Thank you, Erik Thread for your editing skills and suggestions.
This is the beginning of a mystery and an obsession, of a man who is seduced and captured by an alluring woman. The end is finished and will be posted tomorrow.
More than a century ago, groups of artisans found their small neighborhoods invaded by young families with little interest in carrying on the family tradition of fathers teaching sons a trade. However, a few of those sons did join their fathers in learning the time-honored skills of quality craftsmanship. This younger generation drifted toward each other and sought out a location where they could build homes to pass to their own sons.
Because their craft took so much time and energy, they cared little for lawns, gardens, or time-consuming chores around the home. Instead, they built houses adjoining their neighbors into what became a long string of townhomes, larger than an urban family would find when they went house hunting, but less labor intensive than a stand-alone dwelling.
When Emilio the woodcarver was ready to install windows at his home, he exchanged his skills for Malcolm's expertise as a glazer. Federico the stone mason shared his craft for the wainwright's skill in making or repairing wagons. Both of them helped Emilio in exchange for his skills when they built their homes.
The site the craftsmen chose for their dwellings was on a high bluff with a vista of clear sea water that occasionally gave them views of merchant and pleasure vessels. The long pathway in front of their homes became a road and later a street as the city slowly encroached on their neighborhood. Although they were able to defeat attempts at commercial construction on the grassy verge of the cliff, they could not defeat city hall and reluctantly accepted the property's designation of the area as a long, continuous city park.
Most of the original owners had some kind of workshop behind their homes, and over the years those shops were often converted to garages to keep their vehicles out of the weather. The narrow lane at the rear, originally used by horses pulling wagons, remained a somewhat ill-defined dirt lane that wandered in and out of the haphazard buildings. The city didn't want the lane to become a street because it would require extensive excavation to straighten and pave it, so the homeowners themselves generally kept the holes filled and added new gravel when needed.
When the city began construction of two parallel concrete walkways in the city park, the townhouse owners held their breath. When the construction equipment was finally removed, the residents breathed a sigh of relief that there was nothing to obstruct their view of the sea. They didn't mind the lighting and soon enjoyed sharing the space with others from the community.
In a few places the sidewalk had a gradual slope, along with a few long, deep stair steps to accommodate the uneven surfaces of the land. The length of the sidewalk became a favorite place for people wanting their morning and evening walks. The wide sidewalks easily allowed five people walking side-by-side, but the city had painted some colorful arrows and distance markers that usually kept the pedestrian traffic moving in the same direction. From one end to the other, down one side and then back to the starting point on the other side was a long, not-quite-straight trail of just a little over three miles.
Slowly, imperceptibly, the artisans sold their homes to city dwellers, attorneys, shop owners, and other upper middle class residents. In a roundabout way, that is how I became the owner of one of the townhomes.
My father's older brother never married. He worked until he had enough money to live on if he invested it carefully. He bought a few acres of land near a small river, and built himself a log house at the edge of a forest. It wasn't a log cabin. It was a fairly large two-story home, with two bedrooms and all the modern conveniences. Yet the construction was primarily logs. He was sort of a lazy man. All he really wanted was to go fishing when the weather permitted, and the rest of the time he lived alone and read books he ordered by mail.
Dad and I would go visit him several times a year for two or three days. We would enjoy the fishing and go home with a box of books. More than half of them would be first editions. After Mom, Dad, and I read the ones we cared about, Dad put the box into the attic.
When I was a junior in college, my uncle died. Dad said because of some provisions in the will, I needed a lawyer. I didn't know any lawyers, but a friend of mine who lived down the street from my parents' home had an older brother who was an attorney, so I called him for an appointment. He took care of everything for me and changed all the inheritance I received from my uncle's investments to my name.
As part of an assignment in college, I wrote the first chapter of a western novel filled with adventure and what I came to learn was a good degree of humor. I wasn't a big man on campus, so I had a lot of spare time and I spent much of it writing, adding chapters to my novel. Almost as a lark, after I graduated college I submitted the book to a publisher and it sold. I really wasn't expecting anything to come of the talks about a movie. If the book were ever made into a movie, it would be many years away. In the meantime, I had nearly finished the sequel and received a sizable advance, based on the record my first book had made. I had some ideas for the third and fourth books.
As I had done with the first book, I took the contract for the second book to the same lawyer who had helped me with my uncle's will. I was sitting in his office when he took a telephone call, saying he hated to interrupt our conversation, but the call was important. I didn't mind. I wasn't in a hurry, but I couldn't avoid hearing some of the conversation. I'd noticed a
Home For Sale
sign leaning against the wall.
After he hung up the telephone, I asked, "Are you serious, Hollis? That lady wants to sell one of the townhouses on Craftsman Row?"
"Yeah, she's doing sort of what you had to do, dealing with an uncle's estate. She's doing it for her mother."
"Which one? How much? Can I go look at it?"
"Whoa, whoa, are you serious?"
"Oh man, you don't know."
"Now, about the price, I won't know until the appraisal is done." Hollis held up two fingers then started to raise the third finger, but put it back under his thumb then opened the lap drawer on his desk and held up a ring of about six keys. "But keys I can give you. It's the boob house, Wendell. Bring the keys back in the morning."
I think I grinned all the way to the townhouse. There is no way to know who first called it the boob house. The front of the house was two overly large bow windows that reached from below knee level to near the ceiling of the first floor. The recessed front door was like a woman's cleavage when she wore a push up bra.
For two hours, I walked around the inside of the townhouse wandering from room to room. Most of the houses on Craftsman Row had been refurbished, but this one hadn't been updated except for a small half-bath downstairs and a full bathroom upstairs. It still had some furniture in it, but it looked like someone had removed the better antiques. The carpet was lighter where some pieces of furniture had sat and what remained was old and dingy looking.
Some of the previous owner's possessions were still in the house. I found an old battered cedar chest filled with bundles of newspaper tied with string. The papers looked about 25 years old. I didn't take the time to read much, but the headlines looked interesting. I thought I might have the details of a real mystery novel I could write after I finished the books that I had committed to write.
The next morning I returned the keys and sat while Hollis wrote a contract for what I learned was the average value, based on two separate appraisals. Because he knew what the deceased owner's niece wanted, he included a clause that stated all contents would convey with the sale. Hollis suggested I get a loan, but I didn't want to worry about payments so he helped me cash in some of my uncle's investments to add to some book money. I realized, at the age of twenty-three, I was rather young to own a home of that size and value, but I had the money and wanted to make good use of it.
* * *
As soon as the contractor finished the work on the bathrooms, I moved into my new home. Several days later, I took a leisurely stroll around the full three mile circumference of the park by following the sidewalk in front of my home.
About mid-way through the renovation, I hired a stunning young woman to do some of the interior work. She had a skill with wallpaper few people cared to develop. Kayla's eye could see the misalignment of a seam that was off by one sixteenth of an inch. She would spend hours correcting it when I would have let such a minor detail pass. I watched her work, climbing up and down ladders as she was removing the old wall coverings and replacing them with newer wallpapers. With her advice, I selected products more in keeping with modern decorating ideas of small prints or stripes rather than large bouquets of flowers or dark lifeless scenes of eighteenth or nineteenth century still-life paintings.
While I was going to school I'd had an occasional girlfriend, but none of them were long term. I have no illusions; I'm not the good looking hunk. I'm a plain and simple man. Most of my life I've been overweight and I was teased accordingly. Let's face it, I was a slightly pudgy, round-faced man, with thinning hair, and besides all of that, I was just a little pigeon-toed. I was usually rather studious and made good grades, but was never at the top of my class.
The day Kayla Rogers announced her work on my home was completed I was fairly surprised that she asked me to join her at one of the local clubs for a celebratory drink. I suggested I drive, to make sure I could find the club. Instead of returning home afterwards, I offered to buy her dinner and was additionally surprised she agreed.
By midnight, Kayla was in my bed and I was making slow, gentle love to her, amazed that she returned my first fumbling kisses. When I collapsed on top of her, she held me, as tears filled my eyes. I'd never felt such a deep physical and emotional reaction.
I'd never had a woman spend the night with me. I awoke sometime in the middle of the night and carefully reached over to move a curl of hair off Kayla's forehead so I could look at her. She opened her eyes and moved nearer for a kiss. Then she totally surprised me as she threw the covers over our heads and crawled down, engulfing my hardening cock in her wet, warm mouth. I shuddered, nearing the brink of a climax.
A moment later, Kayla and I were nose to nose, "Now, fuck me, Wendell, and don't quit or cum until I stop breathing."
