My very first post of anything. Sorry, no sex in this chapter.
Chapter One - Agony
During my eighteenth summer, my mother was approached by a widowed neighbour. She was looking for someone willing to clean up and maintain her acreage property which she had purchased two years earlier. It was in a good location – 10 acres with the house overlooking a ravine, but a bit of a mess. The house was new but unfinished, the yard was littered with piles of brush left behind by a bulldozer, presumably to be burned, etc. You get the picture – lots of work needed.
The husband, whom I had not known, apparently died in a motor vehicle accident, the result of a truck blowing through a red light. He was a well connected lawyer and the firm for which he worked was in the process of making sure his widow was compensated. The offending truck belonged to a big corporation and there would be hell to pay. But not for a couple more years.
The wheels of justice move slowly, leaving the injured parties with little in the interim. And that is what brought the neighbour to our door. She knew my parents as a result of a local committee she and my mother served on, and when her husband was killed, mother had spent some time consoling her. They became good friends. And that is how Laura, the acreage owner and my mother's friend, found out I was in need of summer work.
Laura was in her early forties, a little younger than my folks. However she and her husband had not had children. Laura was about five feet six inches tall and blonde with hair past her shoulders which she kept mostly in a pony tail. She was neither thin or heavy, and seemed fit. Her breasts were smallish, but stood out in a T-Shirt so they weren't all that small. She had a small waist and rounded hips which looked as though they were made to have children, definitely attention getting. I'm guessing she was about 115-120 pounds. Her facial features were nice – a small straight nose, higher cheekbones and delicate features – with one exception, a scar which scored the side of her face from the right side of her mouth to a point on her jaw half way between her chin and ear. The scar was quite noticeable and gave her face a somewhat lopsided look if you were looking at her straight on when she smiled. However, the scar didn't seem to bother her in any way I could see. It certainly had no effect on how I saw her.
The job on tap was cleaning up Laura's yard. She could not yet afford to have a contractor come in with machines but she could afford to pay some labour and the deal was if money got tight I would stop until things eased up.
There was a lot of brush throughout the yard. I set to work with some primitive equipment - an ax, cross cut saw and matches (diesel fuel too for wet days). It actually was fun. I worked through the next few days and began to develop muscles where none had been obvious before and I worked off some energy. Things fell into a rhythm – chop, saw, gather, burn – and the small part of the yard I was working in, near the house, began to take shape.
Laura was away for the first part of the week and was a little surprised at how much better her property looked when she returned.
"Hi Aaron," she said. "Looks like you have been working hard."
"Yeah, well, might as well earn the money. Quite a mess here."
"True enough, when I bought this place, it looked pretty rough. Perhaps that is why I could afford it. The house is good though, and once the yard is cleaned up, I think it will feel like home. I bought the property just after my husband died, and I have not yet had the energy to get started."
"Sorry," I said. "It must have been tough for you."
With that, she just looked at me with a sad half smile and went into the house.
Shortly thereafter, Laura brought out a tray of sandwiches and lemonade.
"Thought you could use some refreshment."
Laura had changed and was now dressed in a sleeveless blouse under which her breasts could be seen to shift slightly, shorts and white tennis shoes. I was not expecting this vision as I turned toward her and my eyes must have widened. She coloured a little, placed the tray on the ground and invited me to sit. She must have been wearing some perfume because a smell like fresh flowers entered my consciousness. Nice.
"How long do you think the job will take Aaron?" she asked.
"I've looked around a bit and I think if I keep up the same pace, the smaller stuff I'm working on now should take about two to three weeks," I replied. "The larger piles will require a chain saw. I might be able to borrow our garden tractor and trailer from home. Some of those trees in the piles would make good firewood. From the looks of your chimney it looks like you have a fireplace."
"A woodstove actually, but you're right," Laura replied. "Sounds good, I will leave the logistics up to you," she said as she started to get up. As she rose, my eyes caught movement within her blouse and I'm afraid I seriously checked her out. Her breasts were unconfined and the blouse she wore, while not revealing, showed enough for my eyes to –on their own – seek more. Eventually when those same eyes made it up to her face they saw she had been watching me. And she was not happy about it. I was on the receiving end of a withering look of disgust. Laura looked hard at me, shook her head while clamping her teeth, the scar prominently displayed. She then turned hard on her heels and rapidly returned to the house. I stood stupidly and watched, as her muscular looking legs crossed the distance.
Thinking, "Shit, what have I done now," I got back to work. Shortly thereafter Laura left the house, got into her car and left without any kind of acknowledgement.
She did not return, so I had no chance to apologize – if I was supposed to. This was confusing. So I did the only thing I could think of – made mincemeat of the brush pile in front of me.
I got home about 6:00 P.M. and shouted out, "I'm going to take a shower, won't be long." I took a lukewarm shower to wash as I was really hot from the work and heat of the day, then took a cold shower because I was really hot from the vision earlier in the day. Well I took a cold shower once I was finished relieving the urgency which had somehow arisen in response to my memories of Laura's blouse that afternoon. I knew then that the rest of the summer was going to be torture, especially if Laura was around. I would have to really control my eyes if I was going to be masturbating to Laura's image for the foreseeable future.
As I arrived at the dinner table, Mom said "Laura was here this afternoon."
At that, I choked on the orange juice I was downing and started coughing.
"Are you OK?" Mom asked.
"Yes sorry, too thirsty I guess." I replied, thinking "what did she say?"
"Laura says you are doing a really good job and that her yard is starting to take shape. She mentioned you were going to ask us about using the tractor to haul wood and offered to pay us for using the equipment. I'm not sure we need any money. If she pays for gas that should be good enough."
"Uhh. Sure I guess, so I can take the tractor tomorrow?" I asked.
"Sure, I will ask your father if he phones, but there shouldn't be an issue."
My father was a bit of a problem from time to time. He was not around much, being a busy pipeline contractor. Well we think he was busy, he sent money home regularly, but rarely showed up himself. When he did, he tried to set the rules make changes to how we lived. I'm assuming that did not go over so well as my two parents, after a couple days of loving behavior towards each other, started to fight. So for the most part it was just Mom and I. As I was growing she made sure I had manners and was comfortable around people. She was a little strict and taught me to respect others, especially women. Her rules made sense and they were really nothing to chafe under so I figured I had a pretty good life.
During high school there had been a few girlfriends, but no one who I felt like getting attached to. When with a girl I made out as much as I could, but the exploration pretty much stopped at the clothes barrier, with the odd occasion when I could cop a feel. The girls I went out with were not willing to go further. And I was a bit shy and didn't think I should push it. I was certainly no Lothario in real life (as opposed to my fantasy life in which I was the stud of studs).
Besides, there was my car which, while not amazing, was pretty cool to me. It was a 1957 four door Chev station wagon with a straight six and three speed manual transmission. So, no speed demon. It had been my uncle's and he kept it in good shape. When he bought a new car, he thought I may be interested in the Chevy, and I was. So I bought it, cheap. It was a blast to work on and gave me a sense of accomplishment as I maintained it, greasing it and changing oil, points and plugs when necessary. And I went so far as to replace the clutch when it wore out.
And it was great, during the last two years of high school, I bombed around all over the place, hung out with friends, and with the car being a station wagon it was convenient, with the back seat folded forward, for some decent make out sessions.
I bring up my uncle for another reason. One day he took me to the Grand Opening of a new chain of gas stations. I was twelve. At this event were girls hired for the occasion, the likes of which I had never seen. There were dressed, or rather, undressed in very short mini dresses with some kind of push up bras exposing mountains of breasts open right there for everyone to see. Like Playboy bunnies these women were close enough to reach out and touch and as I was twelve, these mounds of bare flesh were right at my eye level. I was blown away and at that very instant it was like someone started my engine and hit the gas. From then on I was obsessed. Those breasts were like the key in the ignition and from then on much of who I was, was focused on women. Secretly that is.
The overpowering feelings of desire resident in my body had to somehow coexist with appropriate social behavior and restraint - all within a teenaged boy's body. The dilemma of every single male ever born. How the fuck do we ever survive?
"Aaron, one more thing before you go," Mom said, as I was getting up from the table after our meal.
"Yes Mom?"
"Laura did say that you had made her uncomfortable this afternoon."
"Ohhh shit," I thought. "Now I'm in for it!"
I looked down hung my head a little in response. "Ohh?" was my response.
"So I guess you know what I'm about to say!" She said with an exasperated tone.
