An Open Letter To My Neighbor

Dear Michael, My Back Yard Neighbor,

It’s me. You know, the tall, lanky, bearded bisexual guy from the house behind yours. Yes, the one to whom you flashed your naked body, late that one night not so long ago. The one who’ll appear like magic in his glass back doors, mornings, with his bowl of cereal when you pace up and down your back yard walk and pretend to stretch for the morning runs that you never take. But that’s okay. I like the way you bend over and point your ass in my direction as you stretch your hamstrings.

It’s really a beautiful ass, by the way. Just like the rest of you is beautiful. I’ve always been a fan of your long, shoulder-length curly hair, though I’ve heard your wife suggest at least twice that you should cut it. I really am turned on by that huge Slavic nose of yours, believe it or not. I love your stocky, jock-ish body, even when you’ve been eating a few too many pierogies over the winter. For a guy in your mid-thirties carrying three kids, a mortgage, and a full-time teaching job (at least, that’s my best guess from your schedule), you’re doing really well.

I still think of the first day we met, a few years back, when you’d just moved in and were cutting down that crabapple tree between us that blocked my view of your house. (Thank you for that favor, by the way. Best thing you ever did for our relationship.) The majority of the tree was gone by the time I saw what you were doing. When I stepped out onto my back porch, hands on my hips, I saw for the first time that part of one of the tree’s upper branches had grown between the power lines in a way that was suspending it in mid-air. So there you were, on a ladder, trying to snip away at a branch belonging to a tree that no longer existed, like some conundrum from an absurdist painting.

“Hey,” I said, and told you my name.

“Hey. I’m Michael,” you told me.

I watched you cut away most of the branch. “Do you need some help there?” I asked. “Or do you want to bring your ladder over here?”

You refused, amiably enough. Maybe you rightly suspected that my subtext was something along the lines of, Do you want to bring your sexy daddy body into my bed? Because since that moment there’s been a sexual tension that I know isn’t my own imagination. When you sit in the back yard, you do it when I’m relaxing or working on my deck, and you always point your body directly at me. When you’re stretching, you always look over your shoulder to see if I’m there with my cereal bowl. There’s always an awareness of each other, between us.

Then there was yesterday.

I was out on my deck in the afternoon warmth, reading my book, while you puttered around on your porch. I watched you for a while, yes. But then I’m afraid that Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger got the better of me, because I became so absorbed in it that I kind of stopped paying attention to you at all.

That is, until you yelled out, at top volume, “Feast your eyes! FEAST YOUR EYES!” Whereupon I looked up to find you standing on the top porch step clad in only a tight pair of shorts, bare-chested for the world to see. And by ‘world,’ I mean, ‘me.’

May I just say at this juncture, Michael, on the extremely off-chance that you’re reading my blog, that you have a beautiful chest? You’ve been working out, and it shows. Your proportions are great. Your chest fuzz is inspiring. The trail that leads down to what I remember as your substantial, dark pubic hair makes me want to drop to my knees. My eyes feasted, Michael. Oh, they feasted.

The alleged intended recipient of your manly cry was supposed to be your mouse of a wife. However, Michael, I know that it was meant for me. Why? Because for one thing, you were facing my direction. Your wife was behind you. The only person who could feast was me. For another, you shouted out the directive so loudly that everyone in the neighborhood could hear. And that wife of yours? Only two feet away. I know she’s not deaf.

I’m reasonably sure, and I think a jury of my peers would back me up here, that you stripped down especially for me, to celebrate the first day it was warm enough for the both of us to be in our back yards. Furthermore, I know by the looks you kept shooting me, as I watched you tinker around on your porch shirtless and always facing my direction, that you enjoy it when I stare at you.

So let’s cut to the chase. We haven’t talked since the incident with the crabapple branch. But I’m game. Do you want my dick? It’s yours. My ass? It’s yours. Are you one of those straight guys whose vanity preens itself a little when I gawk at you from not-so-afar? It’ll be torture, but I’ll keep doing it, if your ego needs the strokes.

Michael, you’re a fine, fine man, and feasting upon you is exactly what I’d like to do.

Hoping you read this letter,
Your back yard neighbor.