The Reluctant Neighbour

As they were walking back to the cabanas he asked when she would know about grad school and she said that any day her parents would email her if acceptance letters arrived. As they approached their cabanas Rob could sense a hesitation in her walk. He was heading directly for his steps as was she to hers but she was lagging. Rob sensed this, stopped, and purely in the moment said, "I'm thinking of having a wee something on the porch that comes out of a brown bottle and is made in Scotland, probably not what you would want right now -- think of it as an old guy thing, however I have some crushed java fruit juice that is awesome. Would you like to join me for some on my porch? The evening is really lovely."

"Yes please," was her quiet response. And two hour of quiet conversation passed, most of which she spent stretched out on her side on the settee. Rob, enjoyed the soft evening with this beautiful girl languidly chatting to him, her soft brown hair flowing over her shoulders and cheeks.. Mostly, he looked out over the ocean but was irresistibly drawn back to her in short glances. He could only look so long though, before he would lose focus. Better to look at the moonlight on the ocean. It was almost a relief when she headed back to her cabana and then to the washrooms to get ready for bed. Other than it was pleasant to have someone to talk to, he wasn't really here for that and this connection was not going anywhere. Twenty two and forty nine were the important numbers. This fact uncomplicated the situation for him.

From all Rob's experience he truly found women fully hit their peak of sexiness in their forties. Young women had beautiful bodies, absolutely true but at forty if the woman was interested in her fitness and appearance she had so much more going for her in terms of experience in life, in her career, in her relationships and most of all in sex. A forty year old woman knew how to do IT better, plainly and simply. The added bonus for him was then in the cerebral realm and the combined package was very sexy.

The next morning a much more chipper Shannon shot out of her cabana as Rob was heading to the beach for his morning swim and sun soaking session. He really didn't like to be out in the Vietnamese sun much after 11 am. It was too intense. She was wearing a bright blue sundress as she skipped along beside his long strides. Apparently she was joining him for a walk to the beach.

"Going swimming?" she asked. "Great, so am I. You can fight off sharks if I get attacked correct?"

"Yep, but don't cut your feet and get blood in the water or all bets are off." Apparently she was joining him at the beach as well. While mildly amused at her forthrightness he wondered if this was an innate sense of entitlement or was she simply lacking in social skills, such as asking if it was okay to join him. Not a big deal either way though he thought. Increasingly he realized she was just a sweet kid looking for someone to talk to.

****

'Ok,' Shannon thought, 'I have to find out if Karen thinks I'm nuts wondering if a forty nine year old could be attractive to anyone other than an older woman.'

She had successfully pried his age out of him, actually he didn't seem the least bit concerned about revealing it, he barely blinked when she asked. Karen will know. Karen was two years older and many years more insightful. All Shannon's girlfriends thought Karen was oversexed, whatever that meant.

Shannon punched in the question inter her phone *Is there any remote possibility that a guy at 49 could still be sexy?

She sat back hoping Karen would be available. It was something like 12 hours different in Calgary, either today, yesterday or tomorrow - she couldn't really figure out the international date line business.

The phone pinged, Yahoo! she thought

Karen: * whoa girl, I haven't heard from you in 8 days ... and this is hello?

Shannon: *oh, yes, hello, how ru?

Karen: *great, and u?

Shannon: *good

Karen: *ok, now back to the question .. give me some context, did you meet an old codger? Is he rich?

Shannon: *Yes but I don't know about rich, thats not the issue.

Karen: *How, when, how old?

Shannon: *well, over a pool of my vomit mostly, and he is 49

Karen: *OUCH! Did he have anything to do with you puking?

Shannon: *Nope, im a big bad girl now, I can get wasted all by myself. He helped clean me up

Karen: *wow, how sexy is that! Sarcasm was dripping out of the phone.

Shannon: *Really, he was very nice about it. He stayed up a good part of the night with me

Shannon continued: *He has first aid skills.

Karen: *Hah! first aid skills, the Romance Continues!

Shannon: *Look I need opinions, not derision.

Karen: *ok, there is a guy out there named George Clooney, remember? I would strip down on his command and leap into his bed on demand. So yes, it does happen.

Shannon: *Yeah, I've heard of the guy. Do you know what, I would say my old codger neighbour is in the same ball park, appearance wise.

Karen: *Babe, there is your answer! Send me a picture and don't do anything stupid. Be safe! Got to go, bye.

After the texting exchange with Karen, Shannon rolled over on her bed, stared at the ceiling and thought, 'Maybe I'm not crazy after all thinking Rob is attractive.'

'But doesn't he have to be a deviant, like, you know, like the president of some economic basket case in the Mediterranean to go after young women?' She paused. In truth, that wasn't him at all. He wasn't going after her. Full stop. Slowly she began to restate the problem in her mind ... and she didn't like what she was coming up with. Not gay. She had pried some past relationship history out of him. Never married, but some long time relationships with women had happened. His description of his lady friends made them sound very beautiful. She had to admit, to a much older woman, he would have been very attractive. Male and female dinosaurs must have found each other attractive as well. 'Ok, a deviant would not have stopped at just pulling my jeans off that night. Unless the deviant didn't like having projectile vomit hit him in the face. Yep, he could still be a deviant. Hell, he was living next to a 22 year old woman. Don't they arrest men for that now a days.' She shuddered in her bed. Brain to Shannon -- he was there first. 'Okay, there is still a possibility he isn't a deviant.' But something in his crafty, maybe deviant mind had held him back when she had stretched out beside him in her skimpiest bikini on the empty stretch of beach when they had gone for that walk. What was he doing walking with a relative child anyway, on a remote beach Brain to Shannon, come in please, it was your idea to walk there. But he should have refused, given the age differences. Hmm... he had tried, but not really very hard. Why does he keep bringing up work. Don't normal 49 year olds only play golf and watch hockey games? Yep, she should be worried about him. She had asked him to put lotion on her back. 'I bet that had him thinking of taking advantage, basically attacking me.' She was sure of it. Maybe he had interpreted her involuntary shakes when his hands were on her back as a prelude to calling the cops in and it scared him off. There were cops in Vietnam she was sure but hadn't seen many. He was definitely worried because he never touched close to her bikini bottoms and he carefully avoided her bikini top strap when spreading the lotion. His hands on her had felt soothing, in a loving parental sort of way. She used to shiver as well when her mom put lotion on her when she was a kid. That was what she was remembering when he was doing it, for sure. 'Why did he do it so fast?' she thought. Her stomach had been knotting up at the same time as his hands were touching her. Lack of adequate lunch caused that no doubt. She better watch him carefully next time he put lotion on her back. 'Do they have 911 in Vietnam?'

And so goes the mind of a 22 year old who is very unsure of what she wants.

On the walk she had drifted behind picking up shells and catching up to him, had caught sight of some bruising on his lower back. She wouldn't have noticed his lower back at all except her eyes were drawn to the bruises. They looked old now. The rest of his back was okay. In fact it was really more than okay. His shoulders were very muscular and broad. His back basically rippled. The young guys she knew didn't look like that. How come this guy did and they didn't. Maybe muscles develop with age. Do fiftyish people live in retirement homes? Maybe they have good exercise equipment in his Home.

She asked what had happened and Rob had told her about his rugby team and the games they played. She asked him, "Isn't rugby the game where you drag your dead off the field and do a ritual burial, stomping your feet?" Rob laughed hard at this question. And she laughed too. They did a lot of that, laughing at and with each other.

Her Australian friends had left and that was a big hole to fill. A bunch of east coast prep boys moved into the vacated cabana. They were cute but over eager and in the end, really didn't have a lot to say and spent a lot of time saying nothing. They frankly bored her. Maybe she should have gone back to Calgary when her girlfriends had to return to work. But there was now something keeping her here.

Rob's sense of fun and experience in life only accentuated the boorish nature of the young guys. He made her laugh with stories of the cultural missteps while doing business in the far east. A biology student, she had always found mechanical things of no interest but somehow his descriptions of their engineering projects were interesting. She had sat up for hours on his porch listening to him talk while they had shared a bottle of wine.

Okay, she had enjoyed more than the stories. She couldn't deny the feeling of warmness that came over her when they were together. She kept thinking back to George Clooney in that movie on her Ipod. Rob was definitely in that mold. Okay, maybe there was such a thing as attractiveness at his age.

'So why hadn't he made any move towards intimacy?' Shannon wondered.

******

The morning swim and sun bathing session together were becoming a daily ritual. Rob didn't plan it, she just happened to join him when he walked off his porch each morning. The toughest part for Rob was when she pulled off her blue sundress the first time. On the beach, out of the corner of his eye he caught the motion and snapped his eyes to her. In his peripheral he thought she was naked. Thank god no, but the bikini she had on was as close as a woman can get and still be remotely considered covered. What was he supposed to do or say? No choice but to pretend one of the hottest girls he had ever seen sitting beside him was business as usual. Guys on the beach rubbernecked constantly.

He still hadn't quite got used to it on the fourth day but was settling in. He was drifting off after their swim with his hat over top of his face enjoying the low angled sun. She was stretched out beside him on the same towel, his towel to be exact.

Out of the blue a voice came though his hat, "Excuse me, do you speak English," in a heavily European accented voice.

Rob pulled his hat away and focused on two women in equally revealing bikinis standing over him and Shannon. Rob wondered if women wore these things, loosely called bathing suits, on all beaches now. These girls were classic blonde northern European types and they were stunning. The look on Shannon's face said she wasn't enjoying the view as much as he was. Decidedly not.

"Yes, we are Canadian, and for the most part we speak English, sort of," dumb, but he was fumbling.

"We are new to the resort and have heard about bad currents and tides as well as sharks. Could you and your ... uh ... daughter tell us if it is safe to swim? We don't fully trust local tourist guides."

"EXCUSE ME, I'm NOT his daughter and YES, the sharks kill people all the time," Shannon's eyes darted at them. They looked suitably alarmed.

"Hey kid, lets not over state it. Sit down ladies and we will fill you in on what we know."

Rob chatted with the thirty something Nordic women for some time and they really seemed to enjoy the conversation. They started to get comfortably settled in on either side of him as the talk drifted on to traveling stories of other beaches. Shannon didn't say a word. Slowly during the conversation she rotated from parallel to Rob to ninety degrees and slid her head onto his belly while looking intently at the women. Rob was leaning back on his elbows while talking to them. He started to get uncomfortable. The combination of two heart stopping Norwegian blondes (as it turned out they were from Norway) and Shannon's hair falling over his midsection and thighs was causing an embarrassment for him.

Shannon sensed movement in his swim shorts and smirked. She decided to help him out a bit, maybe get him off the hook and turned to face his legs while rearranging her hair over his swim suit. Rob silently mouthed a thank you. Shannon smirked. She hadn't really been sure that important male anatomical parts of someone his age still worked as in a younger guy but as a hopeful med student she really should find out. She casually draped her arm over her hair and his waist. She got her answer and smiled to herself. The other part of her more primitive brain was intent on sending a message to the blonde Norwegian bimbos -- her words - which was essentially, 'Get lost, this is my territory!' Wait a moment, her eyes snapped open with her face planted on his lap. 'This isn't jealousy is it? No way!' she thought. These girls were just getting cloying and she wanted them gone.

Shannon's help or not, which was questionable, as she was part of the problem, Rob had to get out of there and quick. He said a hasty good bye, claiming over heating and dashed for the water trying to cover the tent in his shorts as best as possible. All three women watched his rear carefully and together they smirked at his predicament.

*****

Two days after the Norwegian girls arrived at the beach resort Rob was at a lull in his work. Key elements of the mechanical design were dependent on the Chinese committing to the test facility structural plan and they were being difficult. For some reason the Chinese clients were not forthcoming about the seismic data and their preferred approach to the structural foundation in a very active seismic zone. Releasing information from a similar facility at a university near the Szechuan building site was inexplicably hard for them. They were being secretive for some reason. Rob had to wait until the structural engineers came to some sort of understanding with the clients before he could proceed with the mechanical details.

He had been waiting for a break and also some good weather to rent one of the small sailboats for hire on the beach and then sail it over to an island that was about 6 klics off the coast. Back in Toronto Rob owned and helm-ed a very fast C+C 115 that was highly competitive in the Island Yacht club spinnaker fleet. Rob was good on his boat however he gave most credit for their club wins to the tactician, Melissa. Melissa was not much older than Shannon but had grown up around sailing and while a bit of a yacht club brat was brilliant when she called the race. Rarely were her lay lines or other tactical decisions wrong. Without Melissa his crew was middling at best.

Another of Rob's crew was Joanne, a woman he began dating shortly after she had been referred to him as someone looking to join a crew. At first Rob considered this mid forties trial lawyer merely deck meat. Very attractive deck meat at that but she had no sailing experience. However, Joanne lived quite simply on some plane of existence that was far beyond brilliant and the speed with which she ramped up her knowledge of sailing, racing and the boat was astounding to Rob. She had come with the reputation as a relentless and incisive trial defense attorney and had a long string of very high profile successful cases to her credit. Initially he wasn't that intimidated by her reputation and really enjoyed her company. She was also very hot and fun in bed. Finally after asking her repeatedly about the chance to observe her acting as a defense council in court she directed him to a trial she was working on. Joanne was devastating in her cross examination of Crown witnesses. Rob believed he had never seen such a display of raw, quick and focused intelligence. She was amazing. Not often did he come across anyone who was clearly beyond his intellectual level. On the boat, during a race, Joanne intently observed Melissa at work trying to understand why and when Melissa gave an order. Rob had no doubt Joanne would catch up to Melissa sooner than later. She had never married, perhaps, he thought because very few men were ever going to be her intellectual equal. Still, she was funny when she wanted to be and enjoyed making love with him.

Rob was missing her very much. His conscious thoughts were mostly of Joanne. In his dreams though increasingly he was seeing Shannon.

However today, Shannon was the only readily available crew. On that morning Rob got up early and went out to look at the ocean to gauge the wind and waves. Both were down. Typically the morning breezes were brisk and by late morning they would be over 15 knots, probably too high for the small sloop rigged sailboats for rent on the beach. Today however looked good.

Rob was mostly inclined to solo sail but he had looked at the boats and they weren't well rigged for solo sailing and with no autopilot he would have to lash the tiller and bring the jib through on a tack quickly so as not to backwind for long and loose way. Something he could do but it could be a busy day. Weighing his options he decided to try to rouse the sleeping beauty and see if she wanted to sail across to the island. The word was that it had even more beautiful sand and rainforest than the mainland.

He banged on her door at about 730 and yelled, "Hey princess, WAKE UP, would you like to go sailing today?"

Shannon startled and woke up to the banging and yelling from Rob. She had drifted off to sleep the night before thinking of him. Her mind would drift back to the shivers and ache she felt when lying beside him on his large beach blanket on the beach. She had accepted that he was attractive at some level but still did not think that she could really be thinking of him in that way. He wouldn't leave her thoughts though.

Shannon stumbled and sleepily opened the door to face a pumped up Rob. He was ready for adventure. For Shannon, growing up in Calgary, which is not exactly the centre of the sailing world in Canada, she had little experience and told him so.

"Don't worry babe, bring all the water containers you have, lots of lunch, your best sunhat and lots of spf whatever and you can learn on the job," he said, without giving her any chance to escape. It would be fun and having crew would make the trip easier on him.

The boat was 20ft with a substantial centre board, a main, a jib and tiller steering. Once on the water, the swell was light and the winds turned out to be more favourable than expected. A long south east tack and then a straight reach to the island was all that they had to do to get there. After a slow start Shannon was laughing at Rob's Captain Bligh style of crew training, mostly hammed up for her benefit and she was enjoying the gentle ride out .

Rob would every so often see her in the foreground light. He still caught his breath at how soft and delicate her beauty was. The sun was lightening her hair colour into a blond honey shade and her skin was glowing from the tropical sun.

After a passage of just over 90 minutes they reached the surf of the island. Rob and Shannon hopped out of the small boat and dragged it up on shore with some difficulty in the rolling breakers. Struggling a bit they were able to drag it up the steeper shoreline than the main beach but finally managed to get it secure.