“Thank you,” she said. “Yeah, though it wasn’t a big surprise, not like the loss of your parents, I knew this was coming for quite some time now, so I had a little while to get used to the idea, unlike yourself. How are you holding up anyway?”
I was actually doing pretty well, and told her so. I still had a lot of decisions to make, like what I was going to do with the house, live in it myself, or sell it and find another less expensive place to live in. There was still a lot of paperwork to sift through as well, so it wasn’t all going to happen overnight either.
I had a lot of work ahead of me, but at least I wasn’t in any real rush to get there. But I wasn’t in any rush to leave anytime soon either. Sitting there, I had flashbacks to the days where I used to stand there trying to peek down her blouse, only now, sitting across from her the way I was, I was peeking at something else entirely. A new scene suddenly comes to mind, one of Sharon Stone sitting in the police station for one.
“Listen, I know I caught you at a bad time,” I told her intending to leave. “We can always catch up again later.”
She smiled at that, once again swinging her legs out from beneath her back to the floor, giving me the brief paused peek between her legs that Sharon had so mischievously given Michael Douglas.
“I’d like that…a lot. Perhaps you might feel like coming over for dinner later or something so we can really catch up on one another’s lives?” she asked.
“I’d like that, but you just got home yourself, the last thing you want to do is worry about fixing dinner. How about we go out?”
The moment I said that however, I realized I didn’t have a car. It was the number one item on my “things to do list”, which I hadn’t really had the time to look into yet. With mom and dad’s car being totaled in the accident, I was currently without any wheels.
I chuckled nervously, realizing my stupidity, adding. “Ok if we take your car though? I’m currently without any wheels.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “As long as you don’t mind driving with the top down,” she told me. Something’s wrong with my being able to put it up again, and I haven’t had the time nor the inclination to have it looked at yet.”
It was a classy little car, an older model Camaro, that wasn’t perhaps in the best shape, but it still looked cool, and the only car she’d ever had as far as I knew. I even told her I’d look at it myself as soon as I had time, but in the meantime, driving with the top down was just fine with me.
“Do you like Italian?” she asked.
I did, it was one of my favorite foods.
“Good, there’s a nice little Italian restaurant just up the canyon. It’s been years since I was there last, and I’ve always wanted to go there again. Do you mind driving up there to eat?” She asked.
I knew where it was, though I’d honestly never eaten there myself. “It’s a date, pick you up around eight? Eight thirty?” I asked. “Do we need to call and make reservations?”
“A date huh?” she smiled winking at me. “What will the neighbors think?
“Fuck the neighbors!” I said without even realizing I’d just used the “F” word. Blame that on my recent stint in the Army where for most of the guys I’d been in the service with, the word fuck was used about every third word.
She laughed upon hearing me say that, now standing, though trying very hard to keep the towel from tumbling away from herself. It had in fact parted behind her, one hand now holding it against her large breasts, the other somehow reaching around behind in an effort to keep it closed.
I guess my confused expression told her I’d missed whatever joke I’d just made.
Once upon a time, I think your parents along with a lot of other folks around here thought I was doing just that…fucking the neighbors!” She said, now alerting me to what I’d just said, still laughing about it, though I now joined her, somewhat sheepishly in doing so.
“Well, not me…I never did,” I told her.
“No…you were always too busy peering down my blouse to think about things like that,” she now added.
Once again, my expression said it all, my face suddenly growing beet red.
“You ah…you ah knew that huh?”
Once again she burst out laughing. “Oh yeah, I did, and maybe I shouldn’t say this, but whenever you did, there was a fairly noticeable indication that you were that you quite often didn’t do well at concealing, so then I knew for sure you had been.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, apologizing for my teenage hormones.
“Oh don’t be. To be honest, I found it very flattering, and had you been older, and had I not been so worried about NOT fucking the neighbors, I might have even considered it.”
Once again we both laughed, reminding one another about the time for our “date”, and then I turned finally prepared to leave. She didn’t follow me back to the door, now standing at the foot of the stairs instead.
“See you in a few hours then,” I started reaching for the door, opening it and then turning. I watched as she just then removed her towel completely, throwing it over her shoulder as she slowly began ascending the stairs. She looked back sort of sideways towards me, smiling even broader now than she had.
“Make it nine,” she told me. “I want to make myself look pretty…for our date.”
After I had actually stepped outside closing the door, I’d come up with the line, “You couldn’t look any prettier than you do now,” But by then of course, it was too late, and I’d stepped outside, nearly tripping over my tongue as it was. I in fact missed the first step, nearly falling on my face. It would have been ironic for me to have broken my arm, or leg or something, and spend the night in a hospital, as opposed to sitting with June inside some cozy, darkened little Italian restaurant. Still…I wish I’d said something as opposed to just stepping out and closing the door after she’d said that.
I then ran across the yard back to my own place, careful so as not to trip over anything and still break my leg after all that. Luckily, the gods and fate were with me, as I made it inside safely enough, but the “woody” I was now sporting, would have to be dealt with, long before dinner, or I’d be just like that teenage kid all over again, standing in her garden.
It was way early, barely past five o’clock as I stepped into the shower readying myself for our friendly, neighborly date. With plenty of time on my hands, amongst other things, I actually lay down in the tub, letting the warm shower caress me, much like her hands might as I allowed myself to slip off into fantasyland.
The difference now being…I had something substantially more to feed those fantasies and thoughts than I’d ever had. I had actually…finally, for the first time ever, seen her boobs. And not only that, I’d seen a lot of other things too, and they all added up in my book, as someone totally different from the Maybelline I once knew as a kid.
Times had indeed changed. She probably still wore a lot more makeup that most other women her age did, but it looked good on her, at least in my own opinion. Her hair was still dark too, or reasonably so anyway, though she had changed her hairstyle, letting it fall free just past her shoulders. I had noticed a few wisps of gray peeking out here and there as she sat there talking to me in addition to that.