Chapter 1

It was one of those muggy, sweltering days we get in the Midwest. You know the kind, where you just sit and sweat in the shade. Naturally, it was the day I absolutely had to mow the lawn. So, at ten in the morning, I fired up the mower, feeling guilty about burning gas on such a hot day in defiance of EPA air quality alerts, and soon I was a soaking wet mess, but my lawn was short and neat.

“Hey, hellooo,” I heard as I was folding down the lawn waste bag. A woman’s voice was calling to someone. I hefted the bag stuffed with grass cuttings and tucked it against the house. “Hey Tom,” I heard the voice again, from right behind me. I turned around to see my neighbor, Irina.

She had just moved in a few weeks ago, and I had helped her by mowing her lawn that first week and collaborated with her father to trim the branches growing over the garage. Her teenage son takes the school bus with my daughter, but I don’t get outside much to socialize, so I’ve waved at her a few times from the front door. She and I both work from home, but I’m always busy and had not gotten around to seeing if she’d be up for lunch sometime.

And there she was, in a pair of tight shorts and a bra, apparently having stripped off her shirt, with a sheen of sweat making her exposed skin glisten. I looked at her, with her exposed little tummy roll and hint of camel toe highlighted by her workout shorts. I barely stopped myself from staring at her large breasts encased in her damp bra, showing a hint of protruding nipple, and instead forced my eyes up towards her sweet face, with thin lips and expressive brown eyes framed by straight, shoulder length dark hair. She chuckled at something and answered the curiosity I hoped was registering on my face. “I can’t get my lawnmower started. Can you see what’s wrong with it?”

“Tech support to the rescue!” I answered with a grin. “Gimme a second,” as I finished tidying up from my work. I drank most of my remaining bottle of water, and then followed her across the street, feeling a little guilty for watching the way her generous ass shifted back and forth as she walked away. In a moment, I caught up to her outside her garage. “Is your air conditioning working at least?” I filled the silence as I looked at the lawnmower with small talk.

“Working great, thanks for asking.”

“School working out for Jake?”

“He’s having a hard time making friends, but otherwise he’s doing fine. Straight A’s so far.”

“Ugh, I wish that were the case with my daughter. Too busy daydreaming about other girls.” Her eyebrow arched at that, but she didn’t pursue it.

During a little more friendly banter, I had checked to make sure there was enough gas, and the oil looked good. It was distracting because she kept adjusting her bra out of obvious discomfort. “What’s it doing when you try to start it?”

“Nothing, it just doesn’t start.”

I squeezed the lever to engage the throttle and pulled the cord. Nothing. Then I realized the problem. I squeezed the little primer button a few times and then tried again. After a few coughs and chugs, it fired right up. She had the cutest look of astonishment on her face. “What did you do?”

“So, this little button here primes the engine (not that I knew enough about these things to explain it) and gets the gas flowing so it can ignite. When first starting it, you need to pump it five or six times.” Now she looked a little embarrassed. “Your grass is pretty high; let’s get this deck adjusted or it will choke after one pass.” I set the deck up a few notches, fired the mower up again and started making some passes at the lawn. She didn’t have a grass catcher on the mower, so there were large clumps of grass left behind in my wake.

“Hold on,” and I went back across the street to grab my mower and an extra bag. In no time I had done the first pass to shorten the length of grass, with her hovering around because she clearly wasn’t used to people doing things for her, and then did a second pass to get everything short and neat. Her yard was much smaller than mine, so it took little time to finish the work.

I noted how she’d want to do some edging, and she made a quiet comment like, “It’s always fun to do some edging,” which I didn’t think anything of at first, until I noticed her mischievous smirk. I couldn’t assume she was being flirtatious, but some innuendo was always fun.

“For instance, I see your bushes are overgrown by the gate, and unless they get trimmed, they can impede access,” I waited for her response. None came. She was looking over at the gate and her overgrown hedge and seemed distracted. Then she looked at me, squinting in the sunlight, and smiled. She started walking in that direction and turned her head.

“You must be thirsty; come back and I’ll have lemonade for you.”

“Let me finish cleaning this stuff up,” I said, as she disappeared through the front gate. I pushed her mower and mine into her garage and put the full lawn waste bag by the garbage cans. After closing her garage door, I joined her past the gate.

It was a roomy backyard, bordered by an overgrown garden and a six-foot privacy fence. It was like stepping into another world furnished with a chaise, some chairs, and a table on a cement patio slab. She emerged from her back door with a sweating pitcher of lemonade and some plastic tumblers, filled with ice. “It’s not freshly squeezed, but hopefully it’s tart enough for your taste.”

“As an expert lemon squeezer, I find that offensive.” Ugh, I smiled as I groaned silently. My flirting game needed some work. “I’m sure it will wet my whistle and maybe you’ll even get a pucker out of me.” Inwardly, I flinched. Stop, Tom, just stop.

She handed me a glass of lemonade with a smirk. “Maybe you can show me your expert lemon-squeezing technique sometime.”

“It’s all in the thumbs.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. She took off her sneakers, and I noticed her legs. Her tanned thighs were thick and smooth, and her calves were toned. She wiggled her toes as they found freedom in the fresh air.

She began fidgeting again and adjusting her bra. Watching her do that made me realize I might need to do a little adjusting of my own. Nothing like some fresh air and yard work to get the body primed, and a hot neighbor essentially fondling her own tits didn’t help.

“It’s too fucking hot for this,” she burst out, looking at me. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable...” she trailed off as she reached behind and unclasped her bra. She sighed and pulled it off, the fabric clinging to her skin. Her lemons, or more accurately, grapefruits, glistened in the sunlight.

“Not at all,” I responded casually, despite my astonishment at this sudden plot twist. “I’m a huge fan of free-range ... fruit.” She gave me a side-eye and a wry smile as she tried to mop up sweat from her under-boob with her already saturated bra. I quickly stripped off my shirt, intending to offer it to her, but realized it was just as wet and sweaty as her bra. I sat there with my hand outstretched and looked at her, then at the shirt, and then I laughed. What else could I do?

Irina seemed comfortable enough with me despite my awkwardness, which I was grateful for. While it seemed there was some light flirting, it was not, in my mind, an invitation for an unwanted sexual overture. Like the ones beginning to spin out in my head. She thanked me for the offer, and I withdrew my shirt and finished my lemonade. I found myself unable not to stare at her breasts as she rose to refill my glass. They hung so close I could see little beads of perspiration beading down them to her nipples and forming drops. Fascinating.

“Tom, my eyes are up here.”

Looking up, I swallowed hard and squirmed as she laughed and handed me the filled glass. I started sipping at it and realized lemonade would not cut my particular thirst. I kept hoping she’d say something obvious, some overt or even subtle sign of consent, an invitation, but she simply leaned forward as if she were expecting me to say something, and we sat in silence for several moments, sipping our lemonade.

She seemed uncomfortable too, licking her lips periodically. Finally, I broke the silence. “Do you sunbathe nude back here? I noticed you don’t have a tan line.”

She grinned at me. “That’s one of the perks of this place: complete privacy.” I hoped she didn’t notice the increased swelling in my shorts.

“So, do you have any plans for your garden, Irina? There is nothing sadder than an untended garden.”