Three Words: Butter, Stop, Pillow

Most days Maryanne McArthur spends the afternoon in her kitchen, wine glass in her hand, platter of cookies on the counter. I watch her from my kitchen, through the window and over the fence, our two houses backed up against one another in some cruel trick of housing development design. Our kitchens face one another. Our bedrooms face one another. Our bathrooms face one another. Everything she does, I can see. And vice versa, I suppose, but I don't dwell on that.

She caught me once. Rather than outrage--after all, what kind of person spies on her neighbor--she stared at me, lips parted, for several minutes. Then she raised her glass and winked.

Winked.

She didn't say shriek and close the blinds. She didn't rush out and shake her fist, yelling for me to stop. 

I peered out between the blinds, not ready to fully commit to my afternoon hobby of peeping tom activity. Her kitchen was dark. On the top rail of the fence separating our houses, a glass of wine sparkled ruby bright.

I've never been cool enough to drink wine, the tannins sticking in my throat on the way down. Or at least I theorized that it was the tannins. It may very well have been the fruity bouquet. Or the underlying buttery flavor from 100-year-old casks. But I'd drink her wine, even bad wine from a box.

The red imprint of lips pressed against the glass marred one side. A perfect red kiss. A note fluttered to the ground as I matched my bottom lip to the mark and sipped. "Join me" it said in flowing cursive.

 The sliding glass door lay open in invitation, but I hesitated. "Hello?"

No response. 

I took a step. Just one small step.  With the taste of her lips and wine on my breath, how could I not?

She sat on the couch, jacket off, the satin-smooth shell pulled tight around her chest, and a mountain of pillows in a jumbled pile at her feet.