Glancing through half-open eyes, she sees it’s still only a few minutes after six and swore to herself. Nora crosses the hall to the door, vaguely aware she ought to be wearing something more substantial. She loves wearing old t-shirts to bed and decides to give the caller a thrill as the neck slips over her shoulder, exposing a nipple on her flat chest. The hem of the T-shirt barely concealed her bald pussy when standing.
As her hand releases the lock, the door suddenly swings open, forcing her back quickly in fear of being hit. A large white man barged into her hallway, holding a clipboard under his arm and a deep scowl on his face.
He asks her loudly, “I need to speak to your mommy, Nora Young. Go get her, girlie.”
Quickly pulling the t-shirt to cover her nipple, she nods silently, staring wide-eyed at the stranger. “I’m Nora Young,” she said with a pout.
The man frowns. “How old are you, missy?”
“I’m nearly twenty,” she said.
He sighs. “Jesus, you look like a kid,” he said. Then shaking it all out of his mind, the man thrusts a business card at Nora as if firing a weapon, his face remaining hard. “Murdoch’s Debt Collection Agency. My name is Frank Murdoch.”
“W-What?”
Before she even understands what’s happening, he shoves some papers into her hands with a satisfied smile. Behind Frank, off the porch, stood two men dressed casually, smoking, and hardly noticing Frank. Nora shakes her head briefly to clear the cobwebs from her mind, gazes at the papers, and reads them as fast as possible.
She’s fallen short in tuition money for college and had to get a loan to cover the shortfall. The loan had come from a ‘fast money’ service, and she thought she’d paid it back already. The papers she holds say differently.
“Um, I’ve paid this loan out. This is nonsense,” Nora said.
Frank shakes his head and points to some paragraphs to read. The text said she missed two repayments, and under terms of the contract, she’s being charged a one-hundred-dollar per day late payment fee for every day missed. The final figure blew her mind. Her initial loan was about five thousand dollars. According to the document, she now owes them ten grand.
Nora stares at the man wide-eyed again. “I can’t pay this,” she said softly, feeling her stomach drop. “I don’t have this kind of money.”
Her arms drop, making the t-shirt falls open, exposing her budding breast again. Frank ogles her momentarily, as do the men outside.
“Then,” Frank said, staring at her deliciously exposed breast, “I’m legally allowed to take any goods from your premises to the value of the sum aforementioned in the paperwork. I can also take your car.”
He raised his hand and gestured to his helpers. They brush past Nora and Frank and come back carrying her refrigerator between them.
“You can’t take that,” Nora said to the men who just ignored her.
Not long after, they were walking out with her laptop and TV. Nora stands helpless as the paperwork appears legal, and the collection agency had every right to take what they liked. ‘What am I going to do now?’ she wonders as they approach, carrying the couch.
Not having room to squeeze by, one of the men suddenly grabs her waist and lifts her, causing the others to laugh loudly. He holds her tight, legs in the air, the t-shirt round her waist, her lovely bottom and bald pussy slit on view, which they check out.
“Put me down,” Nora squeals and kicks her legs.
The man holding her, a rough-looking unshaven man in his forties who smelled like tobacco, just laughed at her as she weakly hit his arms.
“I think you should put some clothes on, Miss Young, before my guys lose interest in your furniture and start investigating that bald pussy with their cocks,” Frank said and laughed.
The man carries her into her bedroom and throws her on the bed as they laugh at her. Then he picks up the couch again and takes it out of the apartment. Nora grabs her jeans and starts pulling them on.
“You assholes. How dare you invade my home like this? I’m gonna call the cops and get you arrested,” she shouts as tears trickle down her cheeks.
Questions plague her mind, however. ‘How did I let this happen? More to the point, how do I get out of this mess?’ When she emerged from the bedroom, the debt collector’s men carried off anything of value to a removal truck outside. Almost every electrical item and furniture are gone. They didn’t even leave the coffee percolator.
Frank hands her a copy of the inventory of items and smiles at her.
“Here’s how it works, missy. We’ll be taking these goods to that address,” he said, pointing at the inventory list. An address is on the page. “If you don’t pay us, in full, within the next two days, then we’ll sell everything.”
“Two days,” she said, her hand covering her mouth. “I can’t pay ten grand in two days.”
Frank shrugs. “Should’ve thought of that before you let the payment slip.”
“Asshole,” she said with narrowed eyes at the self-righteous criminal in front of her.
He smiles and leaves. Nora slams the door loudly behind him to vent her anger.
****
Nora sinks to the floor and weeps. Her situation is as bad as it gets, and her body shakes with misery. Eventually, after making herself some tea using a saucepan to boil water, she thinks about how to get out of the situation. The men hadn’t taken her phone, so she had people she could ring who might lend her some money. Nora read the documents carefully, and they were watertight.
Looking through the directory on her phone, she began to wonder whom she could call for help. ‘There’s no point talking to the banks,’ she thought bitterly. ‘With a huge debt like this hanging over me and no assets or income, they’d laugh in my face.’ Nora scrolls through the names. ‘My parents won’t help me after the cops arrested me for soliciting dressed as a minor recently. They still aren’t talking to me.’ She sighs. ‘At least the rent is paid for the next month. Pity I had to fork out such a large bond on the apartment. That would’ve covered this.’
She conjured up a mental picture of their landlord, Harry Neale. ‘He’s a total sleaze,’ she thought. Man, a fifty-something, close-cropped beard, the latest fashionable menswear, and gregarious in a show biz kind of way.
Whenever she spoke to Harry, he always openly leered at her. Sometimes he brushed against her when they met, or his hand would touch her in unexpected places. Meanwhile, he’d smile and act innocent, leaving her only with her suspicions.
“Harry, hmm,” she said to herself softly. “If he’d be willing to refund part of the bond temporarily, I could get these debt collectors off my back without having to tell my parents what’s happened.”
The thought of burdening her mom and dad with her mistake made her stomach roil. ‘Harry is loaded anyway,’ she thought, justifying it to herself. ‘So, he won’t miss it in the short term. Many items taken from the apartment belong to him anyway, so helping her get them back is in his best interest too.’ Nora decides the solution to her problem is obvious now. Talk to Harry about it.
Harry agrees to see her in his office at eleven, so to calm her nerves, Nora takes a shower and spends time doing her makeup. She wears a light blue summer dress. When Nora is herself, she now wears a padded bra to give the appearance that she has c-cup breasts. Coupled with thick-framed fake glasses, she does look her age. Black high heels complete the outfit to make her a little taller, and she thinks she looks good. Her tanned legs and skin compliment her red hair wig. Taking a deep breath, she leaves the trashed apartment and heads for Harry’s office, feeling her stomach flutter and body tremble.
*****
Harry sits at his desk, pushing his chair back as she sits, smiling kindly at his tenant.
“Ms. Young, how are you today?” he asks cheerily.
She smiles at him and says, “I’m fine, thank you.
“And that sweet sister of yours? Such a fine young girl. She brightens up the place.”
She shakes her head while maintaining her smile as she knows Harry is teasing her. “Annie is good, thanks.”
Annie is not a real person, but the persona Nora uses to attract perverted men to molest her. She has a genetic condition that makes her look like a little girl, even though she’s now nearly twenty. But when Nora dresses in her little Annie clothes, she looks like a ten-year-old.
Harry nods, his usual leer showing her what he is thinking. “So, how may I help you, young lady?”
Nora then explains all that happened to her that morning, why she’s there, and what she needs to get the goods back. Having listened to her story and proposal, Harry sits silently for some minutes, looking into his hands. Nora’s hands shake, and she feels dizzy, knowing as she speaks that what she asks is a huge favor.
“Hmm, sounds like you’re in a bit of a pickle,” Harry said grimly.
“Yes, but if I can get some of my bond money back, as I said, I can recover the goods.”
Harry nods. He understands what she wants. “Under the law, I must put rental bonds I collect into a trust account, and I can’t touch it unless you move out.”
“Then say I’m moving out,” she said.
His head jerked back, amazed he had just heard Nora tell him to break the law blatantly. ‘Interesting,’ he thought. “Given what’s happened, I’d be within my rights to keep the bond, as you’ve broken your lease.”
His cold stare made her shoulders sag, and her head droop. ‘Damn, he’s greedy,’ she thought.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Young, this isn’t as simple as you’d hoped.”
She sighs deeply. “Is there anything you can do to help? I’m desperate.”
“A bank loan, maybe?”
She shakes her head.
“Um, a relative?” Harry suggests.
Again, she shakes her head with a sigh.
A smile suddenly develops, his eyes narrow, and he begins to nod. “Well, there are other avenues, Ms. Young.”
“Like what?”
“I’d be willing to help you if you let me take pictures of your little sister Annie. I take it you’re her legal guardian?” he said, settling back into his chair with exaggerated casualness. “For my, err, art, of course.”
“Annie? Yes, I’m her legal guardian. What kind of pictures?”
He pulled a drawer open in his desk and pulled out a folder, throwing it on the desk in front of her.
“These types.”
Nora opens the first page and sees some sweet childhood scenes, nothing suspect. There are many more photos in the folder. All are sweet, innocent, and interesting, and the kids seem happy and untouched.
“You took these?”
Harry nods. “Call it a hobby.”
“These are lovely pictures. You have an eye for it. You should’ve been a professional photographer.”
Harry laughs. “There’s no money in being a photographer,” he said.
Nora continues to look through his portfolio, admiring his work as she goes. This side of Harry was something she would never have guessed.
Harry eventually said, “I’ll lend you the ten grand if you let me take pictures of Annie.”
Her head jerks from an image of a sweet young girl in overalls and a straw hat posing in a field of wildflowers. She looks at him with narrow eyes and asks, “The catch?”
“No catch.”
Nora said nothing and continued leafing through the folder, not focusing on the pictures now. Harry sits back in his chair again, waiting for a reaction, almost feeling sorry for her yet nervously hoping she’d feel compelled to accept the proposition.
“The pictures you take of Annie will be like these?”
“Of course.”
“All right, I’ll sign the permission form. You can take photos of Annie.”
“Great,” he said. “Annie’s such an angelic child.”
*****
This is a free sample of The Game 5: Nora’s Debt by Gowan Bush. Buy the eBook to read the whole story or join our Members Area and read ALL our stories.
