I remember the first time I saw her naked.
It was my usual late night ritual. Shower, head to my bedroom at the other end of the hall, curl up in bed, grab a vibrator, come my brains out, crawl back out of bed in pursuit of a nightcap.
Walk to the kitchen at the other side of the house, either in a thin satin bathrobe or nothing at all.
It depends on how good I feel about my body on that particular night (45 years old, and plenty to go around) and how confident I am that I won't be seen.
I live with my college student son. His college girlfriend basically lives with us. It's not so bad. It keeps him from being miserable, which in turn keeps him from making me miserable. So I tolerate it.
I just have to tune out the sound of them fucking, which travels easily down the hall and through walls. It used to mortify me. Now, I just want them to keep it to a dull roar so I can sleep.
His father's been out of the picture for a long time. (No serious partners since then. Don't want 'em. Don't need 'em.) Most middle-aged women might not be happy with an adult kid in the house.
I feel that way about him sometimes. But, on occasion, it's also nice.
That night, I felt good. I was feeling myself. I didn't even mind the glimpse of my abundant nude glory in the ornate mirror near the foyer. My grandmother's, which I got when she passed.
My kitchen is big. That's the tradeoff for not having a proper dining room. I was sitting at the table, sipping a glass of bourbon--neat, this evening--when she passed by at the end of the T-shaped corridor.
She was small, but toned. One of those obnoxiously fit people, born with a permanent six pack. Cute little tits with dark little nipples. The sweat on her bare skin made her look like oiled bronze.
Headed to the bathroom, no doubt. Maybe for a post-coital pee, and if so, she's a smart girl. She was visible to me for less than a second.
She never turned her head, or she would have seen me there, sitting in the dark with my drink, also naked. Big tits, big belly, big bush, big everything.
A few minutes later, she passed by the other way. Again, it was for less than a second, and again, she didn't see me.
This time, I knew to expect her. I watched her more closely, fascinated by the sight of her. I thought to myself that my schmuck of a son was definitely fucking above his grade level.
He'd always been an oversized t-shirt and jeans guy. Probably never would have washed his bedsheets without me telling him. Somehow, this chiseled young thing permitted him to put his penis inside her.
I don't know what she would have done if she'd seen me there--also naked, staring at her body, with no way to conceal my own. Maybe it would have been bad. Or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know.
A few moments later, I heard my son's bedroom door click shut. I finished my drink, got up, poured another, and sat down again.
Those images, those symmetrical freeze-frames of her body, composed in the proscenium arch of the hallway, were lodged at the forefront of my brain.
A while later, a little bit drunk, I went back to bed and masturbated again.
This time, I used the magic wand, not knowing or caring if its powerful buzz could be heard through the shared wall of the bedrooms. I passed out on soaked bedding, in a haze of alcohol and orgasm.
That was the first night that I couldn't get her out of my mind.
***
It's a little twisted--I'm not about to pretend it's not--but I came up with a reliable method for predicting when Claire (that's her name) would perform one of her little walk-on appearances.
I'd overhear them fucking. I always would. I'd wait for the sound to stop, then take my position in the kitchen. I'd listen for the distinctive click of the door opening, and wait.
After 15 or 20 seconds, sure enough, there she was.
As soon as I had it figured out, I never missed a chance. This was quickly becoming the most indulgent part of my otherwise monklike existence of avoiding temptations that I couldn't control.
Initially, I did my best to stay hidden. I'd put on a dark tank top and bike shorts, peer around the corner, and beat a hasty retreat if I so much as imagined her breathing in my direction.
But, over time, I grew bolder, maybe even a little foolish.
I sat in my favorite chair, sometimes with a drink, as I had that first night. Eventually, I stopped bothering with clothes. On one occasion, I even had the lights on in the kitchen. She never looked.
She must have been really fucked out to be walking around in my house with zero clothes and one hundred percent tunnel vision. I sometimes thought about saying her name out loud, just to see if she'd react.
Every night, she'd walk by, bare as the day she was born. I'd commit her image to memory. Then I'd go back to bed and play with myself.
I don't know what it was. I'd had no history with other women, aside from appreciating the ones who were obviously hot. I'd certainly never been this preoccupied with one of them.
But, after that first night, Claire was a constant presence in my fantasies.
I couldn't even specifically say what she would be doing in these fantasies. It was abstract. As long as I could picture her, exactly as she was in the hall, I was on the express train to cum station.
One thing I was particularly fixated on was her abs. Those perfectly defined, ever-present staggered rectangles that descended from her tiny breasts to her bald pubis. I badly wanted to touch them.
After a couple weeks of this, it occurred to me that this was getting unhealthy. We'd be having breakfast, the three of us, and her naked body would intrude into my mind. It was hard to hold a conversation.
I swore off these late night interludes. I started having my nightcaps in my bedroom, did my level best to ignore the click of the door, the almost silent padding of bare feet to the bathroom and back.
Then, one day, my son received a letter that his fellowship was approved and that he would be doing research in Japan for a year. I was, of course, as proud as a mother could possibly be.
He asked me, with her out of the room, if I'd be okay with her staying at our place, as she'd already mostly been doing anyway.
He explained that she'd been renting a room in house full of other renters, and that our house had become a refuge from the chaos. He added that she would be willing to pay the same rent to stay with me.
I tried to think of a reason to say no. But the only one that kept coming to mind was that I couldn't stop thinking about her, that being alone with her night after night for a year might drive me mad.
I agreed to it.
***
For maybe a month, life passed by without incident. My son was living in Tokyo--"Shinjuku," he would insist, during many a late night phone call--and Claire had taken up residence in his bedroom.
For the most part, she was a phantom. We'd cross paths occasionally, but she went out a lot. She seemed to be using my house mostly for sleep and the occasional hot meal.
If she was sleeping around, I never caught wind of it from overhearing her phone conversations. I did gather that she'd been using her body as a petri dish for just about every club drug under the sun.
I wasn't about to judge her, being someone with a largely bourbon-based metabolism myself. You're only young once.
Otherwise, I rarely saw her. I certainly never saw her naked, never saw the shining musculature of her belly, which I'd so often imagined following from top to bottom with the lightest touch of my fingers.
Would she be ticklish? Would she shiver with delight? Would it raise gooseflesh on her skin, harden her nipples into little dark fingertips? I would never know. I could never now.
With my son gone, there was no longer any sex to be had for her in the house. Catching my little glimpses of her on the way to the bathroom was also quite out of the picture.
One night, I was masturbating. The magic wand again, significantly enough. While in media res, I thought I heard a gentle knocking on the wall near my head. A few minutes later, a more strident pounding.
I'd lived in dorms when I was her age. I knew the significance of the knocking. She was tactfully letting me know that I was being too loud, and she was kind enough to minimize the embarrassment to us both.
For whatever reason, I didn't click off the vibrator.
In fact, I felt even more turned on. I finished up, bringing myself to a positively wonderful squirting orgasm that left my thighs wet and trembling. Then, pretty much immediately, I started again.
I couldn't believe how much better it made it, knowing that she was listening to me.
And yes, I am a squirter, and I never masturbate--no matter how drunk, or how high--without laying out one of my trusty moisture-proof throw blankets. It's as necessary as my collection of vibrators.
After a couple more orgasms, I clicked off the vibe, rolled up the blanket, and laid it carefully on the floor near my dirty laundry. I curled up in bed and dozed off, pleasant in my damp afterglow.
