Next-Door Neighbor's Aggressive Learning
Noon on Saturday. Jeff was far back under his house, in the unlit, tight, low crawl-space. He'd been there all day yesterday, and all morning today, replacing the electric water heater. He had taken Friday off and burnt it up getting started: he wanted the whole job finished by Sunday evening.
The upside was that he'd planned on the job taking the whole day for all three days, Murphy being the patron saint of plumbing repairs, but it was now only noon on day two and he was close to finishing: soldering was done and checked, power ditto.
He rolled over onto his stomach in the puddle caused by the original leak: mud was his destiny today. Mud and cobwebs - what the hell was with all these cobwebs? What was there under here for a spider to eat? Cobwebs in his face, his hair, his mouth. Ugh!
He felt about for the tools, as usual amazed how much junk was needed for such a simple job. Mustn't leave anything behind, that'd just mean another long and dirty crawl!
Twenty feet away, out of sight beyond the floor joists and around a foundation corner was the hatch to the crawl-space. From outside came a female voice, one thoroughly familiar, but unexpected. It was Zohra, his next-door neighbors' daughter. Her family was full-blooded subcontinental Endo-Dravidian Indian, the immigrant parents were almost caricatures of a classical Indian married couple, both slightly rotund, MaMá about five foot one, PaPá perhaps five-four on a good day, both of them very smart and well educated in high-paying technical fields. Their marriage was a traditional, arranged-in-childhood affair, set up back in India, long before they were old enough to consummate it. The marriage had worked just fine.
Jeff was on very good terms with the whole family. Occasionally he helped them out with minor repairs (that actually meant "helping" PaPá, who due to his caste was unsure which end of a screwdriver was the handle): much more frequently he aided their singleton offspring with her science homework. In return for Jeff's help, the family often took pity on him and fed him MaMá's home-made lamb curry hot, a favorite. Jeff always provided the wine.
Zo had her parents' perfect, parchment-thin very dark skin, a genuinely beautiful face with fine Dravidian/Caucasian features, ivory teeth, full sensual lips that belonged on a much older woman, deep-set eyes around which skin tone and light conspired to produce the effect sought with, but never quite achieved by, eye-shadow, and the most stunning smile he had ever seen, all topped off with long black hair that shone as if greased. Physically she was tiny - about four feet ten and perhaps ninety pounds on her way to 100 at the outside.
Zo was mentally impressive, very much her parents' child - blindingly fast, articulate in the best British-upper-crust manner, and exceedingly well read. Wildly multi-lingual as well - English, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali plus smatterings of others. Years back, she had been skipped ahead in grade more than once. She spoke with the pretty singsong "Indian-English" lilt: her English was absolutely perfect when she chose, but lately she was affecting the inability of Star Trek's android character "Data" to use spoken contractions. Her normal conversational mode was less 'give and take' than serial stream-of-consciousness soliloquies, with polite pauses for others to submit input. Jeff found both idiosyncrasies endearing.
The question now was "continue attending the local university" vs "best possible university, damn the expense and location!" As an academic himself, Jeff had been asked to weigh in on that topic of ongoing debate, but to avoid causing strains and discord, he limited himself to generalities - e.g., recommending that she attend a genuinely large university, so that she might have available high-quality departments in most fields of both arts and sciences... which would help her make decisions about topics and careers. He had been successful in not alienating anyone via his opinions.
Over the past many months, beginning with the first round of 'which school?' discussions, Zo and Jeff had developed quite a close relationship, encouraged by her parents, who had taken a shine to him for the way he so enthusiastically took on the role of being her academic mentor. The whole family insisted on using the honorific term "Guru" to refer to his role in the relationship, which both pleased and amused him. Zo was permitted (actually, encouraged) to call him up 'for a homework appointment' (which he had never yet refused to grant) and then go over to work with him at his living-room table.
They spent a lot of time together poring over her books every week, exploring ideas, with him asking probing, mind-opening questions, a process that he enjoyed every bit as much as she. Zo was more than mildly flirtatious when her folks were out of view, and Jeff responded in kind: it was now an incredibly blunt reciprocal flirtation -entirely verbal so far- which each felt was quite serious from their own point of view. Each also thought the other was merely joshing.
Her parents seemed either immune to or accepting of the pair's growing closeness, which extended well beyond things academic, into the (non-sexual) physical. In her 'spare time' Zo was studying elementary gymnastics, and also took a twice-weekly yoga class in the early morning. Her home yoga practice consisted of the time twixt end of school-day and dinner, several times a week.
Jeff, a dedicated long-distance runner, had close to zero flexibility, and Zo had taken an aggressive stance about it - she would teach him enough yoga to loosen him up. For his general health and well-being! Teacher and student roles thus reversed, they practiced together each afternoon, out in the open on Jeff's big wooden deck, in plain view of the parents should they choose to wonder what was going on.
Zo loved the freedom that this private one-on-one time gave her to inspect Jeff's body, to stare, and particularly touch, under the guise of 'adjusting his pose'. She took advantage of the freedom at every opportunity. Their practice required mutual scantiness of clothing: the scenery so displayed gave both of them butterflies, and each quickly figured out what costume best pleased the other (namely skimpy, thin, and TIGHT!), then wore it relentlessly. Each had had many and many a prolonged view into normally hidden places, and neither could any longer pretend not to be looking, although they didn't discuss it at all.
Aside from the delicious, intimate views, Zo's favorite yoga-thing was when he was in triangle pose and she had to lay a palm against the top of his buttocks to push his hips into proper alignment: it was odd, indeed, just how often he seemed to need that specific -and usually forceful- correction. There was something incredibly stomach-flipping about the feel of his bottom, heavy-muscled and very strong, working under her touch. And pretty, too - she had some time ago developed an eye for male bottoms.
Sometimes, too, she would turn the tables, ask for his help, so that he could have the same sort of freedom - the 'sometimes' touchings becoming steadily more frequent, steadily more free and intimate. At least he'd detected no sign that any of the family saw it. Nothing overt had yet occurred, much to their mutual disappointment, but neither was prepared to make an opening move, Jeff out of some sort of practical-based morality rather than any lack of interest, and Zo out of inexperience plus an overt (although unreasonable) fear of rejection.
There was no lack of lustfulness on Jeff's part - he had been busily suppressing his high level of carnal attraction to her now for many months - successfully, he thought. He was, after all, considerably older than she... but she was a self-proclaimed innocent, having never yet been on a real American-style 'date'. When she discussed (?argued?) this lack of socialization with her parents, the usual points advanced by them were (a) yes of course all her female friends were dating and had been doing so for some years - but that didn't mean Zohra was obligated to do the same. Reason (b) two carried the day with her - namely, the question "Who might she date, where to find some person her equal in at least some of the areas she sparkled in?" Certainly, all the way through school there had never been any male even close to her age whom she found sufficiently interesting.
"Hello in there, Doctor J! Can you hear me?" 'Doctor J' was her coinage, invented upon their initial meeting some three years ago and immediately adopted by the entire family.
Yes, he could, what was up?
"You have been in there for a long time today- and all day yesterday, too, so I noticed. It is lunch-time you know, here in the outside world! My parents are gone today to their silly bridge tournament and they have left me lunch money. Far too much money, really. If you would drive us, I can pay for a pizza for us both. You must be hungry by now!"
Age and educational differentials aside, Jeff thoroughly enjoyed her company, under whatever rationale du jour. Plus, he was also quite hungry, having skipped breakfast. "Great idea! Sure, I'll drive. I'll be out in about ten minutes or so... gotta clean up my mess under here! Or maybe you'd like to crawl in and help me? It's nice and dark in here!"
Then as an afterthought, "Does this mean you are FINALLY asking me out on a date, My Lady Zo?"
During her latest homework-help session they had gone off on a huge tangent and ribbed one another mercilessly about whether they should be dating, since they got along so well and he had no wife or even permanent girlfriend. The big "problem", they agreed, was relative ages - a significant difference which neither of them thought particularly germane. They had even puzzled over the questions of exactly why that WAS a problem, and for whom.
That conversation had ended with them both a bit red-faced, each realizing that there was more that could be said but unwilling to push into unexplored terrain. To date, that was the closest they had come to airing their intense mutual attraction.
Doctor J had some typical Y-chromosome "male-blindness" problems (of transmission and reception alike!). First, he was enormously attracted to Zohra, and had been for the past couple of years. Second, he was absolutely convinced - wrongly, of course - that she had no idea of that attraction, that he'd kept it a perfect secret. Third, he was utterly unaware of Zo's months-long and supremely intense crush on him.
And conversely, she was aware - hugely so - that he hadn't yet recognized her crush. She didn't know whether she should tell him, and if so, just how and when... but his failure to even notice really hurt, as did his inexplicable failure to simply SAY what was on his mind - it was so OBVIOUS that he was attracted to her!! If only he would SAY something, do the ignition sequence, THEN they might be able to progress... the question being, of course, progress to exactly WHAT? She wasn't sure, but would have eagerly grasped any chance to find out!
Zo continued the conversation: "Do not be absurd, Doctor J. Pizza at lunchtime and paid for by my parents is NOT my idea of a date, not at all. To be a date, YOU (that is, the male!) must invite ME out (ME being the female here!). I must then initially pretend that I am NOT interested, YOU must persuade me, and when finally I agree, the MAN must pay. Those are the basic rules, no? And no thank you, but I choose not to grovel in the dust with you even if it is nice and dark in there! The conditions in the space beneath your house are far too much to pay for a small amount of privacy, and at the moment the idea does not appeal very much. Ten minutes, then. I shall collect the money and be back before that!"
