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eBook Category: Horror
eBook Description: Charlie Hart, 30, is an accomplished programmer analyst, a home owner, a productive citizen. He has one unpleasant vice that keeps him just this side of the law, however. He is an unreformed peeping Tom who needs to spy on the most secret moments of other people. Now we learn that these things can work both ways in the most surprising manner.

eBook Publisher: Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine), Published: Clocktower Books, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2003

30 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [42 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [65 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [17 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [233 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [18 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [74 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [90 KB] , hiebook (KML) [105 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [74 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [15 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [19 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [59 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [28 KB]
Words: 5200
Reading time: 14-20 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Marie and Steve Compton, when they moved into the empty house next door to Charlie, brought with them an electricity that convinced Charlie he was in love like never before in his life.

The delicious new feeling frightened Charlie, for he had to be very careful. And he really meant to be good. And he hoped that, after his last brush with the police, the court-assigned shrink had been right when she told him he was cured.

Charlie Hart was 30. He lived alone with his secrets, his pleasures, his yearnings, in the house his late mother had bequeathed him. As Charlie's lawyer pointed out to the judge, Charlie was an educated man, a contributor to society. He just had this minor problem. He liked to peek into people's windows at night.

When Charlie was thirteen, his Daddy had run away with another woman. His Momma thereupon rarely smiled. Her eyes had a shocked, bereaved glitter, as though brimming with tears. She'd stare at Charlie and say: "You'll come to no good end, boy."

Charlie's testicles ached a lot, and he felt a yearning, some dreadful and nameless hunger. When he tried to ask Momma about it, she turned away with a resentful look that made him feel guilty. She would throw her sewing down, say "Men!" and storm out of the room. He would call after her, but a door would slam, and the boy, tiptoeing into the long dark hallway, would hear the sound of muffled sobs coming from Momma's bedroom. He began to realize that he was a victim of his male nature, as Daddy had been, and he felt a deep sense of guilt and shame.

At the same time, he could not resist his growing urges. Wearing his black sweats and a wool cap, he would ease out of his second-story bedroom window, slide down a hard cold tree limb, and roam the neighborhood like a feral animal, alive with the night. Never mind the thin and artificial thread of civilization: a narrow street, a clump of houses, a passing car. There was a deeper truth in the night, a friendship with the owl, the rodent, the passing clouds. Stalking from lawn to lawn, through holes in fences, he became a student, an expert, of windows. He turned away from the things that did not please: an elderly widow, part invalid, struggling with monumental heroism to straddle an aluminum potty; he turned quickly away from such indictments of mortality. The beatings, the fights that took place behind Venetian blinds, those he avoided.

He got to know the places and times to look. There was the tall, big-breasted woman with thick glasses who lay naked in bed reading and eating cookies. There was the young mother who breast-fed a baby every night at ten. But his coup d'etat was the discovery that, from seven-thirty to eight each evening, Laurie Tomasini practiced cheerleading in front of her bedroom mirror while undressing for bed.

Girls liked Charlie at first. Laurie had been no exception. He was a compact, nice-faced boy with dark curly hair. All the boys desired Laurie Tomasini. The boys from nearby Foster High even stopped by during lunch time to watch her practice with the 8th grade cheerleading squad. Laurie had SPOKEN with Charlie. Laurie had a boyish body, but softer in the hips and shoulders. She looked flat-chested; but had acres of glossy mahogany hair, and a gorgeous face. Her skin was the color of brandy. She had dark eyes, naturally elongated like an Egyptian princess's including the snow-white corners. A woman's beauty, Charlie decided, was indescribable; it could only be looked at, not touched, and he had a rare talent for looking. She had the fig-shaped nose, the lotus mouth, the football jaw Charlie found in the library in books on timeless Nilotic art.

Alas, her attraction to him lasted little more than a day. Charlie saw her walking home with the captain of the basketball team. No matter, he knew where her window was. The boys wondered what if anything was becoming of Laurie's tits, as they so crudely put it. With his friends the owl, the bat, and the moon, Charlie gazed contentedly through a fault in the Venetian blinds. Yes, she did have breasts though small, with large chestnut nipples, and they even wobbled a bit when she did the back high split. She had a habit of grasping her hands against her bare belly and turning this way and that to admire herself in the mirror. Charlie would grow excited (but never touched himself, for guilt and fear) and when his pants got wet he would steal softly home like a wild Indian returning from the hunt.

One evening, as he watched Laurie, a dog started barking ferociously. The Tomasinis had gotten a shepherd with slavering muzzle and vicious looking teeth. It thudded up to the fence and started cutting the air with axe-blow barks that hurt Charlie's ears and scared him. Charlie slipped and fell, getting muddy. A door opened, and Mr. Tomasini appeared carrying a rifle and a flashlight. Laurie's hand pushed open the blinds, her other hand covering one breast. A chestnut nipple looked at Charlie; it was the last he ever saw of Laurie; and he would carry a lifetime memory of the loathing and fury in her eyes. A gunshot cracked through the air, and Charlie ran like hell.

Next day at school, the principal called him in. "Charlie, were you near Laurie Tomasini's house last night?"

"Nossir," Charlie said forthrightly.

The principal's face showed uncertainty and disgust. "Charlie, Mr. Tomasini filed a complaint with the police about a peeping tom. He says Laurie thinks she saw you, but she's not sure, so they can't prove anything. You're lucky it won't go any farther than this. Don't do that again or you'll wind up in jail one day. Do you understand?"

"Sir, I am innocent," Charlie said with humble honesty.