"Is everything okay Mrs Procter?" The girl spoke with exactly the same confidence, the same inflections, the same accent, the same voice, the voice that I hadn't heard for fifteen years but knew as well as if I had heard it this morning before I left home. The girl was the very re-incarnation of my schoolgirl crush, I felt my face heat up as the blush swept across it. "Mrs Procter!"

I shook myself back into the real world, "It's Miss Procter!"

"I'm sorry, but are you okay? You look a little flustered!"

I waved off the question and the comment and I took the folder, Paula had printed Kim Wiltshire on the front of the manila folder, the name didn't ring any bells, I opened the folder, then I felt hot breath on my neck, Kim hadn't stood, compliantly waiting to be invited to sit as was expected, and she was alone, the boys had all arrived with chaperones, that was also expected whenever under age auditions took place. Kim was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder at her own photographic portfolio, close, so close that I could almost taste her perfume, 'Flowers, by Kenso' which was one of my personal favourites. Then Kim moved, she walked behind me and picked up the photograph from my desk, "Hey, this looks just like my mother when she was younger, and she is wearing the same dress!"

Fiona and I had lost touch when Fiona started to date boys, I was crestfallen, crushed by her rejection of me, well, silly really, I was in love with her but I had never told her, well, I had told her in my own clumsy way but she had just assumed that I loved her as a friend. I had never plucked up the courage to make any kind of move on her and the first time I saw her kissing a boy I flipped. To be honest, if I had known how to do it I would probably have killed myself I felt that badly about how things had turned out. I had known that she had married, we both came from quite a small community, there were three Wiltshire brothers around our age, Peter, Christopher and William, I had seen Fiona kissing all three of them in the final years at school before I went off to university and lost touch completely.

"This is my mother isn't it?"

I was shaken out of my haze, "That's my old school friend, Fiona Houghton and me at my thirteenth birthday party!"

I had no idea why I had told the girl that, as I looked up from the fan of photographs I saw her grow in height, her face sharpened and she had a look on her face, hard to place but I had seen that look a hundred times before, usually just before I had gotten into trouble. I scanned quickly down the biography Kim had a reported age of seventeen.

"I may be wrong, but I'm not noted for it, the last time I saw your mother was fifteen years ago and she didn't have a two year old child back then!"

I tried to give a steely look as my position demanded when catching a candidate out in a lie. Kim didn't even flinch, in fact she seemed to grow in confidence,

"Well, don't you expect a little padding in a résumé?"

"A little padding yes but not a downright lie about your age!"

Again, Kim didn't flinch but tried to grow in stature, there was no way I could have blamed Paula for not spotting the lie, Kim looked every inch the seventeen year old, she looked, if it were possible, even prettier than her mother had looked in that dress all those years ago, she had small but pert breasts, the profile of her nipples through the thin material of the dress proved that she was bra-less.

"So, I need to know your real age!"

"Do you? Can't we just pretend that you don't know my mother, unless, unless it will help me to get the part if you liked my mother!"

Kim turned the photograph of me and her mother towards me, lifted it so that it was at the side of her face, "People don't usually keep a twenty year old picture of people they don't like on their desk!"

Kim reached out and tucked a twist of hair that had escaped from my fringe and had dropped in front of my eye behind my ear, sending a ten thousand volt shock through my body and instantly drying my mouth, "I need your real age please, FilmDynamics have very strict rules, all under sixteen year olds have to be accompanied by a chaperone!"

There was the merest hint of a dent in Kim's armour but she quickly closed that down again, "Surly if you don't mind and I don't, we can just get down to business, I won't tell anyone honestly!"

I was tempted to cut a little slack for the daughter of my oldest friend, or should that be ex-friend but I was very new in the post and I had little doubt that there would be a line a mile long to take my place if I fucked up, just once while casting my first film. "Kim, Sorry...Miss Wiltshire, I must have your age or I must ask you to leave right now!"

Kim waited a few seconds, I could see her mulling it over in her head, then, "Okay...okay, I'm twelve, almost thirteen!"

I was shocked and stunned, Kim was exactly the same age as her mother had been when I first realised that I had fallen in love with her, that was very much a missed opportunity and suddenly, twenty-two years melted away and I had developed the second crush of my life and the focus was exactly the same face, even though it belonged to a totally different woman.

"Why didn't your mother or father come with you? The poster said quite clearly that all under sixteen year olds had to be chaperoned!"

"They don't know!" Kim dropped her guard for the first time, she had been making solid eye contact with me all the way through but as she admitted her parents didn't know she was there her eyes dropped to the floor, she carefully placed my photograph back on my desk, she collected her portfolio and began to shuffle to the door.

I called out to her to stop her turning the knob, "Why don't you call your parents, see if one or other of them can come down here, I'll get my secretary to give you the last audition this afternoon!"

"Don't bother; my mother wouldn't agree to it, she doesn't want me to become an actor!"

"What about your father?"

Kim turned, she lifted her head, the confidence returned, her eyes, laser sharp, drilling into my own eyes, "I haven't seen him in years, he ran away with my mum's best friend!"

I reeled, I should have been that friend, not that I would have wanted to run away with her husband but I had been her very best friend for eight years and still thought about her every day, it was just her change of life when she found boys or men, an activity that passed me by completely.

"How did you get the portfolio without your mother's permission?"

"Photographers don't seem to mind your real age, just so long as you tell them your legal!"

I took my notebook from my draw and jotted a few things about Kim in it and by the time I looked up towards Kim again she was just about to close the door behind her, then she stopped, "What if I can persuade one of my mother's friend's to come?"

I almost fell for it, until I saw that look on her face, her mother's mischievous look, if I had said yes, she would have pointed out that I was her mother's friend and we would have been right back at square one, instead I just pointed through the door.

I saw twenty young girls and some not so young girls who could pass for the age range I was looking for but none had the spark that Kim had shown, I found myself comparing each one with Kim and rejecting them. The beauty of an open call day is that you get to see around a hundred hopefuls, boys and girls, men and women, all unknown but with fresh faces and high levels of energy, if you were lucky, you would discover that one new star on the horizon, I wasn't lucky, I just hoped that my PA would have found someone amongst the adults that we could use and save the day from being a total bust.

At the wash-up meeting Dawn had six adults that she wanted to recall for full auditions and screen tests, at least that could give us one or even two actors for the film, I had already set Paula onto contacting all the agents, British, Irish, American, Canadian and Australian, sending them a list of the characters we were looking for. Closed calls like that meant that we would only get through a dozen or so auditions each day but it would mean that the initial interviews would have been sorted out at the agents offices rather than by me.

It was just after six o'clock in the evening when I walked down the steps of the office building and out onto the street, I was focused on dinner, the Polish supermarket, something quick and easy, I had a ton of paperwork to get through before bed. I almost jumped clean out of my skin when a voice came out of the blue behind me, "Do FilmDynamics have any rules about you meeting an old friend's daughter in the street?"

Kim had appeared out of nowhere, she had obviously been waiting for me to finish work.

"You should go home, you're mother will be wondering where you are!"

Kim followed me to the supermarket, followed me around the shop too, then followed me home. I know that I should have told her to go home and stop following me but I still half hoped that Fiona would agree to coming in with Kim so that I could interview and audition her officially. Kim followed me up the stairs to my apartment door, "Where are you going, you can't come in my flat, you're only twelve, you should be at home with your mother!"

Kim just stood there, strong, defiant look on her face, I waited a few seconds before unlocking my door and opening it, she followed me inside, before I had walked through to the kitchen she had touched everything in the flat, lifted everything that was small enough to lift and by the time I had put my food down on the kitchen counter she had my wardrobe doors open and was flicking through my clothes.

She held up my little black party dress up, "Can I try this on?"

I snatched the dress from her hands, "It's far too big for you, no!"

I offered Kim a drink, she asked for alcohol, I got her a soft drink, while my back was turned, Kim was going through my underwear draw, as I looked for Kim, I walked in to my bedroom to find her holding up a pair of my 'usual' knickers up to the light, "My gran wouldn't even be seen dead in these drawers, where is your sexy stuff?"

I didn't answer, I simply shook my head, put her drink on a coaster on my dressing table and walked back to the area in my living room that I laughingly called my study.

I tipped out all the letters that I had been unable to give attention too in the office earlier, letters and emails that Paula had printed out for me to read and make notes on for her to answer on my behalf the next day.

"Hey, you were a little light on the Bacardi in my Cuba-libra, and, for fuck sake, it's diet!" Kim had called out at the top of her voice.

A slight wave of panic flooded through me, the neighbours on both sides of my apartment would say bless you if I sneezed quietly in my own rooms, the walls were so thin.

"Have you told your mother where you are?"

"No!"

"Well, if you don't phone her right now, you'll have to leave!"

Kim walked into the living room, she stood in a power pose, hands on hips, chin jutting forward, she was about to tell me to go fuck myself, then she softened her pose, sighed and picked up my phone, "Do you know the code for Southampton?"

"Southampton! Why Southampton?"

"That's where we live!"

Kim phoned her mother, the conversation, from what I could hear, started out quite calm but rapidly grew in volume, "Hi, it's me........I'm in London........I came up to go to an audition...... just because you say it, it doesn't mean I'm not going to do it....!"

I held out my hand for the phone, Kim held the phone out towards me but just as I took it from her hand she flicked the red button and closed the call. Kim stood with her hands on her hips again, her look said it all, there see, 'I'm in control'. I waited a second, then pressed the green button and the 'R' button before lifting the phone to my ear.

"Don't you ever hang up on me again like that!" A very angry Fiona said.

"Hi, I'm Kayleigh Procter, hopefully you'll remember me from school?"

"Oh, hi, I'm sorry about that, is there any chance you could call back later, my daughter is missing and I'm expecting her to call me any moment!"

"It's okay, Kim is here with me!"

"What do you mean, It's okay? How long have you known my daughter, and I assume that you know that she is only twelve?"

"I didn't even know that you had a daughter until she turned up at my office for an open casting call, as soon as I found out how old she was I made her leave and told her to call you!"

Fiona calmed down slightly, we chatted for a while, a little about old times, a little about Kim, a little about Kim's father.

Fiona was ready to end the call and her final comment was, "Well, can you stick her on the next train to Southampton please?"

I answered with, "I'll call up the rail company and check out the next train then ring you back!"

There was no chance that we could get to the railway station in time for the eight o'clock train; the next and last train would be ten o'clock, that wouldn't get Kim into Southampton until after eleven o'clock. I called Fiona, and told her that there was no way that I could get Kim back to Southampton until close to midnight. Fiona told me that would be no good as she didn't have any transport to get her and Kim from Southampton to their home at that time of night.

All the time that I was talking to Fiona Kim was whispering, "Or I could stop here for the night and get the early train back tomorrow!" over and over again.

I covered the mouthpiece of the phone, "You can't stay here, I only have one bed!"

Kim took the phone from me, "Mum, I'll stop here or at gran's and get back home in the morning!"

Kim wasn't asking permission of her mother, she was telling her what she was going to do, and having said it, she hung up the phone.

"I told you, I don't have any room for you to stop over here!"

"That's okay, I don't really want to stop the night here anyway. I'll be okay at Paddington Railway station, they have an all night cafe there, I'll get a real coke there and just wait until the first train tomorrow!"

Everyone in London knew full well that a half of all run-away children from all over England end up at Paddington station in the all night coffee bar and that they were seldom seen again after that. I backed down, Kim had no intention of going to her Grandmother's house, if I didn't let her sleep at my house, she would find some other, less safe place to spend the night. Then it dawned on me, "Is your Gran on the phone?"

"No!"

"That's a pity, we could ask her if she would chaperon you tomorrow before you go back to Southampton!"

Kim moved closer, she eased the slide out of my hair, then she dragged her fingers through my tightly wound blond hair, it was only shoulder length but when I was at work I liked to have everything under total control, Kim was gently turning the ends of my hair under, I preferred my hair to be straight but Kim was trying to turn my bland style into the classic pageboy style, "Surly now that my mother has given her permission for me to spend the night with you I won't need a chaperone will I?"

Kim had finished turning my hair under, "I need a little spray or jell to keep your hair in place!"

I lifted my hair and dropped it causing it to straighten out again. It suddenly dawned on me that it had been over a year since I had allowed another human being to get close enough to me to play with my hair, Robert, or was it Roger, or was it Robert who had 'Rogering me' on his mind all the time. I didn't know who I was kidding, I was thirty-five years old, I had tried relationships with ten men in my life and the outcome was always the same, as soon as they got me to their bedroom door, I would run...don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to be a prick tease or anything, every time I really wanted that to be the time, that would be the man who would finally break into my body and end my virginity.

Soft fingers were stroking my neck, Kim was whispering in my ear that she could tell that I liked her, "I can smell it on you, I usually smell that scent on men who want to take me to bed, you're the first woman that has smelt the way you do!"

Kim was crazy, I may be a virgin but I was no lesbian either...her mother had been my only female crush in my life and I never acted on it, I just hadn't found exactly the right man to give my gift too. I had no idea why but Kim's fingers felt magic, a cross between butterflies wings and duck down feathers against my neck, the shiver it caused running through my body shocked and surprised me, I had never felt anything approaching it in my life.

Kim slipped forward and lower, her lips touched mine, I had closed my eyes to savour the pleasure of her touch, so I hadn't seen her moving in on me, when I realised what she was doing I jumped out of the seat.

"What? You can't tell me that this is the first time a girl has kissed you!"

"I've never let another woman kiss me on the lips like that before!"

"You're crazy, you're a lesbian, you can't kid me your not!"

The look on my face pulled Kim up short, she pointed to my book shelf, "Sarah Daniels, Flying Under Bridiges, Lesbian writer, Amilia Ellis, The 4th Aspect, Lesbian writer, Carolyn Gage, Nine Short Plays, lesbian writer, you don't have a single straight author on your shelf!"

Kim walked over to me, her left hand reached out for my right breast, through my blouse, her right hand hooked the back of my head and pulled my face down to hers again, this time the kiss was firm, planted square on and after a few seconds of pressure her mouth opened slightly and the tip of her tongue eased my own mouth open.

4070 Words.

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