Bound For Horror

Eric yawned as he walked up the driveway of his parents' house. The night was dark and quiet. Nearly all of Mansion Grove's residents had put Saturday night behind them and the lean twenty-year-old was ready to do the same.

His night had, like most others lately, been uneventful. He'd spent the evening at his friend Dave's house, hanging out with a small number of friends and nurturing an herbal buzz. Around twelve o'clock, he'd decided the night was over and walked the three blocks home.

He yawned again as he rounded the back corner of the house. A few crickets chirped. His keys made a soothing jangle as he pulled them from his jacket pocket. A soft voice crept across the darkened backyard. Eric paid it little mind as he stepped onto the back porch. A flicker of light somewhere in the backyard caught his eye.

Pausing, Eric turned and peered into the heavy shadows of the yard. Yellow light flickered a few feet off the ground, peeking through a crack in the tall fence separating the neighbor's backyard from his. New neighbors, Eric guessed. For the past year the house next door had stood ownerless.

He heard the voice again. What he at first thought was part of a conversation became a lone chanting voice. The chant was low and sure, but not masculine. More, Eric was sure the chanter called out in a language other than English. He stepped off the porch and stared at the flickering light. Weird, he thought.

After a moment, he took a step toward the fence. The sliver of flickering light writhed amidst the night and the voice crept all around him. It sounded rough, almost guttural. Out of place in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Judging by the late-hour fire and the chanting, Eric guessed his neighbor must be some New Age enthusiast.

No longer sleepy, Eric trod across the soft grass, the dark mass of the high fence looming over him. A sensible part of himself chided him for acting on his curiosity. No matter how odd what his neighbor did might be, he rather doubted it would be very interesting. Spying was, he knew, rude as well.

Waist-high shrubbery kept him from sidling flush against the fence. He lifted his hands and leaned forward, bracing himself with his fingertips. The odd, almost rhythm-less chant droned on. Images of black forests and cold mountains danced in his head. For a moment, the plotline of a bad horror movie came to mind.

Eric shifted his head and shoulders until he could peer through the fence-crack with a single eye. He expected to see a fire. He even half-expected to see a woman in a black robe holding a skull up to the moon. He did not expect to see her standing naked before waist-high flames.

His mouth dropped open and then spread into a grin as his vision took in the chanter. She was thirty feet or so away, standing at the edge of a fire pit. Amber light danced over milky-white skin. Her eyes were thin slits of blue and her black hair fell back past her shoulders. She held her arms out from her hips, as if she perpetually reached to embrace someone.

How old she was Eric couldn't say. Somewhere in her thirties, maybe. He ran his eyes over her heavy breasts and the breadth of her strong hips. She looked like some barbarian priestess.

She chanted on and Eric no longer much cared about why she was standing naked in her backyard. He squirmed as he imagined pushing himself against her ass and feeling the weight of her breasts in his hands. He moved one shaky hand away from the fence and breathed hard as he rubbed himself through his pants.

The awkward position he was in and the sensation as he mollified his carnal ache made him clumsy. He slipped, his head knocking the fence. He muttered a curse under his breath. The chanting stopped. Eric balanced himself and put his eye back to the peephole. The woman still stood as she had, but she no longer gazed out over the flames. She looked toward the fence. She looked directly at Eric.

Her blue eyes were shards of anger and her lips curled back from clenched, white teeth. An endless moment crept by. Her lips came together and her expression shifted to imperious contempt. Her arms lowered. A moment passed. Eric tried to pull his gaze from hers.

Finally, she turned and strode toward her house. Eric couldn't help but watch the roll of her sturdy rump as she walked. He heard the hiss and thump of a sliding glass door. Suddenly, he was aware of just how quiet the night had become.

The next day Eric feared the woman would march to his house and demand to know who couldn't keep his eyes to himself. By Sunday night she hadn't and Eric figured the incident was a thing of the past. The vision of her didn't pass so easily, though. He felt a little bit of guilt and hoped his weird, sexy neighbor didn't feel violated in some way.

Thursday afternoon Eric had just gotten home from work when the doorbell rang. Dressed in his retail employee uniform of gray pants and yellow polo shirt, Eric walked to the front door. The fuzzy shadow on the other side of the frosted glass sent a quiver of fear through him.

He pulled the door open and stared through the screen door. A woman stood on the porch. A thirty-something woman with pale blue eyes and long, black hair that fell past her shoulders like a midnight rainstorm. A tick started in Eric's left eye.

"Hi." She said and smiled. She stood nearly even with him and he felt himself shrinking before her pale gaze.

"Uh, hi." He said. He returned her grin, though with some effort.

Her pale-blue eyes and face almost glowed in the shadow of the covered porch. She wore a short-sleeved red dress littered with tiny, white flowers. A line of shiny black buttons marched from the pit of her throat to her waist.

Eric swallowed and readied himself for chastisement. The woman, though, didn't seem angry. Or even irritated. She glanced at his chest, a question forming on her face.

"I'm not keeping you?" She said. Eric glanced down at his nametag and shook his head.

"Oh, no. I just got home from work." He said. The woman nodded.

"Do you live here, Eric?" She glanced at his chest again and grinned.

"I'm Angela, just over there." She said. Her finger gestured over and behind the house.

"Uh, yeah." Eric said and nodded. Prickly heat danced over his forehead. Her eyes grew larger and larger the longer he met her gaze. He blinked.

"Um, did you want to talk to my parents or something?" He said.

His eyes darted around and past her. Try as he might, he couldn't meet her eyes, no matter how friendly her expression was.

"Are they home?" She said.

Eric shook his head, cringing as he felt his cock twitch and swell. Improbable notions she might come on to him played out in his mind. His ears felt hot and he knew his face was flushed.

"Uh, they should be home after six. Did you want to leave your number or something?" He said.

He turned and looked over his shoulder, trying to think where a pen and a slip of paper might be. When he turned back to Angela, he nearly jumped. Only a polite shadow of her open, friendly expression remained. She seemed taller, somehow, as well.

"That's not necessary. It's you I want to have a word with." She said. Her voice was stern and lacked even a hint of neighborliness. Eric felt weightless and nodded.

"Can you come to my house in, say, twenty minutes? I think you know where it is." She said.

"Uh, sure." Eric said. He swallowed hard. Angela hadn't forgotten about Saturday night after all.

She turned and stepped off the porch. Eric simply stood in the doorway, watching as she walked down the path to the sidewalk, the clip of her shoes fading. He closed the door and stared at the living room.

Twenty minutes went by quickly, though he still had plenty of time to imagine a number of frightening scenarios. The best of them had Angela politely berating him for spying. The worst had her husband kicking his ass.

No matter his anxiety images of her naked body and notions Angela would seduce him pushed Eric into a tepid state of arousal. He hadn't gotten laid in about six months and his libido was hopelessly optimistic. Idiot, he thought.

He pondered whether he should take a shower and settled on washing his face instead. He hadn't worked up any sort of sweat at work and doubted he smelled any. Still, Angela was obviously angry and Eric wanted to make as decent an impression as possible. Fuck it, he thought. If she was pissed, she was pissed.

Although both backyards shared a border, Angela's house was just around the corner. As Eric walked, a more realistic yet equally anxious scenario played out in his head. Angela would be diplomatic and her husband would have a private word, offering advice on how Eric could avoid any broken bones in the future.

He rounded the corner and saw her house. It was a single-story of powdery-blue siding and white trim. Two large, flat windows sat either side of a recessed porch. No towering tree hung over the house, yet the afternoon sun falling on the quiet little house seemed thin and frail.

Eric walked up the pathway leading to the porch. The windows rejected more than reflected the street. For a moment, he chilled at the notion a rogue shadow had crept toward the roof-edge, perching over the porch. He sighed and told himself not to freak out.

He rang the doorbell and looked at his broken reflection in the beveled glass of the front door. Shadowy movement grew in the glass just when he thought she might not be home. The door opened and Eric took a step back. Angela's pale face appeared and everything he'd planned on saying snarled. She smiled, though her blue eyes were impassive.

"Well, come in." She said and stepped back. She still wore the red dress, though Eric noticed a top button or two was loose. Pale skin and a hint of cleavage caught his eye.

He tentatively followed her into the house. The living room was a twilight landscape of gray carpet and sparse furniture. He relaxed a little when he saw no husband sitting in wait. Angela stepped to the middle of the room and turned to him.

"Uh, should I take my shoes off?" He said, looking down at his worn shoes and imagining how they might mar the carpet. Angela shrugged.

"Only if you walked through a pile of dog shit on the way over." She said and grinned.

A laugh died in Eric's throat, along with any hope their conversation would be reasonable. He shut the door, an already quiet afternoon becoming mute.

"No." He said, painfully aware how soft his voice was.

"Would you like something to drink?" Angela said. She stepped across the living room, pausing at a doorway and looking at him.

"Um, sure. Water?" Eric said. Angela frowned.

"How about orange juice?" She said and disappeared into the kitchen.

Eric nodded and took a step into the living room. He looked at a loveseat and a chair, wondering if he should take a seat or not. Angela called for him to come into the kitchen. He walked across the living room and stepped through the doorway. A knot in his stomach relaxed when he saw no one sitting at the round kitchen table. Maybe, he thought, she isn't married. His libido winked at him.

"So, uh, what did you want to talk about?" Eric said.

He stood next to the table, glancing at junk mail and kitchen things scattered across the top. She poured juice into a glass and then held it out to him. Eric stepped forward and took the glass with a shaky hand. He retreated to the table. The kitchen didn't allow a lot of space between the two of them. Just enough that Eric didn't feel quite so awkward.

Angela stood on the other side of the kitchen, leaning back against the sink. She set the heels of her hands on the counter edge. Her stance pushed her breasts out and Eric couldn't help staring.

"I think you know what I want to talk about, Eric." She said.

"Oh." He said. "Saturday."

"Yes. Saturday." Angela said.

"I'm really sorry about that, Angela." Eric said.

He glanced at her. She wore something like a smirk on her face. Her pale eyes seemed luminescent. Eric's gaze went to the wedge of white skin at the top of her dress. He felt warm and his cock stirred. Panicked, he shoved his free hand into his pants' pocket.

"Sorry you were spying on me, or sorry I caught you?" She said. Eric winced and stared into his juice glass.

"How old are you, Eric? Old enough o know better than to be so rude, no doubt." Angela said.

"I'm sorry I was spying on you. I didn't mean to. I just, I came home and saw this firelight. Heard you and got curious, I guess." He said. He shifted his weight and winced at how loud the sound of his feet were.

"And I'll bet you were surprised when you saw me, weren't you?" Angela said. Her hand went to her chest as she spoke, a finger tapping the pit of her throat.

"I only saw you for a minute." He said. His face flushed and Eric looked down into his glass again.

"Were you masturbating while you watched me, Eric?" She said. He had taken a drink right when she spoke. He sputtered, orange juice and a laugh bubbling in his throat.

"No!" He said.

He hadn't been sure what Angela might say to him during their talk. He most certainly hadn't expected a question like that. Or for her to be so forward. Oh shit, he thought.

"Ah, so you do have some self-control. Or maybe I caught you before you could pull it out of your pants, hmm?"

Hoping he wore an innocent expression, Eric forced his eyes to meet hers. He looked at the top of her dress and his brow quivered. The hint of cleavage had become a definite cleft of smooth, pale flesh. He swallowed and balled his pocketed fist.

"No. I mean, I wasn't doing anything." Eric said.

He kept his gaze in her general direction, but he couldn't meet her eyes. He felt hot and worse, he had a hard-on. A shiver passed through him. Any moment Angela would notice his arousal.

"Were you happy when you saw me?" Angela said.

"Well, you're an attractive woman." He said.

She undid a button, the V of exposed skin grew larger.

"Well, that is a problem. You'll very likely be tempted to peek through the fence again." Angela said. Her eyes dropped to Eric's crotch.

"Would you like to masturbate now, Eric?" Angela said.

"What?" He said, not believing he'd heard right. Yet she was undoing her dress.

She popped another button on her dress. Then another. Eric stared, his mouth going dry. He said nothing as Angela stared at him. Her dress was open to her waist. Eric breathed hard and squirmed as he stared at the slopes of her breasts.

"I think it might be best if you masturbated, Eric. Squeeze every last drop of curiosity out of your system." Angela said. She grinned and returned her hand to the counter edge.

Eric bit his lip. He'd never let a girl watch him jerk off before. The idea was appealing. He swallowed and couldn't believe any of this was happening. Sexy, older women didn't do this sort of thing. Not in Mansion Grove, anyway. Then again, they didn't prance around their backyards in the nude, either.

"You want me to," Eric swallowed again, his eyes licking Angela's pale skin. "You really want me to, do that for you?" He said.

"You can use what's on the table." Angela said.

Eric swallowed and looked over his shoulder. A thinned-out roll of paper towels lay on its side next to a covered butter dish. He breathed hard, now realizing Angela meant what she said. He realized something else. Angela's request might be a prelude for something more.

"Don't you want to do it for me, Eric? I like watching a handsome man." Angela said.

She reached up to her chest and pulled the top of her dress to the side. The heavy, round mass of her breast came into view. She caressed herself and Eric watched as her broad, flat nipple swelled and jutted between her fingers.

"Yeah." Eric breathed.

He nearly dropped the juice glass when he set it on the table. The butter dish clattered when he grabbed it. Dish and paper towel roll resting near his hip, Eric turned to Angela. His mouth fell open when he saw she now caressed both of her breasts.

"Feeling shy?" Angela said. A chuckle bubbled in her throat.

Eric looked down at himself as he fumbled with his pants. With only a moment's hesitation, he pulled his nearly hard cock out. He glanced at Angela, his red with embarrassment.

"Mmm. You're a rather healthy young man, aren't you? Show me just how healthy, Eric." Angela said.

He reached for the butter dish. Butter? He thought. The dish rattled as he took the cover off, revealing half a stick of soft butter. He coated his hand and turned back to his wicked muse.

"Stroke it for me, Eric. I want you to come hard." She said.

Eric gripped his cock and groaned with pleasure. He hardened fully in a second, his body knotting and trembling as he masturbated. He watched Angela fondle her breasts and after only a few moments pulled his hind away from his cock. He gasped as he fought off the orgasm that had ripened much too quickly.

"Already?" Angela said. She chuckled.

Eric bit his lip and looked down at his glistening cock. He could hardly believe he actually stood in his neighbor's kitchen, masturbating for her.

"You can come on my ass, if you promise to lick it clean." Angela said.

She turned around and thrust her ass out. She looked over her shoulder at him and grinned. Eric felt faint as he watched her fingers walk the hem of her dress up and over her hips. The milk-white skin of her thighs and her round ass pulled at his tortured libido.

"Promise?" Angela said. She laughed.

Eric shuffled forward, hardly aware of what he was doing. Lust possessed him as he stood only inches from her. He shook and breathed hard as he fought the urge to plunge into her.

"Do it, Eric." She said.

Eric wrapped his fingers around his cock and stroked himself, nearly falling to the floor as he came. He stroked until his orgasm faded to a tingle. Through half-closed eyes Eric watched as his semen slid down Angela's ass.

"Now, Eric. On your knees." Angela said.

Still catching his breath, Eric did as he was told.

Standing on the sidewalk, Eric could scarcely believe any of it had been real. One moment he'd stood within inches of Angela's pale rump, stroking himself. The seeming next he was staggering down the path to the sidewalk.

"In a few days, Eric." She'd said as she closed the door.

He grinned as he walked back to his house. The buttery act of self-abuse was not the last thing she wanted from him. The kinky and unexpected incident fueled ideas of what sort of things Angela might do. To him. With him. Of what she would have him do to her. Eric breathed fast and hard, his cock swelling.

Nearly four nights had passed and he hadn't heard from Angela. The slight anxiety he'd harbored the last couple of days now became fear. Maybe Angela had changed her mind, thinking that Eric was just some stupid kid.

The next evening, as he neared his street, Angela pulled up behind him, honking her horn. Eric pulled to the curb and stared at the car drawing alongside his. Anxiety twisted with excitement when he saw her peering through the passenger window.

"Nine-thirty." She said. The grin on her face nearly devoured him.

The next hour-and-a-half passed slowly. Eric's nerves reacted to even the slightest sound and his cock was all but fully erect. Erotic scenarios burned in his mind of what he and Angela would do.

Eric was not a novice when it came to sex, though he'd had only two partners. He felt a fair amount of anxiety when he imagined what sort of appetites Angela might have. Adventurous lust, though, bettered his fears.

Nine-thirty neared and Eric practically ran to Angela's house. He kept his cool and simply told his parents he'd be back later. Gripped by either an absurd caution or perhaps a sense of playful intrigue, Eric took his car. He parked on a street a block or two from Angela's.