Chapter 18

Lara was coming home from a long shift, and as she turned to make the short walk to her door, the elevator chimed behind her. A moment later, a woman stepped into the hall, looking between the two corridors on either side of her in confusion.

“A through L on this side,” Lara offered with a smile.

The woman sighed in relief and stepped toward her. “Thanks. Buildings like this always confuse me. I almost went to the north tower instead, too!” She let out a laugh and a self-deprecating shake of her head.

“Tell me about it. I’ve lived here for months, and I still get confused,” Lara told her as they walked side by side. “Well, this is me. Good luck finding your way.” She stepped to her door.

“Oh.” The woman glanced back and forth between the two doors on either side of the hall. “I just did. Looks like you’re my good luck charm.” She smiled widely and gave a little wink.

Right when she turned to knock on the door, it opened to reveal an infuriatingly smug-looking Zavien.

“Have a good night!” the woman called out before she stepped into his apartment.

“Have a good night, Lara,” Zavien echoed teasingly.

“I hope you can’t get it up,” she blurted out in a whisper.

“Don’t be jealous.”

She scoffed. “Don’t be annoying.”

“No promises.” With one last eye crinkle, he disappeared behind his door, leaving her standing alone in the hall once again—this time gripping her keys in a show of very misplaced anger.

***

She learned very quickly that night that Zavien had had no trouble getting it up.

And, okay, if she had barricaded herself in her room and gone to sleep like she should have, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

But she didn’t have anywhere to be in the morning, and she was a fully functioning adult, so she could sit on her couch and binge-watch bad reality television until the wee hours of the morning if she so chose.

And if she happened to watch with the volume muted after hearing the first of many suspicious sounds from across the hall, well, that was her choice too.

And really, who cared that she had only heard them because she had been nosy enough to stick her head out into the hall to see if Zavien’s night was as uneventful as hers?

The answer had been a resounding no—or, as it were, some very enthusiastic “Oh God, fuck yeahs.”

Now she sat in front of a silent TV, licking her wounds and berating herself for spying on him in the first place.

Who cared if he was getting laid? He was an attractive man; it wasn’t that shocking. The upsetting thing was that he was over there getting it on after pissing her off endlessly for weeks, and here she was, a good person—a good, horny person—with no prospects.

Annoying.

Almost as annoying as all the ruckus his flavor of the week was making.

Had her voice been that annoying when they had spoken in the hall? It hadn’t grated on Lara then, but right now, every cry and moan felt like nails scraping along the inside of her skull.

Also, did Zavien run on batteries?

It seemed like they had been going at it for hours until, finally, his door opened, and a softly spoken goodbye floated across the corridor, followed by the quiet footfalls of someone walking away.

She waited for his door to close again, but it didn’t, so she crept up to hers and pressed her ear to it.

“Goodnight, Lara,” Zavien said from the other side—right on the other side.

Yelping, she jumped back and chastised herself once again for falling into his trap.

Zavien itched to tease her and was succeeding most commendably. His soft laugh was the last thing she heard before his door clicked shut.

***

Lara hurried home the following night, excited to exact her revenge.

Zavien, with all his dates and his apparently orgasmic penis, would learn he wasn’t the only noisy neighbor. He really had the gall to strut around in all his sex-having glory while she—a non-sex-having, though not necessarily by choice, creature—had to sit back and endure it.

He got under her skin so easily and riled her up with such little effort—it was absolutely unfair. It had dawned on her that if she could hear him, then maybe he ought to hear her. Maybe then she could get him going for a change.

Sure, she didn’t have a revolving door of suitors to pick from, but she figured if she wanted something done right, she would have to do it herself.

With that in mind, she pushed her couch against the wall that separated her living room from the hallway before lying down and letting her mind run wild. It didn’t take long to get into the swing of things.

Months without any action would do that to a girl.

She hammed it up quite a bit; honestly, she didn’t usually make much noise when she went solo, but he was home with his stereo off, which meant he could hear her.

~Good~, she thought.

The idea of him listening to her in the throes of pleasure added to her ecstasy, but she couldn’t give it much thought when her body was tensing and shaking with the promise of sweet release.

But then a knock rattled her door, so deeply startling her that she rolled off the couch and onto her chest, her hand still buried between her legs.

Groaning, she forced herself up to her feet and yanked on the knob, ready to kill whoever was standing on the other side. “Can I help you—oh, Mr. Nakamura!” Lara stared in shock at the building manager, who looked at her with distaste and exhaustion.

“Miss Hendry,” he began tiredly, “we’ve had a noise complaint.”