Sexual Distancing

I almost never write topical stories, but this Covid-19 thing deserves commemoration. So, with apologies to Boccaccio, here's my stab at a "plague story." It's shorter than most of my pieces, largely because it started to oppress me even as "social distancing" is oppressing us all.

Perceptive readers may recognize the main character, who once got his high school papers written by enterprising capitalists such as Heidi Longstadt and Angela Rye in "You Know That Nightmare" in between spit-roasting cheerleaders, but he's in college now. There's no need to read that one in order to follow this one... but you might want to. It's pretty funny.

Enjoy, and stay safe out there.

* * *

"Hey! Boysenberry!" I called angrily. "Get your ass back here!"

Goddamn dog. I wasn't happy with him, but to be fair I was even less happy with myself: I was mishandling him badly. I wasn't used to being so shitty at something, especially something as basic as taking care of a dog. Something most people have no trouble with.

"Just... I dunno, sit!" I heaved myself off the low steps and sighed my way across the sloping yard, the dog looking uncertainly back at me. What the fuck? his little eyes asked. Want me to get back there, or sit? Or do you not have a fucking clue? The last one was obviously the truth, and little Boysen knew it.

The dog licked its lips? Chops? Teeth? Whatever; his skinny little tongue went flopping vaguely around, and as I got closer to him I saw why he'd taken off across the backyard. A little girl stood there in jeans and a pink T-shirt, grinning at Boysenberry from across a short wire fence. "Oh!" I said, smiling vaguely; I'm no better with kids than I am with dogs. "Good morning!"

Her smile vanished and she stared at me as if she was about to reveal government secrets. "Mommy and Daddy say not to get close to anyone," she pointed out gravely. "They say six feet."

"That's, uh, right," I stammered, though I didn't really know; I don't watch the news, and since I'd arrived with strict orders not to let anyone in I hadn't been avoiding anyone. Because I was completely alone in the drafty old house. "Six feet, that's right!"

"But," the girl went on, her face twisting as she tried to logic her way through, "does that mean doggies, too?"

"Uh, I don't know," I replied weakly, but just then salvation arrived in the form of the child's mom. She came down the hill from the house just behind Grandma's, peering at me through a pair of sunglasses just a little too optimistic for the cloudy day.

"That's it, Kyleigh," she smiled, moving across her backyard on short legs. "Six feet, honey."

"Doggies too?" She seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown, one I didn't want to see, but Mom saved the day.

"Oh no, honey," she cooed, "doggies don't get sick. You can pet him through the fence... that's if it's okay?" She'd bent down to rest her hands on her daughter's shoulders, her simple v-neck gaping just a bit to hint at generous cleavage.

Hey. What can I say? I was a college junior, more than willing to stare down the shirt of any woman who came along. "Uhh, sure." I only glanced for a second; unlike Kyleigh's mom, I wasn't wearing shades. "Go on, Boysen." The mom and I watched as Boysenberry pushed his pointy little snout through my grandma's wire fence, little Kyleigh giggling as his breath snuffed across her fingers. "Hi," I said awkwardly to her mom.

"Hello." She stood coolly, relaxed in that t-shirt, a quilted vest, and a pair of jeans, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. "You're not Mrs Lansky," she pointed out, her full lips quirking into a smile.

"No, she's my grandma. I'm housesitting." I shrugged. "For the duration, I guess."

"Yeah, it looks like we're all trapped wherever we are for awhile." She was still smiling, her eyes totally hidden. "Like flies in amber," she sighed.

"Like, uh, like ice cubes in a tray." She cocked her head, leaving me feeling like a moron, and I wondered yet again why small talk was so fucking hard. The silence stretched, the mom seeming perfectly content to let it go, while I struggled not to look down her shirt again. I shoved my hand into my pocket, wishing obscurely that I'd worn something a little niftier-looking than a Carolina Panthers hoodie and a filthy pair of tracksuit bottoms. And that I'd showered.

But, fuck. It was ten in the morning. I was a college student during a pandemic. What, like I was dressing to impress or something?

Kyleigh's mom looked like she had showered. I thought I caught a whiff of shampoo. She was smiling pleasantly down at her daughter, but she caught it when I shifted my weight awkwardly. "Well. Off we go, Ky!" She looked back at me. "We're going for a stroll around the block. Gotta get outside, you know?"

"Oh, hell yes." No. I had no idea. I'd not left my grandma's house for over four days now, other than to get into the backyard with her stupid dog. I realized what I'd said and looked guiltily down at the little girl. "Sorry."

"It's fine." She held out her hand for Kyleigh. "Come on, honey. Let's go." The girl took her hand off Boysenberry's snout with some regret.

"Thanks, Mr..." Kyleigh looked at me quizzically, and it took me a moment to figure out what was going on.

"Oh. I'm Mr Emory," I supplied, feeling like my dad. "Wayne Emory."

"Thanks, Mr Emory!" The girl's smile was sweet and innocent and sadly momentary, whisking off her face like a passing cloud. Mom nodded pleasantly at me.

"Nice to meet you!" she said cheerfully, and then I was watching her ass climb back up past her house toward the sidewalk.

It wasn't a skinny ass. And I watched it greedily in its nicely-fitted jeans. She and Kyleigh were the first strangers I'd seen in over a week.

* * *

It had been a month already since my college had shut down, three weeks since I'd been sent here from my parents' house behind the wheel of my sister's shitbox Toyota. Ahh, New England in the early spring, with nothing to do but take my online classes from fumbling professors who had no idea how to use teleconferencing apps, and "housesit" my grandma's place.

"Housesit why?" I'd asked.

My mom had looked at me as if I was stupid. "What happens," she demanded, "when law and order falls apart and all the neighbors break into her house with torches and pitchforks?"

I'd stared at her. "What are you smoking?"

"Not your vape pen, that's for sure," she'd sniped back; she'd never liked me doing that.

"If the locals come to grandma's house to loot it, Mom, I'm getting in the car and driving straight the hell back here."

"Watch your mouth."

But I'd come anyway, bringing along my father's credit card for groceries, and by this time I'd settled in. Not that I didn't know the area; I'd spent three high school summers here, scraping chowder out of pots at the local clam shack. Mornings in the backyard while Boysenberry took a shit... somewhere. Wherever. It was the best time of the day, still chilly this year, with the empty windows of all the houses staring at me while I slurped my coffee and sucked my vape and then headed back in and back to bed. When I got crazy I took off on walks around the block, usually for Boysenberry's sake, but that was rare.

The days were just packed.

I shut the door behind Boysen, who wagged and then disappeared into the house. It was one of those 1890s places with nooks and crannies everywhere. I didn't care where he went; Grandma had trained him to come find me when he wanted to hit the backyard, so that was fine. I met his simple needs, and other than that I just sat around between "classes" and watched Netflix.

Sometimes Lauren called, sometimes we did some cybering, but she was living with her parents and her siblings and got no privacy. I'd told her she should come hang out with me at Grandma's, where we could stroll around naked, but she hadn't been able to swing it with her parents. Everyone was afraid then, early on, and then they were afraid again later when folks started making masks out of their underwear, but in the meantime there was that weird, uneasy calm, everyone carefully six feet from everyone else, and it was during that calm that Kyleigh had spotted Boysenberry and I'd met her mom.

Well, not met, really; I had no clue what her name was.

I wasn't even thinking of her next morning when I stumped to the guest-room window to see what I'd need to wear outside. Fuck. Drizzle and some melting frost; it had been a desultory spring so far, and I shrugged into a raincoat before heading out with my coffee, led by the bounding Boysenberry. All around me was a quiet, grey world, the branches all still bare, and I breathed in cold air as I searched for a dry-ish spot to sit.

The coffee was just beginning to work its magic, stirring my brain out of its morning fog when a twitch of motion caught my eye. I blinked, trying to figure out where I'd seen it, and then there was more motion: a swishing, vague behind a big sliding glass door at the bottom of my grandmother's yard, just past the wire fence, and after a few moments and a good long squint I realized a curtain was being opened at that house.

Little Kyleigh's house.

I glanced absently at the corner of the sloping lawn, where Boysenberry was busily licking at his own asshole, and then turned back toward the house where Kyleigh's mom was slowly walking the curtains open; they weren't the kind with the little pull-cable on one side. She wore a pink bathrobe with what looked like little flowers or suns on it, leaving her legs exposed from the knees down. The room light was on, a low orangey glow from the corner by a couch, and she was in no rush. She finished with the curtains and stood a moment, studiously ignoring me, before she turned and walked calmly from the room.

Boysenberry came trotting back to the house about five minutes later, and I spent that whole time trying to remember whether I'd seen that curtain open before. I thought not.

* * *

I was typing a paper for Professor Shawe's Principles of Communication seminar class that evening at Grandma's kitchen table, listening as the old house creaked around me; it was never, ever quiet here, and I strongly suspected mice.

Fuck that. If this place turned out to be all rodent-infested, the house could sit itself.

Shawe had been mailing it in since the day after the school closed, freely admitting in an email that despite thirty whole minutes of trying, he did not feel able to effectively deliver instruction virtually. So he was giving up and merely assigning a research paper for the rest of the semester. I had no doubt everyone in the class would receive a B+, and that not a single one of the papers would ever get read. I'd chosen to do mine on the ravens from Game of Thrones, because why not? I'd never been a good writer, anyway; why not just have fun with it?

A glaring pinpoint of light from the kitchen window distracted me, and I stretched my arms high above my head at the laptop. The light was coming from outside, across the backyard and then the fence, and as I squinted into the night I saw a short figure with a ponytail cross in front of the light's orangey glow, then draw the curtains in silhouette over the sliding doors

.

* * *

I was just finishing my coffee the following morning, staring dully down into the cup to catch the dregs swirling in the cooled liquid, wondering what would happen if I chucked a stick at Boysenberry. I knew dogs were supposed to fetch things; I wondered whether that was nature or nurture, and I'd just started looking around for a stick when the curtain stirred again.

This time her face peeped out first, framed by the gap in the drapes. I'd not been paying much attention to her face last time the curtain opened; she'd only been there a few minutes, and I'd been pretty startled.

The big sunglasses had hidden a rounded face with big eyes, and of course I'd already seen the expressive mouth. Her hair hung in wet kinks along her face. She was cute, but not pretty; attractive without being gorgeous, and I smiled at her in case she caught sight of me.

But she gave no sign. She peered up into the sky a moment, and then she started to open the curtains. And I lost interest in the dregs of my coffee.

She had a different robe on today, short red silk, stopping well above her knees as though cut by a razor, and my eyes fell at once to the expanse of thigh on display. She paid no attention to anything but the curtains, walking them aside to show the darkened living room before she paused once more, looking at the sky.

Most days that spring were either sunny and too cold or warm and rainy, but today looked like a mix between the two: cold and rainy. I shuddered and figured I should probably head in, but not until she left first: legs were in view. As a man, I was duty-bound to stay put until they vanished. Kyleigh's mom puttered around the room a bit, not really doing anything important, before the disappeared past the orange glow of the lamp.

Good. Because my coffee mug had long since gone too cold to warm my hands. I plunged back inside.

Later that afternoon, once the clouds had cleared, I let Boysen out to frolic and piss and shit and... well, whatever he did in the bushes. I spied Kyleigh playing in a little sandbox beside her house. She let out a yelp as soon as she saw Boysen, who stuck his nose through the fence with his gentle canine patience. "Doggie!"

I started to get up from my usual seat on the retaining wall, but then I realized there was no point; in spite of the hyperactive control everybody was putting up with these days, there was no danger in a little girl petting a dog. I did, however, start scanning their backyard, looking for her mom. "Hi, Kyleigh."

"Hello Mr Emory." She was giggling as Boysenberry licked her fingers.

"What's new?" I asked lamely, coming over to the fence. She seemed to be alone.

"Nothing." Well, no shit; it was a stupid question. This girl was like me: a prisoner in her own house, out for periodic time in the exercise yard. Of course there was nothing new. As far as I knew the local schools were sending her stuff to do, but who could say? I debated asking about her mother, but bit my tongue before I could; she'd certainly tell her mom I'd asked. "Well, good," I finished lamely.

"Kyleigh!" The voice was the one I remembered from the other day. "Come on in for snacktime!" I looked over that way and caught sight of that pretty, round face leaning out the open sliding door. She threw me a big smile. "Hi!"

"Hi there," I called back, feeling my own grin split my face. She was in a tanktop today, extending a freckled shoulder to wave. "Just walking the dog," I explained unnecessarily.

"Sure." Kyleight trotted back up onto their low deck and scurried in between her mom's legs into the room with the orangey lamp. "Stay safe!"

"Uh, you too!" The glare of the high sun flashed on the slider as she closed it, cutting her off from view as completely as her sunglasses had.

* * *

She swept the curtains more majestically open the next morning, none of the slow-walk stuff; I made like I wasn't staring at her, though I was. Because it was the red silk robe again.

This time, though, there was a change; still paying me no attention at all, she walked to the long hulking shape of her couch, took a seat gracefully, and crossed her short legs in front of her. I saw a glow from her lap as she buried herself in her phone, and then her red-clad arm snaked over to a table by the couch and picked up a white coffee mug.

And that's the way things went for the next few days: she and I sitting in the morning, her in her dainty little robe and me in whatever I'd woken up in, both of us by weird mutual consent pretending the other didn't exist. I spoke to her a couple afternoons later, as she sat on one of the rare fine days, reading a book while Kyleigh sang to Boysenberry. "So," I ventured, totally unsure how to proceed. "Staying busy?" I was thinking maybe I'd segue smoothly into some sort of comment about late nights, early mornings, something...

She looked at me, hooking her sunglasses deliberately down her nose. She was wearing faded gardening shorts and a pink t-shirt that day. "Between working from home, cooking, cleaning, homeschooling Kyleigh, doing all the laundry, babysitting my husband, and trying to avoid catching a fatal respiratory disease?" She smiled sweetly, her sarcasm clear from ten feet away. "Yes, Wayne. I'm keeping busy."

And that was that.

* * *

Time moved strangely during the pandemic. Ordinarily I'd have woken up, done the gym, showered, then gone off to class; now? Every day was like every other, and even the hours blended together. Professors sometimes sent out lectures, occasionally let us know they wanted to do something face-to-face, but with no real class? No gym? Time became arbitrary, and I started taking my showers based mostly on when I felt like shaving.

I stood in my grandma's antiquated second-floor bathroom with my hair dripping and my towel around my waist, squinting through the steam I'd filled the place with. I hated this ritual, groping for my toothbrush and trying to wipe at the mirror so I didn't slash my face to pieces as I shaved.

"Fuck this," I grunted; every day it was the same, and every day I had to crank the ancient window wide open to air the place out. It had one of those handcranks and opened sideways like a door, but only after you knocked the shit out of it where the steam had made it stick. So I threw the lock and went to work, the tall narrow window shaking.

I'm sure it was me pounding on the frame that drew her attention, but I didn't see Kyleigh's mom on her chair in her backyard until she looked up at me, standing there by my tall open window, blinking in the sunlight.

Just about naked.

Oh, the towel was there, sure enough, but it was slung a little low, my pubes making a clear line down from my belly button. It's not like I was all that buff or anything, but when you're 21 and play college lacrosse (even division 3), you're not exactly a fatass either. I stood in the window, letting the cool late-March air raise goosebumps all over, and it wasn't until a few quiet moments that it occurred to me that she was staring at me.

I mean, of course she was. She was right below me.

I was torn three ways: step back and act like I didn't know. Step back and holler down that I was sorry. Step forward and let her look. And I don't know quite why, but option three won out.

She was sitting just as she had sat with her coffee on the last few mornings, legs crossed easily, barefoot on her grass in the tentative spring sun. She was staring at me quite openly, her face aimed like a shotgun, and I made a real effort not to stare back; the view up there was of treetops and the roofs of the houses on Kyleigh's street, and I studied all of them for about five seconds or so with my hand resting on the front of the towel before I decided I was making a spectacle of myself and stepped back.

She was gone, back into the house by the time I headed out a few minutes later, into the silent world I lived in now. Even Boysenberry seemed to feel it, staking out a patch of sunbeam and collapsing onto the grass while I lay beside him and looked at a sky with no airplanes. The curtains were open on the sliding doors at the back of Kyleigh's house.

* * *

I was ready the next morning with my coffee, a double batch in Grandma's largest mug. Both my hands clasped it, the steam rising to my face: another day, like every other quiet day, broken only by the different spots of the backyard Boysen picked for his morning shit.

I'd been sitting out for awhile this time before the curtains twitched and then swished open, leaving my neighbor to stand there with her arms high, holding the drapes aside. The red robe still fell high on her thigh, but this time the belt sash wasn't tied.