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The townhouse I was living in had a large kitchen window opening out onto a large grassy area, with a few trees for shade. There was another townhouse just across the grassy area that had been sold a couple of weeks earlier. I had seen a very pretty woman moving in the previous weekend, with a lot of help from several men and women. I didn't intrude at the time, as I thought that there was enough confusion going on already. I had planned on going over and introducing myself, but I hadn't seen anyone around since the moving in day.
This morning I was cleaning up the kitchen after a late breakfast, when I noticed that my new neighbor had parked her SUV in front and was attempting to move what appeared to be a rather heavy box up the stairs from the street. As she was having quite a time, and was resting it on the stairway banister every few steps, I went out to help her. I walked quickly over, introduced myself in a rather abrupt manner, and said, "Let me help with that."
I picked the box up out of her arms, and quickly discovered why she had been struggling with it. It probably weighed close to 100 pounds. I carried it up to her door, and asked her where she wanted it. She opened the door, and asked me to put it in her den, as it was full of books. I got it in there, and asked if there were any more. She blushed a bit, and said that there were another ten or so boxes about the same weight.
The stairs were narrow enough, and the boxes of a size that made it difficult for two people to carry the boxes up the stairs, so I simply carried them all myself. After getting all the boxes in and stacked in the den, she introduced herself as Meg, and asked if I would like a beer or a glass of wine. I accepted the wine, and we talked a bit about the neighborhood, the town and the sort of things that newly introduced people talk about when looking for a common ground.
I got up to leave, saying that I had to get back to work, took one step and pure agony shot up my leg. Every time I tried to flex my ankle, I got a shooting pain up the inside of my ankle from the bottom of my foot. I tried to walk, actually hobble, but it didn't get any better. Meg was clearly quite upset, and insisted on taking me to our local clinic for an examination. I finally agreed, as I couldn't see myself getting any better soon, so we went down to her car, with my arm over her shoulder as she acted as my injured leg.
It turned out that there is a large tendon that runs up from the bottom of the foot, along the inside of the ankle. Apparently I had pulled or strained it carrying the boxes up the stairs. The doctor's orders were to elevate my leg for at least the remainder of the day, and to stay off my foot as much as possible. She also gave me a prescription for a ten-day dose of an anti-inflammatory, and told me to make sure I took all of the pills.
Meg took me to the pharmacy, got my prescription filled, then got me home again. I hobbled into the living room, with her help as a crutch, and got myself set up on the couch with a couple of books, and a pillow to keep my foot elevated. Meg insisted that she would cook dinner and bring it over, "as it was the least she could do, considering that I had hurt myself carrying her boxes."
Meg left me to my own devices for the afternoon, arriving back about 6:30, with a bottle of wine, and several pans of food. She asked if she could use my stove and oven to heat things up, then was off into the kitchen where I could hear her rattling pots and pans as she got things going. After a few questions about where things were (including the wine opener), she brought out two glasses of wine, and we continued our conversation of the morning.
Although Meg didn't go into details at all, I did figure out that she had gotten out of a very bad relationship not too long before. Whether it was a bad marriage, or simply a bad relationship I didn't know at the time. In any event, she was certainly reluctant to be close to me, generally sitting completely across the room. When she did help me move around a bit, she didn't exactly pull away, but there was absolutely nothing sexual, or even I'm interested in you, in her body language. She was simply a tool, or it appeared that was how she was treating herself.
Dinner was wonderful, we finished the wine, and Meg quickly put the dishes in the dishwasher, packed up her pans, and asked if there was anything more she could do tonight. I assured her that I could get around, as I had the crutches I had finally remembered I had (and which she had dug out of my storage room). Meg left, and I hobbled around getting ready for bed and so on.
The next day she reappeared at my door about noon, asking how my foot was feeling. I assured her that it was vastly improved, and that I could actually get around fairly well without much pain at all.
Meg then informed me "In that case, dinner will be at my house tonight, at 7:00. Please come by at 6:30 for a drink before dinner."
I told her that she didn't need to do this, but she insisted, and I finally agreed to come.
Dinner that night was more or less a repeat of the previous night, a drink before dinner, a wonderfully cooked meal, and a bottle of wine to go with everything. We discovered that we both liked scotch and red wine. Did not like drunks or drugs. We loved to read, and had far more books than any otherwise sane person could imagine. We also discovered that we liked to talk with each other, and that we had many of the same interests.
A few days later, I had Meg over for dinner, and we continued our conversation, always finding something new and different to talk about. Over the next few weeks the dinner exchanges became somewhat of a fixture in our lives. We would often eat together two or three times a week. On occasion, we would use my hot tub, usually after dinner, but both of us were always in swimsuits, her suit always being relatively conservative, although she certainly looked good in it.
Meg traveled a bit for her job, going out of town for a day or two at a time. As I worked out of my home, I would pick up her mail, let the cleaning people in, and run the occasional errand for her. Despite the wonderful friendship we were developing, she was still as skittish as a kitten about any kind of body contact. As I had just gotten out of a rather acrimonious divorce not too long before, I didn't even try to make our relationship anything more than friendship. I simply had been too hurt, and was simply not ready for any kind of relationship other than just a friendship.
This continued for several months. We even got to the point that we would use her SUV to go shopping (my sports car didn't allow for many groceries), although we always had our own shopping lists, and paid for our own groceries.
Probably six or seven months later, it was my turn to go out of town on business. Meg took me to the airport, and agreed to pick me up when I came back, although I didn't know how long I was to be gone - somewhere around two weeks, but the time depended on the client.