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I stood peering through the blinds in my kitchen waiting for him to leave. 'Just get in your car and fucking go already',*I thought to myself as he made yet another trip up his stairs for who knows what. Eventually, he came back down and finally entered his silver Mustang and started the engine.I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched his car exit the condominium complex we both lived in. Finally able to exit my own house, I walked down my stairs to the pathway that separated his unit from mine and crossed the parking lot to my own car, somewhat irritated that I was going to have to rush to avoid being late for work.*His name was Gary and I was avoiding him. I had in fact been avoiding him for days. Not because of some neighborly dispute or that he was menacing or creepy, it was actually quite the reverse. You see, five days prior I had woken up with a heavy head. It wasn't precisely a hangover mind you. It was the groggy feeling of not having drunk too much the night before, but making every effort to flirt with the edges of too much. As I lay there in my mild stupor I slowly came to the realization that a grave error had been committed and while I wasn?t solely responsible for said error, I was certainly complicit in its commission.As I lay there attempting to sort through the conflicting feelings of dread, mild arousal,* remorse, and elation the phone rang. I knew it was my husband and that I had to answer. We had been talking on the phone at that time every Saturday morning for weeks now. Very convenient for me, for him not so much. I was obligated.*?Hello?? I answered meekly.*?Hey, baby," he greeted. He had been drinking.*'And why shouldn't he be?'*I admonished myself at my brief flash of irritation. 'It's Saturday night for him.'We recounted our week to each other and made small talk for thirty*minutes or so before saying our goodbyes. If it had been just five years later we would have had smartphones and technology that would allow us to talk as often as we wanted. As it was, he had to purchase a pricey phone card in order for us to talk for thirty*minutes per week. This on a meager military salary.*Back to reality. 'It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen.'*A mantra. Could I believe deeply enough to make it true? Never one for religion or superstition, I resigned myself to the fact that yes, it had in fact happened and it had to be dealt with.*?Not today though," I said out loud. Nor would I for the next two weeks as I avoided contact with Gary at all costs. Even going as far as to not answer the door within minutes of closing it behind me, screening phone calls, and watching for him to leave before exiting my own house. 'I'll just keep this up until my husband gets back,'? I*lied to myself. 'Once he's here things will go back to normal.'*It hadn?t been the first time I had peered through those*blinds. Months before, shortly after we had moved in, I had been standing at the kitchen counter of the small two bedroom condo putting dishes away when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. The units sat on top of their garages, so every house had an upstairs Bostancı Escort entry with a spacious deck adjoining the landing. When I turned my head to investigate I saw him.He was fifty-one, though I had guessed early forties*at first. His short salt-and-pepper hair was combed up in the spiky style of the time. His clean-shaven face displayed his prominent jawline and sharp features. He had just come back from the gym or a run, as evidenced by the sweaty cutoff t-shirt and gym shorts. Obviously, a habit if his fit, toned body, and muscular arms were any indication.*?Damn? well hello neighbor,? I said to myself out loud as I watched him climb his stairs and enter his house. I turned to the dishes and sighed.*'At least the views are nice,'*I thought. I hadn't been thrilled about the neighborhood. It wasn't that it was a dangerous area, it was just so far from the highway. On top of being in a new city without any family nearby, I was literally thirty*minutes of driving through stoplights from just about anything more significant than a drug store or fast food restaurant. In the end the price was right and my husband and I had settled for the place.**I had met my husband Jay years before. We grew up in the same neighborhood, though we never went to school together due to our age difference. I had a girlhood crush on the guy who was always in front of his parents? house in coveralls working on his truck and it had stuck with me. He was seven*years my senior and I had attempted to flirt in my girlish way, but I mostly walked by his house multiple times a day hoping to catch a glimpse of him.*Years later, while in college, I had bumped into him in a club near my school. I recognized him immediately, but had to remind him who I was. Despite the initial sting of him forgetting me, we ended up exchanging phone numbers and eventually dating. He had gone in the Marines after graduating high school and ended up being stationed near my university. A whirlwind romance followed and by the time I was ready to graduate a decision had to be made. It was either go home to my parents or make a commitment. We ended up pooling our meager salaries and renting a studio near his base.**In the meantime I began looking for a better job than the internship I had been doing for the previous two years. Within a short time I scored a position doing accounts payable and receivable at a coffee distributor. Though it was far removed from my field of study, I felt I couldn't pass up the money and I took the job.Shortly thereafter we were making wedding plans and eventually moving into the new condo. Our relationship had been great. We were partying as if we were still single and continued to do so after the wedding. We had a group of friends who we partner swapped with on occasion and spent a lot of time with them. Any other chance we had to be off together we were traveling within driving distance. I was having a blast. I was under no Illusion, however, that the party would go on indefinitely.**I knew at some point he would be deployed for six*months. I thought that Bostancı Escort Bayan I was prepared for that eventuality and even had plans to keep myself busy. When the day finally came we said a tearful goodbye and I set about my new life alone. Boredom and loneliness set in and my distance from my immediate family made it doubly tough. As the days turned into weeks I compartmentalized my relationship with Jay, viewing it as a source of pain.I began to go through the motions. A letter here, a call there. None of it seemed real. I had always considered myself fairly introverted and independent. I discovered that I valued interaction more than I had previously realized.*It wasn't long after we moved into the condo that Gary introduced himself to Jay and I. He presented himself as a friendly and helpful neighbor and often offered to help when he saw us trying to move furniture up the narrow stairway, or when he saw Jay tinkering with one of the cars. As the weeks wore on he became a little more comfortable and a flirty side of his personality came out that I hadn't yet seen. Until then I noticed that he rarely had any company, male or female, and I had begun to wonder if he might in fact be gay.**After sharing a few barbecues and afternoons at the pool with us and other neighbors he loosened up a little. He had been in the Navy and married for over twenty years. When he was six months from retirement his wife left him, taking a big chunk of his pension with her. He told me that he was in the process of building a second career and that dating was low on his priority list.**While he was not unattractive, as I got to know Gary in the months after moving in I began to feel the slightest bit uncomfortable around him. I had caught him sneaking glances of me when he thought I wasn't looking and his flirting was at times brazen. Even in my husband's presence he would not let up. My husband took it good naturedly, naively telling me to calm down and that he was just a, ?horny old dude."*I had seen and experienced this particular game before and I had a feeling that he was playing an angle. The fact that we were right in the middle of our swapping adventures had possibly lowered both Jay's and my own defenses. He was also very uninhibited, apparently, as I had caught a flash of him walking up to his blinds in the nude to close them a handful of times. I had to wonder if he knew that I could see and it was purposeful, or if that was just how he walked around his house.**That inevitable day came when Jay was to leave. The afternoon*I came home from seeing him off, I bumped into Gary in the parking lot. He could tell I had been crying and said a few comforting words, but they fell on deaf ears. I just wanted to get upstairs and hide for the next six months.* We walked together to the foot of our respective stairs and he for once dropped his usual banter, patting me on the shoulder and saying, ?Honey, it'll be over before you know it. If you need anything or just want to go eat lunch sometime I'm right across the way.? I thanked him and went upstairs Escort Bostancı to wallow.**As I said before, the weeks and months wore on I began to compartmentalize my marriage. I hadn't known the loneliness would set in so hard and the few friends I had made through work were little comfort, all being either married or otherwise attached themselves. Jay and I had discussed our situation concerning our swapping friends and came to the agreement that they were off-limits. Six months wasn't forever and we could pick up where we left off.**Gary's playful flirting continued, only now with the added invitation to drinks or dinner most weekends. I would demur and decline, only to sit in my house in front of the TV. I was bored, lonely and admittedly horny the longer Jay was away. Finally, I surprised Gary one Saturday and took him up on his offer to lunch.*?Really?? he asked, incredulously.*?Yeah! Just lunch right? I'm tired of sitting around in my house every weekend.? I answered.*?Uh, o-okay?? he stuttered ?Let me get my keys.?*He had stuttered. I should have taken it as yet another sign that he was more interested in me than I realized. The naivety of a twenty five year old. He returned with the keys and we rode in his car to a nearby diner and had lunch. It was innocent and he was a perfect gentleman. I enjoyed my lunch and his company, so much so that when he brought me home and stopped at the bottom of our stairs, I gave him a little side-hug. Nothing suggestive or sexual, but an affectionate gesture of appreciation nonetheless. When he asked if I'd like to go some other time I readily agreed and we parted ways.*My lunches with Gary continued. Soon the lunches morphed into dinners and not long after into drinks at a local bar. Through it all he maintained his gentlemanly behavior. The flirting continued, but didn't become any more sexually suggestive than it already was. Side-hugs at the bottom of the stairs were replaced by brief face to face embraces. Lingering touches to the hand or arm, a touch on the small of the back, all signs that I only later realized were a gradual shift towards greater intimacy.Once, after he helped me fix a leaking drain pipe under my kitchen sink, I added a peck on the cheek to the embrace. I didn?t realize that I was teasing him, or maybe I did, but it didn?t feel like I had a solid objective. I was simply enjoying Gary's company. I had justified these forays under the guise of friendship, but he was becoming much more to me subconsciously. He would creep unbidden into my daydreams and in my nighttime fantasies I would invite him into my bed and into my body.*Perhaps eight weeks after my husband left and maybe the sixth or seventh date with Gary, as I had come to think of them, I drank a little too much. I flirted back a little too hard. Both my body language and speech became more than vaguely suggestive. It had turned the corner into the territory of overt sexuality. It wasn?t brazenness, but there was a clear invitation to more than polite conversation.During a trip to the restroom while at the lounge I had nudged my top down to reveal a goodly portion of cleavage. With every laugh I consciously leaned forward to allow him a look down my shirt. I would lean, he would glance. Lean, glance. Lean, glance. In the car ride on the way home I had touched his thigh, lingeringly so and dangerously close to the crease made by his upper thigh and pelvis.