Just like always I can hear the nearest neighbour pour water into something before he shuts the water off. The soft padding of feet floating above my head. I follow the footsteps, wandering beneath him. It's fascinating, how I can hear every move he makes. I know when he goes to work, when he comes home, when he sleeps and when he wakes.
I know that he listens to Evanescence when he's feeling sad and Weezer when he's happy. I know that he loves crime shows on tv. And that he rarely watches sports.
Yes..
I know what music he likes and what TV shows he watches. How many friends he has and the smell of his favourite perfume.
He does not know it, but I know everything there is to know about him. Every little detail. All the way down to what color socks he wore today..
I reach up, stretching as far as I can manage, balancing on my tiptoes and touch my cold ceiling. He is what? Nothing more than a few thin inches away from me now.. just a wooden plank away..I feel my heart speed up from that thought, and I close my eyes before I lower myself back down.
I sit down as he sits down and turn on my TV when he does. I channel surf 'til I find the show he is watching.. and settle back down into my couch, grabbing his shirt and sniff it with a deep drag. Groaning as my dick swells from that sweet masculine scent.
I wonder what he looks like today? Probably just as handsome as yesterday,and the day before that and the day before that again.
My walls are covered in pictures of him.
Of him cooking, sleeping, showering, talking on the phone, watching TV.. crying, smiling, yelling, masturbating..
I wish my cameras could catch him better on film. The grainy pictures don't do him justice... doesn't catch his beauty. But I have better ones. Yes, the ones taken outside shows the true beauty of this man. How his long black hair dances in the wind. And how his pale skin almost shimmers in the bright rays from the sun. And how deep his black eyes are when he stares into the camera, unaware that it's him, and not the fluttering pigeons obstructing the view I'm trying to catch on the film.
Gods, he saw me that time. Stared straight at me.. I can still recall that feeling. How my heart stopped for a couple of seconds, and my breath caught. My body felt so suddenly weak I had trouble pressing the shutter button. The way those eyes lingered on me.
Fuck.. sometimes I fantasize.. about that precious moment. I pretend that he noticed me. Like really noticed me. That he dreams of me.. that it's my name he whispers when he comes. When that perfect body convulses in rapture and his eyes rolls back as his soft mouth falls slack. White ribbons falling wasted onto his hard stomach.. oh god, I want those salty strings to cover my mouth, my face.. my insides so bad I almost cry.
But I know he doesn't fantasize about me.. Why would he? He doesn't even know I exist.. no one does. And the name that rolls out of his mouth is foreign to me. "Leon..." I don't know who this Leon is. He has a little brother with that name, but I've never seen him with any other Leon. And... it can't be that Leon? Can it?
I have loved this man, this "pet in a cage" for over two years now. I've got 5 cameras watching his every step and 3 microphones to catch his beautiful voice. Nearly 300 hours of recordings.. Sadly I don't have much more than 96 photographs of him outside.
I wish I had more..
He has no idea that I'm watching him. That I keep a track of every little thing he does, that I mark my calendar every time he cries, every time he smiles, and every time he says something that has my name in it.
Once.. I'm still pissed that I didn't get that on tape. I keep the recorder on at all times now. Just in case..
Sure, he suspects that something is wrong. That something is just a little amiss.. I can't blame him. In fact.. I would have been disappointed in him if he didn't suspect something.
All those little things. Like when his favourite tee shirt disappeared, and how his cologne is used up so fast. How little things change their position. How the laughing Buddha suddenly looked left, not right.. How the earth of his plants can suddenly be moist when he hasn't watered them for weeks.
I want him to notice.
At first.. I was terrified when I realized that I had forgotten to put back the lid on his hamper. But now.. its more of a game. I keep changing little things every time I go up there to set up a new camera, or to adjust the sound of a mic, or to just lie in his bed, smelling his pillow. I want him to wonder just what causes it.
I know he suspects ghosts.. I smile to myself as I think about that. I'm his ghost. I have a place in his life, in his world. Even if he doesn't know it.. I have a place. That gives me a little fuzzy feeling.
It's probably still just a little whisper in the back of his head. Just a little paranoid voice telling him that some thing is wrong. And that it's not ghosts doing it, because I've noticed how he stands in his doorframe when he gets home from work. How he stands there listening
Listening for me..