Seven Pt. 01

Note to the reader: this is a seven-part story that will contain erotic scenes. However, this first chapter does not have any explicit scenes.

ONE

In the middle of June, I noticed that I had been staying in every Friday night for the past six months. On Saturdays and Sundays, without a doubt, I went out. But on Friday nights, I wanted to be aware of what it's really like to be alone. At twenty-five, I was already once divorced. I met my now ex-husband when I was twelve years old. We both had attended the same private school and I first saw him in mathematics class.

As a child, he was very soft-looking; he had big, hazelnut-colored eyes, a small mouth with a matching gentle chin, soft eyebrows that blended in with his skin, and golden brown hair. He was also very well-mannered bordering on what I perceived as "girly." One day, I decided to sit next to him during class and I noticed that as he wrote down notes, he also doodled a little on the far side of the page. The very first day I spoke to him, he was drawing a penguin. I waited until class ended to say, "That's a cute penguin."

He smiled at me and thanked me, but immediately collected his notebook and left the classroom.

This was a Friday and I remember this very well because that weekend I spent a good amount of my time overthinking why he would have just left without really continuing the conversation. On Monday, I decided to sit behind him instead and when class ended, he turned to me and gave me a piece of paper folded into fours.

"What is this?" I asked him.

"Open it to see," he said very quickly.

I opened it and in it was a very big drawing of a girl penguin. I could tell it was a girl because he had drawn big lashes on her eyes and he had given her two pig-tails, as well as a necklace. I noticed that the necklace had a pendant of a little star, that is, it was the same necklace I used to wear everyday to school.

"Oh, thank you. It's very good!" I said to him, kind of quietly. My cheeks felt like a furnace.

On Fridays, as I stay in, sometimes I'll be flooded with these types of memories and it makes me feel like I'm that girl again, seeing him for the first time. On this particular Friday in mid-June, I decided that since it is hot out, I should do something in the yard. I put on a bikini, a loose tunic, shorts, and sandals. I grab a book and head out to my yard through the back door and sit down on the lounge chair.

After divorcing, the court decided that half of the apartment belonged to me and the other half belonged to him. However, my ex-husband said that I could live in it if I wanted to, but I really did not want to. We put it up for sale and I moved about half an hour away, into a woodsy suburb. Since I imagined myself living alone for a long time, I rented a three-bedroom ranch, with a little yard. Big enough for me but too small for a family.

In this town, the houses were further apart but I could still see the neighbor's yard over my low fence. I did not ever really meet any of my neighbors except for the ones I shared a fence with. When I first moved here, a woman of about forty-five rang my doorbell. She had a small container in her hands. Her hair was dark and long and if it hadn't been for her crows feet slightly showing as she smiled, I would have thought she was closer to my age.

"Hello," I said to her.

"Hi, sorry to bother you. I was excited to get a new neighbor and wanted to introduce myself," I nodded and she continued. "My name is Renee. I brought some homemade cookies." She extended her arm with the container. I grabbed the cookies and thanked her.

"I'm Monica, it's nice to meet you." And before she walked away, I also told her:

"I really appreciate you coming. I'm really tired right now, it was a long day but maybe we could talk tomorrow after I've settled in?"

Her face brightened up and she replied "Sure. You can either come over to my place or I can come here. Husband won't be in tomorrow so... really either works!"

We settled on me going over hers for dinner and I closed the door.

The next day, I assembled a small cheese bake with some brie, peaches, and honey. I grabbed the store-bought crostini and headed out the door for my neighbor's house. The house was much bigger than my ranch but still modest. A 1950's Cape Cod house with french windows and a wide yard. From my yard, I had seen their large birch tree with a birdhouse and a colorful assembly of flowers spread all around the sides. They also had a deck with a garden table, covered by white curtains that looked like they were made of linen. I rang the doorbell and she came out wearing a knee-length, half-sleeve wrap dress. I felt a bit underdressed seeing her as I wore denim shorts with a fitted black top.

I went in and she led me towards a white kitchen. I sat on a stool by the island and she started to take out different pans from the oven and set them on the stovetop. I commented on the beauty of her home and she asked me if I was hungry. I wasn't yet, I told her. She led me towards the back sliding doors that opened to the garden and we sat on the chairs underneath the linen canopy.

"So what brings you to move here? You look pretty young... do you have any children?" she asked me as she sipped on ice water.

"Um well I recently divorced..." she nodded her head slowly and contorted her face as if to show sympathy at this, but made no comments. "And no, no children... I have always liked the quietness of the suburbs and the privacy and this town is not so far from my work in the city so it really makes sense for me to move here." I paused for a second, unsure on what to say next. "Do you have any children?"

"Yes, one. He actually recently moved back in after finishing college. I really was kind of hoping that he wouldn't move back in after he finished, he had always told me that he planned on getting a job immediately after finishing... but you know, the job market is really tough right now."

"Can only imagine it. When I first graduated college, it took me about six months to find a job. Thankfully, my ex-husband got one immediately after graduation so I didn't worry that much..."

"How old are you?" she asked me suddenly. I told her 25 and she nodded her head slowly. "Young, even younger than I estimated. You married young then?"

"Yes, at 21."

"Oh! My boy is 21 now, can't even imagine him marrying right now. Probably not for a long time!" she laughed and as her laughter died down, I heard the fence door clank closed. A young man, short in stature, but very lean and muscular walked in. He smiled, a tight-lipped smile, and waved. "This is him right here. Monica, this is my son Caleb."

Caleb slowly made his way up the steps of the deck, I stood up and extended my arm towards him, but he had his arms outstretched as if going for a hug. So I put my arm down, let out a low laugh, and embraced him briefly. He smelt clean but a little musty as if a fresh sweat had just collected on him from being in the summer heat.

"Nice to meet you," he said quickly after releasing me. He nodded his head and made his way inside. After he was gone, his mother told me:

"He's a nice boy. Has always been very social and friendly," she said this and then lowered her voice to say the next thing. "But he's been more quiet since coming back. I know he's an adult and everything, but I still worry that it means something is wrong." I wanted to say something of substance back and I kept running different ideas in my head. Truth was, her son was closer to my age than I was to her age. Offering any advice really would not make any sense.

"I bet he's all right. It's just a transition. They're always hard."

-

As I sit on the lounge chair on this day, I see him come out to the yard over my fence. He is staring out and I don't know where to look. Thankfully I had sunglasses on so for all he knew I could have had my eyes closed.

I hadn't seen him since last week, when I first met him. This past week, as I continued unpacking and rearranging the house, commuting to work and back home, cooking- doing all those little habits I need to do to keep myself alive and functioning-I felt a little more enlivened. In between the moments in which I felt very content and brightened, I would remember when my mother called me on the phone a few months after my divorce, she had called me "heartless." She said she could not understand how I could go out in my little skimpy dresses every weekend in such an awful time.

"When your father died, I did not even shower or leave the house or do anything for that matter."

I stayed quiet after she said this and did not really respond to her comment. I said that I had to go do something and hung up.

Anyway, as I lay on the lounge chair, Caleb looks at me as he crosses the yard towards the low fence. I look down, it burns to look towards him with the sun starting to set behind him.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," I take off my sunglasses, shading my eyes with my hand, and smile.

"How are you liking living here so far?" he asks.

"Um, well it's only been a week but I like it. You grew up here?"

"Yeah, but I went to an out-of-state college. Anyway, I don't suppose you know a lot of people around here. Are you free tonight? Want to grab a drink with me and then maybe I can introduce you to some of my old friends?"

It is a Friday, my unofficial day for "mourning" you could say. But I say yes.

"Okay, can you be ready in an hour? We can go in my car, I'll knock on your door."

-

We arrive at the bar. He enters behind me and I feel a quick touch on my lower back, so quick and shy, that it actually feels as if just one finger was actually touching me.

"Have you eaten?" he asks me.

"No," I say.

"You hungry?"

"Yes, are you?"

"Yeah, let's get a table first, then. My friends won't be coming for some time."

We sit down and there is a silence that settles between us which I don't know how to break. Since my divorce, despite going out a lot, I have not gone on any dates. Not that this is a date, but I certainly haven't sat down with a stranger and just spoken to him. The times I have gone out, I have been hit on, but I rejected all advances as I did not want to have rebound sex. I look through the menu, not really reading much of it, and when I look up, he's staring at me.

"How come you decided to befriend my mom?" he asks me, smirking.

"Well, I don't know! She came to my house with cookies and I wasn't gonna just say thank you and leave it at that."

He laughs a little and then sighs before saying: "You know that day you were over at our house, I was very confused about you. Because you kind of both look like my mom's age but also my age." I widen my eyes at this. "Oh, sorry, no! That's not what I mean. Like, you definitely look your age and you dress like it too. I mean, you kind of have a baby face even... it's just, I guess the way you act? Sorry I'm rambling. I didn't mean to offend you."

I give a small smile and then ask him, "what has your mom told you about me?"

"Not much. I just asked her your age and I was surprised. Thought you were just a MILF that aged really well."

"MILF! Excuse me?" I take a moment to really laugh. "I'm sorry but look who's talking! You know I also wasn't sure about you, I was thinking you might be a teenage boy. How tall are you anyway?"

"I mean, I get that a lot, my mom did have me pretty young. ALSO, I'm pretty sure it's rude to ask for someone's height, but I'm 5 foot 6."

"I don't think it's rude, but I bet you get asked that a lot, huh?"

At that moment, our food arrived and as we began to eat, the table's silence was disrupted only slightly with our chewing and swallowing. As I was left with my own thoughts, I was reminded of one of the last meals I had with my ex-husband. That morning had been rainy and dark as I walked towards the river to take the ferry into the city. As the ferry made its way across, I watched as a dark smog loomed over the city, making the lights high above look like little fires creating a suffocating smoke. I teared up as I continued to stare. There had been something dark about the past month in that early winter and I was receiving no solace from my husband. He had been quiet, really only communicating to schedule-what we would have for dinner the next day, who would pick up the dry-cleaning-and there was no response to my guttural "I love you" the night prior. He had pretended to be asleep.

Whenever I took a bathroom break at work that day, I would sit on the toilet and tear up. It's just the weather, I kept telling myself, it's just the winter, I kept telling myself, it's the lack of sunlight, I guessed.

However, when I got home, my husband was already there. It would have been a pleasant surprise, a second chance, if he were smiling. Instead, he was sitting in the dark and did not look up when I entered. I sat down on the sofa next to him and in a near-whisper he said "I need to talk to you."

I nodded and right away felt tears collecting again.

"I want a divorce." He waited for an answer but my eyes were heavy and my voice was in a knot. "I think I love someone else."

"Who?"

"Jamie. One of the artists under our management."

At that point, I laughed. "Well, does Jamie know about this? Or are you just a creepy admirer?"

He furrowed his brows and said very harshly. "Don't be silly, Monica. It's mutual."

I had met Jamie and did so independently. She attended a party that my coworkers and I went to. It was a networking party, really. I knew what she was there for. A lot of my coworkers invest in art and there she was, a 20-year-old artist so talented that she had already sold quite a few paintings at peak price before even graduating art school. She was bright and gorgeous.

I remembered Jamie in her rose-pink silk dress that night. And of how she at one point took me aside and told me of how she painted this young boy who had the prettiest brown eyes. She said she chose to paint him because his eyes seem to reflect everything good in the world. His eyes look like an unadulterated night sky-it had the perfect ratio of darkness and brightness, she told me.

I went that same week to her gallery and when I saw the painting, I immediately fell in love. There was something nostalgic about his brown eyes and the way she painted them drew me in-it DID have the perfect ratio of darkness and brightness. That was my first big purchase after my promotion. I hung it on our living room wall. Those eyes stared at my husband and I as we slowly agreed that divorce was the only way, though I'm sure my husband had already decided that for me.

Now back to the present, there I was in front of Caleb and he was every now and again catching glances at me as he ate. I noticed that his eyebrows would raise a little every time he would look up. And once I came out of my trance, I smiled gently at him.

I spent the night talking to his friends and we danced a little together. When the night winded down, he drove me home. As he drove, I looked out the window.

"You couldn't see the stars like this where I used to live," I told him quietly.

In a similar soft and quiet voice, he answered "Oh yeah? Think I never bothered looking at them 'til just now."

We continued the drive in silence. The air felt warm in the car. He parked in front of my house and walked behind me towards my door.

"Thank you for inviting me today, I had a lot of fun."

"I'm glad you came," he nodded and then quickly reached his hand to touch my forearm for a second. At this moment, as he stared at me, I realized that his eyes looked a lot like the young boy's in the painting. Except, right now, his eyes also looked seductive and dangerous. His stare made me feel like a hare the second it realizes it is being preyed upon by a lion and now I had the choice to either run or let myself be eaten. I took a shy step towards him and he reached his hand behind my back. He softly pulled me in closer so that my hip bones were against his lap and he kissed me.

"I'll see you soon," he said and walked towards the sidewalk to head back to his house.