James began to flick the cards down on the concrete between his legs, starting off slowly and building up speed as he got a feel for it. There was no rush: it was ten hours until sun-up and four and a half years until he’d be old enough to sit at a casino table.
*
‘Morning, knob-head!’
James’ head hurt as he opened his eyes and jerked forward. The low sun blitzed his retinas and he half expected to find the muzzle of a gun in his face. Much to his relief, his eyes eventually focused on Gabrielle’s pencil thin legs in a pair of running shorts.
‘What’s with the cards?’ she asked.
‘That’s my brother,’ Lauren smirked. ‘Always playing with himself.’
James hadn’t had anything like a full night’s sleep and it took him a few seconds to suss everything out: his neck ached because he’d fallen asleep sitting against a concrete wall while dealing cards. Lauren and Gabrielle were here because he’d radioed the coordinates on his GPS through to Kazakov the night before. The girls had come out to meet him because he needed a set of civilian clothes before he could move safely in daylight.
‘How’s things?’ James asked, holding his back and groaning as he stood up.
‘Kazakov’s on cloud nine because the army is on the run. The drones are wiped out, General Shirley is going psycho in his command post, changing his orders every few hours, running around like a headless chicken and generally making sure that he never gets a second star on his helmet.
‘The SAS have recruited and armed sixty bored college kids and wiped out more than a hundred and fifty US troops. Oh, and Andy gave Bethany a massive love bite.’
This last piece of information made James laugh. ‘What a slapper! How many boys has she snogged?’
Lauren tactfully ignored the jab at her best friend and picked James’ book off the floor. ‘The Ultimate Blackjack Manual,’ she snorted. ‘Gimme a break. You don’t seriously think you can beat the casinos do you?’
‘It’s a proven technique,’ James said, snatching his book back.
‘All credit though,’ Lauren grinned. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen you with a book that doesn’t have pop-ups.’
‘Why, you’re so funny this morning,’ James said sarcastically, as Gabrielle handed over a set of his clothes. ‘Did you have a tough time getting over here?’
‘We picked our moment,’ Gabrielle explained. ‘The bug Kazakov placed in the army control room means we know what orders the troops are getting before they do. General Shirley gave orders to step down the checkpoints because our snipers kept picking them off and lobbing paint grenades at them.’
‘The only trouble is, we couldn’t get you on your radio,’ Lauren complained. ‘Deaf git.’
‘Sorry,’ James yawned. ‘Earpiece must have fallen out while I was sleeping.’
‘The Americans don’t like it,’ Lauren grinned. ‘One of the General’s criteria for success is minimum civilian casualties. Every time an explosion goes off at a checkpoint half a dozen civilians end up getting blasted.’
James spoke admiringly as he swapped his army kit for ripped jeans and battered Adidas running shoes. ‘Kazakov’s a natural born warmonger. I mean, he may be psycho but you’ve got to have a certain admiration for the guy.’
‘He hates the Yanks so much,’ Lauren nodded. ‘I think he wishes that the weapons were real.’
*
Inevitably the Americans had uncovered some caches of weapons, brought some insurgents in for questioning and inflicted a few casualties in more than twelve hours of intense cat-and-mouse through the streets of Reaganistan.
As soon as General Shirley gave the order for his troops to retreat to base, Kazakov – who’d slept for less than an hour – gave orders for all the insurgents to change positions. Instead of meeting up at the apartments, Lauren and Gabrielle took James to Kazakov’s detached house.
They stopped off at one of the small supermarkets along the way and spent fifteen Reaganistan dollars on bacon, readymade pancake batter, orange juice, icing sugar, Nutella, aerosol cream and maple syrup so that Lauren could make breakfast.
Rat, Bethany and Andy had already arrived at the house with a cache of weapons, while Mac was being guarded by a five-man SAS team in the house next door. Gabrielle offered to help make the pancakes, but Lauren enjoyed cooking and said she didn’t want anyone to see her secret recipe.
Gabrielle ended up on one of two large couches in the living-room, facing James.
‘Comfy,’ James yawned, as he lay on the couch and wriggled about to scratch his back. ‘Sand gets everywhere.’
‘It’s inside the buildings and you can’t keep it out because none of the doors and windows are properly fitted,’ Gabrielle said, as she caught on to James’ yawn. ‘Had a shower at the apartment last night. Put on clean clothes, but ten minutes later I’m scratching like crazy.’
‘Tell me about it,’ James nodded.
‘You’ll tear all your skin off,’ Gabrielle warned, as she stepped over to James. ‘Let me do it.’
James sat up as Gabrielle came over. She laid her palm on the back of James’ shirt and rubbed it up and down.
‘Ooooh, that’s the spot,’ James purred. ‘I’ll shower after breakfast, if I can stay awake that long.’
‘So how are you dealing with stuff?’ Gabrielle asked. ‘I mean, over Dana.’
This was awkward. James knew that Michael and Dana going off with each other had hurt Gabrielle more deeply than it had hurt him.
‘I thought something was up,’ James said. ‘One day everything was fine: had a big bash for my sixteenth birthday and the next few weeks we were like a couple of randy rabbits. Then all of a sudden Dana doesn’t want me touching her and she’s saying it’s all too much.’
Gabrielle smiled. ‘I didn’t get that with Michael. I think he was quite happy to have two girls on the go at once! I was on campus, so I knew he was spending time with Dana. But when I confronted him he said I was being paranoid and that they were working on some history project together.’
‘Babymaking project by the sound of things,’ James grinned.
‘I guess it’s one to chalk up to experience,’ Gabrielle sighed. ‘But they say your first love is the hardest to get over and I really, really loved him.’
James reached up and touched Gabrielle’s arm. ‘You two were so close. Us lads did awards for all the girls one time and you won girl most likely to get married first.’
Gabrielle laughed. ‘When was this?’
‘Ages ago, like summertime or something. We were on one of those boring mission safety courses and all the lads started talking about girls and making up stupid categories.’
‘What did everyone else get?’
‘I probably shouldn’t say,’ James grinned. ‘Amy Collins was sexiest retired cherub. Kerry got best legs and hardest to get into bed.’
‘I’ll tell Kerry that,’ Gabrielle laughed.
‘Bethany won the best younger girl category, although I voted for her in girl you most want to smack in the mouth,’ James continued, knowing he was probably saying more than he should but delighted that he was making Gabrielle laugh.
‘Did Dana get anything?’
‘Best tits,’ James nodded. ‘I was dead proud.’
‘You boys are so classy,’ Gabrielle snorted, laughing so hard that she had to sit on the arm of the couch next to James. ‘What else?’
‘We came up with loads,’ James grinned. ‘But it was yonks ago. I can’t remember all of it.’
‘You’re a funny guy, James,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I think that’s why you get away with so much.’
‘You know I’ve always liked you,’ James said coyly, before reaching up to put his arm around Gabrielle’s back. ‘I mean we’re both—’
‘No, no, noooo!’ Gabrielle shrieked, jumping out of the way before laughing even harder. ‘Us girls were talking about you trying to get off with Kerry the other night. Lauren and Kerry both said you were such a randy git that it was only a matter of time before you hit on me.’
James felt the colour drain out of his face. ‘Kerry told you about that?’
‘You know girls,’ Gabrielle said. ‘We like our gossip.’
James looked serious. ‘Does Bethany know? She’s got a big trap and if Bruce finds out he’ll kick my head in.’
Gabrielle shook her head. ‘Just me and Lauren.’
‘Pancakes,’ Lauren said cheerily, as she came into the room holding two plates stacked with freshly cooked pancakes mounded with cream, sugar and chocolate spread. ‘What’s so funny?’
Gabrielle pointed at James, before roaring with laughter again. ‘Guess what he did?’
‘I told you,’ Lauren shrieked, as she handed James his plate and a knife and fork. ‘Five minutes alone with anything vaguely female …’
James was embarrassed, but he was also starving hungry and the orangey smell rising from Lauren’s calorie-packed pancakes made his stomach growl.
‘Oh he’s sulking now,’ Lauren teased, as James stared down at his plate. ‘Poor little lamb.’
James had made a complete tit of himself and was smart enough to know that anything he said to defend himself now would only put him deeper in the hole.
‘Nice pancakes, sis,’ he said, trying to ignore the giggling and hoping that they couldn’t see him blushing.
‘I wish I had my phone to text Kerry,’ Gabrielle snorfled. ‘She’s going to love this.’
ICE
After a 4,000-calorie pancake breakfast and a shower, James found pillows and a duvet in a wardrobe upstairs and crashed out on a squeaky-framed bed. His body clock had barely adjusted to American time and losing a night’s sleep was the last thing he’d needed.
The sun was bright and the curtains tissue-paper thin. James buried his head but still couldn’t sleep. He ended up putting his earpiece back in and passing three restless hours listening to communications between the exuberant Kazakov and his various teams.
Because the checkpoints had proved so vulnerable to attack from grenades and snipers, General Shirley’s latest strategy was based around snap searches: well armed convoys of open-topped Hummers would halt outside a building, troops would steam inside, force everyone to lie face down on the floor and then search for weapons, radios or any other sign that they were part of the insurgency. This strategy was effective at unearthing enemies and their weapons but the suspicion and rough handling by the soldiers didn’t win many friends amongst the civilians.
‘Everyone’s going down the road to get burgers in a minute,’ Rat said, stepping into James’ room without knocking. ‘You coming?’
James peeked from under the duvet and checked his watch: it was just gone noon. ‘Who’s everyone?’
Rat shrugged. ‘Lauren, Jake, Bethany and me.’
‘Gabrielle?’
‘Nope,’ Rat said, breaking into a smile. ‘Kaz sent her out on some op with Bruce. I heard you’d made a tit of yourself. Is that why you’re looking like a wet weekend?’
‘Along with a few other things,’ James moaned, as he threw off his duvet and grabbed his jeans.
‘What have you got to be miserable about?’ Rat asked.
‘Where to start,’ James said. ‘My anti-terrorist mission went belly up, Dana dumped me, I’ve got a blinding headache ‘cos I missed a whole night’s sleep and apparently every girl on CHERUB campus thinks I’m a dickhead.’
Rat fought back the urge to smile. ‘Not all of them.’
‘I’m ice cold,’ James complained, as he stuffed his feet into his trainers and looked around for the Velcro wallet with his Reaganistan dollars in it. ‘Dana dumped me, Kerry doesn’t want me back, Gabrielle doesn’t fancy me and even the random babe I chatted up in the casino shop started taking the piss out of me …’
‘Yeah right,’ Rat said. ‘You have such problems with the ladies. You’ve had a girlfriend practically since the day you arrived on campus, plus loads more on missions. Thinking about it, that’s probably half your problem.’
‘Eh?’ James said.
‘You know,’ Rat shrugged. ‘Imagine you’re a prospective girlfriend. Everyone on campus knows what you’re like. You cheated on Kerry about six times then dumped her—’
‘It wasn’t six,’ James interrupted. ‘Three... Four tops.’
‘Then you got off with Dana and slept with some random girl the first time you were out of her sight. I mean, a girl like Gabrielle knows your reputation and she’s not gonna be looking at you and thinking you’re great boyfriend material, is she?’
‘S’pose,’ James said. ‘Although why I’m taking advice from someone who fancies Lauren is frankly beyond me.’
‘Fine, ignore me,’ Rat said smugly, as they started heading down the stairs. ‘But I’m telling you, with your reputation you’re gonna have to work hard if you want to get anywhere with any girl on campus.’
‘I’ll have to rely on good looks and charm then,’ James smirked, putting on his watch as they headed into the main hallway.
‘What charm?’ Lauren asked from the bottom of the front staircase. ‘I’ve stepped in turds with more charm than you.’
‘Took your time, didn’t you?’ Jake complained, as he opened the front door. ‘I’m absolutely starving.’
Jake was alarmed by the sight of three Hummers filled with soldiers pulling up outside. ‘Holy shit!’ he gasped, slamming the door shut.
‘Don’t move!’ a soldier shouted over a PA system built into one of the Hummers. ‘Remain calm!’
‘If James hadn’t taken so long we’d have been out of here already,’ Bethany said.
‘Jake, you’re cutest,’ Lauren said, instinctively taking charge. ‘Answer the door, act scared and stall ‘em for as long as you can.’
The house was stuffed with guns and equipment, so there was no way to hide their links with the insurgency. In real life the threat of a dozen highly-trained US soldiers might have brought on a surrender, but as they were only facing simulated rounds the five cherubs pulled on their goggles and prepared for a rumble.
James and Rat bolted back up the staircase. Lauren and Bethany ran into the kitchen to grab their rifles as Jake cautiously opened the front door.
‘Why’d you close the door?’ a major in mirrored sunglasses barked. ‘Who else is in there?’
Jake put on his best scared little boy act. ‘I’m alone, sir. My dad’s out buying cheeseburgers.’
‘Don’t worry, boy,’ the major smiled, resting a paw on Jake’s shoulder. ‘We’ve got a job to do, but we’ll be in and out in a flash.’
Three more soldiers were running up the driveway, while squads of four ran around the back of the house on either side.
‘Come in then I suppose,’ Jake said sheepishly.
Upstairs, James and Rat found their packs. They tooled up with grenades and clipped fresh magazines into their rifles. They had to keep low so that they couldn’t be seen by the soldiers running around the back of the house.
‘I’m counting twelve men,’ James whispered, as he bobbed up to glance out of the window. ‘I’ll cover the staircase, you shoot from up here.’
Lauren and Bethany made similar preparations in the kitchen.
‘You’ve got nothing to be scared of, son,’ the major said calmly, as he nudged Jake down the hallway and through to the living-room. ‘But I need you to kneel on the floor with your hands on your head.’
Three colleagues rushed in after the major with their guns raised. One followed the major into the living-room, one headed back towards the kitchen, while the third started creeping up the stairs.
‘Radio,’ a lieutenant said anxiously, as he spotted someone’s headset on the floor.
The major glanced at it suspiciously, before eyeballing Jake and speaking in a much firmer tone. ‘Does that belong to your father?’
Jake scrambled for an excuse. ‘I was playing outside and found it in the street.’
‘You don’t say?’ the leader said happily, bending over to pick it off the floor. ‘We’ve been on the lookout for one of these so we can hear what our enemies are talking about.’
Jake was on edge, knowing that things might kick off any second. The soldiers all had guns, the other cherubs all had guns and he didn’t fancy being stuck in the middle when the shooting started. His only hope was a pistol he could see holstered under the major’s jacket.
The first sign of trouble was the near simultaneous blast of two paint grenades in the back garden. Lauren and Bethany had pulled pins and dropped them silently through a vent in the kitchen window, before ducking down behind the cabinets.
Four soldiers were hit by the flying paint. As two more stood dumbly and inspected their clothing to see whether they were alive or not, Lauren stood up behind the counter and took them out with well aimed blasts. Bethany spun around and shot the guard who’d come along the hallway.
Upstairs, Rat took aim through a back window and shot one soldier, but narrowly missed the last man standing as he vaulted over a hedge and made a run for it. At the same instant, James poked his rifle between the banister rails and shot the soldier coming up the stairs.
Back in the living-room, Jake made his move. He wailed like the blast had frightened him and wrapped his arms around the major’s leg. By the time the big man realised Jake’s real intentions, the eleven-year-old had already grabbed the major’s pistol and shot him from point blank range.
At that kind of range simulated bullets pack a real punch. The major bawled a torrent of swear words as he crumpled to the floor, clutching at his thigh. Simultaneously, James jumped the entire staircase and shot through the front door, hitting a soldier standing on the front lawn.
Bethany had continued down the hallway and covered Jake’s back, aiming through the living-room doorway and shooting the last of the four men who’d come through the front door.
James was startled by the shot directly behind him and launched a vicious back kick that hit Bethany hard in the stomach. Before she could scream a warning, James spun around and shot her twice in the belly.
‘Ooops,’ James said, as Bethany writhed on the ground clutching her guts with the top half of her body streaming with chalky pink paint. ‘Sorry.’
‘You idiot,’ Bethany groaned. ‘Do I look like a soldier to you?’
‘I think we got them all,’ Jake gasped, as he ran into the hallway. He saw his sister on the lawn and burst out laughing. ‘Oh dear!’
‘Was that deliberate, James?’ Bethany growled.
‘Of course it wasn’t,’ James smirked. ‘Just a happy accident.’
Bethany was tempted to shoot James back, but Mr Kazakov would have her running punishment laps if he found that she’d deliberately shot one of his team.
‘Dead girls can’t talk,’ Jake said, as he pointed at the paint-spattered soldier lying silently on the lawn. ‘See you in twenty-four hours.’
‘Jake, I just saved your butt in case you didn’t notice,’ Bethany growled.
Lauren came out of the kitchen and Rat jogged down the hallway to see what was occurring.
‘Pretty impressive,’ Rat said. ‘Eleven to one kill-ratio against trained soldiers.’
‘Who got away?’ James asked.
‘One bloke scarpered away into the bushes,’ Rat explained. ‘I think he legged it, but we’d better not hang around ‘cos he’s bound to have called for backup.’
James was the senior agent and he had to make some decisions. ‘Jake, Rat, booby trap the inside of the house and the Hummers with grenades,’ he ordered. ‘Lauren, go inside and pack up as many weapons as you can carry. I’ll update Kazakov on the radio, then I’ll be in to give you a hand.’
TREASURE
Bethany headed towards the processing facility to declare herself dead. The dead soldiers walked alongside and they were understandably curious about being taken down by a group of kids with British accents and expert marksmanship.
Bethany stuck to their prescribed back story: ‘Our parents are military staff who live on a British cold-weather training facility in a remote region of Canada. There’s not much to do, so our parents set up a cadet group where we all learn self defence and go paintballing on weekends.’
‘No kidding,’ the major smiled. ‘That little brother of yours had me fooled. Almost shot me in the one place a man don’t wanna be shot…’
As his comrades laughed, Bethany smiled and felt proud of Jake for probably the first time ever.
‘This man Kazakov,’ the major said. ‘Have you seen him? None of us knows what he looks like.’
Bethany smiled coyly. ‘You’ve gotta work harder than that to wheedle information out of me.’
One of the soldiers was dragging behind and the major looked back at him. ‘You OK, Martin?’
‘My stomach,’ the soldier answered grimly. ‘Feels like I’ve got a basketball lodged in my belly.’
‘Know what you’re saying,’ a colleague nodded. ‘I got the same. Must have eaten some bad chow in the mess hall last night.’
*
Jake, Lauren, Rat and James dumped their rifles and equipment back at the apartments before heading off to buy burgers. James dozed through the early part of the afternoon. He woke to find the apartment crowded: Gabrielle and Bruce were back from a sabotage operation, along with Mac and the four SAS toughs who’d been keeping him on the move and guarding him since the beginning of the exercise.
James headed into the kitchen. Everyone crowded around the breakfast bar, listening to a walkie-talkie.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, opening the fridge and downing several mouthfuls from a four-pint carton of orange juice.
‘We’re monitoring the bug in the army command office,’ Mac explained. ‘Looks like your little experiment with the water supply is starting to have consequences.’
James wasn’t sure about Kazakov’s most extreme tactic and was decidedly uncomfortable about sharing the blame. ‘I was following orders,’ he said defensively. ‘Sarge didn’t even tell me what was going on until we were inside the base.’
‘Remember history class? The Nazis on trial at Nuremburg,’ Lauren grinned, before adopting a German accent. ‘I was only following orders.’
‘And the Nazis all got hanged,’ Rat added.
Dark laughter erupted around the breakfast bar. James looked to Mac for some reliable information. ‘So what’s going on right now?’
‘We’re arming sympathisers and making efforts to ambush the snatch squads. Over eighty American soldiers have reported sick already and men from all over are returning to base with stomach cramps.’
‘Sarge told me twenty hours,’ James said, glancing at his watch. ‘So it’s probably just the beginning.’
‘Kazakov’s chuffed to bits,’ Mac nodded. ‘He reckons up to ninety per cent of the American troops will be wiped out with diarrhoea and vomiting by six this evening. He’s got insurgent sympathisers posting fliers inviting the entire population to a free booze-up in the shanty town.’
‘That’s right next to the army base,’ James said, as the full ambition of Kazakov’s plan became clear in his head. ‘There’s a thousand American troops. But over a hundred and fifty have been shot and if ninety per cent of what’s left are sick that’s gonna leave less than a hundred in fighting condition …’
‘We’re talking about full-scale revolution,’ Jake grinned.
A gruff-voiced Welsh SAS officer spoke admiringly. ‘I don’t think the Yanks knew what they were letting themselves in for when they invited Kazakov to do red teaming. He was our main tactical consultant for a decade and I don’t think anyone ever bested him, either in training or on a live operation.’
The youngest of Mac’s guards nodded. ‘The guy’s been fighting wars since before I was born. It’s criminal that they didn’t make him our regimental commander.’
‘Why didn’t they?’ James asked.
‘Protocol,’ the Welshman explained. ‘Kazakov has only ever been a consultant. It would have ruffled a lot of feathers if they’d appointed an outsider. But the man’s a tactical genius.’
As if on cue, Kazakov’s voice came through their walkie-talkies. ‘I need bodies,’ he announced. ‘Thirty-three beer kegs and two hundred bottles of vodka ain’t gonna shift themselves.’
*
General Shirley had started off trying to make friends, then attempted to clamp down with roadblocks after the aerodrome attack. But without the drones providing aerial surveillance the roadblocks were vulnerable to snipers and paint grenades so he’d been forced into using snatch squads.
Casualties were lighter with this tactic. Insurgents were arrested and weapons seized, but with no permanent presence on the streets Kazakov’s insurgents had freedom to move around setting ambushes, blockading roads and recruiting insurgent sympathisers.
War zones in the real world suffer from high unemployment and are filled with bored youngsters. The young men and women inside Fort Reagan were the same, with one TV channel and dwindling reserves of booze.
Most of those receiving the extra twenty dollars a day to support the insurgency were happy to take a rifle and receive basic military instruction from the teams of SAS officers, if for no other reason than that it was something to do. More than a hundred and fifty men and women had been armed and given basic tactical firearms training over the space of a day and a half.
Spies in the shanty town spotted convoys of troops leaving the nearby army base and as the day wore on the SAS officers trained insurgents in more advanced techniques, such as burying paint grenades close to roads and rigging lengths of wire so they’re tripped when a vehicle passes over.
Under Fort Reagan rules any vehicle hit with a spot of paint more than ten centimetres in diameter was deemed to be disabled and the crew inside had to get out on foot.
By 6 p.m. the sun was dropping below distant sand bluffs and ambushed Hummers littered the streets. More than eighty additional troops had been shot for losses of less than half that number of insurgents.
Kazakov sheltered inside a concrete hut in the shanty town, listening to the bug in General Shirley’s command post. The American was suffering stomach cramps and getting increasingly irate as more and more of his troops went down with diarrhoea. He’d even called base commander O’Halloran and asked that the exercise be abandoned because of a possible health scare, but the commander gave him short shrift: you can’t abandon a real war if there’s an outbreak of food poisoning, so why should you abandon an exercise?
In the central square of the shanty town more than a thousand young men and women had gathered to party around a huge bonfire. The thirty kegs of beer hadn’t lasted long, but Kazakov had arranged a plentiful supply of wines and spirits. Rock music blasted, barbecued steaks were served in fresh baps and he’d even brought in a few fireworks.
Almost half the crowd were either armed insurgents or unarmed sympathisers. Normally it would have been unacceptably risky to gather so many poorly trained men and women together less than half a kilometre from a US Army base, but there weren’t enough healthy troops left to take any action.
The only sign of an army presence was an occasional rapid drive-by, with the driver circling the shanty town at his vehicle’s maximum 15 mph speed, while two men in the back surveyed the situation with night-vision binoculars.
James and the rest of the cherubs hung out in a big group just off the main square. Young men were flirting, dancing and joining long queues for the rapidly diminishing supplies of alcohol. Many of them carried their weapons openly and a few of the drunkest even took aim at the fireworks.
‘Need a slash,’ James said, crushing a plastic beer cup and strolling away from the gang.
After the restful afternoon he felt brighter than he’d done all day as he cut away from the square between rows of near-identical huts. The alleyways were crammed compared to the night before when he’d passed through in his stolen officer’s uniform.
He found a staircase cut into the rock, which led up to an elevated area of the shanty town. Three men urinated against the stone sides and a huge lake of piss had collected behind a nearby hut. The residents wouldn’t be happy when they got home, but there was nowhere else to go so James unzipped and joined the fray.
As James strolled back to the party an attractive blonde stepped in front of him and asked if he knew anywhere she could get more to drink.
‘Queues are a nightmare,’ James said, eyeing the girl with her tight fitting shorts and blue and white striped top. Her shoulders were broad and she had a big bust and nice legs; but she looked at least twenty so James figured she was out of his league.
‘I’ve had enough,’ the girl said, stumbling forwards and grabbing James by his arm. ‘I’m horny.’
‘That’s an unusual name,’ James said.
She smiled girlishly and tapped her varnished index finger on her chin. ‘You can call me that if you like, but my real name’s Cindi-Lou.’
‘I’m James.’
‘You’re pretty cute, young James,’ she said, stepping forwards so that her breasts almost touched James’ chest. ‘How about we go and do something your mommy wouldn’t approve of?’
James cracked a huge involuntary smile as the girl put her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. After all the female-related trauma of the past few weeks it was exactly the tonic his damaged ego needed. Lust pulsed through his body as he imagined getting his hands on female flesh.