What Neighbors Do

Author's notes: Word count = 3725, before Pictures, formatting and notes. This is a contest entry for "House Of Black & White "  Prompt # 55 A new neighbor moves in next door.. 1000 points

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It all began on a dare, a smart-ass comment from a roommate. Guys understand this testosterone game where we are continuously competing for the position of alpha-dog. It’s the natural order of things, and it’s you Gals who compel us to behave like randy bucks. Yes, it’s your fault because whenever you gather in a group, none will choose a dance partner until the ranking's finished. You wait to see who will establish himself as the lead bull.

One warm Saturday morning, that competition was still in high gear. My roommate Mike and I lived off base from NAS Oceania. We had been partying hard the night before after a Jethro Tull concert in Hampton Roads. But that morning I was bragging some about having scored with three different members of the summer’s Frisky Kitties over the last three weeks.

Friskies, our shorthand for the women who came down from the big cities to Virginia Beach for a lust-filled weekend get-a-way. My roommate hadn’t managed a date in two months. I tried to convey a few tips I had received from old Master Chief Day. But Mike resisted my efforts to share the Master Chief's expertise.

“It’s all about context and timing, ma’boy. You set your sights on the lone doe who is busy minding her own business. Watch her grazing, then when the moment is right. You suggest where the sweetest grass is growing. It works every time once you learn how to spot your opportunities.”

“Jake, just because you’ve been lucky once or twice doesn’t make you the Love Guru.” He said.

Not worried about Mike taking me serious I said, “Want me to prove it to you? I’ll pick up the next woman we see, you can even choose her.”

“You think you can pickup any woman you want?”

“Sure as long as it's not in one of the usual places guys think of to look for women, like bars, clubs and for God sake, not the beach.”

“Okay.” he said, and pointed out to the parking lot, “Let's see if you can score with that one. The brunette, not the blonde.”

I peered out the window, two women were pulling boxes out of a pickup truck. The blonde was short and frumpy. But the Brunette… Well, she could have modeled for Sports Illustrated. I knew what Mike was up to—it was easy to see. This woman could attract any man she desired, and Mike thought she would be out of my league. I almost doubted myself. But then, I remembered Chief Day’s instructions and decided that this would be the perfect test of his dating advice.

“Okay, you're on. Fifty bucks say I’ll score with her before the end of the week.”

We shook hands. And for the next five minutes, I sat watching the women haul boxes upstairs to the apartment above ours. I also had to listen to Mike about me paying for his four new albums.

Wondering how to introduce myself without it seeming a come on, the chance presented itself. The blonde jumped from the truck after pulling a recliner to the tailgate. The pair grabbed boxes and headed upstairs. I snatched up my laundry basket tossed on a box of soap and waited inside my door until they came back down. As they reached their truck, I went to my car, opened the trunk, and put my laundry in. The timing was perfect. As I slammed the trunk lid, the two passed me carrying the chair toward the apartment door, and I followed behind them.

The brunette walking backward faced me, and she said with a wincing grin, “Sorry, we’ll be Out of the Way in a minute.”

I said, “No problem, moving’s a pain in the ass.” At the door, the recliner snagged on the jamb, and they struggled to turn the chair so it would fit through. Blocked from my doorway, I stood there in silence watching. After a few seconds, the brunette said: “Bess, set it down for a second, we have to open it up on its side.”

I stepped back to give them room. When they put the chair down, I said, “I know it’s 1980 and according to Ms. Gloria Steinem, we’re not supposed to assume that you gals need any help. But, I think it's just a good neighbor to offer.”

Bess said, “Would you, these stairs are a bitch. If you can get the bottom, I can help Charlynn with the back.”

“Sure I’d be happy to assist.” The three of us carried the chair upstairs. Once there, I gestured at the stacks of boxes and said, “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you. My name is Jake, I live downstairs, let me know if you need help with anything else.”

I returned to my apartment, and the women left in the truck. An hour and a half later they returned. I watched them tote more boxes, then Charlynn came knocking. With my palms sweating, I opened the door, Charlynn stood there her jeans dusty, her tee shirt stained with sweat, her face red, and bangs matted. Bess stood by the truck looking no better as she leaned against a sofa, two mattress sets and a couple of big dressers.

“Hi, Charlynn, you need help again?”

“Could you, I hate to ask. But, I have to be out of my old house before 5:00 and I am running out of time.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon helping Bess, move Charlynn from her Hilltop Beach house to her new Oceania apartment. I didn’t ask why she was moving, or why she wasn’t taking everything from the house. But after the last load was upstairs, I returned to my apartment, and Bess took Charlynn off to pick up her car. Two hours later and Charlynn was back asking to borrow tools to put her bed together, and I provided them.

It was 11:00 PM when she knocked again, my tools in one hand and a half full, bottle of Chivas Regal in the other.

“Hi, Jake, I thought I’d return your tools.”

“Oh, that could have waited until tomorrow or anytime actually,” I said and opened the door all the way to beckon her inside.

“I figured that, but after today, I needed a nightcap, but I packed nothing to pour it in. And it didn’t seem right to come begging a glass or to sit swigging straight from the bottle. Besides that, I hate drinking alone and could use the company.”

“Oh please, come in, sit down, and I’ll grab glasses. Though this is a bachelor's pad, we've no fancy crystal tumblers.”

“It’s scotch, you don’t need fancy, clean would be nice, but not a must. And tonight, the bigger, the better. I don’t need ice, but you do as you like.”

I came back from the kitchen with two 12 ounce water glasses. “Will these do? And I don’t know if I want ice or not I never had scotch before, I’m more of a beer or a Bacardi and coke sort of fellow. Though, one time, down in Brownsville, I drank more than my share of a case of Tequila.”

“Hah, they're perfect, I’ve had all the fancy I can stand for a while.” Sitting on the sofa. Charlynn took one glass and poured it half full, handed it back, then repeated the effort a second time. She set the bottle on the floor beside us and took a big swig from her drink.

I sat there for a few seconds trying to figure out what was happening, I thought she liked me. But my antennas were picking up mixed signals. She had taken a shower, but wore no makeup. Her baggy sweat pants, and a Deep Purple tee shirt, the Rock N Roll band, not the color, didn’t seem all that sexy. Her hair pulled back into a ponytail, but the AC vent over us clarified she wasn’t wearing a bra.

I listened to the voice in my head replaying the Master Chief's instructions, sit and ask questions about her. Ask what she does, what her family does, find out what foods she likes, or dislikes, and why. Just make sure the dialogue is about her and never let that conversation turn to sex unless she brings it up first.

Over the next two hours, Charlynn told me her tale, married, but starting an ugly divorce. She had a five-year-old son, Charlie Jr. who was at her mother’s. And today's moving rush was to get out of their house before big Charlie came home from working out of town. She described to me the mental and physical abuse she had endured not just from her husband but with the boyfriend she had before him too. She broke down crying several times, and I let her, I didn’t console her, didn’t say it would be all right, I sat beside her simply holding her hand. At 1:30 she was laying with her head in my lap, drunk and sound asleep.

I sat there wondering what to do, playing the different scenarios in my head. I thought about taking her to my bedroom. But the Master chief’s voice was booming in loud and clear, “If you want more than a one-night-stand never screw them when they're drunk!” As I sat there looking down at her, she was beautiful, even without makeup she was easily the prettiest woman I had ever met and talked to.

The thought of leaving her lay on the sofa weighed in as the easiest. But always the scenario finished with her screaming when she woke up to Mike walking to the kitchen in his underwear. Sliding out from under her and I checked her door, Leaving both ajar. I picked her up, she was lighter than I expected, and carried her up the stairs, put her in bed, fully clothed, covered her up and went back to my apartment.

Next morning, Charlynn called apologizing. I promised that there was nothing to be ashamed of and we spent the rest of the day unpacking and sorting her things. By late afternoon the apartment looked good, and I asked her if I could take her to dinner, she said she wasn’t in the mood to go out.

I guess my dejected puppy-dog face was up to par. She said, “How about we order pizza and just relax here. Though there’s no cable until Friday.”

I made a run to the store for more Chivas, her bottle was empty. We talked and joked for several hours until the conversation somehow turned to the question of being ticklish. I told her I was not, but she refused to believe me and tried to tickle me. Next thing I know, we’re all over the hardwood floors, wrestling, laughing, and touching each other in inappropriate places.

We stopped for a moment to catch our breath, me laying on my back, her sitting on top of me like a school yard bully. Our eyes locked for a second and without a single word spoken, a thousand voices sang out rocketing through my head like July fireworks. I would explode if I didn’t find a way to feel her lips on mine. And as if reading my thoughts, she leaned down and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around her and returned as much passion as I could squeeze from my soul. I moaned like a simpering pussy hoping she understood. I was powerless to resist her, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t care about anything else in the world, not one thing beyond the woman in my arms.

The next morning, I went down to my apartment to get ready for work. Mike knocked on my bedroom door. When I opened, he handed me fifty dollars and said, “Hope that you two remember that they are wooden floors… And I hear every footstep, not to mention everything else.”

I handed the money back to him and said “Here, you better buy those new albums. Because something tells me this is going to be a very loud summer."

So it began, each night for the next ten weeks, I would return from the base, pop into my apartment to change out of my uniform and into my usual jeans and tee-shirt. I would leave my apartment to go up to Charlynn’s and wash our breakfast dishes. I popped on something for supper and set the small glass table, which so far, was the only thing in the apartment we had not yet figured out how to test its acoustical transference rates to my apartment below.

But this night, something seemed different. Dinner was sitting at the ready, I was set with my welcome home greeting, a vase full of wild flowers picked from the side of Oceana Boulevard on my way home. But the later it got the more I began to worry. I wanted to call her, but Charlynn had asked me not to call her at work, she said it was considered a major taboo by her boss.

Finally, at a little past eight, she called me on her apartment phone.

“Charlynn where are you baby, are you okay? I’ve been worried sick.”

“I’m sorry Jake, I meant to call you earlier, but things have just been so crazy here today.”

“Where you at, you're not still at the office?”

“No, I’m at mom's. Things went bad with a big contract, and the boss demanded we all stay until the new revisions the client asked for were all completed and their legal standards verified. That meant looking up hundreds of case files and rulings.”

“Oh, I am so sorry you had a bad day, you on your way home, I’ve got supper still waiting.”

“No, I think I am going to just stay here tonight, plus this is Big Charlie’s weekend with Lil-Charlie, he’s coming to get him first thing in the morning, and I don’t want him to give mom a bunch of shit like the last time.”

“Okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow night, we can go out for dinner, I got something I want to show you.”

“Fine, I’ll see you then.”

I hung up the phone, went to the kitchen and scraped supper into the trash can. I stood at the end of the counter top a few seconds trying to decide what bed to sleep in. And the more I stood there, the more empty the apartment seemed. I picked up the small black box from the counter flipped open the top and looked at the shiny bobble resting pinched between its velvet thumbs. I put it in my pocket and when downstairs to my apartment.

The next afternoon, I was revitalized, I had spent all morning visualizing how I would present the box which now resided in the locked glove box out in the hangar 200 parking lot. Not even Capt. Phill’s incessant whining about the lower than expected ratings in squadron's most recent Night Carrier Quals. I really didn’t care if our next tour was his spring for a star. I no longer planning a career in the Navy.

It was nearing sixteen hundred hours,- 4:00 pm And I couldn’t believe how slow every clock in the hangar had become. When I got the call.

“This is Lieutenant Cee, this is not a secure line, how may help you?”

“Hi Jake, it's me, I just now got the chance to call you. I have to go to New York with the project team. I won't be home until late Sunday night.”

“No that’s now fair, Why do you need to go? Can’t someone else do it instead? I had plans for us.”

“I know, but I need this job, it was not my idea.”

“When do you leave, Can I meet you somewhere before your flight?”

“Jake, we’re at the airport now. The flight leaves in like twenty minutes. We’ll talk when I get back. Damn, they're calling us now…. I got to go…click.”

“Wait…Char…I love you…” and I heard the words fall dead and unheard in the dead phone receiver. I slammed the phone down on the desk so hard that the SDO across the ready room looked over.

“Everything alright Lieutenant?” asked the startled petty officer.

“Everything is fine, Jones, Mr. Cee just found out he eating at the O’Club tonight and doesn’t care for day’s special.” Said Master Chief Day from his desk at the side of the room.

I gave him a look, how does that old bastard know everything, I stood there watching him wondering if he was in deed reading my mind. When he got up picked up his cover popped it under his arm and said.
“Come on Mr. Cee, I’ll walk you out.”

We made our way out of the hangar into the parking lot. Without saying a word, until he reached his car. I still had two rows to go before getting to mine. The Master Chief Petty Officer of the Command get the space next to the skipper.

He said, “Mr. Cee, … Jake, you know sometimes fate she tells you things before hand if you are just willing to listen.”

“What do you mean Master Chief?”

“I’ve been in for 44 years, and I’ve seen that look on a hundred faces, shit-fire son, I’ve even worn it a time or two myself. But sometimes thing’s aren’t what we think they are. Do yourself a favor, do like I said, go to the O’Club, get drunk and sleep it off over at the BOQ. In fact, whatever you do, don’t go home until she calls you.”

“Ha, Master Chief, how in the hell do you… I mean this is different. I know it is.”

He opened his door and said as he got in, “Jake you’re a good boy, but the life in this town is not for you. Do you remember the first secret to learn as an office in my Navy?”

“Haha, the one they don’t teach at Annapolis? Yeah, don’t do a fucking thing without asking your Chief first.”

“You should have talked to me before you bought that ring. Now, go to the O’Club. I’ll see you on Monday.”

I stood there watching him drive away, “No, God damn it, he can’t be right, he doesn’t know anything about our relationship. I looked at my car but knew that if I got in it, I would just sit there staring at it, that thing in the glove box. I turned to the left and started the walk toward the O’Club.

In spite of my doubts, I took from the Master Chief what I couldn’t from my father. I listened to his advice and spent the weekend on base. I even returned to the hanger and caught up on my paperwork. That next Monday rolled around, and I couldn’t believe that I had not heard from Charlynn. At noon I stopped by the XO’s office on my way to lunch and turned in a dozen performance evaluation.

“Morning XO, I’ve got some Evals for you to sign off on.”

The man took the pile from me and looked through them. “Holy shit, Cee, this is almost everyone in your division some of these aren’t due for weeks.”

“Sorry XO, I was here over the weekend, so I decided to catch up.”

“I thought Tomlin was the OOD?”

“He was sir, I just took some advice from the Master Chief.”

“Can’t go wrong there, I just wish he wasn’t retiring but for I get my turn at the helm.”

“Aye, sir is there anything else I can…”

“No, Mr. Cee. You have done quite enough already.”

“Very good sir. I am out for lunch.”

“ Cee, you live off base don’t you?”

“Yes sir,”

“ If you’ve been here all weekend, take the rest of the afternoon, go home. Maybe tomorrow, you might think about wearing a blouse that’s been near an iron, and a bit of starch.”

I popped to attention, saluted the man and hauled out of the office. Once in my car, I didn’t know what to do. I still desperately wanted to see Charlynn, but the comments from the Master Chief and then her failing to call me ate at my guts like some sixty-foot parisite. I went home to my apartment, once there I took five full minutes in the parking lot making sure that Charlynn's car wasn’t there before I went inside. I changed and poured myself a drink as I sat on the sofa staring at the ceiling. That’s when I heard the first footstep, at first I thought I imagined it, that my mind was playing tricks on me just because I wanted to see her so bad.

I jumped up from the sofa, ran out to her door, put in my key and was up to the stairs in less than fifteen seconds. But instead of finding Charlynn, I was met by a fellow twice my age standing at the kitchen sink in his boxers. I looked through into the bedroom, and there on the bed was a lay a pair of naked legs that ran up to a shapely butt that I knew. I didn’t say anything I just looked at the man. He started toward me with a long knife in his hand.

“Who the fuck are you, what are you doing in here?” I yelled readying myself for combat.

“I don’t know who you are, but It not polite to break into peoples homes without at least knocking.”

I looked back to the bedroom to see Charlynn sitting up on the edge of the bed, her face twisted into a knot as if I had…well I am not sure how to describe it, but there was no doubting that I had made a mistake.

The next morning the Master Chief came through the door, and I jumped when the marine slammed it behind him.

“Mr. Cee! What happens went you forget the first rule. Now, will you listen to me this time? Say nothing to anyone until your lawyer gets here. I read the reports, and you're in luck there is only going to be one side of the story told.