Page 4 of Daddy’s Naive Little Neighbour

“I want to,” I whisper into the speaker, and then bury my face in my pillow as my cheeks start to heat up. “How…how do I even do that?”

I hear a voice in the background calling her name, and it’s just a reminder of the weird situation my best friend has landed herself in.

Her voice on the other end of the call grows furtive, and then she whispers to me. “I’ll text you later. I have to go, we’ve got a luncheon to go to in town. But girl, we’re gonna get you some good dick this summer, Bethany, I swear on my Daddy.”

She hangs up the call without saying goodbye, and I drop my phone onto the pillow and burrow under my blankets with another heavy sigh. I spend a little while stewing in horny self-pity, before dragging myself reluctantly out of bed. If and when Meghan calls me back, I’ll make a plan. For now, I’d better buckle down and get started on the list of chores that’ve been left to me, if I have a hope in hell of getting my life back.

CHAPTER SIX

Marshall

I will say this about my girl Bethany: she knows how to work.

I’m making a second, mid-afternoon attempt at the beer-magazine-lawnchair combo, and I’ve been outside for about an hour, relaxing in the shade, watching Bethany busily going about the business of getting the backyard in order. She was already out there when I came out back to take my break for the afternoon, and if what I suspect is true and this was supposed to be a punishment, then she seems to be fueled almost entirely by spite.

Her parents have gone out of town for the weekend, and left her behind to slave away in the backyard, like some sort of Cinderella style step-parents. I know they’re gone because I happened to be outside while her father was hitching up his boat, and he talked about nothing but his boat and where they’d be taking it during the course of their weekend away. At the time, he made no mention of the fact that his daughter would be staying behind.

I crack open my second beer and lift it in an unseen toast to her, as she puts her back into yanking on the lawnmower’s pull cable and it finally sputters to life with a gasoline-scented growl, and she starts shoving it around the yard, very clearly a girl on a mission. I can only see her as she makes a pass by the far edge of the pool, but it’s enough. The past few days have been enough to make me extremely fond of Bethany.

As the roar of the lawnmower fills the air and the scent of gasoline wafts on the breeze over the fence, I find myself daydreaming about Bethany being on the other side of the fence, mowing my lawn. In the fantasy that unfolds in my head, she’s not doing it because I don’t want to or because I’ve made her, but because she knows how and she wants to help, and the simple chore frees me up to break apart the concrete of the back patio with a sledgehammer, because I plan on laying down some nice Mission style Cabrillo pavers, in a nice, rich red clay, to serve as an accent to the back garden.

It’s a hot day, and I fantasize about finishing up out back, and then retreating together back into the house, where I’ve refitted the bathroom with a beautiful shower stall with a sliding frosted door, all hand finished in intricate glass tiles, laid in a mosaic pattern around the bathroom wall, and we shower together, soaping each other’s naked bodies and then rinsing clean between a waterwise rainfall showerhead, and then enjoying the luxurious benefits of heated flooring and heated towel racks.

Then we’ll head to the master bedroom, where I’ve ripped out the carpeting and refinished the hardwood flooring beneath, and have the walls primed to repaint in a nice neutral gray, and start sanding the baseboards. I’m thinking of a really rich stain in a sort of honey-oak colour, as an interesting contrast with the neutrality of the walls, and also to pick up the natural blond tones in the hardwood.

I snap out of it with a bizarre sort of guilt, as I realize that the sound of the lawnmower has stopped, and that there’s only silence from the yard next door. Emboldened by the fact that I know her parents are away, I finish my beer, and decide to go over to the fence, peek over, and say hello. I’ve lived here a while now, and we’re both aware of each other, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in just introducing myself. It’s almost weirder that I haven’t done it before.

I cross the lawn to the fence, deliberately avoiding the broken space and the gap in the hedge, so she has no reason to suspect I know about it and have been watching her through it. Standing, the fence is about half a foot shorter than I am, so I’m able to look over it, and into the backyard next door.

At first, I don’t see any sign of Bethany, and I think that maybe she might’ve gone inside for a drink or to take a break. She’s been working most of the day, after all, the empty pool’s been freshly pressure-washed, the garden’s been weeded, and the lawn mower is tucked back into the shed, I can see it through the open door. It’s a hot day, hotter than I’d want to be doing yardwork in, but it hasn’t stopped her.

I’m about to circle around to the front and knock on the door, when I catch a glimpse of a pair of pale, shapely legs, sprawled in a tangle on the ground, the rest of the person they’re attached to almost hidden behind a lilac bush. I have a sudden, terrible feeling, and the next thing I know I’m vaulting the fence.

I land in the freshly cut grass and bolt across the yard, to where Bethany’s collapsed in the grass. Her cheeks are flushed and I can see her breathing, rapid and shallow. She’s been out working in a tiny pair of shorts and that same bright blue bikini top that got her in trouble in the first place, and for a moment I can’t help but pause to admire her body, and her defiance.

She’s a pretty little thing, but I hate to see her like this. It looks as though she’s just fainted in the heat, and her expression is blank, her mouth open and slack, and her limbs splayed out where she’s fallen. Her cheeks are flushed red, and her dark hair is damp and clings to her neck, its rainbow streaks washed of colour in the shade of the bush where she’s fallen.

“Bethany?” I shake her shoulder, to no response, and discover that her skin is hot and dry to the touch, and that this is probably heat exhaustion at best, and heat stroke at worst. Either way, she can’t stay out here, and I scoop her easily off the ground, settling her protectively against my chest. She moans softly and her eyelashes flutter, but she doesn’t come back around, and her head lolls limply against my shoulder. I adjust my grip and carry her carefully out of the yard.

She’s a skinny little thing, and though her body is limp, dead-weight in my arms, she’s not that heavy. Her breasts are small and slim, similarly flushed with the heat, but beautiful. A few freckles dot her chest, the curve of her neck, exposed where her head hangs back. Her arms dangle from her shoulders, her legs hang lifeless where the back of her knees drape over my arm, swaying slightly as I walk.

Her house is closer, but I don’t know my way around inside, and it feels strange to bring her there. Instead, I take her through the backyard gate and back to my place. My bed is still unmade in the open garage, but there’s a handful of furniture left over from the previous owner that I haven’t moved out yet, and among this collection is an old four poster bed in one what must’ve once upon a time been a young girl’s room, and has been kept that way ever since, like a time capsule.

The walls are covered in softly patterned pink wallpaper, peeling at the corners, and a dusty old dresser. The bed itself is one I attempted to sleep on my first night here, so I’ve already put new sheets on it, but in the end I preferred my old camp bed out in the garage. It still makes for the perfect place to lie Bethany down, and I do so, gently nestling her on top of the fresh bed sheets. She sighs softly and shifts, but doesn’t wake up.

I go down the hallway to the bathroom, to wet a cloth and help cool her down. Heat stroke is serious, like 911 serious. She doesn’t seem in terrible shape, just weak and tired from the heat, and I have a paramedic buddy I can call for advice. I wring out the washcloth and return to the bedroom. She still lies on the bed, and I approach slowly, trying to find somewhere safe to run a cool cloth over her body.

She’s gorgeous. Just lying there, her face still and innocent, her lips slightly parted and her face tilted up. Her eyelashes are dark against the red flush of her skin, and I gingerly sit down on the bed beside her, though she doesn’t react at all to my presence. I swallow, hard, and decide to start with her wrists, as innocent a place as I can think of. The cloth in my hand is damp, masks the sweat on my palms as I carefully pick up one of her hands, her arm limp and her pulse rapid beneath my fingers. Her hand hangs heavily down from the wrist, as I gently rub the cloth against her skin, trying to cool her blood where it flows through a pulse point. I reach across her body to pick up her other wrist, and repeat the process.

It doesn’t seem to help, and I start to get a little worried. Calling an ambulance is going to be a big, dramatic production, and will necessitate contacting her next of kin. Given what I’ve seen of her relationship with her parents, I don’t feel like she’d thank me for that. Absently, I move the cloth up her arm, and swipe it lightly across her collarbone. That, thank fuck, finally gets a response. Her eyelashes flicker again, and she moans softly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Bethany

The last thing I remember is the green of the ground rushing up to meet me, the smell of it fresh and bright and full of the chlorophyll scent of a thousand blades of newly cut grass washing my awareness into blackness.

I wake up in a pink haze in a room I’m not familiar with. The air is still and smells sweetly of dust and disuse, like my mom’s old bedroom at my grandma’s house. It’s a comforting smell and I breathe it in deeply, and then become conscious of something cool moving along my collarbone, damp and rough.