"Desperation"

[PollyWannaCracker]

"Desperation"

(closed)​

Claire had been suffering the most traumatic week of her young life. The 20-year-old had quit one of her three part time, minimum wage jobs on Monday after her boss suggested she perform some customer service on his cock to remain employed. Four days later, cutbacks in personnel saw her second job come to an end.

The last of her three jobs -- in the Child Care Center of one of the city's largest tech firms, Walker Creek Unlimited -- was still secure, thankfully. It paid $4 over minimum wage and had some small but helpful benefits: free drinks at the coffee stand, a $10 a day credit at the cafeteria, and other minor perks. But the one benefit of which Claire was ever so thankful was that she could bring her 27-month-old daughter Annie to work with her.

But now even that was changing. One of the firm's midlevel managers was claiming that quiet, gentle little Annie had been bullying his own child, a charge that Claire knew was in response to her turning down an invitation from the man for dinner and drinks and -- surely -- sex afterward. Claire's supervisor was giving her one week to arrange other day care arrangements for Annie, arrangements which -- because of their cost -- would make her third and final job untenable.

And to top off all of these employment related issues, Claire and Annie came out of the Day Care at the end of her shift to find that her car was missing from the parking lot. She called the police, only to learn that her bank had had the vehicle repossessed for late payments. It took two and a half hours to get home on the bus, what with Claire's unfamiliarity with public transit. Not surprisingly, Annie found the bus and its occupants interesting, but by the time the pair got home, the toddler was hungry and crying and pitching a fit. They had nothing interesting to eat and were out of fun treats as they hadn't been able to stop at the store on the way home. Claire sat Annie down in front of the television with the last of the Graham Crackers, only to learn that the cable -- including the internet for Claire and the children programming for Annie -- had been cut during this most horrible of days.

After finally putting her crying girl down for the night, Claire made her way to the back patio of her ground level apartment with the last two low-end wine coolers from the fridge. She dropped into an old, rotting lawn chair she'd found on the curb recently, and -- even before her first sip of the cheap alcohol -- began sobbing.

 

[LitShark]

Life had been pretty good to Matt Kline after a somewhat rocky start. He’d been bullied through middle and high school as a nerd, but quickly discovered that knowing about computers and computer programming was a good thing out in “the real world.” College was the best time of his life and his friends that he made among the STEM majors and gifted scholars were still his friends today.

After accumulating multiple advanced degrees on a full ride scholarship, Matt took a contractor position with the Department of Defense. After several successful years with the DOD, Matt packaged the encryption software that he’d originally developed to protect the government’s nuclear codes from Russian hackers into a more accessible software that protected credit card transactions online.

When the… “Adult” websites discovered that there was a newer, better way to accept people’s credit card information, Matt’s business went through the roof. He retired from his government job at 26 with a full benefits package and more than enough money from his software business to set him and his (then) fiancée Sarah up for life.

Neither he nor his children would ever have to worry about money. The geek from high school makes good. It was like a fairy tale.

Sarah had her own career as a pediatric surgeon and continued working full-time, despite the fact that they didn’t need the income. It was hard to say “no” to sick kids and her focus had always been on doing good rather than living well.

By way of “putting his money to work,” Matt purchased a modest but undeniably upscale condo complex in a good neighborhood, renowned for good schools and low crime rates—in other words, the suburbs.

No longer needing to work to earn income, Matt made upkeep on the property his new obsession—learning the myriad things about home ownership he never knew he didn’t know. Removing the U-bend from a sink, repairing a roof leak, fixing a hot water heater, adjusting a dimmer switch to accommodate low-wattage LED bulbs—on and on.

His wife sometimes teased him, calling him Mr. Fix It. Despite Sarah’s teasing, Matt liked having a reputation for being handy—he liked solving problems and being the one people turned to with their problems.

Matt tried to be a fair and honest landlord to his tenants, charging rent at the standard rate based on location and square-footage, which was rare in the midst of a housing crisis. Many landlords hiked rates up to whatever they thought they could get away with, but Matt couldn’t live with himself, dragging less fortunate people through the dirt simply because they couldn’t afford to own their homes. It felt predatory to hike up the cost of rent, and as a result, there was a long waiting list for tenants wanting to rent condos in Matt’s compound.

Just lately, there had been an issue with the automated sprinkler system that was meant to water the small patch of shared grass that bordered the shared pool at the back of the complex. The water bill was skyrocketing and the only logical explanation was a broken sprinkler head.

Matt was confident that the gardener had clipped one of the sprinklers when he’d been mowing, but he wanted evidence before accusing him of anything.

With his Air Pods playing Lizzo loudly in his ears, Matt didn’t even notice that Claire was outside when he first walked out to the small, private park that was part of his condo complex. Sarah had a surgery that night, which meant that she would likely sleep at the hospital when she was done—it wasn’t safe for her to drive when she was that exhausted, and as Matt always told her, she was “worth waiting for.”

His whole evening was set aside for the epic grudge match, Man Vs. Sprinkler.

“Ninna-minnih-namma-needuh-senimini-manahwomuh—Pump! Me! Up! Feelin’ flossy, in mah, Balenciaga, ammafellah fab-u-lous!” with his headphones in, Matt thought that he had an impeccable flow, the actual sound of him butchering the song safely insulated from his ears, “cause I give a—oh fuck!”

Matt noticed Claire suddenly, realizing that she must have noticed him for some time. He quickly reached up to extract his Air Pods from his ears. In his haste, he fumbled the tiny whips of expensive plastic. He stumbled trying to catch them, knocking them further into the lawn.

Instantly vanished.

“Shit!” Matt swore again, dropping suddenly onto all fours, searching for his tiny in-ear headphones, “no, no, no… not again...”

It was a good thing someone already loved him, because Matt was NOT smooth. It wasn’t always this bad, but Claire made him nervous. A young single mother who could have been a model for top designers in Paris if not for one or two mistakes. She was a young mother—very young and very much trying to do it on her own. She was often late on the rent or her dues, but Matt could never find it in him to be harsh with her.

She was magnificent.

Claire was one of those one in ten-million types of beauties. Beautiful in that way that people can only be born to. Surgery couldn’t match it, exercise couldn’t replicate it, she’d won the genetic lottery. Sarah was a beauty herself, but it wasn’t the same. Claire was like a walking miracle—and she’d been crying.

Claire looked beautiful even when openly weeping. A rare type of beauty indeed.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Matt apologized, coming to the grim realization that his Air Pods were well and truly lost, “if it’s about the sprinkler, I’m here to fix it right now.”

Matt looked up and smiled. For how awkward he irrefutably was, he could usually make women laugh. In his experience, that went a long way.

 

[PollyWannaCracker]

Claire was so deep into her despair that she didn't immediately hear Matt's singing. When finally she did -- lifting her eyes toward the sound -- he was already in view, noticing her and blurting out, "Oh fuck!"

Normally, she would have laughed or at the least giggled a bit. This wasn't the first time Claire had caught Matt absorbed by his music while doing work; a couple of weeks earlier, she'd been laying back in a lounge chair in the shade of the building on an unbearably hot day while he tended to a maintenance chore just twenty feet away; he was belting out the words to a song she didn't recognize or -- possibly -- he was recreating the song so poorly that she simply didn't recognize it.

Claire did a lot of giggling that instance, and she would have loved to let Matt know she was there, just for the shock value and another subsequent laugh. But at the time, she was eight days late on the rent and really didn't want to be questioned about when the payment was coming. (Thankfully, she got paid the next day and -- in the dead of night -- snuck over to the payment slot at the office and slipped it in before running off, fearing the man might step out and see her.)

She watched Matt through eyes glazed over by tears as he attempted to find the Air Pods he'd mishandled, mumbling, “No, no, no… not again...”

It wasn't entirely clear in her fuzzy brain what Matt was doing at first as she hadn't actually seen the Air Pods disappearing into the night. It didn't help clear things up when he told her, “If it’s about the sprinkler, I’m here to fix it right now.”

Claire didn't know what to say; her thoughts were so jumbled. Her response was a vague, "Okay."

She watched him for a moment as he searched in vain for something in the grass; Claire was unaware of the broken sprinkler, a bit of knowledge that might have very cleared up the present confusion. Her thoughts weren't on what Matt was doing but were on Matt himself. She didn't know a lot about him, despite having been a tenant of his building since just days after she and newborn Annie moved in over two years ago.

He did -- or had done -- something in the computer industry, a job that had made him a fortune, she'd been told by other neighbors. Matt had retired at a younger age than that of which most people could even fantasize. Well, if you called keeping the complex standing retirement; it seemed like a lot of fucking work to Claire.

And Matt had a gorgeous wife, if you're into that kind of woman. Claire found Sarah to be a bit too perfect: perfect figure, including perfect tits, and perfect skin (even before she applied her makeup, which Claire learned one morning when she caught Matt's wife stepping outside to get the morning paper without her face all dolled-up).

Claire had often wondered if Sarah had married Matt for his money, Matt had married Sarah for her perfect body, or both ... until she learned that Sarah was a surgeon. C'mon, really? A surgeon ... with that figure and face? Who has all of that going to them?

When Claire realized that her landlord had ceased his apparently fruitless search in the grass and was instead just sitting back on his haunches staring at her, she suddenly felt very conspicuous and ashamed. She didn't cry often, and she never cried in front of other people, particularly strangers, which Matt almost was. She caught his smile and tried to return her own. But a tremble in her lips -- actually, it was a shiver that ran through her whole body -- sort of negated that ... and suddenly she was tearing up again and on the verge of sobbing.

"I lost my job," Claire suddenly blurted out, not even realizing she was doing it. She sobbed conspicuously once as she dropped her gaze to her trembling hands, continuing, "Two of them, actually; the cafe and the realty office. All I got left is the Day Care ... and they aren't letting me take Annie with me anymore."

She looked up at Matt just as a full stream of tears began to flood from both eyes and begged, "Please don't kick me out, Mister Kline. Please don't evict me. I'll find more work, I promise. I just need--"

The sobs overwhelmed Claire, and she lowered her head to her knees as she pulled her legs up into a near fetal position there on the concrete patio steps.

 

[LitShark]

“Oh—oh no, sweetheart, hey…” Matt wasn’t sure exactly what to say, but instinctively he sat down beside her on the steps, wrapping his arms around her—she felt so small and fragile in his arms, “nobody’s getting evicted, come on. We can find you another job—er, jobs. Everything’s going to be alright.”

Holy damn she was beautiful.

Her deep, expressive blue eyes overflowing with tears. Though Matt had been well-off for most of his adult life, his mom had supported him as a waitress. A single mother who had him too young. He remembered watching his mom struggle to pay bills, keep up with rent, make ends meet. He sympathized with Claire deeply—though she did not remind him of his mom in any other ways.

“Look… You’re going to be alright. Take a breath. My wife will probably kill me, but this month, you don’t need to worry about rent. I’ll mark your account current, we’ll pick back up next month. Would that make you smile?”

Matt intended to actually pay her balance from his own account, as Sarah had full access to the buildings’ finances. He couldn’t just pretend the money was there, but he could afford to pay it—as long as this didn’t become a regular thing.

“Yeah? Feel better?” Matt searched for her eyes, still holding her in his arms, “just… pay off the utilities and we’ll call it even. I’m happy to help.”

Just then, the sprinklers kicked on.

When Matt thought that he had turned off the system, he’d apparently set a one-hour timer, which had just run out.

The good news was that it was easy to tell where the broken sprinkler-head was—as a solid stream of water that came spraying up from the ground, right next to where Claire was sitting. Within seconds, both of them were soaked to the skin as the stream was like a full-open garden hose. Matt’s protective instinct, that was already in high gear, took over as he tried to position himself between her and the sloid stream of water.

She was so small that when he tried to turn, he just kind of plucked her up and slid her soaking wet body into his lap. The steady stream of water was now hitting him squarely in the center of his back.

“I’m so sorry!” Matt shouted over the sound of the water spraying on all sides and the percussive drumming of water from the broken sprinkler splashing into his solid back, “I meant to turn them off!”

They were soaking wet, but they were not likely to get less so by just sitting there. Again, acting on instinct alone, Matt picked her up in his arms, chest to chest, letting her wrap her long, athletic legs around him as he carried her back into the lobby on the ground floor of the condo complex.

Once they were safely inside, Matt was breathing heavy. He was looking into Claire’s eyes and forgotten everything else. He’d forgotten that he was carrying her, forgotten that he was soaking wet, forgotten his wife—ol’-what’s-her-name.

Before he realized what was going on, her back was against the glass door, the sprinklers vibrating the glass as their spray pattern passed by. It was pure coincidence that this spot in the lobby was a blind spot for the CC cameras in the lobby.

Pure coincidence.

Her skin was so soft… was he touching her thighs? How had he gotten here? Why were her eyes so fucking blue?