The Babysitter (Male Version)

SS37: "The Babysitter" (male version)

***

A few words on this one. This is a first for me, as while I have had this story laid out for a long time, I was unsure whether I wished to feature a male or female protagonist, so I decided, why not both? So I'm going to be making two versions of this story, one with the lead as a boy, and one with the lead as a girl. This is the boy version.

However, the female co-protagonist—or antagonist, rather—and title character will be the same in both versions, a girl both times (if you've read my stories before, then you know me). So, this being the boy variant also makes it the hetero variant.

***

May 20th, 3:12 p.m.

For Cameron DeVane, life as a teenager was simple, fun and practically carefree.

He was eighteen, a senior in high school. He hadn't much trouble studying or getting good grades, he had a healthy cadre of friends, and was also on the school football team. He didn't have a steady girlfriend at the time, but he loved dating, and young ladies held what seemed a high interest in him. It was mid-late May, and he was trying to decide on colleges after graduating.

But first he had to get through finals, an idea which was beginning to stress him out just a bit.

On Monday, Cameron confirmed the scheduling of all of his final exams, and planned out a rough outline of his studying routine. He calculated it was going to be a lot of work, a lot of all-nighters and a lot of coffee, but it would all pay off in the end.

His homework was also accumulating. On Tuesday, anticipating a need to chillax a while before doing anything school-related, Cameron came home and flung his backpack on the couch, subsequently plopping right down on the cushion beside it.

"Hey hon!" called his mother, Jean, from the kitchen. "How was school?"

Cameron didn't answer, his mind consumed with academic bombardment, but that was all right; his Mom was used to it. She emerged from the kitchen, stirring something in a bowl.

"I've got some good news for you."

"Great," he wearily muttered. "I could use some good news right about now."

"Your Dad and I are heading out both Thursday and Friday night, so you've got the house for those two whole evenings."

Oh, this was good news. Cameron opened his eyes, his brows jumping. It was not that he viewed them as a disturbance or a nuisance of any kind, it was just that tasks such as studying became much easier in distraction-clearing silence.

Feeling some of his energy replenish already, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Awesome," he exclaimed. "Just the break I needed. I have got to get caught up on the books. Thanks, Mom."

He stood from the sofa, stretched, grabbed his backpack and started down the hall towards his bedroom.

"And that's not all!" he heard his mother add.

"Tell me the rest later!" he shouted back.

"Tori's coming over!"

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Jean and her stirring bowl appeared around the corner as he slowly about-faced.

"Um...say again??"

"Yeah, your old babysitter. Tori Linton. You remember her, don't you? She's coming to see you Friday!"

Cameron stood motionless.

"She...she is?"

"Yeah, she just called. She's in town for the weekend, and she's got Friday free," she continued. "And I said, well, hey, wouldn't it be nice if you could come visit! Y'know, just like she used to. Maybe she could help you study, huh?"

A shiver ran through Cameron's body.

Even the name Tori Linton sent a chill up his spine to this day.

***

Ten years earlier

Cameron was an only child. His parents were busy people, with high-standing status in their community. One heavy reliance in their respective lines of work was reaching out and networking, so to help keep themselves in dollars and doughnuts, they frequently attended social gatherings and events, the extent of Cameron's knowledge on which was that they were "grown-up parties." And so around the onset of his teens, they decided he was old enough to stay home by himself, emergency preparations and such in tow. But when Cameron was little, and his parents needed a babysitter, they hired then-teenager Tori Linton to come to the house and watch him. His folks adored Tori from the first they had met of her, and at first glance, Cameron felt the same. While he may have been too young to appreciate the allure of an attractive young woman such as she was, he really liked her funny eyes and her silly smile. She could be firm, but she could also be a zany goofball, making her the ideal candidate. And she appeared to have a great sense of humor. Cameron thought he'd really enjoy hanging out with her.

The first several months Tori visited to sit for Cameron, he was eight, and she was fifteen. And the first few times, which were paced each just a couple of weeks apart, Cameron really did have a lot of fun with her. His parents left them some money, so they ordered pizza, played games and watched TV. When his folks returned home and asked if they had a good time together, they were in affirmative agreement sans hesitation. Soon, Cameron found himself each evening looking forward to next time.

He did not, however, anticipate the little twist Tori had in mind one particular next time. It was another couple of weeks later, and Tori had something a bit...mischievous in mind for this evening's fun and entertainment.

Tonight, she decided to teach Cameron to play cards. Of course, at the age of eight, all he wanted to do was throw them about. But Tori finally got him to settle down and play with her, using quite an effective threat.

"Hey, you! You'd better sit down and play my way...or else...I'll kiss you!"

It worked. "EW!" Cameron exclaimed. "Yuck! Gross!"

She patiently taught him to play gin rummy, of which he eventually finally got the hang. The scoring made it take quite a while to finish the game, but inevitably, naturally, being the teacher, Tori won.

Now came the fun part.

"Yay, I won!" Tori celebrated, tossing the cards into the air. She smiled sneakily at him.

"You know what that means we're gonna do now?"

At the age of eight, Cameron didn't know to not know if he should be scared right now. He simply replied, "What?"

"It means I get tooooo...tickle you!!"

As she made this announcement, she suddenly grabbed him around his sides, and the abrupt sensations caused him to roll onto his back on the floor laughing. He tried to get up, but Tori crawled over and all but sat on him, holding him down and tickling the living daylights out of him.

And at first, Cameron could not deny, it was fun. He rolled all about the floor laughing hysterically under Tori's furiously dancing fingers. She was going to town on him. And he was still having fun. The only problem was, though he had no way of discerning such a thing at eight years old—and fifteen-year-old Tori hardly realized it herself either—her manner of doing so was not exactly the way in which a small child should be tickled. It would not be totally inaccurate even to describe her technique as merciless. She held him down and easily found and exploited all his weakest spots.

She didn't quite see the fine line between having innocent fun and going a bit too far. She wasn't meaning to be cruel, or scar Cameron in any way, she just loved hearing and making him laugh so much. It was just such a delightful, jovial sound, music to her ears. Eventually, Cameron managed to wriggle away from her, hop to his feet and dash away just to catch his breath.

At the time, neither of them really thought that much of it. Cameron kind of thought of the experience as something friends might just do together, sort of a tickle fight that just happened to be particularly one-sided. And Tori figured she was giving the both of them a delightful endorphin rush, as she was giggling right along with him.

Tori'd had so much fun tickling the stuffing out of Cameron the first time, it became a regular occurrence. Over the next couple of years, as the DeVanes would have Tori come by time and time again, she found more innovative ways to toy with him in this manner. During later babysitting sessions, whether they played any sort of game or not, Tori might decide to, for instance, roll Cameron over on his belly, sit on his legs and draw on his feet with her nails, or sit on the chair or the couch, with Cameron lying on his back on the floor, holding him by the ankles and taunting him with playful "Goochie-goochie-goo!"s.

Eventually, Cameron began noticing a pattern. For the first few moments whenever Tori's tickle games with him got underway, he laughed and enjoyed himself and had a good time. And he still genuinely liked Tori. But after she didn't slow down or give him a break for a while, it became a bit hard to breathe. And when Cameron couldn't squirm away from her, he started shouting and begging her to stop. Most times by this point, she would grant him at least a break. But depending on how impish she was feeling, however, her little tickle game might go on, and on...and on. The amount of fun she was causing them both to have overrode her realization that it might be a bit too much for little Cameron to take.

Each time his parents returned, Tori presented them with a similar glowing review of their evening, proclaiming what a sweet, wonderfully well-behaved little angel Cameron was. For a long time, unaware that anything was actually out of hand going on, Cameron didn't feel the need to alert his folks of his and Tori's adventures. He'd have felt a bit embarrassed and sheepish mentioning it in any case. But as time continued rolling by and the unabated tickling consistently spilled overboard, Cameron at last came to find himself that Tori was in fact getting carried away and taking things too far. At a certain point, he didn't feel comfortable anymore.

One babysitting night around the age of eleven, as they returned home, Cameron finally produced the courage to inform his parents of what happened when Tori came over. Tori, of course, still not fully aware that she was actually tickling him past the comfort point, would simply laugh as she hugged him with a noogie, and say, "Oh, kids! Don't they say the darnedest things??"

Cameron's parents didn't disbelieve his story that Tori tickled him, but she was such a wonderfully sweet girl, they had trouble processing the fact that she went overboard with it. They told him they were certain he was merely overreacting a bit. He was, after all, still a kid, and it was possible the problem was bigger and more exaggerated in his mind than in reality. Being still young, as they pointed out, he didn't know to negotiate the situation to insist that things were becoming a little serious. All he knew at this point was that he was starting to become downright frightened of Tori.

He was dismayed to find, when he asked a bit later on if possibly his parents could locate someone else to watch him, that Tori was far and away their first—and basically only—choice. She was close by, she didn't charge too much, she fed him well, played with him, watched TV with him, didn't let him get into trouble, and at the same time she was entertaining, she had a friendly, upbeat attitude and an everpresent smile on her face. She was an all-around delightful person. What was not to like?

"Besides," they said, "We thought you liked Tori! Don't you?"

Time went by as always. Soon enough later on, when Cameron's parents had to head out for an evening, and his tickle monster arrived to sit for him, he obeyed his inner need to flee. Tori, convinced he had begun a rousing match of hide-and-go-seek, traversed the house to hunt him down, unaware that he was hiding because he now really didn't want to "play" with her. Inevitably, she found and cornered him. She'd won the game of hide-and-go-seek, and of course Cameron knew what that meant. After a few more pretty much identical babysitting sessions with Tori, Cameron was trying to find a way to indicate to his parents that...sad and disappointed as it made him, he just...simply didn't think he liked Tori anymore. She wasn't especially mean or spiteful, but...she played too rough! And by now, she was starting to really scare him with her antics.

Shortly before his twelfth birthday, Cameron knew the next of his folks' "grown-up parties" was on its way. And that by now spelled D-R-E-A-D for him. He was far more than traumatized by Tori. He was terrified of her. He didn't want her to come anywhere near him. And somehow, he had to get this drilled into his parents' heads.

One Sunday morning in August, he came into the kitchen for breakfast, as his Mom was just hanging up the phone.

"Well, that's something," she commented.

"What is?" his Dad Mitch wanted to know.

"I just got off the phone with Ginny. The Lintons are moving away!" she said.

Cameron's ears perked up.

"What?"

"Yeah! Rick's accepted this great big new job opportunity, and it's in Chicago," Jean went on. "Ginny just told me, just now. The company wants him there by next month, so they're packing it up, effective immediately!"

"Really?" asked Mitch, folding up the paper he was reading. "Wow, I didn't even have any idea."

"Me neither!" Jean replied. "Well, Cameron, hon, isn't that a shame, we're gonna have to get you a new babysitter. Tori won't even be able to make it over this one last time before they leave. They're just gonna be too busy."

Cameron whipped his wide-eyed gaze up to her. He couldn't believe his perked-up ears. Did she really just say that??

She did. Cameron was astonished—and elated. He breathed out an enormous sigh of relief. He was free...free of Tori, the Terrible Torturous Teasing Taunting Tickler. Now she wouldn't be able to torment him anymore. She was gone. She would have vanished. No more to let her—in his mind—daunting shadow fall over his frightened body, with that menacing grin and those wiggling fingers. WHEW.

The DeVanes did soon find Cameron a new babysitter, a lovely, young, kind blonde girl named Stephanie Reed. To Cameron's happiness and comfort, she really just wanted to be his babysitter and his buddy. "I know, I know," she told him, "Your age right now, you probably think girls are all yucky with cooties and everything, right?" She chuckled. "But I'm nice. Really, I am."

Well, that's good, he thought. They did most of the same things hanging out together. Stephanie also turned out to be a lot of fun, and being a kid herself, only a few years older than Cameron, was a modicum more sensitive to a small child's vulnerability. When Cameron told her what went on during the times Tori sat for him, she gasped.

"Oh my gosh, Cameron," she said. "That must've been awful. I'd never do something like that to a little kid."

Cameron had a feeling he and Stephanie were going to get along just fine.

***

May 20th, 3:15 p.m.

Cameron stood motionless in the hall, staring at his Mom. He was saying nothing, so his mother chimed back in.

"Well, won't that be nice? I mean, you two'll be able to catch up on old times!"

Cameron shivered. His eyes widened. His mother wasn't sure she was correctly reading his reaction.

"...You...do remember Tori, don't you, Cam?"

His stare descended to the floor.

"Ohhh, yeah...I remember her."

His mother gave him a wink-point-and-shoot with her finger. "There ya go." She flipped around to return to the kitchen. "I know you guys'll have a great time together."

Cameron didn't think he could just march after her right back into the kitchen and tell his Mom about Tori all over again. She and his Dad presumed he'd been blowing the whole thing out of proportion when he was a kid. Even though he was an adult now, the small child as whom a part of them would always see and remember him blinded them to the possibility that he could have been just as serious about anything then as he was now. He didn't see a great deal of success in trying to convince them of such a thing at this point. But perhaps if he were just adamant enough in his insistence...

He thought about it and let it concern him for a while. He consequently didn't get a great deal of studying accomplished on Tuesday, but by dinnertime, he decided he was being silly letting this eat him up inside. After all, it happened when he was just a kid. He'd been a small child, barely in double digits. He was eighteen now—he was grown-up. He was old enough to attend his folks' "grown-up parties" and socialize right along with them, if he so desired. The point was, this was in the past. The distant past. Now that he thought about it again and looked at the situation through older eyes with an older mindset, it almost seemed dumb to be so perturbed by it all. It was a series of reckless childhood misadventures, and that's all it was.

The more he thought about it now, the better and more secure he felt. And his mother might even be right—they probably could have a really good time hanging out together now. Maybe even like those first few times the full decade ago.

Cameron finished supper with his folks Tuesday night, and went straight back to his room to hit the books. He went on to finish out the rest of this, one of his last—as long as everything went according to plan—weeks of his high school career.

***

May 23rd, 4:06 p.m.

Friday afternoon.

Cameron had gotten an amazing amount of studying accomplished the previous night, so he decided he'd forgive himself if he didn't perform quite as proficiently this evening. Especially since he today had company coming over.

Poring over his impressive array of books of papers, Cameron had laid out everything he'd be needing on the fortunately massive living room coffee table. The perimeter teemed with books, additional study aids, as well as some energetic snacks and libations to keep him alive, and also to offer Tori when she arrived.

Eventually passed through his parents, dolled up, making sure they were all set before they started out the door. Cameron briefly glanced up from his work to see them in their fancy evening garb.

"Hey, you guys look great. Where're ya goin' tonight?"

"Rob and Mindy's," said his Mom.

Ordinarily now that he was grown, they would have asked if he was sure he didn't want to come along, but they knew and appreciated that his finals were coming and that he needed to cram. They were proud of how diligent he was and how much he wanted to ready himself for these momentous exams.

"Oh, cool," he replied. "When're you gonna be back?"

"Oh, not until really late this time," said his Dad. "Maybe past midnight."

"Wow," he commented.

"And we're already late," added his father. "Wanna step on it, Jean?"

"This is as fast as I go, Mitch, you know that," replied his mother. Cameron chuckled with a shake of the head. His parents tended to chew each other out sometimes, but all in the name of love. They made their departure.

"Well, have a good one," he called to them as his Dad hurried outside.

"You do the same, hon!" encouraged his Mom. "And Tori should be along pretty soon, tell her we said hi."

"Je-ean!" came Mitch's voice from the exterior.

"Gotta roll!" said his Mom.

Slam!

The door closed, the car started, and Cameron was on his own, at least for the moment, to conquer his mountain of studying.

Half an hour or so passed. By the time these thirty minutes had elapsed, he needed a short break. Nature was calling. Down went the pen, and into the bathroom he slipped. He was just about to flush when—