4.
 Then the Comptons moved in next door. Marie Compton had dark, dark red hair the color of forest honey. The Comptons were somewhat androgynous, from Steve's slim hips and pale face to her almost boyish cheek contours and strong hands. Hers was not the Mediterranean face with its smooth, curvy lines; rather, a (when you looked close, freckled) more angular beauty, graceful by its strength rather than its curves. But the inner light was the same Laurie-like, soft incandescence through patina'd skin. Marie's eyes were filled with challenge and humor and compassion. "Hello Charlie, nice to meet you," she returned his greeting as they met the first day, thirty feet apart at their respective mailboxes. She had a heavy white bandage around her left forearm, wrist, and hand. When he saw Marie, Charlie's mouth went dry (am I a teenager still?) and he felt a pang in his gut. She was already turning away, leggy and hurried, but called out: "Come over for tea anytime!" and the spark in her gaze told him she knew she did this to men (and how did she then deflect them? he wondered).
That afternoon, Charlie purchased a strong, compact telescope on a tripod that could be quickly carried from one room to the next. He spent the afternoon calibrating optimum lines of vision between their houses. He came up with: Their kitchen, his pantry; their living room, his mid-stair porthole; their downstairs shower, his upstairs bathroom; their upstairs bedroom, his upstairs bedroom. That night, he began his observations, feeling somewhat like Tycho Brahe, making star catalogs in a long robe. I should have a magician's cap, he thought, bent over the brass eyepiece, watching Marie walk up their front porch with a bag of groceries. Her rear swayed in blue jean miniskirt above long slim legs. Did she cast a glance, a hint of white smile, in Charlie's direction? He blanched, remembering Laurie's loathing. He looked again; no that was a faint, bemused smile Marie had.
Consulting-work volume was heavy. Charlie kept at it, knowing he must be at the telescope during the hours when Marie was home. He got to know the sound of her car, the time of her arrival, her manners and her habits. It was like that when you secretly watched people; you fell in love with them; you became a part of their life without their necessarily knowing it, though with this Marie he wondered if she might not know she was being watched.
At first he thought they might be brother and sister, so much alike did they seem in a way he could not quite figure out. But when he watched them in the kitchen, saw his hand press against her buttock, saw her arms (hands holding a paring knife, a potato) encircle his head; when he saw him mounting her from behind on their bed; he knew they must be husband and wife. Perhaps they only resembled each other in a superficial manner, the way the Celts were often red-haired, or the Friesians blond. Did Charlie see something else while Steve was piling her from behind? Her face? stunned with pleasure? resting in the crook of her elbow? Her eyes, glittering directly toward Charlie?
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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