenue researching his new novel. It was a romance, dealing with the Viennese aristocracy just prior to the outbreak of World War One.

Mark had spent the previous year in Austria researching the novel from the European viewpoint. Now it was time to gather material from the American perspective. The novel was to center around two characters the lovely young daughter of an Austrian duke, and a private in the United States Army.

The library work was tedious and boring. He spent most of his time in the stacks, rummaging through old New York Regimental Army records. He was trying to gather background data on his characters. He didn't really have any characters in mind mostly he was looking for characters. Now and then, he would discover colorful characters in the yellowed, old documents. It was an interesting way of working, and he was very confident he would put together a great novel from his efforts.

Mark had tried to sell the concept to numerous publishers. But they all told him that the First World War was no longer of commercial interest. He was told that if he changed it to a World War Two setting, it might stand a chance, and they might be willing to give him an advance against future royalties.

As the young writer walked through the park, he thought about the challenges he faced of going ahead with his work despite what the publishing houses had advised. When his parents died in a plane crash when he was twenty-three he inherited a rather substantial amount of money. But it wasn't enough to last forever. And it definitely would not support him, and simultaneously provide the funds for the typesetting, printing, and distribution of his new novel. Not to mention anything about the requisite publicity and advertising.

He tried not to worry. He had confidence in his abilities and of the potential success of his new novel. It was simply a question of timing, and finding people to back him.

Mark had enough confidence in his writing project to quit his $15,000 a year job as an assistant city editor for the daily newspaper he had worked on since graduating from college. The editors called him a fool for chasing the creative writing rainbow. But Mark was definitely a man with a dream.

He was thinking about where he could get his financial backing while he walked through the park. He was lost in his thoughts. His folks had owned a major Seventh Avenue fashion house, which he sold after their demise, as he detested business. He invested the money in bonds, which helped in his day-to-day survival. But he didn't have access to the $300,000 which he felt was necessary to publish the book.

Mark's ruminations were cut short by the sound of sobbing coming from a nearby park bench.

He glanced over towards the bench and saw a little bundle of human being, wrapped in a large coat, so that only a large mop of blonde hair showed. Mark wasn't sure whether it was a girl or a boy, but by the sound of the crying, he knew it was a young person. And having known sorrow and aloneness, he felt compelled to sit on the bench and see if he could help.

The young person continued to sob while he sat. He was waiting for a break in the crying to make himself known.

"I say there," he cleared his throat. "Is anything the matter?"

Two blue eyes peered up over the rumpled coat. They were surrounded by blood-shot backgrounds. She appeared to be a pretty young girl, but was a bit dour looking. And she looked like she was well on her way to becoming a street person of the Manhattan bag lady variety.

"What's wrong little girl?"

"What do you want?" she snapped.

"Sorry, for bothering you," he turned his head away. "I just can't stand to see a little girl cry."

"Well, I'm not a little girl," she said. "I'm fifteen. And I'm sure you are just like the other men who have been pestering me all morning. Well, I'll tell you this I might not have any money, and I might be a long way from home, and hungry, and all that, but I am not going to do anything nasty."

"I wasn't suggesting that..."

"I know how you men think."

"Oh, you do, huh?"

"Yep, it's because of a man my own father that I am sitting here in the park, with no where in the world to go."

With those words, the young girl broke into heavy sobs again.

"Really, I wish you would at least talk to me," he said.

"Leave me alone," she sobbed.

"Don't be so frightened," he laughed. "I'm a good person. I'm a writer."

"And that means you're a good person?" she looked at him with surprisingly wise eyes for a fifteen-year-old woman.

"Well, I think writers tend to be a bit more understanding of the human condition than others."

"Well, Adolf Hitler wrote a book. And the

Marquis De Sade. Do you think they were nice people?"

"You certainly aren't stupid, are you?"

"No, I can see things coming at me from a mile away," she said. "And I don't believe any lines anymore."

"You sound like an old trooper," Mark laughed.

"Living like I've been living teaches you a few things."

"I'm sure you haven't had it so bad. I really wish you would trust me. Just to talk to. I really don't want anything from you. It's just that I haven't spoken with a young, understanding person in so long. I've been wrapped up in my book spending the mornings in the library, and the afternoons at the typewriter. And at night, I just sit and brood, wondering if it's all worth it."

"I don't know why I should trust you," she paused, "but you do seem a little different than the others. And besides, you're kind of cute."

"Well, thank you," Mark smiled. "Coming from you, I think that must be quite a compliment."

"Don't push it," she said.

Mark tried a different ploy. He was beginning to feel challenged by this young lady. Not at all interested at that point in her as a sexual object, he was more drawn to her because of her interesting character. She reminded the writer of some colorful young character out of a Dickens novel.

"Listen, honey," Mark tried a different approach, "you look as though you've spent a lot of time on this park bench. You must be hungry."

"Are you trying to take advantage of me?"

"No, not at all," he smiled. "I just need someone to talk to just like you. You're not the only person in the world with problems. Your problem just happens to be money right now. Mine is struggling alone with the dammed book I'm working on. And I don't know anyone to talk to not anyone who can appreciate what I'm going through."

"What makes you think I can understand?" she was sitting a little higher, basking in the radiance of being needed.

"Oh, I don't know," he paused, "you just seem to be the understanding sort."

"Well, you can buy me breakfast if you would like."

"Fine," he said. "But my apartment is right over on Central Park West. I can make you breakfast, and you can take a bath. I'm sure it would make you feel better."

"Can I really trust you?"

"Why the hell are you so paranoid?"

"I told you because of my father."

"What did he do to you?"

"He's a drunk. And ever since my mother died when I was thirteen he's treated me like a servant. And a whore!"

"Oh, I am sorry."

"Sorry won't help," she sobbed again. "Please little girl."

"Don't call me little girl," the blonde sniffed. "My name is Tammy Korning, and I'm sure I've been through more in my life than most grown women, even if I am only fifteen."

"Well, your adult highness," Mark smiled, losing his sense of self and problems, in this charming, but sad and bedraggled young blonde girl. "Shall we go to breakfast?"

"Okay," she slid of the bench, and pulled the old coat around her.

It was the first opportunity Mark had had to take a good look at the young woman. She was much more developed and lovely than he had thought. It would be difficult for him not to think of her as a woman.

As they walked side-by-side through the park, the struggling writer glanced over at her, studying her young charm. She was wearing dirty, torn sneakers, faded jeans, which looked like they would need to be boiled in disinfectant, and a man's tee-shirt loaded with holes. Yet, despite her meager wardrobe, there was a sweet, girlish glow about her. Her hair was filled with dust, but it was readily apparent that she was a blonde princess of unique beauty.

Her blue eyes sparkled, and her skin was creamy smooth, and youthful. Her mouth was small, and there were still some traces of fuscia lipstick on her lips. He couldn't see her figure, as she had the bulky coat he figured it to be her father's wrapped around her.

The young woman was studying Mark rather carefully as well. She thought him handsome, but she certainly wasn't about to tell him that or even let on that she found him interesting. She was trying very hard not to like men. Especially, not to trust them.

As they entered the large apartment building, and the doorman tipped his hat at Mark, she was beginning to wonder what sort of situation she was finding herself in.

"I thought you said you were a poor writer?" she whispered as the lift took them to the fourth floor.

"I have things, mostly inherited," he said, "but not much cash. And that's what I need."

"Can't you sell some things, and then use the money for what you want?"

"I wish it was that simple," he sighed, as they got out of the elevator. "But I'm not the executor of my parents' estate. My uncle is.

And he thinks I'm nuts for trying to be a writer. He calls me a dreaming romantic, and says he will fight me every step of the way."

"Why are grownups such ass-holes?" the little girl asked a rhetorical question.

"It's not grownups," he said, "it's people."

Mark turned the key in the lock, and opened the door to his spacious apartment.

"My word," she gasped, "what a beautiful home. And you have a fireplace."

"One in the bedroom, too," he smiled.

"We have a fireplace up in Buffalo."

"Oh, is that where you're from?"

"I'm sorry I said-that."

"No reason to be," Mark said, moving across the living room to open the window. "It's a bit stuffy in here."

She was beside him. "You won't send me back, or call the police or anything like that?"

"No, of course not. If your father is as bad as he sounds, I don't think there's anything to worry about. He certainly won't come looking for you. If he really sexually abused you, then he would be more afraid of the police than you. You only ran away from home."

"Please, let's not talk about him anymore."

"You were the one who brought it up."

"Oh, look," she gushed, "we can see the park perfectly from here."

"Yes, it's a great view."

"I'll bet you have to spend a lot of money to live here?"

"No, it's a condominium," Mark explained. "It belonged to my parents. When they died, I inherited it."

"Oh, so you are a bit alone in the world, too. No brothers or sisters?"

"No."

"Me neither. It can be pretty lonely when you are the only one. I was pretty close to my mother. When she died, my father started drinking, and getting weird. I look a lot like my mother, actually. I think that's why my father sort of lost control."

"You mean sexually?"

"I don't want to talk about that. I thought you were going to make me some breakfast."

"Yes, your higliness," Mark was rather enjoying treating the willful child as a princess. "Wouldn't you like to take a bath while I'm doing that?"

"Sure," she said. "Where is the bathroom?"

Mark led her to the large master bathroom. He was very fond of the tub his parents had installed. It was sunken, and quite large enough to accommodate several adults. Though he wasn't thinking about jumping in the tub with the girl. Most of his sexual energy had been going into his writing and research. He had thought he lost his desire for physical intimacy altogether.

"It sure is a nice tub," she enthused, "and there is bubble bath, and creams and lotions, and perfume, and make-up. Why do you have these things? Are you a homosexual?"

"No, of course not," he laughed. "They were my mother's. I just never got around to throwing them out. I suppose it's a way of feeling that my mother is still here."

"Gee, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings saying that about you being a homosexual."

"That's alright."

"I wouldn't mind if you were," she smiled. "I would feel safer with you. I might even consent to live here, then. I could be like your maid, or sister, or something."

"Well, I'm not gay, and you are welcome to stay here as long as you want. And I promise not to attack you. I have other things on my mind."

Mark began drawing the bath. "You like it hot?"

"Oh, yes, very. What kinds of things to have on your mind, besides women?"

"The book, of course. The book is everything. But I'll tell you all about that later. Right now, I'll make you breakfast. How do you like your eggs?"

"Cooked."

"Okay, smartie, have a nice bath." He closed the door behind the young girl, and went to the kitchen. He made her fried eggs, toast and coffee, along with half of a grapefruit.

He was sitting in the living room, at a little table by the window, sipping his coffee. He had a cover over the young woman's food. He heard the sound of her footsteps approaching, and he leaned across the table and uncovered her food.

He had quite a shock when he looked over at the young woman as she entered the living room.

"My God, you're naked."

"Haven't you seen a naked girl before?" she laughed.

"But you were so uptight about..."

"I'm not trying to seduce you," she said, "but you can hardly expect me to put on those soiled clothes again."

Mark didn't reply. He couldn't take his eyes off her. She was much more beautiful than he had imagined." In addition to her long blonde hair, and exceptionally beautiful face, she had quite a cute body as well. Her breasts were rather small as would be expected from a fifteen-year-old but in a rather sensual way. They appeared as ripened little apricots, topped by pink nipples. There was not an ounce of blubber on her. She was slim, and trim, and her young pussy was covered by a patch of very light blonde hair.

"I say, you really are quite a smashing young woman," he blushed, feeling his penis grow excited.

"Don't act like that," she sniffed. "I didn't walk in here like this to excite you. I just wanted to know if you have any clothes I can borrow. Mine are dirtier than I thought. It was pretty rough hitching down from Buffalo."

"Why didn't you just shuffle?"

"Shuffle?"

"A joke, I guess you're too young to understand."

"Are you just going to sit there and stare at my naked body like some sort of pervert?"

"Oh, yes," Mark stood, "clothes. Let me see,"

He went off to his room, and returned with a robe. "This will have to do for now. We can get you some clothes that fit later."

The young woman put on the blue silk robe, which was quite large on her, and sat down at the table.

The robe was left open in front, and Mark couldn't help but notice the pink little nipples and adorable small breasts.

"So, tell me about your book," she said, with a mouthful of fried egg.

"It's your basic historical romance," Mark said, "set in World War One Europe, with flashbacks to the States. A private in the American Army meets this Austrian duke's daughter and they fall in love. He fathers a child by her before he is killed in battle, and the book follows the development of the child, his adult life, and so on. I haven't worked out all the details yet. But I think I will have him immigrate to Australia before the outbreak of World War Two."

"Why Australia?"

"Oh, I spent some time there a few years ago," Mark said. "I know about it. It's nice there. I would just like to work it into the book. His children, will of course, immigrate to the States. His son will meet his father's sister's daughter, and they will be married."

"But that's incest."

"They won't know it," Mark laughed. "Only the reader will know it. And so it won't make any difference."

"I think you're crazy."

"Of course I am," Mark laughed, "that's why I'm a writer. You have to be nuts to try to make a living this way."

"Do you have any cigarettes?"

"You smoke?"

"Fifteen is pretty old these days," she said.

"In my book, fifteen is fifteen."

"Do you have the cigarettes, though. I really would like one."

"Yea, yea," Mark found himself quickly becoming a servant to the young girl.

Finding a pack of smokes in the kitchen cabinet, he. tossed them on the table, along with a book of matches. "Smoke your brains out, sugar."

"Thanks," she pulled her chair slightly away from the window, and opening the front of the robe, drew her legs up high, so that the bottom of her feet were resting on the edge of the chair.

She lit a cigarette, and as she inhaled, Mark was staring between her young, firm thighs, not believing what was happening.

The pink lips of her youthful vagina were pulled slightly apart by her position, and he was able to look into her. Her clitoris was well outlined. And the young writer could feel his cock begin to pulsate in his trousers.

"Do you think I could get a tan like this?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm sure you could."

"Say, I'm not embarrassing you sitting like this, am I?"

"No, not at all," he winced, his cock pressing painfully against his pants. "Fifteen-year-old girls frequently sun bathe nude in front of my living room window with their legs spread wide apart."

"It's nice that you have a sense of humor," she smiled. "I like you. I think I'll hang around for awhile."

"Gee, that's awfully nice of you."

"What did you say your name was?"

"Mark Browning, and yours?"

"Tammy Korning," the lovely young blonde smiled, revealing her pearly teeth.

"Do you mind me asking you a personal question?" Mark was feeling quite anxious.

"Are you really so totally unaware of the effect that a naked, fifteen year old girl has on a man?"

"What do you mean?"

"I think you know perfectly well what I mean," Mark could feel his penis throbbing uncomfortably in his pants.

"Am I exciting you, by being naked in front of you?"

"That's a good way of describing how I feel."

"Well, you should try to calm down," she managed to keep a straight face.

"If this is how you acted around your father, I can understand why he couldn't keep his hands off you."

' "Oh, father is just a drunken fool. All he would do was get drunk, and cry over Mama dying, and stare at me. Yea, I liked to go around the house naked. But that doesn't mean I was trying to start anything with him. Would you like to know what happened?"

"I'm not sure." Mark didn't think he could listen to the tale of incest, without putting his own hands on this little tease. What he couldn't quite understand was whether or not she was purposely tormenting him.

"Well, if we are to be friends, you should know about it. Friends shouldn't have secrets."

"Some things are better left unsaid."

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

"Yes, very."

"Will you buy me some pretty clothes?"

"I'll lend you some money until you can afford to pay me back."

"And how will I be able to do that?"

"I'll help you find a job."

"I don't like working."

"Well, this is real life, sugar. And in real life, people have to work for a living. It's all because of a woman like you that that's necessary."

"A woman like me?"