Unsettling Arrival
Jack got home after a long day at work. The apartment was quiet, as normal, but there was something off. Some of his things were off--slightly--and he wasn't sure if he moved them or... someone else had come in. He put down his bag, walked through the house, and looked into his bedroom. Nothing was out of place.
Shaking his head, Jack took off his coat and went to the bathroom. Flicking on the light, his eyes went wide. Standing in his shower was a beautiful redheaded woman, dusky skin, freckles, and dressed in a ratty t-shirt and jeans. "What are you doing here?"
The woman blinked back at him through the blurry curtain, and for a second Jack had the uncanny feeling she'd always been there. She didn't scream, as maybe he would've in her shoes, nor did she reach for a weapon or make excuses. Instead she cocked her head, a parrot's sharp and unkind curiosity.
"Nice place," she said, stepping out, boots scraping on the chipped tiles. "I'd apologize for, you know, breaking in, but the lock practically begged."
Jack's throat was tight and dry. "Who are you?"
"Depends," she said, glancing in the mirror, as if to re-appraise her own reflection. "Some people call me trouble. Others call me Mandy." She held out a hand, then dropped it when she saw his look.
"I can call the police," Jack said, but it came out without heat. There were questions stacked behind that threat, crowding his tongue.
Morgan smiled. "Or we could do something else?"
Jack's mouth worked, dumb for a moment. "Like what?"
Mandy grinned. She walked past him--close enough for him to smell drugstore soap and a trace of bleach--and perched on the edge of his kitchen counter. She reached down and plucked a pack of his cigarettes from the fruit bowl.
"You got a lighter?" she asked.
He handed it over. His heart was racking in his chest, but he was a technician, not an action hero. People like Mandy weren't supposed to materialize in his life.
With a deft flick, she lit the cigarette, exhaled, and let the smoke fan out over the empty space. "Let's not call the cops, okay? Let's just talk."
Jack crossed his arms. "If you wanted to talk, you could've asked for coffee."
She rolled her eyes. "Where's the poetry in that?" Mandy lit her cigarette and gave a coy smile.
She looked as comfortable as a loaf of bread in a bakery window. The damp, mildewed rags of his shower curtain clung to her boots and she made a face, flicking them off with a practiced heel-toe shuffle.
Jack's mind raced through scenarios: mental health, criminal intent, cosmic joke. None quite fit. If this was a hallucination, his brain had gone in for high production value.
"How'd you get in?" He tried to inject exasperation, but his voice cracked. The last time anyone had tried to break into his life, they'd at least had the decency to knock.
"I told you. The lock." She took another puff. "Needed to get out of the rain."
"Jesus Christ," Jack muttered, more at the world than at her. "Well, the rain's outside, and you're here. And I'm not happy."
"So," she purred, exhaling smoke out the cracked bathroom window, gray ribbons snaking into the evening, "how can I make you happy?"
Mandy looked at him like he was the punchline to a joke only she could tell.
Jack didn't answer. He was still seeing the shape of her there in the shower, the way she stood so naturally, as if comfort and trespass were merely synonyms. He felt the insistent whir of his old anxieties--an algorithm of risk--but Mandy's presence was a stone thrown into the smooth pond of his habits.
Mandy walked out of the shower and ran a finger across the tops of things. "You're tidy," she said approvingly.
Jack watched her, the flickering cigarette in her hand, her body ever closer to his own. "You make a habit of this?"
"Time to time. It's how I meet interesting people." She squinted at him, as if gauging his potential for this category. From the way she smiled, he thought he might be, for now, slipping by on probation.
He'd lived alone for so long that he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to have someone else's energy in his space. How it throbbed like an intruding heartbeat, how it both drew him in and pushed him out. His skin felt hot as he took in her tight, beautiful body. "I'm not interesting," Jack said, though the fact she was standing there seemed to counter that idea.
"You sure?" Mandy stubbed her cigarette out in his toothbrush glass, nudged it aside, and leaned forward. "Everything about this place says man trying very hard not to be noticed."
Jack opened his mouth, then closed it again. For the past three weeks, he'd carefully avoided so much as a glance at his neighbors in the elevator. He'd ordered groceries for delivery. He worked, he came home, he did not call his mother. That was the game. And still, here she was, as if conjured from a warning label.
He took a step closer. "You're not here by accident."
She raised her hands, mock-surrender. "Not here to rob you. Not that there's much."
"Why don't you come out and say it?"
Mandy sighed. "You've got no poetry in your soul, do you?"
Jack stepped forward, breaking through the space bubble, forcing her to look up at her. Her deep green eyes was alluring; coy but a little scared. He could tell that she realized that control of the situation was slipping away from her.
"Try me," he said.
