His car drives up in front of my house every day. The big black Bronco parks in front of my lawn and he gets out, each day, and meticulously locks the door, slings his bag over his shoulder and walks into the house next to me. Every day. At 2:40 precisely I go to the window and pull the curtain back, each day, and hold my breath when I see his shiny black detail job, bite my lip when he puts the car in park and turns off the engine. I groan silently each time he fixes his dark chestnut hair in his window reflection and walks up the stone path to the house, smoothing his hand down his relax fit jeans.
I’m not sure when he started working next door, or when I first started noticing, or even when I started noticing him. For the past few weeks I’ve been glued to my window watching his every move. He comes over to my neighbor’s house every weekday at the same time and leaves anywhere between 6:00 and 7:30. It took a few moments to realize what he actually did there because I knew for a fact that Jack worked at an accounting firm in the city and Marie was a nurse at the local hospital, but as I see their two twin girls running up the street with their matching backpacks and their older brother, Jack Jr, trailing behind with a smile slowly forming on his sweet angel face, I knew instantly. He was their Man-ny.
The sky was beautiful Friday afternoon and as the children trail into the house after the man, I ease myself outside and to my garden. I get a closer look at his car, but other than that, he has never come outside with the children when he watches them. He’s never seen me before, or at least that I know of. I’ve never met his eyes, or been spared a glance of that amber glaze his eyes become when he sees the children. A look of pure happiness; he loves those kids. So I gave up before I even began and went to my gardening.
About an hour goes by and I don’t even realize it until I decide to do some heavy remodeling in my sea of flowers and Marie pulls up in her little Volvo. Home early. I look down at my dirt streaked clothes and sigh, walking quickly into the garage to hide. I know that he’ll be coming out soon and I can’t have him see me like this. I’ve dreamt of meeting him and having him see me in a delicate baby pink sweeping gown, my dull brown locks shimmering and swept up from my ordinary face, tendrils I never knew existed in my waves framing my face and a healthy glow covering my body to make his mouth water. I look down once more and frown at my jeans with dirt all over and the white tank that looks like it has seen better days. Not to mention the fact that it’s as low cut as a shirt can get and even though some people think that’s sexy, when your breasts are sweating and covered in mulch, it takes some of the sexiness out of it.
Fifteen minutes have gone by and when I grab a large bag of much needed mulch, I step out from my garage just in time to see him standing before my lawn about to get into his truck. I freeze like a rabbit before two glowing headlights when he sees me looking at him. What do I do? What do I do?? In my panic, the bag falls to the ground and lands on my foot. The bag falls forward and as I lean to make sure my foot is okay, I lose my balance. My clumsy body is making a fool of herself right now and I fall on my behind, crushing my new flowers just planted fifteen minutes ago.
“Are you okay?”
I look up at my secret admiration and the concern in his eyes makes me feel more than okay. I feel great. And the smile on my face must have reassured him because he held out a hand to me and grinned his cheshire grin right back at me. I place my hand in his and instantly felt heat, a burning painful heat that took the breath out of my lungs.
Before I could remark, he says, “Oh, your hand’s bleeding.”
The burning pain is a gash on my hand that I’ve given myself slipping and landing on my shovel. He cradles my hand and lifts me up, telling me that it’s not that bad and dragging me into my house. He walks me to my kitchen and sits me on the table like a little girl as he wets a rag to wash my hand. It happened so fast that it didn’t faze me that this man, this stranger was in my house and helping me. But he wasn’t really a stranger. He was someone that I’ve been loving from afar and admiring through my curtains every day. But he could never know that. So I was just silent and patient as he washed my left palm with warm water.
When he asked for a first aid kit, I pointed to the cabinet under the sink and he instantly went to work. Washing my hand with antiseptic and wrapping it with gauze made his eyes go hard and serious. It must have looked like he was performing surgery.
“How are you feeling, Anna? Better?”
He knew my name. How did he know my name? The confusion must have shown on my face before he laughed, still holding my hand and said, “Marie told me your name. She gave me your phone number in case of emergencies. I’m not a psycho stalker, I promise.” Putting it that way kind of made me feel like a stalker, so I just smiled and said that I was fine. When I asked him what his name was and he replied his name was Gregory, I heard the word roll off his tongue and slid through my ear like a piece of silk ribbon being thread through my entire body.
For the next moment I didn’t know what to say, do, think. I was lost and floating away from myself. We both stopped and stood in silence, unsure of our next moves.
“Thank you for taking care of me.” I started, unsure of myself. “That was nice of you.”
He grinned a shy grin that looked like he was bashful of his heroic act. I wanted to let him know it was ok, that I wasn’t making fun of him. With my right hand I cupped his face and said ‘Thank you’, again. It brought his eyes back to mine where I saw them bleed to the fierce amber glow that I’ve dreamt about. The same golden gaze that I wanted to stare into for hours while he held me. “Don’t mention it. It was my pleasure.”
I still had his face cupped in my hand and he still held my injured hand close to his. This intimate position was all I ever wanted. My legs were parted and his body was pressed so close to me that I could feel the hard muscles of his thighs on the insides of mine. When I looked down to see how close he was, he pulled back. Unsure and embarrassed, he started to stammer and stutter, telling me he was sorry and that he shouldn’t be so rude. He began to pull away and before I could help myself I tugged him back to me. I’ve needed his everything for so long and it was right there in front of me, so I took it.
I kissed his soft, sweet lips and felt his body tense at my action. I made a mistake, he tensed. The panic is setting in and the fear drips all over. I pull back, and before I can let go, he grabs my body and devastates me with a mind trembling embrace that makes all thoughts and fears disappear. He tasted so warm, so safe and he felt so smooth and so cool. His lips broke from mine and they took my neck as a captive, setting his teeth to me as a starving man to his first taste of a new meal.
And in the heat of this passion, I told him. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Every time you came out of your car in the afternoon, I’d watch you and want you all at once.” With each confession, his hands held me closer and his lips tasted me further. He pressed his body to mine as I sit on the kitchen table, dangling my feet off the edge. He’s becoming hard at my thoughts and brought his face back to mine for a taste.
The delicious flavor of him filled my mouth and I couldn’t keep my hands off of him. Now that he was in my arms, I didn’t want to let him go until I was finished with him. At once I craved more of his flesh and dove my hands under his shirt, feeling the smooth skin of his back and chest, tight with my fingers caresses. He moves back a bit and breaks the kiss to remove his shirt, tossing it wherever shirts land when they were forgotten. No one knows, because after they are off they are no longer necessary.
I marveled at the newly revealed flesh like a new toy and pulled him closer to my mouth. His flesh was warm and sweet under my lips, and made my tongue tingle at each lick. I ran my mouth over his chest and stomach. This moment took on a whole new level of fantasy. It made all dreams come true and wishes fulfilled.
“Anna? Gregory?”
Marie’s voice brought us back to reality like kids with their hands caught in the cookie jar. Gregory pulled away and before he could find his shirt, Marie walked into my kitchen. “There you are. I saw you fall outside and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
