A Woman on a Roof

I saved this story specifically for the Nude Day Story Contest 2022. It is a celebration of nudity, but reverses the gender roles of stereotypical exhibitionist-voyeur dynamics. In fact, even though the story has its genesis in real-life events, it has been written as a retelling of Doris Lessing's famous and often-anthologized story of the same name, "A Woman on a Roof."

I hope you like it, catch the numerous literary allusions, and vote.

A Woman on a Roof

It was during the week of the great thaw, that April. Albuquerque had suffered one of the coldest, snowiest, and latest winters on record, and nobody was ready for this sudden change. Winter coats worn one day were shed for summer gear the next.

Emily started climbing up on to her roof and, pausing at the top, looking east, had a fine view across a row of houses in front of her, of the Rio Grande Valley and the Sandia Mountains beyond. It was mid-afternoon and the mountains had not yet adopted their famous watermelon color, but the view was still spectacular, worthy of a prolonged stare.

She was climbing onto the roof to de-winterize the air conditioner. A freeze a few nights ago had not prepared anyone for 85 degree weather. The Zephyr winds had rushed inland from the Pacific Ocean and, lifted up by the Rockies so that all the moisture drained out, became a hot, dry wind that swept into Arizona and New Mexico.

When she turned, Emily saw him, less than 30 yards away, in the corner of his back yard. Emily could see all of him. He lay face down on a lilac beach towel.

She immediately climbed back down.

She wanted to, needed to, get the air conditioner running. Her house had become unbearable. The heater had dried the air all winter, but this high-desert hot air was even more dehydrating, and she needed to get the evaporative air-conditioning so the dry sweat would stop cracking her skin.

Emily moved the ladder to the other wall, the closest to where he was laying, so that she would be easily visible from where he lay. She was trying to be a little louder than usual and the aluminum ladder rattled when it hit the wall. She climbed the ladder with her back to him carrying the few tools she needed. She turned to look at him; he was motionless, face down, reading a book, feet towards her property. She could just make out earbuds. He was stark naked.

She moved across her flat adobe-style roof to the air-conditioning unit. In the spots where the snow had melted already, the roof was nearly too hot to touch. She removed the heavy canvas cover and then unscrewed the front panel to get to the inner workings of the unit. As she attempted to prop the panel up, a wind gust caught it and it slammed back down with a clank. Emily immediately turned towards her naked neighbor, and he immediately turned to look her direction, turning first to glance over his left shoulder and then his right, raising a hand to block the glare of the sun.

Emily was sure he had seen her looking at him, he looked her direction for a good 10 seconds, but he simply turned back to his book. She thought to herself that if he doesn't care then why should she. In the few times Emily had spoken to him and his wife, they had seemed easy going, polite. His name was Adam or Scott or something like that, and the wife, Naomi, was a little more engaging. They were both in their early twenties, just a little younger than her 28 years, and kept unusual hours.

Emily turned on the water supply, lowered the unit's panel, and climbed back down the ladder. Inside the house, she turned on the air-conditioning, and raised a hand to feel the cooling air blow from the vent. To finish the job, she would have to climb back up onto the roof, check that the water level in the air-conditioning unit remained below the overflow point, and replace the two screws in the access panel.

She grabbed a drink from the refrigerator and allowed herself to cool off for a few minutes. The air-conditioning vents emitted a smell, a smell reminiscent of the air after a thunderstorm.

Back on the roof, Emily finished de-winterizing the air-conditioner. And then she stood and looked at the naked man in the next yard again. She thought he seemingly had chosen a spot carefully. A six-foot concrete-brick wall separating her yard from his. The wall on the other side was different; the entire street consisted of duplexes, and the wall forming the boundary of yards between his yard and the next, while still concrete brick was only 3-feet high, yet he had positioned himself in the corner so that those neighbors, if home, would have to walk up to the edge of the wall and peer directly over in order to see him. A street ran behind their row of houses, and it was rarely trafficked and even less frequently pedestrianed.

Just as she was surmising the scene, he turned over. Her instinct was to duck, but he had already glanced her direction. But it was more than a glance. He sat upright, checked his phone, looked her direction a second time, before laying back down.

Surely he had seen her? At first she didn't know what to do with her own eyes.

It had been a long time since she had seen a man naked. Her guilty pleasure, Sparticus, didn't count; actors, chosen from the best-of-the-best of human forms don't look like real people look. Her ex-husband, the last man she had seen naked, had not kept in shape, and after three years she had nearly completely forgotten what that man even looked like.

However, Adam or Scott, Adam she settled on, had satisfying proportions. The serenity of his repose, exquisitely-shaped masculine body, beautifully shaped limbs, strong hands, slender flanks, supple chest and belly, nipples and navel. And from Emily's vantage, the line of his legs revealed that he had nothing to conceal, nothing concealed, the maximum amount of his naked flesh was available for her inspection. She couldn't ever remember ever staring at, admiring, a man's genitals, so unashamed of complete nudity. Not even seeing Michelangelo's David in the Accademia Gallery in Florence so transfixed her.

Only when the USPS mail truck drove down the street did she realize that she was sweating, hot, still standing on her roof, open-mouthed, gazing. She climbed back down the ladder, taking one last look on the way down. Adam hadn't moved.

***

The next day was hotter still. Upon arriving home from work, she saw that his car was in the driveway. The ladder was still propped against the side of the house. She didn't hesitate to climb a few rungs and peer over the fence into Adam's yard. The yard was empty. She climbed back down, headed towards the door, but paused at a sound of a door opening and closing. She went back to the ladder, raised herself slowly to barely see over the wall, and saw him, naked already, striding to his suntanning spot in the yard.

It is generally believed that it makes no sense genetically for a woman to be easily aroused by the sight of a nude male. A fertile woman never has a shortage of willing sexual partners, and in a buyer's market she can seek the best husband available, the best genes, or other returns on her sexual favors. If women could be aroused by the sight of a naked man, men could induce them to have sex by exposing themselves and the gender's genetic bargaining position would be quite different.

But Emily changed into short shorts and a spaghetti-strap blouse, gathered a cold water bottle from the fridge, a sun hat, and a folding aluminum chair and climbed onto her roof. She did not try to hide. She did not try to be quiet.

The neighborhood went about its business. Not far off a man sat in his yard in a deck chair reading the newspaper, but watching Emily on her roof watching Adam in his yard. Emily did not notice, and she didn't notice the mailman nor did she notice Adam's neighbor on the other side drive up the street.

Emily, though, heard the sound of footsteps crunching gravel, and the neighbor lady, Mary Anne, Mary Anne Evans, on the far side of Adam's yard appeared. She went straight to the wall and peered over the naked man mere feet from her. Adam, face down, maybe asleep, maybe absorbed in the music playing in his earbuds, didn't move. She immediately turned and went back into her house only to return a few seconds later with her phone.

Emily was shocked when Mary Anne started taking photos of their naked neighbor in his own back yard and even more shocked when she started shouting crude comments to him.

Adam looked her direction and stood up to face her. They were only feet apart, and one could have easily climbed the short wall into the other's yard. Instead, Mary Anne continued to photograph him as he faced her. Emily couldn't hear what they were saying but the tone of their words echoed across the yard. Mary Anne's words sounded as harsh as the winds that caused this heatwave.

Adam turned and went inside and Emily wished that she was able to protect Adam from Mary Anne.

The next morning was recycling bin day, and Mary Anne was wheeling her bin to the curb just as Emily was. Mary Anne approached and said, "Pretty good show, isn't he?" When Emily feigned ignorance, Mary Anne said, "Come on, I saw you spying on him; that's why I went into my yard to look."

"You didn't have to..." Emily trailed off.

"Didn't have to what? Have a perv like you were? You want him all for yourself?"

Emily turned to go inside, but Mary Anne held her back. "I had a lot of fun sharing his pics with my girlfriends. He's hot as hell."

"He's married you know," Emily stammered.

"Yep. And so am I. But Al and I had a good laugh about it too after a while. At first he complained, a little jealous maybe, and said I wouldn't like it if some woman was looking at him naked. Of course I had to remind him that nobody wanted to see his saggy old body naked. When he accused me of being a horny Cougar, I simply told him, 'What do you want? You want me to sleep with him and just look at you, or do you want me to look at him and sleep with you?' I ripped his clothes off about then, but I was picturing Adam the whole time."

***

The next day, the last Saturday in April, Emily's son was at his dad's. All morning and through lunch Emily waited for the sun to illuminate the yards. She peeped over the fence at least a dozen times after noon. The sun was well past meridian when she finally got to see him. He was laying in a different place, further from Mary Anne's yard. Emily placed a step-stool against the fence behind some bushes and, discretely, gazed at him. He was face down, shameless, perfect. His skin had bronzed in just a few days, just as the daffodils had sprouted and were ready to bloom in the sun-warmed ground.

When Mary Anne made her appearance, heavy footed on the gravel that comprised the entire surface of her back yard, Adam ignored her.

It was then that Emily was surprised by the appearance of Naomi, Adam's wife. As quickly as Naomi appeared, Mary Anne retreated.

"You know the neighbors can see you?" Naomi said to her husband. Emily was certain that Naomi and Mary Anne saw each other.

Removing his earbuds, Adam replied, "I doubt it." He looked first towards Emily's direction and then to Mary Anne's, declaring, "They would have to be on their roof to see me and those people would have to be in their yard! That's a bit of effort if they don't want to see me. If they are offended they can choose not to look easily enough."

Emily was momentarily confused. She couldn't comprehend that he would believe that women, that she, wouldn't want to look upon him.

Naomi asked with a tone of irony, "Are you sure?"

Adam nodded.

"Are you at least wearing sun screen?" Naomi questioned.

"I could probably use some more."

Naomi went inside, returned quickly with a bottle of sun screen, and proceeded to rub it onto her husband's shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs. The wife's movements were sensual.

Emily could see the curtains in Mary Anne's bedroom parting slightly, and calculated that Adam's new position in the yard made him viewable from where Mary Anne was hiding aft the blinds of her window.

Emily stayed stock still.

Adam rolled over, his thirty minutes on one side complete. Naomi rubbed sunscreen lotion onto his chest and stomach before shifting to his feet and slowly worked her way up, shins, knees, thighs, balls and cock. He puffed and declined, bending the arch of his back.

"This is nice," Adam said.

"You're welcome," his wife replied.

Emily couldn't believe what she thought--maybe hoped--she was about to watch. But then Naomi collected herself and stood.

"You can't leave me like this?" Adam pleaded.

"I have to get some work done!"

Adam begged again, looking down, fully erect.

"I consider myself a very charitable person," Naomi remarked looking directly in Emily's direction, before heading inside. "I wanted to give something back to all of you!"