After I graduated I rented a room from a gruff house builder called Jimmy. He was a good guy was Jimmy, in his mid-30s. Despite his relatively young age he'd been working 20 years already. Early on as a kid he never finished school and he was too temperamental to handle for any of the bosses at the jobs he did, so he set out on his own. By 19 he had his own small company employing high school drop-outs to clear hard rubble from building sites. By 21 he was employing licensed pros to help expand into roofing, then demolition, then building. With no education but a sense for numbers and a notorious temper for anyone who ripped him off, Jimmy developed a hardworking and honest business that by age 25 allowed him to design, build and own his own home.
As for me, my family lived further up the coast near college, I didn't know too many people in the city. I first rented a room from Jimmy as temporary accommodation while I grunted away in a summer job for his rubble company one college break. Half way through those holidays my father grabbed my bicep and snorted. He said that rather than serve coffee in the local shop, I needed toughening up in hard labor. He saw Jimmy's ad and applied for me. It was the roughest month of my life, I really did learn what hard work was. Jimmy told me straight that I'd gone from a wimp to a good worker over those four weeks and I'd never felt so proud.
A couple of years later we ran into each other in a coffee shop in the city. He was overseeing the fitting of a store next door, I had just come out of a final job interview with a design firm. Perhaps with one eye on his own future interests he offered to put me up until I found my own place in the city. I ended up staying 3 years.
Jimmy never married, but he always had good company, the most important of which was Sara M. Sara was younger, my age. She had small features but was strong. She had long, styled dark brown hair and a beautiful face, kind of Natalie Portman-ish; delicate but not fragile. She had a perceptive cleverness and she was polite with it. There was a look Sara had, as if she knew what you were going to say and do before you did it, but she let you finish anyway, not interrupting. It's fair to say that Sara stood tall, even though she wasn't. It helped that she was happy all the time, not much seemed to get her down. She was a nice person to have around.
Rarely did I see Sara in pants, it was always dresses or skirts. She was sexy in a young-professional-woman sort of way during the week, but on weekends those dresses and skirts were so short that her ass was covered most times by bare wisps of thread. I can't imagine I would have felt comfortable if she was my girl. The way guys stared lustfully at so much inner thigh, me included, I would go stir crazy if she was my girlfriend.
I really don't know how Jimmy and Sara met, she just started turning up more than the other girls until the other ones stopped coming. She stayed over on weekends but on weekdays she was kicked back to her own place. I never quite knew whose rule it was, but I suspect it was mutual. Sara was in a blue chip management consultancy, not long out of their graduate program. She worked as hard as Jimmy.
As for me, I never had too many girls. I wasn't very good at opening lines. I needed someone to introduce me. I needed time to warm up. I usually lost my chance before my charm had started its motor. So when I was able to get onto a date, or into a girl's bed, I had to make it stick. In consequence I spent longer than I should have with some incompatible matches, compromising and procrastinating for fear of being alone. Inevitably the end would come, much later than it should have.
There was one, though. Julie. She was nice. I felt natural around her, I was myself. Her mum let her stay over in my room and it was the first time that sex was a regular part of life for me. Most times Julie was the instigator. It was like my sperm gave her energy, her demand for it almost outstripped supply.
I thought we were going really well but then her dad got sick in Canada. She moved over there to be with him. I tried to keep up the long distance thing, flying over a few times. But we couldn't keep it up. Eventually she drifted into other arms. I rang once on a Sunday morning and heard a sleepy voice behind tell her to get back into bed. She said later she had 'physical needs'. Such is life.
So when the weekend that changed my life rolled around I was well and truly single, and perhaps a little too strung out for good judgement - though it would be more accurate to say I was emotionally starved of female company than I was in need of dropping a physical load. I had the internet, right? In body I could do it myself, but it would have been nice to be with a real woman for once, not imaginary.
At the time the weather was glorious but Jimmy had a rotten summer flu. He was sick in bed, there was no chance he was going to come out of his room. I'd seen him like this before, he was the type to crawl into bed and sleep the sickness off. Even if he needed the bathroom he had his own en-suite in there.
On Friday night Sara had come over straight from work to look after him. Her white shirt and formal skirt were more conservative than normal, but still she looked smoking hot.
After trying her best to play nurse Sara decided to sleep on the sofa to avoid catching Jimmy's flu. She dragged out a spare quilt and came into the living room. I was watching Chef on cable on-demand. I filled her in on the back story of the first 20 minutes, it's not a complicated film.
"Can I sleep here tonight?" she asked, though we both knew it was more her place than mine, she was the one sleeping with the owner.
"Take one of the spare rooms, it would be more comfortable," I suggested politely.
"Nah. I like it here."
I was on the carpet leaning on one of the single sofas as Sara settled in. After a time she started to do stretches and bend-overs sitting on the long sofa. It looked in the light of the TV that she was grimacing.
"Are you okay?"
"My back hurts. I'm not sure if it's just my back or the start of Jimmy's flu."
"Can I help? Get some medicine?"
"No. No, don't worry."
A little while later though she said, "Actually yes". She asked me to come over to her sofa and turn around. "Sit here."
She lightly ran her hand up and down my spine.
"Just rub my back like that. Don't do it hard, guys always push too hard. Just lightly like that. Got it?"
"Yeah", I said, a bit excited. As innocent as it was, laying hands on Sara in any capacity was boner-inducing.
She crawled down and lay face down on the soft clean carpet, her head on her arms folded in front. She closed her eyes. I completely forgot the movie. My only interest in it was the flickering light it gave, showing me the glory of what I was doing with that beautiful woman. That and the funky salsa music.
I ran my hand lightly up and down her spine on the outside of her soft light-blue pyjamas.
"Like that?"
"Yes," she quietly purred. I did it some more, being careful to keep her pyjama top flat and not get caught on the bump of her bra strap. I felt excited yet terrified. What if Jimmy knew I had hands on his woman? I couldn't imagine it would go well, he had a wild temper. Unexpectedly Sara unfolded her hands to reach behind and lift her top up her back until it was bunched under her arms and around her neck. She flicked the clasp on her bra before folding her arms up again and laying her head back on them.
