Marla Harris' heart was pounding so hard she was afraid she might be having a heart attack. She was naked in bed with her eighteen year-old neighbor and her friend was in the house, walking toward her bedroom. "I...I'll be right out, Gina," she called to her friend. "I was just getting dressed. Pour yourself a cup of coffee."
"OK," her friend called.
Marla and Buddy stayed on the bed, holding their breath and listening until they heard the sound of the other woman's footsteps going back down the hallway. Then, almost at the exact same time, they relaxed and began breathing. Marla quickly got off the bed, pulled a rose colored fleece hooded sweatshirt and matching slacks out of her dresser, and slipped into them. "Knock it off," she whispered to Buddy, who was leering at her as she dressed. She slipped into a pair of clogs.
"I can't help it," he whispered back.
"Make yourself scarce for a while," she told him. "I'll get rid of Gina as fast as I can." She gave Buddy a kiss, then headed for the bedroom door.
Gina was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her when Marla walked in. The neighbor was shorter than Marla, quite a bit more buxom, and had graying black hair she wore cut very short. She had once been attractive, but her looks had faded considerably over the years. She and Marla had been close friends ever since Gina and her husband bought the house next door to Marla's. Marla poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with her friend.
"I take it Tom's away again," Gina said, grinning.
Marla took a sip of her coffee and nodded. "Sometimes it seems he's away more than he's home," she said.
"I don't know how you do it," Gina said, after taking a sip of her coffee. "I'd go absolutely nuts if Marcus was away as much as Tom is." She giggled. "I mean, I may be getting a little older, but I still have my needs, you know."
Marla sipped more of her coffee and nodded. Gina was always talking about how active her sex life with her husband Marcus was and she'd always wondered how much of what her friend said was true and how much of it was wishful thinking. Her friend's husband had to be ten years older than Gina and had shown a tendency to nod off about eight o'clock in the evening every time the two couples had spent evenings together.
"You ought to find yourself a lover," Gina said, surprising Marla. "With your looks, you could have just about any man you wanted."
"Gina, I'm not looking for a lover," Marla said. "Mainly because I've already found one," she thought. "And I'm sure as hell not going to tell you about him."
"Do you have any plans for the day?" Gina asked. "Since Tom's away and Marcus is playing golf, I thought maybe we could go shopping."
"I'd love to," Marla said, "but Buddy is coming over to help me with the yard and some other things I need to get done. With Tom away so much, the work doesn't get done unless I hire it done."
A leer formed on Gina's face. "Buddy, huh?" she snickered. "He's, what, eighteen or nineteen now? All grown up."
"Gina, what are you talking about?" Marla said, hoping her true feelings didn't show. "He's young enough to be my son."
"That's the perfect age," Gina said. "Don't you know that young men peak at his age and women peak at our age?"
"A couple of days ago, I'd have said that was just an old wives' tale," Marla thought, fighting hard to suppress a grin. "Buddy's a great kid and he's not interested in old women like us," she told her friend.
Buddy could hear the women talking and wondered what he should do. He'd gotten dressed but wasn't sure if he should stay in the bedroom or try to get out of it somehow. "I suppose I could crawl out the window," he thought. He walked over and looked out the window. "I guess that's not a good idea," he mused when he realized the window faced the street. "All I need is to have the entire neighborhood see me crawling out Marla's bedroom window."
He walked over to the bedroom door and listened to the women talking. Carefully, he stuck his head outside and looked down the hallway toward the kitchen. He was pleased to find out that he couldn't see either Marla or her friend. That meant they couldn't see him, either. Two doors down the hall on the left, fairly close to the kitchen, was the door to the cellar. "If I can get to the basement," he thought, "I can get out through the outside cellar door." He stood there, watching the hallway, listening to Marla and her friend talking. It didn't sound as if they were about to move any time soon, so he carefully made his way out of the bedroom and down the hall to the basement door. He reached for the doorknob and heard Marla's friend say, "I gotta go to the bathroom. I love coffee, but it goes right through me." The comment was followed by the sound of a chair being pushed back. "Oh, shit!" the young man thought. He turned the doorknob, pulled the door open, and stepped into the cellar way, closing the door behind him.
"You could still go to the mall with me," Gina said as she headed down the hallway toward the bathroom. "Buddy doesn't need you around to supervise him, does he?"
"No, I guess he doesn't," Marla replied. "But there are a lot of things I need done that I haven't told him about yet."
Marla hoped Buddy was being careful about hiding himself. The last thing she needed was to be caught with the young man in her bedroom. Gina was a good friend, but she also was one of the worst gossips in town. If she found out what was going on, it wouldn't stay a secret for more than an hour after Gina left. She got up and walked to the kitchen counter to pour herself another cup of coffee. She noticed her hands were shaking when she picked up the cup. She stood at the counter, looking down the hallway, waiting for Gina to come out of the bathroom.
"Girlfriend, you're going to lose your mall pass if you keep turning down chances to go shopping," Gina called from the bathroom. She emerged from the bathroom and peered into Marla's bedroom before heading down the hallway toward the kitchen. "You ought to get Buddy to make your bed for you," she noted.
"Ah...I...I was going to change the bedding today," Marla responded. Had Gina seen something? Maybe Buddy wasn't all that well hidden. Maybe they'd left something incriminating laying on the floor...
"Don't go getting defensive on me," Gina said as she walked back into the kitchen. "Hell, I don't make the bed four days out of five some weeks."
Buddy moved through the basement emptying all of the wastebaskets he could find into a plastic trash bag he took out of a box he found on a shelf at the bottom of the stairs. Then he headed for the bulkhead that led outdoors from the cellar. He walked up the steps, unlocked the latch on the steel bulkhead doors, then pushed them open.
The sound of the bulkhead doors opening echoed through the house. "What's that?" Gina asked.
"Buddy was supposed to do some stuff down in the cellar," Marla said, as relief flooded through her. She had no idea how the young man had gotten into the basement, but she was glad he had.
"Oh, you're working the poor boy hard, aren't you?" Gina said.
"You'd have a fit if you knew how 'hard' Buddy is," Marla thought. Once more she fought to keep a smile from forming on her face. "I told you, with Tom gone as much as he is, there's a lot to do," she said.
"Oh, poo, you're not about to be fun today, are you?" Gina pouted. "You really aren't going to let me talk you into going shopping."
Marla shrugged and shook her head. "Sorry," she said.
"How about next weekend, then?" Gina asked hopefully.
"Sorry," Marla said.
"Is Tom going to be home?" her friend asked.
"I doubt it," Marla replied. "But there are things I need to get done at the condo at the beach to get it ready for winter." The idea that things needed to be done at the condo she and her husband owned at the seashore just popped into her head. And it gave her a thrilling idea, too. "God, if I take Buddy along to 'help' me, I'll have him all to myself for as long as we're there, won't I?" She could feel her nipples hardening at the prospect.
"If we weren't such good friends, I'd think you were brushing me off," Gina pouted. Then she smiled. "I'll manage to get you to the mall yet. You wait and see."
"OK," Marla said. "Once all this stuff is done, I'll go with you, I promise."
They could hear Buddy moving in and out of the cellar.
"You better," Gina said, standing up. "I guess I better head home. Otherwise you're liable to put me to work, too."
Marla grinned. "I just might," she said. She got up and walked her friend to the door.
Buddy was walking across the yard toward the house, coming back from taking the trash he'd found in the basement to the dumpster behind the garage.
"He's grown up, hasn't he?" Gina commented, her eyes locked on the young man.
"Ah...yes, I suppose he has," Marla replied. "He...he is eighteen and all."
Gina turned and grinned at her knowingly. "Eighteen," she said. "That's old enough, you know..."
"Gina!" Marla exclaimed.
Gina gave her a hug, then kissed her on the cheek. "Just kidding," she said. "But I gotta tell you, I wouldn't kick that kid out of my bed."
"Call me Tuesday or Wednesday about going to the mall," Marla said.
"OK, I will," Gina said. She stepped out of the house and started down the steps. "Hi, Buddy," she called to the young man, who was just about to go back down into the cellar.
"Hi, Mrs. Mastroiani," Buddy called back.
"Don't let Marla work you too hard," Gina said.
"Ah...I...I won't," the young man replied. He turned and went down the bulkhead steps and back into the cellar.
When her friend disappeared from sight, Marla turned and walked across the kitchen, headed for the door to the cellar, opened it, and went downstairs. Buddy was sitting on an old leather sofa in what had once been their recreation room. In addition to the sofa, there was a pool table, and a TV sat in the corner. The room hadn't been used in years. Marla was surprised to find that the stack of boxes that once covered the top of the pool table had disappeared.
"You've been busy," she commented.
"I had to convince Mrs. Mastroiani I was helping you with cleanup, didn't I?" Buddy replied, grinning.
"Ah...yes, I guess you did," Marla replied. She felt a sense of relief in not being caught, but underneath that sense of relief hummed a current of excitement, too. She and Buddy could have been caught in bed together. If Gina hadn't stopped walking down the hall when she did...
Buddy stood up. "What's the matter?" he asked, looking puzzled. "You have kind of a funny look on your face."
