Getting off the plane in Florida, we were hit with that familiar humidity that allowed our brains to immediately connect ourselves with being home and took a ride share back to the apartment. It was still pretty early yet so Karen was not yet back from work so we each went about getting ourselves settled and situated for hopping right back into our normal routine.
It didn't take much effort.
Sure, Karen came home at the end of the day and was happy to see all of us. But, as with all vacations and trips away from the norm, the world does not stop spinning. The next day we were all back at it. In fact it was only two days after our return that shipments started arriving in from what we ordered at the convention. In the blink of an eye we were all rolling ahead and, when the time came, none of us admitted to feeling ready for it when our upstairs apartment was completed. Not only were we not quite ready for it, we were somewhat disappointed. We had gotten used to our crazy warehouse life. The coed bathroom, the tiny office bedrooms with the hot tub in the living room. But, because of how customized we made the top floor and how unique it was, there was no way we couldn't move up there and try and rent out the downstairs space.
The good news is that we weren't making that much of a change. We still had the semi-shared bathrooms. We still had a hot tub in the living room. We actually had two hot tubs... one in the living room and one on the roof.
It didn't take any of us long to realize just how much nicer our new living quarters were. Sure, they were not necessarily as quirky and unique as the warehouse but they were much more amazing. Realistically the only thing we lost was ground level access to the street, however the new private outdoor roof space and amazing light and views in the apartment more than made up for it. The final layout of the apartment was as follows:
On each corner of the apartment was a bedroom, just as originally planned. However each bedroom was connected by a jack-and-jill bathroom. We had talked about having only one large locker-room again but it just did not make sense with any sort of resale or different set of inhabitants in mind, nor could we figure out a practical layout for it. However, because of the hot tub in the living room, we decided to forgo any sort of soaking tub in each bathroom and, instead, each had communal showers easily large enough for 4-6 people (4 showerheads each). Each bathroom had two toilets and two sinks. The center of the apartment was mostly open but separated into sections that all radiated away from the elevator that was thankfully already located in one corner of the room. One section was the kitchen, mostly open except for a small powder room ½ bath that could also be used during parties. One section was the dining area, it was right next to the kitchen and we all saw it rarely getting used. The final section was the living area. It had a couple of couches and a bunch of lounge chairs. It had the hot tub and entertainment center. It had the most amazing views of both the city and the water as well as a spiral staircase that led up to the roof terrace.
When we first moved up the roof terrace had exactly 10 items on it: One hot tub, six chaise-lounge chairs, one pergola, one open-air shower, one random glove that a worker seemed to have lost. I envisioned potentially bringing up some large, potted trees and potentially a tiki bar but we figured to wait and see how much we were inclined to use it first.
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Before we knew it almost a year had flown by. The building was fully rented within its residential space and we were finishing up the touches on the first floor. With our tenants already lined up we would soon have a full complex with a seafood/tex-mex restaurant, middle-of-the-road beach fashion shop and a beach rentals service offering bikes and snorkels and the like.
Katie was finishing up her second semester of school and was on course to finish up a dual business/construction management program in another 4 semesters. Based on the ever dwindling time demands of the project, we had figured out a system where she was able to take a few day classes to supplement her night-school classes and she really seemed to enjoy what she was doing.
Interpersonally things were pretty good between all three of us. Karen, Stacy and I each still enjoyed periodic sexual exchanges, though more so with Karen than Stacy. We almost had another threesome one night but the reality of it petered out when we all realized we were just too damn tired. I hadn't had any sex with Katie since Vegas but, as she and I were sharing a bathroom, did continue to have plenty of naked time together (though that naked time hadn't involved any sort of sexual contact). All four of us still tried to get out to the beach as much as possible as well. Maybe once every couple of weeks at the most, but certainly better than nothing.
Everything was normal until one day things were... not normal.
I had gone on a quick business trip to Tallahassee to speak on behalf of a renters rights group. Over the years I had become known as a very honest and fair landlord. Honestly, I thought the relationship went both ways and typically thought that my reputation of being honest and fair went very hand-in-hand with my vetting process for getting quality tenants into the units.
IMPULSE: Anyhow, my meetings had ended a little early and I decided to drive home that night instead of the next day as originally planned. Getting back extremely late, I immediately stripped down and crashed into bed, oblivious to anything around me. The next morning, upon waking up and needing to pee, I wandered into the bathroom and did my business. I thought nothing of it when I heard footsteps around the wall from the toilets and the shower water turn on, figuring it was Katie getting ready for work that morning. I figured, though tired, there was no point in me going back to bed for only a few minutes so I decided to join her and wandered from the toilet area into the shower area. Because of how much we had enjoyed the locker-room feel of our previous apartment, we designed the bathroom in a similar concept. The large space was divided by a long wall. On the side of the wall that was closest to my bedroom were the sinks and toilets. On the side of the wall closest to Katie's bedroom were the showers, all open and "locker-room" style as we had gotten accustomed to and enjoyed. So, I softly padded back to my bedroom, grabbed my towel, and walked straight back into the shower area, tossing my towel onto a hook and turning to greet my roommate.
Turns out, it wasn't my roommate.
RESULT: It was the scream that first threw me off. Even though I was pretty tired still I never remembered Katie screaming when I tried to take a shower. The sheer volume of it, and the reverberation off of the tile walls, had an instant sobering effect and I was alerted to the fact that it wasn't Katie, rather a slightly overweight, very curvy latina girl who I had never seen before.
Her hands immediately covered her breasts and pubic area. My hands immediately covered my dick.
We stood there for a moment, both of us panicked as to what the other person was doing there, silent and petrified with fear. Thankfully, the scream drew immediate response as first Katie, then Karen and Stacy all ran into our bathroom.
"Oh my God, Phil!" Katie was nude herself and shocked to see me. The naked Latina and I turned our attention first to her and then to Karen and Stacy as they burst in through the same door.
"Phil!" Karen said in a hurried voice, "what are you doing here?"
"Who the hell is this?" It was the only response that I could offer, after all, I lived there, she didn't! In hindsight, it may have been the sleep deprivation that caused me to react so poorly, but it didn't change that I didn't do anything wrong.
Stacy started pushing me out of the room while Katie hurried the few feet to the unknown woman and seemed to offer some consoling words. In my room Stacy explained to me what was going on.
"Sorry about that. Sabrina is Katie's friend that spent the night after we all were drinking. Nobody knew you were going to be home already... oops. Why don't you go use our showers and we can sort everything out afterwards."
That is exactly what I did. I went through the hassle that "normal" people often go through as far as getting a towel, getting clothes that I was going to change into and wrapping myself up before considering leaving my own private room. I found it to be a pain and I was glad that I didn't have to do it on a regular basis.
After a shower and getting dressed I exited Karen and Stacy's bathroom to the sound of the elevator closing.
"Well, looks like I lost a friend," Katie moaned in a seemingly annoyed fashion.
"Sorry about that," I said to her as I got to the kitchen. But, the reality was that I wasn't sorry. I felt mildly awkward about it but I had done nothing wrong. I was nude in the showers of my own bathroom, hardly groundbreaking stuff.
"Thanks, Phil. But, obviously you didn't do anything wrong," Katie continued. "It was my own fault. I definitely screwed up by not telling her what life in this apartment is like to begin with."
