Finally Meeting My New Neighbour

1

I couldn’t concentrate. Sitting in my office all day could be a drag, especially so when the Sun is just at that angle where all the glare slips past the blind and onto my computer screen. It makes it impossible to see what I’m doing, and it makes me feel like I’m in the wrong place. At the same time, it reminds me of times when I was a teenager, that last Summer before school was out for ever. There had been a tension on the air back then: all these young adults who were anxiously waiting for the end of June, when they would finally be let loose upon the world.

That was ten years ago, but the electric charge still formed with the brightness and the unrelenting humid heat, making me feel like an excitable, hormonal teenager again.

The clock told me it was two in the afternoon, and I knew from experience that it wasn’t going to get any more comfortable until half four, maybe five.

‘Fuck it,’ I said, turning everything off and standing up. There was no point in staying here if I couldn’t get anything done. I’d just end up roasting. I never could take the heat. At least at home I’d be able to roast in the relative comfort of my own little domain, possibly with less clothing on to retain the heat. Hmm, I thought. Maybe a cool shower.

Getting outside, I was half grateful for not being a driver, and half resentful: while the walk was pleasant and getting some air into my lungs was always good, when it was this humid I just wanted to be in a car, racing down a motorway at ninety with all the windows down. I mopped my forehead with the back of my hand and grunted.

As I walked through the edge of the town, I tried not to notice all the women walking around me with so little on: paying them any mind would have made me feel even hotter, and I wasn’t sure I needed that right at that moment. Wanted, maybe, but I liked to think I knew the difference. There wasn’t much room in my life for a partner… not because of work or anything like that, but because after my last relationship had ended, I’d got used to just getting on with my own life. Maybe one day, I thought, but not yet.

Home was only twenty minutes or so away, a little outside the town I had the office in. I worked for myself, and kept the office mostly to keep home and work separate, renting a couple of small rooms above a café for surprisingly little. Of course, I liked to dress smartly for work – even though I was working on my own in an office I was renting… it wasn’t so much about looking good as putting the effort in and getting into the mindset. If you’ve been there, you’ll know what I mean.

I got home and threw my shoes and jacket on the floor in the corner of the living room. Meh, being tidy is for people who have an image to maintain, and if nobody comes round then what your house looks like inside isn’t part of your image. Besides, even if I had one I wouldn’t be bothered. I never did care much what people thought.

Going into the kitchen, I was thinking about getting a drink, and that put me in a bit of a dilemma: I’m normally a coffee drinker, but wasn’t in the mood for a hot drink on a hot day. On the other hand, I could have a beer… but it was only, what, half two in the afternoon?

I pondered for a long moment. ‘To hell with it,’ I said aloud after a moment, and reached round the back of a cupboard next to the sink for a bottle of bitter. What was the worst that could happen?

I opened the bottle and dropped the cap in the bin, and went to sit out in the garden for a bit. I don’t like doing nothing, but if I can’t get my mind on anything then I might as well do nothing where there’s air and something like a nice atmosphere.

2

A door opened somewhere on the other side of the fence at the bottom of the garden. I sat up and looked over to see which house it was. Him from the other road over, he lived in the house right behind mine, so our gardens were just separated by a fence. He must be home from work early. Didn’t blame him. It was too nice to be holed up at work, whatever it was he did. I was new in the neighbourhood, so I’d not learned anyone’s names yet, or found out anything about them like what their jobs were.

I’d seen him around though, when we’d bumped into each other at places like the Tesco round the corner, so we knew each other by sight. He always seemed pleasant, but seemed to have a bit of a weird vibe about him too, like he was keeping something in check. I figured we’d get to know each other in time, if we were supposed to. Kind of wanted to get to know him though… he was good-looking in his way, but always seemed distant. Keeping something in check, maybe… that thought occurred to me every time I thought about him.

I got up to go back in the house and put something on, a little self-conscious. The fence was low, and I wasn’t convinced he would want to see me sitting out there sunning myself. His was the only place that could see into mine, so I’d not been bothered before… unless someone looked out from a bedroom or bathroom window or something. Not that anyone would think a woman sunbathing would be weird or inappropriate. It’s a little different when it’s a young man though, when he seems distant enough to give an impression of not wanting to know.

As I stood up, I chanced a glance over in his direction to see if he’d spotted me, and I realized as I did that I half-hoped he would. It’s nice to think of someone looking over at you and liking what they see.

I almost immediately sat back down. He was standing just there by his door, looking out. Probably staring into space or something. Probably hadn’t seen me.

I laughed a little inside my head. Come on, I told myself, grow up. I stood up again and walked off into the house to get a dressing gown or something. Nothing like a young man to make you realize you’re a woman and subject to judgment.

3

I just stood there for a minute, leaning in the doorway and looking at nothing in particular, sipping my beer. A few seconds later, I saw a woman sit up and look round. I’d seen her a couple of times before, but usually she was wearing more. Not that I minded her sitting around in her underwear, that was a good look too. Plus, it was her own garden. She stood up and looked at me for a second, and then vanished again. After another moment she turned away and walked back into her house, giving me, for just a couple of seconds, a perfect view of her back, bottom, and legs. She looked pretty well put-together, and I thought to myself what a pity it was that she’d had to go inside.

Groaning a little, I sat down on one of the crappy plastic chairs I had there, and listened to the sounds of birds chirping and people doing stuff. Whatever stuff they did.

As I sat and drifted from one thought to another, pretty much as I might have flicked channels on the box, I kept finding myself thinking of her from the other house, of surprisingly shapely bum. ‘[span class=3DSpellE]Gaah,’ I said to myself quietly.

People probably think I’m gay or something, because I shake off most of my thoughts concerning women, without acting on them. Well, without sharing them… of course I act on them, in private.

I have a lot of thoughts about women, if I’m honest. What they look like, what they feel like. What they sound like. What they taste like. Women keep a lot of things about themselves private. There’s a whole world in a woman that most of them don’t let just anybody in on. That’s probably the way it should be though, to be honest. Otherwise intimacy wouldn’t be special.

Why would I live a life of celibacy, you might ask, if I have thoughts like that? Well, mostly because I made some mistakes when I was younger. I found I couldn’t trust myself as much as I thought I could.

4

I’d lived there for about three weeks. I was in an upstairs flat before then, about ten miles away, for six months. The area wasn’t nice, and I was glad to be away from it.

Definitely couldn’t have sat out in my underwear there. I think that was why I was enjoying the freedom to do it here. I laughed to myself again, at how silly it was to get self-conscious. Couldn’t help it though. So, sighing a little, I went and put on a pair of loose jeans and an even looser T-shirt. Wanted some air to get to me, if the rays couldn’t.

I turned the TV on, wondering if there was going to be anything worth watching before I thought about what to actually do next. It was one of those days – hadn’t had to go to work, and it had been too hot to stay in bed any longer than I had. Nowhere out I wanted to go, nothing in I wanted to do except sit around and top up my tan. Ohh well.

There only seemed to be crap on TV, but since there was nothing else for me to do I sat and watched for a while anyway. If nothing else it was a bit of company, even if I wasn’t paying attention to it.

My phone beeped. I leaned over and picked it up from the other side of the couch, but it was just Facebook telling me it was someone’s birthday. Someone I didn’t really know, a friend of a friend who’d added me some time ago, so I ignored it. Nothing really happened on [span class=3DSpellE]there except random people I knew years ago sometimes randomly remembering I existed. I sighed. So nice to feel loved.

5

I sat there, sipping my beer and getting more preoccupied, moment by moment, with how little in the mood I was for doing anything. It was funny though, I realized, how the weather balances. When it was this hot and close I longed for the frigidity of the winter. When it was too cold to even get out of bed for a middle-of-the-night piss without making sure I had a parka handy, I longed for the heat I was enduring now. I never could cope with extremes of temperature.

The beer was getting warmer and by now I was only drinking it reluctantly. I held the bottle up to see how much there was left. Another third of the stuff. I groaned and turned the bottle upside down, and put it down next to the chair. Hot and sticky, I thought again of having that shower. Maybe that would help me feel a little fresher, and maybe it would while away some time before the evening came, hopefully bringing some cool air on the breeze.

‘Bleugh.’ I stood up and went back inside, upstairs to get into the shower.

6

Whatever was on TV finished. I hadn’t been paying attention, and only really knew it had finished because of the closing music. I turned it off. Wasn’t in the mood for any more.

I looked toward the back again, thinking of going outside to sit for a while. It was nice when it was hot, and if I was going to drift for a while I wanted to do it in the Sun.

When I went out again, I checked quickly over the fence. He wasn’t there. I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed, even though I’d felt a little exposed before. Maybe now I just accepted that he might see me, where I’d been taken unawares before. Or maybe now I just wanted him to see me again… even though I was dressed.

I couldn’t say why I was taken with the idea of him having seen me just before. I’d never thought of myself as being much of an exhibitionist, unless sometimes showing off to a partner in private counts. I don’t think it does though. Then again I don’t think it was so much about being seen, but about him seeing me. Yes, I didn’t really know anyone around there yet. But I knew him even less. He didn’t act in any way that I could identify easily, it was like his whole personality was a secret. Hell, when I bumped into him sometimes, I couldn’t even tell if he was in a good mood or a bad mood, or any kind of mood at all. He either had no personality at all or he was just really quiet around people he didn’t know.

That was a shame. For all that, he always seemed pleasant and polite, and not in that greasy, slimy way that weirdos do, who want to put up a front for people. It wasn’t a front. At a guess, I’d have said he was just not interested in people. Which, again, was a shame.

Why was I even thinking about him all of a sudden, after having only barely registered his existence before?

I was still standing outside, when I noticed an upstairs window open at his house. Frosted, so it must be his bathroom. Knowing the heat he was probably going for a shower or something, opening the window to let some air in.

I laughed.