The Girl Next Door

Sometimes you may think that you know that certain person with whom you work or who lives next door, who they are and what they are all about, but how many times have you been surprised by what you find when you truly get to know them ...

Part 1

'He walked right past me,' Kellie Andrews thought, her proud shoulders drooping and her spirit sagging just a bit. She sighed but held her head up. 'Bastard walked right past me without so much as a tilt of his head or a blink of his eye.'

Kellie had spent several precious minutes primping in front of the tall broad mirrors in the second floor ladies room, the one preferred by most of the top female executives; her unruly wavy hair swept elegantly into a twist, held in place by a sapphire-encrusted clip, her lip gloss and eye shadow seductively perfected, her soft, worsted wool suit smoothed into place, her silk blouse fluffed. An alluring unignorable smile had been rehearsed and presented with a casual, improvised nonchalance. But it was her eyes, her steely blue eyes, clear as a bright spring morning, deep as a crystal pool at midnight, popped open wide and sparkling like the stark afternoon sun glinting off a rippling pond, those had been guaranteed to lure a grin onto his face, curl his lips into a devilish smile, turn his head toward her for once, just once and bring him to notice her. But he didn't. Ross Byner, the bank's most eligible bachelor and the handsomest hunk of maleness on two feet, who had never failed to ignite an all-consuming, yearning flame in her belly, simply walked right past Kellie upon leaving the meeting they had both attended. Maybe it was her glasses, the tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses perched on her pert little nose, perhaps obscuring her most redeeming feature. Maybe she really needed to look into getting contacts or LASIK.

Kellie remained standing in the hallway at the end of the line of plush executive offices, her portfolio of important documents clutched to her breast, her hands shaking, her body trembling, her throat clenched so tightly that she could scarcely draw a breath. Ross strode away from her confidently down the hall toward the bank of elevators, his footfalls cushioned by the thick rich carpet, an emerald green color trimmed with a bead of red the color of blood. Head lowered, she turned back toward the stairs and slunk along, her feet complaining about the new shoes a size too small, the heels an inch too tall. Yet they did such wonderful things to the curves of her calves. Maybe that was it, the skirt of her suit hung too low and covered up those luscious curves. Men liked legs didn't they, legs in heels, legs in stockings, luscious legs that ran all the way up to her hips?

For a moment Kellie permitted herself a brief salacious dream of the warm and moist paradise that he would have found at the top of those legs and how she would surrender it to him, willingly, with no condition nor appraisal required, and how he might take it, ravenously, ardently. Then her moment was over and she drew a deep breath and she trudged down the stairway, her heels clattering down the steel and concrete steps, her palm chilled by the cool steel handrail. How could he have not noticed her? During the entire meeting she had surreptitiously attempted eye contact, smiling demurely, her bright blue eyes blossoming widely, her head attractively tilted toward him. After all, she had volunteered to serve on this ridiculous Team Feasibility Committee only for the express purpose of meeting Ross Byner, the Executive Vice President of the Business Finance group.

She had been so sure that he would notice her, would smile and say hello, or make some light passing comment about her avid participation in the meeting. His reputation for flirting with attractive female bank employees was notorious and Kellie was more than willing to offer herself as his latest conquest. Maybe it was her conservative suit or her eyeglasses that spoiled her tawdry little scheme. Her boss, the branch manager, had often complimented Kellie during her performance reviews on her professional appearance, conservative never overtly fashionable or outlandish. And she had recognized the polite yet leering grin that bunched up his face whenever she visited his office. But he was much older, decidedly married, with children in college and certainly the type who would have never entertained much less acted upon a prurient impulse with an attractive female employee. That left it up to the dashing Ross Byner and she had failed. Miserably.

'He walked right by me! Bastard,' she thought.

Turned out onto the downstairs lobby from the stairwell, Kellie passed the bank of elevators, slumping back toward the cage, the room behind her bank teller window. She should have known that the elevator door would open at that precise moment and that Ross Byner would emerge, accompanied by Derek Hampton, another hotshot young exec, and a pretty redhead whom Kellie didn't recognize. She glanced up at Ross expectantly but not hopeful. He smiled broadly, but not at her, and promptly took the arm of the woman to whom he had extended the smile. Watching the cheery threesome breeze past her, Kellie didn't know who the woman was, but she was jealous of her, she hated her, and yet she wanted to be that girl with her delicate arm held by that strong gentle hand that she would let him place anywhere on her body. Anywhere.

Kellie sighed heavily, wearily, desperately. It was bad enough that her ex-boyfriend, Jerry Kaminski, was dating the girl who inhabited the window next to her and that he called Heather constantly on her cell phone and had the uncanny knack of showing up almost every time the two girls shared lunch together. But then it had been Heather's suggestion that Kellie join the bank's Team Feasibility Committee, management's feel-good effort to improve communications between all levels of bank employees. It had presented her with a great opportunity to make nice with Ross Byner, the co-star of her most private thoughts and recent daydreams. Now in the face of this most recent defeat it seemed like the suggestion was some sort of sick joke, and maybe even Jerry's idea. Kellie didn't care anymore. She just wanted to go back to work and lose herself and her misery.

"So how did it go?" Heather asked in a perky cheerful clear voice that ground into Kellie like the sharp teeth of a cheese grater.

"Boring," Kellie replied setting down her armload of folders and booting up her computer console.

"What did he saa-ayy?" Heather asked. The girl had an annoying habit of singing certain words for emphasis. Not that her words were ever significant enough to require stress or prominence or that her singing voice made the emphasis redeeming.

"Nothing," Kellie answered, her eyes downcast as she typed in her password into her terminal.

"Did you try the Look?" Heather then displayed her other annoying habit of holding her hands up, thumbs and fingers shaped to frame her smiling lively face. Maybe she really did believe that her life was as glamorous as the movies. But since she was dating Jerry Kaminski, Kellie knew better.

"I tried everything," Kellie remarked, exasperated and humiliated by the entire episode. "I tried the Look, the Stance, the Laugh, the Lean-everything."

"And?" Heather asked. "Aaa-annnd?"

Kellie looked over at Heather glumly. "Nothing."

"Aww, poor baby."

Heather said something else to her, but Kellie didn't hear it. In truth, she went on to say a lot of things to Kellie over the next couple of hours, but Kellie continued to ignore her. Instead she concentrated on her customers, on doing her job, the only thing that seemed to give her any sort of pleasure lately. With a bland idle listlessness Kellie served out her time the remainder of the afternoon and left for home without saying goodbye to anyone. Not that it would matter because no one ever really noticed her to begin with.

Later that evening, Kellie wandered through her apartment mindlessly. Boredom was setting in, terminally. It was after nine o'clock on a Friday evening. A girlfriend had left a message inviting her out to the movies, but Kellie had declined, not wanting to spend another evening gazing at a flickering big screen stocked with beautiful movie stars. She rolled her sky blue eyes. What made those Hollywood actresses so great anyway? Being utterly perfect in all ways and being worshipped by the superficial masses perhaps? Besides, those trips to the movies always ended up at a raucous smoky barroom where they would watch all the perfect, petite girls with their perfect hair and their perfect clothes compete for the attention of the guys who always seemed to be looking to add another trophy to their collection.

Kellie's lips curled into a smirk as her gaze deepened into her reflection in the full-length mirror in the hallway. Her mind flipped through the images from tabloid celebrity magazines and those of the shallow, superficial bar girls with the perfect bodies and perfect giggles and perfect smiles. She chuckled sadly to herself thinking, 'Good thing we have brains, cuz we're definitely not one of the beautiful ones, honey!'

She had changed clothes, carefully stripping out of her skirted business suit, arranging it on the hangers along with her tasteful silk blouse. Her dark auburn locks were now lowered but pulled back into a messy ponytail at the nape of her neck. Tendrils of unruly wavy hair sprung free around her face in random corkscrew patterns. The dimmed light within the hall cast an unflattering gray gaze over her flesh, well, what was visible. A funky pair of large, fuzzy slippers complete with white monster claws adorned her feet. A pair of droopy yellow pajama pants and a baggy t-shirt emblazoned with a red heart screaming, "Virginia is for Lovers" completed her comfy home-alone outfit. The tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses remained perched atop the bridge of her pert little nose. She would go without them altogether if she wasn't so nearsighted. She had heard all of Heather's, "You'd be so pretty if you'd do this, or that," comments. Kellie wasn't interested in doing this or that; she was merely interested in doing her job and... well, once she thought about it, nothing else really. Except when it came to Ross Byner or someone like him. Oh, the things she wanted to do to him...

Rolling her eyes once again before the self-defeating thoughts came charging back, Kellie turned away from her average looks displayed in the mirror and padded into her bedroom, her adored room, her private sanctuary. Unfortunately, even as a full time bank teller she didn't have a salary that allowed her a lot of luxury, but what she could afford, furnished the bedroom with an elegant splendor. The overwhelming color within the room was a rich, dark maroon. Sumptuous draperies hung at the windows. The walls were covered with a romantic elegant pattern. The room was further accented by the flickering of various candles on shelves, on the bureau, atop the antique armoire. She loved candlelight. There was just something so comforting, warm, and romantic about it. Not that anyone had cared lately to share the romance with her.

Kellie crawled onto the bed and fired up her laptop. Her fingers aimlessly played upon the keys as she surfed the net, a few indulgent minutes of harmless Internet window-shopping, a fantasy spending spree for things she probably could never afford. She sighed. When is that rich old man going to show up at my teller window ready to deposit his millions and leave me a handsome tip? That really did happen.

Click... click... click...

Site after site passed by before she stumbled onto a new lingerie shop. 'Trashy Dot Com? I don't think I've ever seen that before,' she thought. She guided the pointer around the window, checking out the exotic bras and panties and chemises. Did real women really wear crotchless panties and ridiculous bras that didn't even cover their nipples? Since Jerry had dumped her, Kellie didn't have any particular reason to purchase sexy lingerie. No boyfriend, no casual lover, not even a peeping Tom neighbor. No reason to dress up in luxurious nightwear or slutty, trashy, scandalous underwear. Even if she had, who would want to see her frumpy body in them? She was nowhere close to model perfection or the sexy centerfolds that men always seemed to lust after. She groaned softly and banished non-constructive thoughts. Suddenly a new window splashed onto her screen.

Live Girls Now!!!

"Oh, God... not tonight," Kellie muttered under her breath. Another damned pop-up! The appearance of the raunchy website made her feel a twinge of guilt, as if she had viewed something nasty and despicable, and as she attempted to close the window down suddenly a cornucopia of porn ads, sex chat rooms, or one of a million other disgusting websites spilled out. Her fingers began to ache as she continued to close the various flashing obscene screens. Do men really go for that kind of trash? What fool would pay for that kind of garbage? Probably only horny lonely losers living in their mother's basements who need to submerge their meaningless existences and feed their pointless lust by jerking off to some flickering fantasy. Frustrated, she exhaled deeply, rustling the puff of hair obscuring her glasses. 'There's no way I can battle these ads,' she thought, and was ready to press the power button and shut off the damned machine.

Live Girls Now!!!

'Damn! Not again!' Yet, this time, Kellie didn't close the window. As if seized by some strange instinct pulling at her, she clicked the button to take a tour of the site. Her eyes scanned the successive pages. 'What is this all about?' It seemed simple enough. She chuckled softly. Chat with girls with web cams. She thought of the viewers. She gave a thought to the girls themselves. 'How could they do this?' A sweep of confusion tempered her features as she looked over the girls. Most were wearing provocative clothing or no clothing at all! But what she did notice was that they were not perfect. One was simply fat, another's breasts were drooping unappealingly, and none of them were particularly pretty, not like the models that she saw parading along Fifth Ave. There were a few with lips horrifically distorted from inexpert Botox injections and bubbling artificial bosoms of silicone or saline. Yet here they were advertising themselves like they were goddesses of sex! Kellie couldn't help but laugh out loud. Must be a lot of lonely loser guys out there paying to watch these girls strip and do whatever it is that they do. Masturbate? That must be what they do. What else is there at that point?

"Hell, if these girls could do this, then I know for a fact that I could," Kellie suddenly blurted out loud. The sound of her words echoed in the subdued quiet of her room and surprised her. As soon as she spoke them, her world seemed to stop, and she thought about what had spilled out from her lips, involuntarily, uncontrollably. 'Well, why not? What's to stop me?' A thousand reasons suddenly began to pop up within her mind: what if she was recognized? What if someone she knew saw her? What if her boss saw her, or her father, or her baby brother? What if the viewers laughed at her? What if? What if? What if? Kellie shook her head furiously attempting to clear the negative thoughts.

Kellie went to her mirror and took another cursory appraisal of her looks. She took a deep breath, arched her back and posed provocatively like one of the girls on Live Girls Now!!! She certainly wasn't overweight, her breasts were firm and full and pointed appealingly upward, and with her hair undone she was certainly as pretty as they were, maybe even more so. Sure, she didn't have the delicate petite frame that men seemed to fawn over, but her figure reflected curvaceous and very feminine proportions. She dashed back to her laptop and clicked through to read the rules on becoming a Live Girl. It seemed anonymous enough and the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that no one she knew and respected would ever come to this kind of website. Besides, no one anywhere really knew her or even paid that much attention to her. She was nondescript, unnoticeable, and invisible.

While her thoughts raged, Kellie's fingers had already begun to work. She clicked through the application screens. It was easy enough and she typed in the necessary information to sign up and an acceptance screen flashed. Suddenly her stomach began to tingle with butterflies and an itchy nervousness crept through her veins. If something nasty happened and things got ugly, she could always just log off and disappear. It wasn't like she had to meet anyone in person or anything. There were no financial commitments, no contracts, you merely needed to be a girl with a cam who didn't object to being watched and maybe pick up a few extra bucks in the process. Besides, this might be a way to let some fun and excitement into her drab, boring life. Yet even with her doubts stirring, Kellie felt a spurt of exhilaration begin to churn wildly in her belly.

Hesitantly, she rose from her bed, found the cam her little brother had given her for Christmas, and propped it up on her dresser at the foot of her bed. She looked at herself in the mirror and cringed. 'Oh, I definitely need something sexier to wear,' she thought. 'But I don't have anything!' Kellie raced to her bureau and fumbled through the countless pairs of "sensible" panties and bras. Nothing racy like those other girls were wearing online. Then she found them. At the bottom and back of her lingerie drawer, still wrapped in pink tissue from the store, a skimpy little black lace bra and panties that she had bought months ago for Jerry, but had never worn. She chuckled. The prick had dumped her, so maybe it would be fitting for her to model them anonymously for some lonely stranger.

Kellie stripped off the Virginia Lovers t-shirt and kicked off her slippers. The pajama pants and white cotton briefs went flying across the room. She stepped into the sheer pair of panties-little more than a g-string actually. She had forgotten how skimpy they were as she placed the tiny triangle of lace over the mound of her sex and adjusted the strings over her hips and down between the cheeks of her butt. How absolutely decadent she felt! Then she fit herself into the delicate little black bra. Depending on the time of the month, she might at best fill out a full C cup, but tonight she looked absolutely... well, busty, her breasts pushed up high and threatening to spill out over the dainty lace edge of the ridiculously small bra. She glanced at her profile in the full-length mirror. Hmm, not bad. But this outfit needs just a little something more.

Then she flew back to her bureau and pulled open her stocking drawer. They had to be in here somewhere. 'Ah! Here they are!' Midst all the pantyhose was a pair of sheer black silk stockings with lace tops, still in the package. Kellie ripped open the package and carefully removed them. She ran the lush silk over her cheek and down over her body, sighing at the luxurious feeling of the soft smooth fabric against her skin. Rolling one up, she raised a foot to the bench by her dresser and pulled the stocking onto her leg. She felt incredibly sexy as her hands caressed the stocking up over her calve and thigh. With both stockings adorning her legs and her feet wedged into her spikiest pair of black heels, Kellie removed her glasses, added a strategic touch of makeup, and let her hair tumble free around her shoulders. She glanced one final time at her reflection in the mirror and hardly recognized the woman smiling back at her. She felt a tingle ripple down her spine to think that the woman in the mirror was Kellie Andrews, the mousy bank teller who spent her days behind the glass at Window 5 at the good old Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan, her own private nickname for the bank where she worked.