I clutched the Cosmopolitan and made my way upstairs. Mother and Father were away, Sister was fondling the phone receiver lost in her own world, and I looked forward to a quiet afternoon on the terrace. This was my haven, the huge sprawling terrace. Though we lived in a neighborhood where the walls were as cozy as they could get, running abreast of each other, I was at an advantage of altitude. I could spy on every building within leering distance, and from vantage points that promised discretion and forbidden fruit. Today, however, I wasn't planning on surveying the neighborhood for glimpses of flesh.
The new edition of the magazine promised a particularly raunchy article, with life-size pictures of course, that I was looking forward to perusing. To be taken on an exhilarating ride, courtesy the Cosmo models. I thanked my stars again for the day I had chanced upon the hidden stack. A fitting inheritance from father to son.
From those glossy pages, the models came alive and stood posing for me all along the walls of my terrace. I took hours weighing them, their pros and cons I mean, before eventually conferring them with my squirt of appreciation and gratitude.
I pushed open the door when the tangy smell of approaching rain hit me. I immediately tucked the priceless magazine inside my shirt and stepped onto the terrace. The afternoon sky had turned beautifully dark, with clouds billowing and converging over the top of my head. I stood under a canopy of black and dark blue clouds. Rain looked inevitable.
It was then that I saw the line of clothes adorning my usually bare terrace. I stopped short. This was new. I didn't know if there had been any new tenants in our building. As I drew closer to the line, my heart started to race a little quicker.
