One of the things he loved about secretly watching her was how her pale, slim-fingered hands moved as she worked at the sink, each item she washed holding her attention as she ministered to it briefly. His secret vantage point looked straight down from the window of his second story hallway into her tiny, immaculate kitchen, and as he climbed the stairs this morning, he welcomed an increasingly familiar thread of guilt-tinged lust at the thought of finding her standing at her kitchen sink where he could watch her hands in private. God, those hands.
He had first stumbled across this sweet and sudden intimacy a month ago while searching the upstairs closet for an extra three-pronged extension cord. With the neatly coiled cord in his hand, he had swung the door closed and caught movement through his upstairs window overlooking the first floor kitchen of the house next door. He turned his head to follow the movement and saw the lovely, soft skin of his neighbor for the first time. Her arms were immersed in a dishtub full of water so liberally doctored with soap that it was as though her hands ceased to exist past the thick, white scrud of suds at her wrists. She pulled them from the depths just then as he watched, and he saw between her palms a delicate and slender vase of pale blue glazed ceramic. For a moment she held the vase at the neck and base, her fingers shiny with what he had imagined to be water just past warm enough to be comfortable, judging by the slight rosy glow of her wet skin. He turned to fully watch her for the first time then, thoughts of the extension cord suddenly forgotten as he quickly became mesmerized by the sight of her bare hands moving deliberately over the vase as she washed it with agonizing care.
For a week or so after that first chance encounter, he had trouble focusing his attention at random times. Images of her hands would appear in his mirror when he was shaving in the early afternoon in preparation for work, or insinuate themselves into his mind's eye later to keep him company while preparing his solitary late-evening dinner. He found his own hands becoming unusually busy at night recently, right before he fell asleep in the center of the bed he and his ex-wife had shared until she left him almost a year ago.
Lately, he had begun to think that this new found interest in his neighbors hands was more than just a slight deviation from the middle-of-the-road fantasies that normally held his attention adequately during those times he needed to get rid of an unwanted erection. He had also begun to think that he didn't mind this new deviation the slightest bit. It seemed harmless to him.
He eased himself slowly into his usual position at the top of the stairs, the horizontal mini-blinds already having been spun downward to provide him with hidden cover against any prying eyes while giving him an unhindered view of her arms, upper torso and hands as she worked. As he looked down through the blinds, he felt himself begin to thicken in anticipation within the confines of his jeans, and he idly pressed a palm against his flat, flannel-covered stomach, aiming toward his groin and wishing uselessly for a moment that his hand was hers.
Every day he stood peering down through the blinds for long minutes while he waited for her to show up. She always did, and never came empty-handed. He had practically memorized the small slice of her kitchen that was visible to him through her window: the forest green countertop, the perpetual shine on the stainless steel of the single-bowl sink, the angled handle of the sprayer nozzle spouting upward from the right-hand side of the sink. The blindingly white plastic dishpan which rested upside down on the faucet, drying. He ran his eyes greedily over them all now, remembered images of her soapy fingers dipping and swirling into the tiny end of the blue vase she was washing the first day he saw her filling his mind.
He closed his eyes briefly, letting his lust wash freely over his flesh. He wanted to feel her slick hands on his cock, wanted to be under her scrutiny, however briefly. He realized then that he didn't know her name, and was surprised that it didn't matter to him at all. He thought of her as 'She' and for him, that was enough.
Leaning against the closet door, he slowly opened his eyes and looked down through the slats into her window. A momentary thrill coursed through him as he realized he had missed her arrival by a minute or so. He watched greedily as her darkly painted nails passed through the white froth of the running water, testing its heat as the dishpan quickly filled. She always seemed to enjoy the feel of the water, almost reveling in its liquid texture and heat as it passed across the skin of her hands.
He tore his gaze away from her hands and directed it to the area to the left of her sink, wanting to see what she would be cleaning today.