Nobody Can Resist a Neighbor

Authors Note: This one is a lot longer that the first two installments in the series, "Nobody Can Resist a Sitter" and "NCR: a student". There are two good sex scenes in this one, but there's a lot more before and between in terms of characterization and actual plot. Some of you may like that and some of you may not, only time will tell. All I can say for sure is that Mandy is still out there causing trouble.

I've traveled a lot for a man my age. But, god damn, it's good to be home.

I've backpacked through Germany and Italy, taught English to children in Korea and China, and even spent a memorable summer in the Australian outback. I've got friends in England and France, Quebec and Quintana Roo. I've got what some like to call the "itchy feet", the kind that can't stand still for too long.

Still, there are two things about the world that never cease to surprise me. One is how people all over the world are basically very much the same. The other is how different they can be.

Ergo, it's good to be home.

Home felt different than any other place in the world, and it was more than just because the people knew me. I got a lot of funny looks when I said I was leaving this place, almost ten years back. They all knew I was smart enough, more than smart enough, to qualify for any college I chose. The fact that we lived minutes from the best university in the state made my decision even more puzzling, that is, to those who didn't know about the maps and atlases that had filled my room since I was eight. I could no more have stayed here than I could have stayed young forever.

All of which brings me around to wondering, what am I doing here now?

Right now I am sitting at a desk, guarding an old used bookstore that everyone feels free to use as a library anyway. The position had called to me, and not just because all the other students were still on break. It gave me enough to do to feel like I was earning my pay, and enough down time to sit here holding a newspaper that I couldn't read but for the thoughts buzzing in my head.

I was about to drop it in disgust when I heard a man's voice in front of me say, "Excuse me." I lowered the newspaper and smiled respectfully, actually grateful for the distraction. It might be I actually got to use the cash register today.

I didn't, of course. Instead he and the rather pretty girl with him were looking for a friend of theirs. They were the second group in as many days to come looking for this particular girl, and once again I had to disappoint them. Yes, I knew who she was. And, no, I didn't know where she had gone.

I shrugged and said I hoped she was alright, then watched them walk out the door. Now the store was completely empty, and it was almost closing time. Best get things started now, if only so I can get home and sulk a while sooner.

Closing up was a simple process. I made sure to secure the cash box, then walked through the stacks to make sure everything was still in order. I was just refilling the cat's food bowl when I heard the bell tinkle once more.

"I was just closing," I shouted, though with a smile in my voice. "How long do you think you're going to be?"

"Oh... um, sorry," a voice called from the main entrance. Three things I could tell at once, that a girl had come into my shop, that she was young, and that she was a singer. Her voice tinkled in approximately the same tone as the bell on the door, and my heart gladdened at the sound, though as yet I could not have said why.

"I can come back tomorrow, if you're busy..."

"No, no..." I replied, standing up from where I had been crouched on the floor. "You have a couple minutes left, and I'd stay open longer just for you."

That last had the barest hint of a flirt in it, and it felt good. But then I turned around, and my jaw hit the floor.

It wasn't just that she was beautiful, although breathtaking would have been a better word, but there was also something vaguely familiar about her. Time stood still as I took care to study her face, from the clear blue eyes and long lashes with just a dusting of mascara, to the crimpy black hair dangling down past her neck. Her skin was creamy and flawless, with thin lines only from the perpetual smile on her inviting, pink lips.

I wanted to examine the rest of her, heedless whether or not she would notice me staring, but my eyes were trapped by her own. It seemed that while I was examining her, she was equally captivated by the sight of me, though why I couldn't say.

The moment hung in the air, and for a moment I felt time truly would stop. It was only the faint ticking of a clock in the background that alerted me to the need for someone to break the weird spell.

"If you need any help..."

"Jimmy?" she interrupted.

Oh no, I thought, but my mouth merely hung open. I was not yet prepared for anyone to recognize me. The fact that she did only made me more eager to escape, and more curious as to who she really was.

"Jimmy from across the street?" the girl continued. "You used to live here?"

"Ten years ago," I added, at the same time wondering how best to end this conversation. I was already eyeing the door wondering if I could toss her out, after I had just invited her to stay for as long as she wanted.

"Your parents used to invite us over for pool parties," she said, a faint red hue coming to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes as she spoke. "I was eleven when you left. You used to tell me you'd come home to see me, but you never did."

If my jaw had hit the floor before, now it crashed right through.

"Oh my God," I mouthed, though somewhat breathlessly. "Mandy?"

At the mention of her name, the girl's face lit up in a way I suspect it hadn't in a very long time. I had barely enough time to catch her eyes again before she was barreling across the room into me, forcing me into one of those full body hugs you rarely get to experience outside reunions. From the way she gripped me I could no longer tell if she was even on the ground, yet she felt light as a feather.

And so was I. What luck that I had discovered virtually the only good thing about growing up here, without even meaning to. And from the way her body pressed up against mine, I knew it would be a long time before I lost her again.

Only... should I be enjoying this so much?

I released her slowly, and reluctantly, keeping her shoulders between my hands even as I extended my arms. Of course as I looked down her body, the first thing I noticed was how she had filled out. I felt myself immediately turning red, and feeling more than a little guilty; this was not the stick of a girl I remembered.

In more ways than one, I thought. Today she wore a pink tee-shirt over a breezy black skirt; eight years ago it might have been pink too. Also, there was the faintest crease in the material of her shirt that might have been a belly button ring. Could it really be so?

I suddenly felt the urge, almost a need, to feel her soft middle in my arms again, the gentle, warm flesh giving beneath my fingers. Her hair smelled faintly of flowers. Her face glowed, and it only took a look to know what she was feeling.

"I never stopped thinking about you," she said again, seeming to sigh easily through her narrow nose as she said it. "I always knew one day you'd come back."

I smiled. It was the only thing I could do; how could I let her know I had never actually intended on coming back? But at least with her the smile was genuine, with everyone else it felt forced and stupid.

"I missed you too," I said, and I meant it.

Mandy met my eyes again, and this time there was a distinctly liquid quivering to them. Her smile was faintly sad. Again I pulled her into me, inhaling deep to drain the scent of flowers from her hair, and enjoying the warm softness of her body. Finally I let her go and took my first step back.

From this distance I could see clearly that she was crying, and trying unsuccessfully to hide it. I decided it was better to pretend not to see anything, and crossed my arms as I leaned against the shelf behind me.

"So..." she started, wiping the corner of one eyes with her knuckles. "How's your father been?"

"Dead," I said sharply, and instantly regretted it.

Mandy froze in what might have been a humorous shock, had it not been real. Her lips held the "oh" shape she intended to make, all the while her gaze slide slowly to the floor. It took me several seconds before I even realized I had killed the mood.

"There's..." I started, putting my hands again on her shoulders, but refusing this time to draw her in. "A lot has happened since I've been away. I don't think I'm ready yet to talk about it."

Mandy nodded, but I could already tell she didn't really understand. Who could? I just cursed myself for having brought it on her.

"Look... I was closing up before you came in," I diverted feebly. "Maybe if we get together some other time..."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, her eyes again filling with the light I had noticed earlier, and she bounced once up and down. "But can I at least walk you home? It's been such a long time..."

I could never resist her pout, and before she could force it on me I quietly conceded. I finished packing up the shop while she followed behind me, oddly silent herself, but for my fortune the conversation picked up again the moment we hit the door.

For the space of that walk, which surely must have been less than a half hour, I felt transported back to my childhood. I walked arm in arm with Mandy and felt the sun shine on my shoulders, wishing selfishly that the moment would never end.

For the most part, Mandy prattled on and on about her own story while I listened attentively. She was seven years younger than me, and had only just finished her first year of college. She filled me in on who was still around from the old neighborhood, and who had been added since I left. Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson were now parents, and Mandy made a good deal of money sitting for them in the evenings.

From anyone else it would have bored me to tears. I had to realize that now, with Mandy on my arm singing happily, I was content for the first time in years. Maybe this was after all what I needed.

Finally, we reached that familiar stretch of road I had previously thought of as very lonely. On one side sat a pleasant, yellow, two-story house directly across from my own. I turned to go, when once again Mandy caught my arm.

"Jim," she asked, eyes glancing downward tentatively, "when you do finally feel like talking..."

"...You'll be the first one I tell," I finished for her, and again I realized that I really meant it.

"Do you still remember the old ice cream parlor?"

I smiled, seeming to know what she was driving at, yet willing all the same.

"Meet you there noon Saturday?" I finished.

Mandy's smile was immediate, yet she continued to keep her eyes aimed downward for a good couple seconds longer. Finally, she nodded her head hard enough to bounce all of the dark strands I had come to love again over the last hour. Before I could speak again, Mandy bounced up onto her toes and gave me an almost lightning quick peck on the cheek, then darted away before I could grab hold again.

Dazed, I stood in the street for a long time before I realized that my hand was over the spot she had just kissed. Leave it to kids to get excited over a free ice cream, I thought. But inside, I couldn't deny the flutter my heart made as I considered our date tomorrow morning. Full of images I had not begun to conjure more than an hour ago, I turned to go inside.

As usual, the house was empty. There was no message on the machine, not even a note to let me know whether my mother would be gone for a few hours or a few days. There was no point in calling out her name, I just headed upstairs.

My room was almost exactly as I had left it, which was ironic considering the number of calls I had received from them throughout the years. The wall opposite my bed was still filled with books, most of them Lonely Planet guidebooks, and my telescope still sat atop its tripod near the window. Still it was too early to sleep, and I was in no mood to tap away at the outdated computer in the corner. And so, overcome with a sudden fit of pensiveness, I found myself gravitating to the telescope to watch the stars come out.

The first thing I noticed about the telescope, which I had not yet touched since I'd arrived, was that it was no longer pointed at the North Star as I had left it. That alone might not have bothered me, except that its new arrangement pointed directly at the second story window across the street. What had dad been up to before he died?

Peering through the close end, the neighboring window leaped into focus. Soft yellow light poured between open blinds, but those did absolutely nothing to block the view. Mandy was just now coming up the stairs, where she eased the door gently closed so as not to make much noise, then leaned against the wall and relaxed for a long minute.

I almost slipped the telescope to the sky right then and left her to her privacy. Almost. But could I have really looked at anything else with her moving about so innocently in front of me? It wasn't as if anyone would believe I could be looking at anything else anyway, if anyone came to know about the telescope. The truth was it was simply too tempting to stare.

I hesitated for a long time, waiting either for something to happen or for me to get bored of watching her lean up against the door frame. Just as I felt Mandy might stay lost in thought forever, her hands reached together behind her back and before I could figure out what she was doing the breezy black skirt was on the floor at her feet.

When I saw that I nearly choked on my own spit. The way it simply fell away, as though whatever had been holding it up had disappeared, and the way it now lay a crumpled rag that she kicked away as she strode into the bedroom, seemed distinctly less ceremony than I expected. But what really shocked me was the sudden appearance of her pale legs, so flawlessly white they almost glowed, an effect that was only increased by the sharp "V" of the black panties framing her hips.

I should have pulled back then, but instead I leaned forward. In my mind I had still been picturing her as a child, but that was now impossible given the sight before my eyes. Those legs belonged on nylon advertisements, the strong calf and thigh in perfect proportion to one another so that they seemed more than half her height. Those legs, and those sexy black underwear, began to stir something inside me I had been trying to ignore while still in my old hometown.

Of course, Mandy didn't stop there. Walking into the bedroom, her foot playfully kicked at the discarded skirt before she came to stand in the exact center of the room. Pausing to stretch, her fingers wrapped themselves around the bottom of her tee-shirt, and in one smooth move pulled it up over her head so that it turned inside out. My first glimpse of the black satin bra, which of course matched the panties, was almost matched by the silhouette of her legs, her taut stomach and lower ribs standing out against the skin as she reached her arms up.

My erection now was undeniable. For a moment, the shirt she was lifting off got tangled in her hair, and I was treated to the sight of her half-naked body straining beneath a cloth blindfold. I felt the irresistible urge to be there and grab her wrists while her head was covered. I wanted to fondle her breasts and snake my hand inside her panties, to smell her getting aroused and take possession of her before she could see me and without a hope of fighting back.

If I had been in the room, I might have done just that. But the best part was that I wasn't there. She already had no hope of fighting back because she didn't even know I was here. In short, I had all the power and she had none. The words echoed through my head again, she could even know I was here. That alone made my head turn swimmy.

The tee-shirt soon followed the skirt into a wadded pile in front of her closet door. Mandy was now striding around her room in nothing but the bare essentials to conceal her stunning body, a pale white figure given perfect shape by black, shining satin. I would have loved to pretend she was becoming aroused, but if there was a wet spot between her legs the telescope was too far away for that much detail. The show was probably over for me, but I kept my eye trained on her just the same.

What surprised me next was the gracefulness with which she collapsed onto her bed, her knees buckling beneath her as her weight neatly fell into a seated position on the bed. Her legs crossed elegantly and so smoothly as she swiped a small, portable phone off the bed with her hand and brought it up to her ear.

I had been absently rubbing my straining cock through my jeans for the last couple minutes, but now my curiosity was well and truly piqued. I watched as she casually, and very prettily I now realized, brushed a stay lock of hair behind her ear and punched a few numbers into the phone, then settled back into a half-reclining position with her left elbow propping her up on the bed and her crossed legs swinging seductively beneath her. Was this her habit to disrobe and talk to friends in the evening time?

I leaned forward, pressing my face hard into the lens of the telescope as though this would somehow allow me to hear what she was saying. It was the sheer ridiculousness of this act that brought me back to earth enough to turn around and see if I had closed the door to my room. I had. Then I remembered no one was home anyway, and silently gave myself permission to unzip my fly and allow my swollen member to burst out of my jeans as it had been wanting to for almost an hour.

Pre-cum was already beading at the flushed, purple-red tip of my cock, but I didn't stare at it long enough to see how it had smeared. Instead, I immediately turned my attention back to the girl in my lens, naively unaware how exposed she was. Though I still couldn't hear anything besides the rasp of my own heavy breathing, there was something distinctly un-innocent about the smoky glow in her eyes, and perhaps about the way her chest heaved slowly as her chin tilted down.

Her body seemed to draw into itself, as though guarding some secret fascination, when suddenly sweat burst out across my body to match the wet glisten of her own hairless arms, legs and stomach as I realized at once what she was doing.

"I'm lying on my bed in my sexiest black underwear, all by myself, and I started thinking about you," the words practically shouted themselves to me, and for a moment I thought I could read their traces on her pink, shining lips.

It was ridiculous, of course, but at almost the same moment the words were out of her mouth I saw her left hand reach up to adjust the straps of her bra, moving them further apart so that her breasts hung freer and I could clearly see the dark crease between them. For the first time, I allowed my fingers to brush the sensitive nerve just beneath the helmet of my dick, and gasped as the shiver ran through me.

"Do you want me to take my top off? Are you imagining what I would look like naked, pressed up against you?" I said to myself out loud, not particularly concerned about anyone overhearing. "Of course you are. Why don't you go do it."

And as though I were directing the action, that was the exact moment she reached her arms behind her back. There was a bare second of fiddling, then the satiny black cups simply popped off her like they were held by a spring, unable to continue holding back the ripe firmness of her stunning breasts.

"Oh my God!" I gasped when they were first exposed to me, unable to help myself. Outside of pornos and pinups, I had never before seen a woman with tits as firm and perky as hers. It wasn't that they were especially large, although they were definitely more than a handful, but that they stood out naturally in a way I would have been certain she needed support to accomplish. Of course they might have been fake, but using only my telescope I felt reasonably sure they were not. Maybe she was just young.