Suzy was vacuuming again. She didn't like to vacuum, and she didn't need to vacuum, but there she was pushing this loud heavy bag along her already spotless carpet as the cord tangled around furniture and her ankles. Almost tripping broke her out of her glassy-eyed reverie. She swore the way you'd expect from a tattooed sailor, not a well brought up woman in a house-dress and apron, and gazed out the window. It was a sunny day in California, 1954, and Suzy was stuck in the house. While her husband, Sean, was at work with the car she was essentially trapped in her little cul-de-sac in her nice little suburb.
She started pacing, before looking down at the vacuum and sighing, making up her mind. About a week earlier, Suzy had noticed the handle of the machine shaking from the power of the motor. She drew the blinds shut as nonchalantly as she could before delicately taking down her sensible panties from under her knee length dress, and sitting on the couch. With a flick of her hand she turned the beast on and pressed it against herself, leaning back and sighing.
As she brought the handle up and down her entrance, she dutifully tried to think about her husband; but soon, the vision of her husband turned into a version of her husband that cared enough to rouse her with his hands (or heavens, even a mouth!), and then a version of her husband that wasn't doughy with a potbelly, and then one that was tan and taller, and then finally it wasn't her husband at all. She bit a throw-pillow and kept her eyes shut as she thrust herself into her cleaning equipment. Her hands wandered up and down her thin frame, to her c-cupped perky breasts, to her graceful sloping neck, and back down her gymnast waist to the embarrassingly wide hips that ended in a large butt she couldn't rid herself of.
The man of her imagination had just kissed his way up her stomach when a knock on the door brought Suzy back to reality. She shut the vacuum off before jumping to her feet and smoothing out her dress. "I'm coming!" she yelled at the entryway, before wincing at the irony. She tried her best to dry her thighs with the hem of her dress before rushing to the door.
"Hello Jason, it's pay-day, yes?"
Jason, the milkman, smiled good-naturedly as Suzy panted. "Were you exercising? Sorry to bother you ma'am!" He looked past her flushed face to the panties on the floor, and the nearby vacuum cleaner. He put two and two together immediately, but had the good graces not to mention it.
"Oh no" Suzy giggled. "Look at me! I hardly look like an athlete now, do I?
"Of course you do ma'am!" Jason didn't miss a beat and adjusted his hat. "You could walk onto an Olympic team tomorrow, in my opinion."
Suzy laughed again. Jason's visit was the highlight of her day, in part because he could always be counted on for a compliment. She let her eyes sweep over him. He was younger than her, and still had some boyishness to his tan face. His body was lithe and defined, and his shirt just a little tight on him. As Suzy leaned forward to give him this week's pay, she caught his scent for the first time. He was clean and well groomed, but with a tinge of salty sweat from the sun.
They smiled wordlessly at each other before Suzy broke the silence. "Well, make sure you say hello to me tomorrow! You know how to flatter a lady, young man." At hearing 'young man' Jason nodded, understanding that she was amicably putting him in his place; and, that it was time to stop flirting and leave. Suzy closed the door behind him, beaming, before turning around and gasping when she noticed her panties, lying in plain view in all their lacy wonder, on an otherwise spotless floor. "He saw them and he still buttered me up... how devious!" Suzy thought to herself. She grabbed her panties, and held them for a moment, a smile forming as she thought a few devious thoughts of her own.
Suzy briefly thought of telling her husband, Sean, of the incident; but as she watched him eat the dinner she made him with scarcely a grunt of thanks and plop in front of the tv for the night, she realized that she'd prefer to keep some things to herself. After all, she deserved some small excitements for her own. The next day was as boring as the last, but Suzy maintained a spring in her step throughout, thinking of Jason's visit and planning a 'payback' to tease him after the day before. Finally, she checked the clock and decided that it was time.
She once again slipped her panties off, this time laying them gently on the ground. Suzy then took a deep breath, reached back, and unclipped her brassiere. She took the loops off her shoulders and let it fall to the ground, right next to her strategically placed panties, and stood there for a moment in nothing but a floral house dress down to her bare feet. Her nipples rubbed against the fabric and an unfamiliar breeze almost made her lose her nerve, but then she heard the doorbell ring.
Suzy rushed to open the door, only to see Jason walking away! She almost knocked over the milk bottles as she stepped outside, immediately wishing that she had just kept one bra on and put a different one on the floor. 'No' she chided herself 'it'll be funnier this way'.
"Oh, Jason!" she called "Now, why are you being a stranger?"
Jason turned back and laughed comfortably. "Well, I'm not ignoring you Ma'am! I just thought you might be... exercising again." He gave her a shy smile, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "Didn't want to interrupt."
Suzy wrinkled her nose and looked around. With Jason outside, her plan to make him uncomfortable was ruined, unless... "Actually, I was just about to stop for some lemonade, would you like to join me? It's a scorcher out there."
Jason looked surprised "Um, are you sure ma'am? You know the neighbors will talk..." Suzy did know, but she looked around at her tall hedges and the empty driveways surrounding her and waved her hand dismissively, inviting him in. He walked through the door, as sheepish as she'd ever seen him, and took a seat at the kitchen table. As she turned around to get some cups, she heard a gasp and couldn't withhold a grin at his reaction to her undergarments on the floor. She turned back around to Jason's red, embarrassed looking face and slowly slid him a glass of lemonade.
Jason could not rip his eyes away from Suzy's chest. She was glad she'd taken the bra off; seeing this normally proud and confident young man dumbstruck was hilarious. She leaned forwards on her elbows, sandwiching her breasts between her forearms, and whispered "penny for your thoughts?" He looked up, startled, at her eyes, and Suzy held back giggles. This was the most fun she'd had in years.
"Well..." Jason started "I was wondering what kind of exercise you were doing? It has to be tough to stay that fit."
Suzy giggled and raised her fingers in air quotes "Well, to be honest with you, it's mostly... stretching." She watched like a cat as Jason swallowed nervously "you know, 'touching my toes,' that kind of thing."
The mental image had a clear impact on Jason; he shifted in his seat, crossing his legs, and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes, he looked right into hers with honest curiosity. "Do you... get bored very often Ms. Suzy?"
The question took Suzy aback, as nobody had asked her that in some time. Her husband had never thought to ask, and she couldn't complain to her fellow housewives, all of whom considered their lives the natural state of being for women of their social class. She looked down at her lemonade "I... yes, I am. And..." She looked back up at her mailman's comforting gaze and gave a small smile "I didn't realize... how bad 'boredom' feels. It's like... you know that you have a limited time on this earth and you feel it, I suppose, drain away."
Jason instinctively reached his hand out to grab Suzy's as the words she'd never voiced poured out. She squeezed him back "You know, I always thought that boredom was the 'opposite' of anxiety but when you know time is precious and it" she shrugged "melts, I guess, it makes me more anxious than I ever was when I was working." She giggled suddenly and wiggled her fingertips against his palm, some of her flirtatiousness returning. "I feel so bratty to even be upset about it! Especially to an uncomplaining, hardworking man like you."
Jason laughed "Not at all, I think that makes perfect sense!" They were quiet for a moment, looking for an excuse to stay in each other's company for a little longer. Finally, Jason broke the silence. "Did you like your job? As in, more than being at home? I know a women's place is in the home and all that but..."
Suzy nodded in agreement. "Well, I certainly did. Now, I'm no feminist or anything!" She gestured disapproval with her free hand, thinking to her mad cousin who had chopped of half of her beautiful hair. "But I did like work a great deal! I taught calisthenics, you know, at a high school. It was rewarding work to help young men and women be healthy. The only part I didn't like" she scooted her chair in conspiratorially, and Jason leaned in to hear "is when my co-workers would pinch my butt."
This was so unexpected that they both burst out laughing, falling against each other. When they subsided to giggles, Suzy's forehead was is his chest and his arm was on her shoulder. She cleared her throat and leaned back. "Anyway, they talked so much about how my butt was too large for a gym teacher that eventually I believed them! So I followed a man who had been vying for my attention out to a suburb and, well." She gestured around the room.
He squeezed her shoulder "So they couldn't keep your hands off of your bottom, but then turned around and insulted it?"
Jason looked encouragingly shocked and Suzy flushed with righteousness. "You're damn right! I mean it is so unfair! What on earth are men thinking when they do this crap, I'd like to know?"