There are about fifteen of us swarming the grounds of Mrs. Jackson's little house. Two weeks ago at work, Ellen and Chantal mentioned that some people from their church were volunteering to do some much-needed work for this elderly lady whose property is in disrepair, and a few of us from the office were half-challenged, half-encouraged to join. None of the others who signed up are from my department or even my side of the building, so I don't know anyone other than Chantal more than just with a passing familiarity. Maybe that's why I decided to come. It's not that I dislike any of them, but I guess I'm not the kind of person who wants to spend even more time around people with whom I spend my working days.
"Hey, buddy, would you hold it flush so I can tack it in?"
My attention is diverted back to my little corner under the back porch. I've told Roy three times that my name is Sebastian, but he keeps calling me Buddy. I don't really mind, since I don't really have any expectations for making new friends today.
I'm on the ladder installing a piece of corner trim over the siding he and I have just replaced, while his large belly and shaky knees are keeping him on the ground with the nail gun. He knows what he's doing well enough – it's just that I need to do the hauling and climbing.
I have stayed in decent shape as I've gotten older, half proud but half fortunate to still be able-bodied enough to be a competent contributor to projects like this. Though it's getting quite warm these days, late April is about the last opportunity I'll have to “enjoy” the outdoors before the melt-your-face-off summer Georgia heat returns. I've decided to treat today like recreation, getting some exercise early since I know I'll be sitting on my butt watching the World Champion Atlanta Braves this evening.
“Or would you rather be on the landscape crew?” Roy snickers.
Busted. Yes, I've been watching my coworker Estefania again, and Roy knows it. Since she started as a bilingual support rep (I have heard mention of her being from somewhere in South America) in the call center a few months ago, she and I have only exchanged pleasantries when running into each other in the kitchen or break room. Her few words are confident and personable, and she is fairly attractive, apparently in shape even though she doesn't typically dress to call attention to her body.
Today, though, she sure does have my attention, She has seemed like a natural since first thing this morning, having done some pretty hard work of digging out rotten, overgrown wooden borders that had once served to separate grass from hedges. She handled the removal of rows of landscaping bricks like a pro, as well as a few pieces of rusty metal junk that presumably were stylish yard art back in Mrs. Jackson's younger years. Estefania is dressed the part, in old jeans and heavy well-used work boots. Her thick denim shirt seems like overkill for working in the warm sun, but that and her heavy, worn leather work gloves were surely intentional protection for her limbs and torso when she dug into the scraggly bushes earlier.
I do love my morning coffee, but she is obsessed with whatever she's drinking. I recognize her colorful little cup and straw as probably the same one I've seen her use at work, and she has a large thermos she's used to refill it more than once.
Between pops of the nail gun, readjustments of the ladder's position, and being handed more trim pieces, I admire Estefania's strong, fit form, brown skin of her face and neck glistening with a sheen of sweat that the late-morning sun is drawing out of her. I bet she has nice abs, but that damn shirt is in the way. I catch myself wishing that she was wearing tiny shorts and a halter top, but the more I think about it, being adept at her task is somehow sexier than showing a lot of skin.
I also admire the way she works with her crew, not letting the other girls slow her down while she tries to teach them. Two teenage girls were assigned to her project, but they certainly would like to be working on their tans rather than on Mrs. Jackson's yard. Their tennis shoes and short shorts and big tee shirts and cotton gardening gloves aren't what are required for shovel and dry brushwork, but Estefania helps them where she can and tries to keep them engaged. And she's frankly holding her own with the guy on the Bushes Project, too – a guy maybe in his late fifties who's evidently kept up with himself, I imagine after having been an athlete or military guy when he was younger.
After another pour from her thermos and sucking her drink down, Estefania gets back to the fence and bushes. She argues with and pulls at the bushes for a bit, laughing with one of the girls about clearing the stuff out, then marches determinedly out of the backyard toward the front of the house.
“Hi, Estefania,” I call down to her as she's about to pass me.
“Oh, hello, Sebastián.” I pronounce my name with three syllables, the emphasis on the second, but I find myself almost seduced by the way her accent seems to correct it: four syllables with the emphasis on the last. “That looks very nice,” she adds, addressing both me and Roy as she shields her eyes and squints up at our handiwork.
“Aw, thanks,” I reply. My stomach has that weird feeling, like back in high school when the pretty girl in class actually acknowledged my existence in the lunchroom. “Those bushes are putting up a fight, I see.”
“But I will win.” She is no longer smiling, her countenance revealing the plans she has to vanquish them. “I promise.” As she continues toward the front of the house, I suppress my desire to steal a glance, not wanting Roy or anyone else to catch my head swiveling to her ass, which I just know would be a pleasant sight from this angle.
Something is damn hot about the scene when Estefania returns. I only see her from the back, her left hand holding her denim shirt and her right hand holding a long machete. She takes a long look at the bushes, feet set apart, hips filling out her jeans nicely. I was right about that ass. Her white tank top revealing toned brown arms and shoulders, she casts her denim shirt aside next to a shovel and stretches side to side, sizing up her nemesis.
The brush growing through the chain-link fence stands no chance against Estefania and her machete. Bushes and weeds and vines have been growing unkempt for years, perhaps decades, but today is the last day the unsightly mess will obscure the view into the pleasant wooded area beyond. Hack after hack, brown, dried, gnarled stems intertwined with snaking green leafy vines fall away, cast aside into piles for disposal. Estefania's thick, shiny, dark hair, secured behind her neck with a simple tie, bounces against her back and shoulders with each swing of her arm.
My trim pieces are fully attached now, so I climb down from the ladder, taking my sweet time gathering tools and scrap pieces and inspecting our work while I watch Estefania. In a few minutes, the ugly brush is mostly gone, and she encourages one of the younger girls to have a go at the rest. The girl, inspired by her impromptu mentor, takes some much tamer two-handed swings with the machete while Estefania acquires some trash bags and gets back to digging.
Estefania's “fairly attractive” look has received a deserved upgrade to “kind of fucking hot” over the past twenty minutes Although her ass looks nice in those jeans, she's quite a sight above the waist as well. Her tank top displays an alluring neckline, toned shoulders and biceps, and an athletic core. I catch myself wishing I could see her nipples, but the contours of her firm, jutting, slightly wobbling breasts are plenty enticing.
Before long, just after noon, the group breaks for lunch. Some people have to leave (or, say they do), so the crowd is thinned out, leaving most of us who know what we're doing to finish up in the afternoon. Estefania is sitting propped up against the fence on the side of the house in a small shaded patch, so of course, I approach and ask to join her.
“Please, sure.” She smiles, moving her bag and scooting over a bit so I can share her shade.
“You didn't know they'd be providing lunch either, I see?” She's eating some kind of golden brown pastry, not one of the sandwiches the organizers have supplied. I have crackers and cheese for my main course but did grab a napkin full of baby carrots instead of a bag of potato chips most of the others went for.
“No – and look at you eating all healthy too,” she smiles.
“What do you have?”
“Empanadas.” She allows me a peek inside.
“Ground beef?”
“Yes, and onion, potato, spices.”
“I appreciate them providing lunch and all. Glad for the carrots in addition to the chips.”
“Well, this is fried, I would not say not really healthy. Maybe I should have brought carrots, too.”
“Trade?” I eye at least two more empanadas peeking out from a napkin beside her. “A bite of empanada for some carrots?”
So that gets us chatting a little about food and fitness and such during our lunch, moving quickly to the basic get-to-know-you kind of conversation. We agree with each other that the cooler of water was a better choice than soft drinks.
“But I do have to have my morning coffee,” I admit. “And you, whatever you were drinking this morning.”
She uses a word that sounds like MAH-tay.
“Yes, my mate,” she smiles. “Traditional drink in Argentina.”
“Oh, you're from Argentina? Very nice. Mate is like tea?”
“No, not really.” She explains the process of soaking the ground leaves and adding hot water several times for several drinks, traditionally in social situations with certain etiquette involving a cebador who pours and passes it around to everyone who drinks from the same straw called a bombilla. “But we also carry around our own during the day many times.”
“I see you at work with it. Now I know, I'll tell myself, 'there's Estefania with her mate.'”
“My friends call me Estefi.”
“Oh, can I be a friend? Estefi is shorter. Es-te-fa-ni-a, five syllables, is a mouthful.” As soon as I say mouthful, my mind goes to perverted places, and I hope she either doesn't catch it or is on board with it.
“Oh, but I make my lazy friends call me Estefania Guadalupe Yesenia Marisol.” She and I both laugh.
“It's interesting, seeing people outside of work, isn't it?” Yes, I'm leading. I admit: I am trying to find out if there could be an opportunity to see more of her outside of work. Well, I mean “see her more,” not “see more of her.” Ha! Who am I kidding? By now, I'd definitely like to see more of her!
“Yes, you are right. For example, I did not think to see you climbing a ladder, pulling wood off, replacing it.”
“See, I'm not lazy. So I get to call you Estefi, right?”
“I think you can, yes,” she laughs. “Have you done this kind of work before?”
“A little bit. Some siding on my house, actually. And a fence, more than once, the fence posts and everything. I mow my yard instead of paying someone else. Lots of painting, things like that.” I seized the opportunity to compliment her. “And something tells me, today isn't the first day you have used a machete.”
“Ha, well, no, I have cut many bushes before.”
“And digging out the plants, and those bricks. You sure looked like you knew what you were doing. Dressing for it too – not just to be out in the sun, but for real work.”
“Some practice, yes.” She mentions that she grew up in the Northern part of Argentina, away from the big cities, always preferring to work outside with father and her two brothers instead of staying inside. “No one told me I had to stay inside, cooking, cleaning. Many girls are told that but my family was better, I think. And my mother had help from my sisters and I think she liked to see me doing activities, and work because I was happy.”
I wish I could stay and talk for longer, but we're finished and need to get back to work. I imagine what it would be like for Estefi and me to massage each other's tired muscles later that evening, removing clothing piece by piece. Our eye contact and lightheartedness tell me that she is comfortable with me, and I start making plans to try to find out just how comfortable, to figure out how to engage her in more conversation some other time.
Back in her long-sleeve shirt, she's hacking steadily between the bushes and fence while the guy helping her digs at the roots. She vaults the fence at one point and chops away on the other side, freeing the mess. The other two girls are gone, presumably having left at lunchtime, and honestly, I'm jealous of the guy because I'd really like to be working with Estefania. But I don't want to be too creepy, so I keep to my own stuff, helping Roy rebuild some of the porch. Someone ripped off all of the plywood while we were doing the siding earlier, so it's set for us to spend a couple of hours bolting on three new two-by-six frame pieces to replace the rotten ones and then cutting and screwing in new decking.
By mid-afternoon, the bushes are gone, and the chain link fence is free of all that unsightly vegetation. Gone also is Estefania's heavy shirt, revealing her fit, strong shoulders and arms shoveling away as she and her partner install a new timber border.
When the work is finished for the day and the yard is all cleaned up, Mrs. Jackson is beaming, thanking everyone, heaping praise upon all of us who took the time to help her out. Her lemonade is almost better than any payment – I have to stop myself after one tall glass. Sure, there is the satisfaction of a job well done, but the best thing about the day is that I have gotten to know and talk to Estefania a little bit, which I fantasize about leading to more conversations, and more than conversations, in the future.
Speaking of Estefania, she's a bit downcast now for some reason, looking at and tapping at her phone in an annoyed manner, messing with stuff in her bag. Of the few Spanish words I know, puta is not one of the good ones, and she's used it twice.
“It's been a good day,” I tell her cheerily, as Chantal and Mrs. Jackson are thanking her for clearing out that brush and her other landscaping prowess. “We'd have to come back and finish tomorrow if it wasn't for you,” I joked.
“Heh, thank you. I am glad to help.”
“And we're glad to have your machete! Clipping all of that with clippers or something would have been a nightmare.”
“Siempre pasa,” she mutters to her phone. “¿Cuándo no? Well, now my nightmare is driving three hours.” She was clearly upset.
“What do you mean? Where are you going?”
“My sister's. Later tonight I think, now. She lives almost to Athens. I was going to go directly from here, but she is coming back from a trip and messaged me saying she's delayed and it will be later.”
“Oh, so you need to go home in the meantime? Where do you live?”
“In Palmetto, so it takes like almost two hours from my place to hers.”
“Oh, no.” We're in Lawrenceville now, completely on the opposite side of Atlanta, so I do a quick estimate. “Wow, so you live like, what, an hour in the other direction?”
“Maybe one hour, yes. So I go all the way home, then all the way back. Ugh!”
“You could tell her it will have to be another day. That's way too much time driving – she would understand, right?”
“It's the only time I can see her and other family for a while. Besides, I am staying with her tonight, and then going home after asado tomorrow. It will be okay.” The other two ladies have left the conversation, so it's just me and Estefi now. Though I don't mind being the one to try to offer some comfort.
“You have a change of clothes, I assume?” I'm formulating a plan.
“Sure, yes.”
“Okay, well, I hope this doesn't sound too forward, but, you are welcome to come to my place for a bit. I only live fifteen minutes from here, maybe ten.”
“So I could just go to my sister's from there?”
“Yes, so you don't have to drive an extra two hours or more. You can get cleaned up and rest awhile, then leave when you're ready?”
“You would do that for me? Well, maybe.”
“I don't have lemonade like Mrs. Jackson.” She laughs and looks down, contemplating. “Or mate,” I laughed. “But I'm sure I have some tea. Maybe a beer or two.”
“Well, that would help me out, very much.”
“A beer or two?” I laugh.
She laughs in response. “No, resting at your place. A beer or two would probably not be a good idea. I might get... what is it, 'tipsy'?”
“Ah, not good for the drive, right. Maybe some tea, then.”
“For the drive?” She really is making me think that the 'tipsy' comment was meant to reference being alone with me, nothing to do with risking a DUI. Something in her smiling eye contact is flirtatious, I'm sure of it. I'm even more sure when she agrees with my offer. “Okay. If you are offering, I can rest awhile at your place until I have to go.”
So it's settled. We trade phone numbers just in case we get separated on the drive (that's the way I posed it, at least!), and say our goodbyes to the grateful Mrs. Jackson and Chantal and two more who are left. Estefi follows me to my house in her little white Nissan that surely doesn't need an extra hundred miles on it. I can't believe my good fortune, intermittently suppressing and actively feeding my desire to ravage my exciting Argentine coworker. I'm not going to make a fool out of myself if I can help it or cross any lines without being careful, but my dick stiffens at least twice on the drive as I play over and over in my head scenarios where talking and flirting lead to jumping each other and rolling around naked in bed.
When I get out of my car after backing into my garage, Estefania already has her bag, a different bag than the one that contained her lunch and stuff at the worksite. It suits her perfectly – a worn, plain canvas duffel bag slung over her shoulder in an “I got this” kind of way, so I figure it may even be an insult to offer to carry it for her. But I do open the door for her to let her in the house, of course admiring her ass as she passes through the doorway in front of me.
There's more to admire as she drops her bag and bends to untie her boot laces. I try not to ogle her, but am sure looking her over, as her mass of shiny wavy black hair, released from the tie that held it earlier, sways over her toned brown shoulders and arms.
“Oh, you don't have to take your shoes off, it's okay,” I tell her.
“I tried to get the mud off, but there is still some. No problem, it feels good to get out of them.” She stands, stretches in her socks, and then rocks back on her heels and wiggles her toes.
There's much more I'd like her to get out of, but I'm going to try to play it cool and hope for that to happen eventually, reminding myself not to act like a fool. Besides, she may have a hunting knife in her bag ready to defend herself against unwelcome advances. “Whatever you need to do, make yourself at home for the next little while. Rest, take a shower, whatever. Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you. I just drank my whole bottle of water on the way over. I think a shower. But I just may fall asleep if I sit down!”
I don't offer her the guest bath, but rather lead her straight to the master bedroom. Not the tidiest it's ever been, but at least there isn't anything embarrassing lying about. “Well, I'll leave you to it – you can get cleaned up first. I'll be out in the kitchen or living room.”
“Oh, such a gentleman. Thank you.”
“Please, just don't fall asleep in here! Come get me when you're done so I know it's my turn.”
“Ha ha. I won't.” She smiles and lets out a laugh. “I mean, I will. I will not fall asleep. I will come get you.”
With that, she closes the bathroom door and I retreat to the kitchen. I think of the typical scene in the erotic movies where the woman leaves the door open while she's bathing or changing, half wishing that would happen with us, but am content knowing she is accepting my hospitality and hoping things are on track for something more.
After checking on what there is to eat and drink and returning some messages on my phone, I sit at the kitchen table, my mind wandering. I'm getting quite a boner thinking about Estefania naked in my shower just three rooms away, her hands gliding over her bare, wet skin, and imagine what it would be like to walk in there and have her welcome me in with her.
It doesn't take her long to shower and dress. I didn't figure her for the high-maintenance type, and not surprisingly, she appears within just a few minutes, head sideways to dig a towel into her wet hair, dressed in a smallish yellow tee-shirt that rides up to almost expose her midriff when her arms are raised. I swear those subtle swells at the center of her breasts are her nipples – is she not wearing a bra? Her navy blue shorts certainly aren't tight and aren't particularly short, but it is exciting to see her bare legs from about mid-thigh down. They're everything I would have expected: the same smooth, brown texture and color of her arms, lean and toned without being overly muscular.
“I found a towel in the closet,” she said. “Is this okay?”
“Oh, yes, sorry. I guess if I was a better host I would have shown you where they were.”
“No problem. Not difficult to find. I am smart like this.” We both had a little laugh.
“Okay, my turn. Make yourself at home. I would show you what's in the refrigerator and pantry if you want a drink or a snack... but, you're smart, right?”
“I am! So if you take too long, I may go looking.”
I retreat to the bathroom, grabbing a pair of shorts, boxers, and a polo shirt along the way. I leave the bedroom door open, closing myself in the bathroom even though I admit thoughts about the cheeky leave-it-open scenario run through my head. Once I have my clothes off, I open the shower door and am greeted with a pleasant scent. Not overpoweringly girly, but as I turn the water on, I breathe deeply a few times, taking in the subtle feminine fragrance of whatever soap or body wash or shampoo my alluring guest has just left behind. Along with the products she's left neatly on a hand towel on the counter is a purple toothbrush, which prompts me to brush my own teeth. I don't expect any intimate contact, but I want to do everything I can not to be a turn-off.
