I'd been overseas for a couple of months. Before I left I contracted with a gardening service to make sure that my place didn't start looking deserted and arranged with an obliging neighbour to clear out my letter box for the few odd letters that might arrive.
I finished up my stint about a month early, work completed. I was offered an opportunity to stay on for another three months but managed to decline gracefully. It's counter-productive to tell someone that they're an asshole and that I found working with them to be akin to working in a torture chamber, with me having to test the torture implements -- on myself. Yeah, you could say I had an incentive to do a sterling job and finish early.
I was pleased to note that my garden looked fine and there wasn't a backlog of junk-mail clustered around my letter-box. I garaged the car and went inside. The first think I did was to have a decent shower to wash away the travel dust. Leaving the bathroom, a lion refreshed, I walked straight into a fist that landed on my eye.
The fist was small and hard and accompanied by a startled scream. My immediate reaction on being assaulted was to fight back and I had a bunched fist heading directly at the face behind the fist that had greeted me. Fortunately for all concerned I noticed that the aforesaid face was small and quite pretty, and very feminine in nature.
I managed to stop my blow about an inch from that pretty face. This resulted in a horrified shriek and a little fist trying to dot my other eye. I caught that little fist so that no damage was done.
I spoke too soon. A hard little foot connected with my shin, causing me to lose my grip on that fist, and then my assailant was high-tailing it out of there.
"Hold it right there, Cheryl," I snarled, and she came to a halt and turned to look at me.
"Mr Adams," she gasped, then she gave another little scream. "Oh my god. You're naked."
With that realisation the high-tailing resumed at an even faster pace.
I shrugged and watched her go. I knew where she lived. So what if I was naked? I'd just stepped out of the shower in my own house. Why wouldn't I be naked? Sucks to be Cheryl right then. She got an eyeful while being somewhere she shouldn't have been. I'd have to wander over and ask what the hell was going on.
Lovely little Cheryl was not the neighbour that I'd asked to keep an eye on things. She wasn't even the daughter of said neighbour. She and her sister lived across the road with their parents. If memory served me correctly Cheryl was nineteen and Marie was twenty-one.
After I was dressed I looked up the Megains' number and called their house. I was lucky as Cheryl answered.
"Cheryl," I said cheerfully. "How nice to hear from you. Ah, I was wondering if you'd like to drop past and explain to me what was going on earlier. No need to worry. I'm fully dressed."
"Um, I'd rather not," she mumbled.
"That's OK. I can always drop over there and ask your parents what's going on. I'm sure I'll be fascinated to hear the details."
"You can't do that!" she yelled, apparently finding her full voice.
"Sure I can. I just step out my front door, cross the road, and walk up to your front door. If you like, I'll wait until your father gets home so he can arbitrate."
"No!" She sounded a little upset.
"So what's it going to be? Are you coming over here to explain or do I visit you, asking for that explanation?"
"Fine! I'll come over."
She might have said fine but she sure didn't mean it. Looking out the window I could see her coming like a little thundercloud that's determined to rain on its target of choice.
"Come on in," I said, holding the door open as she approached.
I ushered her into the front room and she sat on the couch, looking demure and furious. Also slightly embarrassed when she chose to look at me, which was only momentary. I wasn't sure about the source of the embarrassment, my earlier nudity or the nice shiner I was starting to sport. I'd have a genuine black eye in another hour or so.
I waited, not saying anything, letting the silence get to her. She finally started talking.
"Marie's boyfriend is a bully and a thug. Ex-boyfriend, really, as she dumped him, but she had to take out a restraining order against him. She's currently staying at my Uncle's place but Brad is trying to find her anyway. I saw him hanging around my place earlier and as I would have been home alone I chose not to go home. I knew you were away so I decided to hide in your place. When you lunged at me in the hallway I thought it was him and panicked. The rest you know. It's not my fault that you were at home."
"That leaves so many questions. Why didn't you call the police if Brad was hanging around? I'm quite sure the restraining order would have covered you place."
"It does and I called the police as soon as I got inside. They were hauling him away when I went back home."
She seemed quite pleased about that.
"Speaking of getting inside, how did you do that?"
"Um." She blushed and dithered and finally confessed. "My father taught us how to pick a lock in case we were ever locked out. It works on your lock quite easily."
Fair enough. It looked like I needed to upgrade my locks.
"I see. All fully understandable. Of course, from where I stand you're guilty of breaking and entering, trespass, and assault. And you're also guilty of gross stupidity. If I hadn't managed to not punch you I could have smashed your face. I'm talking two black-eyes, a broken nose, broken teeth, and even a broken cheek bone. What would that Brad character have done if you'd punched him?"
"It wasn't my fault. I panicked. You'd panic, too, if a naked man jumped out at you."
"I don't know about panic but I'd certainly be disconcerted. And I didn't exactly jump. Just stepped out of my own bathroom. Ah, you haven't covered the other items I mentioned. You know, the criminal offences?"
"I didn't do any of those things. Trespass, possibly, but that's nothing."
"I disagree and my eye disagrees." I indicated said eye and smiled when she looked at it and winced.
"Yes, well I'm sorry about that but you shouldn't have startled me."
"There's an etiquette for leaving a bathroom that I don't know about?" I asked.
"Yes," she snapped. "You wrap a towel around yourself instead of flaunting yourself."
I had to laugh. Flaunting myself?
"If I'd known that you were there I would have, but I don't usually allow for burglars being in the house."
"I wasn't a burglar!" Rather irritated it seemed.
