A middle aged woman and a geeky young man back in the 70's...
***
I had made the trip from the little cottage across the street and about 50 feet down countless times but never faster than that afternoon in June of 1976. After I sprinted blindly from our neighbor's back yard, a yard I had mowed for the last four years - not even watching for cars on the rarely traveled gravel road - I ran into our house and closed the door. Closed it and locked it and then looked through the blinds for what was about to happen.
What that was I didn't know. All I did know was that I was in deep shit. When my folks found out what I had just been caught doing - well, let's just say that while I would be headed halfway across the country for college come August, the next two months would be hell.
My parents were probably stricter than most, especially my mother who was a holy roller with lofty moral standards that nobody but her seemed to reach, but even my old man wouldn't care for this.
***
It all happened because I had forgotten my wallet at our neighbors house. I had set it on the shelf of the little shed where the mower was stored because I tend to sweat like a pig when I mow, especially on hot days like today, and that gets my wallet soggy.
I always remember it because when I put the neighbor's mower away, and I mean always. After all, it's right there next to the door I push the mower back in the shed. Today, I forgot, and I don't know how or why. All I do know is that my life was ruined.
It was all Mrs. Audi's fault. Mrs. Audi was the neighbor lady who I had spent all of my teenage years doing favors for. Mowing her lawn in the summer, shoveling her walk in the winter and going to the store whenever she needed something.
I admit I didn't like doing it at first. It was my Mom's idea, and she explained that I should be nice to the lady because she had been through a lot and didn't have anybody around to help her.
What that meant I wasn't sure, although I do remember a lot of yelling coming from across the street when I was younger and then I remember a police car stopping at the Audi house. After that, there was no sign of Mr. Audi. I didn't understand it then but as the years passed I figured a lot of it out.
So for the last five years I mowed and shoveled but I didn't need to be prodded by Mom anymore. I had grown fond of the little woman and I thought she had been fond of me too. That was before that afternoon, and if she hadn't left her bedroom window open I wouldn't have been cowering behind of door waiting for either Mrs. Audi to charge across the street and for the police to pull up outside. Which would be worse? I wasn't sure.
"What are you up to?" came the voice of my mother from behind me, scaring the crap out of me. "Playing cops and robbers?"
"What? No," I said, shaking my head in wonder.
I'm 18, not 8, and it never seemed to register with my mother that even though I didn't look it I was a grown man. maybe it would register when I packed my bags and went off to college soon, but until then I was her little Tyler.
"Well, you look like a mess. Did you do Mrs. Audi's lawn?" she asked, and after I assured her it had been taken care of she told me to go take a shower before supper.
I went up the stairs to my bedroom, keeping my eye on the Audi house until I began to think maybe Mrs. Audi wasn't going to come over to tell my mother what a pervert her son turned out to be, so I went to the bathroom and stood under the spray where I did most of my best thinking.
****
The bedroom window and the flowered curtain that waved lightly with the breeze. Why wasn't the window closed? Probably because the Audi house, like every other one in our less that prosperous village, had no air conditioning so having closed windows on days like today would make the house stifling.
Okay, maybe it wasn't Mrs. Audi's fault that the window was open, but the rest of it was her fault. If she hadn't been making those noises, I wouldn't have been compelled to go over to the window and look in. I thought she was calling for help or was sick, so it was only natural that I would go over to check.
Also not exactly accurate. I may have been the most naïve and socially awkward 18 year old on the planet but even I knew the sounds Mrs. Audi was making didn't indicate she needed help. She sounded like Mom did that day when I came home early from school and caught Mom and Dad having a matinee.
Still, what I saw what Mrs. Audi was doing? You don't do that sort of thing when a kid is around mowing your lawn. She must have wanted to be caught and with me being an average teenager with raging hormones, what would you expect?
The problem with that theory was that I had been done with the lawn and had left twenty minutes earlier, only returning to retrieve my wallet, so that left Mrs. Audi free of blame. There was only one person wrong here, and that was me.
I scrubbed away in the middle of what was going to be the longest shower in history, and my washing was becoming focused in a particular area as my train of thought changed from how the incident happened to what I saw when the curtain billowed open.
Regrets? Yes. I regret getting caught. If I had stayed where I was I would never have been nailed, but when I walked up on the metal storm door to get a better look that became my downfall. Curiosity killed the cat, right?
The moans. Just hearing Mrs. Audi groaning and carrying on while speaking in tongues or Italian - whatever it was - that was erotic enough. I could have used my imagination and let Mrs. Audi provide the soundtrack but instead I inched up so I could look through the curtain.
My imagination was vivid in many ways but when it came to girls it was extremely limited. I had only had one real girlfriend my entire life and that had never gotten very far. Out here in the sticks the houses were few and far between and my senior class had only graduated 18, with only 8 of the dozen and a half being girls. Do the math, especially when you're a runt and not all that attractive like I was.
Naked women? I had seen a few in a friend's copy of Playboy that he "borrowed" from his old man but as far as real live females? Zero. I did catch my Mom coming out of the shower once but I hid my eyes and ducked back into my bedroom before I saw much of anything.
So as I inched up the slanted storm door I was hoping to see a naked Mrs. Audi. Maybe she had a "gentleman caller", which is what Mom called some guy that apparently visited the widow Franklin down the road a way, but I had never seen anybody visit Mrs. Audi's house.
Another step up the door and there she was. Not naked but definitely not looking anything like she usually did. Mrs. Audi was on her back in the bed with the blouse she had been wearing earlier still mostly on but very rumpled but below the waist she was naked, with her slacks and panties on the end of the bed.
