Chapter 1: Tablespoon of Cream

I was deep in the flow of my nerdy shit, tamping down my frustration with the world when some annoying person rang the house’s anemic doorbell.

The worn-out doorbell’s anemic wheeze reminded me of something else I needed to add to the list of shit I would probably never bother fixing.

The visiting annoyance yanked open my storm door, knocked on my door, and then seconds later they knocked on my home office window just to the right of my front door.

To salt my wounded calm, the annoying visitor tapped four fingers on the bottom pane of the divided light window, next to the door, then four more times on the bottom center pane.

My nerves frayed when they drummed their fingernails on the central pane.

Then my grinding teeth clenched finally as they drummed the mid-level door side pane.

Truth be told, it was probably my fault.

Even with no car visible in the driveway, they could probably hear the music my nearly deaf self kept playing while working on the computer through the cheap window.

With a sigh, I stopped my music and watched the document save before standing.

The annoying door-to-door sales drone tweaked my irritation by drumming four nails repeatedly on my office window, quickly and impatiently drumming out another sixteen count that flitted around the four divided light panes in an overly cheerful little square.

They better not be standing in my front plantings again!

That last fucker stomped my bush flat then tried to play it off like it was some other idiot that day standing in my garden!

Slapping open the deadbolt, and twisting the door knob lock the instant before ripping the thing open, I flung open the door and let all the AC out.

There was no salesperson outside my humble home.

Big, mysterious, beautifully brown, to the point of black, eyes stared up at me instantly snapping my frustration at my stopped workflow. Her coal black hair and light tan Hispanic skin glowed healthy and full in the scorching hot, Houston Texas, afternoon sun.

Those eyes bored into me, her slender arms clasped behind her back, pulling her tee shirt taught over her perky little bra-less chest and tits. The little tease knew exactly what she was doing to me as a grown-ass man!

As always my eye lingered a hair too long on her tits.

Her coy little smile was suppressed but creeping up the edges of her mouth ever so slightly.

Lucile chirped, “Hi mister Alex.”

Her cute, well-proportioned, and sweetly rounded little face just stared at me so I could hear her goading thoughts about catching me staring again.

I sighed, miming disappointment I never felt around Celia, and barked, “What do ya want, Freshman.”

Her face cocked to the side, eyes crossed and tongue poked out disrespectfully. She might have used that behind the back of any teacher she did not like her whole life, but from her, between us, to my face, it was nothing but playful. She reminded me, “College! College freshman,” then she quipped, “Old man!”

I squinted down at the tiny little woman and felt my lips on the left side of my face pull tight, scowling at her.

That made her giggle brightly!

It was a musical sound I had not heard from my wife since she finished the business of our three years of dating and accepted that promotion to wife. Then as wifey and step-daughter Luna moved in it was like the fun went out of life and the work of life began.

Luna was cute, but her mother’s transferred F-inist attitude made her less appealing than she should have been, had she been a little more cheerful about things.

Plus, her boyfriend was an annoying little wiener. Starry-eyed Luna led him about by the nose. She kept him around like a pet and treated him like a dog for training.

Sure, I learned never, never ever go outside to put the trash out at night when Luna might be in the driveway at an hour when she was supposed to be home. Or I might need to watch Luna and ‘Rico-Suave’ snogging in the front seat of his car.

Meanwhile, the wife avoided sex and physical contact as much as possible, escaping the situation during the week by bolting off to work or early morning gym visits. And only succumbing on the weekends when she was not artificially adding something urgent to those times to scurry off to. My wife was not bad, she just put urgency on so many things, away from us, so she scurried around like a frantic little mouse all the time. It was like we never had time to slow down and enjoy things.

She probably just needed to switch to decaf.

But if she did, the excuses would arrive earlier in the night, and she’d just spend more time sleeping and getting pissed at me when I initiated sex in the morning.

Not allowing Celia to have a moment, I reminded her, “It’s summer. You’re not a college freshman yet. You haven’t started classes. You’re still a dorky high school girl.”

That made her giggle happily.

Her renewed laughter cracked my bad attitude and I felt a small smile growing. Celia’s cute pink little tongue popped out again as she scrunched a playful face at me.

When Lucile’s laughter trailed off, that pretty much meant that I was finished enjoying the magical sound of true female laughter. So I barked, repeating myself, “What do ya want, little girl?”

Hands still clasped behind her back, the little tease rocked her shoulders back and forth, dragging her cute little tits repeatedly across my vision. She shrugged a little, through a few rocks back and forth, then she begged, “To come in before I melt, Mister Alex? My feet are hot.”

I looked down past her goofy oversized basketball shorts that kids seemed to favor. Her cute, well-maintained, yet unpretentious little toes wiggled in her cheap, comfortable flip-flops.

When I looked up from her toes, she giggled and started stepping in without permission, shouldered past, just barely making it in without touching, and quickly found her back to the wall in my narrow entry hallway.

She was at that exhilarating too-close distance just outside touching, while still far apart enough to pretend we were behaving.

We both let the storm door shut behind her.

And we sidestepped deeper into the hall together, both only glancing away for the briefest moment to close the door without clipping her shoulder.

Looking down at my cute little neighbor girl, I demanded again, “What do you want, Short-stack.”

She asked the innocuous, “Can I have some sugar?”

I raised my brow at her possible double entendre. Which I immediately dismissed because it was Lucile.

Incredulous, I asked, “Your dad’s side of the business is bringing home more than I am right now, and you don’t have sugar in the house?”

She cutely shrugged and chirped, “Big bro is with his girl toy. Mama is at work, before one of her nursing classes, and Dad is...”

We finished together, “On a job.”

I stared down into her expectant eyes, with her still well inside my personal space. So close in fact that her mere presence was stomping on the accelerator to my heart. I reminded her gently, “You didn’t answer my question, little lady.”

She shrugged again, happily tossing her shoulders, hair, and chest again, and added, “We might. I just can’t find it.” She rose to her toes, arching into me with her lip bit in her little devil’s grin again and gently patted the crown of my head with the fingertips of her max-extended right hand, and reminded me, “I’m too short to see the top shelf.” She dropped back to her heels, bouncing slightly, only a head shorter than me. She ran both her hands up and patted my flanks with her flat palms, before telling me, “You’re so big and strong I was hoping you could help a girl out.”

Celia was teasing again.

Her playful touches were a huge sign.

Her eyes were alight as her delicate little fingers started tickling over my ribs like she was petting the flanks of a good dog.

I growled my annoyance in my throat and twisted away.

My annoyance only threw gasoline on the fire, brightening her mischievous smirk into a full-blown shit-eating grin.

I corrected, “Knock it off, you little weirdo.”

Keeping her hands cupped to my chest, and fully half again or more wider than her own shoulders, Celia only stilled her hands. Not removing them, she questioned innocently, “Luna’s still at work?” before she stated, answering her own question, “Her car is gone, and your wifey never misses work days, so she’s out too.”

That was not a question. That was Celia stating the mote of fact, that she knew my step-daughter, Celia’s two years older friend, was at work, as was wifey.

The evil little side of me wondered if cute Celia was confirming that there was no female supervision in the house. Thinking about her sugar double entendre I had to divert to the more chast of the two thoughts before I got in trouble.

I demanded, presenting an objection, “Y’all make plenty as a family. And I know your dad keeps the house stocked with food.”

She turned it around on me, throwing my argument back in my face, “Maybe. But I know for a fact that when you work with my dad you get paid for the work referrals, and that you are doing like fifteen other things to make money too. I know what Luna and Ramona say, but that doesn’t add up in my head. There’s just always way too much going on behind your eyes for me to believe that bullshit, Alex. So, I bet that you make way more than my dad. So y’all have food here too. And I know for a fact that your kitchen is way more organized than Mama keeps ours.”

Challenging, I demanded, “And how do you know that?”

Somehow she managed to roll her eyes at me while never actually looking away with her attention, her cute face cocked to the side, and her long loose black hair slid over her left shoulder. Celia snapped in that girl tone, “Luna’s my friend. I’ve been in your house too!”

I narrowed my eyes at the girl.

She called my bluff and giggled a little, breaking my mimed frustration.

I nodded over my shoulder towards the kitchen and barked, “Come on, you little annoyance. The sooner I get you out of my hair the happier my life will be.”

As I turned to stroll off, her little hand trailed lightly along my belt line, sending wonderfully miraculous shivers of bad intent racing up my spine.

Tailing me, Celia teased, “I bet you’d like me all up in your hair!”

While walking with her behind she slipped her fingers into the back of my shorts between the belt and tee-shirt I kept tucked into my shorts. I looked back at my little caboose and considered her second potential double entendre, yet again.

I reminded her, as we strolled through the living room behind the wall-mounted TV-facing couches, “I keep my hair short for practice and from Army habit.” I added, “It keeps pests like ticks and you out of my hair.”

Shaking her hand in my shorts, her musically light voice chimed from behind me, diverting, “Good! Boys look stupid with long hair.”

Looking back at Celia, trailing one finger of my right hand along the couch back, I pushed my left hand through my short but full head of hair and asked, “So you don’t like Rico-Suave?”

She looked up at me a little stumped, head cocked to a slight angle.

She was not getting my bad joke

Celia was just blinking and considering, as our slow walk zigzagged around the couch exiting the living room into the dining and kitchen area.

I prompted, borrowing Celia’s ‘toy’ reference, “You know. Luna’s boy toy?”

Celia sneezed a laugh into her mouth. Her hand in my belt tightened, as she slapped her left hand to my flank and smashed her forehead into the center of my back, suddenly overcome by more of her effervescent laughter at my bad joke.

I dragged her into the kitchen a good ten or fifteen steps before she finally trailed off and I turned in her grasp.

Probably not the smartest thing I could have done, because now I was between the little charmer’s arms, with both her hands on my hips and her chest nearly pressed into mine as she giggled up at me.

Finally regaining control enough to speak, Celia drew a deep breath before attempting to speak again and questioned, “Is that what you call that guy?”

I shrugged with exaggerated innocence.

Celia slapped both hands onto my chest. Her hands, her shoulder width apart, slapped to the center of my chest onto my high pectoral muscles.

Eyes alight with humor, she wondered, “You know she hates that name so much that Luna has never ever told me what you call him, right? When I ask, Luna just refuses to tell me and calls you names instead.”

Beleaguered by the same revulsion I normally felt when talking about the guy, without thinking I snapped, forgetting who I was speaking to, “Well, fuck! If the guy wants respect from me he needs to stop being such an empty-headed pussy! He’s an empty suit, a waste of space. They’ve been dating for something like a year and a half, and the best they can do is cuddle and smoochie-face like twelve-year-olds on their first date!

“He barely has the balls to speak to me. Instead, he just spits, ‘Hola senior Alex’ as he darts past my office and into my house.

“And then, he immediately goes into flirting with my Ramona in Spanish, while Luna just sits there all stary-eyed and staring at him flirting with her mother.

“It’s so fucking disrespectful!

“He won’t speak to me like a man. But he’ll flirt and giggle with the girls at the kitchen table so quietly that he knows I won’t be able to make out the little rat whispers from the opposite side of the house!

“Then when I ask about what the fuck everyone has been talking about for the last two and a half hours, Ramona and Luna both give that bullshit girl sing-song, ‘nothing’. And fucking Rico-Suave won’t meet my eyes, in my own fucking house!”

Part of the month’s frustration oozed out.

I felt my teeth positively grinding!

Full of vitriolic angry thoughts about Ramona just oozed out like so much leaking toxic sludge, “I swear, Celia! Some days I just get the impression she’s cheating on me!”

Unexpectedly, Celia supported me by calmly saying, “Yeah, I get that impression too sometimes.”

My eyes shot to hers.

Celia must have realized her slip, and quickly apologized, “I’m sorry, Mister Alex.” Shaking her head, she added, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Soothing little fingers and hands gently stroked across my chest, drawing my gaze back down from my rage and hate-fueled private world.

Big beautiful rounded eyes reflected shocked, mortified pain up at me.

I felt gut-punched!

I said way too much!

And she confirmed my worst fears!

I was not seeing bad things all by myself!

Celia scooped her hands up and ran over my shoulders in a soothing outward motion and down to my arms. She gently pressed into the backs of my arms, offering welcoming comfort. Hurt, she mumbled, “I’m so sorry! They shouldn’t be doing that to you!” Shaking her head in disbelief, she continued, “That’s not how you treat someone you love! I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now!”

My sardonic, ‘Ha!’ came out way too harshly at Celia, and I immediately backpedaled, “You know that Hispanic Mamas are important in all those kinds of family decisions, including dating.”

Sadly smiling, Celia stroked my arms comfortingly up and down, and corrected, “Don’t bullshit me. I am Hispanic. That’s not how you’re supposed to treat the people you’re supposed to love.”

I shrugged, noncommittally, brushing it off.

Shaking her head and rolling her eyes at me again, with her still playful disregard, Celia gently slapped her little hand to my chest.

Celia mirth and evil challenge in her eyes, teased, “But Luna’s hot, isn’t she?”

I scowled at her.

Celia giggled and redoubled her tease, “I bet you’d like to play with her some!”

I growled at the girl, which only seemed to amuse her more. So I snapped, “Yes, Luna is smokin’ hot. No, I won’t move on her.”

A flash of confusion struck her eyes, as Celia demanded, “Why not?”

I countered with a question of my own, “You mean other than the obvious ‘married to her mother’ thing?”

Shrugging, Celia admitted, “Well, yeah. It’s not like you’re related by blood.”

Saying too much, I admitted, “Ramona was fun while we were dating. Then as we were married she started showing this man-hater attitude. Suddenly sex was gross, and more and more excuses to limit kept cropping up. Then your buddy Luna started picking up that attitude from her mother also. I just don’t like how she treats me so snarky and ugly lately. That crap chips away at a woman’s appeal to me.” I asked after my brutally honest admission, “Does that make sense, Celia?”

Looking away a moment, Celia glanced back and nodded. Her eyes unreadable.

She turned away trailing a finger along the gray granite countertop as she wandered along our crowded little kitchen looking at things on her way to the window.

Placing both hands on the sides of the sill she leaned out to the window, peaking at the back porch.

Celia made a ‘hum’ sound, drawing my attention from her firm cute little ass stretching her shorts, causing my eyes to trail up her back.

It was pretty distracting realizing I could not see panty or bra lines on either garment!

She wondered, “You know, Mister Alex, there’s a key outside on the back table.”

Cupping her slender little body in mine, as I bent obscenely over her presented ass and back, I immediately saw the offending object on the black wrought iron patio table. Grumbling, I acknowledged, “Yeah, it looks like Luna must have forgotten her key again when she got a ride from her little boyfriend the other day. She never puts it back, just leaves it out there for anybody to see.” Shaking my head, I spoke, reminding myself, “I’ll put it back under the planter rock later.”