You don't know this, but I've been watching you. Your curtains leave a little crack open and though they are closed almost all day, the tiny crevasse is enough for my eyes. I see you scratch, dress, yawn, brush your hair never your teeth, drop clothes on the floor and feel around in your gums checking for, I guess, gingivitis. I see you try and close your closet door and can't, I see you apply eye shadow with your glasses still on. And one day I'm gonna see it all even closer.
Your apartment door swings shut to lock unlike half the ones in the residence halls. I don't live in yours, so I make up a usual pretext of seeing my friend from class upstairs. But every time before I round the corner, I go straight through the doors and check to see if by some chance, the apartment door is open. Your flatmates sometimes come out and I veer away or perhaps engage them in some folderol about football matches at the pub or something. Anything. I haven't yet seen one twice so that's fine for me right now. Not sure what I'll do if time runs out.
One day, it's gonna be open. Some people prop their doors open, but that's unlikely to be you, with your curtain's fastidiously closed. You are not an exhibitionist though there are flashes of it in your behaviour, when you go out with friends to clubs and I lose you somewhere in the bustle of Central London. And then I go clubbing.
The pulsing beat has always worked well for me. It seems sort of stupid I follow you around because even I know I'm good looking. In the mirrors I can see my reflection lit by red and blue lights, bleached blond hair with my roots darkening half my spiky strands, black eyelashes that ring blue eyes. And while I'm not as tall as I'd like to be, I am in a good measure of shape thanks to the gym and recent toxic exposure to California, and even I know myself, unlike you, I show it off constantly. I rub my jaw when talking to the bartender, male or female, I jut my hip, I massage the metal or wood of the corner and I stare. Not just to look like I'm staring, but you know that by now, don't you?
Rotating wheeling bodies reflecting light burning energy. The universe or a disco, take your pick.
It's not long 'til I get some attention. It's one of the strange and remote perks of my attitude. Because when your posture, your clothes, your manner all say "Yes, I'm out for sex and maybe it will be you" people start flocking. They can't help it. I've had one or two encounters with men more beautiful than half the women, but it usually isn't them that come up to me anyway, so I let it go.
Women. Polyester sex, sweat sliding down their shoulder blades, hair sticking to thin necks, eyes wide glassy and alive. I love it. I love their smell after three vodka tonics, and half a pack of cigarettes between their friends. I love looking at their chipped nails, or a run in their stockings or in the fascinating row of peepholes that travel up an unravelled seam of a shirt exposing tiny stutters of flesh. It makes me want to touch you.
It's true, I don't think of you all the time when I'm out, especially when I'm wrapping my hand around some bird's waist, feeling that gentle bump of the curve of her ass hitting my groin. But I do really think of you. I think of your hair, how it's black and shiny, not quite hitting your shoulders. I think about how you trim your bangs into your little sink and then sweep them aside anyway. And then I pull their hair.
Some will moan, maybe genuinely. Some will get pissed right off and stand up straight and walk away. Some look at me with such sudden, wild hurt in their eyes, like we knew each other and I killed their kitten, that I get a raging hard-on just seeing it spark, flare, and dull into what is either acquiescence or apathy. I don't mind the difference.
The trouble is I'm so far from where I meet these girls, on campus like you. So it's always a fond hope I grab a posher sort that would have an apartment near the centre of town. And hope they don't have ugly slags of roommates who will glare at me as I enter or interrupt uninvited.
Because there's nothing quite as nice as a doorframe. Just this weekend, Good Friday, it was a real catch because she lived in the Docklands, alone, just a lonely-but-doesn't-know-it banker with a handkerchief top that glimmered like melted butter on her frame. Her nipples pushed out insistently directly against my own while and the parallel sensations convinced me right away to fuck her, even before I heard her address. She's got her coat on when she fumbles with the keys and I'm hopping on the balls of my feet, glancing up and down her hallway which is abandoned at this hour of night.
So when she does finally get her lock to turn, I know I'm safe. I grab her wrist and make her drop her keys and tiny stupid purse on the floor. Before she gets a breath, and I've always been complimented on my reflexes, I have my knee between her legs and have her pushed against the frame with her hands above her head. I tilt mine back to enjoy the view. She is pale, with high points of red color on her full cheeks. Her eyes are willing but they stare slightly ajar of me, paranoid of being caught. Her lower lip is trembling so I lean forward and with trained delicacy, I catch it with first my lips, and then climbing, suck it between my teeth, denting the soft flesh. Her eyes are even wider, it hasn't even occurred to her to close them.