Bad Boy, Good Man
Abigail Barnette
Copyright © 2015, Jenny Trout
All rights reserved.
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Chapter One
“Oh fuck, oh yes, don’t stop! Don’t stop!”
I stared impassively at my two best friends, who sat in abject horror as they listened to the bi-weekly pornographic soundtrack that flooded my apartment on Tuesday and Thursday nights. They hadn’t believed me when I told them. They’d thought I was exaggerating.
They’d thought wrong.
“Oh. My god.” Dawn’s hands hovered open in the air in front of her, as though she could protect herself from what she was hearing by holding up an invisible brick wall. “That is disgusting.”
“It’s the slamming headboard that really makes it, I think,” I mused aloud. My numb demeanor was not for effect; I had to hear this crap so often, I’d eventually started tuning it out. “It’s got a nice, rhythmic ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump—”
“Ellie, how can you live like this?” Sarah’s big brown eyes widened in disbelief. “This has to be in violation of…something.”
“Honestly, it’s almost worth it, just to see your faces.” No, it wasn’t. It was a pain in the ass to hear someone having awesome sex twice a week while I was having none. It made me surly. “I’m going to have to move.”
“Absolutely not!” Dawn tossed her long, blond ponytail over her shoulder. “There are laws against this kind of thing.”
“Against fucking?” Sarah asked, then burst into laughter, her golden brown skin flushing. “I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous. You have to go over there and talk to him.”
“Or I could,” Dawn volunteered. She’d do it, too; she was going to be the scariest prosecutor in New York, once she passed the bar.
“Great idea!” I chirped, rubbing my hands together. “You’re exactly his type. Blond and barely-legal looking.”
Sarah laughed so hard she almost rolled off the couch, just as a piercing crescendo of an “Oh!” reached its pinnacle and cut off mid-orgasm. The slamming of the headboard picked up speed, and I held up one finger. “Aaaaaand—” I paused for the long, masculine groan of relief. “Scene.”
“This is totally insane—” Sarah started.
Dawn corrected her with a cluck of her tongue. “Watch the I-word.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. She and Dawn had butted heads a few times on the ableist language issue. Dawn worked with mentally ill teens at a juvenile detention center, and she had no patience for slurs.
Sarah went on. “You’ve got to say something to him.”
“Maybe I’ll bake him a cake and leave it outside his door. And, when he opens the box, bam. ‘Stop having such loud sex,’ written in frosting right across the top.” It wasn’t a bad idea; I did make great cakes.
I should have stayed in Connecticut and become a baker.
Dawn leaned forward and took both my hands in hers, maintaining eye contact with me as she said, gently, “Do not make a cake for this pervert. You need a refresher course in how to be assertive, but I don’t have the patience for that, right now.”
Sarah checked her phone then yawned as she ruffled her brown corkscrew curls. “Yeah, it’s getting late. At least, now, we know what you’re dealing with.”
“And, we’ll be more sympathetic,” Dawn promised.
We hugged out our goodbyes, with them insisting they help me clean up our wine glasses and bags of chips, and me politely declining in the timeless ritual of seeing friends out the door. When I’d closed it and dead bolted it behind them, I leaned against the painted red metal and surveyed my apartment.
It was super small, just a teensy studio with my twin love seats, a pass-through kitchen, and my bed partitioned off from the main living area by a lacy, decorative folding screen. But it was beautiful, with exposed brick walls, high ceilings, and two tall, arched windows, all original to the building, a converted textile factory from the early 1900’s. And, every inch of its lovely five hundred square feet belonged to me.
It wasn’t that I’d disliked sharing a place with Dawn and Sarah, even though our apartment hadn’t been much bigger, but after college, I’d just wanted a place of my own. When my dad had found this place going “for half what it should, in this market,” he’d put the pressure on me to make the leap into becoming a homeowner so that I wouldn’t keep “wasting my money” on rent. And, yeah, he had helped with the down payment—and so had Mom because she hadn’t wanted to be outdone by Dad—but that’s just a benefit of being the child of wealthy divorced parents. I paid the bills and the mortgage, so it was my apartment.
But when I’d moved in two months ago, I’d expected to savor that first and foremost joy of living alone: quiet. Instead, I had to listen to Mr. Revolving Bedroom Door banging a different lady friend every other night.
At least, it was quiet while I got ready for bed. I scrubbed off my makeup, rolled my long, copper hair into a sock bun, so I wouldn’t have to curl it in the morning, and brushed my teeth. Angrily. Honestly, it wasn’t so much the sex that bothered me, but the rudeness of how loud he always was. Or, how loud he made them get.
I didn’t want to think about that.
Either way, he acted like he was the only person who lived in the damn building.
I was going to go over there first thing in the morning and give him a piece of my mind.
After I checked the lock one last time and made sure the stove was off in the kitchen, I went to my bed and hopped in. I snuggled under my thick down comforter and ventured one hand out to turn off my bedside lamp. Then, I quickly covered my head. I’ve never been a fan of the dark. I felt the lip of my bed frame until my fingers brushed the handle of the steak knife I kept wedged there. Reaching farther, I touched the comforting metal surface of the fire extinguisher on the floor beneath me.
Okay, I was a little paranoid. But it wasn’t my fault. It’s what a career in risk assessment does to you.
I lay in the quiet semi-dark. I’d realized a few months ago that the noise of the city didn’t bother me the way it used to. I liked that. It made me feel like a real New Yorker.
Through the hollow brick wall behind my head, I heard a muffled squeal of laughter, followed by a deeper, rougher voice saying words I couldn’t make out. There was a noise caught somewhere between a loud laugh and a surprised gasp, and then we were right back to the moaning.
Great. They were going to go for seconds.
I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to be angry at having to hear them again tonight, or thankful he didn’t always have this kind of stamina. His record was three times in one night, but that had been on St. Patrick’s Day. He’d probably just been bored and avoiding the drunks on the streets.
The weirdest part of the entire situation, and maybe the only thing that made it bearable, was that I’d never even seen this guy. I’d been privy to his intimate encounters every Tuesday and Thursday night for the past two months, but I’d never so much as passed him in the hallway.
I’d seen the women who emerged from his apartment on Wednesday and Friday mornings, though. They were exactly the type of women I would imagine a total player going for. There were two blondes, one of them tall with long legs and a long neck, like if someone had crossed a young Uma Thurman with a sexy giraffe. The other was shorter, with boobs that looked like no shirt had ever been created that would fully contain t
hem. Her face had a pouty, baby doll quality that I envied. Then, there was the redhead with the pixie cut and tattoos on what seemed like every conceivable inch of her skin; the black girl with impossibly long, Rapunzel-like twists and cool horn-rimmed glasses; the dark-haired bombshell who always wore something tight and red like a femme fatale in an old movie; the Katy Perry look-a-like with a Fran Drescher voice.
It was like being assaulted with nuclear-grade hotness every morning, and though I tried not to get down on myself for my looks, I couldn’t help but compare. It was like having a window into a world I’d always suspected existed, a realm of sexy people doing acrobatic things with their lithe bodies and experiencing sexual pleasure I’d never known could possibly exist. It seemed unlikely to short, round, ginger me that I would ever be in that position.
My last boyfriend hadn’t been great in bed. He’d thought he was great, but his ego had been such a drag. If I’d tried to even gently suggest anything, remotely anything, that would help him get me off, he’d been like, “No, I’ve got this. I’ve never disappointed anyone, yet.”
I hadn’t had the heart to tell him that they probably just hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings.
Maybe that was the worst part of this whole situation. Here I was, forced to listen to the kind of sex I’d only dreamed about, and the silicone substitute in my beside drawer just didn’t perform like the lothario next door.
Fuck it. Maybe it was gross and voyeuristic of me to use Mr. Endless Orgasms as aural porn, but I couldn’t help myself. I listened to every loud exclamation—I was pretty sure it was redhead tattoo girl over there tonight—and tried to picture what he was doing to her. Since I didn’t know what he looked like, I decided he looked exactly like Tom Hiddleston and went from there.
I slipped my fingers into my panties, petting the coarse hair over my slit. I thought of what he could be doing to her, and pictured his head between her thighs. Sex Neighbor seemed like the type to take a long time, to savor every drip and moan.
My fingers dipped lower, finding my own wetness, and I used it to lubricate them as I slid them over my clit. An unmistakable, “Oh god!” echoed through the wall, and I tipped my head back, imagining that mouth between my thighs, that tongue circling and tapping me. I bit my lower lip to keep from making any noise of my own; if they heard, that would be beyond mortifying. I rocked my hips a little, trying to remember what oral sex even felt like. It had been… I did the mental math, and my hand stilled. It had been three years since anyone had gone down on me.
God, no wonder I was masturbating to the sound of my neighbor having sex. This was as close to sex as I’d gotten since graduation.
I kicked my underwear down and parted my legs wider. Might as well pull out all the stops. The woman next door made short, sharp “Oh!”s of pleasure until she groaned, “Fuck, yes!” It was easy to imagine her thighs quivering around his face, since my own thighs were quivering around my hand.
“Fuck me! Fuck me!” she begged, and I practically upended my nightstand grabbing in the drawer for the thick, realistic silicone dildo my friends had bought me “as a joke” for my twenty-first birthday. I ran my fingers down it and gripped the circumference of it, stroking it the way I would have stroked the guy next door.
No! Not the guy next door, at all. Get your shit together, Ellie.
Still, when the headboard started thumping, I pushed the head of the fake cock into myself and pumped in time with them. I used one hand to rub my clit, rolling my pelvis and straining to hear every breath, every slap of skin against skin. Realistically, I probably couldn’t hear any of that, but my imagination had taken over. I opened my mouth on a cry I held back. My pussy clutched on the dildo, and I arched my back, my orgasm winding up tight inside me. He pounded her faster; she screamed louder. He shouted, a primal growl of satisfaction that snapped the tension in me like an over-tightened guitar string. A strangled noise stuck in my throat, and I held my breath as wave after electric wave of pure pleasure throbbed through me. I flopped back to the mattress, boneless, pulsing around the toy I was too weak to withdraw, at the moment.
On the other side of the wall, they were probably basking in their own afterglow, skin-to-skin. A lump stuck in my throat. Maybe what bothered me about having to hear my neighbor getting laid two nights a week wasn’t what I was so bitter and bitchy about. It was hard to go for so long without being touched.
Glumly, I got up and took my silicone boyfriend to the bathroom and washed it up, got myself a drink of water, and gave myself a long, hard look in the mirror. I wondered if everyone could see how lonely I felt when I was just walking around.
I had to make a change. Starting with my stupid, inconsiderate neighbor.
* * * *
When the alarm went off an hour early, my sense of righteous outrage ejected me from bed like my butt was spring-loaded. I made coffee and sat down to write a note that would give my inconsiderate neighbor a piece of my mind. The first draft definitely came off too, “Hi, I’m the librarian from The Music Man, and I’m here to shake my finger at you.” The second one just screamed, “I’m too meek and cowardly to confront you in person.” I needed something that would get my message across without making me sound sexually repressed or like an entitled former yuppie reporting their neighbor’s unmowed lawn to the condo association.
And, I definitely couldn’t write what I was really feeling: Please keep it down. I’m desperately lonely and can’t stand to hear other people being intimate. Besides, even if I were in a healthy, happy relationship, I wouldn’t want to hear strangers banging.
The clock was ticking, so I just scrawled, I can hear you having sex, you jerk! across the paper, folded it up, and stuck it in my purse. Then, I got ready for work. I showered, struggled into some Spanks to smooth out my tummy as much as possible, and threw on a cute, high-waisted gray plaid skirt and a gray button-down blouse with short, sheer sleeves. I did the bare minimum when it came to my makeup, because I’d wasted so much time messing around with the stupid note, and pulled on my black leather mid-calf boots. I bundled up in my camel-colored pea coat, white scarf, and slouch hat, and headed out the door.
Instead of taking a right out my door, I made a sharp left and nearly collided with Red Head Pixie Cut.
“Oops, sorry,” I said, my face flushing hot. It was not fun running into the person whose sex you masturbated to the night before.
“Sorry, I should watch where I’m going,” she said, still struggling to zip her puffy black coat. I waited for her to get to the top of the stairs before I headed on to the door she’d just come from. I fished the folded paper from my purse and leaned down to put the note on the floor in front of the door.
Which opened the moment the paper left my hand.
“Stella! You forgot—”
I wanted to melt into the floor. Two very naked, very wet, very big feet stood in the doorway, attached to chiseled calves covered in dark hair shining with water drops. As I straightened, a thick, hard thigh peeked from between the ends of what seemed to be a ridiculously small towel, held closed at a narrow waist by one big, sun-tanned fist.
My eyes squeezed shut in embarrassment as he said, “Uh, can I help you?”
I straightened and forced myself to look him in the face. The smoldering, Disney-prince-esque face that was all cheekbones and straight nose and freshly shaved chin that still showed a dark shadow where the hair had been. One thick black brow was drawn up, and his wide, full lips were slightly parted in a crooked smile.
“No, I was just—” I started to lean down for the paper, thinking I’d say, “I just noticed this trash in the hallway,” or something else that would be ridiculously unconvincing, but he scooped it up with the hand that wasn’t preventing the towel from falling. I should have just run, but the dark hair that dusted the broad, tawny beige expanse of his chest drew my attention like a super sex-charged tractor beam. My fingers curled into fists in my knit gloves.
To my horror, he shook the paper out and h
eld it up between us to read aloud, “‘I can hear you having sex, you jerk.’ Exclamation point.” His brows drew up, and he blinked. “Wow.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were being that loud.” He cleared his throat. “I’m Antony—” He reached toward me with the hand the held the paper, then moved as though he’d use his other one before realizing what it was doing. He pressed the paper between his gorgeous lips and extended his hand to me.
“Ellie. Ellie McCormack.” Why was I introducing myself? I should be…swearing at him, or acting all hard or something. Keep it down, you big idiot! Yeah, I should have tried that.
He took the paper out of his mouth again. “Why didn’t you just knock on the wall or something? We would have kept it down.”
I waved my hand. “It’s really no big—”
“No big ‘jerk’?” He grinned at me. “Don’t lose that tough streak, now.”
I gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Anthony—”
“Antony. Like the Roman,” he corrected me with a wink.
“Yeah. Um. I have to go to work. So, I’ll just…” I nodded and turned awkwardly away.
“Sorry to disturb you, Ellie,” he called after me.
The building could have been on fire, and I wouldn’t have run out so fast.
Chapter Two
After our unconventional “welcome to the neighborhood” meeting, I started seeing Antony around the building almost every day. We’d pass on the stairs and nod at each other, or get in each other’s way coming through the door. I could barely look him in the eye, but when I’d glance up at him, he’d always seemed vaguely amused.
“He probably thinks I’m this uptight little prude who lives next door.” I made a disgusted noise as I recounted the situation to Dawn.
Because of my awesome mom and her high-powered connections, I’d gotten a fantastic job right out of business school, working as an actuary for the APAC Group of insurance providers. My days were spent pouring over the costs of industrial, on-the-job accidents, health crises that affected employment, basically every horrible way you could possibly get mangled. Which was great for my stress level when my field was already highly competitive and everyone thought I got my position through nepotistic connections.
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