There were two constants in Mary's life: the three cars perpetually parked in line underneath her living room window, and the blank window into a blanker apartment across from her building. The cars had always been parked there and the apartment had always been uninhabited, ever since she moved in three years prior. Mary took some sort of comfort in the fact that in her unchanging lifestyle and routine, some things decided to stay the same, like a good friend moving at her pace. While her neighborhood wasn't the most fascinating part of town, life went on as usual. People moved in and out, cars came and went, but not her cars, and not that apartment. In the mornings Mary filled the silence with the morning news as she brushed her teeth, glued to her window. She hoped to see a family of four take the SUV, a married couple purr away in the sedan and maybe some bachelor pull off in the run-down Chevy. None of her fictional characters approached the car, nobody did. And the white apartment still stood empty.
Her alarm screeched into her ear, 10:45. Mary tapped the pause on her phone, not as satisfying as bringing her hand down on the battered piece of plastic by the bedside table, but convenient as she sped up time by strolling through her apartment to dry her body after her shower. Work was best in the summers, she'd be on her knees, fingers deep in rich soil or curled around the rubber handles of a hedge trimmer. Landscaping paid well, but she had to provide the tools and the clothes. The smaller tools she could keep in the multitude of pockets of the work pants, heavy as anything and baggy. Mary leapt across the bare linoleum floor and into the sofa, rigidly stretching her legs and wriggling herself into her pants and a white tank top; any other garb in late July made her delirious with frustration at the heat. Ignoring breakfast as she did on days like those, she stepped into her boots, brown like earth to match her pants, and took the weight of her iron toolbox in her fingers, weighing her left side down.
Down the steps of her building and down the sidewalk. The soles in her boots knocked on the pavement and a sense of empowerment entered Mary as her whole body absorbed the impact. She drove the heels into it and liked to imagine herself a soldier, or an officer, as long as they wore boots that made her feel invincible. Mary's car, an old pickup, was parked as close to the front of the sedan as possible without looking intentional. One day, Mary thought bemused, the bastard that owned it would try to pull out from between her truck and the Chevrolet: and she would have just enough time to spread a pearl of toothpaste on her brush, pad her wet feet over to the window, catch the first rays from the east bless the narrow street separating her building from the next and get a good look at just who owned that car. The suspension on her truck whined as she hopped inside and put the toolbox on the passenger seat. Mary slammed the door shut, once more to hear the sound, then drove towards the suburbs.
With full knowledge of the importance of a healthy start to the day, Mary had ignored breakfast. Her schedule was packed with names of clients, some rich, some not, with gardens large and small calling on her to do the planting, the cutting and the trimming. Today said Josie, a regular with a lot of garden on her hands. Mary liked to call her a snowbunny, a woman blonde and bright, almost bleached white if she would stay out more in the sun. Mary, on the other hand, was tan and her brown hair she had in a short ponytail, the end of it bristling. She enjoyed that contrast, and Ms. Snowbunny was currently her favorite client. It first started when she had spotted her from the kitchen window, catching glances as Mary had her gloved hands around the handles of a motorized hedge trimmer that shook her entire body. With Josie staring, Mary became aware that her then loose top showed the results of those vibrations more than it should have, and so began her relationship with her most beloved client. Mary would challenge herself to invent new ways to earn her stares. The week after, she had cut the bottom of her top, and when she reached up to clip a branch, Josie's eyes fell on her midriff. She felt her attentions acutely, like a real touch, electric and tangible as it thrummed on her stomach.
Josie had become an enthralling bonus, the gilded edge to a job she loved. Working with heavy tools, cutting and trimming and feeling the smell of the grass waft up from under her feet were her favorite parts of the summer. The sun caressed her skin, and a light breeze cooled the film of sweat on her back as she worked with her excess energy, and Josie's stares pushed her. As she stopped at the last traffic light before the gated community, Mary leaned back in the rugged seat and imagined herself, fanning her dripping chest and tugging the stained tank top to peel off her skin. Josie had watched and perhaps not noticed Mary looking back, so she tactfully bent over, letting the very edge of her nipple expose. Mary didn't see her after that until she knocked on the sliding doors, and she came out flushed and red, handing her twice as much as she charged.
She pulled up in front of the house, as pristine and white as the rest of her. Mary knew she was married, a guy named Tom that she had only seen once during a weekend, strangely no kids. She went over the steps in her head: skip breakfast, ask for something to eat, get invited, work magic. Simple enough. She had taken the most daring step since she started working for Josie; no bra. Mary caught a glimpse of her, as quickly gone as soon as it had appeared in a window at the front of her house. Over the course of her teasing it had stopped being a game and had turned into something deeper, she wanted Josie. The thought of entering her home, her white, spotless, perfect home with her muddy self and taking her on the kitchen floor, in the shower or just about anywhere made her heart race; the challenges and the teasing all the more intense and poignantly absorbing. The realization imbued her with a longing she thought uncharacteristic, wanting only one person and not so much as let her eyes wander with Josie embedded in her mind.
Josie met her, as usual, in the back. She stood and shone on her patio, hair dressed and white blouse unbuttoned at the top. Mary sat down her toolbox, making sure to bend, then shook her hand, their fingers lingering sweetly at the tips. "Josie," Mary gave a smirk, trying to will her thought into her, "I didn't think I'd be back so soon."
"I have a barbecue coming up, so naturally I need you to—" She paused. Her garden looked immaculate as it was. The grass was cut as level as Mary could get it, and the nutrients had made it glossy and vibrant, and the hedges had been trimmed so many times they might as well have stopped growing completely. "—you have to cut something out of that bush there. I need a conversation piece to shut up Jenny and her feng shui bullshit." She muttered and scratched her thumb, already stripped of skin and red.
"Cool down, I'll get it done." She said simply, putting her hand to Josie's shoulder and making her bounce.
"Great." She said and went inside, keeping the glass door open.
Mary thought she seemed irritated somehow. Someone had gotten under her skin and she didn't care for putting up the shy housewife persona anymore. She went over to the shed where she stored some of the bigger tools; no use ferrying them back and forth when she might as well keep them there. Mary hadn't even started the motor before Josie came back out with a pitcher of water, setting it down on the glass table then seating herself next to it with a paperback in hand; pretending to read it, and badly. "This is the first time I've seen you sitting outside." Mary yelled over the motor.
Josie yelled back, "I need the sun." But Mary felt that familiar tingle creep up her spine still; she was being watched more intently than ever, and looking back she saw shameless glances take stabs at her from behind.
Mary's toying had escalated into competition, one she would win. With an air of deliberate innocence, she moved to the side of the bush and shaved chunks of green from its top, stretching her arms and making sure Josie got her full profile, everything from the gentle swell of her hips in her work pants to her breasts and her nipples that strained through the fabric. She wished she could've seen herself, but seeing Josie was good enough. Mary caught her watching, as she had done many times to play with her, but Josie had steeled herself and focused on the established contact, almost scowling as she kept draping one leg over the other, never quite satisfied with how her thighs rubbed together. Mary felt a twitch of excitement, her snowbunny either on the offensive or close to buckling under the months of deliberate flashes of skin and curves she could no longer play off as accidents. Everything in her body, from the heat and cold flowing together through her veins and the pulsing between her legs told her to act; send one invitation that Josie would either swallow whole as the wolf she seemed, or fly back inside to the safety of her den.
She took the trimmer in one hand and looked up to the sky, clear and blue with the sweetness of summer, and pulled her top away from her chest. She did this whenever she wanted Josie's full attention, but without a bra her snowbunny would get a full view of the moisture percolating on her skin, gathering and trickling down, following the curve of her breasts. She pouted her lips and sighed, mixing imbuing just the right amount of voice in her siren song. Mary knew full and well the reaction she would give Josie; after long stares at her own feminine profile in the bathroom mirror, and Mary had her ways of turning, swaying, beckoning until Josie began to approach from the corner of her eye. She let her tongue peek out as the ecstatic rush made her read spin. Mary wanted to drive her crazy, to see just how much she could unveil of her.
Then she saw, Josie had a scowl, dark and determined. She grabbed Mary by the wrist and yanked her as she stormed into the kitchen with her, slamming the sliding door behind them. She pushed Mary against the wall, out of sight. "I bet you think I'm some sweet little housewife, bored and horny and just waiting for the sexy gardener to pluck her." She hissed, close enough to feel her breath lave over her exposed neck. Mary grinned wickedly from ear to ear, and snaked her body against Josie.
