noises
12:03 a.m.<>2001-06-02

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i miss our old neighbors. i am only reminded of them late on weeknights and early sunday mornings, but i miss them. sometimes, when i'm lying awake in the wee hours, or if i'm reading the paper on a lazy weekend, i'll think fondly of heather and mike.

it's not like jodie and i were close to them. i mean, we weren't bosom buddies or anything, even though they were around our age and resembled us in many ways. mike was a cyclist and a programmer who wore his curly blonde hair in a pony tail. heather, who was a nurse, was short and fair, eye-catchingly curvaceous but not fat by any means. we might have become really good friends, but the opportunity just never came up. so we just greeted each other on the landing as we headed out to work in the mornings. occasionally we would see them at the coffee shop and wave hello. but that's it. so it's not their friendship that we miss.

it's their noises.

they would start late into the night, two or three times a week. a light sleeper, i would be woken up by sounds coming through the relatively thin walls of our apartment building. the sounds would be soft and almost indistinguishable at first, like some kind of appliance being used, or like people having a conversation in low tones. after a few seconds, though, they would become more distinct. i would suddenly hear a sharp gasp, a little squeal. the noises would steadily grow in volume and frequently. a voice that was unmistakably heather's would emit purring moans that grew into louder and louder grunts. sometimes i could hear the heaving of mike's breath, like a bellows.

at this point, i would usually begin to shift uncomfortably in bed, feeling the rushing of my blood, the swelling of the flesh. trying not to wake jodie, i would let my hand drift gingerly down under the covers as heather's moans grew more insistent, more intense. i would close my eyes and listen, imagining mike's thin, muscular, cyclist's frame bucking and thrusting on top of his girlfriend. i would picture how she might look, her plump thighs wrapped around him.

maybe she had her arms clasped tightly around her boyfriend's neck. maybe she was like jodie, and gathered fistfuls of bedclothes in her hands while the cords on her neck stood out. maybe he was behind her. maybe she was on top of him. maybe the reason that their voices came through with increasing clarity was that they were standing, right up against the wall that divided our bedroom from theirs, and only foot of plaster and insulation stood between their naked bodies and mine.

eventually, heather's voice would grow distorted, almost alarmingly so. as her climax approached she would begin to keen like a wounded animal. mike would encourage her in husky tones, calling her baby and honey. on especially intense evenings or mornings, i could even pick up the noise of their bodies coming together as their tempo increased.

finally, inevitably, the dam would break. heather would become shrill and breathless as her crisis approached, her shrieks no doubt waking up everyone in the building. (i don't know about the other tenants, neither jodie and i ever complained) mike would let out the same sudden hoarse, wordless roar every time. i would wait for it, wait for it, my hand moving, delaying my own release until heather had shuddered out her final cry. then it was over. just like that. sometimes i could catch heather's labored breathing as she came down to earth.

this had going on for a few weeks when, one night, i felt a shifting on the bed as i was timing my pleasure to theirs. i opened my eyes to find jodie looking at me wordlessly, her face expressionless. glancing down, i saw her knees bent, her hand working between her thighs. when heather and mike reached their plateau next door, jodie and i reached ours, our eyes never leaving one another's face as lay shuddering side by side.

after that, our neighbor's antics never failed to provide us with inspiration. we threw off the sheets, we touched ourselves and each other, we made wet, fierce love, spurred on by the noises coming from next door. we told each other fantasies in which no walls separated us from heather and mike and the four of us would become together as they were by themselves.

when they finally moved out of the building a couple of months ago, jodie and i were sad to see them go. we have no complaint about our new neighbors, a very pleasant couple with two small children. but late at night, and occasionally on sunday morning, jodie and i will be reminded of heather and mike. and we'll listen in vain to those noises from the other side of the wall.

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