Turn the Page: Pt. 01

Preface:

This is the tale of Theresa 'Terri' Murphy, a young married woman from New Jersey who finds that her need to assuage her loneliness will in turn lead her to discover a new, consuming need in her life, one she never imagined before. Any tale needs a beginning and Terri's began 23 years ago when she was born to Alice and John Kirkpatrick in Medford NJ, a small township just 20 miles from Philadelphia. Her grandparents on both sides of her family had emigrated from Ireland in the 1960's and her childhood was happy and atypical until she was 14 years old.

That year both her parents died in a car accident and Terri was raised from then on by her maternal grandparents who also lived in Medford. The death of both her parents had a detrimental effect on Terri, she socialised less, friends trying to engage her but giving up over time. Her grades in school suffered despite her being an avid reader and by the time she finished high school Terri was a loner, pretty by any standard with the kind of face people attributed to 'the girl next door' type, but a young woman with few friends and less prospects in life.

Her family had a history in construction and her grandfather hoped to get her some work as an office assistant with one of the construction companies he still had ties to. It was there, 3 years later, that Terri met Dean Murphy. Dean was 8 years her senior, a college business graduate who worked as an efficiency trouble shooter, going to struggling companies and helping them rectify their systems and strategies. Dean was instantly attracted to the quiet girl who ate alone each day.

Terri stood just 5'0 tall, a slim athletic build that she maintained by long hours jogging each week. Her hair was blonde, styled in a pixie cut, the front hanging long over her bright green eyes. Her Irish heritage had blessed her with pale skin which proved resistant to the suns efforts to tan it, a small smattering of freckles appearing on her shoulders and nose during the summer months it's only response. Through his easy charm and no end of persistence Dean managed to get a date with Terri a week after seeing her, he met her grandparents within a month. By the time he was moving on from his assignment in Philadelphia 6 months later he had proposed, Terri had accepted nervously.

Two years on and Dean and Terri were now in Savannah Georgia, this was the 4^th city they have lived in since getting married. Deans job paid well and at first the continually changing landscape to her life had excited Terri but the moves, her separation from her Grandparents and Deans workaholic attitude had only deepened Terri's loneliness and bone deep insecurity. With her lack of qualifications and her constant moving from city to city, Terri found herself escaping into literature at all times of the day, her friends were her books, her choice of material depending on her moods. All she needed to escape was a book, some quiet and a comfortable place to be. Not that she always could get that...

Chapter 1:

Holding her hand in front of the A/C unit Terri could just sense an asthmatic wheeze of air brush against her damp skin. It was July in Georgia and today the temperature as hitting 95 outside and it felt 2 or 3 degrees higher in the one bed apartment her husband and she were renting in the center of Savannah. Futilely, she smacked her palm hard against the side of the unit, the only reward an almost imperceptible lessening in the air flow. Utterly frustrated Terri walked into the kitchen area, yanking open a couple of drawers as she searched for the contact information and FAQ guide the realtor had provided them with when they had moved in 3 weeks before. As she rummaged through paperwork she briefly considered calling Dean to see what advice he might have but she quickly reasoned this would be a waste of time. Dean was a great organizer in the workplace but couldn't find his pants at home without her help, so it was unlikely he would know what to do.

Pulling open a third drawer she spotted the pink A4 sheet with the Realtor logo on the top, lines of 'what to do in the case of...' filling the front and back of the sheet. She quickly scanned down the page finally spotting the section dealing with faults in the apartment. "The apartments in the building are maintained by an in-house Super who can be located next door to the laundry room in the building basement."

Terri remembered a door to the left of the laundry room from her last visit earlier in the week so, quickly scooping up her keys, she headed out and down the 6 flights of stairs that led to the basement.

In the 3 weeks she had spent in the building, Terri had had next to zero interaction with her neighbours aside from an occasional friendly smile or nod in greeting as they passed by on the stairs. With the Super however she had absolutely zero idea who he was or what he looked like. Maybe she had already met him, seen him in the lobby or coming out of another apartment, but if she had then he hadn't taken the opportunity to introduce himself. Outside the Supers door she quickly ran a hand over her hair feeling it plastered damply to her skull. She wished she had taken a moment to run a cold towel over her perspiring face before leaving the apartment, but it was too late for that now.

Terri knocked hesitantly on the panelled door. A muffled voice sounded from within the room, the words too low to hear but the entreaty to wait was clear enough to decipher. A minute passed and the door opened sharply. Standing in the doorway was a heavyset, broad shouldered Blackman, a friendly and open smile stretched across his face before he even knew who his caller was. Terri responded with a shy smile of her own, the man's obvious good humour instinctively eliciting the response. "Umm Hi" Terri said, "I'm in apartment 6C, just moved in a few weeks ago". "Hey back", the man replied "I'm Dontrell. Sorry we haven't had a chance to meet before now. So how can I help you?"

Terri hesitantly began to explain about the sweltering heat in her apartment and the stubbornly inactive A/C. As she was talking, Dontrell moved back into his apartment, Terri could see it was a small one bedroomed place much like her own, the small section of the room she could see through the doorway was filled by a large green couch, numerous piles of books surrounding it on three sides, a low coffee table in front of it cluttered with even more books. As she finished talking, he reappeared, a toolbox clutched in his left hand. "OK then, lets get this sorted out, can't have you melting away a little thing like you, now can we?". Dontrell chuckled to himself, Terri stood there nonplussed for a moment, wondering if he had just insulted her by calling her short or instead was giving her a compliment on her slim frame. Before she could decide which or respond at all he was past her, long determined strides carrying him to the stairwell and forcing her to half run, half skip to catch up.

They climbed up in silence, companiable silence judging from Dontrell's relaxed expression but Terri felt awkward as always and for the first few flights she racked her brain to make some sort of small talk. Giving up and cursing her lack of social skills, Terri idly considered the man walking 2 steps ahead of her. Dontrell looked to be in his late 40's, maybe early 50's. Not unhandsome, his face had a weathered look to it that aged him slightly beyond his years. If his face added years then his body compensated, his arms were toned and muscled, Terri suspected that his broad frame carried more muscle than fat as well, especially given the pace he was setting and the ease of his breathing. Even the heat didn't seem to be bothering him all that much, although his pants and shirt were both linen with the light cream coloring of his clothing accenting the darkness of his skin. Average height she guessed, maybe 5'10, though she found herself wrong more often as right when estimating people's heights, a fact she blamed on account of having to look up at 90% of the people she met.

The fast pace had them at the apartment in no time. Terri fumbled in her jeans pocket for the keys and then embarrassed herself slightly by trying to force the wrong one in. Hoping Dontrell would attribute the flush spreading across her face to the heat she finally opened the apartment door for him.

He walked to the A/C unit and after a quick inspection turned to her saying, "Not a big problem, looks to be a blocked air filter. I should have it fixed in no time". A sheen of sweat was already forming on his face as he opened his toolbox and fished out a screwdriver. Wiping his hand across his forehead he turned again, "Maybe you should head out to the coffeeshop across the street, get yourself an iced tea. No point in both of us sweating up a storm in here." Terri smiled her thanks, grabbed her bag, and headed out, needing no further encouragement to escape the broiling heat in the room.

Maybe 30 minutes later Terri was back at her own front door, a large iced tea in one hand for Dontrell. After another fumble with the keys she let herself in, the heat from the room hitting her like a physical wave as she stepped inside. Dontrell was still working away but now he had stripped off his shirt, his naked upper body coated in sweat. He didn't turn towards her, his attention firmly locked on the task in hand. Terri stood in the doorway staring at him. Her guess at his fitness earlier on was borne out by seeing him in the flesh. He hadn't a body rippling with muscles like some she saw when she ventured to the gym, but there was a core strength to him, a solidness that age hadn't impacted and that can only be achieved through a lifetime of physical activity. His upper right arm and shoulder blade sported several tattoos that she could see, from the action movies Dean would force her to watch she guessed that they were military in origin. From her angle she couldn't see clearly but he appeared to have some scarring on his lower back.

A deepening silence penetrated her daydreaming and Terri was embarrassed to see that Dontrell had turned his head and was considering her much as she had been considering him a moment ago. His face still carried that open smile as he asked, "That drink for me?"

Terri crossed the room quickly, her arm outstretched to hand the tea to Dontrell "Umm yeah, sorry, umm yes its something for you" she stammered, this only adding to her embarrassment.

"Can you put it down on the table for me, I'll grab it in a moment, just want to finish this bastard...sorry...this thing off, get your place back and habitable" Dontrell said, his gaze slowly shifting from Terri's face back to his work. Terri placed the cold beverage on the table, placing a coaster underneath it first. She looked back at Dontrell and now could clearly see a lattice of scars covering maybe a third of his lower back. "So, were you in the Army?" she blurted out. Dontrell paused in his work but didn't turn around. "Sorry" Terri said, "I shouldn't have asked, that was rude of me."

"Not a problem" Dontrell replied, "Can't get to know a person without asking questions. No, not the Army, I was in the Navy." He waved his left hand vaguely towards his righthand side and then flapped it again in the direction of his scars, "That's where I picked up these and these" he said as he continued to work. "Joined up at 19, saw out my twenty even with the injury. Never figured on what I'd do outside of the Navy though. Was my life for so long, couldn't ever think of doing anything else. So spent a few years seeing places I never got to visit while I was in the service and then 3, no 4 years ago my cousin, he's got a part share investment in this building, well he hooked me up with the job here. Been here since." He turned around a flashed her a dazzling grin, "Bet you never heard a 30-year life story told so quick eh?" Terri laughed out loud and was immediately joined by Dontrell.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, Terri responded in kind, quickly filling in Dontrell about her life, well the last couple of years of her life anyway. She stayed away from confessing any feelings of loneliness, but he must have picked something up from her voice as he commented at the end, "It's tough moving around so much. I did the same, but I was part of a unit, a brotherhood so even when things changed the important stuff stayed the same." He cleared his throat "Best thing about travelling is always the people and in case you didn't pick up on my subtle hint, I'm saying I'm the best thing about travelling to Savannah." Terri couldn't help herself as she started to laugh again.

By the time Dean got back from work the apartment was once again at a normal, bearable temperature. As was his habit he chatted briefly over dinner before switching off to turn on the TV and unwind before bed. Terri curled up in a chair alongside him and opened a book to read.

Chapter 2:

A couple of days later Terri was once again sweating but this time the A/C wasn't to blame. She had kept putting off doing the laundry to the point that she was running out of clean clothes. Now she had struggled down the 6 flights of stairs with three large laundry sacks stuffed full of her and Deans clothes. All the machines were on the go and nobody else was waiting so she left the 3 bags against the machine closest to finishing and got ready to wait. It was only then that she realised she'd left both her phone and her book upstairs in the apartment. There was no way she was ready to face those stairs again so soon but there was also no way she was going to sit in the basement for the next couple of hours with nothing to occupy her.

A flash of inspiration hit her, and she stepped into the hallway and walked to Dontrell's door. She knocked and the door opened immediately. Dontrell's cheerful face lit up still further as he saw Terri standing in front of him. "If it isn't the little lady who lived on the sun" he joked, "don't tell me the damn A/C is cooking again?"

"No" Terri replied, a big grin on her own face. She realised suddenly that she had done more smiling and laughing with this man in 2 meetings than she had with her own husband in the last 12 months. "I left my book upstairs and I noticed you had one or two lying around when I called by the other day. Any chance I could borrow something to read while I do my laundry?"

"Absolutely" Dontrell said, beckoning her inside as he stepped back into his apartment "knock yourself out, always happy to help out a fellow bookworm. I noticed you had quite a few books in your place too when I was there the other day."

As Terri walked into the apartment, she could see that aside from the couch and table she had spotted the previous visit, the only other furniture in the room were three large bookcases against one of the walls. These were packed with books... hardbacks, paperbacks, magazines...everything you could think of. Dotted around the room were large cardboard boxes, all apparently filled with books as well, maybe a dozen boxes in total. Finally, there were maybe 9 piles of books, the ones she had seen before, each pile having somewhere between 20 and 30 books in them. There were easily a thousand books in the room, maybe more.

Dontrell had been watching her face, her mouth slightly open in surprise, as she looked around. He cleared his throat and said, "I'll keep an eye on your clothes while you pick something, don't want you losing your place." He walked out into the corridor and Terri moved over to the bookcases. There was no system here, biographies shared shelf space with crime novels, technical manuals, self help books, classics of literature. Terri wandered along the room, her eyes sweeping across the titles of books looking for something. By the time she reached the third bookcase she realized she'd already spent 5 minutes here while poor Dontrell was forced to mind her clothing. She opted just to grab anything to pass the time, so stepping towards the door her hand scooped a slim paperback out of one of boxes as she passed.

Dontrell was standing patiently in the laundry room waiting on her. "I'm so sorry" Terri began to apologise as she walked in. Dontrell waved her apology off, "My mom always had to take the cereal boxes off the table at breakfast time" he said, "she always said I'd get to reading the ingredients off the box and forget to eat." Terri smiled at the image, "Yeah that's me as well, I get lost in books all the time."

"So, what did you choose for yourself?" Dontrell asked.

Terri turned the book over in her hand, 'GO TEAM GO' the title read above a picture of a woman half naked in a cheerleaders outfit, one breast hanging out, her skirt pulled up to reveal black underwear beneath it. She flushed again, she seemed to swing from smiling to blushing every 5 minutes in Dontrell's company and the latter was always her own fault. "I didn't realise, I just grabbed something at random".

"Yeahhh, I buy boxes of mixed books every so often from a flea market, cheap way to get books but you never know what's inside till you already bought them" Dontrell said. He nodded and began to walk back to his apartment, pausing in the hallway he said over his shoulder "Though for a moment there I thought you picked it cos she kinda looks like you." With that he was gone, the sound of his door closing closely following. Terri looked again at the cover picture, the girl's hairstyle wasn't unlike hers she guessed aside from being darker and although the model clearly had bigger breasts than Terri's 34D cup, at a quick glance you might have called them sisters.

2 hours later the clothes were done. Terri packed them away, deciding to fold them properly upstairs. She had only read the first half of the book; it was definitely not something she'd have chosen for herself. The cheerleader's adventures with her college football team were vivid to say the least. The first few encounters were believable enough and her passionate sex with the hung black line-backer had conjured up images of Dontrell's sweating body to Terri's mind. It was when the heroine decided to help the team win by having a gangbang with the opponent's entire offensive line that Terri had given up on the improbability of it all. Terri left the book propped against Dontrell's door and headed back to her apartment. She decided against knocking as she felt she couldn't take anymore embarrassment that morning.

Later that day Terri found a note pushed under her door, it was from Dontrell. 'Terri' it began, 'sorry for teasing you this morning, I should have realised it would make you uncomfortable. You didn't call to drop off the book and I hope that wasn't down to me. Please know you have an open invitation to call in and borrow (check out the book properly first) anything in my library you'd like. Dontrell'

Over the next 2 weeks Terri called into Dontrell every day, mostly in the mornings. She would bring a couple of iced teas and they would discuss books they'd read, favourite authors, great plotlines.... everything. It was like book clubs Terri had heard about but more intimate, just 2 people with a passion for reading pleased to discover the same trait in another. Dean noticed that Terri's mood had improved as they talked briefly over dinner each night and he silently congratulated himself on whatever he had done to make his wife happy. He didn't enquire as to what exactly he had done, he didn't really need that much detail he decided as he switched on the tv.

Monday morning, almost 3 weeks to the day that Terri had first called to Dontrell's apartment, Terri was outside his door again. She had stopped knocking a few days back at Dontrell's insistence, partially because of their new friendship and partially because she kept spilling tea on the floor when she did knock. Terri eased the door open, a bag of bagels clenched between her teeth to free up her hand to turn the handle. She froze. She must have been earlier than she thought because Dontrell apparently wasn't ready for a guest.