Epilogue. (Gardener)

Awakening with a grand stretch and a teary eyed yawn, I look over at my alarm clock with my vision still unfocused; its cold, unfeeling digital face reads '6:30AM'. That was absurdly early for an off-day but my mind is too abuzz with anxiety to go back to sleep. It was the day after my humiliating ordeal, and I still didn't fully believe that yesterday's nightmarishly embarrassing events could have actually transpired, but during my morning shower I'd found red lipstick on my ass, so that kind of confirmed to me that every last bit of it was real.

Then, as the humid haze of relaxing hot water rushes down my naked body, right when I was least expecting it, my doorbell chimes it's pulse-quickening *Ding-Dong*. I'd jumped where I was in the shower and came close to falling over at the surprise. Figuring that my ablution might as well be done, I turn the water off, step out, and don a towel… then a second, larger towel.

I jog to my door, the uncomfortable sensation of my sopping wet cock bouncing around freely under my towels prompts a blush, and my being shirtless makes me hesitate for a second before grabbing the knob. Cracking the door slowly ajar, and sticking only my head out from behind it to greet the outside, I check to see who's there… huh? A fastidious side-to-side scan of my complex's plaza reveals nobody; I open the door the rest of the way to get a better look, but whoever rang the bell must be long-gone, as I don't see a soul anywhere.

Just before I walk back inside to finish drying off, I look down and see a massive gift-basket sitting on my welcome mat; it looks like it contains at least eight varieties of artisan soap, three bottles of wine, two pineapples, an adorable stuffed lion, and a lifetime supply of candy. On the side of the gargantuan wicker peace offering I spot a colorful little card; picking it up for further examination reveals a sad-eyed raccoon on the cover saying "Sorry."

Venturing a peek inside of the card, I read a handwritten message: "This is an apology for showing you off to the book club, not saving you from that perverted cop, kissing you in front of oncoming traffic, and spanking you. All while you were naked. I'm super, super, super sorry. I seriously hope you're okay. Please talk to me again.- Ming Zhao"

I pause for a couple seconds, blushing at the embarrassing memories, before a warm smile breaks across my face; my crush was worried about me, and also thought I was serious about the gift basket. A chuckle forms in my throat, before I begin laughing hysterically, so hard in fact, that one of the towels falls off my hips, but I don't fret about it. It just exposed my Adonis belt rather than my penis, and nobody's around to see anyway, right?

Wrong.

A bush approximately twenty feet away from me exclaims, "Holy shit!!!" and a certain sexy businesswoman falls forward out of her hiding spot, her vision locked onto the length of my dripping wet, bare, muscular torso, before she throws both hands over her eyes, and says, too nonchalantly for the blush spread across her grimacing face, "Ah, hello, Ahab. I trust my gift finds you well, also, please don't hate me."

Loud shrieks of humiliation and surprise escape my lungs, until I calm down enough to process the lady in front of me. Grateful that she had covered her eyes, I search uneasily for a reply, eventually uprooting, "Don't worry, Ming Zhao, you're still my favorite person… just, never hide in my bushes ever again, and I'd say we're golden."

"Got it." She says, groaning prostrate into the concrete.