I listened to them for three months through the back wall of my bedroom closet. If I got home before 6 o'clock, I only heard her there, seemingly alone. Sometimes I heard a television or music, always playing at a low volume. Occasionally I heard her voice talking on the telephone. She spoke Chinese.
Their arguments began when he got home at 7. I never understood any of their exchanges - they never spoke to each other in English. Her tone was sharp and accusatory. His responses were lower-pitched rumbles. Their words volleyed back and forth, pausing for what I assumed was their dinnertime. Some evenings, that would end the arguments. On other evenings they'd start up again. Eventually their voices stilled, and only their television broke the silence.
They were in bed at 10, like clockwork. And more often than not, regardless of the intensity of their earlier bickering, they fucked. In the beginning I'd lie in bed and hear their muffled sounds, though as the weeks passed, I became emboldened and I'd press an ear against the wall to listen more clearly. They'd start slowly. I'd hear her long, exhaled moans or his deep-throated grunts. Oral sex, I concluded, and neither of them seemed to reach orgasm. Eventually they fucked.
Their fucking was delightfully noisy and frustratingly quick. Invariably, in a span of never more than three or four minutes, her moans became high-pitched staccato squeaks, his grunts became sustained, earthy growls, and their headboard thumped an ever-quickening beat against the far bedroom wall until he climaxed. Then silence. Did she come? I guessed not.
And why did I guess not? Because I'd hear her when she did climax. That happened almost every morning, shortly after her husband left for work. I'd listen to her pleasure herself, vocalizing the same high-pitched squeaks as she'd done the night before, but in the mornings these sounds transitioned to a new plateau, announcing each of her several orgasms with loud, breathy gasps and throaty moans. My own more silent climax usually synchronized with her first one. Her husband missed out on a lot.
I never saw them in person. I just entered their lives through their anonymous sounds. It went on like that for three months, and then suddenly they were gone. They must have moved when I was at work because their apartment went silent for three weeks.
My next neighbor was a man, also unseen and anonymous. He lived there for four months. In that time I heard him entertain a female visitor only once. The two of them arrived about midnight, interrupting my quiet reading in bed with their slamming doors, flushing toilets, and loud voices. Then the volume dropped and my ear found its way to the closet wall, and before long they were in bed. I heard soft voices and stretches of silence mixed with sounds of giggles and pleasure. When the bed noises began, it was a steady rhythm and all too brief, finishing with her "Oh God!" exclamation and his long, bear-like growl.
His departure was soon replaced by a new renter, this time a woman. She had an active social life, and her apartment was filled with voices both female and male. Once or twice a week she entertained a man in her bedroom, complete with conversation, laughs, lengthy sexplay, and multiple orgasms. I became a student of the sounds, and it was clear to me that there were at least two, perhaps three, men she was involved with.
I saw her in person a few weeks after she moved in. She was in her late 20s, short and a tad pudgy, sporting a constant smile and an embodiment of "perky." We crossed paths that first time in the hallway as we both happened to emerge from our apartments. We exchanged a mutual "Hi!" as we crossed paths.
After that, after I had a glimpse of the tangible woman who occupied the bed in the next apartment, I was doubly aroused when I listened to her through the wall. I tried to imagine what she was doing with her lover du jour. When I heard only a male moan, was that from her busy mouth? When her joyful noises were unaccompanied by bed creaks, was he feasting on her pussy? And when the bed began creaking, I tried to envision how their bodies were joined. What positions did she like? Did it vary with each lover? Did she control the actions, or did he?
Meanwhile, my own sex life picked up. My relationship with a woman at work had been evolving from friendly to flirty to suggestive. Melanie was in her late thirties, a decade older than me, and had a boyfriend. She was medium height, skinny with small breasts, long red hair and sparkling blue eyes, and a quick laugh. We'd frequently eat lunch together, at first in groups, then as time went on more often it was just the two of us.
Eventually our conversations got personal. I told Melanie about my long-distance relationship that was in hiatus, and she told me about her apathetic boyfriend. "I don't know why I bother to take the pill," she grumbled one day, "He never seems interested. Am I really that boring?" I assured her she wasn't. I also took a mental note about her contraceptive of choice – and wondered whether she might be dropping a hint to me.
A week later, driving to a sandwich shop for lunch, she asked to see where I lived. Ten minutes after that we were in my apartment. She excused herself for a quick bathroom break, and moments later we were kissing in the living room. Five minutes after that, I was on my back on the bed, and Melanie was busily slurping away on my cock.
Things were obviously moving quickly.
While Melanie was slowly bobbing up and down on my shaft, I slipped a hand up her skirt – no panties! – and played with her pussy. She was wet and growing wetter by the second. Her moans vibrated through my erection as my fingers grazed up and down her slippery cleft, saying hello to both her prominent clit and her vagina. Melanie's mouth disengaged and she looked up at me. Her fist was wrapped around the base of my throbbing shaft. "Do we have time for a quickie?" she asked with a smile.
I didn't bother to glance at the bedside clock. "Are you sure?" My cock spoke my answer to her fist.
Melanie didn't answer with words. She stood up, reached behind herself and fiddled with the back of her skirt, and it dropped to the floor. Now I could see she was a natural redhead. I barely had time to squirm my pants to below my knees when she was on top of me again, straddling my hips, maneuvering her inflamed pussylips along the length of my cock to stroke her wetness against my expectant flesh.
And then Melanie impaled herself on me. Inside, she was a furnace of smooth slickness. Her face took on an expression of faraway concentration as her hips squirmed, driving my cock deeper and deeper until her pubic bone was mashed against mine. She rested there momentarily, rejoining eye contact with me and gracing me with her little internal squeezes. Then she sat upright and began to grind. Her palms rested against my chest to steady herself, and her hips undulated in a steady rhythm. There was no in-and-out. There was only a relentless, insistent grinding of her pussy against me.
Throughout it all we kept eye contact. Melanie smiled. Her blue eyes twinkled. Her mouth pursed, and she exhaled soft moans that became progressively louder and more sustained. Her weight pinned my hips to the mattress. Melanie was in control, taking her pleasure in my body and her own. Not that I was complaining, of course. "You're so hard," she murmured, and her hips increased their tempo.
We were both getting close. "Oh God," she grunted, "Oh God." Her hips quickened and pressed down even harder. She announced, "I'm going to come," and she shifted gears yet again, slowing her thrusts and ever so slightly changing the angle of entry to drive my cock even deeper into her vagina and to increase the pressure of my shaft against her G-spot, which was now distinctly noticeable to my invading flesh. I held her hips with my hands and just hung on for the ride – or more accurately, for her ride.
Then Melanie closed her eyes and climaxed with a noisy, sustained groan that sounded like a weightlifter hoisting the barbell above her head. Her steady hips thrusts stilled, her back arched, her face reddened and scrunched into an agony of pleasure. I felt her involuntary rhythmic nibbles around the base of my cock. And that did it for me, too. My instincts forced my hips higher to bury my cock another fraction of an inch, and I exploded pulse after pulse into her silky vagina, announcing each with a soft grunt. Melanie's eyes open and she refocused on my face, smiling, rocking her hips in sync with my spurts.
We remained connected for a minute or two. My cock offered its final dying twitches. My pounding heart slowed. Melanie's eyes broke away to glance at the clock. "Shit," she said, "I have a 1:30 meeting." I followed her gaze. It was 1:05. Her pussy gave me a final squeeze, and out I popped. Melanie giggled, reaching a hand between her legs. "You've made a mess in me!" she scolded with a pretend tone, then she dismounted and waddled to the bathroom with one hand cupping her pussy, the other retrieving her skirt from the floor on her way.
