Chapter 1

 

I was changing the oil in my car. Not that I couldn't afford to have someone do it, I enjoy getting under the car and getting dirty. Since I had paid an obscene amount of money for the classic Ford Mustang, I wanted to be sure that the oil was right.

My name is Chad Murphy and until a few months ago I was a career Navy man. I was also a proud member of SEAL team four. I had twenty in and because I enlisted at seventeen with my parents blessing I am still a young man. I could hump it with even the youngest on my team. There had been a disagreement with some very senior defense department folks. The bottom line was I lost. Since I had my twenty in they had to let me retire, so I did. I took my hobby and made an occupation out of it. Photography was the hobby. I got out of the Navy, took my back pay and raided the bank and got my savings, and hauled ass.

Off and on over the past five or six years I had corresponded with a photographer whose work I happened to see in a trade magazine. He had, on several occasions offered to let me come work with him. I did several times while on leave for short periods of time. His name was Mack McDill. I say 'was' because Mack died a year before I left the Navy. We had become close over the years and for his family, I arranged to get enough time off to come to his funeral. His wife of well over thirty years offered to sell me Mack's business, but I had to turn it down because at that time I hadn't got cross-ways with the DOD. That came four months after her offer to sell.

When I finally realized that I was foot loose and fancy free, I called Mack's wife and heaved a sigh of relief when she told me she had not disposed of his studio and equipment. The bottom line was I bought about sixty five thousand dollars' worth of equipment for twenty grand. I didn't cheat the widow. She knew to the dollar what it was worth, but insisted that was what she wanted from me.

The studio was in an old two story house that Mack had bought for a song, fixed it up and browbeat the city into re-zoning it for his business. Even without any of the studio equipment the house was worth more than I paid for the whole shooting match. I spent a couple of thousand dollars remodeling the upstairs as living quarters for me. It wasn't fancy, but it served the purpose. The driveway was the old fashion kind with two tracks of concrete with grass in the middle. That was where I was with my Boss Mustang.

I scooted out from under the car and found myself looking up into the crotch of a woman. Actually I was looking up the loose legs of her shorts at a pair of red panties at the perfect outline of her cunt. I was in a quandary. I liked the view, but I really needed to know who's crotch I was staring at and why she was standing straddled over me.

"Hello," I said making the creeper scoot on out from her. "How you doin'?"

"Fine," she said twisting around to look at me. I scrambled to my feet. My first thought was I had made an appointment and failed to write it down. "Who are you?" She demanded.

"Chad Murphy," I answered, finding a rag and wiping my oily hands on it. "Who are you?" I guessed her age at sixteen but quickly revised it upward to maybe twenty. She was wearing, besides the baggy white shorts, a red tank top. Being that I'm a tit man, I checked and there was nothing there to get excited about. Not, mind you, that I consider big knockers a major plus. I like them all. Big, small, cones, puffys, and even the tiny tits where it's mostly all nipple. Anything I can get a lip-lock on will do. Her face was pretty and right on the border of being beautiful if it hadn't been for the scowl.

"I'm Lisa," she said. "I live right there." She was pointing to the house next door. "Your dog knocked over our trashcan and scattered it all over the back yard. What are you going to do about it?" She was being insolent, but I thought it was mostly an act. I revised my estimate of her age back to sixteen again. She was acting like a petulant teenager.

"What shall I do?" I asked scratching my head. "I got it. Nothing. I'm going to do absolutely nothing about it, Lisa."

"There's a leash law inside the city," she said, now a little uncertain that I hadn't volunteered to go clean up the mess.

"Tell you what," I said, closing the hood of my car. "Next time you see my dog over there, shoot it or call the dog catcher. I really couldn't care less." She gave me a look I'm sure she meant to be mean, but didn't carry it off very well. I've been looked at by some really mean people and some even wanted to kill my ass. Lisa wasn't scaring me at all. She went back across the low picket fence that separated the two properties. It was only about two and a half feet high but she had to hop on one foot to clear the sharp pickets. Be a shame to tear her red panties, I thought, watching her go around to the back of her house.

I wiped off the tools and put them in my tool box. It was getting on toward Miller time and I didn't have any appointments the rest of the afternoon or evening. I could get completely sloshed if I wanted to.

"Just what the hell do you mean, telling my daughter to shoot your dog?" a demanding voice yelled. I turned to see a slightly older version of Lisa stand at the fence glaring at me. No way could that lovely thing be the mother of that mean-mouth teenager that just left me. "Why would you do that? My daughter wouldn't harm a fly. You should be ashamed of yourself."

"I am," I replied, getting the tool box and walking away. "Have a nice day."

"Wait a damned minute!" she yelled. "Don't you walk away from me while..." the rest of her tirade was cut off by the closing of the kitchen door. Well, it would have been a kitchen if Mack hadn't gutted it and made a darkroom out of it. I added a larger refrigerator and kept beer cold along with the film. I got a bottle of the cold nectar and went to the front to wait. I didn't have to wait long.

"I'm Kate Hawkins," she said bursting through the front door into the waiting room. "I live next door and I certainly do not appreciate your attitude, sir." I could see that she was working herself into a state of rage.

"Hi, Kate. I'm Chad Murphy and I live here. I also don't own a dog."

"What you said was uncalled for and rude. I...what did you say?"

"I said I'm Chad Murphy and I live here. Oh, you mean about me not owning a dog? I don't."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't own a dog. I have no dog. I do not process a dog. I don't even know a dog. Personally that is. What was that you were saying about being rude?"

"Oh, I think I may have made a mistake, Mister Murphy. I'm sorry. Please forgive me." She opened the door.

"Okay, you're forgiven," I said as she stepped through the doorway. "Would you like a beer?"

"What? I'm sorry, did you just offer me a beer?"

"I did indeed," I said. "We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, but there's nothing like a cold beer to put things right again. Straighten them ol' feet right up."

"No, but thanks," she said jumping from the porch instead of using the four steps. "I have to...go, or something. I'm sorry, Mister Murphy."

"Call me Chad, neighbor," I called to her back as she leaped across the fence. I could hear her yelling at Lisa from my front porch. Petulant little Lisa was getting her pretty ass chewed royally. Nothing like a good ass chewing to lighten the moment.

***

I didn't see or hear from the Hawkins girls for over a week. I was washing my classic car early one spring Saturday morning. I tried to break the early rising habit, but it didn't work. I was awake by daylight every damned morning. If it seems that I spend a lot of time fooling with the car, it's true. Besides the house it's the most valuable thing I've ever owned. Being a classic, it does require some special attention. I was already making plans to clean out the garage so I'd have a place to put "The Boss" in winter. From what I could tell, the garage was full of junk left from even before Mack bought the old place.

"Lisa said you may know something about cars," her voice came from behind me. I turned to see Kate Hawkins looking across the little fence at me. "My car won't start." I bit my tongue to keep from asking the obvious question about fuel. Women hate that, I have discovered.

"I'll look at it," I said. "Not real good with the newer high compression engines." I shut the water off and followed her across the yard to her driveway. Her drive was like mine except someone had put cinders and some gravel between the concrete tracks. I suspected that all these old houses had been heated by coal at some point in time. I had found an old coal bin in the basement of my house.

Her car wasn't a new one by a decade. I popped the hood and saw almost immediately what the problem was. The ground wire was loose. I went back to my house and got a wrench and tightened the connection. I told Kate to give it a try and it started right up.

"Thank you," she said looking uncomfortable. "I really appreciate it."

"No problem," I said closing the hood. "You're good to go."

"Can I pay you something?" she asked uncertainly.

"No thank you. Your thanks is payment enough. Have a nice day, Kate." I turned and started back across the yard.

"Are you married, Mister Murphy?" she called. "I mean I was going to offer to cook your dinner and I...well, how many to cook for."

Now we were getting somewhere. I can cook well enough to keep from starving, but that's about all. "It's just me, Kate." I answered. "Well, me and the dog of course. You don't have to cook for me, but I'll tell you right now if you offer, I'll accept."

"Tonight about six," she said. "It won't be fancy, just filling. Are you kidding about the dog?"

"Yes, I am. Still dogless. I'll be here," I said. "Can I bring anything?" She said just to bring an appetite, but I made a mental note to pick up a bottle of wine. I don't drink it myself, but I know some people do.