My Neighbor And Me, Part I

They say life is full of surprises. Needless to say, I got the biggest surprise of my life back in high school. During those years, I was both quarterback and captain of our high school football team. I had girls practically crawling all over me to the point of where my parents told me to stop having so many of them phoning me at night. I was a youthful 5’10, 145 lb. light brown hair and hazel eyes. Often my friends and I would take girls up to our well know lovers-lane where smooching and sex were always the order of the night usually after dinner and a movie. 

I grew up in a cul-de-sac in an upper-middle class neighborhood. Given it was just me and my younger sister, my parents always gave me the chore of mowing the lawn. I always wore gym shorts and a T-shirt which was cut right below the sleeves so that it just covered my upper chest and nipples wherever I did my chores. I liked having my flesh exposed from just below my chest down to my shorts. It was kind of a fetish of mine, plus it kind of made me feel sexy inside. Normally I wore a jock strap because it wasn’t as restrictive as underwear.

Late one Saturday afternoon, I was cutting the grass in our front yard. Suddenly the mower just stopped. At first, I thought it was just the spark plug that had burned out because this happened every so often. I went into the garage and grabbed a new one along with a pair of pliers. When I walked back into the front yard, I noticed our neighbor, who lived four doors across the way, had just begun to wash his mint condition-- cherry red 1965 GTO. 

Several years back, he moved into the house, but pretty much kept to himself. I didn’t even know his name, but I knew he wasn’t married cause I never saw his wife or children for that fact. From time to time I would wave at him or he would wave at me when I saw him out in driveway working on his GTO or mowing his lawn . He looked to be probably in his late 30’s or early 40’s from a distance . He wasn’t obese, but in the least, he was pleasantly plump and balding in both the front and back portion of his scalp. He always wore blue jeans and went shirtless whenever he worked on his car or mowed his lawn. Even though we never met formally, I could feel a distant kind of supernatural chemistry we shared for another--almost like we knew one another from a different life. 

When I changed out the spark plug, I thought the lawn mower would start right back up like it normally did. But the mower was as dead as a doornail. Needles to say, I spent the better part of 45 minutes trying to get the damn thing to start. Buy now I was hot, sweaty and frustrated unable to get it to kick over. 

I could sense my neighbor could see my frustration as if I were calling out to him for help . Sure enough, I was right. No sooner had he put the final drying touches on his car when he yelled over and said, “ Having problems getting that thing started?”

I looked around and yelled back, “ Yea--I don’t know what is wrong with it--it’s never done this to me before.”

He looked across the cul-se-sac at me and my broken mower for a few moments and said, “ Bring it on over here , and let’s take a look at it.”

I gladly accepted his offer. I had tried everything and was just about to give up anyway. As I rolled the mower across the cul-de- sac over to his driveway, he got into his GTO and drove it into his garage. When I rolled the mower up to the curb in front of his driveway, he said, “Bring it up into the garage, and let’s have a look.”

He had a nice size three car garage, but only parked two cars in it--his GTO and a Honda coupe. With the balance of the garage, he had built a full blown work station included with cabinets & shelves which were filled with all kinds of tools & accessories. When I wheeled the mower up to the workstation, he closed the garage door and turned on the overhead neon lights. I just stood there looking kind of stupid while he knelt and down and fiddled with the engine. He made several attempts to start it himself, but it still wouldn’t kick over. 

Very calmly, he said, “ I think I know what’s wrong with it.” I think the gas filter is clogged.”

He looked though a number of cabinets and drawers searching for a filter he thought would fit. While he fumbled around searching for the part, suddenly I found myself kind of attracted to his chubby body. I didn’t know why, but I just did. He was about 3 to 4 inches shorter than me, but nevertheless I was infatuated with him, especially given his very soft and kind looking face. 

His balding light brown hair was short and neatly combed almost straight back. He wasn’t a hairy guy like a lot of chubby men his age. Only a soft plot of ginger hair covered his chest and extend in a narrow line down to his naval, and then faded away into his blue-jeans. Soft faint light hairs circled each one of his pink nipples which I found to be quite sexy.

When he finally located a filter he thought fitted my mover, he grabbed a screw driver & pliers and replaced the old filter with the new one. We wheeled the mower out onto his patio. He then pulled the choke back and forth a few times. With only one pull of the cord, sure enough , the mower started right back up as if it were new. 

I told him I was amazed he was able to fix it so quickly. He laughed and said, “When you work around cars and engines as much as I have, sometimes your can figure out the problem pretty quickly”.

I said, “By the way, my name is Todd,” as I held out my hand to shake his. He cheerfully looked at me, extended his hand, and said, “ Todd, glad to meet you , my name is Steve”.

I gladly offered to pay for the cost of the filter, but he said, “Don’t even worry about it--maybe one day you can do me a favor”. I promptly replied that we had a deal. 

I asked Steve if he worked on cars for a living even though I didn’t think he did. He replied that he was an accountant, but when he was around my age, he use to work on both cars & heavy engines a few summers in his uncle’s garage.

We walked back into the garage whereby Steve washed his hands, turned on a fan and handed me an ice cold Pepsi from a small refrigerator just under his work station. The fan felt great as a light breeze flowed over my sweaty body. We leaned back on the work station and admired his cherry red GTO. As we chatted about the car, I found myself turning my head slightly every so often so I could glance at his tubby body which by now, captivated me. 

When I asked Steve how long he had owned the car, he replied that he purchased it new when he was around my age and had it every since. 

I said, “Really, I bet you got a lot of chicks in that car back then”, as I took a sip of my cola. 

Steve kind of laughed, gave me a wink, and said, “Well I think you are a smart enough and reasonable enough kind of guy to understand the fact that I really wasn’t interested in girls back then or now-- if you know what I mean.” 

I stared at his soft face and chubby body for a minute and replied, “ Well that’s no big deal-- I mean I have a couple of friends including an uncle that feel the same way you do.”

Steve laughed and said, “ Well everyone does, and if they don’t now, one day they will.”