Two Hard

by Amy Brent

  God, did I hate myself for that... It was reflexive, almost, beyond my control.

  And there were other incidents as well...

  Like, there was the time when we ran into one another in the laundry room. I was feeling sociable and confident that day to an extent that was peculiar for me, and I actually did manage to speak to him when he came into the room, turning hopefully toward him without thinking, and saying enthusiastically, “Hello, Nick. How are things with you lately?”

  Immediately, something about him seemed to imply discomfort, though I couldn't, for the life of me, identify what it might have been or why. “Um... Things are pretty okay, thanks,” he said, sweating, and turning his eyes away.

  And shit...

  I caught myself, without having even realized it, holding what was about my skimpiest, laciest pair of panties up in my hands. I'd been folding my unmentionables when he'd walked in, and I'd been so swept up in my sudden gladness to see him that I'd completely forgotten about the fact.

  “Oh... Oh, that's great then,” I said nervously, and I could feel my armpits sweating, perspiration trickling along my spine uncomfortably, my face turning beet red... I scrambled to retrieve my underwear as quickly as I could, dropping a bra on the floor as I did so, and bending over hurriedly to pick him up. I likely exposed my backside to him in that dainty little display.

  “Well, then, I'll see you around,” I stammered at last, high-tailing it from the joint as rapidly as I could manage, and not looking at him as I passed.

  It was ridiculous of me, I knew- people could reasonably expect to see their fair share of underwear in a laundry room, couldn't they?

  But still, in spite of myself I felt utterly humiliated, ashamed of myself and my own dizziness, and more certain than ever that my initial fantasies of anything real forming between Nick and I all but shattered in that moment.

  Though that certainly didn't stop the awkwardness from ensuing anytime the two of us happened to spy one another...

  I'd taken to checking the peephole in my door, regularly, to make sure that the coast was clear before leaving the apartment. Of course, I really couldn't see all that much in any direction, given the peephole's limitations. If he was already in the hallway, for instance, and approaching in my direction, I would have no way of knowing. But I did happen to witness him leaving through it on at least a few occasions, but generally only in the middle of the night, and only under the most unusual of circumstances.

  I kept waking up, late into the night- often after twelve. And I would hear this terrible rustling sound coming from across the hall, almost like some sort of struggle was ensuing. Naturally this led me to go and investigate, hoping that everything was okay.

  I would always go to the peephole, staring for several minutes, but nothing ever happened that I could see. And suddenly, almost abruptly, the noise would stop, and a few moments later, Nick would emerge, almost startlingly, even when I knew to expect it. Sometimes he would stop and stare at my door for a moment before leaving, as though he could tell I was looking at him- or as though in longing for me...

  But then he would turn and go, disappearing for hours on end, and the only sign of his returning the sound of his jangling keys and footsteps the next morning, often waking me from sleep.

  Honestly, sometimes these sounds of late night struggle made me assume something terrible about him, like was something was happening in his apartment that really, really shouldn't be. Once, after he'd rumbled around and then left, I'd crept over to his door after about an hour or so, knocking on it, praying that there was no one inside, a captive, or... Or God, I didn't want to consider what else.

  “Hello?” I would call, but there would be no response.

  I was thoroughly puzzled...

  It did occur to me that, maybe, it was just conceivable that a sexpot such as him might have a girlfriend somewhere, and that it was a possibility that this could explain these late night disappearances, if not the sounds of struggle. Not that this was an especially attractive option, either, for the chubby girl across the hall who'd swooned for and was routinely lusting after him.

  But honestly, aside from personal conjecture and speculation, I had no evidence to support the notion of there being a female in Nick's life, or at least in that capacity.

  And at any rate, soon enough, I would be given a sure sign that, yes, I'd been right to assume more than just a neighborly connection between Nick and myself, even if it would prove to be one marred by complications and seemingly impossible to indulge.

  By two weeks into my stay at this new place, the two of us had scarcely exchanged half the amount of words as we did during that first encounter. It seemed as though the two of us might reasonably never speak again, until one fateful night we ran into each other once more outside of our respective doorways.

  I was just coming home from the store, my arms piled high with groceries- he seemed to have a tendency for running into me when I was looking my least graceful, carrying way more in my arms than I should have been...

  When suddenly, out of nowhere, his door flung open, startling me, and I was so taken off guard that my grocery bags went plummeting from my arms, the food therein spilling out all over the floor, and my face, almost routinely by now, blushing scarlet.

  “Oh my God... I'm so sorry!” said Nick, fully addressing me for the first time since that first night. I wasn't his fault, of course, or at least not in any direct sense. But he could clearly tell that his presence was what had left me shaken, and he stopped to help me retrieve the fallen produce- apples, oranges, bananas spilled all over the place. My bread had been smashed terribly, but thank God the gallon of milk I'd bought hadn't gone bursting on its collision with the ground.

  “Oh, no, don't apologize! It's not your fault, you just startled me. Here, let me get that...”

  And once again, it was something not at all unlike a decisive moment in a cheesy romantic comedy.

  Our hands, at once, lighted upon the exact same piece of fruit, and the two of us froze, startled by the warmth of one another's grip...

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, we lifted our heads, staring awkwardly at one another, each of us feeling as though we should be pulling away.

  Yet neither one of us was willing to do so- we seemed frozen in place, mutually fascinated by one another's warm touch, not wanting to deprive ourselves of that sweet, sweet feeling...

  And we were leaning into one another.

  Pulled, cautious, slow, but unable to escape, into one another's orbit. Moving inward, inward, inward, trapped by the powerful force.

  And before I knew it, his lips were on mine.

  A tender, warm, delicate kiss. So soft, so powerful, so agonizing.

  We pulled gently apart, and stared, phased at one another, terrified. For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. We were caught in the moment, frozen in time, the silence so thick you could hear a pin drop...

  And suddenly, he pinned me up against the door, my spine slamming loud up against its surface. His lips were on me once again, and his hands, too, squeezing me, sliding all over my body. I was gasping, the produce I'd just finished retrieving now falling once more to the ground and spilling.

  I didn't give a damn...

  I was too busy being tasted, his tongue pushing into me, rolling through my cheeks. And I, of course, tasted him in return, fighting back with my own eager tongue, gasping as my head spun with arousal, his flavor so divine, so perfect...

  And God, he was so desperate for me, burning for me as I was for him. I could feel the hardness of his arousal pushing into me, burning me through my clothes. And now he was hoisting my leg up, pushing it to his waist. His kisses ran from my lips to my cheek, to my chin, then to my neck. Dangerously, pecking up and down, up and down, sliding along, growing dangerously close to the top of my breasts, exposed as they were above the fabric of my dress, and I had to grip the frame of the door to support myself, burning, burning, burning...

  And then he stopped...
>
  Suddenly, abruptly...

  I blinked, astonished, wondering what the hell was happening.

  He was pulling away from me, wide-eyed, leaving me in the lurch, my body still on fire for him, but his, apparently, cooling off.

  “What's wrong?” I asked quickly, terrified that perhaps I'd done something wrong, and offended him somehow.

  “I... I... It's... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I really like you, but... I can't... This was a mistake...”

  “A mistake? No, Nick, I-”

  “I'm sorry,” he insisted, turning to leave me, right in the center of the mess that he'd helped cause.

  I felt confused, winded, and miserable...

  And yet, in a most peculiar way, strangely hopeful...

  Nothing had happened between us since the day of that telling encounter. And in fact, I hadn't even seen Nick save for his creeping past the peephole in the middle of the night. I still foolishly held out some vague hope of the two of us being reunited at some point down the road- and I mean really reunited... Things kindling between the two of us at last, sparks flying, a fire burning...

  But at any rate, I didn't tell Monica nearly half of all this. It was too complex, too inexplicable. She would think I was crazy, or else try to insert herself into the situation without knowing the whole story and try to interfere.

  I'd been silent for several moments following the teasing of Nick's name, and Monica had prodded me along- “Sooooo? Go on...”

  “Sooooo...” I said carefully. “It's complicated... I mean... I like him, and I think he likes me... But he seems to be... Well, dragging his feet about things, honestly. We've shared some moments, but he seems convinced that things won't work out between the two of us. And I can't seem to convince him otherwise.”

  “He's making you wait for him? Come on, girl, you don't have time for bullshit... Your best years of life are quickly draining away from you! He needs to get his ass in gear and treat you like you deserve to be treated!”

  The “quickly draining away” line didn't do all that much for me, frankly... It was actually pretty depressing. But her point had been adequately felt, and I couldn't say I wholly disagreed with her. It felt as though it had been entirely too long since I'd last had regular company with whom I could share a bed, someone to keep me warm at night. That really wasn't an awful lot to ask, I thought, and I realized that I might just be wasting my time in this city full of eligible men, waiting for a long shot that may never come.

  “Maybe you're right,” I said.

  “Of course I'm right,” she said, before the words had scarcely passed my lips. She had whipped out her phone, and call it a sixth sense if you will, but I thought I had a reasonably good idea of what she was doing as she peered into its screen.

  “I'll tell you what,” she said, as though making a deal with me. “Why don't I set you up with a friend of mine? Here's his picture. He's handsome and successful, and I'm confident he would love to meet you.”

  Humoring her, I took a look at the picture on the phone- and indeed, to all appearances, he seemed quite handsome and successful. Not Nick levels of handsome, but as far as success was concerned, I couldn't reasonably say what Nick did to know whether or not he was successful at it. So that was one turn-on, I supposed. Not that I cared too much about money, but as a professional myself, finding someone with similar goals and aspirations would be ideal.

  “Best case scenario,” continued Monica, “You two fall madly, passionately in love with one another, get married, and you end up having his babies.” I couldn't help but let out a chuckle at this, and I remembered, in spite of her sometimes more irksome tendencies, why I loved Monica. “But at the very least, maybe you can make this Johnny Come Lately of yours jealous... You know, spur him along, a little bit... And plus, maybe have a little bit of fun in the process.”

  I sighed, knowing that she probably wouldn't let this die until I agreed to go along with her plan, or at least until I took it into real consideration. “Let me see that,” I said, taking the phone from her hand, and I knew even this small capitulation to her will pleased her dearly.

  God, the man was certainly cute... I couldn't deny that.

  And I couldn't deny, it would be nice to go out and have some fun with a man like that.

  A sighed, resigned to her will, and handed the phone back to her.

  “Alright... Set it up, then. Have his people call my people, and we'll see how it goes. But let's just take things one step at a time before we go making any plans about babies and shared bank accounts and mortgages.”

  “I'm texting him right now,” she said, with almost charming enthusiasm. “I promise you you won't regret it...”

  But I was regretting it, before I'd even made it back to the apartment. Or, at any rate, I had decidedly mixed emotions about the whole idea, not sure what I should make of it or my insane, double edged nature.

  On one hand, I savored the opportunity to go out and sow my wild oats for a change. I was hopeful that, perhaps, the two of us would strike up something more than casual acquaintanceship, and maybe, just maybe, I could stop worrying about dating, about having to go through the trouble of trying to find someone for a while.

  But I nonetheless felt myself facing an immense sense of guilt, as though, irrationally, I felt I was betraying Nick by seeing other people behind his back.

  And I knew, even as I thought it, that this was wholly impossible. To say I was doing this “behind his back” would have entailed the two of us having something more between us than a casual acquaintanceship, more than that single shared kiss, after which, at any rate, he'd fled from me and made himself wholly scarce for days further to come.

  I wasn't betraying him... I didn't mean a damn thing to him, or at least not enough for him to put aside whatever doubts he had and make an effort to find space for me in his life.

  He was my neighbor- my sexy stud of a neighbor- and nothing more. It was due time that I drilled that notion into my head, and rid myself of these delusions that the two of us could ever really be anything.

  Still, though, I found myself taking the stairs up to my apartment instead of the elevator, replaying that first day when I'd moved into the place in my mind. The moment his hands slipped beneath the box, and helped me to handle my load. And the moment our eyes first met, the sight of him lighting up my world for the first time...

  Nor could I avoid stopping outside his door once I made it into our hallway. Recalling that shared kiss, which had been so sweet, so intoxicating... Being pinned up against my door as the produce rolled along the carpet, pinned there by his love as he tasted me...

  I couldn't help myself. I placed my ear up against his door, just curious, listening for signs of his presence. There were none, or at least none that I could detect.

  I moved away again, feeling defeated and began to sift through my keyring, ready to call it a night and collapse into my bed.

  That's when I noticed two men, at the other end of the hallway. They were staring at intently in my direction, though for what purpose I couldn't begin to discern. I would piece together late that my leaning in to listen at Nick's door had keyed them in that the two of us might have some connection, and that was what spurred the subsequent course of events.

  Even the sight of these two beings sent shivers down my spine, and I hurried to lean in toward my door, dropping the keys in the process. They were walking toward me now, as I stooped down to pick up the keys, trying, once more, to find the right one. I slid one into the keyhole, and it wasn't right- God, how wasn't this the right key?

  And now, the beasts were thundering forward, breaking into a run-

  And their bodies disappeared entirely...

  Their flesh twisted, distorted, they tore from their clothes, and suddenly-

  In the place of the two men, two wolves were barreling down the thin hallway, rocketing in my direction, seeming deadly intent upon attacking me, sinking their teeth into my flesh, ripping me limb from limb..

/>   I screamed, trying desperately to open the door, before at last giving up the fight, sinking to the floor, putting up a defensive arm over my face...

  That was when Nick's door burst open, nearly smacking me as it slammed against the wall, and though for a moment I was terrified that Nick was putting himself in danger as well, I was sent reeling even further by the beast suddenly emerging from his apartment.

  A humongous, jet black grizzly bear had come bursting out, all fur and teeth and claws and ferocity. He completely overlooked me, but plowed the bulk of his tremendous weight into the two werewolves, smashing them to the ground, and the trio tumbling around violently, snapping and slashing, the respective parties trying to tear one another to shreds.