Could She Be Mine?

"We aren't paying your leave, so use it or lose it Geoff."

This was not what I wanted. I didn't have the money to go on holiday, so if I was not going to lose my leave, it would be two weeks at home. Television, reading, cruising the net and maybe a beer or three at the weekends.

Since Lucy and I had split up nine months previously, home was not my favourite place; there were far too many bad memories. I was trying to sell the house, but the market was on its knees and I could not find a buyer. In order to avoid home, I threw myself in to my work, which helped, but only for a while.

Since my employer had been bought out six months previously, the senior management had been replaced causing my professional life to become an endless cycle of performance reviews, management meetings and corporate bureaucracy, while they rationalised, downsized, restrategized, all the time seemingly doing everything in their power to demoralize and destabilize!

I was O.K. The top performer, or a close second most months, I was also the longest serving in my section so had the most experience. I just would have preferred that they paid me out for untaken leave like the previous business owners did. I was certain of one thing though, I was not going to give up my two weeks leave to our new bosses. At least two weeks at home would be a rest, a boring rest, but better than nothing.

Friday night drinks after work that week resulted in a Saturday morning hangover.

No sugar or milk for coffee. Just as bad, there was nothing that was not a frozen supper that I could have for breakfast. The only option would be to drag my sorry ass in to the shower and then to the shops.

As usual I walked past the house neighbouring mine which had been empty since about the same time that Lucy left. "Oh that's just fucking great!" I thought, seeing a gang of guys hefting furniture in to the house. An identical house to mine, yet no-one bothered to come and check my place out, they just ignored it and bought the house next door!

I wondered idly what my new neighbours would be like. The way life was going, it would probably be twin crying babies with teenage heavy metal loving siblings, a trailer trash family that would leave the gardens turn to jungle and make it even tougher to sell my place.

Feeling low, well even lower, I took the easy option of breakfast at a diner before having to grab provisions for home.

The moving guys were almost finished when I got back. Just a few boxes at the back of the removals truck, but no sign of the new residents.

The rest of that Saturday was a revolving cycle of walking around the house looking for things to do, movies, dozing and eating crap food, all the while dressed in my lucky boxer shorts. Lucky! HA! They hadn't been lucky for the last nine months that's for sure. A miserable day followed by a not spectacular night's sleep.

Sunday came and with an element of reluctance I got myself out of bed around noon. After showering, a beer in the garden for breakfast seemed a good idea. Maybe not my best idea ever but the best one I had right then.

There was no fence between my place and the new neighbours. You could see that there used to be, but someone had pulled it down before I bought my house. Sat out in the garden, I could see my new neighbour's patio doors were open. There were sounds of things being moved around and general busyness. So far, so good, there were no crying babies and an apparent lack of obstreperous heavy metal listening teens. There was still a chance of trailer trash though.

I thought about doing the neighbourly thing and going over to introduce myself, but my current blue mood and the fact that I didn't even want to live there, kind of put a dampener on my neighbourliness! Instead I would be "Mr unsocial, drinking alone neighbour," a person you don't want to speak with.

A few days later I had to go to the bank to pay bills and do householder type stuff, like getting a new real estate agent for starters!

I had gotten everything done and was walking from the car park to my place when I saw her. She stopped me in my tracks. I'm not sure what my face was doing, but I'm sure I looked a dork.

She meanwhile, was the most spectacularly beautiful woman. Indian, maybe 30 probably younger, as she walked by me she lowered her eyes, but gave me a shy smile. I stood there rooted to the spot, my head tracking her as she passed by.

It's not as though you could see much. Covered to the neck, wrists and ankles in something traditional, but that face, her eyes, her hair, the way she moved. It was like my mind's eye took a photograph and burned it in to my memory.

I did not have a clue who that woman was, but for the next few days as I existed at home she crept in to my mind more and more.

Self-pity swallowed me up, depressingly single, in a house I hated, working in a job I now loathed while being tormented by an image of the unobtainable.

A couple of days later I had to knock myself in to shape or I was going to go to pieces. Without knowing where, I thought I would take a drive, anywhere damnit, do something different and for fucks sake get to grips with life. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I'd locked up and was walking to the car when I heard the sound of broken glass and "Oh no!" I turned to see my Indian Lady stooped over. Jeans and a t-shirt this time, but there was no mistaking that complexion, that hair, those eyes. She was kneeling down outside her gate picking up shopping that seemed to have fallen out of the bottom of a bag. Scrabbling around as fruit and jars rolled here and there, she noticed me, frozen to the spot and probably with the same lame ass look on my face.

She stopped what she was doing and just smiled. Beauty, innocence, sultriness and exotica. I was entranced. It may have been a second, it could have been a couple of hours, to be honest I don't know how long I stood there.

With her giving a questioning but wonderful look, she held her hands out to the sides as if saying, "well are you going to help or what?"

Taking a first step towards her, I caught the toe of my shoe on a paving stone and stumbled clumsily, then I bent down to apprehend an escaping jar of pickles. As I got closer I picked up some more stuff and helped her put it in some of the unbroken bags.

With her squatting, and me on one knee, we both picked up the last items. As I handed them to her I smelled something incredible... a sweet smell, more citrus than flowers, something like incense but not. Now that I was closer I could see that she wore no makeup, her skin glowed nonetheless and she was astoundingly beautiful.

"Geoff," I said giving her my hand to shake as we still squatted on the ground."

"Mina," said as she turned away, standing up without accepting the hand shake. "Thank you very much, I had better be getting inside with these things," she said with a strange distracted look, not quite shyness, not fear, but something. There was probably a jealous husband inside I thought to myself.

"O.K. Mina, nice to meet you, I'd better get going, see you around."

And that was that. Another photograph seared in to my brain, this time accompanied by her scent. I walked to my car, smiling, I'm not sure why, all she was was a pretty chick, well a beautiful woman, but she was Indian, which does not usually bode well for a white guy. Secondly she seemed to have a jealous husband indoors. So what was there to smile about? She was unobtainable and untouchable, both of which did nothing to help my blue mood.

Driving away I saw myself with her, day dreaming about what she would be like as a person, as a partner, what she would be like in bed. Damn she was hot in a way I hadn't seen before.

I switched the radio on and "Brown eyed Girl" by Van Morrison was playing. I laughed at the appropriateness of it, but then got back into my melancholy blue mood, slipped in a CD of something loud and aggressive and headed in to the distance.

Back home that night, I couldn't concentrate on much for long, not without exotic Mina creeping in to my mind. I was borderline obsessing about her. It had to stop! Opening a beer I said "Cheer's Mina" towards the house she had bought and decided that a good drink was the best prescription for my woes in life.

The next day, a Saturday, I was finally putting up a medicine cabinet that had been laying on the bathroom floor since the days of Lucy. It was a scorcher of a day so I had opened the bathroom window to let some air in. I stood back and admired my handiwork. It wouldn't win any prizes but it did the job. Fuck Lucy! I thought, her loss not mine!

I was reaching to close the window when I saw Mina sunbathing in the garden next door. Laying on her belly reading, wearing a blue one piece bathing suit with the straps off of her shoulder, probably to avoid tan lines I though absent mindedly. I was absent minded due to the sight of her shapely backside and slender legs.

"Phewwww," I whispered under my breath. I could understand the idea of her husband keeping her on a tight rein, but personally, I would have peacocked that woman around displaying her to all if she was with me. She was magnificent!

I took a step back so as not to be too obvious, then strangely I went to get my camera. Making sure the shutter sound was switched off, I shot a few pictures through the window before retreating and checking them out on the phones screen. I zoomed in on her shoulders, her hair, her backside and travelled every inch of her legs before uploading the pictures to my laptop. They were damned fine photos.

Later that afternoon, looking at the pictures for a fifth or sixth time I felt a little disgusted with myself. What was I doing behaving like some kind of pervert? There's probably laws against what I had done. But I still had another look at the pictures. I obviously didn't feel that bad.

I went to a party at a friend's house that night. It was fun enough but nothing special. Despite the number of very attractive women being there, Mina played on my mind. Those legs, imagining giving the backs of her knees a kiss!

English does not have a word for the "Back of the knee," but the Germans do, it's Kniekehle. This lady had the most incredible Kniekehlen. Literally it means "knee throat." I guess stretched out they can look a little throat like and from what I had seen I would have loved to kiss that too.

What was I doing? This lady was making me invent knee fetishes! Kissing the backs of knees! WTF! I had said maybe twenty words to her but was obsessing again. But damn, she did have nice legs and a peach of a backside.

The party went O.K. but I left and drove home sober. There was little chance of me leaving drunk in a taxi with one of the attractive women. My mood and thoughts of Mina conspired against it.

The bathroom window stayed open most days since I had taken the photos, I always had a quick furtive glance through it just in case, but it wasn't to be. I guessed that with her complexion she didn't have to get much sun to keep it that colour.

The second week of my leave drew to a close. Mercifully I went back to work where I would not have enough time to spend on cursing real estate agents to hell and back, considering ways that the universe might seek revenge on Lucy, what my crap diet was doing to me or anything else that was generally pissing me off.

"Morning Geoff, a word please. Look we have to lose three of your team, budgetary cuts from head office, I think we all know who should go but we will leave it to your final judgment."

Oh! Just fucking fantastic. First day back and I'm told to let three people go. I had a team of 12, 25% of my team had to go. Of course we would be expected to keep up the same level of productivity and quality control. All my guys were good, hell I had trained them myself and I was the most experienced there. I had a sneaking suspicion that whoever I let go would probably be used some time in the future to move me aside. "Up to my final judgment" the boss had said. Yeah right.

Strangely, despite my at last busy day times, the one thing that I still had time to think about was Mina.

The week progressed, the newest, least experienced, and therefore the cheapest were terminated, Mortgages might not be paid, School fees delayed and wives cry, but what the hell, that's business for you. A new project, which strangely enough would occupy three people full time came in, the work pace kicked up a gear and still there was Mina... and her Kniekehlen! O.K. there was also her skin, hair eyes, backside and what on earth was that scent!

That Saturday, taking a beer from the fridge I was going to sit in the garden and curse the gods of business rationalisation when I got a call. Some guy wanting to sell me something I didn't need for more than I wanted to pay. Standing just inside the open patio doors I saw the reflection in the glass of Mina sunbathing across in the neighbouring Garden.

"Look bud! There is no polite way for me to say what I want so I'm just going to hang up." I said with something far more important on my mind.

My camera was there on the table so I grabbed it and quietly went out the front door and around to the rear. Peeping around the corner I saw Mina there, same position as before but closer. Pressing the shutter... clickwhir clickwhir clickwhir clickwhir. Shit, I had not checked that the shutter sound was off.

I ducked back around the corner and quickly made my way through the front door and in to the kitchen where I busily moved pots and pans making it sound like I was busy. I waited for an angry Indian husband to come and confront me. "Who? Me? Don't know what you're talking about, I've been preparing lunch," I would say.

No angry Indians arrived so the coast was clear. I sat down in the dining room and checked my camera. One perfect shot of Mina, one blurred, one of the ground and one of my leg. Idiot! I had heard the first clickwhir of the shutter and kept my damned finger on the button as I retreated!

"O.K. enough this has to stop!" I told myself. That was too close. A cold shower was had, with the bathroom window closed!

Another Sunday Bloody Sunday, and then it was back to the pit of tragedy and despair that I call my current work place. First news of the day was that the wife of one of the guys I let go left him, took the kids, car and in all likelihood her half of the on-going mortgage payments. Was it my fault? Damned if I know but it sure didn't make me feel too good.

After a Monday from hell I decided comfort food was the order of the day. I was walking aimlessly around the supermarket in a bad mood when my heel got jabbed from behind and I stumbled, "AAAAAARRRRGHHHH! What the..." Looking behind me stood a startle Mina.

"I'm so sorry, I was checking my phone, I didn't notice you there, I wasn't looking I'm so... Are you alright," she said.

"What? Huh?" I said shaking my head.

"You looked... stunned, like rabbit in the headlights stunned," She said smiling as I pulled myself together.

"Me? I'll be fine" I said. "It'll take more than a trolley crash to keep me off of the aisles!"

"Oh so you're a stunt shopping trolley pusher are you," she said laughing.

We chatted on, surprisingly freely, she laughed a little and I stuttered a bit too much, but compared to my previous dealings with the beautiful Mina this was almost a date!

We left each other to finish our shopping and found ourselves at the checkouts leaving together and heading for our cars. "I guess I'll see you soon," I said with a wink.

"Race ya home," she replied.

I was grinning like a Cheshire cat on the drive home. My heel hurt like hell but it was a small price to pay. I had my moment with Mina away from her angry, jealous and probably violent husband.

We got to the drive way of our housing complex from different ends of the road at the same time. But with me being a gentleman I let her in first.

Parking up I got out to be told "beat ya" as she made a loser sign in the air.

As we walked up to our houses she said, "look are you hungry, I have food on the stove and was going to eat now after shopping, I'm so sorry about your heel, look it's the least I can do."

Exaggerating my limp I asked, "Do you have something better than fish fingers and beans?"

"Miles better" she said laughing, "I'll bring some around to you. It's not wise to mess around with serious injuries like that! You'll have to keep that leg up, maybe even go for an x-ray."

"Look I'll head in and call an ambulance and you can bring me something to eat while I wait for them," I told her as we went our separate ways to our different houses.

I was smiling, grinning and chuckling while putting the shopping away before opening the patio doors for air, sitting down and flicking the TV on. I was thinking about angry husband, he must be away if she is going to come to my place...

"JESUS!" I all but screamed.

Mina was stood looking startled in the patio doorway holding a plate with a saucepan lid on it. "You gave me a fright!" she said.

"You all but scared the pants off of me lady!"

She came in and sat the plate on the coffee table. "Oooooh that's nice, where did you get that?" she asked looking at a cabinet.

To be honest I hated the damned thing. It was one of Lucy's impulsive purchases, a large Chinese styled dark wood cabinet with glass doors up top and drawers underneath. I would have dragged it out and burned it if I could have been bothered to sweat even a drop more because of Lucy.

"The old owners of this house left it behind," I lied. Standing beside her I inhaled that scent once again. What the hell was it? Whatever it was it had the effect of raising my blood pressure and encouraging, shall we say, impure thoughts.

"It's wonderful" she said gliding a hand across its surface, then as if suddenly remembering something, "I had better go, I need to get back. Enjoy the food," and with that she was gone. Gone back before angry husband returned I guessed.

The food was great in a way that other peoples food can be when faced with fish fingers as the only other option. Hell I didn't have to cook it and that's always a great thing.

If I was not obsessed before, the point was fast approaching where I would meet the psychological definition of the word. Mina was there in my mind all the time now. Driving to work, speaking with clients, helping colleagues, fetching lunch, talking with the bosses, driving home, in the shower, in bed, Mina was there.

A few days later there was a quiet almost whispered "Geoff" through the open patio doors. "Are you there."

Of course I was there! I was not capable of being in anyone's company outside of work. If it wasn't my blues making me irritable and snappy, it was Mina making me lose my train of thought and lose track of other peoples conversations.

"Yeah come in Mina," I said back softly. If she was whispering maybe she didn't want angry husband to hear.

"Hi I just came for the plate," she said with that stunning smile of hers.

"Oh O.K. I'll fetch it now." Getting the plate and saucepan lid out of the kitchen I went back to the dining room and saw her admiring the cabinet again. Forgetting about the jealous, angry and potentially violent husband, I asked her, "would you like a glass of wine?"

"I don't drink," she said, "but a cup of tea would be great."

I was like a kid a Christmas! Yeah I would have far preferred to have gotten her drunk and taken advantage of her. Not very gentlemanly I know, but aside from the fact that I would never do that, my thoughts of Mina had very little to do with gentlemanly conduct.

I made the tea while she stood in the kitchen chatting about my furniture, saying that I had a great eye for style. The truth of the matter was that I had absolutely no "eye" for such things, it was all Lucy's doing, but I was damned if I would tell Mina that.