Handiwork - Ch. 01

Handy Work

Chapter One

In three decades of wedlock, I had never strayed. That Candace had done so -- and so carelessly -- was still mystifying. The romance had flickered out years earlier, and there was plenty of blame at both our feet for that. But we had remained together, going through the motions, as our daughters enjoyed their college years.

But the two- and three-o'clock returns home from hanging out with an exclusive group of friends from an art studio where she had become involved heavily with watercolors led me first to suspicion and then to the discovery that a canvas and paint weren't the limit of her involvement. One of the instructors, a guy 10 years her elder known by the regulars as "Moose," was spending some quality time with her at a local no-tell motel after the studio closed for business.

So I lowered the boom with a full report compiled by a private eye my bad-ass lawyer had urged me to engage. It wasn't cheap, but boy did it yield all the evidence I needed. When she was served with a fresh copy of the complaint -- Tierney v. Tierney -- just filed in Circuit Court and then the evidence was shared with her attorney, Candace became more cooperative and finally left the domicile, taking most of its furniture with her.

"You're in a good position legally," my lawyer, Eason Masters, told me. "Just don't let her catch you getting laid before the judge grants the final decree or you could fuck things up for yourself."

So my orders required me to maintain zipper discipline for the two to three months that Masters estimated it would take for the court to set me free.

I was doing pretty well for the first few weeks until spring gave way to early summer and sweatshirts gave way to t-shirts. In particular, flimsy crop-top number my neighbor Kim was wearing over a sheer sports bra. The navel on her tight, flat tummy showed just above the waistband of skin-tight bicycle shorts that covered about the top third of her thighs as she struggled to push her mower through her overgrown lawn on the first Saturday afternoon in May.

"This sucks, Gordo," Kim said to me over our shared fence after she killed the engine of her mower at the midpoint of her slog through the thick, tall grass of her back yard.

"Looks that way, Kimmy. Why isn't Roger's worthless ass out here doing it? And why did he let it get this high," I said as we both walked toward the fence.

She raised her eyebrows, cocked her head and shot me a look that, without saying a word, let me know I was one clueless shit.

"How long's it been since you've seen Roger's worthless ass on this property, Gordo? Helooo?" she said.

"I kicked the bastard out in March and he ain't coming back. If he tries, he's going to jail."

I was gobsmacked. I guess I was so preoccupied with my own domestic dysfunction that I failed to notice that I had seen neither Roger nor his Chevy Tahoe on the premises in weeks, even though I'd exchanged perfunctory conversational pleasantries when I'd seen Kim outside from time to time.

We had not been besties with our nextdoor neighbors in our middle-income suburb of Memphis, but we had gathered around each other's fire pit a few times to sip beer and gossip. Kim was a nurse specializing in obstetrics at a major hospital and worked strange shifts sometimes. Roger? I never could figure out what he did other than very damn little. Kim seemed to be the breadwinner, and Roger seemed to slide by, coming and going in the middle of the workday fulfilling whatever commitments he had as a "consultant."

"He was in the basement checking on the furnace in late February when a text showed up on his iPhone. He had left it on the sofa right beside me. I picked it up and read it. It was from someone using the screen name "Sweet Taters" and it said, "Missing U," followed by emojis of a heart, and then an eggplant and squirting droplets," she said.

"Before that could sink in, another text popped up and this was a selfie of somebody's tits -- my guess was they were the sweet taters themselves," she said, matter of factly. "And then a selfie of her bush."

So, Kim's narrative continued, when Roger's sorry ass came back upstairs from the basement, she handed him the phone and asked him who "Sweet Taters" was. She said the color drained from his face before he tried to disclaim any knowledge of such a person, that it must have been misdirected to the wrong person -- a manifest and clumsy lie considering she would have to be listed in his contacts as "Sweet Taters" to appear that way as the sender of the text, and the fact that she had called him by name, Roger, in the tawdry thread.

Confronted with that, Roger changed from defensive denials to aggressive retribution. As the verbal exchange escalated, he grabbed her by the throat and slung her onto the sofa, then stood threateningly over her, warning her never to question him again. She went upstairs, called the police and waited. One look at the livid marks on her throat and officers led Roger away in cuffs, charged with spousal battery. A judge ordered Roger's worthless ass to stay at least 500 feet from the house and from Kim, who had already cited the abuse in her divorce filing.

I stood there shaking my head in amazement at the drama that had unfolded next door to which I had been utterly unaware. But competing for my brain's bandwidth was the fact that this gorgeous woman separated from me now by mere inches and a waist-high fence, was also separated and on the fast track to being legally single.

"Looks like we're in sort-of the same boat, doesn't it," Kim said.

On Eason Masters's advice, I couldn't talk specifics of the case, but I told Kim things were going well and that I was probably on track for a final decree in the next month to six weeks. "My lawyer tells me I need to be a good boy til then. No fooling around or I could screw things up. Tells me that I should assume Candace and her lawyer are having me watched for just such a slip-up.

"Mmm hmm," Candace said, trying to suppress a wry grin. "Hard, isn't it?"

I instinctively looked down to see if I was bulging my flimsy basketball shorts. I wasn't, but Kim saw my none-too-subtle glance and burst out laughing. I could feel my face flush in embarrassment as my neighbor bent over, leaning against the fence, howling at my stupidity.

"No, stupid, not right now, but -- you know -- avoiding the temptation to sign up for something like Tinder," Kim said. "My lawyer has told me the same thing. Assume I am being watched and don't have sex or get in any situation that could be interpreted as sex until this is final."

I cleared my throat.

"Well, it hasn't been easy, I'll say that," I said. "How've you dealt with it?"

She stopped laughing, looked me in the eye and smirked.

"Same way you have," she said. "I've seen you."

The but how? look on my face convicted me. There was no walking it back. I stood there wordless.

"Gordo, you may think you're covered because the Venetian blinds to your bedroom are all the way down, but they're not drawn. It's not perfect, but you can see right through those little slats," Kim said. "Because you like to have the bedside table lamp going, it's like a billboard at night if you're looking out the guest bathroom window on our second floor."

"Don't be ashamed, I think it's hot as hell and it's one of the ways I deal with my own stress. I've gotten off several times watching you, imagining it was me riding your boner rather than your hand or that toy you sometimes use. I even used to watch you and Candace from time to time," she said. "So I guess now I'm busted."

Now I was beginning to tent-pole my loose-fitting shorts, but because I was standing so close to the fence, Kim couldn't see it.

"So... you see the whole thing?" I asked.

She nodded. "I can even see you squirt your cum as high as your chest when you're not using that fake-pussy toy, but I have to admit that I do occasionally use a pair of binoculars," she said. "It's almost like the slats to the blinds disappear if you focus just right."

"Lately, since Roger's been gone, I use my own toy while I stand there in the dark bathroom and watch. Sometimes I just use what the Lord gave me," she said, holding up her index and middle finger in a V shape. Not an ounce of embarrassment registered in her manner. "Once, a few years ago, I was watching you tongue Candace's pussy and it took me right over the edge before I could even get my hand inside my panties."

I was flustered. My brain could muster no cogent response, but my erection had grown to the point where I could no longer back away from the fence without it being comically conspicuous.

"Uh huh...," I mumbled stupidly.

"Hey, I'm not ashamed of it. Girl's got to do what a girl's got to do til I find some steady dick to ride," she said. Then she leaned forward and winked. "You're not going to turn me in, are you?"

"Oh fuck no," I blurted, a little too eagerly. "I need to sort this out a little, but it's a little... exciting, I guess."

Without realizing it, I was openly staring down the outsized, stretched neck of her crop-top tee at the narrow hollow between her D-cup breasts held in place by the tiny sports bra. A tendril of sweat that had started on her neck was inching its way toward her cleavage.

"Seems you're getting pretty excited right now from whatever's going on down my shirt," she said. She chuckled. "That's OK, Gordo. Ordinarily, I'd tell a guy, 'Hey! Eyes up here!' but considering what I've seen of you, I guess I have no right to complain. Besides, it's getting me pretty worked up."

She motioned to me.

"Gordo, step back from the fence, would you?"

What the hell. By this point, any modesty would have been false modesty. Her eyes widened and she silently mouthed Holy shit! as the dimensions of my erect and distended manhood, covered only by the satiny gym shorts -- going commando -- became apparent.

"I may have to take a little break from mowing. I've got some unfinished business in my guest bathroom if care to take a peek."