By Maximilian Cummings
*
"I can resist everything except temptation," Oscar Wilde had Lord Darlington say in 'Lady Windermere's Fan' and Geoff knew what he meant. He really should not have done it but the temptation had been just too much.
Geoff Munnings had been delighted to find digs with Mrs Smold for his first year at Uni.. The accommodation had been clean and his room quite spacious with bed, desk and everything - even a walk in small wardrobe or closet to hang his clothes and put his cases; the food proved good but what was really nice was Chloe, Mrs Smold's daughter. She was pretty, witty and, well, titty - she had a very ample bosom for such a young girl, just eighteen, and it was very difficult for Geoff not to find his eyes looking at her chest whenever he met her. Indeed he had to make a very conscious effort not to look at her chest but rather her face - which was fine enough. Dark hair, deep set chestnut eyes, rather squashed nose and pleasingly full mouth over a dimpled round chin. Yes, that was good to look at... but so was her chest.
What tempted him on almost his first night was finding a chink of light in the wardrobe cupboard's back wall. It was only the merest speck of light but with only his bedside light on and him fumbling for something in the wardrobe it had caught his eye. He had stopped and looked at it in puzzlement, he had stepped back and turned the room light on to see what the pinprick of light was - and had seen the knothole.
It is in the nature of knots to dry and become loose, even fall out. The knot was still in place but not as tight in the wood as it had once been. The temptation was for Geoff to apply his eye to the pin prick of light and see what he could see; a temptation because he knew Chloe's bedroom was next to his and it seemed all that separated the back of his wardrobe and her room was the wooden tongue and grooved boards forming its back. He resisted - that night.
It was not so easy to resist temptation the second night; not having sat with Chloe through breakfast and supper endeavouring not to look at those breasts pushing against her tee shirt. Geoff managed about an hour's study before he just had to take a look and open that wardrobe door. There was no chink of light - he knew Chloe was out, indeed everyone was out - but the knot was visible; his fingers reached and touched; his finger nails closed and pulled and found the knot was live: it came away in his hand leaving a small circular hole. Geoff breathed in. What would he be able to see? He reasoned there could be no harm in looking, peeping through the hole, just to know what was on the other side. Of course there could not be any harm - just checking, indeed - after all, he was naturally curious, of course. He looked at the knot in his hand, a small piece of wood, the end of a branch - no, really just the end of a twig as it was not even half an inch in diameter: one end was painted blue. Geoff peeped.
The view was disappointing. He had never thought it would look into an equivalent wardrobe on the other side. A cupboard would not have light in it and there would, as a consequence, have been no chink of light. The likelihood was there would be a built in wardrobe to Chloe's room but set next to his own, not backing onto it. This was pretty much confirmed by the equivalent tongue and grooved panelling to his room albeit painted yellow. Rather, his view would be into Chloe's bedroom. It was clear, when he peeped, that he was looking into a room, presumably Chloe's room, but the view was obscured; there was something close to the hole blocking the view.
A disappointment and Geoff went back to his work - for a time. Temptation became worse. After all he knew there was nobody in the house and no one would know if he just took just a little peep, a little look in Chloe's room. Just the sort of thing a nineteen year old boy might just want to do - have a nose in a pretty girl's bedroom.
It was very quiet in the house but, even so, Geoff did not feel comfortable walking up the landing to Chloe's door. He had seen her go out. He had seen everyone go out. There was no need but he rather crept along the landing and then jumped out of his skin.
But it was only the cat brushing his leg. Cats do that; creep up upon you quite silently and unexpectedly. He shooed it away and turned the handle. It was a girl's bedroom with girl's things but Geoff was not looking at them: rather at the chest of drawers set against a wall of blue painted match boarding. Numerous teddy bears of all shapes and sizes were lined up along the back of the chest of drawers. The sort of thing young, or not so young, girls might collect. It only took the moving aside a little of a teddy bear for the knothole to come into his view but, stepping back, it was hardly noticeable between the bears unless you knew it was there.
Mission accomplished, Geoff looked around the room. He was nervous being in Chloe's room. He knew he should not be there at all, was sure neither Mr or Mrs Smold nor Chloe would dream he would invade her space like that. A double bed with a pink duvet upon it, decorated with raspberries. Geoff moved closer and slipped his hand underneath. Had it been early in the morning with Chloe just gone out he might have felt it still warm from her body. Rather pleasing to imagine, her body lying under the duvet and just covered by a nightie or pyjamas or, perhaps, nothing at all. Despite the nervousness from being where he very clearly should not be, Geoff felt a familiar stirring in his trousers. When his hand encountered a flimsy piece of cotton and pulled that out from under the duvet the feeling went a bit further than a simple stirring. The idea of touching Chloe's night things was enough to send his penis soaring!