by Anne Conley
Walking into the school, Alyssa swept her long blond hair up into a pile on top of her head, and secured it with a pencil she found in her purse. She didn’t have time to look in a mirror in the morning, much less fix her hair. She pulled a few tendrils down to make it appear purposeful, and walked to her room, keys in hand.
Alyssa’s classroom was fastidiously neat. She had motivational posters up on the walls, and spirited orange drapes over the windows. She walked into the room, and opened up the drapes, to let some sunshine into the room. Before she could even grab her coffee cup, and escape to the teacher’s lounge for some caffeine, a tall young man, wearing impossibly baggy jeans and a dirty hooded sweatshirt came ambling into her room. He dropped his backpack onto the floor by a desk and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his sweatshirt pocket.
“Ms. Fuller. I don’t get the homework.” He threw himself into the desk, and slouched down as low as physically possible without actually sliding out of the bottom.
“Well, get a book, and show me exactly what you didn’t get.” Alyssa said to him, after putting her coffee mug back down on the corner of her desk.
“I didn’t get any of it. I don’t get what a verb is.” He made no move to get a book off of the shelf.
“Well, a verb is an action word. It’s a word that conveys action, like run, drive, or sleep. But what the homework was over was adverbs. They describe action, and most of them end in -ly. Honestly, Logan, you should have learned this stuff in junior high. Get a book, while I get some coffee, and I’ll come back and help you with it.” She grabbed her coffee mug and power walked down the hallway to grab her morning caffeine.
The rest of her day passed in a blur. Trying to get kids to understand the parts of speech and basic grammar principles was the reason she had chosen not to teach junior high. She had never in a million years thought she would be teaching it to tenth graders.
Seventh period was her conference period, and also when her children were bussed over from the elementary school to hers. They bounced into the room about halfway through the stack of papers she was grading, and opened the snack drawer to get some nuts and juice Alyssa had stashed there just for them.
“Hey, guys. How was your day?” Alyssa’s brain was mushy by this time of the day, but she had to sound chipper for her kids. She had learned a long time ago, her moods rubbed off on them.
“It was awesome.” Sierra answered matter of factly, like she always did.
“It was awesome.” Cayden parroted his sister. He idolized her, and did everything she did.
“Did you guys do anything interesting in class?” Alyssa had to prod to get details out of the kids.
“Ummm...Jonafon stole my turn wiping tables. I was supposed to be fe helper today, but he stole my turn.” Cayden’s bottom lip stuck out in a pout.
“Did you get mad and throw a fit?” Alyssa asked.
“No, I told the teacher it was my turn, and she said I could do it tomorrow.”
“Good, I don’t want to hear about any fits at school. You’re my sweet boy.” She leaned down and brushed a kiss across the top of his head. “How about you, Sierra?”
“Today was art class. I got a star.”
“Good! You’re my sweet girl.” Alyssa brushed a kiss across her daughter’s head, too. “Now, you guys get started on your homework. Mommy doesn’t have to do duty today, so we can leave at 4:00. Okay?” They giggled at the words ‘do duty’, like they always did, and Alyssa rolled her eyes.
The kids pulled out their work and sat at the big kid desks, their feet swinging under the chairs, and got busy. By the time Alyssa was finished grading her papers, the bell had rung. No students came in for tutoring after school, so they left as soon as they could.
In the car on the way home, Cayden started whining to go to Grammy’s house.
“Not today, honey. We’ve got to get home, so I can fix supper.”
“Awww...Please?” Cayden persisted.
“Not today, maybe tomorrow.” She was constantly putting him off, it seemed, but visits to Grammy’s house never lasted less than an hour. Her mother wanted to visit every time, and the visits invariably turned to asking favors, and Alyssa just didn’t have the time today.
“I wish parents didn’t exist. Only Hotwheels.” Cayden pouted. Alyssa smiled to herself.
She couldn’t laugh out loud, or Cayden would think she was laughing at him, so she said, “You can play with your Hotwheels when we get home before dinner. I promise.”
Somewhat appeased, he stayed quiet the rest of the way home.
When they got home, Alyssa turned on the radio in the kitchen on to the local country station, and went about her task of making a healthy dinner her children would actually eat. She had put some chicken in the crock-pot this morning, so she added some cream cheese to the pot and started on side dishes. These were always tricky. She wanted her kids to eat veggies, but they didn’t always agree with that philosophy. She put some green beans on to cook with bacon fat, and sliced some raw veggies as a back up plan.
After dinner was bath time, which with Cayden was no problem, but Sierra tended to stay and float in the water instead of actually washing herself, so Alyssa sat on the toilet to help keep her motivated. Tonight, she was appalled to find out her daughter had a bona fide boyfriend.
“What’s his name, Sierra?”
“Adam, and he’s new, but he was in my class last year, before his parents took him out of school to home school him.”
“Hm...” Alyssa didn’t really approve of the parents who took their kids out of school for “home schooling” just because they couldn’t get along with or agree with the teacher. She had experienced this at the high school level.
“Mikala asked him if he liked me, and he told her he did. And then he told her he was my boyfriend. At recess, he gave me a shiny rock. I’m going to cherish it forever.” Sierra sighed dramatically, as she sank back down into the water.
“Every little girl should love shiny rocks...” Alyssa wasn’t sure what to say to this revelation. Her eight year old had a boyfriend. Oh boy...
After Sierra had washed her hair and all of the essentials, Alyssa left her to float and swish in the tub, while she cleaned the kitchen. Cayden was happily playing with his beloved Hotwheels in the living room, so Alyssa could do the dishes in relative peace.
While she scrubbed and rinsed, she reflected on her day. It had been hectic and busy, like always. Sometimes it seemed like she just ran and ran all day long, taking care of other people. Making sure her own children were clean, fed and happy, as well as making sure she provided a safe, comfortable learning environment for her students, was difficult on a good day, which this had been. She briefly thanked the heavens there weren’t any major conflicts at the moment, and wondered how long it would be before something came up. She couldn’t imagine her life going this well for too long.
Once both of the kids were bathed, she double-checked their homework, and put a Scooby Doo video on for them to watch in their room. Since the divorce, they insisted on sharing a room. Her ex, Steven, didn’t like it, but he wasn’t calling the shots anymore, was he? They experienced a devastating blow when Alyssa and Steven had split up, and they seemed to find a measure of comfort in sharing a bed with each other. She knew it probably was inappropriate, but it was temporary, and she was a firm believer in picking her battles. The whole bed situation would change, and soon. For now, though they were all happy, and sleeping well.
After making up a short bedtime story for the kids, and singing them her special Scooby Doo lullaby, she tucked them into bed and went into her own bedroom for the night.
The rest of the evening was hers. Alyssa ran a hot bubble bath, and immersed herself into the fragrant water, remembering her still vivid dream from last night. The sensations the dream evoked were alien to her. She had never been touched the way the man in her dream had touched that woman. He had touched her everywhere, and had touched her with urgency, like he had to have her
. And the places he touched her. Alyssa thought the woman could have faked her reaction to those caresses, but she didn’t think it was likely. It looked like the man knew what he was doing. Alyssa rubbed her own hands over her body, in the bathtub, feeling the soapy bubbles dissolve under her fingertips, but she didn’t know what else to do to herself, to evoke those kinds of sensations. She knew about self-love, but never had felt comfortable enough with herself to actually perform it.
Her thoughts drifted to Steven, her ex-husband, and his views on sex. Procreation only, that’s what he said. Masturbation was totally out of the question. Sighing heavily, she rose from the tub, and wrapped a towel around her body. Putting on her pajamas, she went to bed, falling asleep almost instantly, hoping to dream of the man again.
Turn the page for the first chapter of Anne Conley’s free novella, Neighborly Complications…
Chapter 1
She should have picked the beach house in Galveston.
Claire surveyed the mess in front of her. She had initially been excited about it, when Uncle Eddie had left her this house in his will. He had given her the choice between this place and a beach house in Galveston, but she was afraid that the homeowner’s insurance on the Gulf Coast would eat her lunch. Now, she wasn’t so sure. The house itself was beautiful, built in the late-eighteenth century, it would make a great bed and breakfast. Getting it up to code, though, was proving to be a daunting task.
The kitchen? Well, the kitchen had last been remodeled in the 1950s. Claire imagined a woman in a polka dot dress with a lace apron and pearls, lovingly running her hand along the giant enamel stove. It was the same stove every woman had been fantasizing about since Rachel Ray’s television debut, except this one had seen better days. It was rusted, filthy, and totally unusable without a full restoration. And such a restoration was not in her budget.
Claire sighed heavily, and got a trash bag to start filling up.
The kitchen's only blessing was an enormous picture window with the original frame. Unfortunately it lacked the glass, so she tossed her full garbage bag out of it. It was certainly easier than carrying the trash out the back door, down the back porch steps, and all the way around the house. This way, Claire could fill a bag, toss it out the window, and have it halfway to the destination of the curb. Pleased with her innovativeness, she filled another one. And another. About an hour later, She had five garbage bags full of trash outside the house on the ground beneath the kitchen window. She had swept and mopped the floors, wiped out the cabinets and countertops, and almost managed to get rid of the odor of rat pee. She mentally patted herself on her back. Not bad for a morning’s work.
Claire went outside the back door to start carrying the trash around to the curb, wondering what day the garbage was picked up. Walking over to the kitchen window, she grabbed a garbage bag and threw it over her shoulder. She grabbed another one and started dragging it behind her as she walked around the side of the house to the front curb.
Forcing oxygen into her bloodstream, Claire breathed heavily as she carried the trash bags around the house, thinking to herself that maybe she shouldn’t have tried to shove so much into each bag. They were really heavy. When her foot landed on something squishy, she paused and wondered briefly if she had stepped in dog pooh.
As her shin scraped through the pulp of the soggy plywood, and she fell forward, she realized she was falling into a hole that had been covered. Her forward momentum with the added weight of the trash bags, had made the top half of her body land on solid ground when she fell. Unfortunately, the bag she was dragging added to the weight on the bottom half of her body, which was dangling over the hole.
She dropped the garbage bags and grabbed what she could grab. Weeds. Crap. So she yelled. Loudly.
“Help me!!! Please! Somebody, help!”
Usually, when one pulls weeds, they need a shovel and a pick axe to get them out of the dirt. These weeds--which Claire really needed to be sturdy little buggers--were coming out almost as fast as she could grab them.
“Help me!” Claire screamed as if her life depended on it. She realized now, that this was probably an old water well, and she had no idea how deep it could be.
Scrabbling for anything to hold onto, feet dangling in the darkness below her, she tried to swing her legs forward to find something for them to cling to. Her hands grabbed for anything, rocks, grass, roots. Nothing was working. She couldn’t help imagining inside the darkness of the well the Indiana Jones pile of snakes slithering over each other, anxiously awaiting her drop into their midst. Her Converse tennis shoes slipped down the slimy sides of the well that Claire imagined was covered with spiders and their webs and egg sacs. She couldn’t find anything for her hands to grab onto, and she screamed again as she slipped further into the well.
A PIPE! She grabbed a pipe that was sticking out of the ground for some reason and held on tight. She had no idea what purpose this particular piece of pipe held, except that at this moment, it was saving her life. Now if I can just hang on… Her feet slipped again, as they desperately scrambled to find purchase against the slimy wall. It felt like the wall was made of stones, which would make something there for her to grab with her shoe-clad feet, wouldn’t it?
Her hand was hurting, and she tried to hold the pipe with both hands. It wasn’t a big pipe, and since she couldn’t really see what it was connected to, if anything, she didn’t want to grab it with both hands and put all of her eggs in one basket. She tried her best to hold still and not jiggle anything that would make her fall all the way into this well.
Claire’s head and shoulders were still above ground level, but the rest of her body had sunk through the rotten, water-logged plywood that was “covering” this giant hole in the ground. While holding the pipe, she tried to feel around with her other hand to see if any of the rest of the wood was sturdy enough to hold her. No dice. Everything her hand touched, crumbled and fell into the abyss below. Apparently, she grabbed a nest of some sort, because hundreds of tiny spiders crawled around on her hand. She shook them off, while holding on to the pipe with her other hand. Terror filled her veins as she screamed again.
“Hang on, I got you.”
Enormous arms wrapped around her body, under her armpits, and lifted her out of the hole. She looked up at her savior. And up, and up…until her eyes met the caramel colored eyes of…Adonis. He pulled her back out of the hole, tripping over her beloved pipe, and tugged her down with him as they ended up a tangled pile of limbs in the weedy yard.
She had no idea who this magnificent specimen of a man was, but he was her hero, having just saved her from a horrifying death. Well, possibly. If she hadn’t died, she certainly would have been extremely uncomfortable for who knows how long.
“What happened?” His melted, ooey gooey, caramelly eyes oozed concern, as they looked down from his body’s perch atop Claire’s body. Ohmygosh. He’s on top of me. His mouth turned down at the corners, and his hands were still wrapped around her rib cage. She couldn’t answer, her heart was beating too hard. She couldn’t really say if it was because of her brush with certain death, or because she had the most gorgeous man on the planet on top of her. He smelled good, earthy, like grass and man.
Her breath hitched as she looked into that face of his, and the next thing she knew, she was crying like a baby. She hated crying, and the fact that she was doing it in front of this stranger, made her cry even more, much to her own mortification. He climbed off and pulled her into a sitting position next to him, and cradled her head against his concrete chest making shooshing noises, begging her not to cry. What is it about men and crying women? I just almost died. Although, hearing his heart pound in his chest was calming her down quite a bit.
“I didn’t realize I was (hic) walking over that (hic) plywood, and I f-f-fell in.”
“Well, you’re okay now. It’s okay.” His broad hand rubbed up and down her spine in a comforting gesture. It made a warm mushy feeling spread out from the center of her chest down to
her thighs. “I have some plywood in my garage. I’ll bring some over and put it over that well until you can have someone come over and fill it in with concrete.” His hand still rubbing her back. Her body still all warm and mushy. His smell still manly, grassy goodness.
Claire looked up at him, their faces were inches away from each other. His eyes looked straight into hers, then his gaze traveled to her lips. Seemingly jealous of the attention that her lips were getting, Claire’s tongue snaked out to moisten the top one. As if recognizing the desire that seemed to be radiating from her pores, he spread his lips slightly, and inhaled sharply. She could smell his toothpaste. His hand cradled her face, and he used his thumb to wipe a tear off her cheek. Then he rubbed his thumb down her jaw line.
“I have plywood…” Claire was having a hard time breathing with this stranger so close to her. Wait a minute… “Who are you?” Claire suddenly realized the compromising position she was in, pressed up next to a complete stranger who was caressing her face.
“My name is Max. I live next door.” His eyes were still locked on her mouth. “What’s your name?”
“C-Claire.” She sniffed, tears still managing to squeeze out of her eyes.
“Shhhh. Claire. It’s okay.” His thumb touched her bottom lip. As if there was an alien entity inside Claire that craved a little Max-snack, her lips opened and took his thumb into her mouth. Then sucked.
Max’s entire body stiffened, his eyes popped open, and his mouth emitted a small exhalation of toothpaste-scented air as Claire sucked on his thumb. As her tongue made little swirly motions around it, his eyes actually darken from gooey caramel, to a melted chocolate color. She closed her eyes and tasted the salty flavor of her tears mixed with his sweat, and then she gasped and spit out his thumb, absolutely mortified at herself for doing it in the first place. What sort of horny sex-demon has possessed me? She jumped up off the ground and started wiping dirt off her shorts.