I wasn’t completely finished with
my cleaning, but the late autumn sun seemed so inviting that I decided I’d take
a short break before it disappears altogether. After all, it could well be the
last time before spring that I get the chance to do so. Quickly, I made myself
a nice cup of coffee to enjoy along with a small, slim cigar. Normally, I’d
change my clothes before going out on my balcony, but this time I threw caution
to the wind and simply pulled on a thick sweatshirt over everything. Getting to
the balcony and back inside would be risky, true, but once I was sitting down,
the opaque fence of the balcony, my coffee table and the potted plants would do
a good enough job of shielding me both from the cold as well as the peering
eyes of strangers.
With my cup of coffee in one hand
and my cigar case in the other, I carefully peeked out through the French window
of my living room. My apartment was on the top floor of the building so that
from the street view, no one could see me unless I leaned over the fence, but
my next door neighbor’s balcony ended less than three feet away from mine. Once
made sure she wasn’t around, I scurried over to my comfy bench as fast as I
could without spilling the coffee. My heart was beating quite wildly and my
fingers were shaking as I clipped the head of my cigar, but after a few sips
from the cup and a couple of drags from the cigar, I began to relax and to
enjoy the nutty and creamy flavors of my coffee, the mild taste of the tobacco
smoke, but most of all, the warm, caressing rays of the late afternoon sun.
Lured into a sense of security I even unzipped my sweatshirt and pried it open.
Exposing myself to the sun rays even more directly, I all but let it slide off
my shoulders completely.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of
doors being opened from my left side. Waking abruptly from my dreamlike state,
all I could do was to wrap my sweatshirt around me before my neighbor, Mrs.
Jones walked on her own balcony.
“Charlie,” she said, practically
leaning over her fence, “Nice to see you.”
“Likewise, Mrs. Jones,” I said.
The comfort, the coziness and the
lazy Saturday afternoon feeling were all gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated,
nerve-wracking fear. In all honesty, I had fantasized many times about meeting
my neighbor like this, but now that it was actually happening, all I wanted was
to be inside of the apartment, safely hidden from her view. There was nothing
neither quirky nor naughty about risking that Mrs. Jones doesn’t lean over her
fence enough to get a view below the waistline of my hoodie.
“Nice weather we’re having, isn’t
it?” she said.
“Sure is,” I replied as calmly as
I could, without letting her pick up on my nervousness.
“I just came back from the town,”
she went on, “I thought I’d get started on writing some papers but decided to
catch the last of the sun for today. Same goes for you, right? Having a little
break on the balcony?”
“I was just cleaning my
apartment,” I answered, surprising myself. It was as if I was hearing someone
else talk, someone who spoke in the exact same voice as me but I had no idea
what they would say next, “I was going to finish dusting the shelves, but I
wanted to catch the sun before it went down, too.”
“That’s nice,” she said and then
produced a long, thin cigarette from her case.
“Could I possibly trouble you for
a light?” she said.
My blood froze. My first instinct
was to say “It was my last match, sorry,” but I didn’t have to look on the
table to know that my lighter in full view, among my scattered cigar utilities
scattered over my coffee table. Resigned to the fact that I couldn’t talk
myself out of getting up to light her cigarette, I helplessly fumbled with the
zipper of my sweatshirt for a moment, but then gave up on that, too.
Wordlessly, I picked up my
lighter and stood up, well aware of how the petticoat I was wearing under my
uniform was making its pink satin skirt flare out around my knees, offering
Mrs. Jones an unobstructed view of pretty much everything.
“Thank you, dear,” she said as I
lit her cigarette, then, still leaning over the fence towards me, gently pushed
my sweatshirt off my satin-clad shoulders, first one, then the other, until it
slid down on the floor. I felt a sudden chill on my thin, hairless arms, now
covered only by the short elasticized sleeves of my maid’s uniform.
“Is this what you wear for
cleaning up?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” I admitted.
Of all the things that I could
have said, of all the things I could have done, stood proudly and told her to
stuff it, the look in her eyes was radiating the singular undeniable conclusion
that I was now completely at her mercy.
“Look nice on you,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said weakly.
“Makes a dull chore like
vacuuming and dusting a bit more fun, does it?” she said, making it sound like
a purely innocent form of entertainment.
“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied.
“Tell you what,” she said, now
with a firmer, almost commanding tone, “Why don’t you come over to my place?
Plenty of fun for you to have.”
I paused for a second, dwelling
on the very clear implications she wanted me to clean up her place. But did she
want me to do it just now? I glanced over my coffee table where thin columns of
smoke were still emanating both from my cup as well as my cigar. When I turned
around again, though, Mrs. Jones was gone.
Bending at the knees because my
stiff corset prevented me from bending at the waist, I picked up my sweatshirt
off the floor and hung it neatly over the back of my sofa. The clicking of my
high heels, as I walked to the kitchen for a fresh apron, seemed to reverberate
deafeningly in my ears. The bridge had been crossed and there was no going
back. Freed from the necessity of hiding, I felt myself slip back into the
dream-like state. With a new lace trimmed apron covering the bodice of my dress
and the front of my skirts, I quickly walked out to the hallways.
Mrs. Jones was already standing
by her opened front door.
“Come in,” she said.
2 comments:
Hi Rosie
Great to see you posting in your own right. Always liked your pieces that Bea posted. This and the previous post are wonderful.
Carrie
Oh Rosie,What a lovely story so nice and cuddly as Charlies secret dream of being found out happens and a mature woman is the discoverer too,The reader can now see that his future will not his to choose.
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