Touchy neighbor
The incident i am about to narrate occurred 3 months back. I am Santhi and i am married to prakash. My husband is around 40 years old while i am around 33. My husband is a general administration person and he had a habit of switching the jobs frequently. Right now he is working at Bangalore and i, along with my 5 year old daughter stay at Chennai. I am working as in a private firm in Chennai, my daughter studying in school and hence we are staying at Chennai. My husband used to come once or twice in a month and initially it irked me a lot but later i started become accustomed to it. We had moved into a new house around 8 months back. It was a four-storey apartment and we were in the top-floor in our building. Each floor had two apartments facing each other. Our front neighbors- the nandagopals’ were an older couple in their late-fifties. Mr. Nandagopal had retired from his service after superannuation while mrs. Nandagopal was working as a nurse at a famous hospital in chennai. They had two grown up children- a boy and a girl, both of whom were married and well-settled in mumbai and bangalore respectively. The nandagopals were quite an attractive couple considering their age and were quite fun to chat with in their own witty and humorous fashion. Mr nandagopal had a great sense of humour while mrs. Nandagopal was quite elegant in her appearance and mannerisms. As time passed by, i came to know mr nandagopal a lot better since both of us used to spend time at our apartments alone as mrs.nandagopal would be off to work in shifts and my husaband was not at all in my home itself. Since mrs nandagopal’s shifts would keep on rotating, many a times, when both mr. Nandagopal and i would be alone at our apartments, he would invite me over to his place for tea/coffee and we would strike up an interesting conversation. He was quite fun to hang out with in his own way. Being a typical example of what one would call a naughty old man – he was never short of jokes, sometimes dirty ones, but would always make it a point to ask beforehand so as not to offend. He would often poke me on issues like love, sex, relationships, flirting etc while i also never missed an opportunity to ask him uncomfortable questions which he would laugh-off. All-in-all, despite the age difference, we had become very close friends, sharing all our thoughts and little secrets with each other. We had formed a certain rapport with each other. As time went by, we were drawn quite close to each other. I also noticed that mr. Nandagopal had become quite touchy-feely in all these months. He would never miss an opportunity to touch, feel or caress me. Holding my hand or caressing me was quite normal for him but now he would, at times, put his hand way too up on my thighs, at times rub his shoulders on my boobs while we sit together or even dared to touch on my cheeks on one pretext or the other. It sometimes seemed very awkward but i never felt threatened or offended by his actions. Maybe it was a result of our deep friendship or his polite nature but sometimes he would start behaving like a berserk teenager who was getting out of control. Maybe, subconsciously i was also physically attracted to him. He had a certain charm in his personality which pulled me towards him. His looks, politeness, sophistication, wit, sense of humor and openness was magnetic. This incident occurred in december when the winters were at its peak. The days were quite warm but the nights were much cooler. I had just returned from the wedding of a relative in trichy. I was gone for about a week along with my daughter and while returing back, my mom had taken my daughter with her as it was half-yearly holidays. My husband went directly to bangalore and so it only me returned back to chennai just a day ago. I was wondering why i had not seen or heard from the nandagopals since then. My first day was spent unpacking and taking stock of the house, groceries, laundry and other household chores. After i arrived home from work in the evening, there was a knock on the door. It was mrs. Nandagopal. I was pleasantly surprised to see her. After exchanging pleasantries, i asked her if everything was all right as she was nowhere to be seen since my arrival. She said everything was ok. It was just that she was alloted the night shift at her hospital and was sleeping through the day. On enquiring about mr. Nandagopal, she said he had fallen ill due to the change in season. He was on medication for the fever and being an asthmatic, needed to take his inhalers every three-hours. She was worried that he might sleep-off and forget to take his inhalers on time thereby worsening his breathing. She requested me if i would check on him during the night that he takes his inhalers properly on time. I assured her that i’ll see to it that he takes his inhalers on time. I asked her about the time he needed to take them and she said it was every three hours after 10 pm. At 9:30 pm, mrs. Nandagopal rang our doorbell and said she was going for her duty and handed over her house-keys to me. She said that her husband would take the 10 pm dose himself and requested me to check on him for the 1 am dose and thereafter. I set my alarm clock to 1 am and i went to sleep by 10. I was woken up by the alarm at 1 am. Switching off the alarm, i stumbled out of the bed. I was wearing my night gown with just my panties underneath. I always had the habit of get rid of my brassiere while going to sleep at night. I wore my slippers, took up the keys from the table, locked my house and went out to mr. Nandagopal’s house. I unlocked the door and went in, closing the door. Entering their bedroom, i found mr. Nandagopal was lying on the bed wearing only his underwear and shivering profusely. I quickly woke him up and asked him to take his inhalers. He asked me to give him the inhalers from the table. I gave him the inhalers and he took the dose while still shivering in fever.