What would turn out to be the final game of the World Series that year was just beginning when I turned on the television in the room my wife and I affectionately refer to as our "den." In point of fact, the den is simply the third bedroom in our house, a bedroom devoted to activities such as web surfing on our computer, ironing and watching the occasional show on a TV we inherited from my parents when they moved into a smaller place themselves several years ago. I prefer to enjoy the latter undertaking in this room best because I can relax on the nearly threadbare couch I shared with my last roommate before marrying Polly, an accoutrement I somehow managed to talk her into letting me keep for this express purpose.
Summer had long since given way to fall by then, at least inasmuch as the calendar was concerned. And we had already seen a few evenings so cool that we'd employed the heater in the house at night. But before we could even trade our shorts and sandals for sweaters and boots, we were visited rather unexpectedly by a spell of temperate weather, one last fine day that made us all pine for the season past.
Polly had been puttering about the yard for the better part of the morning clad in her favorite weekend wear, a faded cotton halter and button-fly jean shorts. She'd accomplished little but had really only decided to poke around in the beds surrounding our pool and patio as an excuse to warrant fishing out the clothing she now wore, clothing she was mere days away from putting in storage until spring.
It was now noon. As Polly collected the gardening tools she'd scattered about the yard, her best friend Jenny sauntered though the fence gate by the driveway and greeted my wife with a wave and a spirited, "Hey, girl!" Her husband, Kevin, was predictably not with her. He and Jen lived nearby and, knowing him the way I did, I assumed he was on a golf course somewhere with his regular Saturday foursome. Far more modest than my own wife, Jen's bony frame swam inside one of Kevin's old Polo shirts and her legs were well hidden within baggy pleated shorts that fell to just above her knees.
The glass on all of the windows across the back of the house, upstairs and down, had been treated with some type of reflective material which made it possible to see through from inside but not vise-versa. This substantially reduced the amount of light entering that side of the house, which faced west and could conceivably had driven the temperature inside far higher each afternoon than it might have been otherwise. Save for a large oak which threw negligible shade on the corner near our bedroom, the back yard was almost completely devoid of trees and bushes. Had the previous owners not sprung for the ingeniously finished glass, the room where I now sat would have been something less than hospitable. As it stood, however, I was quite comfortable and had the additional good fortune of being able to view the goings-on at the pool this day with complete impunity.
Which would soon become important. For now, though, I sat engrossed in the game while Jen and Polly lolled about, sipping beer and chatting.
During a commercial, I glanced down and saw Jen light the first of the dozen-or-so cigarettes she would doubtless smoke that afternoon, a habit her husband had fruitlessly tried for years to convince her to break. Polly had been a casual smoker when she and I began dating, but she gave it up over time as my displeasure at it and her fascination with it grew. (Asking her to quit had been quite a dilemma for me--I often found watching her smoke a sexy and provocative ballet, but my contempt for the resulting odor made it impossible for me to politely endure. The alluring images I carried of spying her drawing on a white filter cigarette through freshly painted lips had nonetheless proven difficult to shake.) Before too long, Jen repaired to the house, presumably to use the bathroom or fetch more beers.
While she was gone, Polly pulled the straps from her shoulders and rolled the bottom of her halter to just below where her breasts sat, effectively creating a tube top. She ran her hands across her chest and tummy, almost certainly lamenting how the lovely mocha hue her skin had assumed would fade over the months to come. She had managed to get through the entire summer without burning, and I knew she would hate having to watch her skin return to its usual fair shade after she had so carefully avoided what we had both long thought an inevitable part of her annual tanning process.
To my surprise, Jen returned shortly outfitted in one of my wife's bikini tops. Being Jen, she had chosen Polly's least revealing swimsuit, a solid black crepe number with large molded cups and broad straps that tied at the neck. It was pretty, certainly, but I had always regarded it as having too much material in which to properly sunbathe, an opinion Polly came to share when she saw how pronounced the resulting tanlines were. Before too long she had purchased two others and relegated the one Jen now sported to wearing while washing the car.
They nattered on for a time and I watched the game, eventually darting downstairs for snacks and more beer during a break in the action. I took a much needed pass through the bathroom while downstairs, tossed two longneck bottles and fresh ice into my makeshift cooler (an empty five-gallon paint bucket), tucked a sack of corn chips under my arm and headed back to the broadcast. When I'd gotten settled, I peered onto the patio and noticed that Polly herself had gone inside at some point and changed into her bandeau top, one half of the scarlet bikini I'd gotten her while we were on vacation that previous winter.
Man, she looked great. Polly was in her thirties then, and was really coming into her own as a beauty. I had fallen in love with her when she was a bit younger and was still struggling to find her "look," which she did after several years of marriage and the changes that maturity brought her face and body. She had recently cut her wavy auburn hair short, instantly bringing attention to her expressive brown eyes and entrancing smile. She had filled out during those years as well in a manner which made her zealous efforts to remain girlish and thin seem foolish; she was unwittingly concealing a lovely figure, one with delightful curves that rendered her far more desirable than previous. She made for good looking.
Jen was not a girl I considered attractive as such, although virtually any other man would have deemed her gorgeous. Despite being slender and pretty, she had never struck me--or anyone, really--as being comfortable in her skin, a trait I knew her husband found frustrating. Try as he might, Kevin had yet to find a way to help Jen sustain any good will she would briefly extend her body while sharing it with him. Her self-loathing, I suspect, contributed in no small way to my opinion of her. She simply wasn't my type. But there was no denying the eroticism of seeing two fit and otherwise game women happily sunning themselves on a day that by all rights should have been cool if not downright
