Amanda was so tired of being the good girl. Not just 'a' good girl, THE good girl. Tired of being a good wife, a good mother, a good anything. She felt little in life these days.
But she just didn't know that yet. She was bored alright, and she felt the tiredness, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. There was no reason why she should have been tired of her life except that there was too much comfort- if that was possible. Too much routine, too much suburban living. Too many repetitive chores. She found herself exploring more and more lately. Driving the long way to the store, trying new stores, trying new clothes, new shoes, even test driving cars knowing full well she could never buy one. She hated the family minivan.
"Have you considered taking an art class at the community college?" her husband asked her. He didn't really understand, but he noticed something.
She started observing more, wondering about other people and their lives. What they did. How they lived. She watched people shop and then bought the same exact things they did, just to see how she'd feel about the selection. Why did they pick those brands? Why that ugly green colored skirt? Amanda pondered whether she'd get the same enjoyment if the choice was forced, but she never found a conclusive answer. Were other peoples' lives same as hers? Were they just as bored, just as lacking fulfillment?
One day driving past a side street that she never usually took she realized something. A house she mentally assigned to some old guy whom she'd seen walk out once apparently had a few more guys living with him. Strange.
Next week, Amanda noticed a different set of guys walking out of the house both on her way to the gym and also on the way back. It was puzzling because it obviously wasn't a nuclear family. Chestnut street. How many relatives could possibly live together? Next time she drove by, she parked a few doors down and just watched. Within thirty minutes, she realized there were new faces coming out of the house all the time. So not a nuclear family, and couldn't have been relatives. She shifted to drive and checked her mirrors then drove off. She had a mystery on her hand.
Within days it turned into a stakeout. Amanda laughed at herself as she glanced at the coffee cup she brought. "World's best mom." There were no behavioral patterns she could recognize in any of the men coming in and out of the house, except for that they were all men. They all dressed blue collar, and most carried bags or backpacks with them. On the older side, but there was a few decades' age difference between them. How strange. She kept this up for a few days.
Later at dinner, Amanda nearly swallowed her fork.
Her husband brought up the house on Chestnut street and it caught her completely off guard. She felt guilty even though nothing happened. Was he spying on her? How did he know she went there? Her mind was racing and inventing excuses when finally he explained. They got a warning on their identity protection service about a new offender having moved in the neighborhood. Apparently those types were particularly prone to stealing identities for obvious reasons, her husband explained.
It was a halfway house.
Next day, on the way to grocery shopping, she deliberately took a different way. The mystery was solved. Walking through the store isles she saw a woman buy a pack of knee highs, so she grabbed one herself. Who wears knee highs but grandmas? The woman got a Pyrex dish, but Amanda passed. She then got a whole frozen chicken and filled rest of her cart with carrots and cucumbers. Amanda grabbed those too. What could she cook with them, she wondered, and decided she'd figure it out tonight. She was back on her exploration track.
The halfway house. It came to her mind unbidden. So that's what it was, and it was filled with unsavory characters, and the latest one more unsavory than the others.
Funny, none of those faces she saw looked particularly malicious. Suppose that's something you just couldn't see. Or could you? Could she see evil on a person's face? As she went to check out, she wondered what in god's name would she do with knee highs? Amanda didn't wear them, she wore socks and sneakers to the gym and never hosiery. That part of her exploration adventure could be undone, so she went to put it back. Right next to the package, she saw a pack that froze her glance.
Giant sold thigh highs? Weren't those for whores? She certainly wasn't a grandma. The cashier rang them up for $7.99.
Amanda started the minivan and cranked the A/C to the max. And then she felt something. The first something in a long while. Sure, it wasn't exactly the same product she saw the other woman buy, but, it was close. But she felt a desire to put them on. And with that, she felt a twinge of excitement, a throb, an ache. Thigh highs were sexy, weren't they, and she never wore them. She wasn't a whore. If the other woman had bought them, would that make her a whore?
How would it feel to put them on? Can wearing a costume change who you were? What would wearing thigh highs do to her?
After looking around to make sure she wasn't watched, she kicked off her flats and hiked up her skirt and found out. They were tight. And plain looking. They were dark coffee or chocolate colored, and she could feel the elastic bands strangling her legs as she wore them. It was bizarre, and more bizarre that she liked the feeling. It was something new to her, and so she ran her hands all around and over and between her thighs. God, it made her wet, she realized. She removed her underwear and threw it on the passenger side floorboard and then touched herself.
As she wore them, the thigh highs made her feel the hole they left uncovered, the entire big area between and around her legs. No protection. Nothing there, like as if by design. What did it mean? It was strangely exhilarating.
Amanda couldn't masturbate in the parking lot, so she headed back home. But within a few turns, she had a horrible thought. Why didn't she drive by Chestnut street, just to see if anything looked different, she rationalized to herself. But that's not why she thought about it. She changed her mind, no, why in god's name would she go there, now knowing what that place was? Then her right hand wandered under her skirt and she touched herself as she made a U-turn. Dear god, she was dressed like a whore and wanted to see a pervert, an honest to god pervert. It was like some kind of a demented suburban safari.
She had no idea why she was doing it, but, maybe it excited her to watch dregs of society now that she knew who they were. She parked a few doors down and realized her hand was still twitching under her skirt. No one could see it, so she kept it there.
A man walked out of the house and she wondered, was he the one identity monitoring alerted her husband about? Could you tell by looking? No. Within a few minutes another guy walked out. Was he the pervert? She'd have to ask her husband about the mugshot later. Next guy didn't look like a creep either, and she realized couple of them were handsome. Jesus, that was so low, so unlike her. You can't call terrible people handsome, she balked at herself.
She screamed.
Someone knocked on her passenger window and startled her, her hand flying out of her skirt making it look very obvious it wasn't supposed to be there. Her heart rate hit the ceiling and she put her hand protectively over her chest. She finally got her wits about her and realized a man on the sidewalk had stopped by and knocked. She rolled the window down.
"Are you spying on me?" he asked.
Jesus, she was busted. Amanda's heart raced, and first thing she thought of was two, maybe three lies to get her out of this situation.
"No, who are you?" she replied, her voice cracking.
He looked around and challenged her. "You've been parking here every few days, watching me. Why are you watching me?"
If she could see herself, she'd see her face flush. "No, I'm sorry, I was just looking at the house for sale. Been thinking about buying it."
He looked around again and called her bullshit. "What house? There's nothing for sale here lady."
Amanda double-downed on her previous lie, "Sure there is, it's listed on Zillow."
"On the what?" he wondered. He looked to be about 50, and fit. Maybe he didn't use the internet.
"Zillow, " she replied, "you know, they have house listings like Redfin."
He shook his head. "There's no houses for sale here lady. Why are you watching me?"
She feigned injury, "Not that it's any of your business, but I assure you there's a house listed and I want it. Or at least I did until I found out neighbors were rude."
He chuckled and looked around again. "Heh, fine. Alright, you've convinced me."
"I don't see why you need convincing, I'm minding my own business and you should too," she replied. That was the ticket, keep the upper moral hand, she thought to herself.
"My apologies. You know, it's a great neighborhood. How about if you give me a lift to Ellicott City and I could tell you lots about it."
She felt a mild panic being asked for that. "I don't know..." she started replying.
"Look, if you really want the house, you should know some of its history, " he argued.
If she was going to stick to her lie, that made sense. But she wasn't that attached to it. "Well I'm not going that way," she replied, best she could think of.
"You could. Not like you were going anywhere, being parked here this long. Are you in a hurry somewhere?" he asked.
Amanda hesitated and then told the truth, "No." She was a really bad liar. She should've just rolled up the window and driven off.
"Well, that's great. You won't mind, will you? At my age it's a long walk."
She agreed with him, and then with her inner voice screaming at her, she unlocked the minivan. He opened the door and sat down, and just then she realized her panties were on the floorboard. He closed the door and then didn't buckle himself in. She pointed that out but he just shrugged it away. Fine, so be it. He didn't have to be safe. She put the minivan in gear and drove off.
She asked, "Where in Ellicott City are you going?"
"I'll just show you where to turn, be easier that way," he replied.
Jesus, this was getting out of hand. She quietly drove toward that way and thought. It was going to be a thirty minute drive if she stuck to the back streets, or half that if she took the highway. Highway it was. Picking a route gave her time to think. What the hell was she doing? He was one of the perverts from the halfway house, she was sure of it, and he pressed her into giving him a lift. Wait, her half-baked lie aside, how did he know she was watching the house? His face looked familiar, but obviously she wasn't spying on him, or at him in particular. Or him alone, anyway. She cringed as she realized he noticed her over the past week. Her skin crawled.
Right after the on-ramp, she screamed when she felt his hand land on her knee, and jerked the steering wheel to the side. She gripped it hard in panic and over-corrected to avoid sideswiping a car, and then got back in her lane.
"What are you doing?!" she screamed at him.
"You liar, you have been watching me for weeks," he replied huskily.
Her knuckles white and still too frazzled to let go of the steering wheel in the scary aftermath of a near-collision she demanded, "Get your hand off!"
Instead, his hand went further up and under her skirt, brushing the edge of her thigh high, then stroking the elastic band. Concentrated on the pedals and distracted by the road, she didn't try to kick his hand off. She didn't dare. She glanced at him for a split second and realized to her horror that he was holding her underwear in his other hand. Highway was bent in a steep curve and she had to go back to paying attention to the road for the next few hundred feet. He took his hand off, and she felt safer for the moment. But then she realized he was lifting the center console up and creeping closer to her.
Alarmed, she told him, "Get back to your seat." It was almost a stifled yell.
In response, he put her panties to his nose and took a good whiff.
