Watching

I had been watching her for about a month. From across the dumpy courtyard of my run down apartment complex, all full of smashed bottles and cigarette butts, I could see into her bedroom window. I promise this isn't as menacing as it sounds. 


I moved here about five months ago. Maybe six. I guess I didn't so much move as run away, but that isn't what matters. What matters is I'm starting over now. I got a job washing dishes and a small studio apartment. I share the building cockroaches and speed freaks. I haven't put any furniture in it yet. I probably won't. 


I noticed her the third or fourth day after I had moved in. She was at the checking her mail in the courtyard. Her huge black coat stood in stark contrast with the patches of graying, dirty snow on the ground. The parka looked like an enormous trash bag wrapped around her small frame. Her breath rose in tiny bluish clouds and mingled with the smoke from her cigarette. I watched as she sighed heavily, pushed the raven bangs from her eyes, and pulled a handful of bills from her box. She turned back towards her building and dropped the envelopes on the ground one by one without opening them; the way I used to.

I watched her for a week or two before she noticed. It was never anything threatening. I was just interested in her. I usually got off work an hour or so before she did. I would lay on the bare twin mattress on my carpeted floor, all covered with cigarette burns and mysterious stains, waiting for her light to come on. Once it did, I would watch her change out of her work uniform.

She would take off her black polo shirt, fold it up, and set it on her desk. She would then sit on the corner of her bed and slide off her khaki pants. She was skinny. Almost too skinny. The pale, near translucent skin of her back stretched tight over her ribcage. She had a small tattoo on her protruding left hip. I couldn't tell what it was, just that it was there.

It happened one night in late January. She decided to take a shower when she got off work instead of in the morning like she usually did. I watched her as she undressed and wrapped the towel around herself. As she was leaving her room she paused and looked back over her shoulder. I was standing close to the window in my underwear, smoking. Smoldering. She turned and made eye contact with me. We stood there expressionless for a few moments, not breaking our stare. She backed out of her room, not looking away – not even blinking – until she closed her door.

The look on her face never changed. She wasn't disgusted or offended or scared. She just looked blank. Her blankness intensified the nothingness inside me until that’s all there was. I laid down on my mattress and stared up at the cracked ceiling. Embarrassment isn't the right word; maybe it was disappointment. I fell asleep with my clothes on that night.

The next night she watched me with that same unwavering stare while she slowly removed her shirt. She stood framed in her window, silhouetted in the flickering florescent light as she carefully removed her bra. The movement of her small white breasts was almost indiscernible as she calmly breathed in and out. She stood there confidently, nude from the waist up, completely unashamed. Flaunting? She looked down at her chest for a moment and then back to me. I exhaled cigarette smoke through my nose as she slowly brought her hand to her left breast and smiled at me. I can't remember exactly how much time passed but it wasn't enough.

The night after it was snowing heavily. The artificial yellow light from the few still illuminated apartment windows cast crisscrossing patches of shadow on the undulating snowdrifts. I watched her as she entered her room and methodically began to remove her clothes. Something had changed. She wasn't just getting ready for bed this time. I knew she could feel my eyes on her although she had not yet acknowledged my presence. Her gestures were exaggerated and her movements seemed to be at half speed. Looking at the way she carried herself, I could imagine that this was the first time in a long while that anyone had taken an interest in her body. She wasn't ugly, but she was never anyone's first choice.

She was wearing underwear tonight that I had never seen before. It was bright red, all lace and ribbons, and looked entirely out of place on her. She moved about her room awkwardly, picking up things from her desk and moving them to her shelf. Occasionally she would drop something on the floor and bend over slowly to pick it up. She was bent over her bed, unnecessarily smoothing the sheets when she looked over her shoulder, locking eyes with me. She was pouting her lips. I shook my head and shrugged.

Confused, she stood up straight and faced the window. “No?” she mouthed, pointing down to the lingerie. I shook my head again and she laughed. She quickly and unceremoniously took off the underwear and tossed it across her room. Still smiling she heaved an exaggerated a sigh and I laughed to myself.

She looked much more at ease now. She lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of her bed. Her eyes wandered around her room, sometimes glancing out of the window to make contact with mine, sometimes not. One hand was resting on her thigh. Slowly but deliberately her hand moved further and further up her leg until she was touching herself. Without really being aware of what I was doing I had taken off my boxers and had begun to do the same.

Her face was flushed as her shoulders jerked sporadically. She bit her lip as she flipped the dark bangs from her eyes with her free hand. I was leaning against the window still involved with myself when she suddenly stopped and shot up from her bed. She flung open the drawer of her desk and pulled out something I couldn't see. She turned her back towards me for a few moments. I was unsure of what to do and started looking around the room for my underwear. Something wasn't right and I was painfully aware of my exposure. I fumbled with my boxers for a moment before I looked back to her window. She had pressed herself up against the glass. “COME OVER” was scrawled across her chest in red lipstick.

Her face was eager and pleading and beautiful. I had already pulled my boxers up to my knees. I couldn't do it. I can't do it. I couldn't go over there. I pulled my boxers the rest of the way up quickly snapped off my lights. She was pounding her fist against the window. I could hear the faint thumps from across the courtyard as I lay down on my mattress, too terrified to move. 


For the next week her blinds were closed. Regret isn't the right word; maybe it's disgust. What do you do with yourself when all you can do is avoid the thing you should want?

I saw her one evening on my break at work. I was outside having a cigarette and she was across the street buying some coffee. As she left the shop she briefly made eye contact with me, but she never stopped walking.

That night she left her blinds open. I cautiously peered through my window at her lying naked on her bed. The message on her body had not yet completely faded.

The door to her bedroom opened and a beleaguered man stumbled in. He braced himself on the doorframe as he removed his shoes. He swayed back and forth, obviously drunk, as she helped him pull off his pants.

He didn't bother to take his shirt off before he spun her around and bent her over the bed. As he fumbled to force himself inside of her she slowly turned her head and made eye contact with me. Her face was blank again. She mouthed some words to me that I couldn't understand before I had to close my blinds. I haven't opened them since.