Uuuugh! I swore to myself that this was the last time I was going to move ever. I have moved five times in five years. The last time I moved, I didn't bother unpacking half the boxes because I knew I'd only be with the company for three months. So after time served, I packed up my little house and put it on my back just like a tortoise and moved here. I don't want to mention names, but here isn't a ghetto and it's not the luxurious suburbs either. Here is in between and you'll find here in any city in the world.
The agent had shown me a lovely apartment with a reasonable rent. I wondered why the rent was so reasonable and she opened the bedroom curtains. There was another apartment building right behind this one and ceiling to floor windows. I didn't see that from the front. She immediately said that privacy was no issue here and I rolled my eyes at her. I opened a window and looked down, there was a narrow alley dividing the two buildings. It was the reasonable rent that clinched it. I would do something with the windows to ensure my privacy.
And now here I am, a month later, moving in. The position I had applied for with the new company would be a permanent one, so I told myself – you better love this place because it's going to be home for a long time. I was balancing on a chair trying to hang some form of curtaining from my living room window when the guy across from me opened his window and waved at me. Well, actually he just stared at me; I waved first and then it was as if he realised that it was another human being moving in opposite him, he waved back with a surprised look on his face. I wondered if he'd ever been introduced to the female of the species.
A couple of hours later and I was dragging the last of the boxes into the bedroom, all I had left to do here was hang the curtains. I glanced over the alley at the apartment opposite and noticed that 'guy' had been joined by two of his friends. It looked like they were playing play-station games. One of them caught me spying and smiled at me. Embarrassed I blushed, nodded and smiled back.
Weeks passed, I made friends at the company and gradually cemented my circle of friends. I met a guy who was the brother of one of my new friends and we hit it off and I forgot about the guy who lived across from me. But I never forgot enough not to draw my curtains, or to walk around naked.
Until the night everything changed...
A bunch of us girls had gone to a club and let our hair down, we danced and got terribly drunk and kissed all the old men watching us. At two am we called it quits and all piled into a taxi that dropped us off at various points. My stop was third.
"Thank you so much – what did you say your name was?"
He simply waved me off – drunken woman.
"You're such a wonderful driver." I continued to lush as I pulled the fare plus a huge tip from my purse. He smiled widely and thanked me in a language I was convinced I understood by now. I nodded sagely. Then the taxi was gone and I was struggling with the lobby door. I had sobered up for a good ten minutes before I finally found the right key. I eventually found myself staring at my bedroom curtains with no idea how I got there. The curtains weren't drawn and I stood leaning against the wall looking out the window at the heavens. I sighed and started taking my clothes off, I wanted to sleep naked tonight. I got myself a large glass of water and took two headache pills in anticipation of the coming hangover.
It was a hot night and I opened the windows in hopes of a breeze. I piled up my pillows and leaned back against them. I saw 'guy' standing dead still in his bedroom at the window, looking at me. A naughty thought crossed my mind.
I was half sitting with my legs together, flat on my bed. He watched intently. I stuck my index finger in my mouth and wet it, and then I trailed my finger around a nipple. Mmm, still just standing there...
