The Girl Next Door
Warning:
There is some group sex, a foursome, and some adultery in this story
I wish to thank my editor Leo. Big thanks too go to Peter Cleveland for all of his wonderful suggestions. They made this story much better than its original draft.
**
I always thought, since I was little, that good was the first word of a candy package. I never thought it might apply to my next-door neighbor, Veronica. Veronica and I grew up together, from nursery school right through high school. We never liked each other.
Our moms would arrange "play dates" between the two of us, but when we got old enough both to speak and to exercise agency, we both said no. We simply did not enjoy each other's company. At school, we had little to say to each other, and I for one was looking forward to heading off to college in part to be away from her.
To make matters worse, our bedrooms were both on the second floor of our homes, and my bedroom faced hers. The distance between the two houses was so small that with the windows open we could talk to each other without raising our voices. I'm sure the builder violated the building codes by putting our houses so close, but by now the houses were facts on the ground and the way they were was the way they'd stay.
I had blinds which I kept raised in an aggressive stance towards Vero, as she was known. Vero had curtains and they were kept tied open, thereby matching my aggression. So, we each had nice views of the other's bedroom and the person or people inside it. This meant we were both careful with dressing and undressing, especially Veronica. I couldn't give a damn, but probably it made her feel good to act like revealing something to her uninterested neighbor would be like setting money ablaze.
There were some annoying features. Reaching my teen years, I would awake almost every day with morning wood. I found ways to avoid giving Veronica the knowledge that it was the case. She would have teased me mercilessly. I was also worried that if I ever managed to bring Stephanie back to my room for a little fun, we would not have the privacy girls want for such things. I'd have to lower my blinds and then Veronica would tease me constantly. Like that was going to happen, though. Our school district was filled with religious zealots, and no girls, none, except for Sarah, ever put out for us guys. I never even got Stephanie's bra off.
One of the worst of the religious zealots was my very own father. A strict disciplinarian, he seemed particularly obsessed with issues such as premarital sex and abortion. He was also a homophobe extraordinaire. Our religion reached into our personal sex lives, and my dad, who was otherwise pretty good, was adamant that it was God's will that premarital sex is forbidden.
My mom had a more forgiving soul; and when they went to church, if there was a fire and brimstone sermon -- and there often was -- then my mom avoided my dad for the rest of the day. Often Mom would join a small clutch of women and go to Peters' Café, run by Mr. Peters, who was one of the few men in town who was not of our church (he was Catholic). Stephanie once told me all the women had crushes on Mr. Peters, who -- if you were a woman -- was sexy or handsome or something. I didn't see it, but then, I didn't see lots of things.
Northern Indiana was where all the Catholics seemed to be, within a stone's throw of Notre Dame, so to speak. There weren't that many in our small farming town, but there were some.
Jews are rare in Indiana, especially amongst the cornfields. Sarah and Josh were from the only two Jewish families in our town, and while Sarah had morals, she was not descended from Puritans or other religious sects for whom sexual behavior was thoroughly controlled and mostly forbidden, especially before marriage.
Sarah had the normal sexual appetite of a teenage girl. As a consequence, she had her choice of guys and I was probably her 50th choice out of the 60 boys in our rural high school senior class. I realized that while Sarah was pretty she wasn't nearly as pretty as Veronica. Sarah had chosen Josh to be her partner. Josh was my best friend, too. He got all the sex he could handle and to hear him tell it, it was a lot.
Life took a bizarre but welcome turn when I suddenly woke up at 3 AM one super-hot supposedly Spring night in April, shortly after my 18th birthday. I was sleeping naked due to the high heat. My parents' bedroom had some AC, but I felt as if they were training me to join the French Foreign Legion and serve in the Sahara Desert. My window was open and I had a fan on, which helped, but not enough.
I rolled over to face the fan and saw the light come on in Veronica's bedroom. At night, when a light goes on in the house next door, it's as if the room is a movie screen in 4K and you can see everything. You can see it all. I slipped on my glasses to see better. This was a sight I had to see. Veronica was sitting in the straight-backed birdseye maple wooden chair she keeps by her bed, sweating profusely (girls don't sweat like a pig, they just don't; only boys do). That's understandable, given the heat. What was also understandable, but amazing to me, was that she was sitting there, as naked as the day she was born.
The first difference I noticed between the 18-year-old Veronica and a newborn was that Vero had boobs. She had small and pert and gorgeous boobs. They were the first real boobs I had seen on a real girl, and not just in the movies or on the Internet. They would move ever so slightly with every breath she took.
Veronica just sat in the chair, staring straight ahead like a zombie. I grabbed my cell phone from my nightstand and discreetly took a few pictures. Okay, okay, I took a lot of pictures of the pretty, naked zombie next door.
Eventually, the naked girl stood up, and it was all I could do to keep hold of my phone. Veronica turned off her lamp and returned to bed. When she had stood I had enjoyed an all too brief view of her entire naked body, including her delightful blonde bush.
For the first time in our lives, I sat down next to Veronica on the school bus. She was surprised I did that, but indifferent, as she always was. I noticed she smelled really good.
"Did you sleep well last night?" I asked, disguising my curiosity as casual conversation.
"You mean, because of the heat?" Vero replied. I nodded.
"Yes," she said. I looked surprised, so she added, "I took an Ambien, and slept like a baby. How was your sleep?" Veronica seemed suspicious.
"You took an Ambien ... " I said, thoughtfully. I knew -- everybody knew -- that for some people Ambien can make you do strange things in your sleep of which you were unaware.
"Yes, why? Are you having trouble sleeping in this rather brutal heat?" she asked. "I could hardly blame you. It's April for the Lord's sake."
"Yes. I woke at 3 AM, for example," I said.
I knew Vero was not interested, and she ignored me. So, I added, "The light was on in your room."
"I don't think so," Vero replied.
"It was, nevertheless. You were sitting in your birdseye maple chair, staring off into space," I said.
"In your dreams," Vero replied. Giggling just a bit at her double entendre.
"You were naked, too," I added.
