Hello Readers! I must say that this work of fiction is over 22,000 words long and that's why I've decided to submit it to the Novels and Novellas category. If that's your style, let's go for it! If not, then no harm done. In addition to being quite lengthy, there are many other themes in this story such as an older man/younger woman romance, infidelity, exhibitionism/voyeurism, masturbation, love, and, of course, sex. I will not say how it evolves or how it ends, but I will say that it is a story where the point-of-view switches from one character to another. Also please note that this story takes place in 2019 unless otherwise noted. All names and situations are fictitious and products of the author's warped brain. Thank you for reading!
Summary:
In the summer of 2019, 18-year-old Candy Walker and 56-year-old Pete O'Malley find love and romance in one another after Candy is healing from a breakup with her latest boyfriend and while Pete's marriage is in shambles. They are next-door-neighbors in a small Kansas town where even older teenagers, such as Candy, like to play outside and invent things such as a "No Boys Allowed Club." Coincidentally, Candy is also best friends with Pete's daughter, Julie, adding an extra layer to the forbidden nature of the story. In a tale of innocence, love, lust, sex, and betrayal, there is an unlikely enemy that shows themselves in the story and threatens to harm Pete and Candy's happiness, unconventional though it may be. Can they survive the challenge?
Part One: The Little Pepper (Pete's Narrative) (2023):
It sounds like an overused cliché, but I never thought I'd be unfaithful to my wife, Cheryl. This story takes place in the year 2019 and by that time we had been married for nearly two decades. Back then, I was 56 years old, and my wife was just a few years younger. Among all the troubles in our marriage, she had given birth to our lovely daughter named Julie sixteen years before who was growing up into an adorable and intelligent young lady. But before I go into things any further, let me go into a bit of history between Cheryl and I.
I first met Cheryl when she was in her late twenties, and she was so lovely. She was a lively, fiery redhead that had intrigued me from the get-go. She was always a bit eccentric, maybe even a bit odd, but it was these harmless little anomalies that caught me in her web of charms. It didn't take us long to hop into bed together, and it was sensational. We both had extremely busy work schedules, but we always found time to screw each other like animals and fall back upon the pillows, breathless and grasping at each other for more.
But more than that, she's always had a lovely soul, which makes this confession all the more difficult to tell. It makes it difficult to tell, but not impossible. Back in 2019, Cheryl was going through some sort of radical shift of mood due to her menopausal state and I had never quite seen her like that before. She would become hysterical at small things - or things that she said I thought were small - but were huge to her, and her emotional reaction was disproportionate to the event or person that landed in her crossfire. I just didn't understand, she said, and I suppose she was right.
While I loved her deeply, I was getting extremely tired of the turmoil that she was throwing at my feet. It seemed I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. My one sole light was our daughter, Julie. She was blossoming into a beautiful young lady. I began to steer my attentions more towards my daughter and her life rather than devoting my energies to Cheryl.
Our small triangle of a family were good friends with our neighbors to the east, the Walkers. There was Jacqueline Walker and her young daughter named Candace Elizabeth Walker, simply known as "Candy." This is where my misstep lied: Candy was not only our next-door-neighbor, but she was Julie's best friend.
At the time of this story, Candy was just 18 years old, and she had developed from a skinny, knobby-kneed kid to a voluptuous and beautiful young woman. The evolution of her body and personality seemed so subtle that it was almost like it didn't happen at all, but with the state of my marriage - which seemed perilous - and the frank boredom I felt with Cheryl, my wandering eye landed upon the young Candy who, I found, tasted as good as her name implied.
Candy was the personification of a paradox: Childish and womanly, sexy and innocent, sweet but also brutally cruel. I learned of her cruelties through my daughter when they would occasionally get into arguments and my daughter would come to me in tears over something mean Candy had said or done to her. Soon, their difficulties would soon be scraped clean, and they would go on as before, but it was my turn to play Sigmund Freud for a brief hour before their reconciliation.
But back to the paradox that was Candy.
Here's a perfect example of how she was both childish and womanly: One summer morning she would be playing baseball in the street with my daughter and a group of random girls and, later, the same day, she would be sunbathing nude in her mother's fenced-in backyard. Or so I heard. And so I would soon find out. You see what I mean by a body of contradictions? Well, Candy was it.
Candy was also a bit of an aimless, free-spirit, willing to go in whatever direction the wind took her, but it was the type of aimlessness that made you want to nudge her in the right direction instead of judging her for it. A gentle nudge, that is. She never did anything by force. She was a student at the local community college studying medical transcription, and, to help pay for the fee and put a few dollars in her pocket, she had a steady job at our town's five-and-dime store. All of us were quite comfortable in our little dot here in Kansas.
That summer, Candy's beauty reached an unbelievably attractive zenith. I had never seen her look quite so radiant. She had a wonderful head of blonde hair, wavy and thick, that landed to the middle of her back, and green eyes that peeked out from the shadows of her golden tresses. Her smile was infectious with two vibrant, solid white rows of teeth that sparkled when she smiled. She wore a modest amount of makeup: A smidge of black mascara and a sheen of pink lip gloss that highlighted her full, natural lips. One beauty habit she indulged in occasionally that summer was glitter. She seemed to take to body glitter and it made her glint and glimmer as if a thousand diamonds were decorating her suntanned skin.
She was of modest height, about 5'2", and her curvaceous, buxom little figure could quite possibly have been 36-22-36. Her breasts were full - maybe a C or D cup - and many times before she and I became intimate, I imagined my large, rough hands caressing them while we kissed. Her legs were slender and smooth without blemish and her ass had just the right amount of perk to make it look grabbable and touchable. All in all, she was a petite, lovely girl and it wasn't long before the attentions I
should've
been showing my wife were focused on her.
When she was playing outside with her girlfriends, I noticed, Candy usually wore snug, tight little denim shorts and a crop top that exposed her tummy, but in times besides that, she normally wore a pretty summer dress or a snug miniskirt and short-sleeved sweater that accentuated her curves to almost cosmic swerves. She had definitely become a looker.
Because of her beautiful, youthful face and her stunning figure, not to mention the way she conducted herself around the opposite sex, in small circles of our neighborhood - particularly among the men - she was often referred to as "Cocktease Candy" or "The Little Pepper" for her supposed flames of hotness when she hit the sheets. In times of normalcy (if there ever is such a thing), I called her simply "Candy" or "Kid," but in the affectionate hours I usually referred to her as "Baby" or - her favorite (and mine) - "Little One." I rarely became irritated with her, but when I did, I would wag my finger at her and sternly warn her in a deep, ominous voice, "
