Chapter 1: Initiation

To the residents of Manor Close it was a perfect place to live, or at least had been the perfect place to live. The arrival of Witness Obi as the tenant at Number 2 a couple of months previously had shaken the carefully maintained exclusiveness of the small, new build development.

There were multiple reasons for this. Number 2 was the only rented property on the close, it was also the largest plot as it was located on a corner, bigger even than the other corner plot of Number 1 due to the sweep of the curve of the road as it entered the close. The arrival of a tenant into the otherwise privately owned residences had shaken things up. There was bad feeling because Witness had moved into the largest property, because he was a manual labourer, because his dirty work van parked on the drive lowered the appearance of the close as you entered, and ... oh ... because he was black

The rest of the close was exclusively professional, well heeled, and white. It had always been a bone of contention that Number 2 was actually owned by a company and was occasionally used to house its employees. So far they had been white families in more managerial roles, but this time the fears of the residents had manifested, and they had no control over it.

Witness was always on everybody’s mind and as such had soured the rarified atmosphere that they were used to living in. He was always the subject of conversation, complaints, digs and abuse, yes the ““N” word was bandied around a lot by the white professional males, used in humour and hate. Witness had single handedly rewritten the culture on the close, and he didn’t care one bit.

Harriet Peniston lived at Number 3, on the opposite side of the road to Witness. She was 38, a mother of two (who were both doing well at school), and wife of Andrew, who was Head of Procurement at a local technology company. She was slim and worked hard to keep her figure and good looks. She kept her hair at a smart mid length and maintained its blonde colouring through treatment, although she wouldn’t say she dyed her hair and never thought of herself as a “bottle blonde” which she considered vulgar. She didn’t work, but was kept busy running the home and organising her husband and children. She was very particular about how her life, and that of her family, should be.

It was a Monday morning, her husband at work and the kids safely in school, and Harriet was arranging a bouquet of flowers for her large front window. Through the glass she saw a post van park up on the road. The driver got out and carried his parcels to Number 2. He waited for a short while, but there was no answer. Turning around he headed over towards her.

Harriet opened the door to the postman who had a small parcel for her. She took it from him.

“I don’t suppose you could take this in as well for Number 2, could you?”, he asked her. “There’s no one home”.

Harriet sighed as she contemplated saying no, but she didn’t want to seem rude, so accepted the box that he handed her.

“Thanks”, he said as he left.

Harriet spent the rest of the morning looking over at Number 2 in disgust, waiting for the dirty van to appear. She wasn’t looking forward to the encounter. Whatever work Witness did, meant he left home in the very early hours of the morning, and returned shortly after noon, his van becoming ever more filthier and caked in mud. She hated having to disrupt her day waiting for him, but the truth was that the disgust she felt was the real reason for the disruption. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

So shortly after the dirty van pulled up onto the driveway and Witness got out and entered the house, Harriet was marching straight over, box in hand, to discharge her duty. She knocked on the door.

It took a few knocks before Witness opened the door. He gave a big smile as he looked her up and down, and Harriet felt the power of his gaze over her slim frame.

“The postman tried to deliver this to you”, she stammered, feeling rather uncomfortable as he stood over her. She had never really met him before and she was taken aback by his physicality. He wasn’t what she would call a large man, but he had stature and was tall and in good physical shape. He kept smiling as she stood there offering the box. He said nothing.

Feeling evermore flustered by his smile and lack of conversation she cast her eyes down. It was then she saw it. WItness had his trousers open and was slowly masturbating as she stood at his door. She was shocked at his size. It was much larger than her husband’s and it still seemed only half erect, soft as he slowly massaged it. She was taken aback at its girth.

She looked back up at him in shock to see his even bigger smile. Thrusting the box towards him he took it and she rushed away, annoyed at herself that she didn’t say anything. WItness stood and watched smiling as she almost ran across the road, only closing the door when she had disappeared into her own home. He laughed loudly to himself.

Back in her home Harriet slammed the door behind her. She was furious with both Witness, for what he had done, and herself for not hitting him. Trying to carry on with her day and catch up on the jobs she had fallen behind with, she found that she couldn’t settle. She jumped from task to task, never finishing one, as her mind raced. How dare he! She tried to comfort herself with the thought that he would soon be gone from their lives once she had told her husband what had happened, returning the close to the place she had known before, but at the same time she could not shift the image of what he had held in his hands from her mind.

Harriet had never been one to indulge in sexual fantasy. She was very straightlaced and conservative had been horrified when she realised that once married her driving licence number would be preceded by the word PENIS as the first five letters of her surname. Others seemed to find this very funny, but for Harriet it felt like a personal insult everytime she was required to write it down. She had a couple of sexual relationships at university while she was trying to find the right man to marry. It was always upsetting when the man she had indulged turned out not to be interested in anything further, but it wasn’t long before she found Andrew, with the right family, money and connections, and persuaded him not to look any further for a future wife. But Witness was still on her mind. Not able to wait for her husband to return home she went back out, crossed the road and hammered on his door to tell him exactly what she thought.

“Who do you think you are?”, she shouted as he opened the door, but got no further in her rehearsed speech as her fury evaporated when she saw his smile. She didn’t know why she followed him inside when he invited her in.

“You’re a very fit lady”, he said as he closed the door after her.

Harriet almost felt a blush as she looked down to his crotch, although this time his trousers remained fastened.

Witness laughed as he saw where her eyes had fallen. “You liked what you saw?”, he asked. Harriet was shocked at his openness, but didn’t answer. She genuinely didn’t have a response.

“Ha, I know you did”, he beamed. “You have nice tits”, he said as he reached out and touched her sweater.

The electric jolt she felt as he touched her was unexpected. She was horrified at her own reaction. She should have yelled and screamed, but she just froze, standing there as his hand pressed against her breast, her mind trying to process what was happening.