Ninas Garden

****** Author's Note ******

This is my first published story, and I'm still a novice at writing. Also, English is not my native language. I hope I didn't do too bad of a job with this story, but I'll leave the judgment to you.

I also hate to disappoint possible readers in advance, but I'm afraid I will have to mention this: this is not just a 'fuck and suck' story. This story also deals with the back ground stories of the characters and their emotional bonding, or at least so I hope. It is also a fairly lengthy story. If this is not your preferred choice of literature, or if you are looking for something to quickly 'get your rocks off', you might want to look elsewhere.

This story is also a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people or events is coincidental. I've used existing places to locate my story, but the companies and characters are entirely fictional.

A lot of the inspiration for this particular story was derived from the stories of Moogplayer and bmunchausen. Therefore, I'm giving a big thanks to these people, as well as to any other author that has ever inspired me.

I also owe a thank you in advance to my readers and everyone who chooses to leave a comment or give constructive criticism. You know who you are!

That said, I hope you enjoy reading this story.

******

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart

with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!

How much more pleasing is your love than wine,

and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!

Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;

milk and honey are under your tongue.

The fragrance of your garments

is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

- Song of Songs 4:9-11

****

A good day to everyone, and my best wishes to you.

My name is Alexander Grimaldi, and as I'm writing this, in the spring of the year 2011, I'm almost 43 years old. I live in Crystal Lake in Polk County, Florida. It is a fairly small village located about 14 miles from Winter Haven and 4 miles from Lakeland. I live there with my amazing wife, Nina Booth-Grimaldi, who is now 35 years old. Nina and I met in the summer of 1998. We have been together for nearly 13 years now and have been married since March 25th, 2000. Together, we have four terrific children, three girls and a boy. Our daughters are Gabriella, who will be 11 in September, Jenna, who celebrated her 9th birthday in March and last but not least little Megan, who was born just last Christmas. And of course, I should not forget out son Leo, who will be 5 in November. But I seem to be getting a bit ahead of myself, and into way too much detail. The story I will be telling you today, is the story of how Nina and I met and how we became a couple, and how our relationship and our lives together have developed.

****

Before we get to the actual story, I have to tell just a little more about myself. Excuse me if I'm boring you. As I said, my name is Alexander Grimaldi. I was born on October 19, 1968 in Clearwater, Florida as the eldest of four children. I'm not a tall man : I'm only a little bit over 5'7", which has frustrated me at times. I'm not very slender, nor am I fat at about a 153 pounds. As my last name might give away, I'm of Italian descent. My great-great-grandparents tried their luck in the States during the 19th century. My Italian descent shows too. I have a tan brown skin and black hair, which curls and looks almost like an 'Afro' when it gets longer.

My facial features include large dark brown eyes, a fairly heavy brow line, high cheekbones, a narrow mouth with thin lips and a large, broad and slightly aquiline nose and an angular jaw with usually some bristles. I've been told before that it's not hard for me to look angry, especially when my heart is short. I also have some acne scars in my face and a scar on my forehead - a result of a fight with my brother at age 12. I have some muscle on my body from biking, swimming and working in the garden and the forest, as well as from the bit of work out I do, but I'm by no means very muscular, and have just a bit of fat as well. I'm quite probably not the most beautiful man out there, and I doubt very much I'm even handsome. But, as I've come to known over the years, certain women do like my type. Before I met Nina, I had been with 5 women. My longest relationship had been about two years.

This thought brings me back to Crystal Lake. I came to live in Crystal Lake in 1994. The house in Crystal Lake was built in the 1970's and is property of my family. It is a nice 2,150 square feet two-storey house on about half an acre of property, and it is the biggest, last and oldest house in a small dead-end street with a small park at the end. I graduated as an agricultural engineer in 1991 and have worked on a research facility between Gibsonia and Polk City since 1993. The facility is only about 9 miles from Crystal Lake, hence why my family made the decision for me, that I was the intended resident of the house in Crystal Lake after my uncle moved out. After a while though, the place grew on me and I started to love living there.

When our story began, in July of 1998, I had been single for nearly three years. I remember to this day, how things started to change. One morning, I was looking out of the side window of the main bedroom. It looks out onto the part of my garden on the side of my house, as well as the driveway of the small house next to mine and a large part of its garden. The house had previously been owned by an couple in their eighties, both of them sick and nearly bedridden, and was about 810 square feet on 4300 square feet of property. The previous fall, both of them had passed away within a month of one another. In December, the house came on the market, and it was finally sold in May. I had noticed some people cleaning up the house, doing some maintenance work and doing some fairly minor renovations since.

In late June, I had noticed a small red Ford now appearing more often in the driveway of the house next to mine, and I had also seen a moving van. The new owner had arrived. I had no idea who my new neighbor was, and nor did I really care. I wasn't planning on being on bad terms with my neighbor, but I didn't intend to bother getting acquainted if he or she was not willing to. That morning in July, for the first time I saw my new neighbor. I couldn't discern much from this distance, but she appeared to be a somewhat full-figured blonde woman with a pale skin. She didn't seem to be very attractive or pretty from a distance.

****

It wasn't until a few days later, that I got a closer look at her. I was weeding the front garden one Saturday, when I heard the front door opening, and saw the woman walk into her front garden. She was in fact far more attractive than I had previously given her credit for. She appeared to be in her late teens to early twenties and seemed to be just a little bit smaller than me at around 5'6". She had medium-length blond hair that just touched her shoulders, and a pale whitish skin. I couldn't really define her facial features, as I was still several yards away, but they didn't seem to be totally unattractive.

She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and a worm, form-fitting black top streaked with paint, that showed her figure pretty well. She wasn't slender, but it would definitely be exaggerated to call her fat. Her legs weren't very long or slender, but they were "well curved and fleshy", as my dad would say, and shapely. When I saw her behind, I could clearly see she had quite the ass. Her stomach appeared to have just a little fat and she had a little bit of a belly, but it was not quite a belly pouch, and her waist curved in just slightly. She also had a shapely pair of breasts that looked to be of a decent size, although I couldn't estimate their size at the time. She was no super model, and she wasn't the prettiest woman alive, but she sure as hell had some features that I liked. For just a moment, I felt some familiar stirring in my groin, before I returned to ridding my yard of weeds.

When I returned to the garden about an hour later, after having gone inside to have a drink and use the bathroom, I could see the woman had started to work in her garden. Now, you have to know, while the son (at least I supposed he was) of the previous owners of the house had taken care of maintaining the house and the driveway, no-one seemed to have taken care of the garden since before I moved here. I had spoken to the elderly owners several times and offered to take care of the garden for them. I was - and still am - a keen gardener and I love to be at work in the garden. I would gladly have take the time to maintain the small garden of my neighbors besides my own, but they wouldn't have of it, even when I referred to the state of the garden. It had always seemed to me the old man was xenophobic and didn't not trust me just because of the way I looked. Anyway, after having been turned down three times, I no longer bothered asking, and the garden was left to its own devices, and to the natural processes.

Years long lack of maintenance, combined with the workings of nature, had of course left their mark. While if it had been a young forest or a wildlife area, it would have been just fine, for a garden it was a total disaster. Weeds and large perennial herbaceous plants, including nettles and thistles with lots of leafs had overgrown the areas where previously grass at been, the bushes and ornamental trees were either unkempt, wild and unruly, or dead. A rhododendron had spread all over the garden, and in the front garden and the former flower beds in the backyard several trees and bushed had naturally sprouted and shot up, some of them already quite large and all of them very wild, and many more were sprouting.

I moved a few yards closer, and pretended to be working on my roses, while I watched her whenever she could not catch me doing it. I could see now she was holding a rusty knife and a pair of scissors, and had put on a pair of gloves. I saw her try to eliminate the thistles and noticed her struggle with some of the saplings, basically to no avail. Having helped with garden work since before I was 10, and having a few years of gardening experience myself, I immediately noticed she just did not have the right tools for the job.

To this day, I do not understand, and probably never will, why I did what I did next. After a bit of quick thinking, I rose up, walked out of my front yard onto the street and then walked into the woman's front yard. I stopped in front of her while she was trying to pull a sapling out of the ground, and looked up as she heard my footsteps, sighing in exhaustion.

To my utter surprise, and probably that of the woman as well, I then said, "Hello Miss. I don't want to be rude, but it seems you don't have the right equipment to clean out your garden. I'm your neighbor, and I don't want to impose on you, but I think I could help you with your garden."

The woman shook my hand, and replied, "That would be great. I really don't know anything about gardening. I would still like to have some kind of a garden, but what I'm seeing here is a wilderness. It's even worse than I thought when I bought the place."

"It's going to need a lot of work, but I believe something can be made of it. I would gladly help you to do so. And I have the right tools for the job. I maintain a garden a whole lot bigger than yours." I said.

"That would be so great. I have no idea how I would do it myself, ever. I just hope you won't charge me too much... I'm afraid with buying the house and furniture and all that, my funds aren't running very high right now," the woman said with a slight sadness in her voice, which sounded clear and quite strong with a little smoky character.

"Not a problem. I'd have to ask you to pay for plants, fuel, new equipment of any machine component that needs replacing as a result of the work in this garden, but I won't charge you the hours," I replied, probably speaking before thinking.

The young woman readily agreed, and got me piece of paper and a pen. We sat down on her front porch and for about an hour, discussed her garden, the actions that needed taken and the new design for her garden. Eventually, we came up with a ready plan, and we agreed I would start working in her garden the following weekend.

Before I returned to my house, I asked her one last question, when I realized I hadn't even once asked for or heard her name in the hour we had been talking.

"Miss, I'm sorry, but I just realized I don't know your name. For future conversation, could I know your name?" I asked a bit exaggeratingly formal.

"Hey, you don't have to be so formal. I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours," she replied.

"I'm Alexander. Alexander Grimaldi. Pleased to meet you. You can call me Al... Or Alex," I said referencing some stupid old song.

"Pleased to meet you Alexander. I'm Nina. Nina Booth," Nina replied, grinning.

"Pleased to meet you, Nina. See you next week."

"See you next week. Bye!" she yelled as I returned home.

****

During the week, I stopped at the garden center, and made sure I had all the necessary supplies. The next Saturday early in the morning I got cracking on Nina's garden. I started by applying a strong herbicide to some of the worst of the weeds, and then went on to use a brush cutter on the other vegetation. That weekend, I also cut down several trees and bushes and got rid of the saplings. A week later, I continued by pruning and removing more vegetation. I went on to actually sow grass to recreate the lawn, and prepared borders for perennial flowering plants with excellent ground coverage once well developed. I couldn't do everything yet during the summer season - some things like planting certain plants or pruning certain trees or bushes would have to wait until fall or spring. After working on the garden for three weekends, I had done everything I could do right now.

Nina had helped me wherever she could, and in the process, I guess she learned a few things about gardening as well. It turned out she was quite smart and a quick and eager learner, as well as stronger than I had given her credit for. Once my job was done, at least for now, I promised I would come back to finish it when the time was right, and that I would be over a few times in the coming months to check on the development of the garden.

Nina was extremely thankful to me for having helped her out for as little money as possible, and when I was ready to go home after the last day of work, she surprised me.

"Alexander?" she asked as I was about to leave.

"Yes?"

"I would like to invite you over for dinner, next Friday if you're available. I have to do something to thank you for what you did - at least, something more than paying your bill, and the least I can do is cook a nice dinner for you. Please... come..." she said, with a smile but with a lip that started to tremble just a little bit.

"I don't want to impose on you, Nina..." I replied in shock.

"You're not. I have to cook anyway, and besides, it would be nice for once not to have dinner all on my own," Nina replied.

"I'll do it. What time?" I gave in.

"Around 7 P.M. would be fine if you're available. Be sure to bring your appetite," Nina said mockingly.

I looked into her eyes and replied by smiling, then turned around and returned home.

The following Friday, I showered after work, dressed in a pair of nice jet-black pants, a casual black T-shirt and my usual black boots. I just hoped that this was a casual dinner, and that Nina would not take offense to my attire. I closed up my house and walked up to Nina's front door. I rang the bell, and soon enough Nina opened. She was dressed in a pair of tight blue jeans - her usual attire -a thin white long-sleeved T-shirt and a apron. She smiled at me and led me into her house. This time, I took a closer look at her facial features. Her blonde hair - Nina seemed to be a natural blonde- just touched her shoulders, and she had a face that was overall egg-shaped, with beautiful grayish blue eyes, a narrow chin and thin, pale pinkish lips. I could see her skin was mostly smooth with only a few acne scars and spots. Her complexion was pale and whitish, but she did not look unhealthy. Her nose was symmetrical, of the Greek shape and proportionate to her face, her cheekbones were high and shapely and she had a high forehead.

"I know it's not much, at least compared to yours," she said with a little sadness as we walked into her small kitchen ,where a dining table had been set.

"I don't mind. I'm very grateful that you want to cook for me," I replied concisely.

"I just hope you like my cooking," Nina said.

"Are you a good cook?" I asked curiously.

"My mom and my grandma taught me, but... I really don't know," she answered.

"I'll just have to find out, and hope I don't end up in the hospital or worse, right?" I said mockingly and with a smile.

"Hey, keep it down, it won't be that bad..." she replied with a mocking grin, and then went on to ask me, "Uhm, Alex, I hope you don't want any wine or beer with your dinner? Because I don't have any... I'm a teetotaler. Sorry."

"As am I ,so please don't worry, Nina," I replied.

That small conversation broke the ice for the evening. Nina had prepared an entrée with smoked salmon and a mixed salad. Unknown to her at the time, I loved - and still love - smoked salmon and salads, and I greatly enjoyed the delicious entrée. I praised her and called her entrée 'absolutely delicious', making her giggle and blush. While normally I could not stand girls or women giggling, Nina's giggle was quite cute, and it made me smile.

This was what we needed to break the ice, and about half an hour after the entrée, Nina served dinner. Nina served a fairly simple and plain, but nonetheless enjoyable dinner of potatoes with mixed vegetables and a delicious medium-rare steak of excellent quality. We were mostly silent over dinner, and I couldn't help but notice Nina had a good, healthy appetite. Some of the women I knew or had been with before I met Nina, as well as some of the women in my family, have what I find an unhealthy attitude towards food, as well as the appetite of a barn mouse. They bicker, they are fuzzy eaters, they pick just a few pieces and don't even eat everything on their plates, and they complain all the time about their figure and their weight, and how they are fat or getting fat, even if they are thin as a rail with a body that looks like that of a child. Over the years, it has irritated me to no end, and I've come to despise women who display this attitude. I don't like super skinny women or top models. I like real life women that could live next door to you.

It surprised me to see Nina eating as much as she did. She ate only a small piece of meat, but she did eat a lot of vegetables and quite a lot of potatoes. Her appetite surprised me, but when I thought about it, I perhaps shouldn't have been as surprised; Nina's figure gave away she probably wasn't one of them skinny, fuzzy eater bitches, which pleased me.

My surprise and joy must have shown on my face, because Nina picked up on it and smiled at me, then said, "Hey, I love to eat, you know. I'm not skinny, perhaps not even slender, and I've never really been. I don't mind anymore, I like my body just the way it is, and I know some men do as well. I love to eat, but I do watch what I eat. I try to eat as healthy as possible... I don't eat a lot meat, and I try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables."

I smiled, and said, "That's not a bad thing. Hey, it just shows you're a healthy woman with a good attitude towards food. And by the looks of you, you shouldn't be ashamed of your body either."