August, 2007
At the age of 58 years old, more than half of it spent in a miserable excuse for a marriage, I walked away and never looked back. I make no excuses for my behavior, other than to say I have no idea what took me so long. None of my family or friends could believe I had managed to stay with that miserable excuse for a human being for nearly 35 years and still remained sane. Quite simply, I was committed to my only daughter and had vowed to do my damnedest to make sure she didn't end up like her mother. I wanted her, my daughter, to know she had a choice. She didn't need to turn out like my wife. But there were other forces at work apparently, beyond my influence and I died a little more each day as my daughter slowly, but surely, became my wife. My wife's behavior was a matter of choice and I had wanted to make sure my daughter knew there were alternatives. But to no avail.
The day my daughter left for University, I packed my bags, loaded up the car and drove away. I had paid for the first year of her schooling in advance, convinced there would be no need to pay for a second year. As with my wife and me, my beautiful daughter would find 'her man' in her first year, seduce and convince the sucker to get married, immediately if not sooner. She would drop out to raise the 1.2 kids of the average American family. A fucking disaster in the making, and I had decided that I was just going to let it to happen. What the fuck did I care, anyway? I wasn't planning to be there for the consequences.
There was a lot of yelling — and stuff — the day I left. The bitch was actually surprised I was leaving! I won't go into all the gory details of my departure, but if you happened to live in any of the neighboring states or provinces, you probably heard about it. It really wasn't as devastating as she made it out to be, and believe me, she talked and cried to anyone who would listen. Especially the battered women's advocates, until they finally figured out I had never abused her in any way. She did make the local evening news, as if she expected fucking public opinion to sway me. She was a bitch, pure and simple. Her actions only proved that. If I was a bastard for leaving her, shoot me. I had provided her an absolutely free living for 35 years and I was done. She only had sex with me, well, we hadn't 'cohabitated' for almost 19 years. I think the last time we fucked, we conceived my daughter. I don't know that we had ever made love. Just fucked.
Yeah, so I'm wimp. I was screwed up by my upbringing that taught me that a woman — any woman — was to be respected and honored. Cherished. I wish my church had taught me to just fuck the living daylights out of them, to teach me that they only deserved to be respected and honored and cherished when they earned it. The same as a man. Equality, my ass! They want all the benefits but don't want the ulcers, the heart attacks, the long hours and the shit-for-brains bosses. But I wasn't brought up to disrespect them that way and it took a lot of pain and agony for me to re-learn those lessons.
Kids today have it easier in some ways. They don't have all that religious baggage to bring into a relationship. They've got other problems, like learning to speak English good and adding two numbers to get the same answer twice, but that's the fucking school system. Shit, there was a report in the news recently that 30% of Washington, DC is illiterate, and I would swear most of that is on Capital Hill.
I had had a lawyer draw up papers giving the alleged woman I left behind complete ownership of the house, the other two cars, everything, and I had filed for a legal separation. If she wanted to file for a divorce, that was fine with me. For all appearances, the only thing of our bliss-less lives left to split were some anemic 401(k) retirement accounts that I had carefully nurtured to their near catatonic state. They were window dressing and worth little to me. She could have them, I just wanted to give her something to 'take' from me, one last time and be done with it. To all appearances and for all intents and purposes, I had put my entire soul and existence into my family and their welfare. I had gotten a mountain of shit for it. And I let her, and anyone listening that fateful day, know that. In fact, that whole last week, after it appeared as if I had finally had enough, I did a lot of yelling. And throwing things. God, that was fun!
You see, I had hidden away a lot of other assets. My departure was not a 'spur of the moment' idea, to bail out suddenly. This was a carefully planned and precisely calculated theater production. I had realized my predicament several years, about 10 years, earlier. I was unhappy and it wasn't going to improve. I tried to get her to counseling. I worked to find things in common with her, things that would interest both long after the daughter was gone. For twenty some-odd years I tried. Hell, I even tried to make love to her. OK, fuck her. But she was done with that. She actually flinched when I tried to touch her on her shoulder or arm. I really disgusted her.
I think that was the last straw, when I began to realize the relationship was a losing proposition. She had had a bad day. I just wanted to comfort her and I tried to give her a little hug. It was definitely not sexual, believe me, I was just trying to support her emotionally. Fucking load of crap that is, that "sensitivity" shit.
Anyway, the amount of cash I had been able to squirrel away was substantial. Hell, it was better than substantial. I had been planning my escape for nearly a decade, and I had made it appeared as if all the money had been frittered away on frivolous, but believable expenditures. I made it look as if I had visited a lot of hookers. Of course, I had to do some actual research on that topic and lay a trail, to make it look authentic. But for all the money, I must have been a really horny bastard there for several years.
In addition, when I wasn't not whoring around, I must have started betting heavily on the ponies during my middle-aged crisis. Being meticulous, of course, I kept records. Damn it all if I didn't leave them in my desk, too! Oh my God, what would she think when she found those records. And all the receipts for lavish jewelry and gifts (all quietly returned, of course)! And a journal of my exploits. I was pretty proud of that piece of fiction, if I do say so myself! Despicable, depraved and degenerate. I hit the Trifecta at around 50 years old and went downhill from there.
All told, I had over $3 million squirreled away in various small out of the way banks in safety deposit boxes — all under fictitious names, of course. It was all in cash and her lawyer could look all he wanted to. It wouldn't be found. And I didn't intend to be found, either.
I loaded my shit that wouldn't fit into my car in a small U-Haul pull behind trailer and headed in a generally southern direction. I had to meander around for a few weeks, visiting all of my friendly banks and retrieving my money. No sense leaving it behind as I had no intention of ever returning. I wasn't really sure what my intentions were at that point, if I had to be honest, but I knew for sure as fuck I wasn't going to come back here to these parts without being in chains or dead.
The trailer I had rented was the smallest one U-Haul carries and it was still more than half empty. I had taken my computer, my clothes and the one fraternity photo my my ex-wife had not managed to throw out, even after all of these years. Not that the picture meant anything to me after all of this time. I didn't even remember the other guys in the photo and they meant nothing to me. But the memory of the photo did. It was taken at a time before I met my wife. The peacefulness of that photo represented meant a Hell of a lot to me and over time that memory had become my goal.
I realize a couple of boxes in a tiny trailer were not much to show for 35 years of hard labor, but at last I was free. FREE! For the first time since I gotten out from under my Mom and Dad's roof, I was free and on my own. I didn't have to answer to anyone. Not my boss, not my wife, not my daughter. No bills, no subscriptions, no fucking cat or even a goldfish. I was free.
After I had cleaned out the bank boxes and had the cash safely stashed in the trailer, I just drove. I wasn't headed anywhere specific but I knew that wherever it was that I was headed, it was going to be warm. I meandered generally south along the interstates for several days, stopping where it pleased me, eating what I wanted and listening to my music on the CD player. My music, not hers. Not my wife's or my daughter's. My music. God, that felt good!
My musical tastes are simple and run from Bach to Garth Brooks, a cappella to ABBA. One of the things I had learned early on living with my wife and daughter was that if I liked it, they would hate it. That limited their music selections to pretty much anyone named Britney, Mandy and whoever else could chew bubblegum and hold a microphone at the same time. Or could paint their entire bodies with blue paint. But now it was just me and my music and the road. It was wonderful.
I had never been to the Florida Keys — too many bugs for my wife to even consider for a vacation destination —and I kind of had a vague sense in the back of my mind that I wanted to see them. I had this intriguing mental picture of me sitting on the beach under a swaying palm tree, typing on a laptop I had yet to acquire and pretending I was a modern-day Hemingway. OK, it was a fantasy, but at least in my fantasies I could pretend to be able to write.
Actually, I really did want to write. I had had several ideas — storylines, I guess — that had struck me over the past 35 years. No, not all of them were about a husband murdering his bitching wife. Some of them were actually quite complex and intriguing, but they were going to take some time to work out the details of the plots and actually put the words on the page.
I knew I wanted to have peace and quiet, too. I knew it had to be warm and not heavily populated. I knew it was going to be on the East Coast or the Deep South, places with which I had a slight familiarity. So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I pulled up outside of a moderate apartment complex between La Jolla and San Diego and knew I was home. I was going to be a fucking Californian. Imagine.
All of my life since the time I had graduated from college with a Masters of Science in Chemistry, I had been a professional in the health care industry, slaving away to finally attain a VP-level position in a multi-billion dollar corporation. Eventually I was earning more than a decent living for my family. I had to have been making a fucking bundle, as the money I had hidden away had caused them no hardship whatsoever, either before I had 'abandoned' them or after.
I had been very successful for my company and could have gotten back into the industry by just letting a few 'friends' know I was in the wind. But I didn't do that for two reasons. First, if I had started to make any money at all, my ex-wife's lawyer would have garnisheed my wages. Fuck that shit. Let her go to work for fucking once. Of course, they would have had to find me first.
Second was that, while I was very good at what I had done for 30-some odd years, I had had enough of the politics and back-stabbing and had no intention of going back into the management rat race. But with my years of experience and with my particular skill set, several local healthcare companies jumped at the opportunity to let me work as a worker-bee. On a contract '1099' basis. One of the companies was so desperate to have me, they offered to pay cash under the table. I was tempted, but that kind of thing tends to blow up sooner or later, and I just wanted to stay hidden. I was 3000 miles from my old home and unless I got really sloppy, there was no way they were going to find me.
Did I mention I had carefully and painstakingly created several new identities over the past several years? Or that I had crashed and burned the car and trailer on a tragic curve in the Blue Ridge Mountains? I had quietly tried to get a cadaver from an acquaintance of mine, but at the last minute the little shit got cold feet. Figures. I could have burned the body beyond recognition and then completely disappeared from the radar screen. As it was, I was so mad at the guy I thought about using the little shit as a substitute, but he was nothing like my body type. Lucky fucker.
Anyway, I figured my ex would keep after me, so I did my best to erase all my tracks. That's why I used an alias to work under. And that was probably why I headed and ended up in the Golden West. She knew I hated — detested! — California, the "land of fruits and nuts." And high taxes and the new liberal left. But here I was, and it felt like home.
In a very short time after I arrived, I had a new apartment with an ocean view, well, kind of, a fairly well paying job that didn't overly tax my time and, most importantly, peace and fucking quiet. I sat for days in the dowdily furnished apartment and just listened to the silence. It's amazing how refreshing that can be. No nagging, no 'dainty' snoring, no feminine farts. I could leave the toilet seat up. You would be surprised how hard that was to do at first. I would catch myself even weeks later thinking I had to put the fucking thing down. How in Hell had she convinced me that putting the toilet seat down was so imperative to my well-being in the first place? God knows, she was not a helpless woman! She could manage to rally an entire congregation, an entire community an entire fucking state against the public copulation of canines, but for some unknown reason, she could not manage to put down a fucking toilet seat before she sat on it. It was her fucking ass, for God's sake! But I digress...
Within a few months of arriving in my new-found home, I had my routine down and I could feel the stresses and tensions start to leave my body. I didn't jump any longer when the crumbs from the toast hit the tabletop or the floor instead of a plate. I stopped getting the shakes if the crumbs stayed there a day or two. If a glass of iced tea left a wet ring on the tabletop, I just wiped it up. I didn't feel the need to strip and re-wax the whole damn thing. Most of my clothes hit the hamper most of the time, but if they didn't I didn't lecture myself. I just picked them up the next day. Or the next week. Or whenever I needed them again. Sometimes I even wore them twice without washing them! And I didn't die and the people around me did not fall over from the foul odors.
I found I liked to exercise and I made time for it. Sometimes I showered afterwards and sometimes I just let the sweat dry on my skin. I even sat on the couch all sweaty. Damn! I was really getting to be adventurous! I started to eat healthier and less of it when I ate. My whole life was different now and I was beginning to wonder if I might actually re-grow the lining of my stomach. The bleeding ulcers I had developed in my second year of management had been my constant and only nighttime companions for so long, I almost missed them. Almost.
One night, I actually got bored listening to the silence and started to think about one of those stories I had intended to write if I ever had the time. Well, I had the time now. But could I do it? Would I do it? Writing is one of those things that look so easy when it's done right, that you never notice the skill it requires. A good writer draws you into the story and you become a part of it. The writer's thoughts become yours and it is only by their skill and craft that you suddenly realize you have become more than you were, that you have experienced more than you ever could have without them. But because it is so easy, or appears so, you never notice the author.
But what the Hell! I had written literally thousands of pages of medical and scientific documents. How hard could it be? I went down to the local computer store and bought a laptop. I was going to be a writer. I had ideas. I had stories. I had a computer. I had time. My fingers could move. What could go wrong? Ha!
On those first long warm evenings with the gentle ocean breezes blowing I would sit out by the pool in the apartment complex and write, typing away on my laptop. It was mostly garbage and I deleted most of the pages before I saved them. Those that I saved I threw out later after I had re-read them. They really were shit. Even I knew that. But I kept at it and gradually I got better. At least, I thought so. I started keeping some of the paragraphs and one or two of the storylines were coming together.
There weren't many other people who used the pool in the evenings, but it wouldn't have mattered if there had been. I ignored them all. The noisy kids, the pudgy teenagers, the wrinkled old women who should know better than to wear thong bikinis. OK, I peeked at a couple of them. But only once. That was more than enough. And, well, that one teenager that lived up on the fourth floor wasn't all that pudgy.
Oh, Hell, I for sure didn't want a relationship, especially with a juvenile, or at least I wasn't looking for one. Every time I watched her attractive ass bounce up and down as she walked up the stairs to her mother's apartment. And her boobs as she bounced back down. And back up. And down. Not that I was watching. I was writing. It was hard work, too!
Funny thing about life. I've come to realize that when you're least expecting it that that's always when life hits you between the eyes with a very large sledgehammer. The harder you're not looking, the more vulnerable you are. Not only was I not looking, I had run 3000 miles in the opposite direction.
It wasn't far enough.
I had finally hit upon a storyline that I felt I could develop. Not too complex, but interesting. It had tension, it had drama, it had a plot. But mostly, it had sex. Lots and lots of sex. Now, admittedly, that was something with which I had had very little first hand knowledge during my marriage, but I had a heck of an imagination. Of late, that imagination had been working overtime. God, I think it must have been something in the water, but even those wrinkled old ladies were looking good to me lately. And I could say that without shuddering. Too much.
The story I was writing was set in Victorian times and the Hero was a dashing long haired, long-dicked cad-type of gentleman. Exactly the type of guy I wasn't — or hadn't been — but was kind of thinking about being. Not really the 'bash-them-over-the-head' type, but I had given a lot of thought to being a bit more forceful, wondering what it would be like, if I could pull it off. It seemed to work wonderfully for my primary character! He would meet an innocent lass and within two paragraphs, she was not so innocent any more. And all the lassies he met just adored it.
I first saw her at the pool. She looked out of place in the apartment complex, being kind of young. At first I thought she might have moved in after I had, but when I checked, the building manager said all the apartments had been rented for years by the tenants who lived in them and there hadn't been any vacancies since I had arrived.
I had lucked out and picked up this tiny furnished single room apartment because the old lady who had lived there before me had had a bit too much to drink and then taken a swan dive off the cliffs behind the building. Not that the cliffs were that high, but it was high tide and there were rocks and it was dark and no one gave a shit about the old biddy any way. The neighbors only noticed she was gone when she didn't show up for her canasta game. I think they were more pissed because it was her turn to bring the nibbles than they were that she was dead. Apparently, she wasn't that good a card player, but she always brought good things to nibble on when it was her turn. Don't you just love California? Got their priorities damn straight, damn it!
Anyway, as I was passing by the building, the paramedics were loading what was left of the old lady into the county meat wagon to take to the morgue. The ambulance couldn't make it into the small parking lot of the apartment complex — it was trash day and all of the recycling bins were neatly arranged in the driveway for pick up — and so the ambulance was parked kind of caddy-whampus in the middle of the street. It had stopped what little traffic there was on this residential street, so I got out to walk around and stretch my legs. I struck up a conversation with the building manager and ended up with a six-month lease.
I didn't immediately connect the young woman at the pool with the dykish-sort of person I had seen around the complex. That person always wore denim jeans, baggy sweatshirts and a baseball cap pulled down over her face, her hair tucked up under it. Her long mannish strides, her fashionable Stacker boots 'thumping' on the walkway outside my apartment window were nothing like the tiny 'clack-clack-clack' she now made as she minced her way to a chaise lounge.
I almost didn't give her a second look. I mean, why bother? As flattering as that armor-plated swimsuit was, she should have kept the sweatshirts on. Hell, if I was going to go to the extreme effort of interrupting my writing to stare at her, at least she could have revealed a bit of something! But, as she was at least old enough to be legal and young enough not to be mistaken for a California prune in the dark, I looked twice. OK, more than twice. But not a lot more. Well, OK, not at first.
It was her habit to sit out by the pool, but in the shade. That put her on the other side of the pool from me. At first I thought she was trying to get my attention by always sitting in my field of vision. I never caught her eye, though and I never saw her glance in my direction. Finally, after not writing anything for several days, I decided she wasn't there for my benefit. Oh well, another fantasy shattered all to Hell...
She did have to walk right by my chair on her way back to her apartment. At least, she did after I discovered which gate she used to leave the pool. It took me all night, but I rearranged the entire pool area to make her walk by a certain table, and then I had to get to the pool in the early afternoon to be sure somebody else didn't get 'my' table. But I managed it. Day after day that summer, right after the evening breezes would pick up, she would gather her things and clack-clack-clack right by my table. Lot of good it did me.
We didn't speak to each other for weeks, months. Not a glance, not a nod, not a sign of recognition for the masterful job I had done of rearranging the pool furniture. Not one bit of acknowledgement that either of us even existed to the other, at least from her side. It suited me perfectly, well sort of. Even after I learned that she was my neighbor. Not just in the building or on the same floor, but right God damn it next door to my apartment. I don't know how I had avoided noticing that particular detail for so long, the signs were all there, but like I mentioned, I wasn't looking. At anything. Well, not much, really!
Perhaps about now would be an appropriate place to mention my biggest flaw, as far as I'm concerned. Just in case you're an idiot and haven't picked up on it yet. I am what I would best describe as a hopeless chivalric. I guess I hark back to my medieval ancestors. In the Damsel in Distress stories, I would be cheering wildly for the hero, if not actually be him. I don't know why I feel the way I do. God knows I had tried an infinite number of times to change, but I just can't help myself. When I see a woman in trouble, I have to help, even when it goes against everything else I know, feel or suspect.
That's a major character flaw, I know. Like paying my bills on time, or obeying the speed limits, I would have to say that it's just something that made me, well, me. Sure, sometimes I would roll through a stop sign or turn without signaling, just for the Heck of it, mostly when no one else was within 3 miles.
Truth be told, I really was trying to change and, of all things, I think the writing was helping. Sometimes I actually could imagin myself as the dashing cad in my novel. Maidens swooning and fawning over my sexual prowess, petticoats and pantaloons in disarray, maidenheads torn asunder. Damn, I was a scoundrel in my own mind! My mighty prick was ready at the drop of a hat, or blouse, or whatever the young girls wanted to drop.
My book was progressing nicely. With the cooler evenings in the winter, I had taken to writing in my apartment, all the windows and doors open to the cool night air. I could hear the sounds of the ocean crashing into the rocks down below the cliffs and the calls of the birds nesting in those few trees tenaciously clinging to the last remaining yards of soil on the edges of the cliff. It was all strangely calming.
I heard the gunshots at about the same time as the slugs came tearing through the common wall between our apartments. One killed my dishwasher, another went through the screen of my laptop. I was typing on it at the time, so that really got my attention. I heard a scream. A Damsel in Distress! My favorite kind! I grabbed my handy baseball bat that I kept by the front door and went bashing into the apartment next door, the White Knight to the rescue.
The punk got me twice in the leg before I bashed his skull in. I'm not a big man, but a quality metal bat can put a good sized dent into a skull, even swinging wounded, and I was swinging for the fucking fences after the bastard put two .22 caliber rounds in me. Damn, that fucking hurt!
The cops called this particular routine death a "self-defense" due to the slugs in my leg, my dishwasher and the dead computer. They actually paid more attention to the fucking dishwasher than to my leg. I heard later they were looking for spare parts for the captain and the seal of mine was in fairly good condition and it was the right model, etc. Fucking dickheads! When they finally got around to it, they sort of glossed over the part where I entered through the front window of her apartment without bothering to open it first, so I suppose they were nice enough guys after all.
If I thought that I wrote a lot on my former job, those poor bastards had to write a report about every fucking thing they did! Volumes of paper. Trees wasted, all to provide evidence in a legal battle that would probably never occur. But it was useful in one respect. From the copy of police report they so thoughtfully provided me, I found out her name was Diane Thomas. I also learned that she was 23 years old and single. Pretty useful information, if you ask me.
I assumed she found out as much about me or at least she did in my fantasy. Heck, I saved her sorry ass! The least she could do was cooperate in a harmless fantasy...
I also learned from that factual document that a crack-head from LA had somehow gotten stranded on the beach after a fucking do-gooder social group had taken a bunch of the poor depraved- excuse me, deprived asswipes on a field trip to the beach. While he was getting high behind a boulder, the bus had driven off and left him. The tide came in and forced him up the cliff to the access stairs and from there he had wandered up into the apartment complex. No, it wasn't CSI that figured that out. He had been dragging a long piece of seaweed and you could follow his trail blindfolded at night. He had waited in the shadows in the stairwell, where he left the rotting and stinking seaweed, and had surprised her as she came in from work that evening. It had been a totally random event, except for idiocy of the fucking social group, which made me feel slightly better about the neighborhood, but not much.
Whether the pothead forgot what he was after while he was waiting for someone to come along or if the darkness inside of her apartment confused him wasn't clear, but Diane was lucky. He had pushed her into the room with tremendous force, rushing up behind her as she unlocked her door. She had landed on her bed, quickly rolled off the other side and scooted back in under it. He couldn't find the light switch, so he apparently was trying to locate it by firing the gun at it. Hence the random shots. That was when she had screamed.
When I got out of the hospital the next week after being held for several nights for observation, I found I was a minor celebrity in the community. Just what I fucking needed. Notoriety. So I did the only thing I could do. I hid. I declined the local TV interview. The hostess wasn't that cute, anyway, and came off like a real bitch on the air. I didn't allow any pictures to be published and when the story finally did come out, the only picture in the paper was of the apartment manager. My name wasn't mentioned and he had related to the reporter how he had apparently subdued the rest of the attacker's gang single-handedly. Or at least, that's the way he told the story. Or how the newspaper did. Bottom line was that I wasn't mentioned, so I didn't fucking care if Osama bin Laden had been behind the whole thing.
My boss didn't understand my heightened paranoia, but he was desperate for good help so he let me work by telephone for a couple of weeks. Even then, it took longer to get back on my feet than I had thought. I wasn't as young as I once was and the pain of my wounds lingered longer than I felt was appropriate. It interrupted my exercise schedule as well, and that really ticked me off.
But I survived. I swapped out the hard drive on my laptop into another laptop of an identical model and only lost a week of writing. I was pretty impressed with myself for that. I also don't recall losing any sleep over having killed that boy. If that seems callous, well, tough noogies. My writing did suffer, though, but mostly because my sucky attitude kept creeping into the otherwise chivalrous hero's behavior. I actually wrote a scene where he raped a farmer's daughter after tying her up in the barn. That scene was so exciting when I re-read it, although out of his specific character, I didn't erase it, but I did move it to another file. It gave me an idea for another story.
I ventured back out by the pool one afternoon about three months after the incident. As far as I could tell, no one even remembered it. Not even Diane. Especially not her. Now, as far as the others in the complex were concerned, that suited me just fine. But having risked my health, if not my life to rescue her, I expected at the very least a simple acknowledgement of my existence. A nod, a flicker of recognition, something! But she walked right by me in those click-clacking sandals without a word or a glance.
It burned me and I let it simmer and stew for two weeks. The top came off the pot when we nearly collided in the hallway and she wouldn't even look me in the eye. The bitch! After all I had done and all that I had imagined I had done for her and all that I had imagined we had done together. How could she be so cavalier about all that we meant to each other? The bitch!
So I wrote a vicious note expressing my outrage at her uncaring attitude. I laid it on pretty thick, telling her just what I thought of her. I may have gotten a bit carried away, well, maybe a lot carried away. OK, it looked like I was stalking her, but, damn it! I had two holes in my leg because of her! I had a right, didn't I? And maybe I did suggest what she should be willing to do for me in appreciation for my sacrifice.
I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad, but I actually delivered it to her, fastened to her front door with a fucking kitchen knife. Yes, alcohol was involved.
I know that sounds wimpy, using a teenie-tiny kitchen knife, but it was all I had in the apartment. I had left my hunting knife behind at my old house. I guess I was kind of hoping my ex-wife would use it on herself. Hey, I can dream, can't I?
As soon as I had slammed the door of my apartment behind me, I reconsidered my actions. I knew I was fucked if she ever got that note. I went back out into the hallway to retrieve the note, if not the knife. Alas, they were gone. I hadn't known she was home at the time as she had appeared to be on her way out when we had almost collided.
Oh, shit! Oh, shit, shit shit!
I went back inside and thought for about two seconds, then shrugged. Again, alcohol was involved. She would do whatever she would do. Fuck her, the ungrateful bitch! I wasn't going to sit around and worry about it. That was the old 'me' and it had gotten me nothing. Unless, of course, she called the police, and then I was going to lie like crazy. I know that tactic had never worked for me before, but this time I felt I had nothing to lose. Desperate times and all...
With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I got my laptop and went back down by the pool. At least my novel was developing nicely as of late, better than I had imagined. Writing was hard work but I found that I enjoyed it and I was hoping I could lose myself in the writing. Forget about the ungrateful neighbor.
I had been getting more and more absorbed by the characters and the plot, imagining myself as the dashing captain or the dallying dandy or the dastardly villain. Of late, in my foul mood, I was especially partial to the villain. His character held a certain fascination for me and I had spent long hours imagining what it would be like to act like he did, taking without asking, demanding pleasure without regard to his partner.
I had decided I couldn't do it. Sure, I could act that way for a while, given enough booze in me, but in the end, I would have to have some compassion, to show some feeling for the girl. Call it another character flaw, but I was quickly discovering I was a hopeless romantic. Yeah, I know, Big Fucking Surprise there, right?
Therefore, it was not surprising that several of the dominating scenes with the villain and his victims were giving me trouble. I had little to no experience in those particular areas. I felt I was just barely bluffing my way through the tougher parts, the parts where the villain got a little rough with the heroine or where he had to be demanding and commanding. I really tried to get into visualizing myself as the villain when he made the heroine use her mouth on his throbbing member, consuming him. If I say so myself, I was getting really good at getting into the part, so to speak. It was my fantasy but alas, wimp that I had been in my marriage and my whole life, I had little actual real-life experience to go on. OK, no experience, none whatsoever. Satisfied?
I must have worked for several hours that evening and I was soon alone by the pool in the dark, all my sensible neighbors safely behind locked doors. It wasn't all that late, but as it was during the week, most of my neighbors had to work the next day. I didn't hear her come up behind me as she was barefoot this time, those damn sandals in her apartment. If I had heard her, I would have expected the knife to be returned. About six inches deep into my back, probably. The note had been rather disparaging.
"I'm sorry," I heard her say softly; the first indication I had that she was there with me in the dark. I thought I heard a sniffle follow that apology, but I wasn't sure. "I- uh, I meant to say 'Thank you', really."
I was so into my writing about my villain right then I didn't react the way I would have normally and just wimp out and let her off the hook. Nor did I act like my hero and take her hands and comfort her. I just sat there, staring at her in silence and let her shuffle her feet. To this day, I do not know why. Sure, I was pissed, but we had both survived. And really, what did I expect her to do?
"Are you really mad at me?" She sounded like she was going to start quailing and blubbering all over again.
"Be quiet and stop sniffling!" I commanded with an authority I didn't feel. When she stiffened, I thought she would bolt and run back upstairs. But instead she simply bowed her head and stopped sniffling. The rush that gave me was fantastic, just that simple little act of obedience! It was incredible! I actually started to get a hardon from the excitement of the situation, a feeling I hadn't had in almost thirty years. Again, I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to push her and see what would happen. If it got out of hand, I could always find another apartment.
I literally took a page from my story. The villain had the young maiden in a position where she was beholden to him. Suddenly, I was the cruel bastard I had heretofore only imagined.
"Kneel!" I ordered her.
She knelt where she stood. I was now at half mast and growing. And I was shaking like a leaf. I think it was excitement, but it could have been fear.
"Not over there. Over here! Now!" I indicated a spot directly in front of my chair. When she obediently shuffled on her knees over to the indicated spot, she kept her head bowed, but I could tell her attitude had changed from fearful to something else. I hoped it had changed. Her breathing had quickened, but it felt like it was something else, too. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
With her head bowed and with her kneeling in front of my chair she was staring straight at my now tented shorts. I still wasn't fully erect, but I was becoming uncomfortable. My cock twitched as it shifted to a more comfortable position, giving it more room to grow. I saw her catch her breath as she saw the movement in my pants and then she subconsciously lick her lips.
Working on an instinct I didn't know I had and totally out of the realm of any prior knowledge or experience, I moved my hand down to the zipper on my shorts and lowered it slowly, careful not to catch the teeth on the skin underneath. Now fully charged, my prick sprung out at the sudden freedom, a tower of flesh in the darkened pool area.
I held my breath to see what she would do. Would she run away screaming for the cops? Would she take this opportunity to return my knife after pulling a 'Bobbit'?
At first she did nothing, just stared at it throbbing in the night air. Then she licked her lips again and leaned forward. Not quite far enough to touch it, but closer.
"Do it!" I whispered to her. I didn't mean to say it out loud, really, but it slipped out, a strangled whispered wish. I didn't think she heard me as she didn't move at first. Then the most incredible feeling I had never felt in my entire life engulfed the head of my rampant cock. My wife, my ex-wife, rather, had never allowed herself to do this particular nasty act, and, well, this was my first blow job. I have no idea if her technique was good or bad, but the feeling was outstanding. Really, really outstanding. Fantastic.
I let her continue her slow motions, up and down. I'm not particularly a small man in that department and my size was causing her some difficulty. She seemed determined to swallow the whole thing, something I had never even thought possible much less experienced. I felt the head of my cock pushing on the back of her throat and figured she had taken in all she could. But she shifted up on her knees slightly for leverage and I felt myself slide down into the tightest, hottest, slickest sheath imaginable.
I came with a sudden grunt, without warning, spewing my hot white cum down into her throat. She seemed to freeze for some reason, almost as if she had done something wrong. Then she sucked even harder, trying and succeeding in bringing me to hardness once again. Never before had I had two erections back to back, never so quickly. I had never had the need to, not even on my honeymoon. I thought the stories I heard about shit like that were the stuff of pornographic movies. Now I was in the middle of one, it seemed.
Once again my neighbor inhaled my entire cock like it was a life-giving delicacy. Slowly she moved up and down, providing me as much pleasure as she could with her sucking mouth and magical tongue. I could tell I was going to last longer this time and settled in to enjoy the performance.
"Diane," I said. I tried to keep it soft but with an edge to it. I didn't want it to come out strangled, like a school kid getting his first BJ. I almost succeeded, I think.
"Diane, I want you to look up at me while you do that."
Her blue eyes slowly raised up and in the dimness surrounding us, I could see her excitement. She even winked at me with one of the sultriest winks I have ever seen. Of course, I could have been influenced by the fact that her mouth was at that moment performing magic tricks on my throbbing prick.
The villain fled this tender scene, at least for a while. Forgive me, but the moment she looked up at and smiled, damn it, I fell head-over-heels in love with this mysterious girl who lived next door.
Her eyes never left mine, closing only in passion when I spewed for a second time. I thought she shuddered a little when she swallowed. Interesting. I wanted to pursue this new and exciting byplay between us. I wasn't sure what to do, and was in a quandary, torn between being sensitive and continuing with the firmness that had gotten me to this point. I sensed I would have to be forceful and commanding.
"Enough! Put your toy away for a while!" I was in way over my head and taking chances.
She looked startled at my command, then smiled a secretive smile. With loving care she used both hands to replace my dwindling dick in my pants, doing a lot more fondling than necessary. But I wasn't complaining. She was watching me watching her and her smile grew a bit. Once zipped back up, she placed a scorching kiss on the cloth covering her 'toy' and sat back. Waiting.
"You'll stay with me tonight," I said as I stood and walked towards my apartment. I didn't look back. My heart was pounding. I wanted to throw-up. This was fucking worse than Junior High School! I was almost afraid to know if she would follow me. I heard a shuffling near the chair I had just vacated, but I kept going. When I got to my door, I unlocked it and pushed it open, then I stood back. Without a word or a glance in my direction or towards her own nearby door, she stepped into my small apartment.
I followed her in and locked the door behind me. I saw her flinch as she heard the lock click shut, locking her inside with me. She seemed to kind of shrivel, although she didn't move an inch. I unlocked the door and opened it back up. As I moved away from the door she looked up at me and followed my progress with a curious gaze. I moved across the small apartment until it was obvious she could get out the door before I could reach her. She could leave if she wanted. She looked back at the open door, then back at me.
When she turned away, I thought I had gone too far, but she went to the door, closed it and locked it again. With her still on the inside.
"You haven't done this much, have you?" she asked.
I wasn't sure what 'this' was. Getting blow jobs from pretty neighbors? Being a tough guy? Either one qualified.
"Not really. Is it that obvious?"
"Kind of. But it's cute."
The silence hung heavy between us.
"I..." We both started to talk at once.
"Go ahead, Diane. Ladies first."
She suddenly got shy and bowed her head to study the floor.
"It's hard for me to talk about it. But I, well, I guess what you did turned me on. A lot."
"Oh." Really intelligent.
"My step-dad, he was pretty strict with my Mom and me when I was growing up..."
My heart sank as she related her story of how her step-dad had slowly over several years seduced her with games and toys into a life of Pavlovian sexual obedience. Her Mom worked the late shift at the local factory, so every day after school Diane had come home to the bastard. It began slowly with games like "Simon Says" where she was rewarded for obedience and punished for disobedience. The games got rougher, the tasks more difficult, the rewards sweeter and the punishments harder as she grew older. They played almost every day and she came to think of it as normal. She didn't know anything else.
She wasn't sure when he introduced bondage, but "Cops and Robbers" was a favorite game of both of them. At first, most of the time he let her escape, thereby having to use more stringent measures the next time they played. Strings were replaced by lightly tied cords and then loose ropes. Then the ropes got tighter. And she rarely got loose anymore.
As she developed her breasts, her step-dad urged her to go without a bra during their games. He convinced her it was for her own comfort, and besides, it made her feel slightly naughty. And the bras her Mom bought were uncomfortable, so she began wearing less and less clothing at his gentle urging. Soon she would find herself tied up wearing only a short tank top, usually too small, and a pair of panties.
Then one day he bought her a 'special' outfit to wear for their games. She was around 14 years old by then and very well developed. The top was very sheer, almost see-through and he told her it was very sexy. It was just what the shy and insecure young girl needed to hear and she squelched any doubts she had about wearing the clothing. The bottoms were a patch of cloth and a tangle of strings. He had to show her how to put it on the first time. She was so embarrassed she made him show her over her regular panties.
The first couple of times she wore her special outfit, she managed to escape when he tied her up. It made her feel invincible and comfortable wearing such revealing clothing and she actually looked forward to playing the next day. That was the day she didn't get away. The day he first touched her in a different way. The day he started getting her sexually aroused. The day he forced her to have her first climax on her own fingers.
At first she was ashamed of her behavior, that she had wet herself and allowed herself to get so excited, that she had orgasmed in from of him. But her step-dad made her feel so good when he did those things to her, tickled her 'down there' and touched her chest. She let him keep doing it more and more. He told her it made him feel special, too, and that made her feel better about it. She still felt a little guilty, she knew somehow that it was wrong, but it felt so good that she became addicted to it.
When she was hooked on the sexual arousal, the games stopped. Oh, they still played, but it wasn't a game now. It didn't take long for him to get her to this point, either. Now when she came home from school, she would strip and put on her costume. Then she would go out and simply stand still for him as he would tie her up. The bondage went from simple to more and more complex. Once tied up, he would tickle or rub her until she was breathing heavily, then hold a vibrator over her clitoris until she would scream at him to let her climax.
The vibrator had been introduced when he found she was mortally embarrassed by the thought of using a toy like that 'down there.' One of the older girls at school had brought in her mother's device on day and Diane had been thoroughly embarrassed by the older girls because of her innocence. So one day, when she was tied down, he showed her the first of many vibrators he would purchase for and use on her. She had had to be gagged that day, a gag he soon replaced with his swollen cock. He made her take his thing in her mouth and suck on it. He threatened that he would let the vibrator keep tickling her until she sucked him off.
When her Mom was home, or when she had homework or when they were just sitting around watching TV, her step-dad would treat her like any normal father would treat his daughter. He never touched her until she was tied up and begging for relief from the tormenting buzzing of one of his toys. After the dildo had primed her and made her so hot she was nearly screaming with lust, he would start in on her 'training, ' as he called it. First he made her suck him off while he twisted and pinched her developing breasts. Her responsive nipples held a special fascination for him and they received more than their share of the sadistic fondling. All the while she sucked him off the plastic pricks would be buzzing and buzzing and buzzing.
Then there were the belts and whips if she had been bad or done something he didn't like. Which was most days. When she did manage to please him, he would let the vibrator push her to orgasm, then laugh at her as she spasmed uncontrollably on the table, straining against the ropes holding her down. Oddly enough, he never penetrated her, other than her mouth. Nor did he ever let even the smallest of the plastic cocks take her virginity.
But the pattern had been irrevocably set in the young girl. She responded to male authority with a sexual response that frightened her. So she avoided men altogether. I was the first man with whom she had had any contact since she had moved away from home after her Mom died two years ago.
She had developed a fascination with the whole BDSM scene, however, and had read everything she could find on the internet. Hence her quick recognition of the fact that I was a rookie at it.
Turnabout was fair play. She wanted to know about my life. I made a pot of coffee and we settled in for a very short story, the story of my miserable life with my ex-wife. Cold, sexless, uneventful. That about summed it up.
She looked puzzled. "But why didn't you just make her have sex with you?" she asked me. She looked even more puzzled at my hysterical laughter in response to her question.
"I... We... It's not done like that. And, well, I didn't know I could make her do that," I finally answered.
"Oh," she responded, clearly not understanding but not wanting to learn too much of a 'normal' family.
Again the silence intruded, more comfortable this time. We finished our coffee and sat facing each other across the small dining table.
"Time for bed," I suddenly said, standing. It wasn't a demand. More a statement. Almost an invitation.
Her eyes widened and she quickly lowered them. Her breathing became shallow and I swear I could smell the scent of her excitement.
I turned and walked into the bedroom. I was digging out some of my silk ties that I hadn't used in the past several months when I heard the toilet flush. The bathroom door leading into my bedroom opened and I saw her silhouetted in the doorway. She struck a pose, one arm up leaning on the frame, her legs crossed. She was wearing one of my dirty Oxford shirts.
"Oh, God." She was beautiful. Her blonde hair was down and when she lifted her arm to lean on the doorframe, I could tell she was a natural blonde. Her legs were shapely and toned, but I knew that from watching her at the pool. What I didn't know was what her tits looked like. Not that it made a whit of difference at the moment, but I was curious.
She heard my spontaneous comment and blushed. The single button that held the front of the shirt together became undone as she moved toward me. A shrug of her shoulders and I didn't have to wonder what her tits looked like anymore. A minute later and I was as naked as she was and as hard as I can ever remember.
She led me over to my bed and lay down on it, her arms by her sides, legs together. She would have looked almost chaste if it hadn't been for the lascivious look in her eyes. And the hungry way she held onto my cock.
I held up one of my neckties and looked at her questioningly. I didn't want to go further than she wanted to. Her answering grin was all the answer I needed.
I captured one of her hands and gently wrapped the tie around her wrist. Then I captured the other hand — it wasn't hard as she had never released my cock — and gently wrapped the tie around that wrist and secured them together. I lifted them over her head and tied the silk tie to the headboard.
She literally squealed when I lowered my head between her thighs and used my tongue to explore her nether region. She kept her bush cropped short and trimmed into a small patch even though I had never seen her in a bikini. I thought that was thoughtful of her and told her so. She blushed and said it was from before, with the special outfit her step-dad bought her. He made her keep it short because of the thong. He didn't want to see any stray hairs and would punish her if she let it get too long. From then until now, it was just a habit. Now she was glad I liked it.
I moved up to study her belly button. She tensed up as I laved it with my tongue, then belly-laughed when I blew on it to cool it off. It tickled her. She wasn't laughing when I finished with first one of her boobs and then the other. She had a respectable set on her and being young, they sat high and proud on her chest with no sag. I asked if she had any bikinis.
"Not yet."
"Not yet?"
"Yeah. I figure you're going to want me to wear them."
"Well, yes, but only if you want to."
She was clearly puzzled by having a choice in her attire. I decided to delay any further discussions as we were getting to the main event. I moved further up her neck, focusing on that small spot where her neck and shoulder met. If she could have she would have melted into the bed as she moaned in passion. Apparently, this erotic spot was a surprise to her and by the time I got to her earlobe she was panting in desperate need.
As I rose up over her on my elbows, my cock slid up between her thighs and nestled into her sweet spot. Even in her state of arousal, she tensed up again.
"Please be gentle. It's my first time."
I almost shot off right then. Even my wife had let her virginity go before our wedding. The bitch had given it away the day before our wedding, to be precise, I found out later. So to have a real live virgin under me, a willing virgin, well, it was more than a dream come true.
I nudged the head of my prick against her slit and she gasped.
"Spread your legs wider," I urged her, trying not to get back into character, but desperately wanting to plow into her depths.
She sighed softly and I felt her legs spread out, her knees coming up and her ankles finally locking in the small of my back. She moaned as the head of my cock forced its way in, but she didn't ask me to stop.
I teased her by pulling back out and putting it back in only as far as the tip of my cock. She groaned in desperation and started trying to make me move further into her tight virgin sheath. Gradually I lengthened my stroke and burrowed deeper into her canal.
The feeling was incredible and I was only in head deep. Another couple thrusts and I felt an obstruction. This was it. I held still until she calmed down. I wanted her to be absolutely sure about this. When she finally opened her eyes, I was staring at her face. I was falling totally in love with this creature beneath me and she knew that as soon as she saw my expression. It was something she hadn't expected to ever happen to her and she caught her breath before she gave me a hesitant nod. We held each other's gaze as I pushed forward, making her a woman. A small tear escaped from her eye and headed toward the pillow.
Our first fuck was a slow passionate affair. As I had already cum twice about an hour before, it felt like I could have lasted forever. By the time I was ready to shoot the third time, she was delirious, having climaxed about five times. Or six. She was popping off pretty good there for a while and I may have lost track.
I collapsed on top of her, exhausted. Three times in one night was a lot for an old man. I vaguely remember some mumbled words passing between us, something about 'love' or something, but I'm sure it wasn't that important. I know it wasn't polite or chivalrous or anything like that, but I was exhausted. I didn't even roll off of her before I fell into a deep sleep.
Diane eased out from under her lover, just a little. She didn't want to wake him. He wasn't really all that heavy and she loved the feeling of his weight, but she wanted to clean up, too. A slow smile spread across her face, the first real smile she had felt cross her face in years. She knew it would be there for a long time. She had a good feeling about this odd man who loved her.
She fidgeted for about two seconds with the knots holding her hands
above her head, then lowered her arms to her side. She smiled
contentedly. He was a good man, but he had a lot to learn about tying
knots.