Well-Intentioned

I stood in front of the office building for almost an hour before he came out. Once, I had wronged him and ruined his life. Now, another had done likewise to me, in the same manner and almost exactly twelve years apart.

I don't believe in karma, but a primitive part of my brain, the same one that made my ancestors ascribe noises in the dark to monsters and lightning among the clouds to gods, couldn't help but link his fate with mine. The feeling wouldn't leave me, even if I recognized the thinking behind it to be as spurious as that of the barely-men that huddled in caves after they left the trees.

Humans are pattern recognition machines. We excel at it. Sometimes, though--often, in fact--we find patterns where only random noise exists. In this case, I chose to give into the irrationality of a false pattern and obey its dictates, if only to silence its nagging voice.

An apology was long past due anyways; that's the lampshade I hung on my superstition as I anxiously awaited my long-delayed second showdown with Lance Jenkins. I would apologize, knowing how little that meant. I thought I had known before, but I had been too young and inexperienced to really understand.

"Time makes fools of us all," they say. Looking back, I felt like the biggest fool of all.

--

The first day in my first house, the wives of the King's Forest subdivision watched me unload my meager possessions from a U-Haul van--not even a full truck--into a space far too large for my needs. No one approached me that day. I presented too enigmatic an oddity for them to simply approach with open arms.

Obviously, I was too young to be a homeowner, especially in that neighborhood. Was I the son of the actual owners, home from college? But if that was the case, why weren't they there? Maybe I was watching the house until they could take possession; but then why the U-Haul? I didn't know it at the time, but those were the questions swirling about the neighborhood moms' private message group.

They sent a scout the next day, the youngest of their number, who lived a few doors down from my home. After all, if one needed answers from a young man, a little sex appeal couldn't hurt.

Upon my doorstep that second day stood a gorgeous blonde MILF, if only by the technical definition of "MILF." While she looked far too young to have given birth, she was, in fact, a mother of two children--Hunter and Zoe, four and two years old respectively--and I most assuredly would have liked to fuck her, even before she opened her mouth and introduced herself with the smokiest, sexiest voice I thought I'd ever hear.

"Hey, neighbor. I thought I should come by and introduce myself." She extended one perfectly manicured hand; I didn't know whether to shake it, kiss it, or kneel in supplication. "Ellanora Jenkins."

A handshake seemed safest. "I, uh, I, Doug. Doug Richards. Nice to meet you." She smiled, at first invitingly, but then increasingly bemused as I held her hand far longer than necessary. Finally picking up on her none-too-subtle cues, I let go and stammered, "Would, ah, would you like to come in? I'm afraid I don't have anything but water and Coke, but--"

The million watt smile returned. "I'd be delighted, Doug."

She stepped across the threshold, presenting me with an opportunity to stare without too much guilt. Ellanora--Ella to her friends--had chosen to welcome me to the neighborhood dressed in the at-the-time new uniform of the Greater North American Married Sexbomb: yoga pants stretched to their limit, loose cropped t-shirt with the strap of a sports bra peeking out, running shoes that cost more than my first car, and a rock capable of doubling as a signaling mirror on her left hand. The last disappointed me just a touch, but the rest of the view more than made up for it.

Besides, her clothing wasn't really what I paid attention to; which, of course, was the point of said clothing. Ella was fucking stacked, with tits a man could drown in while motorboating and a bubble butt that made my mind subconsciously drift to thoughts of chewing gum.

Hard muscle in her legs, especially her calves, only served to accentuate the soft, ample curves of her torso; any fat that remained on her body was there by her choice. As she walked, her shirt bounced and settled, showing tantalizing flashes of tanned skin faintly striped with stretch marks. I'd never thought that I had a fetish before, but then I'd only been with girls, never women. I first understood the difference at that moment, as I also understood how badly I wanted to be with one.

Specifically, this one.

Ella glanced around at my living room, whose decor consisted of an old futon, a rickety table serving as an entertainment center, my dorm stereo and TV, and the freshly installed WiFi router. "Still getting settled in?"

"Sort of?" This was just about everything I owned, but I knew how much of a loser that made me look like. "I, ah, need to get some things out of storage and from my folks' house."

"Oh! So... you are the owner?" The surprised inflection on 'are' made me cringe inwardly. It shouldn't have, because I recognized how much of an anomaly I represented, but the dismissive judgment of a beautiful woman can make a guy, especially one just barely out of college, feel about six inches tall.

Best to just be honest, I decided. "My uncle passed away recently, and he left me some money. Not, like, enough to live on forever, but..." I waved my hand around at the empty space. "After talking to some friends and family, buying a house in a nice neighborhood seemed like the best investment. I'm starting my own business, too, but--"

Her demeanor changed like a light switch had been flipped. "Oh! Oh, that's very exciting! I mean--God, I must sound like such a bitch--I'm sorry about your uncle, but I'm sure he'd be proud of what you've chosen to do with your inheritance.

"You know, I'll tell you what. You have just got to meet my husband, Lance. He's an absolute genius when it comes to business management. I'm sure he can help you get yours rolling."

"Wow! That would... yeah, that'd be fantastic. I'm not sure how much I can afford to pay, because I'm kind of living off what's left of my inheritance. I mean, I've got contract work coming in, but..."

Ella shook her head and put a hand up, forestalling any further discussion. "Nonsense. You're our neighbor, and we've been where you are, trying to start a business from scratch. He'll get a kick out of it, I'm sure."

With that settled, she and I chatted about her and her family for a little while longer. She and Lance met in college, and they'd been married seven years. The two of them had moved into the neighborhood three years before, their small apartment barely able to contain the two of them and their first child, much less the one that they had on the way when they left it.

While I had bought at the trough in the market following the 2007 financial collapse, they had bought at its peak, and that put a lot of pressure on her husband. She had offered to go back to work using her degree in early childhood education, but Lance had successfully argued that the expenses and her salary would barely be a wash, so she stayed home and did the best imitation of a 1950s housewife she could. She did make a little money on the side as a personal trainer, though; it was easy to see how, given that she was a walking, talking, extremely effective advertisement for her side hustle.

When Ella talked about her husband, she lit up with an almost religious fervor. While she did flirt with me, she also made it very clear where her loyalties lay. I remember thinking at the time that I hoped some day to have a wife both as gorgeous and devoted as her.

Sadly, she eventually had to go. Happily, though, I got to watch her leave, her hips swaying the entire way from my doorstep to the main sidewalk. She knew I was watching. I mean, she had to know, right? No woman could exude raw sex like that without at least having an inkling.

And so, I made my first friend in the subdivision of King's Forest. Sure, I kind of wished she hadn't had that ring on, but if she hadn't... well, let's just say that hindsight is 20/20, and I can only see that now as a bullet dodged.

The third day brought the committee to my door. They might have called themselves the welcome wagon, but they were the movers and shakers of the subdivision set. Their husbands served on the HOA, and those with school-aged kids ran the PTA. If an association existed, they managed it; if it didn't, they created it. Their scout had brought them intel about the stranger in their midst, and now they needed to evaluate it themself.

In retrospect, I realize now that's what it was: an evaluation to determine whether I'd be a disruptive presence. I didn't fit in their notion of who should own a home in King's Forest; live there, perhaps, as the college-aged son of a homeowner, or--heaven forbid--even renting there, but owning a home? God, no. What kind of influence would I be? Think of the children!

They didn't come across as snooty, though, instead seeming like a bunch of soccer moms, interspersed with a few grandmas, that had too much time on their hands and too little ability to mind their own business. I marked them down as mostly harmless, even as I put my best foot forward, trying to be honest and open when asked questions. My mom had to deal with similar busybodies when we moved into a new house when I was a kid, and I knew I had no skeletons in my closet, so that seemed the best option. I know now how hopelessly naïve that tactic was, but at the time, it made sense.

More importantly, it worked. It worked in spades. Ella might have given me a clean bill of health, but some of them, especially the older ones, had still come in half-expecting an uncouth, unkempt frat boy doing keg stands while playing thrash metal at earshattering levels. Sure, Ella had assured them I was harmless, but she wasn't all that much older than me, with only an eight year difference in our ages. Her ability to get information from me, a horny young man, could be counted on; the accuracy of that information, perhaps not so much.

What they found, though, was a kind of boring, soft-spoken nerd. I still only had water and Coke to offer; the lack of alcohol reassured them. My furnishings were sparse, but I took care of them and the house, as I'd started to poke at some small repairs. Arguably even more important, I was working when they rang the doorbell, not slacking off.

I passed their inquisition with flying colors. They loved me. One of the grandmas thought I was too good to be true, I later heard, comparing me to Eddie Haskell; I had to look that one up. The consensus, though, was that while I might not fit in, that didn't mean I couldn't fit in. They were just the women to make that happen, and their husbands were just the ones to help.

After that, I became their project.

It all happened a lot quicker than I could have expected. Mrs. Taylor came by first, tutting about the lack of furniture. "You're going to want to have a girl over here sometime, and this just won't do." Luckily for me, she had a part-time gig as an interior decorator, and she knew exactly what I could do to spruce the place up. Mrs. Cartwright came next, suggesting perhaps a more professional wardrobe, one she'd be happy to help me pick out.

Then visited Mrs. Baker, the former hairstylist, to tame my mane; Mrs. Alvarez, the retired home ec teacher, to add more dishes to my rotation than mac and cheese and Hot Pockets; and Mrs. Redmond, the dance instructor, who just

had

to come by after she saw me spasmodically convulsing by the window one day in blasphemous mockery of her profession.

Rounding out the crowd was Kathy Grayson, the grandmother whose suspicions I had aroused by being so boring. She was the last to arrive on my doorstep, but the first among equals when it came to the neighborhood women. Kathy and her husband, Bob, belonged to a different generation than most of my neighbors, Boomers among the Gen Xers. They acted as sort of tribal elders, smoothing over discord between members and offering advice on successfully navigating the depredations of middle age that their juniors had begun to grapple with.

Mrs. Grayson came last not because of any animosity, her early reticence about me notwithstanding; instead, she waited until I was ready to accept her teachings. She gave me what, for lack of a better term, I can only describe as finishing lessons. Knowing how to dress, dance, cook, and all the other skills taught to me by the assembled housewives of King's Forest meant little if I fell flat on my face the moment I opened my mouth, after all. She instructed me in the techniques I needed to mingle, to flirt effectively, to charm, and to schmooze. My later successes, both personal and professional, had much to do with the time she spent with me.

Her husband, Bob, brought me into the fold of the husbands, warming to me almost as soon as we met. Unlike his wife, he was the first of the men to offer me more than a grunted "hey" as we passed on the sidewalk. Bob had both the size and bearing of a silverback gorilla, but the manners of a church deacon; understandable, since he used to be one. A deacon, that is, not a silverback gorilla.

He brought me around to a Friday poker game and that was that: the tribal elder told the others without words that I was one of them. After cleaning my clock at the game and accepting the tribute that my lightened wallet provided, they agreed. The next phase of my training began, having passed from boy to man in the eyes of the patriarchs of King's Forest.

Mr. Baker saw me struggling with a cheap, unpowered push mower one Saturday morning and donated an almost-new self-propelled version that he'd retired once he got his riding model. The other husbands, not to be outdone, managed to assemble nearly a whole slate of new-to-me power tools and lawn maintenance equipment between them. In the cases where they couldn't address a gap in my collection, they argued loudly with each other until coming to a general agreement as to which model I should buy and what sales to wait for. Along with the equipment came all the knowhow that they could share over the inadvisable pairing of a bottle of beer and a table saw.

The husbands also showed me how respectable men whiled away their free time: golfing with Messrs. Grayson, Alvarez, and Baker; boating and fishing with Ron Cartwright and Bill Redmond; and irregular visits to the local sports bar with all of them. While I didn't take to any of the hobbies in the way that I think they hoped I would, the hobbies weren't the point; how to socialize was. They were, in their way, instructing me in the ways of grown-up male fraternization and how it differed from hanging out with my college friends.

I'll admit, I didn't take to some of their methods for bonding. There was a fair bit of one-upsmanship, but I'd expected that. God, though, their humor. Recycled jokes from

Married With Children

and

According to Jim

about how awful being married is, constant grousing about trivial shit like having to take out the garbage or sharing the remote, 'joking' about hiding how much they'd spent on their boats or their guns or their motorcycles from their wives. A little of that would have seemed like blowing off steam, but as much as some of them did it? I wondered occasionally if the most vocal husbands actually liked their wives or if they just stayed together because it was what they were 'supposed' to do.

The parade of purchases and expensive hobbies required might all sound expensive, but it wasn't a fleecing. Well, outside that first poker night. All of them, husbands and wives, charged me nothing for their services. Any required goods they either freely gave from their own stock or charged me cost, at most. I never figured out how much of their efforts came from simple neighborliness, general kindness, boredom on their part, or--in the case of the husbands--nagging from their wives.

I acted as a sort of surrogate son to many of them. They had kids my age, or close to it, but their kids didn't listen to them the way I did. Hell, I didn't listen to my parents the way I listened to the neighborhood couples, so I get that. I'd purchased a home in the town I went to college in specifically because I wanted to enter this phase of my life separate from them. As much as I loved my folks, they couldn't have given me the advice my neighbors did--and I couldn't have received it--precisely because they were my folks, and because they would see me as their son long before they could ever come close to seeing me as a man.

The couples in my neighborhood, especially the men, saw me as a young man to be molded into a full-fledged adult, but not one who they were responsible for. I could and did make my mistakes, but only after they'd tried their best. Any angst they might have felt was muted, and they could offer advice to me that a parent might find irresponsible to give to their children.

I felt particular kinship with Bob Grayson. Of all the men in the neighborhood, he reminded me most of my father, even if Bob was older by almost a decade. They shared the same faith, had similar jobs, occupied the position of elder in their churches, and had nearly indistinguishable outlooks on life: work hard, be steadfast in your faith, a man's word is his bond, and so on. I might have differed in some of the specifics, but I agreed with the broad strokes. More than any of the other men, I went to him for advice when I had doubts about a particular course of action.

Hell, he even liked the same old Westerns my dad did, and some nights he would come over to my house, or I'd go to his, and we'd watch one of the classics, either the really old black-and-white ones or a spaghetti Western. Bob could have quoted most of them by heart, but he still liked watching them over and over again.

I think, although he never said, that it was less about watching them and more about watching them with me. Kathy told me that he and his son used to sit together after they had dinner and watch one almost every night, but their boy had moved to Europe over a decade ago and had a family of his own. As much as he represented a pseudo-father figure to me, I stood in for the son he couldn't spend time with anymore.

On the opposite end of the age spectrum, Lance and Ella were the two closest in age to me. Lance's business kept him very busy, but he carved out enough time--free of charge, as Ella insisted--to get me pointed in the right direction. While he wasn't exactly my friend, he was very kind and incredibly insightful. There are many things I regret about this time of my life, and not getting to know him better is one of them; perhaps I'd have done less harm if I had.

Ella, the fittest woman on the block, placed herself in charge of my exercise regimen. I have to admit, the couple of hours I spent with her each week were my favorite, even if I did feel more than a little guilty for perving on a married woman. She didn't appear to mind, though; of all the flirtatious women in the neighborhood, she seemed like the only one who, if things were a little different, might follow up on it.

They weren't, though, and we didn't. Even if I didn't like Lance, which I did, married women were a hard and fast "no" for me. That's what I believed, anyways. That moral certitude hadn't ever been tested back then.

Beyond that, the more time I spent with her, the more I saw her as my friend, rather than as the hot young MILF down the road. She'd regularly pop by just to say 'hi,' or bring the kids over to play in my pool, and I had a great time getting to know her as a person, instead of just a fantasy.

I did notice something else, though, when interacting with the various neighbors. The other couples were my friends. They were Ella's friends. However, they didn't seem like they were Lance's friends; not really. He was Ella's husband, not their friend. While I doubted they'd make that distinction to his face--or even to hers--I regularly got that sense. Still, it didn't bother me at the time. After all, he was a busy guy, and not terribly sociable. Hell, my mom and dad probably had similar relationships with their neighbors, so I put it out of my mind.