Chapter Five #2
I tipped the delivery guy and carried the pizza into the kitchen, putting two pieces on a plate.
I returned to the TV, beer and pizza in hand, and settled on the sofa.
Every now and then, something must’ve happened next door because they would all cheer loudly.
Testosterone was practically oozing out of Sebastian’s apartment.
Hopefully, the game would be over by the time I was ready for bed.
If there was one thing I missed about Warwick, it was silence.
The only thing disturbing the quiet at night was the sound of crickets, or cats in heat serenading each other.
Still, the parts I missed about country life couldn’t compete with the things I loved about being a city girl.
Living in New York City was addictive. I had made my choice.
A couple of hours later, the boys next door weren’t ready to go home, although it was nearly midnight. Music and the odd hoot of laughter replaced the sounds of cheering.
Muttering to myself, I turned off the TV, took a quick shower, and then headed into the bedroom.
I tried to settle down to sleep, but not even a deaf person could sleep through this.
Why the hell were they playing that sleazy music so loud?
When had the women arrived? I definitely heard a woman’s voice.
If they wanted to talk, why didn’t they turn down the music instead of shouting over it?
Surely, I wasn’t the only one bothered by the noise. I reached for my cellphone and dialed Sebastian’s number. The phone rang, and rang, and rang, until voicemail kicked in. “Hey, you know what to do.”
Great. I flung the covers aside, threw my robe over my nighty, put on my fluffy bunny slippers, and headed next door, determined to get Sebastian to turn down the music.
My jaw hurt from so much clenching. Tired and pissed off, I wanted to get to sleep and that wasn’t going to happen with those clowns and the girls who’d shown up making so much noise.
I removed the dead bolt chain, opened the door, and stomped down the hall to 2 B.
I knocked loudly, not sparing my knuckles.
The music was even louder here than it had been in my bedroom.
I checked the door knob and twisted. It was unlocked.
While part of my brain was shouting this is a bad idea, another part was screeching get this settled, so that we can get some sleep!
I shoved open the door. The smell of stale beer, cigar smoke, greasy food, and popcorn assaulted my senses.
It would take a gallon of pine-scented cleaner and more room spray than I owned to get this place smelling fresh again.
I peered through the blue haze into the living room.
There were half a dozen guys in the room, each of them focused on the TV.
Not a woman in sight, although I could swear I’d heard them.
“Get a load of the tits on that one. What I wouldn’t give to motorboat there,” one guy said.
“Hell, she’d probably suffocate you,” someone else added.
They all laughed loudly.
“Yeah, but what a way to go.”
“Nah, too big for me. Just give me enough to fill my hands, and I’m good.”
Sebastian laughed. “Yeah, but you have hands the size of baseball mitts.”
The words and the wolf whistles should’ve warned me, but since I was half asleep and couldn’t see much through the thick cigar smoke, I barged into the room. I stopped dead, staring at the pile of naked people on the screen doing physically impossible—or at least improbable—things to one another.
“That can’t be real,” another of Sebastian’s friends joked.
“Holy cannoli,” I cried, as the close up of the biggest dick I’d ever seen filled the screen. How could that man make love to a woman without causing permanent damage?
Sebastian was the first to see me. “Shit. Suzie Q, what are you doing here?” He smiled lopsidedly at me.
The TV went dark with four of the guys yelling at Sebastian, one of them turning to stare at me.
“Well, well, what have we here? Hi there, pretty lady. You been holding out on us, Sebastian?”
“Susanne.” Cam got to his feet, his eyes wide, a beer bottle in his hand.
“Susanne takes you down to her place by the river...” A guy I vaguely remembered meeting before sang the words to the Leonard Cohen tune.
“Down, Frank. I saw her first.” Cam winked at me. “Hey, neighbor. Want a beer?”
From his glassy eyes, I could tell he’d had way more than he needed.
Mortified by the way the others were eying me, I snapped. “No, I don’t want a damn beer. I want to go to bed.”
Six heads turned my way, with grins worthy of any big bad wolf decorating their faces. A couple of them whistled. Men were such pigs.
“I mean I want to go to sleep.” My cheeks burned as though I was in hell.
“It’s after midnight. I need you to turn the sound down before one of the other tenants calls the cops.
” I sounded like a prissy old maid, but I couldn’t help myself.
“You should think of the neighbors, you inconsiderate pricks.”
With as much dignity as I could muster in my fluffy bunny slippers, I retraced my steps, leaving only silence behind me. I slammed the door for good measure and rushed back to my apartment.
Hurrying to get safely behind my door, I was stopped cold by the sight of it firmly closed. I’d left it open, hadn’t I?
“Great, just freaking great.” Usually when I left the apartment like I had tonight, I unlocked the knob, the way I had for Mrs. H. Idiot that I was, I’d locked it before bed and had gone out—not expecting it to swing closed and lock, which had probably happened when I’d slammed Sebastian’s door.
Jesse had a key to my apartment, so all wasn’t lost. Going down the stairs to 1 A, I knocked on the door.
No answer. Maybe she wasn’t home yet. If she were and she’d gone to bed, then she slept like the dead, and if she’d put in her earplugs because of the noise, I’d never wake her.
What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t spend the night sitting in the hall.
Drawing on every single ounce of bravery I possessed, I walked over to the flight of stairs leading to the basement.
Gripping my housecoat at the throat, like a Victorian maiden in a Gothic novel, praying there wasn’t some undead creature lying in wait for me, I slowly descended the stairs into the basement.
Mr. Gore, the super, had keys to everyone’s apartment.
I would have to wake him and ask him to let me back into my place.
There was nothing spookier than that old basement at night.
The light fixtures might be the same as on the other floors, but the ceiling was lower, and the lights seemed dimmer, colder, eerier.
Cautiously, I inched my way past the laundry room, the storage locker, and the furnace room.
I could swear I smelled sulfur and brimstone.
I hurried along to the door marked Superintendent at the end of the hall, and after taking a deep breath, I knocked.
When he didn’t answer, I knocked again.
“Coming.” The voice was muffled and sounded far away.
I heard footsteps and waited as the locks were undone. The door opened.
“What ya want?” Obviously he wasn’t happy with me interrupting his sleep or whatever else he’d been doing. Was there a Mrs. Gore? No one had ever mentioned her.
“Mr. Gore, hi.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m Susanne Morelli. I left my apartment, 2 A, to run a quick errand next door, and my door closed by accident. Now I’m locked out.”
Wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that almost covered his gut, revealing one of the hairiest bellies I’d ever seen, he narrowed his eyes and stared down at me.
His long hair was matted and disheveled.
His feet were bare. My eyes were drawn to his hairy toes and impossibly long, crusty toenails.
I’d never seen a man with hairy toes. I blinked and looked up at his bearded face.
There was a full moon tonight. Could I be right about him being a werewolf?
God, I prayed not! Today had been eventful enough.
“Can you let me back into my apartment?” My voice had taken on a fearful, whiny quality.
He raised the left side of his lip, revealing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, and sneered.
Without a word, he walked back into his apartment.
I stood rooted to the spot, exhaling when he returned moments later with a big ring of keys.
He’d put on shoes and a shirt. Without a word, he walked in front of me, silently climbing the two sets of stairs to my floor.
At one point he moved to the side to let a couple of Sebastian’s drunk friends stumble by. One was tall and black, the other was short and blond.
The blond one made kissy noises at me.
“Hands off, mate,” the black guy said. “Cam has his eye on her, and he could break you in two.”
The blond guy scoffed. “He could break her in two. I’ve seen him naked in the locker. The son of a bitch is hung like a horse.”
Oh, my… The image of a naked Cam with a horse dick popped into my head, and I clutched my robe tighter to my chest. What did those guys mean, that he had his eye on me?
Surely they had mistaken the situation in Sebastian’s apartment and had taken Cam’s drunken flirting seriously.
Between these two pigs and the possible werewolf, I was beginning to miss Sam and his murderabilia stories. Was I a magnet for weirdoes or what?
Once we reached my apartment, Mr. Gore unlocked my door, turned, and walked away.
“Thank you,” I called to his retreating back, grabbing the door seconds before it would’ve shut again.
He grunted a response that could’ve been you’re welcome, or go to hell—either seemed possible.
I went inside and threw the dead bolt. Mercifully, no sounds came from the neighboring apartment. The party must be over. What a night!
I turned off the lights and dragged myself back to bed, afraid that I knew exactly what was going to populate my dreams tonight. Werewolf and horse porn.