The Girl Next Door

"But there are things we could do, and I've been putting them off."

"As have I. I think it's time we both got serious about them."

Kim sighed. "Well, I've got to tell you, there's a good thing that came out of your sleeping with Angie this afternoon. When you took me to bed tonight, I knew it wasn't because you were hard up."

"Not hard up for sex, maybe, but very hard up for your love."

Then I took a deep breath. "Kim, there's one more thing I need to tell you."

"Okay, but I think there's something important I need to tell you too."

"Sure. You go first."

She nodded. "On the way home tonight, I made a decision. I'm quitting Haggard and Associates."

"Really?"

"Yeah, if you're serious about our being able to afford it, I'm going to take some time to make myself back into a woman you can be proud to have on your arm."

"Kim, I'm always proud to be with you."

"Okay, I know you say that, but I want to feel like I belong there again."

"So you're going to take that job at the club?"

"Maybe, but I've been thinking about something. You've got to be getting sick of designing bank buildings and restaurants for a living. I remember when you used to do drawings of the most amazing skyscrapers. Don't you want to do that for real?"

"There aren't any firms in the area that do that kind of stuff," I said carefully.

"But if we moved to somewhere that did, would you want to do that kind of work?"

My head was almost spinning at that. I'd been so certain that she'd never want to leave Peoria. "Sure, Kim," I ventured, wondering if she'd really meant that, "but we've built a life here. We have a home, friends, and your family is here."

"Connor, I'm not a kid anymore. I don't feel like I need to be physically close to my family all the time, and besides, half of them have moved away in the last decade anyway. You're my most important family now.

"Look, I can find a job doing part-time accounting just about anywhere. Ditto a health club where I can teach. I think we need to go wherever it is that you can build those big buildings."

"Kim, you seem to remind me every day of why I love you."

"Likewise."

"But I think this would be a good time to tell you about something that I should have shared with you a decade ago."

So I laid us back down on the bed and spooned up behind her, pulling the covers over us. Then I told her the story of what had happened in the wreckage of my dad's car. She'd known about the accident, of course, but not of the promise. Somehow she didn't seem too surprised to hear about it, though.

"But your desire to build these great skyscrapers isn't just to keep a promise?" she said. It was more of a statement than a question. "I mean; I can't help but notice that you're always drawing buildings that have got to be five times as tall as anything in Peoria."

"Yeah, and I think it's probably why I made my dad that particular promise out of all the one's I could have made. He knew how much I loved tall buildings, so I must have figured it would be easier for him to believe that I'd carry through. I wanted him to know before he died that I'd grow up right, even if it had to be without him."

"And you did, even if it was without designing those buildings. Now I think it's time you got a chance to make those dreams come true. You deserve that."

"Kim, it's not about what I deserve. I want to do what's best for both of us. I'd love to see you live your dreams as well."

"Well, I thought being a high-powered accountant was what I wanted, but having been there, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Then what?"

"Honestly, Connor, I want to be a mother and I want to be the best wife I can be. I don't need a huge house or fancy cars, and I'm so over going to lots of high class functions. I want to build a family with a man who loves me and our kids, and is doing something meaningful with his life."

"That doesn't sound like the feminist ideal," I said.

"Actually, I'm a big time feminist," she said. "The kind who says that a woman should be able to do whatever she wants, without being judged for it by anyone else, even other women. And what I want is a happy little family."

"You won't have me judging you for that."

"I'd better not, but to make it happen, we're going to have to dive back into this whole conception issue again. We can't afford to get worn down or squeamish this time. I'm also going to need to drop out of the rat race and devote myself to getting my body back into the kind of shape that doesn't make people snicker when they see us out in public together. I'm gonna bust my ass at the club and pay attention to what I eat. I'm going to become the kind of woman that can get a rise out of you."

"Oh, you can do that pretty well already." I moved my hips slightly, and my freshening manhood slipped between her thighs.

Reaching over to her nightstand, Kim snagged a tube of lube, then gave me a sly grin. "I know exactly what to do with that."

Later, Kim was snuggled up against my side. My nerves were still throwing the odd pulse every now and then from the intensity of what she had just done to me. Evil, evil woman. I sighed happily.

"I'm so glad to have you back, Kim. It looks like Angie was a one-time thing."

Kim worked her way up onto one elbow and gave me a look. "Oh, hang on just a second there, mister. Angie needs you. Of course we'd never try to force you, but I still hope you've got it in you to help her out."

"Well..." I thought about that. Part of my problem with sleeping with Angie was that I'd felt that by giving her my loving, I was leaving Kim high and dry. If I could give Kim all she could handle and still had enough for Angie, then maybe it wasn't so bad.

"Well, I guess if she really needs it." I made sure to say "it," not "me."

"Thank you, Connor."

"She's only gettin' the leftovers though."

"Good. I'm selfish enough to want it that way." She snuggled up to me again.

Eventually, Kim's gentle snoring told me she'd drifted off to sleep. I'd needed to pee for a while, but hadn't wanted to lose a second of waking time with her.

I got up and relieved myself, but on the way back I noted my phone charging on the bathroom vanity. I fired up the timer app and reset it to zero, but then, on further reflection, I uninstalled it.

I still had Angus McKinnon's business card, of course. When I called him the next day he was seemingly thrilled to hear from me and that I'd recently completed the arduous task of becoming certified, which is kind of like the CPA is for accountants. Many architects don't bother with the rigorous certification, instead working for other architects who are certified and can stamp their work, but my ambitions had always been bigger than that.

"So when kin yae start?" Angus asked.

"Uh... soon?" I said, surprised as always at how much I was still wanted there. "I've already talked about it with Kim, and I think we're both ready now."

"Vera fine. I'll be faxin' yae a contract today. We'll nae let ye git away this time."

* * * * *

"So are you excited?" Angie asked. "The big day's only a week off."

Her speech was punctuated by small, rhythmic, involuntary grunts as I thrust into her from behind. She was bent over at the waist, bracing her hands against the deck rail and looking out over Puget Sound and the lights of Seattle in the distance. It had rained earlier in the day, but the skies were clear now and a full moon illuminated the otherwise unlit deck, showing off Angie's nude body to best effect. I leaned down a little to caress her still amazing breasts as I strove to drive myself ever deeper.

All four of us had been thrilled to find this amazing house. It was listed as a 6,800 square foot single family home, (zoning didn't allow multifamily structures in this neighborhood), situated on a hill overlooking the Sound. In reality, it was a mirror image duplex, connected in the middle by a four-car garage with a mother-in-law suite and large deck above. The deck was screened from the street by the suite and could be accessed from the upper floor of either unit and the suite via sliding glass doors. I would have loved to have learned just what had motivated the unique design of this house, but who knows, it could have been a situation just like ours.

When it was cold or rainy on our scheduled sex nights, Angie and I would meet in the suite, which had its own spiral staircase from the garage, but weather permitting, we liked to spend our time together on the deck. The hillside below us was heavily wooded and too steep for houses, all the way down to the water far below, so our privacy was absolute.

Usually we'd show up nude, but sometimes Angie would wear something particularly sexy. Last week it had been a grass skirt, and she'd even danced for me on the deck by the light of Tiki Torches. Kim had obviously put her up to it and even given her some lessons, but Angie would never dance the hula as well as my wife.

"Yeah, I'm excited," I said. "My whole life's been leading up to this. I've been working on the design team for the Ngo Quyen Tower since we got the contract, but I wasn't expecting to be picked for the on-location construction supervision team."

"So being on this team is a good thing?"

"Well, it means spending five months in Hanoi, but if I'm going to be a principal someday, it's something I'd need to do. The fact that they've asked me to do it after only four years with the firm is a very good sign."

"Is it five months straight, or will you get breaks to come home?"

"No, I'll be there the whole time. I think they're testing my commitment level."

"Well, then you'd best get your fucking in now."

"If you say so."

I let go of her breasts and came to a stop just a couple of inches inside her, then slid both of my thumbs deep into Angie's sweet little pucker, finding her clean and lubed for me as always. She moaned as I massaged the sensitive head of my cock through her thin membranes. Jerking myself off while inside her body was still a novel thing, despite my having done it dozens of times before.

"Oh Jesus, that's good," she murmured, though I think she more enjoyed the kinky nature of it than the actual sensation.

"Damn straight it is." I did that for a couple of minutes, then resumed moving, this time more gently. I left my thumbs where they were, adding to Angie's already impressive natural tightness.

"I hope I can hold out until you get back," she said, tense from the sensations in her most sensitive areas.

"Well, you've got Jack back in action now. That should help."

"Yeah, I hope so."

Kim and Angie had done some research and learned about a new treatment that would allow Jack to have erections again. Jack and Angie had tried it out and she was able to ride him to orgasm. He still couldn't caress her with his hands the way she liked, but at least she was having sex with him again. We all hoped it would be enough.

Meanwhile, Kim maintained that since we'd managed to go better than a year without sex once, she'd survive five months just fine. I wasn't so sure I would, so I welcomed the fact that I was going to be very busy the whole time I was in Vietnam. In the meantime, I had two women to keep satisfied. I slipped one thumb from Angie's cinnamon ring and reached underneath to massage her clit.

"Oh Jesus, Connor," she whimpered. "You're going to make me come again."

"I aim to please, ma'am."

* * * * *

One constant hazard of being an architect, no matter where you are, is paperwork. I'd been so busy over the last couple of days that I'd let it stack up a bit, and now I was having to stay late to deal with it.

"Tam biet," called out the last of the local construction supervisors as they headed out of our shared offices for the night.

"Tam biet," I replied, my Vietnamese phrases still hesitant after nearly a month in Hanoi. They did me the honor of not grinning too broadly at my American accent. With one month down and only four to go in this rapidly growing city, I knew I'd never be fluent, let alone get rid of my American accent.

I heard another round of salutations being exchanged just moments later out in the hall as the group of locals met another foreigner. I knew from an accent that was only a little bit better than mine that Paul was about to join me.

"Burning the midnight oil, I see," he said, walking in and sitting down at a large desk across from mine. Paul Barrow was our firm's construction specialist and had been here since well before groundbreaking. He'd been teaching me the ropes of how to manage a build like this one.

"No way around it," I sighed. "I spent all day on that issue with the wiring."

"Ah yes, the wiring. So how much did they use?"

"Plenty, but not near as much as I'd feared."

We'd been very specific about the gauge of wire used to carry power from the main supply to the junction boxes, but a subcontractor had skimped, then bribed an inspector to sign off on the substandard work.

They'd been counting on the drywall guys covering up their deception before it could be discovered. Unfortunately for them, a delay in the drywall scheduling had left it visible long enough for me to notice the difference.

I'd gotten the inspector fired, the subcontractor replaced, and spent the better part of two days checking the other wiring the sub had done. Luckily, most of it had been up to spec. The rest was being laboriously replaced.

"Good. We're still on schedule, more or less," Paul sighed wearily, "but we can't afford too many of those."

"True," I said. "You okay, Paul?"

"It shows?"

"Yeah, you're usually still a dynamo this time of night."

He nodded. "It's Rachel. Her recovery from the malaria has been slower than we'd hoped and the minions are wearing her down. I'm having to pitch in on stuff back at the apartment more than I'd prefer. My sleep time has been taking the hit."

Paul and Rachel had four kids, all under ten years old. Rachel, a former high school teacher, had been homeschooling them while doing all of the cleaning, cooking, shopping and budgeting – all in a third-world country whose language she was still learning.

"What about that nanny you hired?"

"Oh, she tries, but her English isn't good and there are things Rachel needs help with that Linh just can't do. She needs someone with a better handle on our Western requirements, but Au Pairs from the Anglosphere are ungodly expensive."

"I can only imagine." Anything we brought in from the States was ridiculously priced. "Look, Paul, you're not going to be effective tomorrow if you don't get some rest. Why don't you hand me whatever's in your stack that I'm qualified for, and you head on home?"

He was only too happy to take me up on it. "Connor, you're a gentleman among men." He began to do a quick sort of his inbox.

When he'd cleared out, I made my nightly phone call home. Back in Seattle it was seven in the morning and I knew I'd catch Kim right after breakfast. She picked up on the second ring as usual, but I could immediately tell that something was off. I had the sinking feeling that I knew what it was.

"What's wrong, Kim?"

She sobbed. "I'm not pregnant."

I stifled a curse. "I'm sorry, Kim." This had been our third attempt at the exotic fertility treatment that could have given us a child that was genetically our own. We'd known the odds were long, but Kim had really wanted to carry my baby. We'd agreed though, that we'd give it just three tries, then go another route.

I could hear how hard she was working to control her emotions, but this was a tough one for both of us. "Kim, you've been amazing, going through that procedure three times."

She sniffled. "Yeah, but it was painful for you too. I just couldn't make it work." Typically, she was trying to take my failings on herself.

"Kim, our fertility problems are on my side, not yours. Look, when I get back, we'll take another look at our options. I'm sure we can find something that will work for us. We'll have kids one way or another, believe me on this."

"I know, but it's hard. We're thirty-one now, and all of our friends have kids."

"Not Jack and Angie."

"Yeah, that's true," Kim said sadly.

They hadn't been able to adopt because the agencies had looked at just how much care Jack required and decided that Angie wouldn't be able to provide the added care and attention that a child would need. Kim had, of course, offered to help, but the agencies wouldn't consider her as part of the equation.

I had made an off-the-cuff suggestion that Kim and Angie apply as a lesbian couple, and they'd actually discussed it before deciding that their being married to men might make that less than totally believable.

"I wish there was something we could do for them," I said, "but speaking of Jack and Angie, how is she doing on the sex front? Is Jack giving her enough to keep her satisfied?"

There was a long pause. "Kim?"

"Oh Connor, I promised Angie I wouldn't say anything about it to you because she doesn't want you to feel bad about being gone, but it's not going well at all. As much as she loves Jack, she says riding him gives her about the same level of satisfaction as playing with herself – which obviously hasn't been enough in the past. She went so far as to pick up a guy two nights ago. She actually got into the car with him, but bailed before they got out of the night club parking lot. She's not going to be able to go much longer."

She bailed before she got laid? Yeah, right.

"Kim, Angie's eventually going to get herself in a world of trouble. This isn't a college campus anymore."

"Yeah, I know, so we've been working on finding someone who can help her out with that. Someone safe who'll be acceptable to everyone involved. We don't like the idea, and it's not going to be easy to find someone like that, but we don't know what else to do."

I knew if I were Jack, I'd be beside myself right now. It was bad enough that his wife had to turn to his best friend for gratification, but a stranger? "Look, Kim, I feel like I should be there to help, but there's no way I can come home any time soon. I wish we could..." I trailed off.

"What is it, Connor?"

An idea was forming in my head.

"There she is," I said, seeing Angie striding out of Terminal 2 Customs, towing two bags behind her.

Paul was right beside me. "She blends in a little bit better around here than you do."

This was true, though only to a degree. I stuck out like a sore thumb, being the first real redhead that many people in Vietnam had ever seen. I often had complete strangers ask if they could reach up and run their fingers through my curly red locks. And at what I considered a very normal height of five foot ten, I towered over most of the locals.

Angie, on the other hand, was well within the average size and weight standards of the local women, and her dark brown hair didn't draw near the attention that mine did. To a man who had been celibate for six weeks, though, she certainly had my attention. Of course, as my perfect physical type, Angie could always get my attention.

Paul had liked my idea of bringing Angie over to help with the household duties for his slowly recovering wife. He'd had Rachel discuss it with her and the two of them had hit it off pretty well over the phone.

Angie's story was that she'd been dying to see more of the world, but with her husband unable to care for himself or to travel, she'd had to stay home to look after him. Now, with Kim willing to look after Jack since she didn't have me to take care of, Jack had insisted that Angie take this job and experience what it was like in a foreign country.