The good neighbor 3 - She strokes his hairy chest

  “He doesn’t say it much anymore, and I’m often tired

by the time we have time to ourselves.  Oh, I can look in the

mirror, but I don’t think I’m the woman I see there.  All I

see now are the labels.”  Janet fell silent once again.

     Labels he could understand and his expression softened.

He was ‘the manager’, ‘the boss’, ‘the husband’, yet somehow

‘Vincent’ had disappeared in the eyes of the others.  He

wondered how that had happened.  He suspected that the same

had happened to her.  This didn’t explain her presence, of

course, but it seemed to explain something.

     Vincent wondered who the ‘he’ was.  Boyfriend?  Husband?

The plain gold ring on her finger gave him his answer.  Had

he, too, been like that?  No.  He had been devoted to Leslie,

and because of that the acrimony and venom in her letter hurt

so badly.  He didn’t understand how she could see him thus.

     It didn’t matter.  The pain and the anguish would soon

be gone.  Nothing would matter.

     Vincent became aware that Janet was watching him, reading

his expression.  She sighed at something only she knew.  Again

she looked tentative, then once again composed as she made

whatever decision she needed to make.  An interesting woman.

     Vincent blinked.  She began undoing the buttons on the

flannel shirt.  He swallowed convulsively, unable to take his

eyes from her fingers as they deftly undid each button in

turn.

     “Sometimes I wonder,” she began again and he raised his

eyes to hers.  “Sometimes I wonder if they are too small, if

they are not beautiful.”  She looked down at her breasts as

her hands, with their long, slender, fingers opened the shirt

and bared them to her eyes and his.  “I see how men look at

women with larger breasts, how their eyes trace the curves,

then I think of my own and sometimes I wonder.”  The

wistfulness, bordering on pain, in her voice caused Vincent

to react.

     Why not do a final kindness?  It would soon make no

difference to him, yet it might make a difference to her.

     “They are beautiful,” he affirmed, his voice husky,

“and they are not too small.”  He was relieved as his

voice regained its normal timber after the first few

words.

     Janet looked up at him and smiled and he felt a sudden

lurch in his stomach.  Something different showed through her

smile, something he couldn’t place.

     “And the nipples?” she asked, delicately stroking them

until they stood proud.  Her head was bowed and she looked

coyly up at him from under her eyebrows. 

     Vincent had to smile.  “Your nipples are beautiful, too.”

And they were.  She had lovely breasts, and lovely nipples,

and the sight of them, of her stroking them, excited him.

     “And the skin?  It isn’t too rough?  I know I don’t have

the complexion which once I did.” 

     There was no way he could answer that without touching

her and he knew it, and she knew that he knew it.  An

invitation.  Would he accept it, he wondered.  Distress appeared

on her face and he knew he would.  She had risked too much for

him to be able to deny her without hurting her, and hurting as

he did, he found it unbearable to think of hurting another.

     Vincent moved forward and gently stroked her skin, lightly

caressed the undersides of her breasts, circled the nipples

stroked them as well.  She was breathing through her mouth,

now, he noted, and her respirations became fast and shallow.

He reached around her head and began to unclasp her barrette.

As he did so, he could feel her fingers unbuttoning his shirt.

     The barrette fell to the floor and his hands moved

through the silky hair, enjoying the feel of it as it slipped

through his fingers, while her fingers lightly stroked his

chest and tweaked his nipples.  His breath came breathing faster,

now, too, he noted.