by Lucy Wild
The word family caught in my mind, sticking in place as if it was coated in glue. I felt a flare of jealousy. I had never had a proper family, not really. An aunt doesn’t count.
I turned away from the window and began tying my bikini bottom in place. Once it was done, I grabbed a towel and the sun cream and then headed out into the garden. The sun lounger was waiting for me in the middle of the lawn and I sank onto it, enjoying the feeling of heat soaking into my skin already. Bees droned in the flowerbeds, somewhere in the distance a lawnmower was starting up.
I rubbed sun cream into my arms, humming quietly to myself as I did so. Once I was sufficiently covered, I closed my eyes and lay back, letting my mind wander.
It wandered back to him. My new neighbour. What was he like? Would he be friendly? The suit he’d worn told me he was a professional, maybe a lawyer. The car looked expensive. The house was expensive. He had to be earning enough to pay for both. Would he hate living next door to a creative type like me? Would he even notice that I existed? Or would he be too busy making big bucks and screwing his secretary?
As I thought about him, my mind drifted in on itself until I was daydreaming. I was upstairs again only this time I didn’t put the bikini on. I came down and went out into the garden naked, feeling him watching me from his house. I laid down and he tiptoed over, staring silently whilst I pretended to sleep.
I felt myself getting hotter, though I told myself it was just the effect of the sun’s rays on me. He’d watch me. I’d let my legs slide apart and feel his eyes on me, staring hungrily as I flashed him, pretending I didn’t know he was there. Then he’d…
God, I was like a schoolgirl with a crush on one of her teachers. I had seen him for about ten seconds and already I was fantasising about him. It was ridiculous. I told myself to stop. No one that old would be interested in someone like me. No money, no prospects. Just her aunt’s house and a quarter finished book that would probably get panned anyway. If it wasn’t for the last dribbles of my advance, I’d have been working for minimum wage somewhere, not sunbathing. I should get back to work. I should get the bloody book finished and stop mucking about. How many eighteen year olds managed to even get a publishing deal? But then how many eighteen year olds have an aunt working for the publisher in question? I should be grateful for the opportunity and get to work.
In a minute, I thought to myself. The sun felt just too nice to leave. I didn’t want to sit inside in the gloom and until someone invented a laptop screen that worked outside without turning into a mirror, I couldn’t sit in the garden and type.
I think I drifted off for a while. If I’d been awake, I’m sure I would have heard him approaching. But the first I knew of his presence was when a deep voice next to my ear said, “Good afternoon.”
I bolted upright, blinking away the fuzz from my brain as I turned in the direction of the voice.
There he was, further away than I’d thought, leaning on the top of his fence, smiling over at me, the leaves of the trees behind him waving lazily as if they were saying hello as well.
“Hi,” I said, thinking again how hot he looked. “Hi.” I cursed myself for sounding like a parrot, wanting to remove the grin from my lips but being unable to. “I’m Annabelle. Bella.”
“Good afternoon Annabelle Bella.”
His voice was like honey and gravel combined, the kind of voice that wrapped around you like a warm hug. It made my insides melt.
“Just Bella,” I said with a giggle.
“Enjoying the sunshine just Bella?”
“Yep.” My mind went completely blank. I could not think of a single thing to say. My mouth opened but all that came out was a strangled nothing. My toes curled as I fought with my brain. All the while he stared at me with an amused expression on his face, though his eyes spoke of something else, something that at that time, I didn’t understand. I understood later what it was, though of course by then it was too late to realise it was hunger. He wanted me.
TWO
JACK
I wasn’t moving far but it was still a hassle. Moving always is. The problem with a quiet life is that you tend to accumulate things. An empty house and an empty life were more my style but both those things would invite suspicion. The last thing I needed was anyone starting to wonder about me. They’d find out far more than they needed to know if they began to look. Under every stone is darkness, down there you find a lot of things that only grow in the shadows, things nobody wants to see, things nobody needs to know about, things that would get me locked up for a very long time if they were found out.
So I had stuff. Stuff was normal. Stuff kept everyone thinking good things about me. It was stuff that no one needed. I had ornaments and pictures in frames, I had a perfectly ordinary house full of perfectly ordinary things, things that said nothing about who I really was. And now I had to shift them all.
All of the things I owned were crammed into the truck in front of me. Boxing it all up had taken far too long even with the removal firm helping but at last I was on the move. It felt like a very long drive, the air conditioning doing its best to battle the overwhelming heat of the day as I crawled away from Griffin Street for the last time.
Traffic lightened as the truck headed out of the centre and into the suburbs and I followed, glancing around me at all the other quiet houses, the low fences, the neat lawns. What secrets were hidden behind those doors? Was everyone like me? How many of them were hiding things? I’d learned long ago that no one is what they appear on the surface. Everyone has darkness lurking inside them. I’m only different in that I admit it to myself, I don’t lie and pretend to be all good and pure and all that bullshit.
I’m good at hiding it though. Very good. That’s why I’ve been able to settle into this life for so long, stay out of trouble. That’s why I was able to have a perfectly civil conversation with the removal men when we arrived. None of them knew what I had planned. None of them knew that I’d chosen this house for a reason, a reason that had a lot to do with the cellar under the kitchen, a cellar ready to use.
I had barely stepped out of the car when I saw her. The bright sun meant she was almost entirely in shadow but when I glanced up at the house next door, I saw movement in the upstairs window. A young girl, no more than eighteen. A smile flickered across my lips. Just what I wanted to see. She would give me just what I needed.
I headed inside, pausing on the doorstep to look up again. She was still there. She was watching me. This was going to be easy. Once I was in, I began sending boxes to one room and then another before leaving the men in overalls to get on with their job. I had other things to think about.
Some people might have been excited to be in their new house for the first time but there was something far more exciting for me to mull over. The girl next door.
I headed upstairs and checked in each room, nodding to the man making his way back down for the next box. From the back bedroom, I could see into next door’s garden and there she was, catching my eye and keeping it.
The sight of her took my breath away. Laid on her back with her eyes closed, wearing only a bikini. I was hard in an instant. I stood and stared at her, my eyes moving down her body, taking in the swell of her chest, those flawless tits trapped in stretched fabric that would come off so easily if it was grabbed. One twist of my hand and it would be gone. Then the v between her legs, the triangle of cloth protecting the place my cock yearned to be. It had been only a few seconds of looking at her body but already I wanted her, I needed her, I had to take her. She would be mine. She would be safe from a world that might hurt her. I’d protect her. I’d only hurt her if she deserved it. If she asked for it.
“Where do you want this lot?”
I looked back over my shoulder and there was one of the removals men holding an armful of shirts. “The box split,” he said, a slightly sheepish expression on his face.
“Through there,” I replied. “And be more careful with the rest.”
When he was gone I
walked back downstairs, heading into the back garden. I wouldn’t be disturbed out there. I crossed the dying lawn to the fence, leaning over it and taking a closer look at her. She really was beautiful. So innocent she had no idea of the risk of sunbathing in so little with me next door. She had no idea what I was already planning for her, punishment for flaunting her body like that. She looked as if she was asleep but there was only one way to find out.
“Good afternoon,” I said and she bolted upright as if she’d suffered an electric shock.
“Hi,” she said, smiling so sweetly it made my cock throb with need. “Hi. I’m Annabelle. Bella.”
“Good afternoon Annabelle Bella.”
That made her laugh and it was an infectious giggle that warmed my entire being.
“Just Bella.”
“Enjoying the sunshine just Bella?”
“Yep.” She looked like she was going to say something else but then she just froze like a child asked a particularly difficult question by a terrifying teacher. It was something I was used to. A lot of women did that when I looked at them. It was amusing to watch her struggle with herself. I let it last for a few more seconds before ending her torture.
“I’m Jack, Jack Rutherford.”
I held out my hand over the fence and she got up, walking across towards me. Christ, that body. It was lucky she couldn’t see how hard I was, the fence hiding the bulge in my trousers as I let my eyes trail down her and then back up to her eyes in time for her to take my hand. The feel of her skin made every nerve inside me stand on edge, rigid and ready to spring, like electricity had passed between us in that touch. Her skin was so soft, warmed by the sun, with a weak grip in her handshake, a grip that told me she’d submit easily. Perfectly. She wouldn’t fight me. I was almost disappointed by how easy this was going to be.
“Hi Jack,” she said, looking down at my hand, waiting for silent permission to let go. I gripped her fingers for a few more seconds before letting her hand slip free.
“Live with your parents, Bella?”
“No,” her eyes narrowed as she answered. “It’s my house.” She sounded slightly annoyed, a tone of voice that would earn her a spanking if she was under my roof. No one spoke to me without showing respect.
A voice called me from the house. I swore under my breath as they shouted, “Where do you want these, Mr Rutherford?”
“Would you excuse me, Bella?” I asked. “I won’t keep you from your sunbathing any longer.”
“I should really be getting on anyway,” she said. “My book won’t write itself. It was nice to meet you, Mr Rutherford.”
She turned and walked away and I didn’t move until she was inside her house, I couldn’t tear my eyes from that ass of hers as she sashayed, her hips swaying across the lawn to her door. Only when she was out of sight did I twist my head round towards the removals man. It might have looked as if I was paying attention to what he was asking me but my mind was still fixed on her. The image of her in her bikini tormented me. It was the way she’d walked away from me, teasing me, begging me to take her. I would, soon.
THREE
BELLA
I was halfway through my workout when Claudia rang. I paused long enough to answer and say, “I’ll ring you back,” as I panted down the phone.
“Are you having sex?” she replied. “You sound like you’re having sex.”
“No!” I squawked. “How likely is that?”
“It’s not often I get someone breathing so heavily down the phone.”
“I’m in the middle of my squats.”
“I bet you are.”
“I’m going now.” I hung up before she could say anything else and got back to it. I’d eaten most of a tub of chocolate fudge ice cream for supper the night before and I was regretting it, hence the workout being more intense than usual. I’d binged on the ice cream whilst binging on season three of my favourite show. I’d say what show but it’s too embarrassing to admit. I hadn’t planned to eat so much but my mind had wandered as I stared at the TV, my focus shifting to my neighbour. I’d found myself wondering what he was up to. Was he unpacking over there? On the phone to his wife? Wishing his kids a good night?
Maybe he’d done all those things. Maybe he was in the shower, stripped naked, water running down his rippling chest, trickling down to his…
That was how I ended up eating so much ice cream and watching TV for so long. It meant I had extra calories that needed burning. I ended my session with half an hour on the exercise bike in the corner of my bedroom, looking out into the garden and definitely not hoping he’d appear in his kitchen and look up at me. His window was directly across and down from mine and if he went in there to make himself a coffee, he’d see the svelte gym bunny hard at work, sweating up a storm. He’d seen me from that window last night, the memory of that was enough to make me blush and pedal faster to distract myself. I still couldn’t believe what I’d done.
I rang Claudia back when my alarm beeped the end of my thirty minutes. I leaned over the handlebar, letting my breath return to normal as I waited for her to answer. “Finished being fucked?” she asked as soon as the call connected.
“I am fucked,” I gasped. “Just not in that way.”
She laughed. “So, are you coming out to play tonight?”
“If you’re buying the drinks.”
“Sod that. We’ll get the men to buy the drinks. You bring that booty of yours.”
“You’re just jealous because at least I have an ass.”
“Yeah, well, my tits are bigger than yours.”
“No they’re not.”
“They will be in a couple of weeks.”
“Wow, you’re actually going through with it then?” I asked, glancing down at my chest. What would my boobs look like pumped full of silicone?
“Uh huh. I’ll be pneumatically enhanced in time for the beach. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You can’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”
“Nope.”
“Bullshit.”
“I haven’t, genuinely.”
“Don’t you want them a bit bigger?”
“They’re thirty four double D, that’s big enough for anyone. If they keep growing, I won’t be able to walk by the time I’m thirty.”
“Some men won’t look at anything below an F cup.”
“Yeah, well some men looked pretty happy when they saw mine last night.”
“I knew it!” she screamed. “You did get fucked.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then what are you talking about? What guy saw your puppies?”
“My new neighbour.” I blushed again as I remembered last night.
“You’ve got a new neighbour?”
“I have and he’s fucking sexy.”
“And you showed him your tits? Was this before or after he’d unpacked?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
She growled. “Stop teasing and tell me what happened. I’m your best friend, I have a right to know.”
“It’s nothing really. I was getting ready for bed and I hadn’t shut the curtains.”
“You don’t shut your curtains at night?”
“No one’s lived next door for ages. I just forgot.” It was a lie but she didn’t know that. She didn’t need to know that I’d seen him in the kitchen before I began to undress, that I’d deliberately stood by the window, slipping off my top and hoping he’d look up and see me.
“So what happened?”
“He saw me.”
“He saw your what?”
“He saw me topless.”
“You should be careful Bella. What if he’s a rapist or something?”
“Don’t worry. He couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d tried. He just turned away. I don’t think he’s going to come over and ravish me.”
“I wouldn’t mind being ravished.”
“Me neither.” We descended into a fit of giggles, my laughter stoppi
ng abruptly when I heard a noise downstairs. “Hang on,” I said, listening hard.
“What? What is it? Has he come to spank you for teasing him?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you back.” I hung up, keeping the phone in my hand as I went downstairs. It had sounded like someone was in the house. I walked into the living room, ready to ring the police if there was any more noise. Had I locked the back door? I wasn’t sure. I gave it a rattle and it remained firmly in place. The front door was the same. A creak of a floorboard behind me. I spun round but there was nothing. Tiptoeing to the cupboard under the stairs, I grabbed the lamp from the table next to it, yanking the door open, ready to smash the head in of whoever might be hiding from me. The only thing in there was the vacuum cleaner. It looked accusingly up at me but I ignored the glare that said you should try using me from time to time.
Shaking my head, I turned back to the stairs, nearly jumping out of my skin when the alarm on my phone went off. Shit, I was going to be late for work if I didn’t get a move on. I still had to shower and have breakfast. I felt on edge as I walked back upstairs but there was no sign of anyone in my room or the spare room. Finally satisfied that I was alone I headed into the bathroom and stripped out of my work out gear. I hit play on my phone and left the music filling the air as I glanced at my face in the mirror. No spots. That wasn’t something I could say every day.
I climbed into the shower and spun the dial, letting the hot water cascade down onto me, humming along to the song. I ran my fingers through my hair. My eyes were closed when it happened.
The shower curtain was wrenched to the side and I was grabbed. Before I even had a chance to scream, a hand was over my mouth. I lost my balance on the wet surface under my feet, stumbling and falling to one side. I caught a single blurred glance at a shadowy figure behind me, water dripping in my eyes and stopping me from seeing properly. The hand clamped on my face shifted just enough for a cloth to be crammed in between my lips. It tasted of chemicals and I did my best to spit it out as a bag was shoved over my head.
