Do You Hear Me Knocking?

For one year, I lived alone in Maine. I had a bedroom that looked out on trees and the dirt parking lot where the other tenants parked their trucks and motorcycles. Only six apartments in the two-story building, and I had the upper left-hand corner unit. Nobody above me.

People moved in and out without having been noticed in-between. I made no friends. If I think hard, I can imagine that the across-the-hall neighbor was a hairdresser or a waitress. Maybe.

But I knew my downstairs neighbors. I never knew their names, but I knew them well.

I'd go to sleep around 11. By 2 a.m., I'd awaken to the sounds of her high-pitched moans and grunts. They were having at it. He was nailing her. Maybe I heard the headboard thump the wall too. He grunted and cried out. Sometimes I could hear that they were talking, but not the actual words. Fucking fucking fucking, really having at it.

What I wish could have happened then was to turn to my lover as we both lay awake, listening, and without saying a word, give our neighbors a run for their money.

The truth, however, was that I was alone most nights up there in the woods. The college boyfriend came to visit, but all I remember is that he was picking up his dog; maybe he slept on the couch? There was a boy who, well, nevermind him. The only man to remember, who carried his toothbrush to my house in his shirt pocket, left after one lovely, tender night.

Ok so there I am, alone, neighbors fucking. Listening from afar to their passion, and their wild desire for each other, fascinated. I was only a remote participant, an eavesdropper, and it was on those nights when I felt more alone than ever. I could hear what was out there in the world, what was possible, but inaccessible. So night after night I rolled onto my stomach and rode my fingers until I came. I always wondered if the bed shook, and if that couple, locked in their embrace, could tell that something was going on in the bed above, and if, each night, her voice rose up to me a little more clearly.