-Thanks to AMY_Monaco for help with editing. If it looks good, the credit goes to her; if not, blame me. Simple.
-A man looking for a new life gets more than he expected when he unwittingly moves into a magical community.
*
So far the beautiful early summer day had been going perfectly as Jack Gardner moved his stuff out of his car and into his new apartment. The sun was shining and everything was going much more smoothly than he had ever expected. He had no way of knowing that before lunch his day would end abruptly with him lying on his concrete landing, broken, unconscious and bleeding to death.
There
, thought Jack as he dropped the last box of his worldly possessions onto the small stack that he had made in the corner of his tiny room.
That's the last of it
. Looking around himself at the meager apartment he had just moved into, he had to cringe a little. It was definitely a step down for him, but what the hell, he was starting over from scratch. It's what he had wanted.
When it had come time for him to leave the army he had packed his car with his clothes, some of the memento's he had collected over the years and a few of the basics that he could fit; donated the rest to the Good Will and drove away. It wasn't hard, the constant moves and repeated deployments to far off places he had gone through. His six years in the Army had quickly taught him the value of never growing too attached to things. Besides, his ex-wife Kelly had taken most of the furniture and anything else of value that they had collected during their short marriage when she left.
Wiping the sweat off of his forehead, he grabbed a coffee cup out of one of the boxes he had already opened and walked to the sink. Thanks to daily exercise, compliments of Uncle Sam, Jack was in pretty good shape. He'd never be Mr. Universe, not by a long shot, but he prided himself in the fact that the multiple trips carrying his stuff up from the car hadn't even begun to wind him. But, this was the middle of June in Georgia; and though it was still a little early in the morning the heat and the humidity were starting to spike. He rinsed out the cup, filled it up with cold water and took a drink.
Grimacing, he dumped it down the drain and headed back outside. Jack could never get used to the taste of the water whenever he got to a new place. Not that it was bad, but it never tasted as good as he remembered it when he was growing up in Colorado. It probably had never tasted that good, but memories were funny like that. Having spotted a Coke machine at the bottom of the stairs when he had come in, he decided he would prefer that.
Stepping out onto the landing, he shut the door behind him and was headed for the stairs when the sound of voices from the doorway across from his brought him to a stop. The door was cracked open and Jack could hear the sound of a man and a woman arguing heatedly. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but she sounded pretty upset, and he sounded pissed. He found himself leaning in closer to the crack in the doorway, listening hard.
Jack considered himself a pretty good guy, and he had always tried to be honest, especially with himself. So he could admit that he had a bit of a voyeuristic side to him. One of the guilty pleasures of living in apartments was that you got to know your neighbors very well, most of the time without them ever even knowing it. In fact, in some of the places he had lived while in the army, he had learned everything from what peoples favorite TV shows were to which couples were having marital problems, to which wives were cheating on their husbands -- and vica versa. He had once even been shocked to overhear the extremely vocal bondage fantasies of the middle-aged Christian couple next door. He had only met them once when they had stopped by his apartment shortly after he had moved in to inquire whether he had found Jesus yet and if he would come to church with them.
But in this instance it wasn't really like that. Something about the sound of the guy's voice put Jack on edge. No matter how close he got though, he still couldn't hear what was being said. If their apartment was anything like his it had a bedroom off of the main living room/ kitchen, so they were probably in the bedroom. Either that or they were just talking too quietly for him to hear.
As he listened though, he could hear them steadily getting louder and he realized with a start that they were coming closer and here he was standing out in the open, leaning towards their door listening. He quickly turned away and started heading down the stairs. The voyeuristic thing was fun, but not if you actually got caught.
Besides
, he told himself,
you should really learn to just mind your own business.
Even if there was a problem, neither of them would appreciate him jumping in. Best case scenario they would both just tell him to fuck off and go right back at it. Worse case, well, he really couldn't afford to be evicted on the first day for fighting. He had spent most of his savings getting into this place and buying the cheap furniture that would be delivered tomorrow, and the rest would have to hold him out until his college money started coming in from the army, or he got a job, which ever came first. So he really couldn't afford a whole new set of deposits.
Jack was so caught up in his own thoughts as he rounded the last set of stairs toward the vending machine that he almost ran strait into the girl who was on her knees in front of it with her hand stuck up the opening, trying to get out a free drink.
Stopping just in time, all thoughts of the couple upstairs fled his mind. He couldn't help but stare down at her, a little grin forming on his face. Her bare legs were perfectly toned and had that sort of sensual glow
that only comes naturally, not from time spent out in the sun, even the fake kind you get from a tanning booth. They ran all the way up under a tight blue set of volleyball shorts that barely covered her taut, perfectly formed butt. The loose fitting white t-shirt she had on had slipped forward as she arched her back to get a better angle and from his vantage point he could see right up under it. She obviously wasn't wearing a bra. The smooth underside of her breasts peeked out at him when she twisted her arm around and he instantly felt his cock come to life in his jeans.
With her face turned toward the machine, and her medium length black hair falling down around her face, she obviously hadn't heard or seen him come up behind her so he decided to keep still and enjoy the view. It was just the polite thing to do, he wouldn't want to startle her. Heck, with her arm twisted up like that she might hurt herself.
He chuckled silently to himself.
Right, sure that's why...pervert.
As he watched her strain, he couldn't help but wonder if she had any underwear underneath those shorts. Definitely not granny-panties, that was for sure. He could just make out the faint outline of her soft pussy lips through the tight fabric of the shorts and he was suddenly glad that he had chosen to wear a pair of loose fitting jeans, instead of the old pair of gym shorts that he had planned on wearing during the move, because he realized with a start that he was rock hard.
With a pop, Jack was brought out of his dazed contemplation of her as she proceeded to pull out the drink she had been after.
"Yes!" she exclaimed as she turned around, a look of mischievous triumph on her face, which immediately turned to horror as her eyes fell on him.
"I…" Her eyes widened and she froze like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
Jack froze too, but for a different reason. As hot as her body had been, he was not prepared for her face. It was all that he could do to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. He was simply awestruck at how amazingly beautiful she was.
Jack met beautiful people every day. Those are the girls that he saw when he was driving down town and to actually stop and do a double take. But this was different; it is rare when you actually see someone who is truly movie star beautiful. You know, drop dead gorgeous perfect, and without all the make-up artists and air-brushes that help out the Hollywood types.
She recovered faster than he did, the mischievous glint coming back into her eyes and the corners of her mouth twitching up as she recognized the state he was in at the sight of her.
"And just what do you think you are doing, sneaking up on a girl like that?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and glowering up at him from where she was still perched on her knees, clutching her pilfered bottle of Coke.
"Well, I…" he started.
"Hmm. You wouldn't have been trying to ogle my back-side while I wasn't lookin', would you?" she asked in a teasing voice as her eyes traveled down his body to growing bulge between his legs.
