The Guy in Apartment 10a.

Chapter One.

Georgia sat on the fire escape smoking and listening to the sounds of a city refusing to sleep.

She should have been in bed after another long shift tending bar but she was too keyed up after six interminable hours of slinging cheap beer in a college dive bar with pretensions of mediocrity.

So Georgia sat out on the steel grating, tapping the cigarette and watching the embers drift down into the garbage packed alleyway far below like a shower of tiny shooting stars winking out in the cool night air. Listening to the distant honking of midnight traffic. The unintelligible cries of the drunken homeless. The muted bass music from the strip club down the block and the myriad other inauspicious sounds of downtown after a rational person's bedtime.

And above it all, the loud sounds of rampant animated fucking coming from the apartment directly above her own.

“You are nailing the sad goth girl look, Georgie.” Her roommate Linh’s head was poking out from the tiny kitchenette window and grinning at her across the short intervening distance. “Let me get my phone and we’ll sell the snaps to lonely emo losers online for beer money.”

“Yeah, right.” Georgia took a short pull on her Chesterfield Slim. “I’ll let that happen just as soon as you dress up in a tiny k-pop outfit for the same photo shoot.”

“Ewww… yuck. How would that even work?” Linh’s pretty face screwed up in mock disgust. “My family is Vietnamese and I can’t pose to save my life.”

Georgia wondered, not for the first time, how her young life had become the premise to a lousy nineties sitcom.

Like, here’s the elevator pitch. Freshly minted college freshman moves out of home in a **** bid for independence. Said move comes with pesky new responsibilities like food and rent so she gets a part-time job pitching foamy suds and no-name whiskey for minimum wage and whatever tips her equally minimum patrons can afford to bestow upon her.

Tight money equates to tighter living quarters in a rat-hole apartment block on the wrong side of town with her workmate turned roommate (because hey, we girls have got to stick together) and somewhere along the line it was her study that went part-time while her shitty job took pole position to keep up with the mountain of bills that needed paying.

“You and me both…” Georgia muttered then paused as a ecstatic feminine wail cut through the flaky panel ceiling. “Jeezus, are they fucking or trying to kill each other up there?”

“Beats me but they’ve been going at it for ages!” Linh exclaimed, her long raven hair spilling out the little window as she tried to twist her shoulders to glance upwards. She was going to sprain her neck. “It’s like they’re training for the sex olympics or something. Have you met him yet?”

Him.

He of the endlessly thudding headboard. The composer of entire concertos made up of gratified girly moans. Mister Growly Grunts as Linh liked to giggle in the mornings after the lewd racket had finally died down. Georgia hadn’t met the guy but she already wanted to kick him squarely in the scrote. She'd wear her heaviest pair of Doc Martins just to see if his balls were actually made of solid brass as she suspected.

And he’d only moved in a week ago.

“I think so? Maybe by the mailboxes.” She hedged, trying to recall. “But I’ve definitely seen the kind of girl he is bringing home.”

“Really, the Marathon Man has a type?”

He did, most certainly he did. Georgia didn’t want to call anyone a slut. Nor a tramp or skank either. A modern educated woman knew better than to proliferate such terminology meant to internalize sexism with the intention of controlling women.

“They are… you know.” Georgia floundered for an appropriately correct description. “Young, attractive, free spirited…”

“Under-dressed?” Linh snickered, abandoning her voyeuristic attempts to stare holes through the crumbling brick facade above their heads. “Suitably well fucked?”

Georgia looked down at her pitch black fingernails in shame and twirled her smoldering cigarette in thoughtful fashion.

There was the eternal sisterhood of all women everywhere to consider, but the girls she had witnessed stumbling down the stairs–all impressively busty, bowlegged, barely dressed and grinning from ear to ear–had all seemed a bit brainless in Georgia’s opinion.

They were the sort to giggle a lot and flip their long glossy waterfalls of illustrious hair to grab some random hunks attention. Then titter on their way back to his apartment on precariously tall high heels which would soon be dangling up in the air as the young stud pounded their easy pussies.

“Something like that.” Georgia conceded unhappily then sneezed… and sneezed again.

“Oh shit, Georgie. Is that flu bug still kicking your ass?” Linh asked in concern. “Wait there, I’ll get you some tee pee to blow your nose”

“Izz just a bad head cold.” She snuffled, wiping at her nose and flicking the last of the cigarette over the railing.

It bounced off the featureless smog-stained brick wall of the neighboring apartment block only seven feet away. What a great fucking view.

She shouldn’t be smoking anyway. If they were scrimping on tissues to save a few bucks, Georgia couldn’t really justify maintaining a nicotine habit. Easier said than done though and she needed a vice to keep from going totally bonkers…

She ducked back through her bedroom window and had to step across her single sized bed where it was crammed up against the wall to make room for a tiny dresser slash side table combo in her little eight by eight cupboard of a bedroom. Linh met her at the door.

“Here…” She said, giving her a bunched up wad of toilet paper and a worried look. “Maybe you should go see a doctor? Your nose is looking pretty red.”

“Who’s going to pay for that? Not you or me.” Georgia scoffed, gratefully accepting the offering and dabbing at her pale face with it.

She hadn’t been able to taste or smell anything for a week but she was no stranger to a late season cold or flu. She got them nearly every year and blamed it on a growing vitamin D deficiency. If her waking hours grew any more nocturnal, Georgia was going to graduate from sad but pretty goth girl to full blown vampire countess status.

“Still, you should consider one of the free clinics-” Linh was interrupted by a loud elated feminine squeal and a crash above their heads that shook a small line of plaster dust from the already questionable ceiling. “Oh, for fucks sake! I’m going up there with a bucket of cold water and…”

“Leave it.” Georgia said miserably. “Try and get some sleep. We can… I don’t know, slip a sternly worded note under his door tomorrow or whatever.”

Taking her roommates silent glower at the floor above as tacit agreement, Georgia stripped off her torn black jeans and Motorhead skinny tee and slipped into bed.

The throaty grunts and passionate moans continued unabated until she finally fell asleep.

Georgia didn’t get the chance to pen her note before meeting the mystery man upstairs for the first time. He was collecting his post from the large bank of mailboxes in the ground floor entryway the next afternoon just as she was returning from class.

She didn’t recognize him at first but his open olive green brass receptacle was labeled 10a which logically placed him directly above her own apartment 9a several floors up.

She sized him up with a glance, checking for any of the usual warning signs. It was a skill all young women quickly acquired after working behind a bar for any length of time. He was inspecting a small brown paper package with some eagerness but was otherwise remarkably unremarkable.

No bulging steroid enhanced muscles. No gang or biker tattoos. No squinty wandering eyes or gelled up Chad hairdo. Just a lean average twenty-something guy in worn acid washed jeans, a beige button up and slightly scuffed sneakers who could have been a face in any number of innocuous backgrounds.

This was the pussy-crushing sex god from upstairs? Surely not…

“Ummm, Hi... Can I help you, miss?”

Oh, shit. He had caught her staring and was looking back at her with a mildly helpful expression.

His hair was mud brown but neatly trimmed in a five dollar haircut, probably from one of the hole-in-the-wall budget barbershops down on Third Avenue. His eyes were a flat greenish hazel and his cheeks held the hints of some hold-out teenage acne under a faint shadow of wispy stubble.

“What? No… just waiting to get to my mailbox.” Georgia said with a sniff. She had taken a decongestant earlier in the day but it wore off hours ago and her head felt stuffed full of cotton wool again. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry, go ahead.” He said, locking his own box before stepping back and sorting through his mail distractedly.

Georgia didn’t have any mail. She knew this because Linh brought it in every morning along with the cheap coffee from the donut shop on the corner. However, as she fished out her keys–making a pretense of opening and checking for letters (more overdue bills most likely)--she managed to spot his name inked onto a strip of masking tape stuck below his mail slot.

V. Powell.

What the hell did the V. stand for?

“Vince! Hey there, Hot Stuff. I’m, like, sooo~ glad I ran into you!”

The high pitched bubbly tone of voice grated on Georgia’s modern feminist sensibilities and she turned to see a mildly awkward V. Powell being greeted by the only-just eighteen Lily Pierre from apartment 9c. Georgia had to admit she only knew the girl's name from the biweekly screaming matches the teenager regularly engaged in with her overworked single mother.

Usually over the topic of Lily’s standards of dress or the company of certain boys she chose to keep.

“Hi Lily, good to see you.” The forenamed Vince replied. He sounded a bit sheepish and was rubbing the back of his neck in a guilty tell. Had something happened between the two of them? Surely not… “Are you keeping well?”

Lily’s mother Nadia was a dark statuesque–if somewhat severe–Haitian woman, who worked long hours as a nurse at St Andrews Hospital across town. Georgia had never felt it polite or pertinent to inquire after her wayward husband but judging by her daughter's sharply featured bone structure, shiny caramel skin and long flowing curls, Lily had got the best of two very different worlds. Even if the young lady had dyed her glossy tresses bright pink in some poorly planned act of youthful rebellion.

Her dark roots were showing.

“All the better for seeing you, Handsome.” The pastel-haired troublemaker purred, sauntering towards him in a tight violet crop top that showed off an expanse of flat cappuccino belly and frayed denim cutoffs that left every silky inch of her smooth slender legs out for the world to ogle. “When are you coming around for dinner? Mama said she would cook up her special Poule en Sauce just for you.”

“I don’t know. I’m fairly busy with work at the moment and…” Vince faltered back half a step as the barely legal teen beauty ghosted her small hands over his slim shoulders and melted her supple young body against his front with a breathy little moan.

The swell of her burgeoning breasts pushed out against his narrow chest as she buried her alluring face into the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply.

“You should make the time. Mama promised she would make it… extra spicy for you.” Lily crooned as she rubbed her cute button nose along the young man's fuzzy jawline as though she intended to inhale him wholesale.

Georgia let out the sneeze to end all sneezes.

She had been fighting to hold it back and it showed. The sneeze was explosive and soggy and full of mucus. A total mood killer by the filthy look Lily shot her way but not unwelcome by the relieved expression on Vince’s bland face.

“I’ll certainly keep that in mind.” Vince said, taking advantage of the distraction to gently disengage himself from the pouting teenage vixen and head towards the stairs. The elevator had been out of order since the day Georgia and Linh had moved it and nobody was holding their breath waiting on repairs. “Catch you later, Lily. It was nice to meet you…”

“Georgia.” She immediately wanted to kick herself for falling for a simple conversational ploy as filling a verbal blank but Vince didn’t even blink.

“Nice to meet you Georgia.” He returned distractedly before stuffing his mail under one arm and beginning the long ten flight climb up the grimy cement stairwell. “You might want to see someone about that nasty cold.”

“Byyeeee~ Vince!” Lily called after him with a starry-eyed look on her gorgeous young face.

Georgia didn’t miss the way the buxom teen clasped her hands together under her full chest and twisted from side to side. It pushed her shiny tits up and nearly out of her loose fitting top as she leaned forward a fraction as though to better display them to Vince’s retreating back.

Abruptly it was just the two of them standing alone in the dimly lit entryway. Georgia closely watched the Caribbean coed as she stared dreamily after the distinctly average guy from upstairs.

“So that’s him, huh?” Georgia prodded, not feeling the need to elucidate further. Lily and her mother only lived three doors down the corridor and they had to hear the loud nightly acrobatics almost as clearly as she and Linh did.

Half the damn neighborhood was probably being kept awake by that garden-variety guy next door. Perhaps he had a hunky roommate who was actually responsible for all the carnal clamor?

“I know, right? What a total beefcake smoke show…” Lily said with a longing sigh before coming back to herself and giving Georgia some serious side-eye. “Maybe next time you can keep your snotty nose out of the way when a girl is trying to make her move.”

Georgia felt like there were some major dots she wasn’t connecting here. Lily was young, vivacious and–yes, Georgia could admit it–objectively hotter than Texas tarmac. Her mother Nadia was working a second full-time job in keeping the local boys from sniffing around her preening daughter like a pack of horny mongrels.

But seriously, Vince?

“Or are you trying to steal him for yourself?” The stunning teen huffed, turning a thousand watts of scornful glare on Georgia. “Don’t bother, Sister. This whole ‘I’m a lonely little emo, please send me a pity fuck’ look you have going isn’t what Vince is into.”

Georgia felt like she had been slapped.

Where was all the animosity coming from? She had hardly said two words to the guy and suddenly the beautiful Lily Pierre was acting like Georgia was stepping on all ten of her pretty painted toes.

“What? No, I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about.” Georgia said defensively and hated how it sounded. She didn’t have to explain herself to an irrational teenager suffering from an ill-advised crush. There was nothing to explain in any case.

“You wouldn’t. You’re just a small fish swimming in a small pond without a hope of hooking a whale like Vince.” Lily smirked with a haughty flick of her long pastel locks. “Just remember to stay in your own lane, Sister and nobody's feelings need to get hurt.”

“Whatever. I don’t have time for this shit.” Georgia scowled and pushed past the sneering girl to head back to her apartment. She needed to get ready for her upcoming shift. “Maybe he likes girls that can afford pants that don’t show off last night’s dinner.”

It was a petty throwaway insult and probably below Georgia but she still enjoyed the indignant gasp it got in return as she jogged up the stairs.

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