Eye Of The Beholder 1

The time was 1995 and the place was a sleepy suburb of Albany, New York.

He was a bored man in his mid-40s whose wife had taken off with another guy, leaving him with a house he didn't want and a lot of time on his hands - until he started paying attention to the sights around him.

......

Chapter One: Over the hedge.

"Empty again," I said aloud to myself, peeking through the hedge at my next door neighbor's house at the little in-ground pool which sat unused as always, despite it being at least ninety degrees out once again.

The Schultz family had the pool installed four years ago, and after the first summer, I had never seen anybody in it. Being a good neighbor, I would have noticed if they had used it too, because Kathy Schultz, Ben's wife, had a pair of tits on her that would have incredible for a woman at any age. Since she had to be close to 50, they were even more amazing to behold.

Unfortunately, they were never on display any more. Ben and Kathy were always bopping around the world, now that their kids had grown. The older boy was off on his own, and the younger girl was getting old enough to take care of herself, so away they went.

I was not so lucky. I had been married - almost 20 years - to a woman that I may not have loved all that much near the end - but had lived with and respected enough to remain faithful despite the occasional temptations that would come around. Despite her letting herself go and gaining about 10 pounds a year, until eventually she ended up looking like the female twin of the Michelin Man, I tried my best to be the faithful husband.

Mary had not been nearly as virtuous as I had been, as it turned out. Apparently, she had caught the eye of another man, and had spent the last year of our cohabitation sneaking him in the back door as soon as I went out the front door to work.

"You're just mad because he's black!" Mary screamed at me when I finally became aware that something was going on.

Someone had left a note on my windshield that indicated something was going on when I left for the day, but I had misinterpreted the note and thought it was the mailman who was screwing my wife, when in fact it was the garbage man.

"I didn't know who was fucking you, and I don't give a shit about the color," I assured her, and I really didn't. The hue of the dick was inconsequential to me. Just the infidelity was enough, and since the marriage was merely a habit by then, the heartbreak was minimal.

"He's got the goods to reach the right places too. You know what I'm sayin' George?" she spat at me when she left, after trying to get me to abandon the house so that she could move Trasheem in on my dime.

"That's nice," I said as I watched her pack the last of her stuff in the U-haul. "For the record, my 'goods' are the same as they were when you met me. It's yours that got harder to find. It's nice that you're getting the dialect down, though."

Know what I'm saying? No, I didn't, and I didn't want to. All I knew was that I had wasted 20 years of my life, and I wanted those years back, or least something to show for it. At least more than the memory of some beer-bellied garbage man humping my fat-ass wife while I was busting my tail at work.

The sound of footsteps next door woke me out of my trance, and when I glanced in the direction of the noise, I saw the Schultz girl putting a bag of garbage in the trash can. What was her name? I racked my memory - the girl was so nondescript that she wasn't the type to leave an impression, although I had seen her walking briskly to and from the school bus stop for years - head down and arms full of books clutched tightly to her chest.

Jill... Jane... Janice? Joyce!

"Hello Joyce," I called out over the hedge, and she seemed startled at the sound of my voice - or was it that maybe Joyce wasn't even her name?

"Oh, hello Mr. Girtler," Joyce said softly, smiling a tight-lipped smile.

"Nice day for a swim," I said while looking longingly at the pristine pool. "Going to be a hot one today."

"I guess," Joyce said, folding her arms across her chest. "Got a lot of studying to do."

"Summer school?" I asked, while looking her up and down.

Apparently she was covering her top up because she wasn't wearing a bra under her t-shirt, although it didn't look like she even needed one. Tall drink of water, the girl was. Probably 5'10" or so, and skinny as a rail. Long medium brown hair, a touch of acne on her face and a rather large nose. Not exactly a super model, but cute in her own strange way.

"Kinda," Joyce explained. "I'm taking an accelerated program at State before I start for real this fall."

"College already?" I asked, surprised that she was old enough for that. "I thought I was the only one getting old around here. Wasn't that long ago that you were flying around on your tricycle."

"Yeah, I guess," she said shyly, her cheeks flushing.

She was wearing shorts, and I couldn't help noticing that Joyce had really long and skinny legs. At that point I think my leering was getting obvious, and it was making her nervous. For that I felt guilty, but I was just so starved for conversation with the opposite sex, that I felt helpless.

"Folks away again?" I asked, trying to look at her eyes after inspecting her thoroughly.

"Yeah. Iceland," Joyce said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Lucky them," I told her. "While the cats are away, aren't the mice supposed to play? You know, have a keg party and invite all your friends? I won't tell, as long as you invite me, that is."

"No, I'm not much for that sort of thing," Joyce admitted, as if she had to tell me what was obvious.

"Well, if you have a pool party, count me in," I told her before heading off to work.

"Okay," Joyce said, and she almost seemed sad about me leaving, although I suspect that was more the product of my imagination than anything else.

"Cute kid," I told myself as I pulled out of the driveway and headed for work. "And I'm talking to myself a lot these days too."

::

Chapter Two: Splish-splash.

It was late that night when I heard it, in between cycles of the air conditioner. It was a barely audible splash, and it came from the Schultz's backyard.

Curiosity got the best of me, and so I went to the back window and looked out. Nothing resembling a party going on back there, although there was definitely somebody in the pool. I grabbed the almost empty bag out of the kitchen waste basket and went out to make the unnecessary garbage run.

The only light in the yard next door was coming from the kitchen, which made seeing difficult. A flick of the switch turned on the light in my backyard, which helped light things up a little over there, and I made a lot of noise as I headed toward my trash can - whistling and scuffing my feet. Joyce was getting out of the pool, looking toward me in a panic as she scrambled toward the towel on the chaise lounge by the pool.

"Hi Joyce," I called out, trying to act casually while watching her holding the towel in front of herself. "I see you decided to have that party after all."

"Oh, yeah," she said nervously.

"Didn't mean to scare you," I said, feeling a whole lot like the pervert I was.

The bathing suit Joyce was wearing was about as revealing as something from the 50's. It was a very modestly cut one-piece gray suit that revealed little more than her t-shirt and shorts had earlier in the day, except for exposing her slender arms and bony shoulders.

"Oh, you didn't," she lied, still holding the gigantic towel in front of her like a matador.

"Looking refreshing," I said, in a lame effort to get an invitation for a dip, but none was forthcoming, so I made my exit, wishing her a nice evening.

"Good night, Mr. Girtler," she called out just as I reached the door.

I waved, wondering why she would suddenly get friendly as I was leaving, and the way she looked over toward me after I was inside was also strange. I watched her from the side of the curtains as she slowly went back toward the pool, looking at her long and lithe legs before turning off my light and giving her some privacy from my prying eyes.

:::

Chapter Three: Infatuation.

Over the next few days, I found quite a few reasons to 'accidentally' bump into Joyce. Going to the mailbox had become almost a ritual, as we always seemed to go out at the same time, crossing the quiet road to check our mailboxes.

Most days I would pull into the driveway and head across the road, and Joyce would be going over as well. I was wondering whether she suspected me of stalking her or something, especially since most evenings I would find a reason to go outside during one of her moonlight dips.

I was becoming infatuated with the girl. I came to that conclusion one evening when I was looking out at her pool area when she came out. Leaving my backyard light on accidentally gave me a halfway decent view of the Schultz backyard from the window of my upstairs bedroom.

A perfectly normal thing to do, I said to myself, justifying the fact that I was kneeling on the carpet of my bedroom in the dark. It wasn't like I was staring at the girl through binoculars or something. I didn't even own binoculars, and besides, my hands were busy. One hand was holding my curtain back slightly, and my other hand had a firm hold on my very erect cock, and was pumping it with enthusiasm.

I was just a normal middle aged divorced guy with time on his hands, who happened to be on his knees staring at a skinny teenage girl - and how slender Joyce's body really was seemed to be amplified as she climbed out of the pool and arranged her long brown hair so that it fell down her back.

She was almost androgynous as she stood there with her arms raised; her lithe form almost devoid of curves and her long, rail-thin arms ending in the deep hollows of her armpits, and as she looked up in my direction, I felt the familiar tingling, which was immediately followed by my dick spurting cum all over the floor.

I felt more than a little shame as I cleaned up the mess that I had made, but apparently not enough to stop looking over at Joyce until she finally went inside a few minutes later.

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Chapter Four: Swimming.

"You know, if you want to come over and swim, you can anytime you want, Mr. Girtler," Joyce said the next morning. "My parents wouldn't mind, and I never go in during the day."

That invitation didn't come out of the blue, but was in response to another of my comments regarding the heat wave we were in, and my mentioning that I noticed she only swam at night.

"No fun swimming by myself," I told her. "If you wouldn't mind company for one of your evening dips, that might be more my speed."

"Oh... uh... okay," Joyce said, a little flustered at the thought, and I almost chuckled at imagining how she would feel if she knew what I had been doing the night before while she climbed out of the pool.

"Well, if I get the urge, maybe I'll join you some night," I assured her. "If I do, you have to start calling me George. Okay?"

Right. I was going to have the urge, and I was going to have it tonight, that much was certain. I didn't have a bathing suit, but that was easily fixed on my way home from work that evening.

It took longer than I expected, because I didn't want to reveal more than a middle-aged guy should, and most of them seemed to do just that, but I finally found one that was a respectable middle ground between frumpy looking and barely a jock strap.

A quick trip to the grocery store, where I picked up some things that I could casually bring over when I just happened to decide to take a dip with Joyce tonight. Nothing fancy; just some sushi, veggies and dip, and some wine in one of those new cardboard flasks with plastic goblets so there was no glass around the pool.

The fact that I would look nothing like I was making a casual unexpected visit with the arsenal of stuff I had gotten, didn't occur to me as I waited impatiently for darkness to arrive, while I stayed poised and waiting in the kitchen, bathing suit on and picnic basket in hand.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass, and while I might have felt like a bit of a predator, and may certainly have looked a little overanxious, I had to admit I looked better than I had 24 hours earlier.

Joyce went out a little before dark, and seemed even more nervous in the faint illumination of dusk. I grabbed all of my party favors and hustled over to the pool just as Joyce was putting her toe in the water.

"That looks great," I said, announcing my arrival as I slipped through the small opening in the hedge.

My voice startled Joyce, who pulled her toe out of the water and crossed her arms across her chest. Close up, she looked even more slender. Her legs were really long, and while they were skinny, they were shapely.

"I brought some party favors," I said, putting the stuff on the patio table and spreading them out, while Joyce nodded nervously and tried to get into the safety of the water, probably trying to avert my prying eyes.

I joined her in the pool, and the cool water proved to be just as refreshing as it had looked. Joyce began to relax a little as we chatted, and after a long swim, when she climbed out, I followed her.

We drank some wine and ate some of the snacks, and even though Joyce was wrapped up in the gigantic towel, I was able to get little glimpses of her. She certainly was protective of her breasts, however, always keeping the area shielded from my view.

I became very interested in her arms, and noted with interest that she had a lot of fine down on her forearms, and when she lifted her arms to pull her hair back from her shoulders, I was afforded an extended glance of her armpits, which were deep valleys. As I had expected, Joyce's armpits were shaved, but the dense shadow that coated the hollows gave promise to her maybe having a nice, thick bush between her legs.

Getting a little ahead of yourself there, I thought to myself as I filled our goblets again. Joyce wouldn't even take the towel off her and I'm wondering what her pussy looked like. Still, I thought of a way to maybe get her to loosen up.

"Aren't you hot with that towel on," I asked. "It's still steamy out even now."

Joyce shrugged, leaving me hanging.

"Look, I realize you probably feel weird with me staring at you like this," I said. "I have to admit that living next door to you all this time, to see what a beautiful young woman you've become is quite a shock. I still picture you walking to the bus every morning all these years looking so serious and focused."

I almost added that she always had her books clutched to her chest then too. Obviously Joyce was very self-conscious about her small bosom, and I tried to ease her concern.

"I promise I won't stare at you - or at least I'll try not to," I said, and to my surprise, she finally let the towel fall down off of her.

I love small breasted women, so seeing the modest outline of her chest in the bathing suit excited me. I glanced down from time to time, but tried to stay focused on her face as we chatted.

It looked like she was mostly padding up top, by the appearance of the bathing suit, but that was fine by me. More than a handful is a waste anyhow.

By the time we had finished the wine, we were a little silly. I had mentioned the fact that I had better get back home, but Joyce had continued to talk, so I stayed longer than I had expected. When we finally got up from the chairs, my eyes drifted down between Joyce's legs, and I caught a glimpse of stubble on the inside of her thighs just outside of the elastic of the suit's crotch.

The peek at that furry spillage got me hard at once, and I tried to cover myself up as best I could while saying good night, but it wasn't easy.

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Chapter Five: True confessions.

The next night, I made my way over at dusk and made myself at home on the neighbor's deck, and I saw Joyce peek out of the window after I had been there a few minutes. Joyce came out soon after, and really seemed happy to see me.

When she came out, she was holding her towel instead of hiding in it. The stubble on the very inside of her thighs was still there as well, and I fought not to stare at it.

"Forgive me for making myself so at home," I said, waving at the stuff I had brought with me, including two flasks of wine instead of one.

"That's okay," Joyce said. "I told you to come over any time. I had fun last night."

"I thought you might have a date or something," I noted, and Joyce gave a tiny little smile and shook her head sadly.

"I know you said that you were studying to be an accountant," I mentioned after we took a dip and came back to the table. "Did you ever consider being a model?"

Joyce made a face at that, and maybe I was laying it on a bit thick there, but she was either getting more attractive every day or I was becoming infatuated with her.

She did have beautiful hair, long and straight and a rich auburn color. She had a model's body too. So what if she wasn't a raving beauty in the conventional sense? Her teeth were stunning, and the faint acne scars could be easily taken care of. The nose was a bit large too, but it gave her a distinctive look.

"Model? Me?" Joyce said, and laughed.

"I happen to think you're a very stunning woman," I informed her. "I think you lack confidence, but then again so do I. With good reason."

"I lack a lot of things," Joyce said, catching me looking at her chest again.

"You seem to be very self-conscious about your breasts," I blurted out, surprising myself for saying what I had been thinking. "You shouldn't be. A lot of men love women with small breasts. My wife - ex-wife - had small breasts."

"She did?" Joyce said.

"When we first met she did," I said, realizing that Joyce had probably only remembered the cow that Mary had become in recent years. "Before she let herself go to hell, she was very petite. I think she was only an A cup when we got married, and I thought she was very sexy back then."

"I'm flat-chested though," Joyce said self-consciously, staring down at herself.

"You're too hard on yourself," I assured her. "If you decide to go skinny-dipping someday I'll find out for sure. Besides, I'm certainly not built very well myself."

"You have a nice body," Joyce said, blushing after saying that.

"I meant elsewhere," I said, looking down at my trunks and shrugging. "That's the main reason why I'm not married any more, or so I was told."

"Oh," Joyce said. "Sorry."

"Just as well," I said with a smile. "I'd still be living a lie if it didn't come out that she was screwing around on me."

"Did you catch her in the act?" Joyce asked, with a nervous edge to her voice.

"No. Somebody left a note on my car and told me about it," I said. "If it wasn't for that Good Samaritan, who knows how long I would have been playing the fool."

"I did it," Joyce said, looking at me like she had committed a crime. "I wrote the note."

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Chapter Six: More revelations.

"You did?" I asked, and when Joyce nodded it looked like she was about to cry.

"I know it was none of my business, and after I left it I wished I hadn't, but it was too late."

I stood up as a tear trickled down her pale cheek, kneeling next to her and putting my arms around her cool, moist shoulders.

"Don't be sorry, honey," I said, squeezing her tightly, my hand trying to calm Joyce by sliding my hand up and down her furry forearm.

The feel of a woman in my arms again made my cock throb despite the circumstances. The touch - the aroma - how much I missed it all, and I held her until she stooped sobbing.

"Thank you so much," I said, wiping away a tear that had found it's way down to her chin. "You have no idea how much I appreciate what you did."

"It's just that you seemed like such a nice man all these years," Joyce sniffed. "You were always saying funny things to me, and treated me like I was somebody."