Of Cold Dark October Nights
I sit up late most nights — even if I weren’t working, writing, or otherwise wrestling with my muse, insomnia would make it so. This time of year I can still be found sitting on my front porch… most often smoking an illicit cigarette. (Hold the health lectures, or we’ll all miss the story…)
***
The sky was grey all day and the misty rain, which was nothing more than the texture of fog really, had dampened everything, including the swing on the front porch. So my feet, sans both socks and slippers, still felt cool even if they were tucked beneath my bottom as I sat sort of side-saddle, leaning my left elbow on the arm of the swing. I contemplated the need for socks, and indeed the impending need for warmer dress in general, but as I sat in a nightie and a pair of panties beneath a dressing gown on my porch facing the public street, I was aware that appropriate attire was not — has never been — my forte.
In fact, I have sat there wearing even less on many occasions. Fortified by the darkness of night, my quiet neighborhood (where most lights go out after the ten o’clock news and the rest after Leno) presents no barrier to my own personal dress and comfort. Even if anyone were about, I couldn’t be an affront to the sensibilities of others on a dark night such as this. And it was a very dark night indeed. The formerly hiding sun had left completely, and the moon, either in its quiet phase or hidden by clouds, had seemed to have forsaken us as well.
The rain now came down in swift sharp cold needles, but the wind was gentle and the overhang of the porch shielded me as it was supposed to do. Still, it was a gloomy night and the cold crept inside my heavy dressing gown rousing my nipples, making them stand firmly against the sheer white cotton gown beneath it. I knew it was just temperate response, but such awake nipples awoke other things, other desires…
I began to ponder the possibilities of stripping off my warm dressing gown and stepping off the porch into the cold rain. I imagined how the drops would splinter as they hit, creating larger, broader water-spots on the nightie — and how those drops which hit my bare skin would sting. The stinging-clinging wet-cold would make my skin tingle all over in goose-flesh as tight as the puckered tips of my breasts. The more I thought about it, the more I desired to feel awake and alive, pelted with icy rain on a cool October night until my nightie was as saturated and sheer as the crotch of my panties were becoming. I would dance as I stroked and caressed myself to pleasure –
Then I heard the soft jingle of a dog’s collar.
My neighbor from the quaint 1920′s apartment building across the street was taking his last constitutional of the night. Before I turned to look I already knew what I would find, a stout and sturdy male form hunched inside a slicker, his face obscured by the slicker’s hood and the downcast turn of his head, all of which emphasized the slightly forward bend of his torso. The carriage of his body made one think he was in a hurry, or struggling to keep up with the little black dogs which pulled at the end of the leash he held — or even, on a night such as this, a posture to protect himself from the rain — but this was his appearance no matter what the weather, the occasion; with or without his little dogs out to do their business.
I turned to look, not so much because he and I were friends — in fact, I didn’t even know his name. But his two little Scottie dogs were always so jaunty, impervious to weather, the stride of their master, and in fact, they walked with such eager purpose that they were not deterred when a rabbit would charge from the underbrush along the sidewalk to zig and zag in a direction opposite of theirs. They just stopped, jerked their heads and somehow, no matter how unseemingly impossible, pointed their ears a bit more, as if to say, “Well, now, where’s the fire?” or even “How rude!” before regaining stride and once again continuing their important purpose, which was, apparently, far more than just to pee and/or poo. No, they had to walk their master. A duty they took quite seriously, and I can see why. This man has an exact schedule. One I could likely set my watch by, if I were so inclined as to give a damn about watches and clocks.
I do not mean to exaggerate the vigor and importance of these dogs, but they are truly magnificent little dogs. The first time I saw them energetically bounding down the apartment stairs I had thought they were pups. Then upon seeing their near stoic reaction to bounding bunnies I thought them to be very obedient two or three years old dogs. But once, once, when the man and his two matching and prancing doggies had walked down my side of the street, I pounced from my porch perch to squeal and fawn upon them and I asked my neighbor their names (Coal and Buttons) and in the course of that brief and somewhat awkward discussion, he divulged to me that the dogs were over 10 years old. Startled, I remarked how young they seemed and he proceeded to tell me that no, they were quite old and that Coal was even rather sick with some sort of stomach trouble.
The pair of dogs sniffed me, their ears forward; then licked me, with their ears back and tails wagging, all smiles and happy quivers. Despite their purposeful single-mindedness, which made them seem rather detached, they were quite affectionate little fur-babies. But clearly the man was less comfortable with the visit than they. Once the conversation moved past the proud pet-owner chat he tapped his watch & cleared his throat then backed away and, nodding his head in lieu of a spoken goodbye, off they went on their appointed rounds.
The contrast between the eager and happy little dogs I had petted and cooed over and the more aloof canines who normally paraded before the quiet man had me thinking that there was more to this man across the street than met the eye. He was not just a quiet, punctual man with an odd gait; he was a caring man who enjoyed his companionship with his devoted dogs — and even liked to talk about them, briefly. And that was intriguing… But since that day he has changed his walking route, and they have not walked, neither up nor down, my side of the street.
I turned to see the little dogs, hoping that they’d perhaps be breaking the newer habit (if not rule) of avoiding me, and that perhaps I could cuddle with them a bit, easing the loneliness of my husband who was on yet another extended business trip. I turned and was surprised, yes, but not delighted. For at the end of the leash, a leash which used to clip onto two collars for the two dogs, there was only one collar — one dog. Coal must have become even more ill and passed away.
I wanted to speak, but sorrow is not the easiest emotion to express under the closest of circumstances, and what comfort could I provide a man who I clearly discomforted so much that he avoided me? I was too afraid to call out his loss in the dark and cold night.
Perhaps no one else saw the raw loneliness stamped upon this man and his dog, but the master was clearly more hunkered inside his slicker and the dog’s ears not as pointed as they climbed the stairs to enter the apartment building. Both seemed more weary, their outlook bleary.
I should have returned inside. Perhaps to cry for a moment, if not for Coal than for the male companions, his family, he’d left behind. Or maybe just to warm my cold feet along with my saddened heart… But I didn’t.
I sat on that swing, lit another cig, and I watched through the apartment door as his silhouette form ascended the stairs — and once he disappeared from there I watched for him to reappear in the second story staircase windows. Inhaling deeply a divine drag of menthol flavored nicotine, I waited for him to enter his second floor apartment, turn the lights on, and putter by the door, presumably to release Buttons and hang both his slicker and the leash near the door. He did all of this as he normally did. And I watched more alertly than ever before.
His form appeared at the window, looking out I thought. Perhaps I just fancied our eyes met — surely he couldn’t see me sitting on the dark porch in a dark dressing gown. But neither of us moved. Or I should say neither of us visibly moved. My cunt pulled with an all-too-familiar ache. The ache of loneliness and the command of lust. I needed to feel alive, as alive as I would have if I had indeed stood in my nightie and danced myself to orgasm in the rain…
I could have returned inside and masturbated away the hunger. I should have, heaven knows. But I hungered for the heat of skin, of flesh, of being touched. I didn’t want to feel alone. Wouldn’t he feel the same way?
I wondered if I were to remove my dark dressing gown if he would see at least the faint glow of my white night gown through this grey gloom of a night… Perhaps he would. Better still if I were to remove it and walk, in the rain, to stand beneath the street light and dance. Just two houses down and on my side of the street, illuminated thus, he was sure to see me there. If he was — and would remain — looking out the window. But even if he saw me, wanted me, would he do anything about it?
Maybe I should be bold; cross the street, knock on his door and feign that I’d locked myself out — even the most shy of persons would be kind enough to let a wet stray in. Once there, I could, under the guise of seeking physical comfort, ease his emotional discomfort. A pat on a sofa cushion, a smile, a hand on his thigh… a snuggle for warmth… let my hand slide a little further up…
But if I danced beneath the light first, my flimsy cotton nightie soaked and clinging to my body, perhaps I could coax a nice warm shower out of him… and him to join me in it. There beneath the warm spray of the shower head I could expect another even warmer spray to ease the coldness of our individual isolations. And the water would swirl our anguish and even our shame down the drain along with his spent seed which had dripped from my satisfied slit…
How, oh how, should I seduce my neighbor?
(More erotic wet photos here.)