It was hot.
Ray was mowing the grass, mostly for lack of anything better to do. He was alone at the house. The wife was at school, their daughter was at her aunt's for a sleepover, and he was doing yard work to keep busy. He looked around from time to time, vaguely watching for people around, maybe cars going by, but there wasn't much activity. The heat was making everyone and everything sluggish. He took his shirt off and dropped it in the yard.
He'd tried to avoid most of the direct sunlight, but there wasn't much choice on the last part of the lawn, which had no trees. Their plain, older frame house was set facing East, planted between two other similar houses; there was a proper-seeming distance separating the places, with no fences. The South house was a single-family place, occupied by an elderly couple, and the North place was a house much like theirs but divided into two apartments, one up, one down. The lower occupant was some youngish manager type who was never home, and the upper had a young woman in it, Renee, an attractive blond with a great body who had come over for backyard cookouts a few times. Ray helped shovel her car out in winter, and they were on neighborly terms. Mowing, he kept an eye out for her in hope of a quick glance. She was nice to look at.
He got lucky. He was just turning around to make another pass when Renee walked out of her front door in a bikini, and pushing the mower towards her he got a good, long study.
The bikini was a black thing, with a tight hip-hugging bottom with large floppy ties on the sides; the top wrapped around under the bust, with wide tapered straps that went straight up from the sides and tied around the back of the neck. Her hair was up in a ponytail directly at the top of her head, and she'd put several clip kind of things in it to hold it up. She wasn't wearing makeup, but had her usual jewelry: gold ankle bracelets on both legs, a collection of necklaces of various lengths, one of which, a dangling cross, always swung between her very nicely formed breasts; tiny diamond nose stud, several ear piercings and always, always huge loop earrings. He didn't recall seeing her in a two-piece before, and noticed she had a navel ring. He also saw for the first time a colorful tattoo of flowers on the small of her back.
He stopped mowing, shut the machine off, and walked to the porch for the cooler of water he'd placed out. He lingered over a cold drink from a purple plastic cup, watching Renee out of the corner of his eye. She went out to the back parking area off their alley, to her inexpensive car, some Korean make, the perfect single girl secretary ride, which she'd outfitted inside with foofy seat covers and various amusing bling. She opened a door and bent over to reach inside. She looked great. Blond, trim enough, medium height, with solid but well-formed legs; she kept herself together well. Actually, he had to admit, she did sometimes carry some extra pounds, and was prone to showing signs of a double chin and thick upper arms, but she was always well dressed and carried herself unusually well. She was pretty. Very pretty. And really, really nice.
He didn't run into her as much as in the past, since his job went to direct deposit: she worked at the bank branch nearest the neighborhood. A teller, he thought, but he'd seen her over in personal banking areas a time or two. Every time he talked to her she was smiling, sweet, and friendly, and because the bank was a professional attire type place she was always outfitted in stylish clothing: skirts and wool pants and such. She smelled good, too.
He finished the cup of water, shook his head, and wondered why it was the nice girls always seemed to collect dirtbags. She'd gone through at least three truly junky guys in the last two years. One of them had been hauled off by the police after drunkenly slugging her in the front yard, another had run off with some other woman, and the current one, some cocked ballcap slouch-pants who talked like Eminem, had an import tuner he wiped off whenever anyone touched it and was likely on his way to other things, like maybe jail. He called himself "Rocket."
Who called themselves "Rocket?"
He watched Renee while he returned to the mower. She headed back towards her house, and as she got closer he studied her face. She had a round face, with thin lips she usually accented with bright lipstick, and wide-set eyes, blue, he thought, and high cheekbones. A small chin. Acne a lot of the time, a problem she tried to cover with various stuff, foundations he guessed. Her body was tanned. She went to salons and was tan with light blond hair even in the deep winter. She was pretty, and had a fabulous, round ass the bikini did wonderful things for.
She smiled and waved at him, a wave from the elbow, out from her body, a little flip of the hand that managed to be sort of girlish and sexy at the same time. The smile was dazzling in the sunlight, and he realized she'd bleached her teeth since he'd seen her last. Funny.
"Insecure," he thought. "She's insecure."
She went back in the house, and just before he fired up the lawn mower again he heard her sandals banging on the wooden steps leading to the upper apartment. He cleared his mind and went back to work, sweating in the sun. It was hot as a gun barrel and his bare shoulders burned. Mentally he wandered and idly compared himself to her physically. He wasn't too bad for a guy in his thirties, not too fat or too skinny, not horrible looking, and hey, he trimmed his nose hair. Renee was what? Twenty-four? Something like that. She was young. He laughed. He thought, "And hot."
The mower blared, and his mind wandered away to other places. He was lost enough in the yard work to not notice that she'd come back outside, laid a blanket out in the yard to sunbathe, and undone the top to expose her back. She had huge Bug Eyed Monster sunglasses on that managed to make her look ridiculous, and was reading some trashy novel with a pink cover. The bottom of the suit was yanked up the crack of her ass to expose the cheeks, and when he caught sight of all that he stopped cold in the row.
"Holy shit," he thought, then came back to himself and continued on.
In about another half an hour the yard was mowed. He should weed whack, but, he thought, "Screw it." Some other time. He pushed the mower to the garage door and parked it just outside to let it cool off. He'd clean it off in a while. Right now, it was miller time. He stole a glance at Renee, who had ear buds in and was bopping sideways to some dance tune, propped on her elbows to read her book, and even from the distance he could see her small, tight little breasts swaying and jiggling in a delightful manner. "Whuh!" he said out loud, and went inside to grab a beer.
He got his laptop, a bottle of decent enough beer, and went out on the porch to check e-mail and surf a little. Unfortunately, the porch on his house was on the opposite side from Renee's residence, so he couldn't watch her lovely body while relaxing. "Oh well," he shrugged, and got comfortable. Time passed.
The next thing he knew the sun was well over, and was approaching his spot on the porch. It was too hot to sit like that, he thought, and closed the computer. He had opened the door to maybe get another beer before cleaning the lawnmower, one foot inside, when he heard a voice.
"Got another one of those?"
It was Renee. She'd walked over to his house and was standing at the bottom of the stairs, smiling and beautiful despite the ludicrous sunglasses. She waved her hand at him, a little flip, and laughed.
