The Universal Naked Linesman

    Robert had taken notice of her on many an occasion and had remarked to himself on her beauty. During this hot weather she was even more noticeable by what she almost wore. He would often watch her from his bedroom window and even talk to her from this vantage point as she hung out her washing. She would give no assistance to the mini-skirt that was struggling like mad to cover the parts of her that it was so under designed to do. Then the skimpy tee shirt would be having an even bigger struggle trying to contain what ever it was that she had stuffed inside it. Robert often carried his books to school stuffed inside his jersey in this way, but in her case he was more than sure it wasn’t schoolbooks.

   He was out in the back garden, mowing the lawn, on what was an extremely memorably hot summer’s day. It was so hot that Robert had stripped down to nothing other than a pair of shorts and was barefoot and could feel the lush feel of the warm grass under his feet. He was feeling really great, he had no problems at school and his home life was stable and happy. He had no involvement with girls that you could talk about. All in all, he was living what had to be the nearest thing to a utopian existence.

   As he mowed the lawn he felt inwardly happy.  He had no one to answer to other than himself. He was bothering no-one, other than perhaps Mr. Shaw, who he believed to be working on night shift and would be trying to catch some shut-eye. Causing Mr. Shaw some discomfort was an additional bonus. Mr. Shaw had never, at any time, shown any friendliness towards Robert, and he certainly would never have gone out of his way to be helpful towards him. Robert had come to dislike Mr. Shaw right from their first meeting. On the day that the Shaw’s were moving in, Robert had offered to help as a friendly gesture. All he had received was a grunt and a “get lost” look from Mr. Shaw. Through time, even though it wasn’t in Robert’s nature, he had learnt to ignore Mr. Shaw in the same manner. Mr. Shaw had put down the ground rules and Robert could play to anyone’s rules.   

   Robert could feel a smile starting to shape on his face and knew within him that this was normally a warning sign of things yet to pass, but this time he knew it was a smile of relief that a burden had finally been taken from his shoulders. He looked at the guy again. No one had spoken at all since Robert had entered the room; Jane had stayed quiet and still. The bloke finally finished his fight with his jeans and Robert had managed to control any urge that he might have had to do either of them any injury without trying. It was as if everyone was trying to weight up the situation before saying anything.

   Robert broke the silence. “You can save yourself any further effort mate, you might as well get back into bed with her. She’s all yours!” With this he gave his so-called wife a mock wave and left the room.