Long Shadow Pt. 01

It was going to be a perfectly normal weekend.

Ebony thought she'd do what she always did - hang out at Clarissa's after work on Friday, do chores on Saturday, and get bugged to hang out again.

And, of course, spend Friday night dodging questions about her sex life...

So here she was, in Clarissa's living room, Clarissa looking at her salaciously. Clarissa's friends were here too, all of them drinking wine. Anne, Edith, and Clarissa all watched Ebony, waiting for Clarissa to make her move, to start prying.

Ebony didn't want them to know she didn't really have one.

"Personally..." Clarissa was saying, "...I'm banking on Peter Garland, have you girls met him?"

Anne was Clarissa's best friend, and she nodded her approval. As she did so, her breasts bounced lightly together.

It was distracting. Ebony looked into her wine, feeling embarrassed.

"Not bad," Anne said.

"Yeah," Edith chimed in,"and it doesn't hurt that he's the CEO's son..."

She and Anne laughed.

Ebony knew the dreaded question was coming when Clarissa smiled at her.

"What about you, Ebony?" Clarissa sipped her wine for punctuation, "are you interested in anyone?"

Ebony didn't know what to say.

She couldn't just keep lying.

Could she?

"Personally, I like a good cucumber..." Anne joked. Everyone laughed, but Ebony's laughter was only polite.

"Or at least a zucchini", Edith added.

They were laughing at Ebony, now, and she just sat there. She was trying to come up with a good lie.

One thing she'd realized, was that it was best to just give them an answer. If Ebony said there were no guys she was into, it didn't compute. Clarissa - and everyone else- would get suspicious.

They didn't know how she really felt.

She didn't think they'd understand. She didn't want to find out if they would, or not.

So, she just lied.

"uh..." she said, "well..."

The others leaned in, waiting.

"I mean...nothing's happened yet, but...you know..."

Anne raised her eyebrows.

Finally, Ebony forced a confidential grin onto her face, and said "...well you guys know I like Josh..."

"Oh haha...I guess...I mean he IS good looking", Clarissa said slowly. She looked sidelong at Anne, "...but he's not much of a provider..."

It was true. Good looking Josh was just another paper pusher, like them. Even so, bringing him up always seemed to shut down any further questions.

On some level, Ebony thought they knew it was smoke, but the truth was that Clarissa just wanted to put her down.

Josh wasn't from a wealthy family, he wasn't a threat. It didn't give them much to work with.

"He's just...so sweet", Ebony said, and made herself smile again. Her face felt wrung out. It almost hurt, like having a leg go numb from sitting on it too long.

"Besides", she added, "it's not like I need a provider, Clarissa".

Clarissa narrowed her eyes a fraction. It was time to go, before the teasing session got into gear. Ebony downed her glass.

"Anyway, guys", she said casually, " I need to head home. Lots to do tomorrow".

Ebony got up, and as she went to get her coat she let her face relax, and blew out air through her nose.

Would they ever let up? How many times could she pretend to be into Josh without talking to him?

She didn't want to think about it.

Ebony had been living alone for a long time. Her house was over an hour away by bus, but that was the way she liked it.

She lived on a cliff that overlooked a very deep lake. The only other house - on the other side of the street - was the Myer house. As far as she knew, it had been abandoned for awhile. She'd never seen a single person over there.

And she'd been looking.

Every night, when she got home, she made tea. Then she sat at her picture window, and watched, insofar as there was anything to watch, out here.

Usually, she contemplated the empty feeling of the Myer house. It called to her. The house loomed over it's yard, the walkway overgrown. Vines had begun to creep over the grass, and it's windows seemed to watch the road.

They filled her with exhilarating anxiety, as if they were watching her, too.

It made her wet.

She always sat there, drinking her tea, cultivating herself until should couldn't resist it anymore.

Tonight was no different.

She found herself turned on, began to squirm in her seat, and got up. Ebony went to her room.

Here, she could still see the house from her bedroom window. She pulled up her top, revealing fairly large breasts. Now the top squeezed them together, her nipples hard, her cleavage pulled tight and rimmed with black lace.

The truth was, she'd tried dating.

She just couldn't seem to be herself.

She opened a drawer next to her bed. Inside was a long vibrator.

She couldn't be herself, and she loved the dark. That was the part she didn't understand. She didn't think anyone would.

When she looked at the Myer house, it awakened her imagination. The urge to go in there, one night, was becoming irresistible. She fought it, but she knew that someday soon, she'd lose.

She caressed her breasts, and began to touch herself with the vibrator.

When she did go in, she'd find some cold, unlit corner of the house, and bend over a piece of furniture. She'd spread her legs, and wait for whatever was in there to find her.

She began to insert the end of the vibrator. She turned it on, and let it slip into the delicate resistance of her pussy.

Ebony quietly drew breath, opened her legs a little more. She began to work toward a climax, red flowers blooming and withering in her mind.

Something made her open her eyes.

When she looked at the Myer house again, she froze.

There was a light on, over there.

Ebony sat up, and whispered "fuck..."

She went to her bedroom window.

There was a silhouette of a woman, in the window of the Myer house, and Ebony drew her curtains.

The next morning, she woke up in bed, her breasts still exposed. Sun crept in through the curtains, cutting a strip of sunlight across her ribs. She was still wet, breasts perky in the cool air.

She got up, and went to the shower, feeling sticky, spicy in her nakedness. Ebony washed the previous night away, breathing deeply, enjoying the clean scent of the soap. As she showered, the way the ivy crawled across the Myer house's lawn seemed to pulse in her mind, insistent.

She began to play with her nipples, and soon her hands found their way to her clit.

After the shower, she dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, and went to make tea. Saturday morning was Ebony's favorite time of the week, and she felt calm, nothing like she had before she'd arrived home, last night.

She was just lowering a tea bag into a cup of hot water, looking out the window and relishing the smell of the tea, when she saw her.

A woman was in the yard across the street, raking leaves.

Ebony was entranced, and she watched her as the tea steeped. Someone was really over there, it hadn't been her imagination.

She'd imagined people over there a handful of times, people who'd really only been tricks of the light. It usually happened when she was gardening, and far from evoking her lust, those times had only creeped her out.

This woman was real.

Maybe she should've just let her be.

Maybe, if she'd known what was really going on, she would have.

Ebony took her tea outside, and crossed the road for the first time since she'd lived there. The morning sun was warm on her face. A few wet leaves clung to the pavement, drying.

She approached the picket fence in front of the Myer house as the woman worked. The woman didn't seem to notice her at first. Then she looked up, and Ebony was struck by the nervous look in her eyes. It was as if she'd been caught doing something very bad.

Looking over the fence, Ebony noticed there really weren't a lot of leaves to rake.

"Hi..." Ebony said as she waved, and the woman smiled weakly. She had the rake in front of her, almost defensive, and looked Ebony over as she came closer.

Ebony stopped at the fence.

"I'm your neighbour..." Ebony explained after a brief silence. The woman lowered the rake a little.

Her face relaxed, though it had a tight, strained quality that remained. Ebony suddenly felt an urge to comfort her, but she didn't.

"...I see..." The woman finally said, though she didn't seem to see at all. She seemed distracted.

"I just came over to introduced myself..." Ebony added.

Reality seemed to dawn on the woman, then. She seemed to force her face into a smile.

"Well," she said, "nice to meet you..."

Up close, Ebony couldn't discern if the woman was attractive or not. She was pear-shaped, heavy bottomed, and her hair was long and dark. Even if she'd been fat, Ebony thought, she'd have been pretty.

Her eyes were pretty.

Up close, Ebony saw that she had lovely, diamond earings - hoops with the stones embedded on their lower half.

Her nails, too, were pleasing to look at. They were manicured. The morning sun quivered on their gloss, and her earings caught the light. Ebony looked back at the woman's eyes. The woman was watching her with interest.

Then, she glanced back at the house.

"...is it just you here?" Ebony asked, following her gaze.

"Oh...yes," The woman said, "just me..."

She was pretty, Ebony decided, but she hunched a little.

And she looked...terrified.

"Well," The woman said, glancing quickly back at Ebony, and then away, "I'd better finish before it gets too hot..."

She began to rake the sparse leaves on the lawn again.

"My name's Ebony", Ebony said, though she felt awkward now. She was glad the woman didn't seem to want to talk.

It was eerie, over here.

This woman almost seemed to be waiting for something.

Ebony looked at the house, over the woman's shoulder. There was nothing remarkable about it. The lights were off.

Still, she felt like the woman was lying, about being alone.

"Well..." Ebony said, "If - "

"I really need to get back to work", the woman said, cutting her off.

"Right..." Ebony backed up a little, and added "Sorry..."

She hurried back to her house, uncomfortable now. She found, as she began her Saturday morning clean, that she avoided the windows.