Naked in the Hard Spring Rain

The winter had been long. With the steel-gray days, swirling snow, and terrorism on the news, it had seemed endless. It was always a mistake to wish one's life away, to yearn for the next season and ignore the present, but the desire for warmer weather was quite understandable.

Desire? Throughout the long winter months, Pippa had wished for a hard, long rain to come along and wash away all the snow, to clear away all the highway salt, and to give added promise to her dormant flowerbed. Yes, Pippa knew that her rain gutters were probably clogged with pine needles blown by the winter wind, but she had been filed with late winter ennui and had been putting off the chore. She would have farmed out the job, but she knew outsourcing was deflationary.

Pippa put down the leatherbound novel by Turgenev and glanced out the window. It was now spring, or almost. At night the trees still stood spectral and gray against the sky, but in the morning, Pippa ascertained through her own empirical research, the hillside was, in fact, dew-pearled, and the lark was indeed on the wing. Or, strictly speaking, the wing was on the lark.

Anyway, the air was burgeoning with scents of spring and new lingerie lines, and when the new lingerie catalogue arrived, she was sure the winter was over. The colors were like a South American carnivale float--tangerine dream, lemonade, Collette pink, mood indigo, chic violet... She studied them with anticipation, choosing carefully and checking the mailbox each day.

When her packages arrived, she tore them open, tossing tangas and thongs, chemises and slips like Daisy Buchanan sorting Gatsby's shirts. They came down onto her bed in a rainbow of silk and lace, and she plucked a Brazilian panty and balconette bra out of the heap with relish. "Brazilian panty," the very words provided a note of optimism. They formed a counterpoint to the dreary list of negative events recited by somber anchors on television news shows. She briefly imagined Dan Rather with a tangerine tanga hanging from one of his ears, but rejected the image as inappropriate. Tom Brokaw in a thong covering spring break for MTV's Most Wanted; however, that she could envision.

With her new lingerie on, she couldn't contain her joy and she twirled and spun in front of the mirror. She had taken to leaving the windows open, so she could watch the sheers sway in the cool breezes that came through the window. She imagined the pale spring sun on her skin. She'd already gotten a light tan, so the tangerine dream combination seemed almost iridescent against it. They did look delectable on her. The crunches were worth it, she thought, as she evaluated the effect. The crunches, the miles and miles logged in running, the arm lifts, all were not only gratifying exercises in themselves, but the results showed clearly in her taut abdomen, her firm thighs, and shapely triceps of which Elaine LaLanne (Jack's wife) would be proud.

With the year 2000, which Pippa thought of as "The Year of the Thong," she had decided to leave her old lingerie to the 20th Century. The moving lingerie pen had written and, having writ, moved on to the 21st Century. When making such a change, Pippa hadn't made any external change. Her professional colleagues were entirely unaware of the metamorphosis, but that was half the fun. Pippa resolved to remake herself all under, to restructure her life beginning with sensual lingerie. No, she didn't make dramatic changes such as installing a Sybian machine in her bedroom. Such devices seemed far too cold and industrial, and her tastes in sex toys ran more toward the mundane and conventional. Still, faced with the greater exposure of bathing suits such as her white crochet, Pippa did undergo laser treatments which rendered her form as smooth as a politician's justification.

She became aware of a sound outside. Glancing out, across the wide expanse of her own yard, she saw her neighbor, Spencer Hill, at his flower bed, garden hose in hand. It made her ponder. Who was the enigmatic Mr. Hill? What was his occupation? She knew not. Yes, she had seen him departing for work in the morning, three-piece suits in the winter, black wingtips gleaming in the pale light. And there had been that one time, when both had gone to get their mail at the same time, when their eyes met. He nodded politely. She did the same. And the moment was lost.

As she walked up the incline of her lane that day, Pippa thought of a book from college, David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd. No, she hadn't been assigned the book, nor had she read it. But the title remained etched in her memory. Small towns still had main streets, but people seldom met their neighbors strolling down them. Neighbors met, if at all, in Walmarts on the edge of town. Sealed in their cars, neighbors often did not meet at all.

For his part, Spencer was lost in his own thoughts while manning -- or personing -- the garden hose. The prior night, while playing a trivia game, Spencer had gotten a question relating to Praxiteles. Unfortunately, Yahoo Chat being universally acknowledged as deeply defective, his text was invisible to other players and his answer was ignored. In his heart of hearts, Spencer knew that the opportunity for him to answer a sculpture question would occur only once in a lifetime given his ignorance of the subject.

Understandably morose, Spencer had been watering his flowers when what to his wondering eyes should appear but a faint glimpse of movement at the window of his neighbor, way off across the lawn. Ah yes, he recalled, the svelte one he'd seen that day at the mailbox. Spencer had noticed her sleek and graceful form on Thursday mornings. He would often see her lithe physique, encased in morning fog and little else, as she wheeled the trash toter down her lane to the curb.

Finishing the watering, Spencer went inside. He had binoculars to watch the birds at his feeder. That being so, it was not unusual for him to scan his yard for a black-capped chickadee, a snowbird, or the quirky little nuthatch. Winters were the best time to watch, but he kept the binocs handy in summer too. That day, as he used the binocs to see whether doves were again nesting in his huge white spruce trees, he caught a flash of movement farther out. The mercury had shot up on the thermometer that day, to a summery 70 degrees. He knew how it was with an April day--when the sun was out and the wind was still, he was one month on the the middle of May.

He adjusted the focus and gasped. It was the neighbor, the lady named Pippa. Yes, the one he usually saw in pin-striped business suits, the one with the intensely professional demeanor. Not a demeanor as ideologically intense as Ann Coulter, but a vocational commitment that showed her interest in making the world a better place. She had evidently decided to brave the uncertain spring sun and use her pool. He remembered her routine almost unconsciously from the previous summer.

She wrote. Yes, she wrote with the discipline and rigor of a prize-fighter in training, four hours each day and without interruption. He saw her writing, what he didn't know, but she wrote fluidly, easily. When she finished, she closed her laptop with a snap and immersed herself in the pool, emerging to lie on a float in the afternoon sun. He could almost see the satisfaction and the fatigue emanating from her. Even better, he could literally see the drops of water as they quivered on her light golden skin, much as he quivered at the image.

In a few moments, Spencer was even more gratified by the sight of Pippa sunbathing on a chaise lounge, her lean, yet nubile form glistening with suntan oil. So much depends upon a white bikini and tan skin glazed with tiny droplets of water. Spencer sighed as his eyes took in the fact that Pippa was wearing a white bikini top and a thong bottom.

It was some suit, made no doubt by garment workers in the Azores, crocheted in a design so intricate that they must have made only one, called it a masterpiece, and quit forever before they went blind. Was that tan fabric under the white, or was it her skin showing through? He did not know, but he longed to trace the swirls and rosettes with his fingers, touching fabric, then skin, then fabric, till she could take the teasing no longer and begged him to remove it completely.

Pippa was face-down on the recliner, her body sprawled on a large white towel. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, and Spencer could see suntan oil glistening on her neck. Suddenly, with no conscious intent, Spencer found himself thinking of kissing the side of that neck. Before he could follow that train of thought, he noticed that she was reading some book, sunglasses propped on her nose.

Feeling a tad guilty, but unable to halt, Spencer allowed the binocs to trail downward. He noticed the slim back, the tiny ischial dips above her hips, the white thong, the shapely hips, the tan, taut thighs. For some reason, the thought, unbidden, kept returning. He began wondering what it would be like to kneel down beside that chaise, to place a gentle kiss or two -- or three -- on the backs of her knees, on the backs of those firm thighs. He imagined her concentration on her book wavering as the kisses commenced.

Enough of imagination, though. If his mind had been in the gutter, at least it could be in the rain gutter. If he could not lavish kisses on her knees, he could at least gain her approbation by offering his yard services. For days, he had noticed her gutters overflowing with the residue of winter leaves and resolved to help her before remove them.

First, he grabbed his unlined grain leather cowhide gloves with the keystone thumb for dexterity, admiring the drawstring back for snug fit. Such gloves were useful for many tasks, and so reasonably priced that they could be disposed of after a messy job such as gutter cleaning. He then retrieved a fiberglass extension ladder from the garage and fetched a baseball cap to shield his eyes from the burning rays of the sun. Thus prepared, he hailed Pippa over the fence.

"I just finished cleaning my gutters. Wouldn't you like me to get yours while I'm at it? It's not any trouble."

"Of course not! That is, unless you let me pay you what a service would charge. They really do need to be cleaned."

From there it was an easy exchange. It remained only to impress upon her the sheer delight it would afford him to clean her gutters and the utter repugnance monetary compensation would elicit. So it was that after another hour her gutters fairly sparkled with cleanliness, Spencer found himself by the pool with glass of iced tea in hand, clad only in the cargo shorts he wore for yard work, having removed his grime-streaked denim shirt upon completion of his labors. Pippa and he lounged and swam for an hour, exhanging easy conversation.

As they lounged, both were grateful that dark sunglasses had become fashionable in the 1940s and 1950s. Sure, both were interested in protecting their eyes from the harsh rays of the the sun. Both knew that exposure to natural light had been implicated in cataract development and there were suggestions of a possible role in macular degeneration. For them, however, the concerns were more immediate.

Serengeti sunglasses gave Pippa an opportunity to discreetly assess this helpful neighbor while he was wearing only cargo shorts. After counting the pockets on his cargo shorts (28), she noted that he was lean and muscular. His arms were not enormous, like those of Jack LaLanne in his prime, but it was readily apparent that he lifted weights.

Behind his military-style aviator sunglasses, a similar assessment of Pippa was also in progress. Of course, he had seen Pippa before, through the binocs, and found his pulse quickened by her slender, ripe form. But it was far, far more alluring upon closer visual inspection.

As the water soaked her bikini top, he could see what looked like glimpses of tan skin peeking through the intricate design of the fabric. As she turned to climb the ladder out of the pool, he had a chance to notice her firm, well-shaped hips exposed by the thong. He was surprised to find that it took all his self-control not to half-swim, half-dive over and begin to plant kisses of the backs of her tanned thighs. He was even more startled to experience a desire to see if, when he kissed her tan hips, a little residue of suntan oil would remain on his lips.

Lulled by such thoughts, and by the soothing heat of the afternoon, they drifted. Time seemed of no consequence. But then the skies darkened quickly, they heard a crack of thunder, and hardly had they closed the umbrellas and fished the floats from the pool when the rain came, pounding hard on the flagstones. They fled inside to escape it.

Once inside, Pippa and Spencer paused in the small sunroom, watching the rain. The drumming on the windows, the darkness of the room, and their scantily-clad bodies made it an intimate moment. He took a fluffy beach towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, leaving his hands on them. As he looked deep into her eyes, he saw that she wanted him to pull her closer, and her arms crept up around his neck, her fingers lacing through his wet hair. When he pressed against her, he thought, with the heat of their bodies and the thin wet material of only swimsuits, they might as well have been naked. For some reason, the Norah Jones version of Hoagy Carmichael's "The Nearness of You" sprang to mind.

Naked. The word had been at the back of his mind ever since he had seen her in the scanty bathing suit. Ever since he had seen her cool, direct gaze at the mailbox that day. Ever since he had seen the sparkling little diamonds of her tennis bracelet against the light tan of her arms. They were startled as thunder rolled and lurched closer to one another. He reached out and put his hand on the side of her neck.

As his hand touched her, Pippa gasped, for the feeling was akin to static electricity. And then, without either of them realizing it, he was kissing her neck, and then kissing her shoulder, right next to the strap of her bikini top. She thought he would simply move the strap, but he left it in place and suddenly he was kneeling and kissing first her arm and then her side. Pippa grasped for logic, thinking that the situation was rapidly moving out of control.

Kneeling, Spencer was thinking much the same thing, but her toned abdomen was near and he began kissing it. He could feel the suntan oil on his lips, feel her hands in his hair, feel the cool tiles of the floor on his knees. The season had turned--they were two months back in the middle of March, but the heat came off their bodies in waves, like a force field binding them together. Pippa, closing her eyes at the sensation of his lips on her stomach, did what she'd wanted to ever since Spencer had pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the ground. She pulled his hands up to her breasts and ran her hands over the well-defined curves of his biceps and forearms, admiring the sculptured tendons and his smooth skin.

She realized that this interlude with a neighbor could be problematic. Would he interpret her lust as gratitude for gutter-cleaning? No, surely he could not be that obtuse. But were they breaking some edict of the neighborhood association, committing a transgression akin to parking an RV in the driveway or ornamenting the lawn with pink flamingoes and mirror balls? If so, what could the penalty be? Or would she simply feel uncomfortable retrieving her newspaper forever afterward? Would she even forget all about paper-based "push" journalism and subscribe to an online paper in order to avail himself of interactivity?

But her concerns about the destiny of cybernetic journalism ebbed as she realized Spencer was nibbling around the upper edge of her swimsuit. She remembered that it tied at the side with crocheted strings. As she considered the possibility of his untying them with his teeth, she decided she was willing to pay any neighborhood association fine and cancel her newspaper subscription permanently, if only he wouldn't stop.

Nor did he. Casting a glance at the hard tiles of the floor, he pulled her over to a fluffy duck-covered couch. Pippa decided to take matters brazenly forward. Sitting astride his legs, she put her hand on the waistband of his cargo shorts and deftly unsnapped them. As she drew the zipper down, he closed his eyes. But she stopped, admiring his flat, firm abs of which even Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise would have been envious. Not only were they flat, firm, and well-defined, he had a slight tan. Where could he have gotten that bronze look so early in the season, she wondered. What an enigma he was.

Perhaps, she thought, much had he travelled in the realms of golden sand. Perhaps he had seen stately kingdoms. But, at that moment, it did not matter. Pippa leaned down and began kissing his chest. As she did so, she noticed that he frowned, in pleasure not in pain, and softly moaned. She resolved to discuss with him later the perils of high work on ladders, as well as the potential for comminuted fractures. But all those prudent thoughts she stored away for later as she kissed his chest.

As her hair tickled his chest, and as he felt her kisses fall on his nipples, he again felt that sensation of drifting away. Drifting away as surely as a character in a Melanie Craft novel. Drifting away as surely as a movie departed from a novel's plot. Drifting away as surely as Dobie Gray. But, seeking to regain control of the situation, he pulled himself upward and began kissing her breasts. As he did, he noticed that her nipples were swollen.

She took in breath, with a sudden and ragged gasp, as his warm tongue touched her left nipple, but through the wet cotton of her swimsuit. The sensation was indescribable, the cold-warm contrast making her shiver all over. As his hot breath penetrated the thin fabric, her heart began to pound. She wanted to tear off her top and let it drop to the floor, but the delicious teasing of his tongue through the suit was too exciting to stop even for a second. She loved the feeling of being held back and tantalized simultaneously.

He nibbled a little, not ferociously, just enough to give her a fleeting sensation of his teeth before he resumed his warm, wet tongue caresses. She let out a little gasp, feeling that she could surely stand it no more, when he lifted his head and, looking directly into her eyes, slowly untied the strings around her neck hlding her suit up. She locked her eyes with his and let it fall, unflinchingly baring her breasts for his scrutiny. But then the tips brushed against his chest and she couldn't bear the tension any longer. She leaned forward, tasting his lips with hers, till he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against his chest in a deep, deep kiss.

When she finally broke for air, somehow they were lying full-length on the couch, their bodies entwined like snakes on a caduceus. The residue of suntan oil made it slippery and all the more difficult to tell where one stopped and the other began. The very texture of Spencer's skin sliding against hers made her want to arch her back and press her stomach against his rock-hard abs, which she did. His reaction was instantaneous.

She felt Spencer's beard stubble on her left breast. She felt the harshness of the stubble, instinctively withdrew from it, only to feel the warm softness of his kisses on her swollen nipple. And then his kisses began to trend southward as surely as a citizen of Ontario in cold weather. Pippa shivered as his kisses arrived at her tummy, which was unadorned by piercings, unmarred by tattoos. No, her tummy was as tan and even as those of Gauguin's maidens.

Even in the throes of passion, Pippa struggled for rationality. Her eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, saw the rain pounding down outside on the pool, pelting the opened umbrella of her patio table. But it was no use. She gasped again as he began kissing along the top of the front of her thong, the little kisses falling on the skin just above the delicate fabric. Pippa could not seem to remain still, and she noticed that her hips were slowly moving. She felt his hands, strong and tan, reach out to touch her hips.