When my next door neighbor knocked on my door one Friday afternoon, I hardly recognized him. It wasn't that he had changed or anything, but I had been out of the house a lot and we hardly ever saw him much. Sure, every other weekend he would play outside with his kids, but that was in casual cloths. Here he was in a finely tailored suit and I actually thought to myself, who is this hot young guy at my door.
"Hi," he introduced himself, "I'm Mark. I know I don't socialize much, but I'm your next door neighbor. I was wondering if you would mind if I fixed the fence that separates our backyards. My kids want to get a dog and I'd like to fix the rotting fence before we do."
I was completely dumbfounded. Of course he could fix our fence. You see, it was our fence that we had installed when we first moved into the neighborhood 16 years ago. A split rail fence; it had seen much better days. The wood was being eaten away by termites and some of the uprights were bent or broken. Consequently, some of the rails were falling off and the wire fencing was rusting and coming down. I figured he wanted to replace some of the uprights and the boards and was glad he offered. See, I had been nagging at my husband do fix it for years.
We had lived in the neighborhood since the house was built, but Mark just moved in maybe 2 years ago. When he moved in there was a woman with him, but about a year ago she moved out. Rumor had it that she left him for some wealthy man she worked with. I was sure it was a rumor but it sure made sense that he kept the house. Like a lot of divorced guys, he saw his kids on Wednesdays and every other weekend. This was obviously a weekend he didn't have them.
"Of course you can fix it," was my reply. "Is there anything you need? Money or anything?"
"No, ma'am," he replied. "I'm a contractor and can get things like this fairly cheap. I just want to make sure I can get on the property. Your husband seems pretty busy and I just figured it would be best if I could knock it out."
Two things caught my ears at those comments. The first was that he called me "ma'am." I shook it off that it was because he didn't know my name and said, "It's Kimberly by the way." Little did I realize until I looked in the mirror that the outfit I was wearing made me look like an old housewife. The second thing was that he thought my husband was busy. In reality, my husband was always golfing and things. He never did things around the house, preferring to spend Saturday's and Sunday's at the club. I wasn't too upset by this because he often ate there and I wouldn't have to feed him dinner. Heck, I rarely saw him at all on the weekends because he usually shot 36 holes and didn't get home until 10 or 11 pm in the summers.
I gave Mark the ok and probably lingered a little too long watching him walk back to his house. He looked really good in the suit and I questioned why a woman would leave him. That night I went out with a girlfriend and shared with her the story of the interaction. She asked about me fixing her up with him and frankly, I was a tad jealous. I blew it off and told her I barely knew him and she tried to make an excuse to come by in a couple of weeks. She joked about me pulling out my vibrator and imitated me using it and going, "OH MARK!!" Needless to say we were out late and I slept in until 10 am. By that time my husband was long gone.
When I looked out my back window, I got quite a shock. Mark wasn't just repairing a few posts; he was replacing the whole darn thing. He had already put in posts for his back yard and all of the posts and wire fencing that separated our yards were down. In their place were several uprights and a lot of the horizontal rails were lying in the backyard. I would periodically peak out at him, watching him work until about 11. It was then I noticed he had removed his shirt and he was ripped. Yeah, being in his mid-30's he had a little middle age spread, but his shoulders and arms were muscular. Why I got cleaned up and went out I will never really know, but I got him some ice water and took it out to him.
"Thanks, Kim. It is really starting to get hot out here. I was hoping to get it done before the sun beat down too much."
"It looks like you have a lot to do yet," was my reply. "Not that I am not impressed with what you have done so far. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Actually," he responded, "there is. I could use help moving the uprights while I get the boards in place and also holding them level while I fill in the holes."
It didn't seem so hard to do and he even gave me a pair of work gloves so I didn't get splinters. He patiently showed me how he made the holes a little bigger so that we could move them while we put the horizontal pieces in place. He also showed me how he leveled each piece. It was a bit tedious, but I could tell he was pleased with my help and could also see how it made the job go quicker. We were completely done by 2:00 and all he had to do was tack up the wire fence - which he said he would do the next day. It was fun working with him and we were both quite dirty. He mentioned that he was going to shower and throw some steaks on the grill and without the foggiest of a flirt by him; I offered to bring over a salad and desert? When I offered I was highly expecting him to say that he had a date or something, but he sized me up, ever so briefly, and said, "That would be great." We planned on dinner at 5 pm and headed to our own homesto shower.
When I got to my bathroom, I was both nervous and excited. I was nervous because not only was he hot (and nice), but I was afraid some neighbors would get the wrong idea. I was excited because he seemed so nice and I wanted to get to know him. When I saw myself in the mirror, I realized then why he must have sized me up. My face was muddy, my hair was a mess and my clothes were quite dirty. I laughed at what he thought of me and jumped in the shower thinking maybe I would hook him up with my friend. The shower felt really good after the work and I found myself relaxing and spending a little longer than usually cleaning between my legs. When I alerted myself, I thought to myself that I should shave my pubic region but then thought, "Hell, why do that for my husband."