A Gentlemen’s Agreement

It was an odd thing to notice, as I was cresting the hill and turning into my driveway. A small light flickering at the top of the neighbor's house just over the rise. Trees and rolling hills obscured most of the neighboring house, but I could see the flicker from this spot on the road. What was odd was that it was quite distinct, little flashes with no seeming pattern. I filed it away for future reference, and refocused my thoughts on coming home to my wife.

I pulled into the garage, grabbed my briefcase, and headed inside. As I entered the house, I saw my wife walking into the kitchen.

"Hi honey. I'm just about to start dinner. I'm marinating some chicken thighs, and we'll have roasted veggies and spuds. Sound good?"

"Sounds fine to me. Let me change and then I'll give you a hand." I dropped my briefcase off in my office, then marched upstairs, shucked off my tie, shirt, and pants, changing into sweatpants and a tee shirt. I headed back downstairs to find my wife just putting pans into the oven. I gazed lovingly on her posterior as I approached her, and as she closed the oven, I hugged her from behind.

Naomi has a great butt, a little broad, but not fat. In fact, that describes her body overall, as well. She has wide hips, wide shoulders, a kind of wide waist and nice breasts that fit her frame well. She's not fat, or even chubby, she's just got a sort of a wide body, and given that she's in it, I'm very happy with it. She has straight dusty blond hair that she keeps at shoulder length, and light brown eyes.

She lingered in the hug for a moment, and then turned to face me. We kissed for a few moments, and then she went back to dinner prep, getting the veggies and spuds ready to go into the oven. We chatted about our days - she's a second grade teacher at a nearby elementary school, while I'm an engineer who coordinates operations in a large manufacturing plant where we make the devices that keep optical signals humming along the internet. It was much like any other evening, we had a little wine, ate a good meal, watched some mindless television, and then she was ready to retire, so she went upstairs, and I went to my office to review some documents for work.

* * * * *

"Hi, this is XXXXX bank calling, trying to reach Roger Clifton."

"Roger isn't in, he's at work, but this is his fiancee. Can I help you."

"We're just calling about a suspicious charge. Mr. Clifton hasn't used this card for over two years, and suddenly there's a couple of charges on it. We just wanted to verify that they were legitimate."

"What were the charges? Maybe I can help you with that."

"The first was on the seventeenth, yesterday, at The Fine Whine, that's W-H-I-N-E, for $42.55, the second today, about two hours ago, at Celebrity Floral, for $65.23. Are these charges he would have made."

"Oh, you know, he probably wanted to surprise me and not put flowers and wine on our joint card. I'm sure that was him."

"I see. Well, sorry if we ruined his surprise, ma'am."

"That's all right. I'll pretend I had no clue."

"Very good. I'll mark this off as resolved, and keep the card active."

"I think that would be best. Thanks."

"Thank you, and thanks for, well, thanks to Mr. Clifton for being a XXXXX bank customer. Have a nice day."

* * * * *

I took care of the work faster than I thought I would, and again thought of that little flickering light I saw from the road. I pondered the local geomorphology for a moment, and realized that it would also be visible from our attic window. Naomi was asleep by then, so I quietly lowered the attic stairs, fired up the flashlight on my cellphone in lieu of the attic lights (to keep my night vision working), and climbed up to look out the window to see what I could see.

The attic is large, and we only used a small part of it for storage, because it isn't easy to get stuff up there. Things were mostly as I remembered them from the last time up here, perhaps a year and a half ago. There was a fine layer of dust on everything.

As I walked towards the attic window, I noticed something different. There was a folding chair there, and a small table. Odd, I didn't remember those being there. I looked out the window, and just above the treeline I could see the cupola of the house where I saw the flashes coming from. I looked down at the table, and saw an open steno notebook and a pencil laying on it. I also noticed the complete lack of dust on the table and seat of the chair. The notebook was open, and the top sheet was blank, but showed impressions from recent writing on the page above.

I sat down, and on a whim, I took the pencil and very lightly rubbed the edge of the tip against the pad, using the impressions left in the paper to show the last thing written on the sheet above. It was difficult to make everything out, it appeared that there were at least two lines of letters, well spaced out, as well as a number of stray marks. I tore the page off, put everything back where it was, closed up the attic, and went back to my office, where I could examine this in better light.

Looking at the paper, I could see a number of potential partial messages written. The most prominent one, probably the last, said "o one kno?s who the fa," something unreadable, "even me." Other snippets of words, "tic testi", "eans to?e at my?ge and di". This was definitely odd. I thought perhaps I should just destroy this and forget about the little flashes, then I glanced over at the shredder. We have a high security shredder, I need it for work, trade secrets and all. I lifted the top, and saw a large collection of shredded bits, all the same color as the paper I had just looked at.

All right, so Naomi is up to something, I thought. She's the only one who would go up there, and whatever she wrote down, she wanted to destroy. Hmmm. I went back up to the attic, and looked at the notebook. The inside of the cover had a handwritten (in Naomi's hand) list of all the letters of the alphabet, and what had to be their Morse code representations. I checked the few I knew, 'S' was indeed dot dot dot, and 'O' was dash dash dash. I put the notebook down again, as it was, and thought.

Normally, when I had a weird problem, I'd call my best friend Bill. But I couldn't do that here, because Bill is Naomi's brother. Bill and I have been tight since kindergarten, and have been best friends for our whole lives. Naomi was a little pain in the neck when we were kids, but we knew each other our whole lives. Naomi was three years younger than us, and given my closeness to Bill, completely off limits.

As we grew, Naomi developed into the nicest person, reasonably pretty but not super pretty, smart but not super smart, always involved in charities and volunteer organizations. Bill and I went off to separate colleges, he studying business despite my constantly reminding him over the phone, text, and internet that "friends don't let friends major in business," and me double majoring in applied physics and electrical engineering, specializing in optics. Bill went on for an MBA, and I started my graduate study at yet another school for what turned out to be another six years, working on my Ph.D in optoelectronics.

Three years into that program, Bill texted me that Naomi was about to start her M.Ed. program at my school. We had lunch the day she moved into her apartment, and hung out occasionally the first few weeks, and then she asked me out to dinner. I thought it was just friendly, and showed up in sweats and a tee shirt to a romantic Italian place to find her dressed to kill. She rolled with it, was chill, and we talked. I thought she may have had a crush on me from our childhoods, so I was nice, and we smooched a bit that first night, but that's all.

We started dating, it was a little weird, but we talked through it. Over time, it became clear that she was sad that I didn't have a girlfriend after three years there, and wanted me to be with someone, and I thought she needed someone after her move. But we were both falling for each other during the process of working this out, and we stayed together, moved in together, finished our degrees about the same time, and got married just after that. I promised Bill in no uncertain terms that I'd be good to her, take care of her, and all that stuff. After a while, he went from being the overprotective older brother to realizing that it was great that his little sister and his best friend were a couple.

So calling Bill about this message thing was out of the question, but I had the resources at work to find out what was what.

* * * * *

"My fiancee ordered flowers for me, and they never came. We should get a refund."

"Let me check our records, ma'am. What was his name again?"

"Roger Clifton. The flowers were ordered on the seventeenth."

"Hmmm. All right. Here it is, a dozen red roses and three orchids. Delivered the eighteenth."

"I didn't get them."

"Are you at 3527 Hastings Street? They were delivered there to the,erm, recipient and signed for at 2:35 PM."

The woman at the counter just stood still in shock. The clerk could see tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Is there anything else I can do for you."

"Did the delivery have a message with it?"

"Umm, yes, yes it did."

"Could I see it?"

"You probably shouldn't, and I shouldn't let you, but,"

The clerk turned the computer monitor enough so the woman could see it. She pointed to a section of the screen, where the woman read the typed text:

Dear Alicia,

I'm breaking a thousand regulations doing this, but since I pulled you over on Monday, I can't stop thinking about you. I hope you don't think I'm a creep or something, but is it possible we could meet again, if you're not with someone? You can call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. If you don't call, well, enjoy the flowers.

Yours fondly,

Officer Roger

"Umm, I see. Thank you, you've been very helpful."

"It's going to be okay, sweetie. You do whatever you need to."

The woman turned and left the store. She barely got out the door before she felt her world coming apart. She sat on a nearby bench, and remembered the time a few years ago when she got almost exactly the same note with some flowers, a day after being pulled over and given, not a citation, but a commendation for good driving, from the officer who would become her fiancee.

* * * * *

Two days after flash-gate, I had installed a sensor on the side of the attic, just outside another window. It was pointed at the house next door, and detected rapid changes in light intensity. The shadows from clouds blowing by wouldn't set it off, or the slow changes in daylight, but a flashing light, or a solar eclipse, would. It would record the flashes, analyze them, decode them, and send the text to an e-mail address I set up at work. A second, similar system pointed at the window of our attic, so I could get both sides of the conversation.

In a matter of hours, messages started coming in.

> It's not fair, I see you twice a week at school, and then just get a few hours here and there to really be with you.

> I'm not going to do anything to hurt my husband. He can never know about any of this.

> He will have you for decades to come. I could leave this world tomorrow, despairing of one last look at your face.

> You knew what this situation was when you got into it. I don't want to hurt you, but I'm not going to hurt him either.

> Maybe you can spend a weekend with me. Tell him your brother had to cancel this weekend, you have to pick up the slack, and instead of going to your dad's, spend the weekend with me.

> I'll think about it.

> And it would be a great time for you. You know it would mean a lot to me if the first one was mine. You and he have plenty of years to have more.

> I'm not budging on that. We're leaving it to chance, if God wants it to be yours, that will happen, or if not, it won't.

* * * * *

"Hello, can I help you?"

"Alicia?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm Karen. We have a mutual problem."

"Oh, do we? And what would that be."

"Well, Officer Roger Clifton is my fiance."

"I see. Well, that's an interesting development. Would you like to come in and we can discuss this further? Do you have a few hours?"

"I don't have a class until tomorrow afternoon at 3."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

* * * * *

"Honey, I just got a call from Charlie, both Anna and the twins are sick. He can't take care of dad, he needs to be with them, and if he caught it and gives it to dad, it could kill him. So I have to take care of dad this weekend."

Naomi's dad had Alzheimers, and needed full time care. The weekdays were covered by trained nurses, but the insurance wouldn't cover the weekends (don't get me started on that,) so Naomi and her brothers Bill, and Charlie took turns caring for him on alternate weekends. Fortunately, all of them were within driving distance of dad's house. This was supposed to be Charlie's weekend. But given her conversations with the neighbor, I was expecting this, and was prepared to do some acting.

"That sucks. I was hoping we could go on a hike on Saturday. Perhaps next week."

"Well next week is my turn."

"And Charlie can cover that for you, right?"

"Maybe. But he might get sick, or have other commitments. I may have to do two weeks in a row."

I hoped she would. If so, all my plans would come together nicely.

* * * * *

Karen's world was completely upside down, but she felt good about where she was headed. She packed up the last of her clothes, carried the boxes down to her friend's waiting minivan, went back up for a few little things, took a last look at the space she had thought she would be sharing with her future husband, then tossed her apartment keys on the table on top of her note, and walked out of that life.

Roger,

I shouldn't have to compete with Alicia, and however many others there are. Please don't call me. I'm keeping the ring; I need the money to get back on my feet again. Good bye.

Karen

* * * * *

Naomi did indeed have to take care of her dad two weekends in a row, which gave me plenty of time to execute plans. Late Saturday afternoon of the second weekend, I drove out on to the main road, over the rise, and into the next side street over. It seemed odd to drive nearly a half mile to go someplace that was perhaps two hundred yards from my house, but without off-road capabilities, that was the only way. I parked in the driveway, got out, and rang the bell. An old man answered.

"Hello, what can I do you for?"

"Joe, Joe Peters, right?"

"Yes, that's what my mama named me."

"I'm your neighbor from just over the rise." I saw the tiniest flinch at the corners of his eyes, and then a big smile. Joe had an impressive poker face.

"Well, good to finally meet you after all these years, neighbor. What brings you over here?"

"I thought perhaps we could go out for a drink."

"Well, that's a bit forward, but I'm not one to turn down free booze. You're paying, right?"

"Sure, why not."

"All right then, let me shut the television off."

I drove the two of us to a nearby pub; we made small talk on the way. I told Joe about my business building internet optical repeaters. How our product was a little better than the competition, and how as the internet grew, so did our market. He told me about his background, nothing I didn't already know, but he did whitewash out the salacious bits that I had researched on him; I wasn't about to call him out on that.

Once we were seated at the Old Oaken Cask, I dove right into the business of the day.

"So, Joe, tell me how you did it."

"Did what?"

"Seduce my wife." I was completely calm, collected, and cool. He paused, looking at me for a moment, and then relaxed. "From the beginning, if you would."

He smiled, a little wry smile, and then opened up.

"Maybe two and a half years ago, I volunteered at her school. They wanted 'elders', you know, old farts like me, to tell stories of how things were. I was a radio man in the navy during the Korean War. I told the kids about secret communications, morse code, all that stuff. The girls were all right, didn't really care much, but a group of boys, usually rather unruly, I found out later, were wrapped around my every word."

"Naomi was really cute," he continued, "Just my type, the perfect amount of meat on her bones. So I volunteered to help her out in her classes, weekly at first, and then twice a week. Near the end of the school year I took a fall and broke my right ankle. Couldn't drive, but when we found how close I was to her house, she offered to drive me both ways. Even after my ankle healed, we kept that arrangement up.

"The kids were fine, different batch the next year. But I was working my wiles on Naomi. She's such a sweet girl, you know. Can't say no to anything, will do anything for anyone. Early on, we did hugs, at the beginning of the day, and the end. You know, if you're hugging a woman just tightly enough, if you flex your pecs, they feel it in their nipples. I'd get bullets from Naomi every time I did that."

He paused, looked at me, assessed that I was still cool and collected, and then continued. I sensed that he wanted to show off his skills to me, a competitor for Naomi's affection. He continued.

"So, over time, I pushed the envelope. First a kiss on the cheek after the hug, she objected a little, but I said she was like a daughter to me, so she was okay with that. Then a kiss on the lips. She objected to that too, but I said it was nothing, just friendly. Then a longer kiss on the mouth. She objected that that wasn't how one kisses their daughter, so I switched gears, and told her it was innocent, but gave a little fuel to my old fantasies. She wasn't thrilled, but eventually tolerated it. Longer kisses, then a little caressing, I'd back off whenever she objected, but keep pressing forward.

Meanwhile, I taught her morse code, just like the kids in her class. Once she was good enough, we would each go up to our attics and send each other messages. She didn't want to use phones or anything that you could find out about, and thought morse code messages were cool, spy like.

On the sexual front, with me just asking nicely, pushing the envelope slowly, she couldn't get herself to say no. A cup of coffee and more kisses inside, feeling her boobs outside her clothes, giving her all kinds of compliments about her figure and such, just a little touch at first, then a little more, all the while convincing her it meant nothing to her, but was a kindness to me in my old age. It didn't hurt that I'm rather talented with my lips.

I remember one afternoon, kissing her bare nipples, with her solidly convinced that it would go no further than that, and as she put her bra back on, I thanked her for the wonderful memories that I'd stroke off to that night. Over the next few weeks we started jokingly discussing me jerking off thinking about her. I'm sure that greased the skids quite a bit. Later she mentioned that I'd probably have a sore arm, I replied arms, she asked if it took both hands, and I said yes and then some. She was skeptical, but a few days later, I showed her that I'm hung like a horse. I'm older now, but I still get a decently hard and thick nine or ten inches, with both my hands around it, there was room for one of hers too. She recoiled quickly from that first touch, but took her top off when I asked, and I rubbed one off looking at her topless body.

"From there it was easy, I suggested that what my lips could do to her nipples would feel much better on her kitty. She laughed at that word, but three days later, I was lapping up her juices. A week after that she was giving me head. She wasn't good at it at first, but got better. Sucking a huge dick is a lot different from sucking a normal one, or so I'm told. It took three months from that point before she would let me screw her. The first time hurt her, even though I went slowly, but eventually she stretched out a bit and it was good. I suggested to her that I was better than her husband, but she shot that down, and cut me off for two weeks. I apologized, and never mentioned you again. That's how I know she cares about you. She really does, you know." I didn't respond.