Sidney

Sidney had light brown hair, a ruddy complexion, plump lips, nice teeth, and dark eyes. She might have been thirty years old and wore combinations of black and blue clothing on her five-foot-seven-inch frame.

There was an air of sophistication about her: well-educated, uninhibited, easygoing, she laughed at jokes and frowned at injustice. She had an inscrutable smile.

I sensed she was my intellectual superior, so I stayed quiet when she’d come to the courtyard on late weekend afternoons carrying an air mattress, dropping it on the concrete and covering it with a blanket before taking off her terrycloth robe and laying down in a burnt orange bikini.

She was slender, with an even distribution of body weight, smooth and lightly toned with equal proportions between her shoulders and hips, firm where it counted, and soft everywhere else.

***

Just a month before, I arrived in Boulder, Colorado, after touching down at Denver International Airport following a four-year stint in the Air Force.

Alex, a hometown friend from Niantic, Connecticut, had set himself up in Boulder a year earlier.

This made my transition from the East Coast to Colorado easier. A room in Alex’s cottage waited, as did a job stripping foundation walls.

The cottage complex I’d moved into had a squirrelly layout: six two-bedroom cottages sharing a common cement courtyard sat behind a row of two-story houses. A short passageway ran between two houses, giving cottage residents access to the street, which ran parallel to the Boulder Mall.

I was eager to prove my worth. I embraced the physicality of my new job. My bosses raised my pay within a week. This encouraged me to work harder. It goes that way with certain young men; they see themselves getting stronger, and it makes all the sense in the world.

It was summer. We were young, and anything seemed possible. Beer was the most potent drink I knew. We’d grab a case after work, then hang out shirtless in the courtyard, turning brown under the July sun.

Alex had a girlfriend. Sally was attractive, and she liked me just fine, and there was a lot of mutual respect between the three of us.

She had friends, Alex had other friends, and the neighbors had a volleyball net. The courtyard got heavy foot traffic, and then there was Sidney, hurrying to a blue, compact car, hanging out in taverns along Pearl Street Mall, with a light-skinned woman whose face and arms were adorned with constellations of freckles. I learned later that this was Sidney’s roommate, Star.

***

One evening in August, Alex sent me on a beer run.

Sidney’s tits caught me off guard as I hurried past her garden-level window, making for the passage. She was topless, in her panties, and reaching up with a light bulb. My eyes dropped to her hips, to a downy line of pubic hair rising just above her panty line.

I’m no voyeur; I stayed en route to the liquor store, but her spell was cast. I thought about her night and day. Seeing her sunbathing took on a different meaning. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. Sleep brought no relief; she’d entered my dreams. I told myself she was out of my league. She’d shown no interest in me beyond casual glances accompanied by mild expressions of disapproval. Still, my obsession would not recede. To salvage what seemed left of my self-esteem, I avoided her at every turn, but a woman knows, and she knew. Eventually, despondency cost me my job. So be it. I had enough savings to get through the winter, but I spent my days hanging around the cottage, standing at the kitchen window, hoping to glimpse Sidney on her way to her job as an architect. None of this helped my relationship with Alex and Sally. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, I’m told. It wasn’t long afterward that my obsession turned to contempt. I felt that if I slipped anymore, I could despise her. God, how I adored her!

And then, one day, a knock came at my front door. I pulled it open. 

It was Sidney.

I smiled like an idiot. Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out the words.

A mysterious smile filtered across her lips.

The next moment, she pushed through the door, lifted her shirt, and thrust her tits at me. Her voice turned hissy.

“Suck ’em, you fucking dog!’ she shouted while grabbing for my cock.

At the same time, her face came into focus, and I noticed she hadn’t moved from the doorway.

“Do you guys have a spatula I could borrow?” she asked

I said, “Sure.”

I watched her ass through the kitchen window as she took the spatula back to her cottage.

***

 The following morning was a Sunday. I woke up late. Alex was already in Boulder Canyon with his rock-climbing buddies. I brewed coffee and made toast.

I’d rested well, stretching as I got up from the kitchen table.

I pulled open the front door for the Sunday paper. It wasn’t there, but there was a note taped to the door:

I hope you don’t mind. I borrowed the paper. Get the funnies when you have a chance.

Sidney

I went about the cottage deliberately. No rush. Then I went over to stand at her door and knock. The door was ajar, so I stuck my head through and called.

“Hey, Sidney, it’s Lea; I’m here for the funnies.”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

“Whoops,” I said, seeing the paper on a kitchen chair. “No problem, I see them. Catch up to you later.”

“Do you want the funnies? They’re in here on the hamper; just grab them.”

“Uhm, Okay.”

I turned the knob and pushed the door a little at a time.

Sidney was in the tub, covered in bubbles.

“Close it and have a seat.”

I looked around.

“On the toilet lid, silly.”

I sat on the lid, and she lifted a handful of bubbles out of the water and blew them at me.

“Guess what I have,” she said, lifting her hips out of the water and sweeping bubbles away. “What is that?” she asked childishly.

“It’s your vagina.”

“Twat,” she corrected, “It’s a twat. Say it, say twat.”

“Twat.”

“You almost had it. Try again.”

“Twat!”

“That’s better. Wanna kiss it?”

That’s when the bathroom door swung open, and Star stepped in.

“I’ll kiss it,” she said.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” said Sidney, reaching for a towel and tossing it at Star, “You get to dry it. Lea gets to eat it all up. Don’t you, Lea?”

Star tossed the towel aside.

“Me first,” she said, straddling my legs as I sat on the toilet, pulling up her dress and pushing her cunt in my face. She placed her fingertips on my neck and pulled me closer. Her pubes tickled my nostrils.

“Mine’s hairier than Sidney’s; sniff it.”

Sidney said, “Yeah, it’s sluttier, too.”

Star’s jaw dropped with indignation.

 “How dare,” she said, turning her attention back to me,

How’s about it, honey? Give it a little smooch on the button.”