*** © 2010 by "Lillian". The author maintains that all content in
this story refers to fictional characters only and that any
similarities with persons living or dead is only coincidence.
These stories are not for reproduction without the author's
written permission. ***

Author: Lillian
EMail: write.to.ll@gmail.com - Feedback is appreciated!
Title: The View
Story Codes: FF

	I took my morning coffee at the small table draped in pastel
blue trimmed with snowy white lace and pleated edging.  It had
become a ritual for me, the alarm going off at 5:30 before I
climbed out of bed and rubbed my eyes.   The smell of a single
cup being brewed in my kitchen began to drip, the little machine
with its clock and timer greeting me each morning like a
well-trained butler.  I wrapped myself in my robe and moved
through the dimly lit condo on the same path across the hardwood
to collect my cup and relax into the same little wooden chair. 
The lure of this habit wasn't the morning caffeine; I had never
had a problem feeling wakeful and bright even on those days when
I'd forgotten to pick up more.  It wasn't the chance to watch the
dawn, either; my windows were turned away from the light as the
sunrise washed the opposite side of the high building with the
morning glow.  The event that drew me to the window each morning
without fail was the time I was given to gaze across the wide
alleyway between 13157 and 13159 St. Laurence Street and into the
window just one floor down where she lay in her bed waiting for
her morning alarm to sound at six.

	Since the very first morning she had moved-in I'd been watching
her.  I realized long ago that it might be considered creepy and,
as I looked down into her bedroom window every morning, I felt
shameless in the act.  She was beautiful.  Not the sort of
beautiful that one sees walking a runway or the type of beautiful
that Hollywood stars flaunt on screen, she was the kind of
beautiful that comes from normal people living everyday lives in
a large city; a man would see her on the street and marvel at how
beautiful she was but, in a few moments she'd be swallowed up by
the crowd and leave him with only a memory.  I was luckier than
any man, though.  From my small blue clothed table I could gaze
down on her from on high, taking in her amazing beauty as she
slept the last minutes before her alarm sounded to draw her from
her bed.  I got to see a side of her that few ever would and I
cherished every moment of it.

	It was my favorite time of year.  It was far different from
Christmas, but magical in its own little way... at least to me. 
A late spring morning meant that the sun would rise as I sipped
my coffee and the light would fall along the street and, at just
the right angle, spill over her body and cover her in a warm,
orange glow.  The weather was turning from cool to warm in the
city, giving us all the chance to turn off the heat without
turning on the air and inspiring in my beautiful girl the urge to
sleep nude below her smooth, satin sheets.  On particularly warm
evenings she would push the sheets down her body as she slept,
showing the majority of her lovely body.  It was a blessing that
she was so very comfortable with herself and a blessing that she
enjoyed the warmth of the sun as much as I.

	I don't know if she'd ever noticed me, but I couldn't imagine in
the five years I'd been watching her that she had spent every day
without looking up just once.  If she had seen me, it clearly
didn't bother her; she'd never acknowledged me or even seemed to
look my way.  Each morning when she woke, sometimes even before
the flashing light on her alarm alerted me that it had turned six
already, she would open her eyes and just lay there, pulling the
sheet or comforter up around her body and snuggling into her
pillow.  It was the vision of her that I took with me each day
for the first few months after she had moved in and one I would
have been very satisfied with for as long as I had the chance to
enjoy the view.

	I could find no flaw in the woman.  She seemed a perfect height,
at least for me, with a slender but not quite athletic build; the
curve of her hips formed well into the trim line of her legs
without folding and without creasing her skin, but still there
was no sign of the muscular tone that so many seemed to find
attractive these days.  She was well groomed, sliding from her
bed each morning as the snooze alarm on her clock sounded at 6:10
and moving on bare feet across the plush carpet into her bathroom
where she would disappear for her shower.  When she would emerge
again, her hair would be wet and her body wrapped in a downy-soft
looking towel that was shed only when she had chosen her panties
from the highest-drawer of her wardrobe.  Of those times when I
was so graced as to see, she had kept herself neatly shaven and
always wore the perfect garments for a woman of her appearance.

	There was more to her than met the eye, too.  It was only from
years of watching her morning routine that I began to feel a
sense of who she was; a simple glimpse of her beauty would never
have told the story of the woman.  She was guilty of tapping the
snooze more than once from time-to-time, but she never shirked
her responsibilities.  She was timely and graceful even when she
was alone.  She didn't sleep around or sell her beauty short -
the few times I'd seen her bedroom light come on deeper in the
evenings on the weekends she had always had the same young man,
handsome in his own right, there with her before the curtains
closed.  Even when she was sick she did her best to meet her
goals, as I'd spied her at least three times through the years
with a box of tissues and a laptop there on her bed working away
even though she was too ill to face the outdoors.  I admired the
quality of the woman, not just the appearance.

	The first time I'd seen the young man come into her bedroom
window I had been faintly jealous.  He had dark hair, handsome
features, and dressed like a man with money and taste without
seeming to flaunt it on expensive watches and jewelry.  The two
were clearly friends and more, the way he kissed her told me he
had wanted her for a long time - likely more than even me - and
the way she responded told me that she understood.  He was a
gentleman of sorts as well, even going to the window to draw the
maroon material closed before touching her in an untoward way on
that first evening.  It had been by chance that I had seen it at
all; passing the window as I walked toward my bed and having the
light catch my eye just before they shared the passion that the
kiss clearly carried.  The jealousy faded as quickly as it had
come, as I realized that my lovely girl was a lovely woman and
had all the same needs I did but the will to answer them that I
lacked.

	There came a morning some years ago where I sat and watched my
lovely girl for a shorter time.  I had a meeting with my
publisher and left home at 6:30 to be on my way to the office
downtown.  I had stopped into the coffee shop on the corner for
something to keep me warm on the trip when I saw her walk in just
after me; the lovely girl I had seen from afar was even more the
work of art I had always dreamed of in person.  Then, too, I
heard her speak for the first time - her cherry-sweet tone
matching her strawberry hair almost too perfectly.  We stood in
line together until our orders were made and, as we stood to the
side to wait for the busy corner shop to finish, I had the chance
to speak to her.  I complimented her outfit and she smiled and
thanked me.  I told her that my name was Robin and she replied
with the loveliest thing I'd ever heard to that point in my life,
"Gwen... Guinevere."

	Since that day, I'd made the weekday morning trek each day that
she had slipped from her bed and we had spoken casual hellos
repeatedly amid the swirl of coffee scent and bustle of travelers
on their way to work.  Each morning I greeted Gwen as she came
along a minute or sometimes slightly more after me to order her
double-shot Macchiato and each morning we parted ways with a
smile.  Each morning I turned right as she turned left from the
doorway and we parted ways without my ever having the courage to
know more about her than what I'd seen from a distance.  Of
course, she too had never spoken a word of my voyeurism (if she
had noticed it at all).  Her male partner may not have made
frequent appearances in her window, but I knew from his presence
alone that the road I had longed to walk down was a rocky one
just the same.  The girl of my dreams was a dream herself, there
but not there, just out of reach.

	I had known for a very long time that I was gay and that the
life wouldn't be easy.  It was a time when things weren't
perfect; certainly it wasn't seen as the sickness it once was,
but even in the modern days you still felt excluded or, worse, a
fad.  I often thought as I spent my days high above the world
behind a computer screen putting words together on stark white
pixels that I chose the career more because I was afraid of the
world than anything else.  Still, I was able to write and create
things well outside my experience - lovers holding one another to
go forward living happily ever after while my experience ended
with casual flings stretched across my thirty years on Earth, no
one more outstanding than the next.  Then this woman stepped into
my life by following through with hers and my mind constantly
drifted back to her: the fruit at the top of the tree, just out
of reach.

	I brought myself to a decision on the last morning.  I had
become quite adept at knowing when the sun would rise and at just
what angle it would fall along the buildings and, on that early
May morning I knew that it would be the last one that allowed me
to see my lovely girl with the sun slowly rising to drape across
her body and warm her before I was forced to wait another year
again.  I hadn't even realized I was fighting with myself until I
felt my heart rise and fall with a swell of emotions like a bit
of wood on the tide.  I had spent so long just watching and going
out of my way on those mornings just to hear her voice say a few
words before she departed for her day and finally I could take no
more of the constant fear of scaring her away by saying more
back.  That morning I left a cool cup of coffee on its saucer and
sacrificed the last few minutes of watching her after her slender
fingers had tapped the snooze button in exchange for the chance
to look my best.  For the first time in my life I went out of my
way to take the extra time to touch up my lipstick, to brush the
clumps from my mascara, and to pick the clothes that made me feel
my best.  If cowardice won on that morning, if I couldn't speak,
there was surely no recovery for my easily bruised ego.  Failure,
at least, would be closure and I could pull the curtains on my
favorite window and take down my antique table with the blue and
white cloth.

	I left from my doorway that morning just a minute early.  The
sound of my heels clicking along the marble inlay of the hall had
never seemed louder, like a voice telling me giving me
encouragement with each step despite the words only making me
fear the outcome even more.  In the lobby, the eyes of the people
I'd seen from time to time but never known seemed to know me
enough in return to know that something about me had changed.  I
kept imagining that there was some glossy writing on a tag
hanging from my back that said 'Lesbian on the prowl,' but yet I
knew that my blouse couldn't support the tape that would hold it
there.  It was nervousness and sinking hopes that teased me --
nothing more physical than that.  The doorman opened the heavy
glass door for me and I slipped past with the same smile and
polite thanks I had every day before but the faintest quirk in
his smile seemed, on that day, like a chortle behind a mask.  The
street was far friendlier than the lobby; in the streets were
faceless women and empty suits where men had been, each moving in
their own direction with no care for the interruption of a
passing glance or concern over a faint change in makeup.  The
street allowed me to calm myself.

	I arrived at the coffee shop faintly early and took up my usual
position beside the newsstand just inside.  I glanced over the
headlines and put down a pair of bills for the paper while I
waited, anticipating her arrival with a flight of jays swirling
about my stomach in a rush to find answers hidden much higher
than they could fly.  I imaged that time seemed to dilate,
spreading wider over a smaller time because my perceptions were
going faster than the speed of light, but soon enough I realized
that my lovely girl wasn't coming.  When the clock inside ticked
to the hour I felt my sweet little jays fall dead into the pit of
my stomach and the eyes of all the people about me turn from
snickering jest into mocking cruelty; all a mirage, all in my
head, but painful as reality just the same, it marked the first
day I'd failed to catch her and the first day in all those years
that her routine had changed.  She was going out, I could tell;
before I had walked away, I'd taken one last glance in time to
see her pull the thin strings of pink satin panties up along her
thighs and open the closet where she kept her blouses.  She
hadn't stayed home sick, but she hadn't come to meet me either.

	I swallowed back the feelings inside me and approached the
counter, ordering my simple coffee - black - before the smiling
young woman opposite took my money and the time to make for me
the same tall cup she had each day before.  I reached for the
door and closed my eyes in pause.  My hand on the metal felt cold
and, in all my days in and out of the shop, I'd never felt it
before; my eyes, closed in shame, opened at the touch to see
there, across the street, the beautiful girl I had feared avoided
me.  She was sitting alone at a table in front of the caf‚ where
I often took an early dinner while I waited for her to return
home, just to catch a glimpse of her as she passed and pretend to
be one of those who got nothing more than that of her beauty
before she disappeared into the sea of people again.  She sat
quiet and still, observing as I did ever morning, her eyes
watching the people who passed her with a deep and thoughtful
emotion mixed into the color of her irises.

	I turned back into the shop and ordered a double-shot Macchiato
from the young woman who had only just filled my order.  For the
first time I knew, in the smile on her lips, that she actually
did understand; she made the cup and I paid and tipped her for
the genuine understanding that she seemed to have.  There in the
barista's expression was the only sign I'd yet seen of someone
who could actually tell just how nervous I was and, unlike all
the others who I'd imagined were so cruel, she was kind.  With a
paper under my arm and two cups of coffee in hand, I gently
pressed my hip to the door and stepped into the street again.  At
the light, I slipped across and time seemed to slow again.

	She sat in the caf‚ chair, pushed faintly back from the table to
allow her to lean forward against it with her arms folded, and a
look in her eyes that showed deeper thought than I'd captured in
her expression before.  Troubled, perhaps, but captivating still;
as the painting of a brilliant artist, who had captured the image
of one moment in time, wrapped in soft floral-print white.  She
hadn't dressed in her businesslike attire but had instead come
out on that Monday morning on a warm spring day in a sundress
that flattered her in every way.  Two thin straps crossed softly
over her shoulders and made a small x-shape over the unblemished
skin of her back, the curve of her spine as much a glimpse of
beauty as the simple curve of her lips and, while nothing I
hadn't seen before, somehow different in the way she sat that
day.  The skirt brushed gently over her thighs as I approached
her from behind, going just down the block to catch the light and
cross I'd put myself out of her view for the sake of my nerves
and to spare me the chance that her gaze would scare me away if
she'd seen me walking toward her.

	"Gwen?" I asked as I stepped in close enough to speak in a soft
voice, and she turned.  It wasn't me she had expected, but her
expression told me she hadn't expected anyone in particular at
all. For the first time, I'd called her by her name and she'd
responded without any delay.  I caught my breath as it tried to
leave me and, before she could answer from the stunned moment I'd
gained in her pause to recognize me, I extended my hand toward
her with the coffee and offered it to her, "Double-shot
Macchiato, just like you like it... right?"

	If she could sense the fear in my voice, she didn't show it. 
I'd spoken to her before but never so directly and never with the
goal I'd had in mind on that morning.  Her lips turned to a faint
smile, brought back from the brink of melancholy for at least
that moment as an act of need masked by kindness played out
before her.  "Thanks," she replied, but the word seemed too
gentle to be anything more than gracious acceptance of a gift
that wasn't earned.

	"You didn't come into the shop... and then I noticed you over
here. Are you alright?" I asked her, hoping to garner something
more and to keep her from turning back to her table and slipping
into that thoughtful posture again.  To interrupt it once was
concern but twice seemed in my mind to mark me as what I had
hoped to avoid becoming... a stalker.  I took the paper from
under my arm and walked around the table while her eyes followed
me.  She took her time, not immediately answering though there
was a need in her eyes to let go of what she held.

	When finally she let the emotions free and began to tell me her
story.  "I was let go Friday and I guess I just haven't come to
grips with it yet.  It's all coming down on me this morning.  I
thought I'd take a week and just relax, just let myself be 'me'
for a while before I got back to looking for a new job.  I got up
this morning and decided to just go out and see the city... but
this is as far as I got.  I sat down here, I looked around, and I
realized that I might not be able to stay here much longer if I
couldn't find a job or had to find one further away."

	I had never written a horror story before - I wrote stories
about romance and drama where families collided and worlds
changed - but in that moment I knew how it would begin if I did.
My expression must have gone pale, my jays that had felt a new
bit of life spring up inside them had been caught by a sharp
breeze and plunged down once more, and all I could think of was
myself.  Selfishly, I imagined my life with the girl in the
window ending not because I had been a coward or she had rejected
me but instead because she'd simply gone away.  It never seemed
possible before, never crossed my mind, but in that moment it
seemed far too close to the truth.  I must have said "Oh no," or
"Oh my" or something sympathetic, though it came only by instinct
as my rational mind was busy being self-centered, but she
continued.

	"It's okay.  I've got a few weeks of severance and a few good
references; I should be able to find something.  I really love
this area, though, I don't want to move," she said, and I agreed
silently.  I didn't want it to end.  It couldn't end like that.	

	"What do you do?" I asked her.  For all the time I'd watched
her, all the times we had exchanged pleasantries, I had never
asked her and she had never asked me.  It felt silly.  We knew
each other for years and were comfortable enough that my taking
the seat opposite her hadn't seemed odd at all but we could
barely claim to know anything about one another beyond first
names.

	"I was working for Jameson as an associate publicist.  I guess
the market just isn't what it was and they let me and a few
others go.  I should have seen it coming, but I was too wrapped
up in it to know," she answered, but I only heard the first
words.  She had been an associate publicist for Jameson?  It was
a competing publisher, but a publisher nonetheless.  I searched
my mind to see if ever I had made a prayer for a moment like
that, but I couldn't recall it; never the religious girl, I had
still not been above looking skyward when in my times of need,
but on that morning it hadn't been an answered prayer that had
given me the chance.

	"Really?" I asked in return.  The rhetorical word spouted from
my mouth faster than I could stop it.  My excitement brimmed and
my hand fidgeted from the cup I held upward as if to shout
'Eureka!' to the world.  In an effort to salvage my chance, and
my dignity, I added, "I'm an author... Robin Lake.  I'd be happy
to make some phone calls for you, if you like.  I'd love to have
you."  My lips betrayed me but my mind still clung to strings. 
My restless want for the girl in the window, and my failures as a
social creature were fighting success like a lion tamer to keep
me locked up alone behind that glass.  "To have you on my team, I
mean.  I could try being a Prima donna for once, I'd probably
catch them off guard at first but I think it might work."

	What my words were really saying didn't translate easily.  She
understood them, in way, but behind a long history of small talk
and minimal interaction there was a veil that protected my real
feelings from her sight.  I wanted to pull my cellular from my
purse and demand my publisher's attention then and there, to
demand that they take something from the millions of dollars they
made each year from my sales and furnish the young lady whom I
longed to have in my bed with a job and title to keep her near
me.  My hands ached as much as my eyes, the strain to keep them
both still giving me pains but the gentle soul opposite me eased
them just the same.

	"You are?" her eyes searched my face with some note of
recognition.  "I couldn't ask you to do that.  You're very nice,
but I wouldn't want you to..." she began.

	"It's no problem," I insisted, abruptly stopping her words
before she could speak them.  I feared her voice more than
anything - if she asked, I might do whatever she demanded without
pause, and if that request was to let her go it would be
crushing.  "At least let me make a couple of calls and see if I
can't get you an interview?  If you insist on it, then you can
have this paper too," I said, pushing it across the table toward
her, "but I think you'll have more luck my way."

	Grudgingly she took the paper and drew it toward her.  I could
tell by the subtle change in her expression that there, mingled
with the surprise of it all and the weight of the problems she
faced, was a glimmer of hope.  She didn't have to trust me, she
certainly didn't have to agree, but in doing so a door was opened
for her and for me and together we could step through it - each
with our own reasoning.  No, she had no clue that I wanted more
than just the chance to get to know her, but a crisis I never
wanted to face could be gently averted without ever revealing to
her the nightmare that it was to me.

       Guinevere Ross, for the first time, gave me more than just
her first name.  She gave me her name and her phone number and I
asked her to my home.  With coffee cups in hand and a paper
carried along, we walked back along the path I had taken each day
as we separated at the coffee shop.  Back past the doorman and
the people in the lobby, up through the elevator and along the
hall, I never noticed the mocking smirks, the prying eyes, or the
cheerleading heels.  For the first time they didn't exist, even
in my mind.  Instead, I could see the girl from the window at my
side, I could smell the lavender and apple of her shampoo, I
could hear the soft swishing of the skirt of her sundress, and I
could feel warmth at my side where she stood.

	I don't think I've ever fallen in love.  Certainly, I hadn't
fallen in love with a girl I didn't know.  I'd watched her and
lusted for her, yes; I'd even let my hand drift gently into my
panties on occasion to touch myself as I watched her sleeping
body in the warmth of the sunlight, I'll admit.  I had not fallen
in love, though, until the moment we passed the doorway. 
Stepping inside, I closed the door behind her and she slipped the
sandals from her feet and, with her toe, poked them until they
sat side by side just inside the doorway.  It wasn't an act that
was in any way special or outstanding, it was a nudging with the
tip of her big toe until beige-white sandals were evenly spaced
and resting there. It was a nonsensical act done playfully
without invitation in the home of a virtual stranger, a small
quirk of personality shown in actions rather than words that
acted as the feather atop the weight of a thousand others to
collapse me completely into her's.

	I invited her in while I turned to my phone.  It never for a
moment occurred to me that, as I turned along the hallway and she
politely restricted herself to the sitting room, she'd see a cold
cup of coffee there before the window where my little table with
the blue and white cloth sat with such a view of her bed and
bedroom.  I put on my best airs for her; I reached my publisher
and, knowing I could be hear quietly in the background, I told
her that I had a friend who had come upon a hard time and needed
a leg up.  She was, I described, a hard worker who barely missed
any days even when she was sick, so long as she could work from
home, and that I had known her for years and would trust her even
with my own publicity.  I had never before asked for anything but
what I was paid in my contract, never once asked to change the
amount I received from royalties, and never once been even a
minute late for a signing, but I had never once experienced being
told 'no' because of it in turn.

	By the time I hung up the phone there was a promise made to call
the girl for an interview.  I had spent the majority of the time
talking in my bedroom, the door open to let the sound of my words
travel softly down the hallway toward where she lingered.  It was
rude to invite a guest into your home and abandon them, but I had
every excuse in the world for the act.  It was for her, after
all, and it ended with a sense of completion that I imagined
might give her similar warmth in her chest to the one that I
felt.  For the ten minutes it must have taken to complete the
conversation, she had the time to see in my front room all the
things that I had left.  She'd had time to look over the stack of
printed papers filled with pink and yellow stripes - a new book I
had been working on now in the maturing stages of its life cycle,
she'd even had time to see my little table with a view.

	It's just where I found her sitting, having taken my chair and
crossed her legs below the blue and white cloth as she turned her
eyes out the window toward her own bedroom.  The white skirt
drifted high on her thigh, letting my eyes trace the line of her
leg from the knee much higher than ever I had seen before from
such small distance.  As much as I thirsted for that chance, I
pulled my eyes away from the smoothness of her skin before her
own were brought back to find me there where the hallway spilled
into the living area.

	I could tell that she didn't know what to say, but I could see
that she wasn't offended.  I hadn't asked for anything from her
or given her false pretense.  I had even gone out of my way to
step out of the voyeuristic world I lived in to offer her
kindness and coffee and, it seemed, it softened the blow of
finding my secret life as her stalker.  I walked across the floor
and slipped my shoes off to quiet their tapping before I sat down
opposite her once more.  It was a strange angle to see her there,
without dipping my head I could not just see her but smell and
sense her in every way.  I was encouraged, not defeated, by the
way she sat in a seemingly vacant state of emotion - I had
cleared away the worry and fear of being jobless in a horrible
economy, even if I had introduced something new and undefined.

	"I've been watching you," I admitted to her, taking the first
step without forcing her to speak.  "I know that may seem
strange, but I noticed you when you first moved in... and I've
been..." I let my voice trail to a murmur, unable to think of the
right words despite having spent a decade and a half steaming
consciousness into written text.  "I've been captivated.  You
lead a life I've never had... shut in up here, away from the
world, I know that you may feel violated, like I was stepping
into your privacy, but I was doing it to gain some sick thrill, I
was doing it from envy.

	"It's like the Monet print I have in the foyer.  A beautiful
sight separated from the world by glass and air.  You can't
touch, you can't sense it, you can only see it and if you're very
lucky have the chance to know the real thing," I continued,
unsure if I was digging a grave or filling a hole I had made.

	"I know," she interrupted.  For the first time I saw in her eyes
a sign, clear as the blue sky, and I safe from worry.  "I mean, I
didn't know it was you," she admitted, "but I knew someone was
watching me.  It made me feel a little nervous, a little scared,
but then I realized it wasn't like that.  I guess I just didn't
know... you were a woman. That's all that's surprising me."

	The silence that followed must have been just a touch too long
for comfort.  Time had played its game again and, to me, it
seemed like only a small pause between the words and the sound
that followed, but the ticking of the clock told the truth as
long seconds passed between the words and any reaction I might
have been having.  It's a strange relationship between perception
and time; nervousness and fear makes time dilate and feel like an
eternity but shock and pleasure make it zip by at bunny speeds,
strange combination of emotions that they may be.

	"I didn't mean to offend you," Gwen said finally, breaking the
quiet I'd left her in through my moments of defeat and shock. 
"I've never thought of a woman that way before and when I saw
this table and your coffee... then I sat down and I knew it was
you... I just felt something different.  It's uncomfortable," she
swallowed on the last word as if to take it back or change its
meaning.

	"You don't need to say anything," I replied finally, catching up
with the words coming from her lips and processing them as
quickly as I could.  "Today didn't go the way I expected it to
either," I then admitted, clearing the air from my lungs and the
thoughts that still rattled about my head.  I turned my eyes down
toward her bedroom again, looking at the unmade bed on display. 
I'd never seen it that way before that I could remember - her
last act before leaving her apartment was to pull the comforter
up and tuck it just below the pillows to prepare for the night to
come.  "I guess it hasn't gone the way you expected either," I
said with a better understanding of where she stood.

	I saw her lips part faintly as if to speak, but no sound came
before she swallowed back the words again.  "I left here early
today to see you.  I pushed myself into making a decision. I
wanted to finally talk to you and to tell you that I thought you
were beautiful," I said as I felt the blush of heat cross my
cheeks.  My chin dipped to the right, drawing my face from the
window as she looked toward me again.  She could sense my
nervousness, and if not she understood it just the same.  It made
her smile.  When she didn't speak, I continued, "I told myself
that I'd been watching for too long... that it was time to learn
more than your name... and when I didn't see you I thought I was
going to be sick... and when..." I almost continued, catching
myself in the middle of a run-on sentence and dragging it to a
halt.

	Pushing myself from the small chair, I felt the urge to flee. 
Standing there in my sitting room there was nowhere to go, and so
I stood and waited for the embarrassment to wash away.  My mouth
had wanted so badly to tell her I had fallen in love with her
when she'd taken off her shoes, no matter how fetishistic and
psychotic it had sounded in my mind.  When she stood in turn, I
had wondered if she was going to leave or if my signals had been
interpreted not as embarrassment but as a wish to see her go. 
The truth was far easier than that:  I didn't want to see her go,
I just wanted to see her.  For the first time, looking at her was
simply too difficult.

	"What were you going to ask me?" she questioned.  I could feel
the warmth of her radiating just behind me, I imagined the breath
from her words brushing softly past my shoulder and my mind once
again rewarded me with the pleasantness of dreamy thoughts.  I
took the time she gave me to think, to try and form the words
that were constantly leaping out of my grasp, but before I spoke,
I turned.

       I looked into her eyes, no longer letting my gaze be
forced away from her beautiful face.  I had spent enough time
longing to see it, wanting to be this close, and I wasn't going
to let the chance slip away.  "It was less about asking you a
question... and more about telling you the truth.  I've been
watching you for five years.  I've looked at you and learned
about you... and since the day I first ran into you in the coffee
shop I've gone down there every morning just to run into you
again.  I've listened to your voice when you were on your phone
in line; I've made small talk with you just to hear you speak. 
I've watched the sun come up and slowly pass over you until you
woke up and I've seen your arm slowly snake out from under your
covers in the winter to press the snooze button and take just a
few more minutes away from the cold," I told her, unleashing it
all in a big flood of words and thoughts strung together in no
particular order.

       "I've wanted to touch you and hold you; I've fantasized
about you and imagined what it must be like to be the one you
cared for.  I know this is all so quick and so much at once, but
hearing you say that you might have to move away made me realize
that I'm an idiot... I've waited five years for fear that you'd
say no or worse... that you'd find me repulsive because you're
straight.  Now I don't care.  I don't want you to have to move,
and I don't want anything from you but for you to stay," I
finished, finally letting my words taper off to nothing as I
stared into her eyes.  I wanted to reach out and touch her, to
take her by the hand or to cup her cheek and feel its warmth, but
she was just far enough away to make the act too deliberate and
just far enough away to be gone before my and ever reached her.

       She inhaled slowly, not taking her eyes from me as she let
my words settle in her mind.  It was those moments you read about
in books or see in movies but never think will be real.  It took
a special blend of things, I learned in that instant, for it to
happen:  You had to have a moment in time when two people
anticipated something without knowing the outcome, you had to
have an attraction that was deeper than the surface, and, most of
all, you had to have the silence and calm of a still room where
no one and nothing could distract you from the experience.

       "Would you maybe want to date first?" she asked with a
tinge of sarcasm in her voice.  The playful side of her showed
through, the one that I knew existed from the way she bounced
across her bed on particularly happy mornings to the little game
she had played with the tip of her toe and her sandals at my
door.

       "No," I smiled back, my voice as set as my mind.  I image
she knew the answer before she asked the question.  I had given
up trying to hide emotions or trying to keep my expressions
hidden away.

       I took the biggest leap I had ever taken, then.  I stepped
forward, I put my hands on hers, and wrapped my fingers between
her own, and I lifted my lips to meet her own.  It was a surprise
attack in some ways but, in others, she knew it was going to
happen if she didn't resist it.  I imagined that she had wanted
me to make the first move, that she'd wanted me to take her by
the hand and lead her down the hallway toward my bed, and maybe,
just maybe, that she'd wanted me to take that leap long before
that day.  It was a blur, a flurry of action that took me from
taking her hands and kissing her to pulling her gently over the
hardwood floors toward my bedroom.  It was a fantasy I'd had a
thousand times before, but this time it was coming true.  She
wasn't resisting, simply nervously complying and fidgeting in the
same way I had before she had even come to know the truth.

       "I've never done this," she whispered into my ear as I
held her close to me and nuzzled gently at her neck, nipping
softly at the sweet soft skin I had seen from behind the glass
for so very long.  I drew my lips back to hers, kissing her
softly to silence the words as my hands moved down to caress the
curve of her hip where it became her thigh.

       "You don't need to have done this before... you just need
to enjoy it," I told her in a single, heated breath.  I had no
interest in her experience, no thought at all for what she might
do for me or how she might touch or kiss me.  I only wanted to
have her in the ways my fantasies had drifted on those mornings
when I found my hand tucked gently between the material of my
panties and the damp flesh of my pussy.  She could lay back and
enjoy herself and nothing more; it would make my life complete
just the same.  She gasped, her body quivering for a moment
against me as I felt the heat inside her rise.  I don't know if
it was my words or my hands that drew the tingling through her,
but I knew what it meant.  Rather than find herself frightened or
disgusted by the feel of my hands taking the thing strings of her
pink panties to peel them softly away from her body, she felt the
same want that I did and recognized the passion I felt for her as
it raged inside me even stronger than before.

       Still I couldn't distract myself from the details.  As she
lay on my bed, her strawberry blonde hair spilled out around her
against the velveteen maroon sheets, I held the same small satin
panties I'd seen her pick from the drawer in my hand.  They were
soft to the touch, thin strings with a soft panel of pink satin
to cover her, embossed with lighter pink paisleys for beauty and
texture.  I held them in my hand, the strings wrapped around my
fingers as I reached forward and ran my fingertips along her
inner thigh toward the smoothly shaven mound I'd only glimpsed
from so far away; I couldn't bear parting with them even though
the reward was right in front of me.  I heard her breath hitch
again as my hand drew away from her skin and I saw small goose
flesh along her thighs, I could already sense the anticipation in
her and, for once in my life, I didn't think that this would be a
dead-end experiment that went nowhere at all.  Without any
experience or plans to have ever placed herself in that position,
my darling girl that had for so long known she was being watched
through the window was finally mine and knew all too well that it
had been a woman who had wanted her.

       I lay on the bed against her and placed my lips softly to
the elegant line of her stomach where it came to meet her hips
only to hear her breath once again break from the soft inhale and
exhale she was trying to maintain.  I turned my eyes up, looking
to her beautiful emerald gaze watching down over the slopes of
her breasts.  I smiled hoping to ease her anxiety, knowing all
the while that she was no longer scared or nervous about her
safety but instead timid and lost like a virgin all over again. 
The idea of being her first female lover - even if I wasn't her
first lover - only encouraged me and took over the lead in my
racing thoughts.

       With her satin panties clutched in one hand I moved the
other up to touch her smooth, warm inner thigh again as I dabbed
my lips against her stomach.  It was the only warning she'd get,
a building of anticipation and a clear indicator that I wasn't
willing to play or wait for what I'd craved in my dreams.  I felt
the softness of her pussy against my fingertips for the first
time and couldn't resist the chance to see the few hidden
portions of my darling girl that I'd never before glimpsed; with
a gentle pressure, I spread her folds and exposed the dampness of
her cleft.  I lay my head gently against her spread thigh and
began to toy with her with a tender grace, relishing the chance
to explore my beautiful girl not as a distant and unknowing
companion but as a willing participant in what I wanted to be a
most memorable debauchery.  I could have written a thousand pages
and never captured the tiny reactions that said so very much as
her body reacted to each motion and curious caress.

       Turning my body against hers, I pulled myself softly up
and drew my fingertips up over her clit to play softly at the
tender bud.  With my weight shifted, I rose over her and dabbed a
soft kiss down on her cheek while drawing slow circles with my
fingertips.  My words seemed like commands as they passed from my
lips in whispered tones, "Take off your dress," and yet she
complied all too easily with a wiggling of her body and a
momentary lifting of her back and shoulders from the bed's
surface to shrug the delicate dress away from her skin.  I hadn't
anticipated it, though I should have known all too well that it
was there, but her lovely full breasts were covered then by
matching pink satin alone.  Though the bra that covered her then
was the only scrap of clothing she still had to shield her, it
seemed like a cowl and gown hiding her from me and drew jealousy
from within me at the closeness of its touch and the distance it
kept between us.

       I pulled the hem of my skirt higher on my thigh and
pressed the flesh against her warm pussy as I lean over her,
drawing my hand away from her to brush a thin strip of pink from
her shoulder and chase it with a kiss along the blade.  I felt
her body shift against me, the pressure of my thigh drawing her
down to take more than I'd given as she drew her hips upward.  I
felt a new dampness forming, wanting a woman knows from her own
fingertips; it was a thing I'd felt so many times on my own.  I
lingered over her, my blouse brushing her stomach and chest, my
lips so near to hers as I held on to that moment when she had
come to me for the first time.  Her lips begged for me, supple
and parted as she gazed up, raising her hand and sliding softly
along my shoulder to draw me to her.  She knew what she wanted
even if she didn't understand, a grown woman so familiar with her
body and the touch of a man still lost to inexperience because of
another woman.

       I felt the words in her kiss.  Tasting her lips, spreading
my own to capture her warm mouth and the touch of her tongue, I
heard the unspoken pleading to go forward and relieve the torture
of the need she was feeling so deep in her stomach.  I was all
too familiar with the little monster inside her, I had no doubt
that it had left me and entered her the moment I'd pushed her
back onto the bed.  Still I couldn't halt my kisses no matter how
much she pleaded in the quiet of our passion.  I had to feel the
softness of her lips and taste the light raspberry flavor of her
lip-gloss.  I needed the warm wetness of her tongue against mine
and the feel of her nails digging into my back through the thin
material that felt ever more confining with every moment that
passed.  I could even smell the mingled scents of her body, her
shampoo, and that sweet gloss; for the first time I had known the
real smell of the woman, a fragrance as indelible as the memory
of the first day I had seen her.

       In the flurry of thoughts that skittered through me,
shooting out to every nerve in my body, I had realized that my
lovely girl had long since accepted that whoever had given her
such wonderful fantasies, whoever it was that sat in that window
watching her each morning, would be her lover one day if they
demanded it.  I understood that if I had been a man, younger or
older, she would have never hesitated to fulfill that fantasy
that had been inside her since the moment she realized his
presence.  I simply didn't care.  I had my every desire to meet
and new ones to introduce her to; it was a moot point to explore.
 Why would I begin to feel used when, breast to breast and lip to
lip was a girl who had resigned herself to allow my every whim to
be answered with the user of her body?  I wasn't being used as I
pressed my thigh tight between hers.  I was using.  Propping
myself up on my hands, the strings of her panties still wrapped
about my left, I gazed down at her and rocked softly against her
until her legs spread wider and folded at the knee to curl
upward.  My clothes began to cling to me desperately, attracted
by the steamy sweat spreading below them, but even a moment of
feeling the wetness of her pussy growing against my thigh could
not be spared to shed them.

       Lifting herself on her elbows the last of her garments was
released, the lovely bra that had been in my way was shed and
tossed aside before her hands grasped hold of my arms again and
leveraged her weight down against my thigh.  Her breasts gently
swayed when free of their binding, the fullness of them falling
just as I remembered it each morning... such a captivating sight
and so simple in their attractiveness.  Her small, pink nipples
had tightened from the cool air, the pleasure and adrenaline in
her, but she sighed not from the new sensations of soft chiffon
dragging back and forth against them but from the intensifying
arousal she felt against me.  I felt her hips shudder as I rocked
my thigh against her with more pressure than before, faster still
from the growing urge to see her cum and look into her eyes as
she did.  I wanted to see in those beautiful eyes the memories
being formed of her first female lover bringing her to orgasm
with nothing but touch and passion before she had even began to
introduce her to lovemaking in the way that she might have always
imagined a lesbian would.

       My thigh was slick from her wetness but my panties clung
to me just as wetly.  I would never have imagined it possible to
bring myself off without ever having felt a single touch against
my pussy, but as I listened to her breathing quicken and saw in
her eyes the quickly approaching release I wondered if it was
possible.  Every cell in my body felt stimulated.  I kissed her
again, needful for the taste of her lip-gloss and the caress of
her tongue in hopes that it would drive me over the edge as I
pressed into her and ground her clit against my pale skin.  The
sound of her moans against my lips, muffled by the pressure of my
mouth against hers, drove me toward the edge of control even
before I saw the flash of her eyes and felt the rippling coils
strung so tightly inside her unwind in a flood.  Oh, how I wanted
to cum as she did, I wanted so very badly to feel the ecstasy of
my walls tightening and releasing again-and-again and the
thundering waves of pleasure that would wrap around those moments
and follow them with a wash of relief, freedom, and tranquility.
I could see in her eyes, cast so wide open as to show me the
purity of their white and the definition of their stunning green,
all those things I wanted so badly in that moment.  I could feel
the quaking of her body below me and the wetness so slick against
my thigh as she continued to draw her hips upward then down
against me without a want to stop until every tiny aftershock had
passed.

       All my senses overwhelmed, having experienced the girl in
the window and felt her body in the heights of her pleasure, I
still didn't feel the slaked emotions that I had anticipated. 
She was like a drug that lasted only seconds before the next fix
was demanded and I had no will to ignore the calling.  I tasted
her lips once more, pressing my body against hers and letting her
feel the weight of me against her before my lips began to trail
softly down to caress her jaw, her neck, and her breasts.  Rising
and falling in a heated draw for air, the tremors through her
body tightened the darkened pink nipples capping her breasts
again as I captured the right with my hand and the left with my
lips.  Sampling her flesh with new senses, I felt the weight of
her against my palm and the taste of her on my tongue; she felt
soft and natural, firm but relenting and tasted only for a moment
of faintly bitter vanilla before the traces of salty dew and warm
skin took hold.  Her hands moved to follow me, her touch near
ethereal against my hair as the bashful girl who had gazed at me
so full of anxiety before returned when her imagination turned in
anticipation of the acts I was performing.  Still she was not
afraid, simply demure and unsure of a new lover so eager to have
her way.

       I moved forward, drawing the weight of her breast to my
hand until it softly bounced upward freely from my grasp. 
Dragging my nails softly down as I trailed wet kisses before
them, I covered inch after inch along her firm tummy to taste and
let her mind race with thoughts of what would be part of the
newest adventure we'd share.  Still so sensitive, I brushed her
clit with my tongue only for a moment as my lips finally arrived
at the crest of her thighs. She jolted for a moment, the
sensation pulling another gasp from her lungs before she let her
hips settle against the bed again.  Just as my fingers had
explored her, I moved my tongue against her wet pussy to draw in
the taste of her and feel the heat emanating from every pour of
her body.  Still I clutched her panties, holding them ever
tighter as I slid my arms under her thighs and drew her against
my, feeling the wetness of her skin against my cheeks and letting
it lewdly spread there without a moment of humility.  I wanted to
taste the depths of her body and know her in ways she hadn't ever
experienced; I pressed my tongue into her and, softly teasing
against her walls, I knew that she felt the faint fullness of it
and the traces of roughness like the underside of a silken cloth
within her.  She had no control of my designs on her and no way
of knowing that her scent, so wanton and heavy, pushed me once
again toward that brink.

       Taking from her the wetness of her body on my tongue,
coating her warm labia with the fluid, I knew I could spend a
very long time coming to know each small contour and tiny crease
in her skin before ever becoming appeased.  Even as my lips took
her soft petal folds and suckled softly against them each in
turn, my hand drifted down to draw up my skirt and slip almost
invisibly into the tight, humid confines of my panties.  It was
an absent act, a matter of instinct not requiring the mind to
focus or guide my digits across my own clit as I once again
nudged hers all too carefully against the tip of my tongue to
warn her of a coming storm.  My lips and tongue were smoothly
coated in the taste of her, my cheeks a mess from the wetness my
thigh had left on hers, but there was no shame in me over the
sloppiness of the act we had shared.  It made it that much more
easy to move against her, delving into her and drawing the
smoothness of that coating to her clit to encircle it with my
lips and taste her pleasure again.  My fingers captured my own,
but I moaned instead to join her in harmonic pleasure as she
arched her back and closed her thighs against my cheeks more
tightly. Her ankles hooked at the bedclothes, her hands fell away
to grip the soft comforter below her, and once again I began to
push her with a lover's touch toward the most intimate of
pleasures.

       I was becoming more familiar with the animal I'd kept pent
up inside me for so long.  She was a needy and selfish beast that
wanted to lay claim to something that didn't belong to her and
use it up in whatever way pleased her.  It was a trance I had
entered: a change of senses leading to an altered perception of
the world.  Every bit of my awareness was confined to the woman
as I tasted her body, took in her scent with each inhalation,
felt the softness of her skin and the heat of my own, heard her
breath raggedly huffed as she was carried toward her release
again, and saw over the crested peaks of her breasts the
brilliant green eyes desperately seeking me below.  My animal had
been my guide; where once I would have been a shy and gentle
lover, I became unrestrained and voracious.

       My grip on her thigh tightened, pulling her body against
my mouth as I clutched the soft pink satin between my palm and
her supple thigh.  I could feel it in myself, the flags whipping
in the hurricane as the storm approached, and every signal from
my precious girl signaled the same in return.  Leaning into her,
pressing my cheeks to her slippery inner thighs, my body jerked
upward as I came.  My fingers had become like a stranger to me,
molesting and teasing the need to drive it farther toward
insanity before setting the gate open and freeing it in a rush. 
My lover joined me in the mutuality of it all.  From the
knowledge of what she had caused or the vibration of my lips and
tongue against her as I moaned, she was brought again to the
pinnacle and pushed forcefully over.

        A moment filled with wild passions that two bodies lost
in the same sensations swept us up; a happening wherein time had
dilated and left us swirling in the ecstasy of the act.  Thoughts
and actions meant so little, morality and genteel behavior were
cast away to leave our choices raw and real.  Reflection on the
events could bring a blush or a light turning of the eyes away
from the thought, but in those moments, as it happened, there was
no need for a polished mien.  Running my tongue the length of her
pussy, I tasted her folds and the thick dew on them, breathing
deeply of her scent and drawing my hand away from myself to press
my fingers into the tight confines of her opening to feel her
constrict around my touch.  She did not resist, never flinching
against the invasion or choices I made for her, and I took my
liberties as I wanted.

       I heard her moan, her hips lifting against the pressure of
my hand as I nuzzled against the warmth of her thighs, and I knew
that my darling girl had been spent.  I treated her gently then,
like a prized possession not meant for such things as I had
already been guilty of doing.  Slipping my fingers gently from
her grasp, tracing along her thigh as I moved upward to find her
lips with my own once more, I gazed into her eyes and felt the
smooth slickness of her skin against my own again.  Shameless, I
kissed her deeply, knowing that she would not resist me no matter
the mess I had made of myself, and I lay my body over hers again
to give her the familiarity of a body's weight over her that I
imaged she craved after lovemaking.  Her arms wrapped about me,
nails dragging over my blouse, and I felt her wordless
appreciation.

       "Stay with me... today, tonight.  I want to be there when
they call you, I want to keep you at least that long," I
whispered against her ear, letting my wet lips play softly over
the soft flesh just below.  I wanted to keep her far longer but
knew I couldn't demand it.  I wanted to have her for my meals and
see her lying gently in my own bed when the sun peeked past my
curtains in the mornings but I knew I couldn't keep her forever.
Devilish, horrible thoughts that they were, I wanted to lock her
away for my own needs and keep her away from the world who could
not appreciate her.  She didn't answer, but resigned with the
warmth of a hug and nuzzled herself against my ruffled clothes. 
How could I blame her?  She hadn't planned to have sex in another
woman's bed that morning and couldn't have known that it would be
the last time she'd ever see the panties she'd worn out that day.

       She protested gently the clothing that I wore and offered
herself to me with gentle tugs at the hem of skirt, but I needed
nothing more.  Far greater than the orgasm I'd felt was the
satisfaction of having her there and volunteering to acts she'd
never before been party to prior.  With soft shushes and tender
kisses along her jaw I eased her into a soft submission,
resigning her to accept all that I had to give and demand
nothing.

	Since that day, my beautiful girl has returned to her own bed. 
Each morning I sit and watch her, though now she gazes back in
the waking hours when the light allows.  I sip my coffee and she
readies for work knowing that the kindness of a near-stranger
played a part and that I made no demands of the performance in
exchange.  My perfect Guinevere, ravished and ravishing, is no
less than a dear friend to me; evenings often are spent over the
warmth of a shared meal next the window overlooking her bed at
the small wooden table with blue and white cloth.  Lovers moments
are shared but never required, tender at times when we need and
ferocious in others when we want.

	Neither of us has ever requested more of the other.  Never a
suggestion that we be more than we are or share space more than
we already do.  There is a deeper bond than that, a line running
deeper than we can express and, yet, something still just below
the surface that makes us who we are.  Never have I asked her for
more than to be my perfect view and never again has she closed
her curtains.