Trailer Park Noir

Twelve

Kendra held Dexter in her arms and danced around in circles with him as a music video played on TV. When she finally stopped, she was a little dizzy, and she laughed.

“You like that, Dexter?” she said. She hoped she hadn’t made the little dog dizzy – she hadn’t meant to do that. She put him down and he immediately rose up on his hind legs and began pawing at her shins. “Hey, I got an idea,” Kendra said.

She left the living room and went to her bedroom and to the closet. She had a box of balls on the floor of her closet. In it was the multicolored ball she’d been bouncing earlier that day. There were also smaller balls, and much smaller balls. She found one small enough for Dexter to be able to pick it up with his little mouth, then left her bedroom.

“Oh, no, Dexter!” Kendra shouted when she found the little dog urinating on the kitchen floor.

He stopped and scurried away, whining.

She went to him and shouted, “No! No, bad boy, Dexter, bad boy!” as she wagged a finger at him.

Dexter quivered and whined and lowered his head and tucked his skinny little tail between his legs.

Kendra went back and cleaned up the little puddle with paper towels. She hoped she was doing this right – she had no idea how to house train a dog. She was simply doing what made sense to her.

She went back to the living room, where Dexter was still huddling at the foot of the recliner.

“I’m sorry, Dexter,” Kendra said as she sat down beside him, “but you gotta learn that’s a no-no. You wanna play fetch?” She showed him the ball and he took some interest. She threw the ball into the kitchen and Dexter darted away after it, little toenails clicketing on the kitchen floor. He went to the ball and playfully knocked it around on the kitchen floor. But he didn’t bring it back, no matter how much Kendra called him.

She got up, went to the kitchen, snatched up the ball, then returned to the recliner. Dexter never took his eyes from the ball and followed her all the way. She threw the ball and Dexter shot off after it. Again, he did not bring it back, even though she called him.

Kendra occupied herself with this activity for about half an hour before suddenly, out of nowhere, Dexter picked up the ball and brought it back to her, dropped it in her lap, as if he’d known how to do it all along, but hadn’t wanted to.

“You little poop!” she said. “You been playin’ with me all along, huh?”

For another fifteen minutes, Kendra tossed the ball and Dexter brought it back. She was endlessly entertained by the way he ran, by the way he trotted back with the ball in his mouth, head held high. By the way his whole back-end waggled as he eagerly waited for her to throw the ball.

She threw it too hard and a little too far to the left. The ball bounced around in the kitchen sink. Dexter ran into the kitchen and stopped, body rigid, and looked around for the ball. It was nowhere to be seen, so he lowered his head and began to sniff around for it.

Kendra got up and took the ball from the sink, and dropped it. Dexter snapped at it as it bounced in the air a few times before coming lower, and lower, and lower, until Dexter finally caught it in his little mouth. Head high again, he trotted away.

Kendra leaned her hips back on the edge of the kitchen counter and thought about how lucky she was. Because she was real happy. She was starting to get some independence in her life. She’d been alone in the trailer for about ninety minutes – for the first time in her life. And she had a little doggy all her own, for the first time in her life. It was a day of first times.

But so far, Kendra had done nothing naughty, nothing to make her feel good, to somehow scratch her naughty itch. There had to be something she could do without getting caught – but with just enough risk of getting caught to make it exciting.

For one thing, Mommy had made her take off the bikini top and put on a T-shirt with her shorts. So Kendra went to her room and took off the T-shirt and put the bikini top back on, then put the plaid shirt over it, left it open, the way she’d worn it that morning.

Kendra was pouring herself a glass of ice-cold lemonade when she heard the piercing squeak of the mailman’s brakes. She could hear them all the way there from the trailer park’s entrance, where the mail truck stopped at the bank of mailboxes.

“Hey, Dexie,” she said with enthusiasm, “you wanna go get the mail?”

Because of her tone, the dog got excited and began hopping up and down.

“You’re not gonna run away from me soon as we get out there, are you, Dex?” she said.

The dog continued to hop, throwing in a piercing little bark now and then.

Just to be sure, she picked Dexter up in her arms and then went outside, then she held him up in front of her. “Now, you can’t run away, you hear me, Dexter? You have to stay with me. Okay?”

Dexter licked her face and she giggled. She put him down on the ground and he ran circles around her feet.

The shade helped keep the trailer park cooler than it would have been without it, but it was not immune from the baking summer heat, not even in the shade. A hot breeze whispered secrets in the trees overhead as Kendra headed for the trailer park’s entrance.

Dexter ran ahead of her, and Kendra called, “Dexter! Come back here!” She slapped her bare thigh and made kissing sounds with her lips. The little dog turned around and hurried back, then fell into step beside her, trotting to keep up.

Country music came from one of the trailers. It always seemed to play in the trailer park, all day long. From another trailer came the angry sound of talk radio. Kendra heard a sound ahead and to her left and saw the door open on unit five, the new trailer. A man came out holding a tall glass and a magazine in one hand. He closed the screen door behind him, then sat down on the top porch step, took a sip of his drink and put the glass next to him on the porch.

Kendra kept glancing at him, wondering who he was, what he was like, where he’d come from, and what had brought him to Riverside Mobile Home Park.

Suddenly, he looked up. Then he did a double-take. Then he stared openly at her.

She glanced at him again and again, and each time, his stare was fixed on her, lips slightly parted. Kendra began to feel the jittery sensation of self-consciousness creep up on her. She wondered if there was something wrong with her – did she look funny, was that why he was staring at her?

She told herself to stop looking at him, then maybe he would ignore her. She felt her back stiffen as she walked by him. One more glance – he was still watching her from the porch and she stiffened even more as she walked out of his line of sight.

Kendra never knew what it meant when someone stared at her, and it always made her uncomfortable. It seemed people stared at her a lot. Was it because she was slow – could they tell by looking at her? Was she ugly? Funny-looking? She couldn’t understand it. Like she told Mommy, everyone was a little mean at one time or another.

She walked on, nearing the park’s entrance and exit, the two lanes separated by the giant oak. The row of twenty mailboxes was on the left just outside the entrance.

Kendra glanced back over her shoulder and almost tripped over her own feet when she saw that man standing out in the road now, watching her from behind, arms folded across his chest. She spun back around and faced front, frowning now. She picked up her pace a little, then darted to the left, again out of his line of sight, behind the grey cinder block wall that ran behind the mailboxes. There was another wall just like it on the other side of the exit, but that one had big words on it: RIVERSIDE MOBILE HOME PARK. She went down the row of mailboxes to theirs. She opened it, reached in and removed the mail – mostly junk mail, and a couple bills – then closed the U-shaped door of the mailbox. Kendra hated the look she saw in Mommy’s eyes whenever she got a new bill.

She stood in front of the mailboxes for a while, thinking about that man from unit five, the man who’d stared at her the whole time she’d walked down there. She turned around and looked for Dexter. He was a few feet away, sniffing at a rock embedded in the ground. She called him to her and he darted to her side. She picked him up. She didn’t trust him so close to Park Way, which got a lot more traffic than the little road inside the trailer park.

Kendra did not know if she could bear the weight of his stare all the way back to the trailer. Maybe he would say something to her this time. That wouldn’t be so bad, if he’d say hi, how are you, instead of just staring at her like that.

She peeked around the old cinder block wall and down the road into the park. The man was gone. With a little sigh of relief, she started back toward her trailer. Once she was back in the park, she put Dexter down again, and he trotted along beside her.

From the corner of her eye as she came upon unit five, she saw him standing there, leaning back on the rear of his SUV.

“Hi, there,” he said with a big, friendly smile.

Startled, Kendra stumbled to a halt, then turned to him, unaware that her mouth hung open. She unconsciously ran her tongue around her lips.

“I’m new here,” he said, still smiling. “My name’s Steven. Steven Regent. Who’re you?”

She looked down at Dexter for a moment, feeling embarrassed, although unsure of why. She lifted her eyes and looked at him again, and his arms were folded across his chest again.

“My name’s… Kendra,” she said.

“Well, Kendra, it’s nice to meet you. I guess I’ve been kind of rude, staring at you like I have, but you know what? And this isn’t some kind of line. You, Kendra, are maybe the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of beautiful girls, because I’m a photographer. I photograph women. And you, Kendra, you are absolutely stunning.”

Along with the heat of the summer came the heat of a stinging, embarrassed blush as it worked its way up her neck and throat and up her face. She did not know what to say. No one had ever said such a thing to her before and she had no clue how to react.

“Kendra?” he said. “That’s a beautiful name, by the way. It suits you.”

Dexter pawed at her calves.

Kendra finally lifted her head and looked at him again. She was still blushing. She smiled and said, “Thank you. Nobody ever said that to me before.”

“You’re kidding. No boys have ever told you that?”

“No.”

“Well, then you are surrounded by blind men, Kendra, because you are a young woman of exceptional beauty. You should be modeling, or acting, or something. I’d like to photograph you.”

“You… you would?”

“Yes, very much.”

“What kind of photography do you do?” she said.

“All kinds, really.”

“And you wanna photograph me?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“Like I said, you’re beautiful. How could I not want to photograph someone so beautiful?”

She was unable to suppress a little giggle.

“Where do you want me to… where do you want – “ She giggled again, stumbling over her words nervously. “Where would you photograph me?”

“I’ve got everything set up in my trailer right now. We could do it in there. And I’ve got central air, so it’s nice and cool in there. What do you say?”

“What, right… right now?”

“Yes.”

“Dressed like this?”

“You look incredible dressed like that.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you do. The all-American girl.”

“Wow. Nobody ever called me that before. What’s it mean?”

“What’s it mean?” he said. “Well, uh, it means you are a… an ideal. When you think of a beautiful American girl, it’s a girl who looks like you. But that really doesn’t do you justice. You’re something more than that.”

“I… I don’t think Mommy would like it.”

He frowned a moment and said, “Mommy?”

“Yeah, my mommy, I’m not sure she’d want me to.”

“Where’s your mommy now?”

“She’s at work.”

“When does she get off?”

“Four-thirty.”

“Then we’ve got plenty of time to do it and be done long before she gets here, and she’ll never know a thing about it.”

“That would be naughty, wouldn’t it?” she said with a sly smirk, her head tilted forward slightly.

Steven Regent chuckled and nodded and said, “Yes, that would be naughty. Is that what you’re looking for? Something naughty to do while you’re mommy’s at work?”

Kendra giggled, then said, “I’ll have to go put Dexter in the trailer. I’ll be right back.”

Regent went into the studio and looked around to make sure there were no offensive pictures out in the open. He did not want to scare her off.

He could not believe it – a retarded teenager who was that beautiful. It didn’t seem right. Of course, if he could get her too keep her mouth closed – though even that looked somehow sexy on Kendra – she wouldn’t look retarded in the pictures.

He straightened up the bed. He’d already started thinking how he’d work her clothes off.

“Naughty, she says,” he muttered. “If she wants naughty, I’ll give her naughty.” He turned on all the cameras and aimed them at the bed.

This would be more than just another shoot. He had to do everything just right, he couldn’t blow this. He had to have her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted any of the other bimbos that marched by in an endless parade. She stood out like a gorilla at the opera. She put all the others to shame.

When he’d first seen her, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Skin like milk around bedroom eyes and lips that promised so much. The swing of her hips, the slight sway of her breasts. He’d never seen anyone quite as beautiful as Kendra. He wanted a lot more than just pictures of her – he wanted her.

She knocked on the side of his trailer as she stood at his screen door. He pushed the screen door open and let her in.

“You said what I was wearin’ was okay,” she said, “so I didn’t change.”

“No, I don’t want you to change. You’re perfect.”

That made her smile. He closed and locked the door, then led her down to the studio.

He went to the desk that faced the wall in a corner and opened a drawer, removed the necessary papers.

“Kendra, I need you to sign your name to some papers.”

“Papers? What kinda papers.” She came over and stood beside him, looked down at the forms.

“Well, this one, for example, says that I can’t take your picture unless you’re eighteen. Now it’s up to you what you want to do, just remember that if you don’t sign this paper, I can’t take your picture. It’s up to you.”

He handed her a pen, then waited, hoping he’d made the right move.

A cloud passed over the girl’s face – for a second, just an instant, her eyebrows came together as her mouth curled up in a smile, and she looked like a parody of villainy – and then it was gone. Then she signed the paper.

“Very good,” he said. “This next paper gives me permission to post your pictures on my websites.”

“Websites? You never said nothin’ about no websites.”

“Oh, is that a problem?”

“Well, I… I don’t know.”

“I guarantee you, your mother will never see them.”

She thought about it a moment, then signed the paper.

“Why would you want pictures of me on your website?” Kendra asked.

“I’m starting a new website called Trailer Park Girls,” he said. “It’s going to be filled with pictures and videos of beautiful girls who live in trailer parks across the country.”

“Trailer Park Girls, huh?” She got that delightfully mischievous look on her face again. “Is it a naughty website?”

A smile grew on Regent’s face and he said, “Yes, as a matter of fact it is, Kendra. There’s nudity on the site.”

“You mean girls with no clothes on?”

“That’s right.”

She giggled again, then said, “Where do you want me to stand for these pictures?”

“I don’t want you to stand, I want you to stretch out on the bed.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. Okay, if you say so.” She kicked off her flip-flops and threw herself onto the bed like a little girl, giggling as she bounced.

Regent found himself getting an erection simply watching her. She was elemental, like a storm of silent lightning charging the air. She rolled back and forth on the bed, then stopped and stuck both legs into the air, pressed together.

It did not matter what she did, the position in which she held herself. She was always beautiful, always ripe with sexuality. And he was certain she would be just as beautiful at rest.

She said, “How do you want me to pose?” and lowered her legs.

“Just naturally,” he said as he started taking pictures.

“But… but I… “ She didn’t move, just lay there.

“Here’s an idea,” Regent said. “Lie in the center of the bed, open your shirt all the way, and stretch your arms out at your sides, like you’re flying.”

She did as she was told, and Regent said, “Yeah,” as he took some pictures. “Now close the shirt and put your arms down at your sides.” She did that, too, and he took more pictures. “Now just relax and lie there as you would if you were relaxing at home.”

But she could not relax – she remained stiff, almost rigid.

Regent got an idea, but he didn’t know if it would fly with young Kendra.

“You need to relax if we’re going to do this,” he said. “How about some wine?”

Her eyes lit up at the mention of wine.

“No kidding?” she said.

“No kidding. I’ve got some very good white wine chilling in the refrigerator. Want some?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled above a generous smile as she nodded.

He went into the kitchen, took the wine from the refrigerator, and opened it with a corkscrew, poured some into two wineglasses. He returned to the studio, where she sat on the edge of the bed now. He handed her the glass.

As Regent sipped his wine, Kendra sniffed hers. Then she sipped it. Her nose wrinkled and she smacked her lips a few times. She frowned up at him.

“Tastes funny,” she said.

“It’s an acquired taste, I guess,” he said.

“A what?”

“It’s a taste you’ve got to get used to.”

“Oh.” She sipped it again. Then she drank it down in a few gulps. “Can I have some more?” she said.

“Uh, well, you know, Kendra, wine is best sipped instead of gulped. If you gulp it, you’ll get drunk, and your mommy will know when she gets home. If you just sip it, you’ll get a little tipsy, and it’ll wear off by the time she gets back.”

“Really? That’s what happens when you sip it?”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ll get you some more, but you have to sip it, all right?”

She nodded. “All right, I will. I-I’m sorry for – “

”Oh, don’t apologize, sweetheart. You didn’t know. It was your first time. I’ll get you some more.”

Kendra felt much more relaxed than when she’d first walked into the big, beautiful trailer. The wine felt warm in her belly, and she felt a little woozy in the head.

What would Mommy think? She would be so angry. Kendra just had to make sure she knew nothing about it.

Mr. Regent seemed like a nice enough man. He called her “sweetheart,” which was what Mommy called her sometimes, so how could he be bad? Maybe he’d even take a really good picture she could give to Mommy.

The wine loosened her up a lot. He told her to pose the way she saw models pose in magazines. So she did. She thought of advertisements she’d seen in Mommy’s copies of Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair and others. She kept moving her arms and legs into different positions. Then she sat up and removed the plaid shirt and tossed it aside, leaving only the dark bikini top.

“Very good,” Regent said. “Excellent.”

After awhile, Regent stopped taking pictures and turned and put the camera on the desk behind him. He went to the side of the bed and sat down, turned to face Kendra.

“Now, Kendra,” he said. “I need to know if you’re comfortable with what I do. If you’re not, just say so, and there won’t be a problem. I never force anyone. But you have to tell me, okay?”

He poured more wine into her glass, and she took it right away and sipped once, twice, a third time.

“You want to go easy with that stuff,” he said. “You’ll have to eat some peanut butter before you leave.”

“Peanut butter?”

“It conceals the smell of alcohol on the breath.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes almost as round as her mouth. “Okay.”

“Look, Kendra – here, let me take that.” He took her drink and set it aside on the night stand. “Like I said before, my website’s naughty. It’s a nudie website.”

“A what?”

“A website in which women appear naked.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s naughty, all right,” she said, smiling again.

“Well, how naughty are you willing to be this afternoon, Kendra?”

“Whatta you mean?”

“Will you take off your top?”

She gasped. “Oh, yeah, you want me to take off – oh, yeah, I see. Well.” She sucked her lips between her teeth and thought about it. She smiled and muttered, “Being on the Internet,” then thought about it awhile.

“You won’t use your real name,” Regent said. “You can make one up.”

“I can make one up?” she said with a giggle.

“That’s right, anything you want to be called.”

“But I have to take off my top.”

“Yes.”

“And show my titties.”

“That’s right. And Kendra, I assure you, the men who look at them will never be able to get enough of them. And they’ll never forget them. They’ll want more of you and more of you – you’ll be a sensation, Kendra, a sensation. I’ll get tons of e-mail about you from guys who’ll want to see more of you.”

“A sensation?”

“You’ll become legendary online. A star.”

“Really? A star?”

“Yes.”

“But… I gotta show my titties.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s okay. I don’t mind, it’s just that I… I don’t know… well, see, I don’t know if they’re… good enough for – “

”Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t really think that, do you?”

“Well, I… I don’t know. Really. I don’t have any idea.”

“Listen, Kendra, I haven’t even seen them yet, and already I know they’re spectacular.”

“You think so?”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

Kendra said, “Really don’t know what?”

“You have a boyfriend, Kendra?”

“Oh, no, Mommy’d never let me have a boyfriend. Well, not yet, anyway.”

“Well, is there a boy you like?”

She got that look again, that delightfully menacing look, then it softened and she smiled. “Yeah, there is.”

“How do you expect to get his attention?”

“His attention?”

“And once you’ve got it, how do you hold onto it, Kendra?”

“Hold onto it?”

“Yeah. Think about it. You ever had a boyfriend before?”

Her eyebrows pulled down at the outer ends and her eyes filled with sadness. “Nuh-no. I haven’t.” She bowed her head.

“Lucky you met me, Kendra,” Regent said.

“How come?”

“Because I’m going to teach you what men want so you can go get this boy you like. You’ll be able to get any guy you like.”

The sadness seeped out of her eyes like invisible tears. “Will you, really?”

“Yep. And the first thing you need to know is that men are going to love your breasts.”

“They will?”

“They’ll want to look at them,” he said. “They’ll want to touch them, and put their mouths on them.”

“Really?” Butterflies fluttered in Kendra’s stomach and she felt wonderfully naughty as she smiled at Regent.

“That’s right. That’s why, for starters, I’d like to get some pictures of you without the bra, but with the shirt on. How’s that sound. Will you do that?”

“Sure,” she said. She took the shirt off and tossed it onto the bed, and reached back to unfasten the bra. She stopped and looked at him. “Um, could you… turn around?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. He turned his back to her and waited.

She turned around, too. Unable to believe she was doing it, but delighting in the adrenaline burst it gave her and the delicious sense of naughtiness that crept up inside her, she unfastened the bra in back. What if Mommy saw her now, taking off her bikini bra? She would be horrified.

Kendra tossed the bra onto the bed and put the plaid shirt back on. She started to button it, then remembered that he wanted her to leave it unbuttoned. She turned around and found that his back was still to her. “How’s this?” she said.

He turned and took in a little gasp and stood there and looked at her for a long time.