Chapter Three
Roop and I spent the evening making macaroni and cheese with too much hot sauce and looking for apartments. I was already pretty sure I was going to head back to the city. It’s where I’d always been, I was comfortable and knew my way around there. It was my stomping ground. It would be easier to find work and keep myself busy there.
I was only with her for about six days. Rapidly got myself reinstated at my old job and leaping on the first property management group that emailed me back. It wasn’t all that much, it was actually even in the neighborhood I wanted to be. Two minutes from one of the train stops and only about a twenty-minute walk to Timothy’s office.
Jon and I emailed back and forth a bit. I drafted one to him with my new address but didn’t give it to him. He didn’t ask whether I was still with Roop or moved on or would be moving back. It felt like he was gently stepping back. Smiling ruefully, saying, “I’ll give her her space” which enraged me without basis to believe that was what was happening.
His father called me. Awkward and not actually talking about the fact I’d left besides circularly asking me if “everything would be all right soon” and hanging up as soon as I said I was busy.
But he was the only person who reached out.
For my first day back to work, I wore red. Red blouse, red slacks, red shoes. Jon liked white, pink, lavender, no prints really. Which was fine. I had plenty of that. But he thought monochromatic outfits were flashy and bright shoes ‘unnecessary’ so I rarely wore them anymore. But I did today.
And work was good. Timothy had been chosen to do a fascinating and exciting art installation. A fully designed and curated train for people to do east coast vacations on. He expressed gratitude to have me back, since I’d done larger art pieces before, and most of the rest of his team was young and inexperienced. I was even more glad that he didn’t ask me what happened. Didn’t really ask why I’d left work and why I’d returned now. He was full of feeling like that. Probably the human I was closest to outside of Roop or Jon.
And it was good to lose myself in work. He let me come in early and stay late. The office was certainly nicer and more peaceful than my apartment. At this point, I just used it to sleep. I was out of it about seventeen to twenty hours a day. Finding a gym. Eating most of my meals at the office. Going to the library, going to bars and drinking coffee, and reading alone.
I was occasionally approached, but usually only by men drunk or dumb enough to approach a woman with her nose quite literally in a book. I didn’t mind. My firm nos went over well enough, and they were usually polite enough. I was never anywhere raucous, or anywhere that would allow a patron to become so.
Roop had asked me if I’d be pursuing other romantic avenues. I told her firmly that the answer was no. More and more I was sure that Jon and I couldn’t be repaired. I wanted it desperately, but the longer we were apart without him trying or communicating at all, the more I was realizing that was unlikely. And I didn’t even know how to explain how much he’d hurt me. So if Jon fell through… I’d be pursuing celibacy, I said. She’d raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t question me.
I was pretty sure that often people in the throes of a very bad romantic breakup would swear off further threats. But mine certainly felt real right now. Nobody else would do but him. And he hadn’t done at all. So who could? And why bother trying or looking?
Part of the reason I didn’t bother being home much, besides the fact that it made me limply unhappy, was all the noise. I’d become accustomed to the quiet of Newton. We were on Main Street, but the speed limit was thirty, so no whooshing cars. There were broad sidewalks, but it was just stay-at-home mothers with prams, jogging dads, and older couples doing constitutionals at sundown. The house was set back from the road, the only neighbors quite far off from us, the lawn broad, surrounded by stone and iron fence. And Jon liked quietude within the house. He didn’t own a television. We had a radio in the kitchen and den, but he wanted it low. And just music, no talk radio or podcasts or audiobooks. His favorite sound was the breeze through the windows in the spring and summer, and the fire crackling in the fall and winter. I liked that too.
I was on the second floor, with one apartment above and below me. Hearing the very politely light footsteps of my upstairs neighbor. Clearly used to living above others, but still. Hearing their padding toes back and forth as I tried to sleep would wake me. On the other side were two men, I couldn’t quite figure out if they were just roommates or friends. But they’d each have every appliance on in their house. Two televisions, two stereos, the dishwasher, and a stationary bike. On the other side, I couldn’t be quite sure who it was because I hadn’t seen anyone go in or out. It didn’t sound like more than one occupant. And they also weren’t rude. But twenty-four hours a day they were playing music. Never the same kind of music. They seemed to be on a near-opposite schedule to myself, perhaps. I’d hear their front door open and close when I was just waking up at about four– the sound of them returning home. I’d hear them showering and getting ready in the rare moments I was in the apartment in the afternoon. Maybe they were a server or bartender, I thought– up all night and sleeping all day.
Not that I was doing much better. Getting up at four or five to head to the gym. Going from there to work and staying until I couldn’t. Grabbing dinner at home and then going back out until I was ready to sleep. A few times I’d even go out dancing if I was feeling particularly restless. But it was always vaguely disappointing and lonely, so I stopped.
Roop came by often for dinners, even though it was a far further trip for her, so I didn’t ask her to do so all that often. But I loved getting to pull out the photos from work and show her. She kissed me once, saying how good it was to see me busy again. I didn’t realize how “unbusy” I’d been.
I went back to the way I’d eaten before Jon. Huge salads. Pasta with pesto or spinach. Hummus and vegetables. Three apples in a row and a slice of toast. Satisfied and clean and good feeling. He liked pork and beef and cooked vegetables, potatoes, and rice pilaf. Pound cake and cornbread and casseroles. Chocolate biscuits, gin and tonics. Suddenly I had soda in my refrigerator again and iced coffee. Three different kinds of hot sauces. Pre-sliced cheese and prosciutto. Canned pears and tuna and grapes. Ease.
I started sewing again– slowly. Just making curtains to cover the double-paned and clouded windows. Then pillows. I didn’t have any furniture outside of the twin bed and platform I’d bought for it. Not that I was destitute, but I knew this wasn’t my final landing place, so there didn’t seem to be sense in much else. So I bought cheap thick foam at the craft store. Wrapping it into rolls and keeping it in tubes with belts. Bobbling them with much awkwardness and sweat on the train back home. Making huge floor cushions to sit on. Getting two cheap coffee tables from the thrift store. Chopping the legs shorter at Timothy’s office in the wood shop. The perfect height now to sit on the floor and eat from. The positive of the apartment was that not only were the closets large, but they all belonged to me. So I hung all of my clothes now. I didn’t need a bureau. I was always a floor-sitter when it came to makeup. It drove Jon mad– having to step over me as we both got ready. He got me a vanity– with the round mirror and the flashbulbs all around it, for the bedroom. I used it, but never felt quite as steady as sitting cross-legged on the floor and putting on eyeliner in a compact mirror.
It was at once quieter and louder. My internal spaces were far quieter. In a specific way. A lonely way. A no-one-to-talk to in the dark of the night way. No one to share a meal with or who expected me home at a certain time. But also louder. Because more hours of my day were now in public, one way or another. Because I heard the lives of strangers all around me all the time. And it made that internal quiet that much quieter.
Occasionally Jon would email me. Oddly, in the fashion of a yearly update from family. What was going on in town. His parents. Work. Who he’d ended up hiring to close the pool and do the final cover-ups of rose bushes, tree trimming, and all the other autumnal lawn work. Telling me that the group with whom I’d done my first cooking class was having a second one– classic French cooking. Not making any suggestions or posing any question or request. He honestly could be sending this missive to anyone and have it all be appropriate and land in just the same fashion as it did with me. Which is to say, without meaning or value. I didn’t understand. Signing off Love Always, Jon.
I didn’t know quite how to respond. I tried to write one back in response. Talking about the train project. About some design and decor for a few massive parties at the best hotel downtown. About unpacking my sewing machine. About the fact that my wedding dress was still in his closet. That I wasn’t sleeping well alone. That I’d lost that two pounds I’d been trying to lose. That I’d finally finished that biography of Dolley Madison he bought me. Wondering what he was trying to tell me with that purchase.
After finishing it, I erased it. I just kept responding all’s well to these odd little newsletters. Missing him terribly.
I had taken a bath one night and was lying in bed with a book. Considered going out to get a cup of coffee and a pastry, but a nasty autumn rainstorm had popped up, and I decided to just stay in. Getting into fleece pajamas. Jon had hated those too, anything with a kiddish print, or cartoon socks. He liked peignoir sets or lace nightgowns. I liked to sleep in underwear in the summer or leggings and sweatshirts in the cool months. But he’d bought me dozens of sleep sets. And I didn’t mind it much.
But not tonight. Laying with chamomile tea and a new book. Listening to the rain. Listening to my left-hand neighbors playing some kind of shooting video game, and listening to a sitcom simultaneously. Hearing just the downbeat of some kind of electronica from my right-hand neighbor. Who never played their music too loud, but who always had music on. Even apparently sleeping with it on.
Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable sound of a feminine moan. An answering masculine one in return. I grinned, cocking my ear to the right-hand wall. Whoever my neighbor was seemed to be having an excellent time. Their sounds didn’t fade out or stop, though. I finished a full chapter before perking my ear up again. Sort of impressed with their stamina. Besides, I’d never heard such a vocal man before. Very impressed by his endurance and vulnerability. He suddenly went quiet, though she didn’t. I flushed, guessing he was probably going down on her. Sliding across my little mattress until my hip and cheek were against the wall. My neighbor's bed must be nearly against the wall, too. I could almost hear, or at least imagined I was hearing their writhing in the sheets, her heavy breath. Leaping back away from the wall when I heard her quite obviously coming.
I giggled into my palm, rolled over to the far side of the bed, and scooped up my phone. Texting Roop that at least someone in my building was having a good time. Just as I was about to hit send I heard him moan, saying a name but too softly to make out. I leaned back toward the wall. Wanting now to hear him finish, too. She’d drained down to whimpers and whispers– no longer the high siren whoop of before.
“Oh, love,” he said, groaning low and deep for a stretched-out minute.
I turned off my light, throwing the blanket over my head. Listening as my neighbor turned up their music. Falling asleep to whatever droney ballad they were listening to.
When I was heading out the next morning, getting an earlier start than usual because I’d had an early evening yesterday, I bumped into someone in the hallway. I’d been juggling my work tote, my gym duffle, a spare umbrella, and a flask of tea, and in frustration, flinging the bag over my shoulder I backed into someone. Gasping and covering my mouth, because it was before four in the morning. I didn’t want to wake anyone, but I hadn’t been expecting anyone else in the hallway. I turned to face whoever the stranger was. A strikingly pretty, if tired-looking woman. About my age, or maybe a little older. The opposite of me in nearly every way– almond-eyed, dark and silken-haired, tall and very slim.
“‘Morning,” I whispered.
Trying desperately to hide my curiosity and blush. Because I’d heard her orgasm just a few hours before. She was wearing a work sheath, pretty, expensive, and simple. But I could tell it was wrinkled– a walk-of-shame dress if I’d ever seen one.
“Are you my neighbor?” I asked, still softly.
“No,” she said, also whispering, rolling her eyes to the door. Clearly not wanting to wake whoever was inside.
“Oh,” I said, seeing she didn’t want to answer. She swept past me to the elevator. I took the stairs instead.
****
Chapter Four
I was returning home after nine. I’d gone and had a late dinner with my coworkers, having a lovely time. For the first time in years, having sushi again. I felt good, and a little tired. Not particularly looking forward to being home. I was thinking of lying on the floor cushions and playing a few hands of cards against myself. Tire myself further and then make myself some hot chocolate to take to bed. I was considering purchasing a television just for the company. But then I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to watch, and so I hadn’t bothered.
This time there was someone ahead of me. It wasn’t the young men from the left side. I knew them. Both blonde– lighter than me. Both approximately the same size and coloring. Almost interchangeable. Enough that I sometimes wondered if they were brothers or fraternal twins or something. These were two tall people, though, both dark haired. Laughing and both darkly clothed, but not warm enough for the chill in the evening and the still rainy skies.
Ah, my right-hand neighbor! I thought for a moment the woman was the one I’d seen this morning. But looking closer, it wasn’t. Still a beauty, still dark-haired but definitely a different woman. Hair far shorter, busty where the other woman had been very tautly thin. This girl wasn’t curvy like me, though, I could see. Just had her breasts jacked sky-high by a push-up bra. No judgment, just noticeable. She caught me looking at the two of them. I smiled, she smiled back, then ducked her head, pulling the man toward the door. I watched him fumble keys out of his hip pocket. So the man, Mr. Oh Love, was my neighbor. And a rather promiscuous neighbor at that! He saw her not looking at him, not watching him, and he reached back for her elbow. Saw the direction of her eyes and also looked up at me.
I kind of liked how his first reaction was to just smile. He knew there was an interloper in his hallway, someone who’d distracted his partner, if only momentarily, and still he smiled. He saw me, doing that brotherish up-tilt of his chin in recognition of another human. He was handsome in a distracting way. Very pale, hair and eyes incredibly dark. Tall, broad shouldered. But fine-featured with long fingers. Not pretty– too masculine and hirsute to be pretty. But dramatic, he looked theatrically handsome, put together in such a way to be a pleasure to the eye. Not my type at all. Too young for me, firstly– maybe my age, maybe even a little younger. Knowing it was stereotypical, I couldn’t help but fall for older men. Usually I didn’t like tall men either. When I thought of the kind of men I was attracted to I often thought of the terms ‘neat’, ‘tidy’, ‘immaculate’, ‘gentlemen.’
His hair was a little too long, a hank of it falling over his forehead. He looked as though he’d tried to tame it, slicking it back over his well-shaped head, but it was flying loose now. He wore a beard and mustache, cutely groomed. Eyes deep set and shadowed.
His smile went devilish, flashing one rather pointed eyetooth at me. Maybe it had been chipped in the past– it looked dangerous now. And he winked, pulling his girl through the doorway and kicking it shut behind them.
Instead, I took my book and cards into the bedroom. Getting undressed and bundling under my covers. Hearing his stereo go on. Different music again. Something more classically ‘sexy’ by the sounds of it. Not the electronica and then pop love songs from last night. Apparently, a curated fuck playlist for each woman. I rolled my eyes and then heard a gasp through the wall. Embarrassed, I got closer. He was just as vocal as he’d been last night. But now I had a face to go with the sounds. My stomach churned, and my heart beat harder. Picturing the length of him whipping against that pretty girl. Listening to how when he did speak words, he moaned them. She was one of those women who became high-pitched, yipping and whimpering like whatever was happening was painful. It still didn’t distract me from him.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I snuck my fingers between my legs. Clearly, I’d been sort of planning this. I’d watched them go into his apartment together. I went straight to my bedroom instead of being in my sitting room. And I hadn’t bothered to get dressed in my pajamas. Still, I’d be taking this fact to the grave. Pushing my ear to the wall, I touched myself slowly.
Sort of getting reacquainted. Masturbation being another little thing Jon didn’t like. Not that he out-and-out forbade it. But he was made very hurt by it, wondering why I didn’t go to him if I was feeling desirous. I couldn’t adequately explain that it was different and both served very different purposes, so I gave up. It didn’t matter much to me either way. And he did keep me satisfied on that front. Very available. More flexible about sex, in fact, than any other facet of his life. Willing to indulge pretty much any time, anywhere.
But Jon didn’t sound like my neighbor. Nor did he go as long.
I heard my neighbor start to speak and sealed my ear to the wall. Catching the tail end of something.
“– there, babygirl.”
I moaned myself, an orgasm knocked out of me like breath from my lungs. I heard a pause from next door. Freezing myself, wondering if he heard that. Then I heard the bed creaking, his unwinding sounds, a low bass line to her never ending barks. Surprising myself, I went for a second one. Having it about a minute after he finished. This time ending with an “oh, babygirl” instead of love. Wondering if he took punch cards from his women to find out what they wanted to be called as he emptied his balls. Feeling mean, disgusted with myself and him and very comfortable and relaxed.
I’ll admit that I started pressing my ear to the wall fairly frequently. At least once a day. Mostly just hearing his low music. Always surprised. Banjo, piano, bluegrass, sludge metal, folk. I don’t think I heard a repeat. Over a couple of weeks I did hear a few… date nights. Though I didn’t “use” them in quite the same way, because it made me feel very guilty. Making note of the “oh, princess”, “oh, sweetheart” and the oft-repeated, “oh, love.” I was glad that I didn’t see him. I heard him returning home when I was leaving. Heard his shower spray in my sleep. An odd little whorish vampire to my right.
We ran into each other once more. This time at the tin-fronted mailboxes. I was leaving for the gym at about four. He was coming home. With some sort of long black case. I wasn’t sure what, but very likely an instrument case. Ah-ha; a musician, I decided.
“Well good evening, Ms. Two Hundred and Three,” he said, smiling at me. That same open, happy, mean-nothing smile.
“Morning for me, Mr. Two Hundred and Five,” I said.
“Mr. Two Hundred and Five was my father,” he said stupidly. “You can call me Matt.”
I stuck out my hand.
“Anna,” I said.
I would have made it through our “introduction” just fine if he hadn’t used both hands to shake. Clasping mine in both of his, chaffing a little. His warm, mine cold in the chill foyer of the building. But it made me think of how I’d now heard his orgasm several times now. And I blushed.
“Good to put a name to the face… and to the voice,” he said. Flashing that dangerous, vein-ripping tooth again. My eyes popped wide open, and then I ducked my head. So he had heard me! That meant he knew I spied on him having sex! And further, that I’d gotten off to his sex!
Well, hopefully I’d be run down in the street and struck dead before I had to see him again.
“Have a good day,” I squeaked.
“See you around,” he answered, fluttering his free hand in a goodbye wave at me as I dashed into the street.