The Other Side of the Wall [Adult] by Mickey J. Corrigan

1. Me

I pretend I am on the upswing, but really, it's all a downward slide. My normally warped perspective is even more warped than normal. Maybe that's from all the booze I've been swimming in, or the happy pills I've been popping. Maybe it's just wishful denial.

My dress is on the floor. The room is bright with high arched doorways and the kind of black and white tiles that remind me of chessboards. The view of Old San Juan bay is soothing. Sun dappled water, the occasional sailboat flitting by. I could lie here on the saggy bed and stare out the arched window until I die.

Maybe I will.

Through the flimsy walls, I can hear them going at it. The couple next door. I listen carefully, trying to capture the essence of their conversation. The man has a low, sexy grumble that's hard to understand. The woman speaks more clearly. I can hear what she's saying when she raises her voice. And she does this a lot.

It's early afternoon and they are already sparring. Maybe because it's Sunday and they are trapped at home together in their tiny apartment. "No, I never said that, asshole," the woman says. He responds with a short comment I can't decipher, then she makes an odd noise. Something between a laugh and a choking gurgle.

Suddenly they are making love. I recognize the sound of their squeaky bed, the moans she emits when he enters her. I can see them so clearly in my mind's eye. The woman has her head thrown back, her knees up and spread, her eyes closed. Her hair is a wild tumble across her naked shoulders. The man stares at her face while he moves in and out of her, slowly at first, then faster.

The bed bangs the wall between the two apartments. Again and again, the pulse of their lovemaking. Her cries, his gruff words. Their movements are shaking my bed in a rhythmic pattern. I close my eyes too, pretending I am the woman being loved. The woman being fucked.

The woman cries out, "Sebastian. Oh god, Sebastian!"

Sebastian, I am thinking. Oh god, Sebastian.

2. Arabelle

When she opens her eyes, the room is dark. Starlight glitters outside the window and a cool breeze rushes in. She reaches for the sheet to cover her naked, chilled skin. She pulls and there is no resistance. He is no longer by her side. He's gone out. He's gone.

She sits up and props one of their feather pillows behind her head. She could use a smoke right now. And a glass of Don Q. Neat. But they are out of cigarettes. They are out of rum. And now, he's out too.

She stares at the four whitewashed walls of their one-room apartment. The kitchenette is unlit but she can make out the two metal chairs at the half-circle table, the mini-fridge and the microwave. The stainless steel reflects the light from the streetlamps outside. She tries to see if there is a note on the table. A sheet of paper with his scrawl on it.

Nothing.

She sighs, slides down the bed to lie flat on her back again. Sometimes she wishes he would not return. Without him, there is no need for arguments, she has no reason to be bitchy and nasty. She is more herself, laid back, horny but so easily satiated on her own. Everything feels better when she is alone.

Oh Sebastian, she thinks. What am I going to do about you?

3. Sebastian

He knocks on the door and, when I answer, he leans on the doorjamb, poses for me. Shirt off, nylon shorts hugging his package. He is posing like the models do in the American magazines.

He is thinking, she's older, this neighbor. My hair is thick honey, bright and rippling, but my face looks worn. Like a rug that's been stepped on by men in work boots. My large eyes dart, I must seem startled. But really, what had I expected?

He leers. He thinks women like men to leer at them. He read that somewhere and stored it away with other bits of important knowledge about women.

"Can I help you?" I ask in a haughty voice. As if I hadn't been spying on him for weeks, listening through the walls when he had sex with his woman.

He looks my body over carefully. A lot of mileage on this hefty carriage, but the breasts are huge, he sees how my nipples poke through my silky top, so yes, he could get it up. And my mouth is full. He will be able to perform in this mouth of mine.

He raises one eyebrow and says in his broken English, "Would you like to have drink with me?"

We agree on Don Q and I hand him a twenty dollar bill. He goes down the four flights of stairs quickly, avoiding the feral cats who hide in the corners at night. When he gets to the street, a bedraggled drunk tries to hit him up for change.

"Catch me on the flip side," he tells the scruffy man in perfect English. Perfect slang.

Felix is behind the counter tonight, the small TV tuned to American Idol. "Hey, Seb. Whassup? Where's Arabelle?"

Sebastian knows that Felix has a hard dick for Arabelle. Every guy in town has a hard-on for her. But none of the guys go near her. She's tough, an ice queen, and the men on this island are afraid of women like that. That's how he won her over, with his ability to take her verbal abuse and still fuck her. He is proud of his prowess, he flaunts it. And allows it to pay for his easy lifestyle.

Or so he tells himself whenever he loses yet another crummy job.

"She's fine, but I have to entertain an American tonight." He holds up the twenty and Felix laughs. "A bottle of the Don, señor, por favor."

They make plans to meet later for the cockfights. "If the lady lets me loose before dawn, " Sebastian brags. "She's been alone in that room for weeks. Hungry for my special touch."

He sticks out his tongue and wags it. Felix laughs.

When Sebastian passes the drunk on the stoop, he hands him the dollar twenty-five in change.

4. Me

I've barely had time to pee, wash out the old crotch, add some mascara to my lashes, some lipstick to my mouth. I'm brushing my teeth and he's already back from the liquor store knocking on the door. I spit into the sink, reapply the lipstick. This date I am suddenly having, it's making me nervous.

What if he has some awful sexual disease? What if he wants to fuck me in the ass? I'm not into that. I will have to pay him after, maybe before. So humiliating. Maybe this is not a good idea. Maybe I should tell him to go. He's not as handsome as I had imagined. He seems coarse. Kind of dumb. Like a grazing animal.

My hands are shaking when I answer the door. But it's not Sebastian. It's his woman. Tall, long dark hair, lovely blue eyes.

"I know what he is planning. For you. This is what he does." She nods once, solemn.

I wouldn't blame her for slapping me across the face. But she doesn't seem angry. She seems…sad. Like a lost child.

So I shrug, invite her inside. She smiles a little and comes into the room. Her tight jeans are frayed along the tops of her thighs, and her white halter top is see-through. She has perfect teacup breasts and no bra.

As we stand together in the small room, she towers over me, even though she is barefoot. She is thirty years younger and weighs forty pounds less than me. She's strikingly beautiful, lithe, and warm. I can feel her body heat even though we are standing almost a foot apart. She smells like plumeria. And sex.

I'm not sure what to say so I offer her café con leche. The milk may be spoiled, but the coffee maker still works. She shakes her head, sits down at the kitchen table.

"He wants to have sex with every woman he sees," she tells me, her clear eyes on my face. "He is a pig, so disrespectful. I would like to leave him but I don't have money. Not enough to live on my own."

I sit down across from her, my heart open to this girl's plight. I have been in similar situations, I have had to leave many bad men. And now I am fifty-two, alone in a foreign country, and I will die soon of ovarian cancer. No man is here to hold my hand while the disease eats my insides until I give in with a whimper.

A shooting pain makes me pause, wincing, so I excuse myself to reach across the table for one of my pills. I take it dry. I am still waiting for the rum to arrive.

The girl watches, says nothing. Her eyes sparkle in the light from the street, they glow like sapphires.

"What is your name?" I ask her.

"Arabelle. I'm from Paris. Sebastian, he is from here. We met on a ship where I worked as stew. He was crew. When he got fired for stealing? For stealing liquor? They made me leave too. Now I am stuck here. Stuck with him."

I reach out a hand and clasp hers. The skin of her palm is like a baby's buttocks, smooth and soft. Like it hasn't yet touched the rough world.

"You can leave him. You don't need to stay. I'll loan you the money to go home, if you like. You can pay me back later. Once you get settled again, find another job."

I don't know why I want to fund this girl. Guilt for listening to her private life? Guilt for lusting after her man? Guilt for being a spoiled rich American?

Or do I just want to do one special thing for someone else? Something unselfish for a change? While I still can?

She shakes her head. "No. I can't let you do that. Just promise me this. When he mounts you, bite his earlobe. Tell him, 'This means nothing.' Will you do that for me?"

"Of course," I say. "But what—"

She stands up to leave and I reluctantly let go of her hand. "Are you sure? I don't want to…"

But I do want to. And as she looks down at me sitting there, my fat tits sagging, my pouchy belly resting on my dimpled, blue-veined thighs, she knows this. She knows I want to fuck her lover.

"Don't worry, it will not hurt me. See? I am hungry." She smiles at me and walks across the room with more poise than I've ever had in my life.

"Goodbye, Arabelle," I say to myself as she shuts the door behind her.

5. Arabelle

She does not return to the room. She exits by the back door, running down the cold cement stairs and out into the alley. The wild cats scatter as she hurries past. A big black tom bares his teeth and hisses.

If she had any money, she would linger over an espresso or a shot of tequila in one of the outdoor bars. Instead, she will walk the hills of the city and wait for the sun to come up. Then she will return to the apartment and curse him out. But after that, she will go to the grocery store and they will eat good. They will eat good for a few days.

She imagines cracking open six breakfast eggs, beating them with a fork, then sliding the frothy mix into sizzling butter. She pictures a stack of thickly sliced bread, toasted to a golden brown and smeared with papaya jelly. Cups of café con leche, the milk frothy and hot, heaps of brown sugar melting on top.

Of course, there is no way to prepare this kind of elaborate meal in their room. There is no stove, not even a toaster. Just an empty fridge and a cheap microwave. But she walks the streets for hours, daydreaming about the food she will cook. She stays focused on her hunger so she won't think about him. What he's doing with the old American. The nice lady who listened to them fucking, who listened from the other side of the wall.

6. Sebastian

He watches. After I drink the first big glass of rum, I hold out the tumbler and he fills it up again. He says, snickering, "You drink like man."

So? I don't think there's anything funny about that. I shrug, drinking. He knows I am nervous about having sex with him. A stranger. Someone I have to pay.

He leans against the wall and sips his rum. He looks down at me, sitting hunched over the kitchen table, drinking fast and avoiding his eyes.

This is not sexy. Not at all. He will never get it up if I keep acting uptight like this.

I look him in the eye. He walks over and reaches for my hands. Pulls me up, steps backward toward my unmade bed. My fingers are cold, probably reminding him of fat worms from the river. The room must smell bad to him, like illness.

He sits on the end of the bed with his legs apart, situating me between his muscular thighs.

My legs are trembling. This seems to turn him on. He gets hard, thank god. He'll need to make this happen fast before he starts to think too much. About me. This room. The situation we are in.

He lifts up my loose shirt and stares at my breasts. Good, this is good. He pulls the shirt over my head and buries his face in my tits. He breathes in my scent, and I press myself to him.

As soon as he begins to suckle and lick my nipples, I moan and writhe. I am like a wild animal. The next thing he knows, I've stripped off my clothes and I'm straddling him, bucking like mad. He's hard as a stone.

I know what he's thinking. I know he has to force himself not to laugh. Unleashed, this old bag is the hottest woman he's been with in a long time. Arabelle never acts like this. She's the polar cap to his island salsa. Which is why he slinks around, always on the lookout for pussy. He loves Arabelle, but she is not that good in bed. Because her mind is always elsewhere.

But me? My mind is right here. And this turns him on.

When I come, which is quickly, very quickly, I mutter something in his ear and bite the lobe.

"What?" he asks. Like all men, he is hoping for compliments on his sexual technique.

I breathe hard, say nothing.

7. Me

I open my eyes and it's morning. The pills have worn off and I am in pain. The kind of pain that rips through the uterus and ends up lodged deep in the brain.

With a whimper, I roll out of bed and stagger to the kitchen table, grab a handful of happy pills. They don't get rid of the pain, they just make you so high you don't care. As much.

Next door the neighbors are quiet. It's still early. Soon enough, I will hear them stirring. Then talking. Arguing. Making love.

And when the woman comes, she will yell what she always yells at the point of ecstasy. "This means nothing."

I couldn't agree more.

#MickeyJCorrigan #Serials