Chapter 6

Two days later, rather more quickly than I would have if I'd sat down and thought about it, I decided to test the waters. It's possible that, because I'd been resisting the urge to masturbate under my covers on the couch, that my hormone levels were a little out of whack. In any case, it was on the spur of the moment when, as she was bending over to pick up something, I reached out and casually slapped the skin tight denim covering the right side of her gluteus maximus.

I may have slapped it a teensy bit harder than my initial, unplanned urge called for.

"Ow!!" she yelled, straightening up in an eye blink. She turned on me with a glare.

I tried to bluff my way through it, keeping a smile on my face.

"I had this dream last night," I said.

"What?" My reference to the fictitious dream must have seemed like I was trying to change the subject to her.

"Well, you said, 'in my dreams, '" I explained.

The anger in her face changed so quickly and so completely that I think I actually took a step back in surprise. Her expression became one of calculation, an almost wily look, that was a portent of revenge. Just as quickly as the anger left, the warning vanished too, to be replaced by what could only have been a calculated attempt to look as harmless as a kitten.

"You hurt me," she said in a voice that verged on tears. Her overall behavior didn't match the anguish in her voice. She reached to rub where my hand quite possibly had left a print.

I was the wary one now. This woman had a depth to her that I hadn't seen very much of. I already knew she had to have incredible strength to have raised two such great kids alone. Now I got this feeling that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck that I was messing with the mother bear of those cubs.

Still ... I wasn't afraid of her. Not exactly. I suspected there would be payback. But I was also already resigned to accepting it as part of the game.

"You want me to kiss it and make it better?" I asked, trying to make that sound innocent.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," she said, all the little girl behavior gone in an instant. "Well that will just have to be in your dreams too, buster."

"Been there. Done that. Got that T shirt," I said, grinning.

She grinned back.

"Game on, Mister."

"Okay," I said, easily. "But remember, I'm a lot older than you, and I've been around the block a few more times than you have. Don't bite off more than you can chew."

"The only biting that's going to be going on around here is you biting your tongue to keep from crying like a little girl when I'm finished with you," she bragged.

"Bring it on, Sister," I said.

Suddenly it was like nothing had happened. Her demeanor was completely normal. She reached to rub her butt again.

"You really did hurt me," she complained. "Why'd you hit me so hard?"

"A fabulous ass deserves a fabulous swat," I said, shrugging.

Again, her attitude changed like smoke blowing in the wind. She stepped up to me. Her arms were at her sides, and there was nothing threatening about her stance at all. She invaded my space, moving closer until I felt the tips of her breasts just graze my shirt. She was two or three inches shorter than me, which caused her to look up. I was struck by how lush her lips looked.

"Do you have a thing for my ass, Bob?" she asked, softly. Those lips were only six inches away.

Blood started pouring into my cock, and I was half stiff within seconds.

"Oh, you're good," I replied, suddenly wary again. I felt like I was in danger this time, but it was the kind of danger men seek out for whatever reason. Extreme sports are all about that kind of danger.

"You have no idea," she said, leaning forward an inch. "You may already have bitten off more than you can chew."

"I've spent a lot on my teeth," I said. "I don't anticipate having any chewing problems." I tried to control my racing heart.

She went up on tiptoes, and brought her lips so close to mine I could feel the heat emanating from them.

"Eat me!" she whispered.

And then she raised her hands and pushed off of me, turning to run, laughing wildly. She stopped in the entrance to the hallway and looked over her shoulder at me. Bending forward ever so slightly, she wagged her ass at me.

"Only in your dreams, Bob."

She laughed again and dashed to my bedroom, entering and slamming the door. I thought about going after her, but it wasn't really my bedroom at the moment. Instead, I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and stroked a load out of my balls. Later, when I found out what she was doing in there, I wished I had gone in.

That's because she was doing the same thing on the bed that I was doing in the bathroom.

The atmosphere after that was different. It's hard to describe, but there was a comfort level there that hadn't been in existence before. This was the first open, really intentional flirting we had done, and it opened a door that either couldn't be closed again, or was simply happy to stay open.

It expressed itself in little ways. We stood a little closer to each other. When we passed each other, there was no attempt to avoid touching. She smiled more, and maybe I did too.

We had a quiet little Thanksgiving, just the four of us, and life started to seem a little more normal, somehow.

Then the insurance check arrived and she went car shopping. I took her around, and stood there trying to look menacing as salesmen did their best to keep her with them as long as humanly possible. She found what she wanted, which was the same brand and model that had burned up in her garage, but two years newer.

Having a car again gave her a little more freedom, and having money in her account made her feel a little less dependent on me, I think. The crushing defeat of losing everything you own began to fade away, and she seemed overtly happy more often than she was sad.

The only flirting I'd done since slapping her ass was verbal, and most of that was light. There's a way to say "Hi" that makes it clear you're really glad you get to say that to a person. They know, by your tone of voice and inflection, that you're happy to see them. It has a deeper meaning than the word usually expresses. Saying something like, "Looking good," can express something deeper than "I like that," too, if it is said in a particular way.

She, on the other hand, almost never said anything to me that could have been called flirting. Rather, she was more physical in her approach. Again, it was little things, like hip bumping me gently as we stood at the counter together, or reaching to touch my arm as she talked to me. They were not blatantly sexual touches, but they made it clear she liked to touch me, and that can translate into things in a man that become blatantly sexual.

Then maybe eight or nine days after I left my handprint on her ass, I got up one day, took a shower and opened the top drawer of my chest of drawers to get out a pair of briefs, like I did every day. I found that every pair I owned (save the ones I'd dropped in the dirty clothes hamper) was heavily starched, and ironed flat as a pancake. You could have used them as Frisbees, except they had no rim on them.

I took a pair into the kitchen, where she was feeding breakfast to the twins.

"What's this all about?" I asked.

She glanced at the object in my hand.

"What's that?" asked Chip. "Are those underwear?"

"In theory," I said.

"How'd they get like that?" asked Samantha.

"There must be an underwear gremlin in the house!" exclaimed Valerie. "Sometimes they get in and do things like that. We'll have to hunt him down before he does that to any more underwear!"

"Mom! There's no such thing as underwear gremlins," scoffed Chip.

Valerie pointed the spoon in her hand to the white disk in mine.

"There's your proof!" she said, waving the spoon.

"How do you find one?" asked Sam, her breakfast forgotten.

"No time to talk about that now," I said. "We'll discuss that when you get home from school." I looked at Valerie. "Unless I've already caught the culprit."

"If you do, I want to see him before you throw him out," said Sam.

"There's no such thing as underwear gremlins," said Chip, stubbornly.

"What do you do with them when you catch them?" asked Sam, thoroughly willing to believe in such a sprite.

"You eat them!" I growled.

"Ewwww," she squealed.

"Finish your breakfast!" said Valerie stridently. "No more talk about underwear. If you miss the bus I'll have to take you, and I have work to do!"

They did as they were told, but we'd cut it too thin. The bus was pulling away from the stop three houses down as the kids ran out the door. Valerie sighed, but the kids were happy to ride in their new car.

That left me alone in the house.

To plot my revenge.

I thought about probably a dozen things I could do. Then I decided that most people would probably think of those things as "pranks" or practical jokes. I've never understood why such jokes could be considered "practical". There's nothing practical about them. And most people would probably regard the things I thought of as cruel. Like spiking something she was going to eat with some of my special hot sauce, which I got from a guy who travels to Africa frequently. I told him one time that I like hot spicy food, and he brought me back a jar of this reddish brown paste that had the word "pimento" on it. He suggested I dab a bit on a cracker and eat that, which I guess is how they do it in Senegal. I ended up with something the size of my thumbnail on the cracker, and it probably took me two hours before I could taste anything again. There for a while I thought it had burned the taste buds right off of my tongue. I use it to season a pot of chili now, and all I do is dip the spoon in it and then stir the chili.

But that really would be cruel. And most of the others were of the variety that would cause people to look at me and say something like, "What were you thinking? Are you fucking crazy?"

In the end, I decided tit for tat was the way to go. She'd messed with my underwear, so it was only justice that I mess with hers.

I couldn't starch them, of course. For one thing I couldn't find the starch she'd used, and I didn't have time to do that before she got back anyway.

I found them in the single drawer in my chest of drawers that she had appropriated. There wasn't much in there. A few T shirts, some bras, folded with the cups inside of each other, socks, a package of new panty hose next to an opened package of panty liners. And a neat pile of variously colored panties.

I felt a twinge of doubt as I reached for the stack of panties. I was invading some very personal space, here. But my underwear were ... or had been ... just one drawer down in that piece of furniture. I'd kept meaning to get me another small one, so my stuff wouldn't be in her living space. And one for the kids too. But I hadn't gotten around to it yet.

I lifted them out, leaving the space they'd been in obviously bare. Then I pushed things around a little so the bare space was gone. Maybe she wouldn't notice right away.

I put them in my Liberty Franklin model gun safe.

And no, I didn't sniff them, or examine them or wrap a pair around my head while I beat off.

I did notice that the top pair, which appeared to be made of a cotton rayon mix, had tiny little images of M&Ms on them, and the words "Eat Me" in frilly letters. I remembered her using those words on me, and my mind went into overdrive, wondering if she'd gotten these panties before she said that, or after. If it was before, could she have been thinking of them, or even better wearing them when she said that? And if she got them afterwards, did that suggest she had thoughts of me seeing them sometime? Either way, I ended up with an erection to be proud of. I did think about doing battle with the purple-headed dragon, just then, but I didn't want to be in the bathroom doing that when she came home. I wanted everything to appear normal so she didn't discover the kidnapping of her dainties for as long as possible.

By the way, it's very different getting a boner when you're not wearing any underwear. It's surprising how much a pair of briefs will contain a rampant penis. Not only that, but my particular erection always makes the head protrude three quarters of an inch or so through the hood, and in briefs you don't feel that as much as you do when that tender skin is rubbing up against the denim in your jeans. I don't know how guys who are circumcised can stand it, having the whole head exposed all the time.

Anyway, I managed to get it into a comfortable position and, as I heard her drive up and park her car, I lifted the phone and started talking to an imaginary person about an imaginary problem in an imaginary company some imaginary place. She walked in, waved and smiled at me as I paced, talking and listening, and went to the kitchen, probably to heat up the coffee she'd had to abandon to take the kids to school. Valerie loves her coffee.

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Bewitched

Lubrican

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