Amanda

"Hen-reeee!"

My wife's screech penetrated the walls and floors separating us.

"Come on. Hurry it up, willya. We're going to be late."

Late. We were going to a lawn party next door, a party that would certainly run through the afternoon and deep into the night.

Sherry's always ready first. When we were dating and she'd be waiting for me when I came to pick her up, I put it down to eagerness. That was flattering to me, and I ate it up. Like most men, I'd spent a good part of my life hanging around while women put on their finishing touches. After we were married, I realized it was a compulsion with Sherry. She has to be first.

That's not always a bad thing. The first time we had sex, Sherry crooned and grunted and came almost before I'd gotten inside her. It seemed every inch I worked into her made her come again. She thrashed against me and clawed at my back, and by the time I was ready, and it didn't take long, Sherry was quivering and shaking, babbling incoherently under me. I'd never had anyone respond to me like that before, and I was hooked.

I was buckling my belt and looking at myself in the mirror when the bedroom door slammed open and Sherry stormed in.

"Jesus, Henry. You're preening like a sophomore before her prom. Do you think we can get going any time soon?"

"Sure, honey. Almost ready to go. You look great, by the way."

She did. I'm reluctant to generalize, but I think most women as driven as Sherry are going to be thin, and she was. The skin showing between her tight tube top and her outrageously short skirt was firm and tan, rippling over her stomach muscles. Sherry ran every day, and her legs showed it. The high heels strapped around her ankles accentuated the perfect curve of her calves, and the hem-line of her skirt was an eye magnet.

"You're not looking bad, yourself," she told me. She tweaked my collar and I looked down into her cleavage. Thin as she is, and exercise and run as much as she will, there's nothing Sherry can do about her tits. They're big and round and look like they should tip her over onto her face. I think that's one of the things that turns me on most about her. Here's this trim athletic woman, five foot three in her stocking feet and maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet, and she's got these boobs. I reached for her.

"You sure you want to go over there now?" I asked her. "That party is going to go on forever. Nobody's waiting for us."

She slapped my hands away.

"I haven't been waiting all day for you to get ready and gotten myself all dressed up just to have you tear it off me." She spun away and headed out the door. "Do whatever you have to do. I'm going. I'll see you there."

I didn't have much to do. I pulled on my socks and shoes and checked myself once again in the mirror. Ready as I'd ever be.

The front door was open. I walked in and saw people grouped around a buffet in the dining room. There was nobody I knew there, so I went out into the back yard. Again, they were all strangers, and I was wondering just what I was doing here when I felt a presence at my shoulder.

"I'm not entirely sure who they all are, either." I turned and saw Amanda standing next to me. My next door neighbor. My hostess.

"That could be the sign of a great party," I told her. "At least it was in my college days. But that's a long time ago."

Amanda glanced up at me from under her long black lashes and bumped my arm. "Yeah, sure, you're an old fogie and can barely remember back that far."

We'd had Amanda and Lawrence over for drinks shortly after they'd moved in, but they were almost a generation younger, and most of our socializing seemed to go in the other direction, where Yuko, a born Japanese, lured us with her native dishes and her husband Patrick came over to sample my wine cellar. Today, I could see Yuko chatting with neighbors and Patrick lurking at the bar.

"Are you kidding me? I remember every minute. We had parties like these, where you didn't know anybody. A hundred people in two rooms. No pool. No big house. Girl, you have no idea."

"Ah. A report from the stone age. Or the stoned age, maybe?"

"Could have been, but like I said, I still remember it all."

There was a reason for the party. Lawrence worked for a big multi-national and they'd offered him a three year position in Brussels. He and Amanda and their two kids, one four years old and the other sixteen months, would be leaving on the first of September. Lawrence's firm had hired in an agency to rent their place out while they were gone.

"So tell me, Amanda. You ready for the great adventure?"

"I guess so. It is pretty exciting. But I'll miss it here."

"Yeah. Well, we'll miss you, too."

I was just making conversation. We'd never been close to Amanda and Lawrence. But I would miss her. They had the big pool in their back yard, and when the kids were at day-care, Amanda would sun bathe. I work at home, writing free-lance ad copy, and my study window looks out onto their yard.

Sherry's improbable body was a man's fantasy come true, and as a man, as her husband, I responded to it. Deeply. Daily. There was just something about Amanda, with her small breasts and her round thighs just short of plump and the little bulge of her belly, that drew me to the window every day.

I was deep in fantasy land when Amanda's voice broke through. "I'll miss watching you, too, Henry."

That didn't make any sense, and I figured she was talking about me watching her. I felt blood rushing to my cheeks and I tried to think of some answer, some excuse, but I knew I was busted. It was easier to just admit it.

"Listen, Amanda. Oh, jesus. You must think I'm some sort of pervert. I, well, I, oh fuck it, I just like looking at you."

I cringed, waiting for a torrent of disdain, but Amanda was smiling up at me.

"I know you do. Henry, take it easy. You look like you're going to have a heart attack. It's OK. I like it, too."

I looked down into her big dark eyes. "What?"

"You don't really think I've been lying out there to work on my tan, do you? Well, that's part of it. But I've seen you from the beginning. Watching me."

This was all going too fast for me, but at least Amanda wasn't pissed off.

" I've been watching you, too, Henry."

Now my head was spinning. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"What do you mean, watching me?"

A little grin twitched at the corners of Amanda's mouth. "You don't think you can only see me from that window, do you?"

She had me. Hooked. All I could do was stare at her and wait for whatever she would say next.

"Let me tell you a little story, Henry. A woman walks out into her back yard and sees her neighbor's window open. She's curious and looks in. He's a guy she doesn't really know, but she's curious. He's looking at his computer screen. That seems normal; he's a writer. But he's not acting normal. He's staring at the screen and his shoulders are bobbing and his face is becoming a grimace. Let's just imagine it a moment. He's got one hand on the mouse, and his other hand, well who knows. But the lady next door is watching, and she has an idea what he's up to. Then his head rolls back and his eyes close, and he's bucking in his chair. He grabs a tissue from the box on his desk. Is he going to blow his nose? The lady next door thinks not.'

I stood nailed to the ground. I didn't know what to say, or if I should try.

Amanda hooked my arm and said, "I've got guests I should greet. Come with me, Henry."

She led me on a tour of the yard, stopping at groups of people and welcoming them, and then into the house where she chatted with the folks by the buffet. Lawrence was in the kitchen, un-corking bottles of wine, and Sherry was there with him, distracting him.

Amanda took my hand and tugged me after her up the stairs. There was a little room at the side of the hall, what might have been a sewing room or a small guest room. The only furniture was an armchair pulled up to the window. Amanda pushed me into the chair, and positioning my head with her hands, made me look out the window.

"What do you see, Henry?"

"My house."

"And more specifically?"

"The side window of my study."

"Back to my story, then. The lady is shocked by what she saw from the back yard. But she's fascinated. She goes inside, and upstairs she finds she can look directly into the writer's study from this room. From outside, she can only see his head and shoulders and the top of his desk. From here, she has a much better view. She can see almost all of him. She can see the computer screen he's watching, she can see most of the left side of his body. There's no guessing any more about what he's looking at, or what his left hand is doing. She just can't see it. Wherever she stands, even if she climbs up on the window sill, she can't see it. But she knows. And that's enough. She can sit here in that chair, with its wide arms and her legs spread over them, and imagine what the man is doing to himself. She can almost see the pictures on the screen. And when he shudders, when she sees the muscles of his left arm clenching, she imagines she'd be the one to pluck a tissue from the box and give it to him. But of course that's impossible, because her hands are buried deep between her legs, and she's coming, ravaged by the image of what she just can't see."

I felt my face burning. Whether it was from embarrassment at Amanda having caught me in my most private moments, or from the story she'd just told me, I didn't know. I stared out the window in front of me, wondering what I could possibly say. Worst of all, my cock was straining against my pants, caught in my underwear, begging for escape. For release.

Amanda's hands settled onto my shoulders, and her breath was hot in my ear. "I want to see it, Henry. I want to see you stroke it, to see it get all big and hard. Not for the pictures on your computer. For me. I want to see you come."

Her arms were around me now, squeezing me. Her lips slid up and down my neck and her tongue flickered into my ear. My hips lunged off the chair, and briefly I wondered what I'd tell Sherry about the stain in my shorts and trousers. Then I died.

When I came around, Amanda was sitting spread-legged on my lap and staring into my eyes, cradling my head in her hands.

"You OK, Henry?"

I looked down to where she was sitting in me, to where I must have been soaking her panties. "Yeah. For now.'

"Good." She stood up and straightened her skirt over her hips. "I still haven't seen it, you know. What are we going to do about that?"

I sat still. Anything she suggested would be perfect. "You want to turn your chair there in your study and show me while I watch out the window? Or do you want to come over once Lawrence and the kids are gone?"

"Know what, Amanda? You decide. Whatever you come up with will be fine with me."

She smiled down at me. "Great. It'll be my surprise."

She looked around her as if seeing the room for the first time. "Henry, I've got a lot of guests downstairs who I have to make nice to. Tomorrow, then?"