The Good Neighbor: A Novel Page 6

“Kinda cold. I bet the water’s only about sixty-five degrees.” Rory said as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Ummm, I was thinking it might wake us up enough that I could spend a little time getting you warm again,” Bruno said as he bent over to find Rory’s face.

  Rory laughed and stretched himself. “That sounds like a great way to end the weekend. Rory craned his neck to look up at Bruno’s smirk as best he could. Chuckling, he placed his palms on Bruno’s thighs and pushed himself up and scooted away. Standing, he glanced at Bruno’s leering grin, then stepped to the set of French doors that opened from the family room onto the dark pool deck. The house next door was unlit except for a dim light from the second floor window that provided a direct view of their pool below. Turning to Bruno, he said, “We’ll have to be quiet.”

  Bruno groaned and stood up. “It’s ten-thirty. Don’t you bet they’ve gone to bed by now?”

  Rory stepped back into the family room and gave Bruno a sleepy-eyed smile. “I think it’s worth the risk.”

  “You bet it is,” Bruno said as he stripped off his T-shirt, followed with a no-nonsense, double-handed tug on his boxer shorts that left them puddled on the floor at his feet. Nonchalantly, he stepped out of them and walked to stand between Rory and the door. With both hands he grasped the hem of Rory’s tight-ribbed wife-beater. “I want to see you naked, bitch,” he said matter-of-factly as he yanked it upward.

  Obediently, Rory raised his arms as Bruno peeled off his tank. He shivered at the roughness in Bruno’s voice. After all this time, it still strummed the tight cord of desire in him, calling out all the resonance of a prolonged bass note that worked down his spine to reverberate between his legs. Bruno was already tugging at his boxers when Rory took a step back. “Is the bedroom door unlocked,” he whispered huskily.

  “Fuck, I don’t know,” Bruno said in frustration.

  “Go ahead and get in,” Rory said. “I’m just going to slip around and make sure we can get back to the bed, okay?”

  “Whatever,” Bruno replied gruffly. “Just hurry up.” With that, he stepped through the family room door and broke into a heavy trot to the deep end of the pool. He dived in cleanly and swam underwater to the shallow end, where he stood and gasped at the chill of the water and the cool night laid over his wet shoulders.

  Rory appeared and opened the bedroom door, hesitating for a moment, he looked out at Bruno. “Shuck ’em off, Rory,” Bruno whispered harshly.

  Rory glanced up at the light on upstairs next door, then ran his hands under the elastic sides of his boxers and let them fall.

  He was already hard, Bruno noted with a grin. “C’mon, baby,” he urged. “Dive in. It’s not so bad once you get your breath back.”

  Rory stepped from the bedroom door and loped toward the deep end of the pool. He stood for a moment on the lip, hesitating against the bracing shock that was to come. Then he dived in. Opening his eyes underwater, he saw Bruno’s blurry form sink under the water at the other end to wait for him. After three strong kicks propelling him forward, he was caught by Bruno’s hands under his arms and lifted up and out of the water with a gasp that Bruno swallowed with a firm open-mouthed kiss.

  Rory wrapped one arm around Bruno’s shoulders as he reached behind Rory and caught him with one hand firmly under his ass. His hand roughly spread Rory’s cheeks to allow a searching middle finger to find and tickle him intimately. Rory choked back a sound that Bruno thought sounded like a cross between laughter and a sob. Bruno felt his dick harden improbably in the cold water. Rory pushed him away and swam toward the deep end of the pool. Bruno ducked under the water and swam beneath him, grabbing for and finding Rory’s dick.

  With Bruno’s hand tugging at him, Rory stood immediately. His heels grazed Bruno’s side as he climbed for the surface as well. They stood still in chest-deep water, slowly circling each other. “C’mere,” Bruno insisted.

  When Rory stepped toward him, he reached up to place his hands on Bruno’s shoulders. Bruno responded by tugging downward on his own dick with one hand and pulling his partner closer with the other. Bruno forced himself between Rory’s legs, feeling the hard reach of the corded muscle that ran from the base of his scrotum toward his ass rubbing along the top of his dick. Rory tucked the tops of his feet behind Bruno’s knees and opened his lips to gently bite the side of Bruno’s neck. Slowly, the big man turned with Rory in his arms. Buoyed by the water that felt warmer every minute, Bruno turned them round and round, generating small waves that reached out from them, as steady and gentle as ripples on a pond.

  “Hey,” Rory whispered.

  “Hey yourself,” Bruno answered happily.

  Rory stretched in Bruno’s arms, bending his own back from his elbows and sighed.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it,” Bruno said amiably.

  “It’s not as cold as I thought it’d be,” Rory said glancing upward as he untangled himself from Bruno’s legs and found his footing on the floor of the pool.

  “Will you quit looking up there?” Bruno said irritably. “If they want to look, let ’em.”

  In answer, Rory took a deep breath and slid out of Bruno’s arms to sink below him in the water. Bruno felt his dick become enclosed by the warmth of Rory’s mouth and the gentle tug of his lips. It was all he could go not to reach below the water’s surface to grab and hold Rory’s head there, battering his face until he fought for breath. Instead, he opened his arms wide and swayed his fingers in the water in rhythm with Rory’s ministrations below.

  Finally, Rory pushed away to swim on his back underwater until he reached the steps of the pool. Once there, he sat on a step and lifted his head with something between a gasp and a giggle. Bruno responded by swimming toward him underwater. With his eyes opened to the sting of chlorine, he reached for Rory’s waist and lifted his hips from the water. Raising him effortlessly, he brought his hips to his face and ran his tongue over the length of Rory’s dick. Bruno felt his shudder and welcomed it. Letting go of Rory’s hips, his hands found their way under his arms and urged him upward to sit on the pool’s edge. Leaving Rory to sit in the chill, he sank back into the water and put his face in Rory’s groin, teasing him until Rory grasped the sides of his head and shook him.

  “Are you ready to go in now?” Bruno whispered.

  “Uh huh. I’m cold.” Rory replied.

  “No you’re not. You’re a hot little fuck, aren’t you?” Bruno said as he stood and took Rory’s neck in his hands. Bruno’s thumbs caressed the base of Rory’s neck gently.

  Rory shivered involuntarily as he looked at Bruno with the same measure of trust and vulnerability that had turned Bruno on for twenty-two years. That was how many years had passed since they’d first met as juniors in college. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?” Bruno had asked then as he asked now.

  Rory looked down and away from him shyly, recalling the script that was etched indelibly on his brain, never old, never exhausted as a well of desire. He nodded shyly.

  Bruno stood in the water and used his thumbs to lift Rory’s chin to meet his eyes. “Tell me. Say it. Tell me you want me to fuck you.”

  “You want me to beg you, don’t you?” Rory whispered huskily. “You’re used to being begged, you cocky bastard.”

  “Oh, you’ll beg me. I swear to god you’ll beg me,” Bruno whispered in return.

  Rory laughed, and Bruno let go of him and slogged to the steps of the pool. Dripping, he rose to offer his hand to Rory.

  Rory took his hand and Bruno pulled him to his feet. He looked deep into Rory’s eyes and whispered, “It never gets old does it?”

  Rory lifted his free hand and stroked the side of Bruno’s face in reply. “It’s been only you for all these years, Bruno. How could it have ever gotten old?”

  Bruno turned his lips to the palm of Rory’s hand. He kissed him there and said, “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

  Rory hesitated as Bruno began to pull him toward the bedroom door. Bruno turned to look at him. “Please fuck me,
Bruno,” he whispered into the night as he picked up the thread of their most private dialogue.

  Bruno grinned and pulled him through the bedroom door.

  5160 ST. MARK’S COURT

  AUSTIN HAD GIVEN up any pretense of working by the time he heard the first splash below his window. He was playing video poker on his computer. The boys were asleep, and Meg was moored in bed, banked by pillows and tied down with a scatter of files lying across the toile-covered comforter. Obliquely, she’d made it clear that she had work to do when he’d presented her with her nighttime mug of tea. Austin pretended he had work to do as well and returned to his office.

  Curious and bored, he watched the pas de deux of his neighbors as they turned a dip into the pool into a performance Austin had to admit he envied. He could make out little of their entwined forms, but it was easy to tell the dark one from his lighter-complexioned partner. Idly, he found his hand in his lap and the weight on his dick turning from curiosity to confirming a need he’d subsumed for far too long. He stood painfully and made his way to the master bedroom.

  Meg still sat up in bed, reading a file that had to have been as dull as the phone book. Awkwardly, he lay across the foot of the bed and propped himself up on an elbow.

  “Meg?” he asked gently.

  Meg raised her eyes blearily from her file and gave him a small smile. “What, sweetheart?”

  “Is there any way you could forget about the files for a little while and let me love you a little bit?” he asked earnestly.

  Meg allowed the file to drop to her lap. “I’m sorry, Austin. I’m neglecting you aren’t I?”

  He reached across the short space between them and lightly grasped her foot and massaged it as best he could through the comforter. “It’s not that you’re neglecting me. It’s just that it’s been a really long time,” he said.

  Meg sighed. It seemed to Austin that she braced herself, as if for an annoying conversation she couldn’t avoid. Before she could reply, he said, “I don’t mean to sound needy. I know that’s certainly not an aphrodisiac. But I can’t seem to find a way back to the intimacy we used to share,” Austin said choosing his words carefully.

  “What’s brought this on, Austin?” Meg said tiredly.

  Austin let go of her foot and sat up. “What do you mean? It’s not the flu. I haven’t just caught a bad case of horny,” he replied.

  “There’s no need to get defensive. Why do you always get defensive?” Meg replied sharply.

  He simply looked at her and shook his head. “What do I have to do to help you get in the mood? It used to just be so natural between us. Now, just negotiating sex feels like the Yalta Conference. Please don’t turn this back at me, Meg. I’m not a litigator, you are. I can’t out-maneuver you. Just help me understand.”

  Meg sighed and started gathering up the files scattered around her. “Just give me a minute. I need to brush my teeth.”

  “Forget it,” Austin said and started for the bedroom door. “If it’s just something else to be dealt with like an item on your ‘to do’ list, I don’t need it.”

  “Wait, Austin…” Meg said sincerely.

  He turned around and watched her lay back the coverlet and swing her legs off the side of the bed. That accomplished, she rubbed her eyes tiredly and then gave him a bleak smile. “You’re right. You’re not supposed to be an item on my ‘to do’ list. I apologize.”

  Austin remained standing and looking at her until she patted the bed next to her and reached for his hand. He stepped back to their bed, took her offered hand, and sat, waiting.

  “Austin, it did used to be so effortless, you’re right. But everything in my life right now seems like an effort. My job, my kids. You. I’m sorry; I just can’t make enough time to keep all the plates spinning on the sticks.”

  “What can I do to make it easier on you, babe? Just tell me how to take some of the pressure off you and I will,” Austin replied and squeezed her hand.

  Meg gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Can you just be me for a week? It has nothing to do with you. It’s the expectations I put on myself.”

  “I was beginning to think it did have something to do with me. I keep looking at myself in the mirror and wondering if I’m fat, or if I stink, or if you’re just tired of me.”

  Meg leaned across the small space dividing them and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re none of those things, darling. I want to have sex with you; I just keep putting it aside. Please just give me a little time to find my feet with all this…” Meg lifted her hand and waved vaguely around her. “Since I’ve been made partner, the pressures on me are enormous. You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking off some of the pressure with the boys. Please don’t think for one minute that I’m tired of you, or I don’t find you attractive. It’s just women are hard-wired differently. Men can think about sex if they’re broke, or stressed or unemployed.”

  Austin let go of her hand and stared straight ahead.

  “Oh! Oh darling! I didn’t mean that…”

  Austin stood and gave her a bleak smile. “Another sore spot, I guess. I’m going back to my pretend office to work at my pretend job.”

  “Oh Austin, c’mon,” Meg cried. “I know you’re trying.”

  “Leave it alone, Meg,” Austin said quietly and walked toward the door.

  “Austin!” Meg whispered emphatically, “Come back. I didn’t mean…”

  Austin closed the door and walked back to his office. He sat at his desk and put his head in his hands. Getting laid off had been a tremendous blow to his ego. Meg making partner was like getting kicked in the nuts after his big letdown. They both knew it was her salary that was paying the bulk of the bills and the mortgage on this ridiculous house. Deep inside, he knew things couldn’t stay this bleak for him. He’d invested too much time and energy— hell, he was too young—to just be dealt out of the game at this point in his career.

  Determined to let it go and stay positive, he glanced at his computer screen and started again to play the hand of video poker he’d been dealt before he decided to try and get lucky. Within three keystrokes he was out. He hit re-deal and watched his hand spread out on the screen. It just seemed too pointless. Bored and locked into a very personal loneliness, he looked out his window and down into his neighbor’s pool enclosure. The area was empty.

  Austin let himself wonder where they were in their lovemaking. He glanced toward their bedroom door and was surprised to see it standing wide open. In a pool of warm lamplight, he could see, quite clearly, that they were not finished. Rory lay on his back with his head and arms dropped off the foot of the bed. From his angle, Austin could see the jerks of his head responding to a thrust he could feel, but not see. His eyes followed from Rory’s open-mouthed pleasure, across his bared throat to his chest. He could see his nipples stretched on his chest beyond the tightened curve of muscle along his ribs.

  Austin felt himself get hard again. Guiltily, he glanced at the computer screen holding playing cards. Flashing graphics asked him to place a bet, draw, or fold. Austin stood and walked quietly to his office door. He drew it closed and softly turned the lock. Hurriedly, he searched the floor of his closet for the dirty T-shirt he’d used to dust off his computer components two weeks before. Finding it, he eased back to his desk chair, sat, and undid his pants. With the dirty T-shirt spread across his belly, he shifted slightly and pulled the elastic band of his jockey shorts under his nuts and spit on his palm.

  From the edge of the doorway, he saw a dark, hairy arm move into view. Its muscles strained and he saw Rory’s kneecap was pinioned by the arm from behind. Never slowing the rhythm of Rory’s head, he saw Bruno’s face move in profile to take Rory’s nipple in his mouth.

  Slowly, Austin began to jerk, all the while telling himself it was just this one time.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Let’s save the date

  5150 ST. MARK’S COURT

  BRUNO JERKED HIS fishing pole and stepped up the incline that ran from his bac
kyard down to the canal. He reeled in the line, noting its slack weightlessness. No strike this time. He sighed, only slightly frustrated. The few bass there were in the long canal behind his house were wily. The more witless Oscars snagged his line more frequently, but they didn’t impart the same sense of satisfaction the canny bass did when he managed to catch them. Happily, Bruno stretched in the hot Saturday morning sun. It shone down his broad, bare shoulders and chest, giving him a sheen of good health and well- being. Fishing was one of his forms of relaxing when he had a few minutes to spare on the weekend. With Rory off running errands, he caught a buzz and stepped out back to see if he could catch a fish or two.

  Bruno checked the shiner lure once more and cast the line near a stand of water grasses growing in the short slope of the canal before it dropped sharply to a depth he didn’t really want to think about. Blasted with dynamite out of the caprock by the developers, the canal was dredged to provide fill for the lots the houses of Venetian Vistas sat on. Bruno knew the canal was near thirty feet deep at its center. It took a great deal of fill to make new land out on the edges of the Everglades. With the caprock broken and excavated, the ground wept fresh water into the gash and the broad deep ditch became a canal, shimmering under the strong Florida sun.

  The fish liked to congregate in the grasses along the shore. The rich oxygen exchange along with the friendly insects made it a playground, nursery, and picnic for the bass and oscars that congregated there.

  “You’re not going to catch anything,” a small voice advised.

  Bruno looked round to see the new neighbors’ children standing with their sneakered feet lodged into the open spaces of the knit in the chain-linked fence between the two properties. The elder of the two swung half-over the top while they younger managed to climb high enough to rest his arms across the top bar.

  Bruno couldn’t recall their names, but he could recall their mischievousness. “Hello, Stan. Hello, Kyle,” he responded.