'Just one more time.'
The house was still completely unlit, and its mailbox was still filled beyond the rim.
'Just one last time, then never again.'
He wasn't planning to take much. Just the light stuff. Laptops, cameras, cell-phones, iPods. Stuff like that. Just enough to cover the hole in his budget. Or at least almost cover it. Just enough to pay last month's rent. Ok, maybe enough to pay this month's rent too.
'Never mind. I'll just take what I can get. These people always have insurance. It won't cost them a dime.'
It was a low risk endeavour. Whoever lived in the house was obviously on vacation. And the house was sufficiently ordinary not to warrant camera surveillance. Yet he took no chances. Just before slipping into the backyard, he pulled a balaclava over his head. It was the simplest and most innocent mask for anyone to own. His brother used one under his helmet when riding his motorcycle.
His brother.
'If only he had agreed to lend me those 500 dollars I wouldn't have to do this.'
His jaws tightened. His brother, Mr. Prim and Proper, Mr. Bloody Perfect. He could easily have afforded it. Easily.
His brother had never strayed to the wrong side of the law. Had never had trouble finding a good job.
'Fuck it. He has never even been to a good party.'
'Never mind. After this I'll stay on the right side of the law too. I'll watch my budget and I'll kiss my parole officer's ass every time I see him, till he helps me get a better job. One that can pay for more than toilet-paper, rent, and food.'
He easily got in. He didn't even have to break a window, the lock on the backdoor was just that weak. He hadn't brought a flashlight. Nothing encouraged anonymous 'breaking and entering' calls to the police as much as a chaotically moving ray of light in a dark house.
He simply turned on the lights and closed the curtains of every room he entered.
If the house-owner had asked neighbours to keep an eye out, such neighbours would be likely to investigate matters by knocking on the door, giving him a chance to flee.
'Just the light stuff.'
Half a carton of cigarettes on the kitchen table was the first item to go in his bag. From the living room: a laptop. It looked expensive. In another room: a second laptop and a camera.
'God bless modern science.'
His bag had room for more.
The bedroom had a nice king size bed, if only he could have carried it. His own bed was an old mattress. It didn't impress the ladies much
He went to the night-stand and opened the drawer, hoping for jewellery. That was not what he found.
'Somebody knows how to party.'
He grinned to himself.
The drawer was full of sex toys. Bondage tools and dildos. He closed the drawer again. There wasn't much of a market for used dildos.
There was a cupboard at the far side of the room. He went to it and was just about to pull out the top drawer when he heard something behind him.
Startled witless he spun.
A woman was in the doorway blocking his only exit. For a split second he was frozen in spot. His mind preparing his body to charge at the woman, push her aside, and run.
In that split-second, the woman took off her robe.
His mind somersaulted backwards into a sense of unreality and, instead of charging for freedom, he remained frozen in spot staring at the most pacifying view known to man.
Boobs. Naked, round, soft, inviting, boobs.
'I've died and woken up in a porn with a plot.'
He blinked. The boobs was still there. Moving softly while the woman folded her robe in front of her.
Completely ignoring him, the woman turned her side to him, took a step forward, and nearly tripped over a towel on the floor.
Her surprised shriek startled him beyond measure. Without thinking he jumped back a step and his back collided with the cupboard behind him.
"Shit," yelled the woman. "Fuck. Shit. Crap." While swearing, she slowly kneeled, one hand holding on to her folded robe, the other hand searching blindly for the towel.
'Blindly.'
With his back still pressed against the cupboard, his eyes moved to the woman's face.
Her eyes were covered with skin-coloured round band-aids.
'She can't see through those. She hasn't seen me.'
Hysterical laughter was building in his stomach.
'She doesn't know I'm here.'
He raised a hand to his mouth. Stopping the laughter from coming out.
'I have to get out of here.'
Looking very annoyed, the woman picked up the towel. Then, very slowly, took two more steps forward and placed both towel and robe on a chair.
'I'm a peeping Tom.'
Terror was still swirling in his stomach yet his eyes were plastered to the woman's rounded butt while she blindly arranged robe and towel on the chair.
'This is so wrong in so many ways.'
Though there wasn't really room for guilt in his guts just then. Not while still holding a hand over mouth and nose to keep in hysterical unmanly giggles.
'I have to breathe. Eventually I'll have to breathe and then she'll hear me.'
The held-in laughing fit subsided at that thought.
'She'll be terrified when she hears me.'
He'd hurt a girl once. But that was different. He had been drunk and on drugs. All sorts of shit. He wouldn't have done it sober. He sure as hell wouldn't do it now.
The woman straightened, turned, and with one hand on the wall walked back to the bedroom door. She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door shut. The door complained loudly every inch of the way.
'Of course the door has to be creaky.'
He couldn't possibly sneak out that door without alerting her.
As he lowered his hand from his face, he realised he was breathing again. The sound of his breathing had been masked by the door's whining, but now it sounded like thunder in his throat.
'How can she not hear it?'
He made an effort to breathe soundlessly, but it still sounded like heavy wind. Any moment now she would freeze in spot and listen. Alert and afraid. Any moment now.
He steeled himself for that moment, ready to charge out the door and run. He'd be far gone before she even made it to her phone.
The woman had moved on, along the wall, and had reached her night-stand. She felt her way with her hands, and with a sigh seated on the bed.
She craned her neck back, as if staring at the ceiling through the band-aids, and exhaled a long slow ah. Then let her upper body fall backwards onto the bed.
She no longer looked the least bit annoyed as she nestled her shoulders into the soft covering on the bed. It looked like she was whispering something to herself. But she made no sound.
'Peeping Tom it is,'
he decided and took in this new and improved view of her body.
'What I wouldn't give to suck that nipple.'
He'd like to open his mouth wide and find out how much of a breast he could suck in.
He remained absolutely still.
'She is obviously preparing to go to bed. If I can remain quiet till she falls asleep, maybe I can sneak out without startling her.'
'He liked that thought. He wasn't a monster. He didn't harm people, especially not women. That one time, it didn't count. He hadn't been himself. His lawyer hadn't been shitting when listing all the chemicals the blood test had revealed. He still couldn't remember half of what he had taken that night. It had been one crazy party.
The woman was smiling softly to herself. One of her hands carelessly moved to her left breast, as if a woman fondling her own tits was the most natural thing in the world.
He took in a sharp breath, and stopped breathing out of fear she had heard it.
The woman's fingers toyed with her nipple.
His knees felt weak. and his balls were pounding.
'Breathe. You have to breathe.'
Quietly and slowly he inhaled.
The woman's hand moved to her other nipple.
He slowly exhaled. His eyes never leaving those fingers as they gently circled the nipple, just to change direction and move down her stomach.
'Oh sweet Lord. Thank you. Thank you.'
He kept his breathing slow and soundless. Trailing the movement of her hand. Further and further down it went, as if a woman touching herself was the most natural thing in the world.
'It
is
the most natural thing in the world. and now I get to see it. Thank you.'
The hand had arrived. The woman's finger instantly found that spot. The spot on a lady that usually took him hard work to find.
Then she just stopped. Just like that. She pulled her hand away and sat up.
'No. Don't stop. Keep going.'
He clenched his fists with frustration. His fear and anxiety long forgotten.
The woman opened her night-stand drawer.
'Dildo-play? Oh yes, yes. Thank you. Sweet heaven, thank you.'
He'd send her flowers. Flowers and chocolate, and she'd never have to know what he'd seen. Just, a secret admirer.
The woman took something from the drawer.
'That's not a dildo.'
A second he was just disappointed. Then, as the woman, edged to the foot end of the bed, he was puzzled.
'What is she doing?'
He frowned under his mask. The woman attached the 'thing' to the foot-end bedpost on 'her' side of the bed. Once it was attached, she carefully stretched out the chain part and put the thing on the bed.
It was a bondage toy. A cuff, with a chain attached. His puzzlement increased as the woman, took another cuff from the drawer, felt her way across the bed, and attached it to the foot-end bedpost on 'his' side of the bed.
'Is she preparing for company? Is someone on his way here?'
Nervously he glanced at the door. Half expecting a husband or lover to pull the door open.
The woman attached a 'cuff on a chain' to a head-end bedpost on 'his' side of the bed too. Lastly, before closing the night-stand drawer, she took out a small dildo. No larger than a finger.
'No, not a dildo, that thing is just a vibrating massager.'
The woman laid herself down in the middle of the king size bed. Then reached out an arm and put the vibrator down close to the only of the four bedposts that she hadn't attached a cuff to.
He ought to run, ought to get the heck out of there before her lover should arrive. But, he couldn't make himself leave just yet.
'What I wouldn't give for a woman who would chain herself up to surprise me.'
He was jealous, envied this man whom he imagined the woman was preparing for.
His eyes returned to the woman. She was tightening one of the cuffs around one of her ankles.
'I'll just stay a little longer.'
The woman fumbled a bit, feeling her way around the bed, but still didn't take all that long to get both of her ankles, and one of her wrists in cuffs.
His cock was throbbing. It would be so easy. So very easy. He closed his eyes.
'I wouldn't do that.'
The thought was alluring but.
'I'd never do that.'
He opened his eyes.
'Would I?'
