Everything seemed perfect.
That was until I realized how paper-thin the walls were between apartments.
It started out subtle, a sneeze in the early evening on my first night here as I settled into bed. A soft murmur of a man’s voice the third night.
But then came the sex.
The hot, wild, filthy sex.
The fourth night in my new apartment, I was woken to the low moans of what I assumed to be a needy woman.
My face heats up remembering the screams, the grunts. The deep baritone of apartment nine’s voice as he told the ‘bitch’ to keep it quiet.
Unsure what to do, I laid silent, listening to my new neighbor fuck some lucky woman into submission.
I’m not going to lie; I wasn’t turned on by it. I was set alight.
I never thought I would be that kind of person, the kind who got off from listening in on someone get off, but something in the way he spoke to her, something in the way he spoke to all the other women since, stirred a new want in me. Soon I found myself seeking out my room for a chance to hear him.
It was wrong.
So wrong.
But it didn’t stop me from wanting it.
The screams.
The deep grunts of pleasure.
I wanted it all.
I wanted it to be me.
“I’m officially going to hell.” I groan under the water, trying to wash the stupidity off me. Stupid would be the nice way of calling me a fucking idiot. And an idiot is what I am. Especially after tonight.
I had finished my last case study for the evening and was settling in bed for a couple of chapters of a new book when I realized the familiar deep rumble of my next-door neighbor was absent tonight. For the first time in eight nights, I had the privacy I wasn’t sure I wanted.
I want to blame the hot scene I was reading at that moment, but in the interest of being honest, I wasn’t strong enough. A week of listening to a real life sex show had threatened my sabbatical. I was barely through my first orgasm when I thought I heard the familiar deep rumble floating through the wall. I paused, shutting down my vibrator listening out for any signs of life only to be met with silence. I wasn’t sure if what I had heard was my imagination or real. Maybe if I wasn’t so highly strung, I would have stopped then. I mean one orgasm is enough, right? But after a few beats of silence, a thrill ran through me when the thought that maybe he was home, and perhaps like me, he too may have been listening out for me, his hand wrapped around what I imagined was a huge cock, getting off like I was. The image took hold of me, and then I couldn’t stop myself from allowing my fingers to flick my vibrator back on and permitting myself to get off knowing full well he may be listening.
It turns out I was right.
How hot and exceptionally disturbing.
I groan in frustration, knocking my forehead to the cool tile of the shower wall.
Deciding there’s only so much dwelling one can do in a shower, I gingerly turn the faucet off and step out. Too chicken to go back to my room, I dress in my bathrobe and quietly walk out of my bathroom.
I eye the hall to my bedroom with shame. Only an hour ago, the thought of walking to my bed seemed like a simple task, something I wouldn’t think twice about. Now the thought makes me want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Deciding I can’t deal with what happened tonight and sleep in my room, I head toward my living room. My three-seater sofa isn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I fetch a quilted blanket—one my grandmother made me—out of the hallway cupboard and settle on two of my throw pillows. For a second, I think I hear footsteps at my front door, and I freeze midmovement. When nothing comes of it, I flop down on my sofa.
Jesus, what is wrong with me? Hiding in my own apartment.
This is not normal behavior for me. I mean, it’s not like I can’t get a man. It’s just I don’t want one. Not after recently getting out of a messed-up relationship. Sure, no strings attached sex would be nice, as would an orgasm or two that didn't come from a vibrator. I mean, clearly I’m wound up ready to combust if the sound of a man’s muffled voice makes me want to finger myself. But it’s not what I need. I need time to decompress, time to find myself.
Hence this damn Sabbatical.
It wasn’t some fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants decision. Five weeks of living in the same room I grew up in can do a lot to a person. Tristan and I had been seeing each other for three years. I honestly thought he was it for me. I was thinking marriage and maybe kids while he was off fucking some twenty-year-old *. Not once in my carefully thought-out plans did I expect to be single at thirty again. It’s depressing and somewhat sobering. I mean I could have gone down the party-and-fuck-everything-with-a-penis road, but honestly, where would it lead me? More alone and feeling sorry for myself when the self-loathing finally kicked in.
Instead, I made a promise. No men and no sex for six months.