It was one of those stupidly hot days we get in the Midwest. You know the kind, where you just sit and sweat in the shade. Naturally, it was the day I absolutely had to mow the lawn. I noticed my neighbor from across the street had decided it was finally time to cut hers too. So, I fired up the mower, feeling guilty about burning gas on such a hot day in defiance of EPA air quality alerts, and soon I was a soaking wet mess, but my lawn was short and neat.
"Hey, hellooo," I heard as I was folding down the lawn waste bag. A woman's voice was calling to someone. I hefted the bag stuffed with grass cuttings and tucked it against the house. "Hey Tom" I heard the voice again, from right behind me. I turned around to see my neighbor Irina.
She had just moved in a few weeks ago, and I had helped her by mowing her lawn that first week and collaborated with her father to trim some branches growing over the garage. Her teenage son takes the school bus with my daughter, but I don't get outside much to socialize, so I've waved at her a few times from the front door. She and I both work from home, but I'm always busy and had not gotten around to seeing if she'd be up for lunch sometime.
And there she was, in a pair of tight shorts and a bra, apparently having stripped off her shirt, with a sheen of sweat making her exposed skin glisten. I looked at her, with her exposed little tummy roll and hint of camel toe highlighted by her workout shorts. I barely stopped myself from staring at her large breasts encased in her damp bra, showing a hint of protruding nipple, and instead forced my eyes up towards her sweet face, with thin lips and expressive brown eyes framed with straight, shoulder length dark hair. She chuckled at something and answered the curiosity I hoped was registering on my face. "I can't get my lawnmower started. Can you see what's wrong?"
"Sure, sure, gimme a second," as I finished tidying up from my work. I drank most of my remaining bottle of water, and then followed her across the street, feeling a little guilty for watching the way her ass shifted back and forth as she walked away. In a moment, I caught up to her outside her garage. "Is your air conditioning at least working?" I filled the silence as I looked at the lawnmower with small talk.
"Working great, thanks for asking."
"School working out for Jake?"
"He's having a hard time making friends, but otherwise he's doing fine. Straight A's so far."
"Ugh, I wish that were the case with my daughter. Too busy day dreaming about other girls." Her eyebrow arched at that, but she didn't pursue it.
During a little more friendly banter, I had checked to make sure there was enough gas, and the oil looked good. It was distracting because she kept adjusting her bra due to obvious discomfort. "What's it doing when you try to start it?"
"Nothing, it just doesn't start."
I squeezed the lever to engage the throttle and pulled on the cord. Nothing. Then I realized the problem. I squeezed the little primer button a few times and then tried again. After some coughs and chugs, it fired right up. She had the cutest look of astonishment on her face. "What did you do?"
"So, this little button here primes the engine (not that I knew enough about these things to explain it properly) and gets the gas flowing so it can ignite. Usually when first starting it you need to pump it 5 or six times." Now she looked a little embarrassed. Your grass is pretty high, let's get this deck adjusted or it will choke after one pass." I set the deck up a few notches, fired the mower up again and started making some passes at the lawn. She didn't have a grass catcher on the mower so there were large clumps of grass left behind in my wake.
"Hold on," and I went back across the street to grab my mower and an extra bag. In no time I had done the first pass to shorten the length of grass, with her kind of hovering around because she clearly wasn't used to people doing things for her, and then did a second pass to get everything short and neat. Her yard was much smaller than mine, so it took little time to finish the work. I noted how she'd want to do some trimming, and she made some quiet comment like "It's always good to be neatly trimmed," which I seemingly ignored in my masculine desire to explain lawn care. Her mischievous smirk, however, caught my attention, and I duly noted that the game was afoot.
"For instance, I see your bushes are overgrown by the gate, and unless they get trimmed, they can impede access," I waited for her response. None came. She was looking over at the gate and her overgrown hedge and seemed lost in thought. She started walking in that direction and turned her head.
"You must be thirsty, come back and I'll get some lemonade."
"Let me finish cleaning this stuff up," and she disappeared through the front gate while I pushed the mower into her garage and put her lawn waste bag by the garbage cans. After closing her garage door, I joined her past the gate.
It was a cozy backyard, bordered by an overgrown garden, and furnished with a chaise, some chairs, and a table on a cement patio slab. She was standing at the table upon which were two glasses with ice, which she began filling from a pitcher of lemonade. "It's not freshly squeezed, but hopefully it's tart enough for your taste."
"As an expert lemon squeezer, I find that offensive." Ugh, I smiled as I groaned inwardly. My flirting game clearly needed some work. "I'm sure it will wet my whistle and maybe you'll even get a pucker out of me." Inwardly I flinched. Stop, just stop.
She handed me a glass of lemonade. "Maybe you can show me your expert lemon squeezing technique sometime."
"It's all in the thumbs."
We sat in silence for a few moments. She took off her sneakers and I noticed her legs. Her thighs were thick and smooth, her calves toned. She wiggled her toes as they found freedom in the fresh air.
She began fidgeting again and adjusting her bra. Watching her do that made me realize I might need to do some adjusting of my own. Nothing like some fresh air and yardwork to get the body primed, and a hot neighbor essentially fondling her own tits didn't help.
"It's too fucking hot for this," she burst out unexpectedly. "I'm sorry, I don't want to make you uncomfortable..." she trailed off as she reached behind her and unclasped her bra, freeing her lemons, or more accurately, grapefruits from their sweaty confines.
"Not at all," I quickly responded casually, despite my astonishment at this sudden plot twist, "I'm a huge fan of free-range citrus." She gave me a side eye and a wry smile as she tried to mop up some sweat from her underboob with her already saturated bra. I quickly stripped off my shirt intending to offer it to her, but realized it was just as wet and sweaty as her bra. I sat there with my hand outstretched and looked at her, then at the shirt, and then I laughed. What else could I do?
She was obviously comfortable enough with me, which I was grateful for, and while it seemed there was some light flirting, it was not, in my mind, an invitation for an unwanted sexual overture, like the ones beginning to spin out in my head. She thanked me for the offer, and I withdrew my hand and finished my lemonade. She arose to refill my glass, and I failed at not staring at her breasts, swaying in front of me, so close I could see little beads of perspiration beading down them to her nipples and forming drops. Fascinating.
"Tom, my eyes are up here."
Looking up, I swallowed hard and squirmed uncomfortably as she laughed and handed me the freshly filled glass. I started nervously sipping at it and realized lemonade wasn't going to cut this thirst. I kept hoping she'd say something obvious, some overt or even subtle sign of consent, an invitation. But instead, we sat in silence for several moments, sipping our lemonade, until I broke it, asking: "So, do you have you any plans for your garden Irina?" There is nothing sadder than a lonely gentleman.
She thought for a moment, and answered "The ground seems kind of dry, and I'm having problems with a hose."