Eric yawned as he walked up the driveway of his parents' house. The night was dark and quiet. Nearly all of Mansion Grove's residents had put Saturday night behind them and the lean twenty-year-old was ready to do the same.
His night had, like most others lately, been uneventful. He'd spent the evening at his friend Dave's house, hanging out with a small number of friends and nurturing an herbal buzz. Around twelve o'clock, he'd decided the night was over and walked the three blocks home.
He yawned again as he rounded the back corner of the house. A few crickets chirped. His keys made a soothing jangle as he pulled them from his jacket pocket. A soft voice crept across the darkened backyard. Eric paid it little mind as he stepped onto the back porch. A flicker of light somewhere in the backyard caught his eye.
Pausing, Eric turned and peered into the heavy shadows of the yard. Yellow light flickered a few feet off the ground, peeking through a crack in the tall fence separating the neighbor's backyard from his. New neighbors, Eric guessed. For the past year the house next door had stood ownerless.
He heard the voice again. What he at first thought was part of a conversation became a lone chanting voice. The chant was low and sure, but not masculine. More, Eric was sure the chanter called out in a language other than English. He stepped off the porch and stared at the flickering light. Weird, he thought.
After a moment, he took a step toward the fence. The sliver of flickering light writhed amidst the night and the voice crept all around him. It sounded rough, almost guttural. Out of place in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Judging by the late-hour fire and the chanting, Eric guessed his neighbor must be some New Age enthusiast.
No longer sleepy, Eric trod across the soft grass, the dark mass of the high fence looming over him. A sensible part of himself chided him for acting on his curiosity. No matter how odd what his neighbor did might be, he rather doubted it would be very interesting. Spying was, he knew, rude as well.
Waist-high shrubbery kept him from sidling flush against the fence. He lifted his hands and leaned forward, bracing himself with his fingertips. The odd, almost rhythm-less chant droned on. Images of black forests and cold mountains danced in his head. For a moment, the plotline of a bad horror movie came to mind.
Eric shifted his head and shoulders until he could peer through the fence-crack with a single eye. He expected to see a fire. He even half-expected to see a woman in a black robe holding a skull up to the moon. He did not expect to see her standing naked before waist-high flames.
His mouth dropped open and then spread into a grin as his vision took in the chanter. She was thirty feet or so away, standing at the edge of a fire pit. Amber light danced over milky-white skin. Her eyes were thin slits of blue and her black hair fell back past her shoulders. She held her arms out from her hips, as if she perpetually reached to embrace someone.
How old she was Eric couldn't say. Somewhere in her thirties, maybe. He ran his eyes over her heavy breasts and the breadth of her strong hips. She looked like some barbarian priestess.
She chanted on and Eric no longer much cared about why she was standing naked in her backyard. He squirmed as he imagined pushing himself against her ass and feeling the weight of her breasts in his hands. He moved one shaky hand away from the fence and breathed hard as he rubbed himself through his pants.
The awkward position he was in and the sensation as he mollified his carnal ache made him clumsy. He slipped, his head knocking the fence. He muttered a curse under his breath. The chanting stopped. Eric balanced himself and put his eye back to the peephole. The woman still stood as she had, but she no longer gazed out over the flames. She looked toward the fence. She looked directly at Eric.
Her blue eyes were shards of anger and her lips curled back from clenched, white teeth. An endless moment crept by. Her lips came together and her expression shifted to imperious contempt. Her arms lowered. A moment passed. Eric tried to pull his gaze from hers.
Finally, she turned and strode toward her house. Eric couldn't help but watch the roll of her sturdy rump as she walked. He heard the hiss and thump of a sliding glass door. Suddenly, he was aware of just how quiet the night had become.
The next day Eric feared the woman would march to his house and demand to know who couldn't keep his eyes to himself. By Sunday night she hadn't and Eric figured the incident was a thing of the past. The vision of her didn't pass so easily, though. He felt a little bit of guilt and hoped his weird, sexy neighbor didn't feel violated in some way.
Thursday afternoon Eric had just gotten home from work when the doorbell rang. Dressed in his retail employee uniform of gray pants and yellow polo shirt, Eric walked to the front door. The fuzzy shadow on the other side of the frosted glass sent a quiver of fear through him.
He pulled the door open and stared through the screen door. A woman stood on the porch. A thirty-something woman with pale blue eyes and long, black hair that fell past her shoulders like a midnight rainstorm. A tick started in Eric's left eye.
"Hi." She said and smiled. She stood nearly even with him and he felt himself shrinking before her pale gaze.
"Uh, hi." He said. He returned her grin, though with some effort.
Her pale-blue eyes and face almost glowed in the shadow of the covered porch. She wore a short-sleeved red dress littered with tiny, white flowers. A line of shiny black buttons marched from the pit of her throat to her waist.
Eric swallowed and readied himself for chastisement. The woman, though, didn't seem angry. Or even irritated. She glanced at his chest, a question forming on her face.
"I'm not keeping you?" She said. Eric glanced down at his nametag and shook his head.
"Oh, no. I just got home from work." He said. The woman nodded.
"Do you live here, Eric?" She glanced at his chest again and grinned.
"I'm Angela, just over there." She said. Her finger gestured over and behind the house.
"Uh, yeah." Eric said and nodded. Prickly heat danced over his forehead. Her eyes grew larger and larger the longer he met her gaze. He blinked.
"Um, did you want to talk to my parents or something?" He said.
His eyes darted around and past her. Try as he might, he couldn't meet her eyes, no matter how friendly her expression was.
"Are they home?" She said.
Eric shook his head, cringing as he felt his cock twitch and swell. Improbable notions she might come on to him played out in his mind. His ears felt hot and he knew his face was flushed.
"Uh, they should be home after six. Did you want to leave your number or something?" He said.
He turned and looked over his shoulder, trying to think where a pen and a slip of paper might be. When he turned back to Angela, he nearly jumped. Only a polite shadow of her open, friendly expression remained. She seemed taller, somehow, as well.
"That's not necessary. It's you I want to have a word with." She said. Her voice was stern and lacked even a hint of neighborliness. Eric felt weightless and nodded.
"Can you come to my house in, say, twenty minutes? I think you know where it is." She said.
"Uh, sure." Eric said. He swallowed hard. Angela hadn't forgotten about Saturday night after all.
She turned and stepped off the porch. Eric simply stood in the doorway, watching as she walked down the path to the sidewalk, the clip of her shoes fading. He closed the door and stared at the living room.
Twenty minutes went by quickly, though he still had plenty of time to imagine a number of frightening scenarios. The best of them had Angela politely berating him for spying. The worst had her husband kicking his ass.
