*** Author's Note:
I'm not sure yet if this will become a regular series. I started it on a business trip a few months back, scribbling ideas without a clear sense of direction or destination. It's drawn heavily from my own voyeuristic impulses and messy personal experiences, which felt raw and intriguing enough to share. I intend to continue, but I can't promise when--or how often--new updates will appear.
***
I live modest, unremarkable life, but In a world where people my age are still crammed into apartments with too many roommates, I have a house and that means something. It's quiet, tucked just far enough from the main streets that foot traffic is sparse, the kind of place where a man can disappear without really disappearing.
The pandemic didn't change much for me at first. I was already used to solitude. Work from home. Groceries delivered. No real need to go anywhere, to talk to anyone. But when the world started to heal, when people stepped back outside and picked up their lives where they left off, I didn't.
Somewhere along the way, isolation had stopped being something temporary and started feeling like a habit I didn't know how to break.
I told myself I didn't need much. I had my house, my work, a steady routine. But when the only voices you hear are filtered through speakers or headphones, you start craving something else.
I didn't interact much with the world, but I watched it.
From my front window, I could see the street, the people who passed, caught up in their own little lives. Strangers who had no idea I existed, no idea they were being observed.
It started as nothing. Just idle curiosity.
A man in a suit, checking his watch every few seconds, always walking the same hurried pace like time was out to get him. A mother pushing a stroller, eyes tired, movements practiced. An older couple holding hands, their steps slow but in sync, like a well-worn habit.
And then there were the couples.
The young ones, the ones still drunk on each other, hands greedy, lips meeting in fleeting, stolen moments. They were oblivious, lost in the heat of something new, something that burned fast and bright.
And the older ones--steady, settled into their affections. A hand on a lower back. A knowing glance. A familiarity that came from years of touch.
I watched all of them. Lived vicariously through the gestures, the intimacy, the easy way they occupied space together.
But watching only deepened the absence in my own life.
I told myself it was harmless. Just a way to pass the time. But some nights, when the world outside quieted and I was left with nothing but my own thoughts, I wondered if I had become something else.
A voyeur.
I knew all my neighbors' habits, their schedules, the ebb and flow of their daily lives, even though I never spoke to them. Never so much as waved.
The young couple in the house across from me always fought around 8 PM--low, hushed arguments on the porch, just quiet enough to keep up appearances but loud enough for anyone paying attention to catch the tension in their voices. The old man two houses down walked his dog every morning at precisely 6:30, rain or shine. The woman in the blue house had a lover who only came by when her husband was out of town.
They lived their lives out in the open, never considering that someone might be watching.
And I watched.
The neighbor's daughter fascinated me the most recently.
She was in college now, barely more than a girl, but she carried herself like someone who had learned the ways of the world early. I never saw her leave through the front door, never with books or a backpack. She slipped out at odd hours, moving fast, always getting into cars that didn't belong to anyone in this neighborhood.
Older men. Different ones each time. Never the same car, never the same face, but all with that same quiet confidence, that same understanding of what they were there for.
She'd be gone for hours, sometimes all night, and she always returned the same way--early in the morning, just before the world woke up, before her parents could notice she hadn't been in bed.
One of those mornings, she got dropped off right in front of my house.
I hadn't expected it. I'd just been sitting at my window, sipping my coffee, waiting for the city to stir. And then the headlights cut through the dark, the sleek car rolling to a stop, her small frame slipping out of the passenger side like she'd done it a hundred times before.
But she didn't get out right away.
Instead, she leaned back in, her body halfway inside the car, her head disappearing into the driver's lap.
I didn't have a perfect view. The angle wasn't right, and the interior of the car was too shadowed. But I saw enough.
The way the man's head tilted back, his mouth parting on a slow, exhaled breath. The subtle movement of her shoulders. The way his hand curled lazily in her hair.
It didn't last long. A few moments, a final favor before she slipped away for the night.
And then she pulled back, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, stepping out of the car like nothing had happened.
She didn't even glance around. No fear of being caught, no hesitation. Just smoothed down her skirt, adjusted her jacket, and shut the door behind her.
The car rolled away.
She walked back toward her house, slipping through the side yard, vanishing before the front porch lights ever flicked on.
This had become my life.
Not living. Not participating. Just watching.
A witness to those fleeting moments of passion and desire, those small, stolen intimacies people thought were private but were never really hidden.
I watched them all and sometimes, I matched their rhythm with my own hands.
Other times, I just watched. Let the tension build inside.
Then there was her.
She sparked something different in me. A new interest. A new desire.
I memorized her body without meaning to. The sway of her dark hair, catching the light as she moved. The boldness in her eyes, sharp and knowing, like she saw the world for exactly what it was and didn't flinch. The deep, dark hue she tinted her lips--sensual, deliberate.
The pulse beating in her throat, just beneath the delicate skin. The rise and fall of her breasts, slow and steady, hypnotic in their rhythm. The soft swell of her hips, the way her skirt barely covered the smooth expanse of her thighs.
And those leggings.
The way they clung to her legs just above the knee, molding to her like a second skin, framing the shape of her body in a way that made it impossible not to notice.
Twice a day, every day, she walked by.
And every time, I watched.
I would wait.
Like clockwork, I knew when she would appear, knew the exact moment she'd step into view.
Twice a day, without fail.
And in between, when the hours stretched long and the silence pressed in, I imagined.
I imagined those thighs wrapped around me, warm and firm, holding me in place. The way her skin would feel against mine, smooth, hot, undeniable.
I imagined her lips on my body, tinted dark, parted just enough to breathe me in. The soft drag of them down my neck, my chest, wrapped tight around me.
I imagined the weight of her, the press of her hips, the way her breath would quicken just before giving in.
Waiting. Watching. Wanting.
I didn't understand where she went. It didn't really matter.
It was always the same time each day--midday, broad daylight.
