It was raining again the droplets smacking against the glass of his home office window with sharp rapping sounds like a hundred tiny fists demanding to be let inside. David Gilroy stood holding his coffee cup and staring out at the gray, hazy day. He lifted the cup to his lips blowing lightly on the steaming liquid to cool it. The dark day perfectly fit his mood. He had awoken early as had become his custom in recent years though he was no morning person. It was nice to get in a few moments of peace before his day began to unfold.
"David?" came a weak voice from the other room.
David winced at the sound and immediately regretted his first visceral reaction. He turned and retraced his steps back to the master bedroom that he had left an hour earlier. In the dim light, he could just make out the form of his wife lying motionless on the bed. The light switch on the wall was a knob, and he made sure to set it to its lowest intensity as he turned it providing just enough illumination to dispel the darkness.
"I'm here, Barbara, are you o.k.?"
"Thirsty..." she croaked.
He walked over to the bedside table fetching the glass of water that sat there, and carefully held it to her lips.
"Slow and easy...Don't want you to choke..." he said. It was an instruction that had taken on the feeling of a mantra after months of being repeated.
The I.V. bottle that was attached to Barbara's arm needed changing. David had become so practiced at the routine now that he fancied he could have a second career as a nurse when this was all over. His wife sighed when he slipped the needle into her arm. The art of finding a vein was getting trickier. She was black and blue from many previous insertions.
He started to speak, to tell her about the rain, but she was already sleeping again her chest rising and falling rhythmically before his eyes. Taking a breath himself, David backed out of the room quietly pulling the door partly closed in his wake.
This had been his life for so long he struggled to remember a time when that wasn't the case. The cancer had come like a thief in the night stealing away with his wife's vitality. Barbara had become a shell of the woman he once knew, and it ate at him daily while he watched her fade.
By the time he returned to his office the rain had started to slow down barely registering a sound now on the glass. He was able to see out more clearly with its passing. The vanishing haze peeled back to reveal the house next door a two-story colonial style that mirrored the architecture and design of his own. There was something that definitely had not been there before the storm. A large moving truck was parked in front of the house.
David took a sip of his coffee contemplating the vehicle as its occupants spilled out and walked to the side to open the wide delivery door. The house next door had been unoccupied for more than a year since the old couple that had lived there previously had retired and moved to Florida. The movers were starting to haul furniture off the truck straining with the weight of their many burdens. The furniture was very nice many of the pieces looking like antiques or at least very good reproductions. David continued to observe the goings on wondering who had purchased the home. As it turned out, his curiosity was soon satisfied when a large, dark-colored SUV pulled into the driveway. Three people exited the vehicle. The first two were a husband and wife pairing each taking the others hand while they walked toward the front door, but his attention wasn't on them for long. The final occupant to leave the vehicle caught David's eye and drew his focus solely to her.
The coffee cup that he had been holding found itself on the window sill all but forgotten while David stared down his heart speeding up in his chest. Given his experience, he had certainly observed many beautiful women in his life, but there was something about this young lady that captured his attention. It might have been her striking resemblance to his wife at the same age, and he guessed this stranger to be in her late teens perhaps eighteen or nineteen. She was about five-foot-six inches or so with brunette hair that leaned toward the reddish with its many auburn highlights. He watched as she started walking in her parent's wake, but she stopped halfway across the well-manicured lawn and turned giving him an even better view of her face. Her fair skin was flawless with dark eyes that reflected the faint light outside. Whomever this girl was she was wearing a jacket that covered her body, but David could still make out the swell of what he inferred were some very firm breasts pushing outward. A smile danced on her perfect, soft looking pink lips. She had a wide, generous mouth that seemed tailor-made for kissing. Davids' hands trembled slightly as this paragon of beauty turned away and walked into the house.
Almost as soon as she passed out of his line of sight David starting feeling guilty. He had no business leering at some young woman old enough to be his grand-daughter. The calendar on the wall was marked with his approaching sixtieth birthday making him at least forty plus years older than this mystery woman. He did understand the attraction he was feeling at least intellectually. It had been years since the last time he had enjoyed sex with anyone other than himself. Barbara's failing health had seen their sex life essentially end long ago still that didn't excuse the morally questionable feelings he was having right now.
While David struggled with his libido, his eyes picked up movement in the window of the room opposite to his own. A second later, that very same young woman appeared in the frame. She was looking out with her hands in her pockets glancing around at the ground below before she flicked her gaze upward and found David. She smiled a friendly greeting and waved. He froze for a moment before reacting on reflex returning her greeting with a wave of his own. It appeared that her bedroom would be opposite his office.
The young lady vanished the way she came, and after a moment David retrieved his now tepid coffee from where he had left it. His feet made soft sounds on the stairs as he made his way back to the kitchen to freshen his beverage. A knock on the door pulled him away from it, and he sat the cup on the counter.
"Good morning, David," said Dottie. She was his wife's day nurse, and she would be here until dinner time helping out and allowing David time to work.
"God morning, Dottie, it's good to see you."
"How is she this morning?"
"Quiet for the most part. I just changed her I.V."
"Very good. I will wake her in another hour and see if I can get her to eat."
"Thanks. I think I'm going to go for a run now that the rain has stopped."
"That's a good idea. It's important for you to keep your strength up."
"I suppose so..." replied David absently.
The air outside was damp and cool. David dawned a light jacket over his t-shirt to ward away the last vestiges of rain that clung to the air while he ran. He had been quite athletic in his youth and still tried to maintain some semblance of staying in shape. It was a bit of vanity on his part deep down he couldn't stand the thought that he was getting old. Sweat ran down into his eyes as the miles blurred by, and he kept up a steady pace. Truth be told, he still looked good for his age with his hair just beginning to show a few hints of gray. All the years of jogging had allowed him to maintain a weight that was only a few pounds above what he had carried on his frame during his college days.
He turned back down his street having covered a five-mile circle through the neighborhood. When he came into sight of his own house, he was disconcerted to find the young woman he had observed earlier leaning against the back of the SUV in her driveway. David slowed his pace as he approached the end of his run stopping just a few feet away from her.
"Wet day for a run," she observed. Her voice was clear as a church bell with a quality to it that made shivers pass down his spine.
"Yeah, I guess so, but I try to be dedicated."
"I admire that in a man."
David was taken aback by her flirty tone, but he quickly recovered.
"So, I guess I should welcome you to the neighborhood. I'm David...David Gilroy," he said holding out his hand.
"I'm Nora. It's nice to meet you, David."
Her hand was soft and warm in his own. For a moment, he couldn't help but imagine how nice that hand would feel wrapped around his cock. He quickly withdrew his handshake feeling that same surge of guilt that had struck at him while he had looked at Nora from the window.
"How do you like your new home?"
