Chapter 1

The way reality sometimes happens to you can just stagger you with thinking about 'what are the odds?' All those rumors flying around work for the last few weeks, a phone call out of the blue from my old landlady in college, thinking about having to suddenly give up my job or retire, lots of odd thoughts zinging their way around inside my head these last few days and I thought putting them down on paper as a story might help me sort it out. I find that when your thinking gets fuzzy and you can't explain what you are thinking or feeling, sometimes just writing it down helps you think about stuff and gives you a bit clearer vision of what it is that it bothering you.

So here goes.

I lived in this in-law unit for my last two years of college. Getting out of the dorms was a good thing as the constant partying and the noise that comes from a bunch of kids living together didn't make it easy for me to study.

I'd inherited this cottage from a friend of mine's friend who I knew in a vague sort of way. He wanted to pass it on to someone and 'keep it in the family', rather than just having the landlady post a notice and get some total stranger moving in. I'd been over there a few times and really liked the place so when the chance came up. I grabbed it.

The deal was that I had to do some work around the house as part of my rent but it wasn't hard work. Just putting a few hours in every week pulling weeds and like that.

My landlady, Ms. Finley, and I meet and I guess that I was what she was looking for. I'm kind of a nerd type, never getting out of my shell except for times I'm talking with people about stuff we shared interests in. She didn't want a lot of parties going on and I wanted a quiet space.

There was a hot tub that came with the deal that I hadn't known about. It was in back of the converted garage that I'd be living in. The apartment wall that looked into the back yard was almost all big window doors that gave a view of the brick patio surrounded by planters, a grape arbor over the patio and this big oak tree over everything. Even though it was in town, it was a very private and secluded place.

Ms Finley was in her mid thirties, I think. From twenty, that's a major difference in age. She was pretty, in an older woman kind of way. I was surprised to find that she had a daughter.

I worried I'd blown the interview meeting Annie, the daughter. She was this gorgeous, ripe, fantastic looking blonde and that description doesn't do her justice. She popped in while I was talking with her mom in the kitchen and I had to turn around to see her. She and her mom discussed something or other, then she said it was nice to meet me and bye and I said something in return.

Then I just turned to Ms. Finley and blurted out, "Holy cow!"

She laughed as I shook my head. Annie had the impact of Farah Fawcett.

"That going to be a problem?"

"No, it's just that I wasn't ready. She's gorgeous!"

"Yeah. But she's a good kid."

"I think I'll be okay, once I get over the shock."

"I think you will, too."

I got a few friends to help me lug my junk and moved in Saturday afternoon. My girlfriend, Beth, meet my landlady and they seemed to approve of each other. Beth and I had been hitting a few second hand stores and scored all the kitchen stuff I needed. We unpacked my books into the built in shelves and soon had it all put away.

After a dorm room, the place was palatial. It had a little kitchen along the wall that made up the outside of the bathroom. You could pull a screen and it disappeared. There was a big, dark wood table and three chairs, a couch, a bed in an alcove and a standing fireplace. The window doors made it seem much bigger than it actually was.

I made the first meal in my new home and I laid a small stack of wood in the fireplace for later.

Beth isn't the world's best looking woman, but then, I'm not the world's best looking guy. We weren't each other's first, but we were each others first real lover. You know, the difference between getting her home for curfew and sleeping together all night long?

Beth had a skinny little body she usually kept hidden under baggy clothes and was a charter member of the itty bitty tittie commitee. But she and I had a really good sex life together and she was amazingly adventuresome in things we tried.

Tubs were something that we had gone to before, but having one in the back yard was something else. Shortly after it got dark, I suggested that we take one. I told her it was house rules to shower off first, and we used my little shower to fool around. I told her that we'd have to be quiet, because it was summer and the neighbors might hear us.

I loaned her my robe and wrapped a towel around my waist, as the next door neighbors could see into our yard from their back porch. But the tub enclosure was back further and they couldn't see into it.

We tip toed into the back yard and I opened the gate. I was pretty disappointed when I saw a candle already lit and my landlady in the tub. I excused myself and was starting to close the gate to give her some privacy when she spoke.

"It's all right, you can come in."

I glanced at Beth. She gave me a look that said it was okay with her, unless I wanted to go back inside and mess around? I shrugged. "If you're sure it's okay?"

"Yeah. I like to be social in a tub. We're pretty informal around here."

Well, social nudity was new to me then, plus I had a pretty good hard on from the messing around Beth and I had been doing in the shower. But the candle was in a bowl up on a shelf on the garage wall and didn't illuminate the area beside the tub. I was loosing my hard on pretty fast. Beth just took off her robe and hung it on a peg and climbed in and I was right behind her.

Being neck deep in the hot water, the ivy over the tub and the candle made an intimate environment. We talked about the move and drank some jug wine out of paper cups. The only thing that made it any different was that we were all naked.

Being twenty and socially awkward, it was pretty exciting to me for a while. Just knowing that I was sharing a tub that had two naked females in it had my hormones raging, but the casual way they were talking was very every day and my dick softened up in the hot water. I was feeling pretty sophisticated about it all, but I was at last able to get up and sit on the deck without embarrassing everyone.

Mrs. Finley said that if someone hung a towel on the gate that meant that whoever was in the tub wanted privacy. She was very diplomatic about it. After about a half hour, she excused herself and climbed out. She was casual about toweling off in front of us, but she'd been sitting up on the edge of the tub to cool off and I'd already saw all of her. She was in good shape and way past Beth in the tits department.

We fooled around in the tub, moving around each other weightlessly. Beth was into sci-fi like me and said she always wanted to fuck in zero gee.

Well, a few weeks went by and I got to see Mrs. Finley's daughter in her birthday suit. I got over her amazing beauty and found she was a nice person who had suddenly been transformed into this goddess. She talked to Beth and me one night out in the tub about how everyone was just suddenly goofy around her. All the boys drooled and all her girlfriends were wary of losing their drooling boyfriends to her. She had just turned sixteen and showed us a picture of her at her fifteenth birthday party. Gawky, skinny and going through a horrible case of pimples: I couldn't believe it was the same girl.

Beth and Annie had talked for a while about how she was handling the situation. She was still the same kid, only all womaned up. Beth laughed at one point, confessing how she felt insecure about herself around Annie. She wasn't nasty about the laugh, it was more rueful than laughing at, if you see what I mean. She gave Annie a good looking over while she was sitting on the edge of the tub, then confessed how envious she was of her body. It made Annie a little uncomfortable, being scrutinized like that. Then Beth sighed mornfully, hamming it up a little. "I'll never look like you. Life is just so unfair!" The way that she delivered the line got the laugh she intended from the both of us.

Looking back, I'm not really sure how long it took me to accept Annie for who she was, not what she looked like. Behind the intimidating great looks, she was a good person. Beth's being over all the time allowed Annie to feel secure about being in the tub with me. I think it happened fairly quickly, because I don't remember ogling her after the first time the three of us shared a tub together. And that was just for a few minutes. Annie had given me a pinch and a glare, but then laughed at me while Annie was getting into the tub. I apologized to Beth with my eyes and she eased off and gotten into a conversation with Annie. After a while, I stopped thinking about the fact that I was naked in the same water with such a goddess and began to accept her for who she was, not what she looked like.

A few weeks went by and I settled into living in the household. I learned about the garden and what plants were weeds and which were flowers. Ms. Finley and I worked together well and had some interesting conversations while we did the mundane work that the garden needed. She was an interesting person who it was easy to talk to about anything. I'll give you an example of what I mean by this.

I think it was the second week that I was living there. Beth was off to the library doing some research and it was just the two of us. Ms. Finley was wearing a baggy pair of shorts and a halter top while we did the weeding in the rock garden part of the garden. She caught me staring as she bent over. Instead of giving me shit about it, she laughed. "Can you tell me something? How come my tits are so fascinating? You've seen them before." I was crimson at being caught checking out her chest.

"I, uh, well." I didn't really know what to say. "I don't know."

She gave me a smile that let me off the hook. "Funny, isn't it? Clothes make my chest interesting, but you don't look at me like that when we're naked. Why do you suppose that is?"

I thought about it for a while and we had a conversation about nudity and how concealing something can make it more interesting, like secrets are more interesting to find out than something that is common knowledge. What could have been a very awkward situation evolved into a discussion that went on to cover a lot of territory. She admitted she found it a bit flattering when men checked her out, if they did it without being too intrusive. We talked about how men were drawn to women with good bodies, while women always checked out how men were dressed first. I learned a lot from her while we worked in the garden. She was very easy to talk to and it was like being in a bull session with other guys, except different. There wasn't any fear of saying something stupid with her. She was easy to talk to, very open and accepting of anything that someone might want to say. You knew that she would never laugh at you, but always with you.

Looking back at it, she still remains one of the best people that I have ever met in my life. When I first moved into the apartment, I was attracted to the privacy and the seclusion of the place. Of course, the in-law unit didn't really have that much privacy as I found out one morning while I was standing in my birthday suit drinking coffee and watching a squirrel in the back yard. Mrs. Finley came out and waved casually at me and began watering the plants. I put on some cut-offs and went out to apologize. She said that nudity didn't bother her and it was fine with her. I knew she meant it and relaxed about it. I liked the morning sun streaming in the big windows and never put the blinds down.

I think that it was about a month later that Beth and I were enjoying some Sunday morning sex and I caught a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and there was Annie, looking in while I was doing Beth doggy style. She had been on her way out to the tub, but our activities had caught her attention and she was frozen outside. When I looked at her, she hurriedly turned around and went back into the house. 'Oh shit, ' I thought as I stopped and pulled a sheet up over us.