Maintenance Request

The faucet is leaking.

At least, that's what I tell myself when I call down to the super's apartment. The truth is more complicated. The truth is I've been finding reasons to call down for three months.

"I'll let Frank know," Dolores says when she answers. She's in her robe, hair wrapped in a silk scarf, coffee cup in hand. Forty-seven years old and more beautiful than anyone who answers maintenance calls has a right to be.

"Thanks. No rush."

"I'll make sure he gets to it." She doesn't move to close the door. "How's the new job treating you?"

"Still learning the ropes."

"You'll be fine." Her smile is warm, knowing. "You've got good instincts. I can tell."

I don't know what she means. I also don't want to leave.

"I should let you—"

"Have you had breakfast?" She steps back, opening the door wider. "I made too much again. Frank already left for his other job."

I should say no.

"I could eat."

Dolores Rivera has been the super's wife for twelve years.

I learn this over eggs and toast in her kitchen, which is twice the size of mine. She met Frank when she was thirty-five—"ancient," she laughs—and lonely, fresh off a failed engagement and a career as a restaurant manager that had consumed her twenties.

"Frank was steady," she says, refilling my coffee. "Reliable. The kind of man who shows up when he says he will and fixes what's broken." She shrugs. "That felt like enough at the time."

"And now?"

Her eyes meet mine. "Now I'm forty-seven. And I'm starting to wonder what else there is."

Month Two

The radiator is making a clanging noise.

"I'll let Frank know," Dolores says. It's our ritual now. I call with something minor. She invites me in. We have coffee and talk until I have to leave for work.

"You don't have to keep making excuses, you know," she says one morning.

"Excuses?"

"The faucet. The window. The radiator." She's smiling, but there's something serious underneath. "I know you're not really here for maintenance."

My face heats. "I—"

"It's okay." She sets down her cup. "I like the company. Frank works two jobs. I rattle around this apartment alone most days." She looks at me directly. "It's nice to have someone to talk to."

"Just talk?"

The question hangs in the air. She's quiet for a long moment.

"For now," she finally says. "Just talk."

Month Three

Her body is something I try not to think about.

I fail constantly.

She's full-figured in a way that makes her robe do interesting things when she moves. Heavy breasts, soft stomach, hips that sway when she walks to the coffee maker. Her skin is warm brown, her hair dark with gray she doesn't hide, her smile the kind that makes you want to earn it.

"You're staring again," she says.

"Sorry."

"Don't be." She sits across from me, closer than usual. "It's been a long time since anyone looked at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like they're wondering what's under the robe."

I nearly choke on my coffee.

"Dolores—"

"I'm not blind, Alex." She reaches across the table, touches my hand. "And I'm not innocent. I know what this is. I know what we're doing, dancing around each other every morning."

"What are we doing?"

"I don't know." Her thumb traces circles on my wrist. "But I know I don't want to stop."

Month Four

Frank is out of town for a building conference. Three days.

She texts me at 11 PM: The bedroom light won't turn on.

I know it's not about the light.

I go anyway.

She opens the door in silk pajamas this time—loose, flowing, hiding nothing. Her nipples press against the fabric. Her hips sway as she leads me to the bedroom.

"The bulb probably just needs changing," I say, my voice rough.

"Probably." She doesn't turn around. "The ladder's in the closet. But first..."

She turns. Steps close. Close enough that I can feel the heat of her.

"Alex. I need you to be honest with me."

"About what?"

"About what you want." Her hand comes up to rest on my chest. "Because I've been alone in this marriage for years. I've been faithful. I've been good. And I'm so tired of being good."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me I'm not crazy. That you feel this too. That it's not just a lonely old woman reading too much into coffee and conversation."

I cup her face in my hands. She's trembling.

"You're not old. You're not crazy." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone. "And I've been thinking about you every night since I moved in."

She exhales like she's been holding her breath for months.

Then she kisses me.

Her bedroom is warm, dim, intimate.

She pulls back from the kiss, hands going to the buttons of her pajama top. Her fingers shake.

"Let me," I say.

I undress her slowly, reverently. Each button reveals more of her—the swell of her breasts, the soft curve of her stomach, the dark of her nipples hardening in the cool air. She stands before me in just the pajama pants, arms wanting to cover herself.

"Don't hide from me."

"I'm not young anymore. I'm not—"

"You're beautiful." I kiss her shoulder. Her collarbone. The top of her breast. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I ease her onto the bed, finish undressing her. Her body is a landscape—mountains and valleys of soft brown flesh, stretch marks on her hips, years written in every curve. I worship all of it.

"Alex—"

"Shh. Let me take care of you."

I settle between her thighs and show her exactly how beautiful I think she is.

She comes apart under my tongue, shaking, gasping, her hands fisting in the sheets.

"Oh God. Oh God. I didn't—it's been so long since—"

I don't stop until she's come three times, until she's pulling me up, fumbling with my clothes, desperate to feel me.

"Inside me. Please. I need to feel you."

When I finally sink into her, we both go still. Her eyes are wet.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm perfect." She pulls me down, kisses me deep. "For the first time in years, I'm perfect."

We make love slowly, carefully, like we're afraid to break something precious. Her body is warm and welcoming, and when she comes again—crying out against my shoulder—I follow her into release.

After, we lie tangled together, her head on my chest.

"Frank can never know."

"I know."

"This doesn't change anything. I can't leave him. He depends on me. This building depends on us."

"I know."

"So what is this?"

I think about it. "It's whatever you need it to be. I'm not asking you to blow up your life. I'm not asking for promises."

"Then what are you asking for?"

"Just this." I tighten my arms around her. "Just being with you. However often. However long. Whatever you can give me."

She's quiet for a long time.

"He's gone every Tuesday night for his second job. And one weekend a month."

"Then I'll see you Tuesdays. And one weekend a month."

She lifts her head, studies my face. "You'd do that? Be my secret?"

"I'd rather be your secret than nothing at all."

She kisses me like I've given her something she didn't know she needed.

One Year Later

Tuesdays become ours.

She cooks dinner. I bring wine. We eat and talk and make love and pretend, for a few hours, that we're just two people who found each other.

Frank doesn't know. Frank will never know. He comes home to a wife who's happier, warmer, more patient—and he doesn't ask why.

It's not fair. It's not right. It's not anything I imagined for myself when I moved into this building.

But when Dolores opens the door on Tuesday nights, when she smiles that smile that's just for me, when she takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom we've made our own—

I don't care about fair.

I don't care about right.

I only care about her.

Two Years Later

Frank has a heart attack.

He survives, barely. The building hires a new super. They have to move—smaller apartment, ground floor, closer to the hospital for his checkups.

She texts me the night before they leave: I can't do this anymore. It's not fair to you.

I write back: Let me decide what's fair to me.

Alex...

I'll wait.

Three Years Later

Frank passes peacefully in his sleep. Dolores is at his side, holding his hand. She was a good wife to him, better than he knew.

She calls me from the hospital.

"I don't know what happens now."

"We figure it out together."

"I'm fifty. I'm a widow. I have nothing—"

"You have me."

Silence. Then, soft: "I've always had you."

Four Years Later

We marry in a small ceremony—her sister, my parents, a few friends. No one asks how we met. We let them assume whatever they want.

She's fifty-one now. I'm twenty-nine. The math is what it is.

But when I wake up next to her, when I see her smile, when I remember all those Tuesday nights that turned into forever—

The math doesn't matter.

The maintenance request was never about the faucet.

It was always about finding my way home.