----- The house

Let me tell you about my new house. It's not really new, but it's new to me: two story, three bedroom, three and a half baths and a detached garage. It has the usual kitchen, dining and living rooms and a basement.

There's also an office which comes in handy since I do lots of work from home. That and the garage were the selling points for me. There's also a deck outside and nearly an acre of land. I was lucky to save enough to get this house.

The garage has room for two cars in the front, and in the back I have my gym. Just some weights and a bench but I still like to think I'm a jock: I do stay in shape. I also have a bike, camping stuff, and tools out there along with a work table and an inversion table. Going upside-down on the inversion table helps my back when I do something stupid like picking up weights with my back instead of my legs.

I have a BMW 328i and an old Ford F150. The commute to the office is an hour or so, depending on traffic, but it's bearable since I only do this two or three times a week. It's rare that I have to go into the office more than that, but it happens.

The house is not located in your typical suburban neighborhood either -- it's more out in the county. I can't reach out from my kitchen window, for example, and touch my neighbors house.

And I don't have a roommate. I love the solitude. Perhaps it's because I'm used to it. Growing up as a short guy I didn't have too many close friends, and still don't. I'm self-conscious about my height, I guess. But that's the way it's shaped my personality. I'm a loner. Well, that's what I tell myself.

So I was pleasantly surprised when the phone rang that Thursday and it was Julie. She didn't sound happy though. She asked if she could come over.

"Sure", I said. I wasn't going to turn away a distraught damsel. Even if all I wanted was peace out here in my humble abode. Though in the back of my mind I felt a little thrill.

An hour later, after giving directions, a taxi pulled up and Julie stepped out wearing shorts and carrying a suitcase. Uh, oh!

It seems she had a falling out with her gentleman friend that she was staying with: Shawn. I'm using the term "gentleman" loosely here. I won't go into what happened, but it wasn't nice. She had basically been kicked out.

So, against my better judgement, I let her stay, "until you can find a place of your own", I dictated. I mean, what could I do, turn away my high school sweetheart?

I showed her around the house. I put her things, what little there were, in one of the spare bedrooms. "We'll get the rest of your stuff later.", I said. But I found out there nothing else to get.

We went into the kitchen and I fed her. She cried. I fed her ice cream. She cried. We went to the couch and she cried on my shoulder. We both had to work the next day. I was not going to take advantage of her; ever the gentleman I am. So I sent her off to bed in her own bedroom.


----- Saturday

We both worked Friday. Her in the afternoon, me, at home. Finally, Saturday came around and she was feeling better. She worked that morning but came home in the early afternoon. I asked about the taxi. It turns out she didn't have a vehicle. Of course, being the gentleman I am, I offered her the use of the pickup. That seemed to cheer her up.

I never got around to showing her the garage until Saturday afternoon. She beamed when she saw the "gym".

"Oh, wow. This is great."

"Yes. I can workout here and work on the cars too.", bragging, probably a bit too matter of factly. I suppose she never knew guys who actually did mechanical work with real tools, by gosh. Her dad would never do such a thing and apparently, neither would the guy she was previously living with.

"Can I use your weights to work out?". She was still the jock I remembered.

"Sure."

"What's that?", she questioned, pointing to the corner.

"That's an inversion table. You go upside down on it and hang by your feet. I use that to get taller. See how well it works?" We both laughed at that.

"How do you use it?"

I showed her how to adjust the legs and strap her feet in. Then I let her lean back and get used to actually inverting the table. It takes only but two or three times to get the hang of it. However, I cautioned her to only go back less than the full 180 degrees and do a little at a time.

"Work up to the fully inverted position over a few days. This way your body will get used to being upside down and you won't faint or anything." She went full bore to 180 right away.

"Wow. This feels good, being upside down", she said happily.

I was glad she was starting to get out of her funk over what happened just a couple of days ago. So, I let her be and walked back to the house.

A few minutes later she came back in the house, catching me browsing the internet.

"You have a nice computer."

"Um, yeah." That was weird. I've never been complemented on a computer before. She was just making small talk, I assumed. "Don't you have a laptop, or something?", I said.

"Nope. I can't afford it."

I felt bad about that. It also brought back bad feelings about breaking up with her years ago.

"Well, you can stay as long as it takes to get on your feet." Damnit! I said that before I had a chance to really evaluate the consequences. I wasn't sure I was ready to give up my life of solitude just yet.

Julie leaned in and gave me a kiss. Lightly, at first. I didn't resist. Then another. Then they got more intimate and sloppy. We had sex that night. Real sex, not a hand job. I hoped the condoms that I had been keeping for years now weren't brittle or anything. Reminder to self: buy new condoms.


----- Next week

Julie seemed to have been in much better spirits than the week before. I wanted to think that we were getting back together. We didn't repeat Saturday night. I suppose we were both just too busy the coming week. Or maybe it was that we were just starting to get to know each other again.

Julie wasn't very well off, money-wise, what with working only part-time and school. To top it off, she would give money to her mother on the rare occasion that she had a little extra.

So, I would help her out by feeding her, and making sure she had a little cash with her during the day, for lunch if nothing else. And I let her use the pickup so she wouldn't have to waste money on taxi's. (This was before Uber.)

I didn't expect anything in return, really. It felt good to be helping someone. Especially someone I knew closely, or rather had known as a girlfriend. I was really beating myself up mentally for breaking up with her so many years ago. It was only a handful of years to tell the truth, but it feels like a long time when you're young.

I didn't know what she was thinking but I made it clear that I wasn't expecting anything in return for letting her stay with me. We got along pretty good though. And, despite my self-proclaimed loner status, I was actually enjoying her presence immensely.

When she would return home for the day (or even late at night some days) she would change into shorts and a t-shirt. Did I mention she has great legs? I'd love staring at them -- secretly, of course. And those lovely bare feet too. I was loving this change in my life. But I had no idea of all the changes that were to come.


----- Next Saturday

Julie had to work Saturday morning again. Her schedule was always changing. It wasn't too erratic though; there were some constants. For example, it always seemed she worked Saturday morning and Tuesday nights. There were exceptions of course. Anyway, Saturday afternoon, again, we were both out in the gym working out.

"Thanks for letting me use the gym this week.", she said.

"Oh, you've been working out?"

"Sure. I know you haven't been around all week, but I've been slipping out here every day you know."

"I didn't know that. So, you were sneaking out behind my back?", I said jokingly.

"Not really. You were just working really hard on the computer. And the days you were at the office, I spent that time out there too."

One thing you can say about Julie: she took her workouts seriously. I asked her if she was still running.

"Of course. Although I didn't get to run every day this past week. I'm trying not to let my schedule affect exercise, but it's not very easy.", she would say.

Well, all the exercising did her body good. She was in great shape. Did I mention she has exceptional legs?

The t-shirt she was wearing was cut pretty high, I could see her belly. And when she ended up on the inversion table the shirt rode up her body to show her pert little tits. (Yes! I was cheering internally.) She wore no bra, not that she needed one.

So, of course, one thing led to another and we had sex again that Saturday night. Maybe this was beginning to be a regular thing. I wasn't complaining.

She was pretty rough that night. More so than last week. I chalked it up to being a lot more cheerful than she was last week. And I had fresh condoms this time.


----- Sunday

You should have seen Julie Sunday morning, shining with a big ole bright smile. Nobody could tell that she had been kicked out of the place she was staying just a little more than week ago. It made me feel happy. The sex the night before made me feel happy. We both felt happy.

I made pancakes, sausage and eggs for breakfast. Julie gobbled it down like someone twice as big. I guess she hadn't been eating much recently. Two stacks of pancakes, six pieces of sausage and four eggs! I wanted to tell her to cool it.

Not that I minded her eating all the food, but I didn't want her to get sick, or worse: fat. With all the working out though, there probably wasn't much chance of that happening. And of course I would never say that to her.

I've learned to watch what I say. Don't ever mention "fat" having to do with anything about a girl. "Body shaming" is what they call it.

Doesn't apply to "short" though. It makes no sense to me -- you get chastised for calling someone "fat", even though they have the power to change that, if not the will. But it's ok to berate someone for being short. "Oh, I could never go out with a guy shorter than me.", the girls say. And being short is not something you can change; no matter how much will you might have.

Thank God Julie is shorter than me; if only by an inch. She's beginning to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

I had to go to the hardware store that morning before they closed early that Sunday to pick up some bags of mulch for the bushes out back. I should have gone Saturday but too many things happened. Good things, of course. Julie wanted to go too. She had the day off. So she figured she would help.

"Ok.", I said. "Throw me the keys and meet me out in the pickup." We jumped in and off we went. Well, not exactly; something seemed off. It was uncomfortable for me to reach the pedals. It was weird, I had to adjust the seat up.

"Oh, sorry about that.", she said. "After a couple of days of driving this week I seemed to be scrunched up a little and had to adjust the seat a wee little bit."

I couldn't really say anything back. She was looking great in her shorts that morning. She has really nice legs. Have I mentioned that?

It was another nice, sunny day, due to get up into the 70's that afternoon. Her t-shirt was looking fantastic on her, highlighting her tight little body. The shirt seemed to be getting tight itself. I wasn't complaining.

We got back and I started unloading the bags. There were about a dozen or so and she asked to help. I didn't think she would be up to it but I relented and said, "Sure. Why not? I could use the help."

I grabbed a bag and lopped it over my shoulder. She did the same. Pretty damn good for such a little gal. She seemed to be handling those bags better than me. We finished bringing the bags to the back and went to work opening them up and spreading the mulch.

I was sweating and so was she when we had finished. I could see her nipples poking hard against her sweat soaked t-shirt. Life is good. It was time for a shower.

I started making my way to the house, but Julie wanted to stay back and go out to the garage.

"I want to hop on the inversion table to stretch out. I always like doing that after a workout.", she said. I couldn't blame her.

It's always good to stretch out after long physical exertion. It's just that I usually stretched by touching my toes and twisting my torso. That sort of thing. This was new to me.

"Whatever. Knock yourself out. I'm going to take a shower. See you back at the house." And with that I was inside to get a shower.

It was not long after I got out that she showed up and did the same. I made some hot tea for myself and sat down on the couch while she cleaned up.

She looked so hot coming out of the shower. One towel was wrapped around her body and one on her head. And the towel that was wrapped around her body wasn't doing a great job of hiding her assets.

How could I have missed those "assets" all those years in high school? Oh yeah, I just remembered, I didn't miss them. I just didn't really get a good look back then. I mentioned about her being a prude in high school, right? Now she was becoming a tease. Oh, what a treat! Why she didn't get dressed properly, I wasn't sure. But, like I said before, I wasn't complaining.

Julie took a seat next to me on the couch putting her feet up on the coffee table. I was watching TV. Or rather, I was watching Julie.

The towel around her rode up high on her thigh revealing those beautiful legs. She has great legs, you know. For a little gal though she has pretty big, yet very sexy feet. My heart was beating hard by now.

Julie unwrapped the towel around her hair and started brushing. The towel around her body fell down a few inches revealing her pretty little tits. She would pull the towel back up but never really wrapped it all that tightly, so it would fall down yet again. She never would have done this in high school. I was wondering, when did she ever turn into a tease?

"Why don't you get some clothes on?", I asked, not really sure why I said that just then, since I was enjoying her lack of clothes so much.

She replied, "They're all dirty. I haven't had a chance to go into town to the laundromat -- it's been pretty hectic this past week. I promise I'll wash them tomorrow."

"I know it's been hectic for you; but you do know I have a washer and dryer here, don't you?", I said.

"Well, I didn't want to be a burden.", Julie would say timidly.

"Burden? You are no burden, Julie.", I replied.

How could she be a burden? The past week was one of the best ever for me. She went up to grab her clothes, what little there were, and then I took her downstairs and showed her the washer and dryer. She put her stuff in and hopped up on the dryer, letting her towel come undone. This time she made no move to fix it.

"You really are a life saver, you know.", Julie started to say. "I didn't know what I was going to do being with Shawn. He didn't treat me well. He made me pay him and it was all I could do to make ends meet. And,...", she went on, "he would hurt me. I was in a rut with no way out until you showed up. When I saw you last week my heart jumped. I am so glad it was you."

I didn't know what to say to this. How can anyone hurt such an angel? I thought about bringing up the topic of leaving her after high school, but thought better of it.

I could see tears welling up in her eyes. I kissed her. We went upstairs to my bedroom and made love.

We didn't just have sex this time. I made love to someone I felt I shared a bond with now. Before it may have only been a physical bond -- both of us living the life of "little people". But now it was much more emotional. Deeper, more basic. I felt like I wanted to take care of her for the rest of her life. We spent the night together in each others arms. Too soon it was time to get up and go back to work the next day.