Awake (pt. I)
Leaves fell to the ground that day, the first taste of an early fall. Simon saw them in the light of the street lamps before dawn when he finally gave up the pretense of trying to sleep. The thumps and grunts and sounds of pleasure coming from his roommate’s bedroom were only slightly muffled by the thin wall separating it from his. Again. It was the fourth time this week, always with a different woman and every time it was a fresh reminder that he was alone. Which wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if Simon didn’t spend so much time imagining he was on the other side of that wall, being the one responsible for the sounds his roommate was making.
Unable to sleep, he sat on the edge of his bed and stared out the window, watching dead leaves slowly, passively drift down to litter the sidewalk. Sometimes he thought it might be better to be one of them — to just fall and not have to worry about anything beyond that final action. And yet, every time he thought it, a moan from his roommate would seep through the wall and ground him in longing.
To be so close, yet unable to touch or confess his desires without fear of rejection, was exquisite torture. Simon wondered when he would hit his limit for the bittersweet taste of it, but also worried that he didn’t have one. It seemed that his appetite was boundless, because even with the suicidal thoughts and the self loathing that coursed through him every time his roommate’s date cried out, his boxers were tented. Forbidden got him off. Eavesdropping through the wall, he was free to fantasize and no one ever needed to know his secret, and that made him feel more real and alive than anything else.
He knew the signs of his roommate’s pleasure almost as well as his own and could tell they were getting close. Tense with reluctant anticipation he finally relented, slipping a hand beneath the waistband of his boxers. As he wrapped his fingers around himself he inhaled sharply through his nose, almost dizzy with the shock of the sudden, immediate stimulation. A muffled sentence through the wall, part warning part promise part prayer, and he was right there with them. He willed the date to feel unwelcome, even while knowing he would make her pancakes in the morning as an unspoken apology for his vindictiveness. His hand sped up as their pace became frantic and his head tipped back, away from the window, away from the dead leaves, eyes falling half closed and mouth falling slightly open. There was only need now, all encompassing and warm in his pounding blood, and god it was embarrassing how long they could go when all he needed to come was to listen and join in at the last minute. Embarrassing and wonderful how he could hear the exact moment his roommate climaxed, and he joined him in back-arching pleasure that left him lying on the bed with no exact memory of falling backward.
When he finally falls asleep, he dreams that he has a wife, two kids, and job doing something with computers. The kids want a dog and won’t shut up about it, and he wants to give in but his wife won’t hear it. He escapes into work and is gratefully sucked into the problem of something not compiling properly, going into overtime to finish massaging out all the kinks in the program. Every day is more or less the same, on and on and on.