Through the Wall
"He can hear everything through the thin apartment walls. His neighbor knows. She's been putting on a show."
The walls in this building are paper-thin.
I figured that out my first night in the apartment, when I heard my upstairs neighbor drop something heavy at 2 AM. I figured it out again when the couple across the hall had a screaming fight about whose turn it was to do dishes. And I figured it out most of all when I heard her.
The woman in 4B.
Next door. Sharing my bedroom wall.
I don't know her name. Just see her sometimes in the hallway—a Black woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties, always dressed in bright colors that strain against her curves. She's big. Really big. Wide hips, massive breasts, a belly that rounds out proud in front of her. The kind of body that makes you look twice, then look away because you're embarrassed at yourself for looking.
I look anyway.
And at night, I listen.
It starts as accidents.
A moan through the wall, low and breathy. I freeze in my bed, heart pounding, wondering if I imagined it. Then another. And another. A rhythm building, unmistakable.
She's touching herself.
I should put in headphones. Should turn on music, give her privacy, pretend I don't know.
Instead, I lie perfectly still and listen.
Her moans get louder. More urgent. I can hear the wet sounds of her fingers, the creak of her bed, the way her breath catches when she's close. And then—a cry, muffled but clear, as she comes.
I'm so hard it hurts.
I wrap my hand around myself and finish in thirty seconds, biting my pillow to keep quiet.
This becomes routine.
Every night, around 11 PM, she starts.
Sometimes it's quick—ten minutes and done. Sometimes it takes an hour, building and cresting and building again. She talks to herself sometimes, or maybe to an imaginary lover. I catch fragments:
Yes, right there—
Fuck me harder—
I need it, I need it so bad—
I learn the sounds of her body. The moan that means she's close. The whimper that means she's edging herself. The scream—always muffled, but still a scream—when she finally lets go.
I jerk off to her every single night.
I feel like a creep. A pervert. A voyeur who should be ashamed of himself.
I don't stop.
Three months in, something changes.
She knocks on my door on a Saturday afternoon. I open it, and there she is—five feet of curves in a floral dress, smiling at me with knowing eyes.
"Hi. I'm Denise. 4B."
"I know. I mean—I've seen you. In the hall." I'm fumbling. Blushing. "I'm Cole."
"I know." Her smile widens. "I've heard you. Through the wall."
My blood goes cold.
"I don't—"
"Don't lie, baby." She leans against my doorframe. Her breasts push forward, straining the fabric of her dress. "These walls are thin as tissue paper. I hear everything you do. Your music. Your phone calls. Your..." She pauses. "Late-night activities."
I want to die.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—I'll get headphones—I'll—"
"Shhh." She reaches out, places a finger on my lips. "I'm not complaining. I'm thanking you."
"Thanking me?"
"You think I don't know you've been listening?" She laughs, low and rich. "Baby, I've been performing. For you. Every single night."
She invites herself in.
I'm too stunned to stop her. She moves past me, hips swaying, and surveys my small apartment with an appraising eye. Then she turns to face me.
"My husband died five years ago. Heart attack, same as everyone's husband. Left me alone in that apartment with nothing but my vibrator and my memories." She steps closer. "Then you moved in. Young. Handsome. And I could tell—from the first time I saw you—that you looked at me the way he used to. Like I was something worth wanting."
"Denise—"
"I started slow. Just a little moan here and there. Testing. Seeing if you'd react." Another step. She's close enough to touch now. "And you did. I could hear you. Hear you stroking yourself to me. Hear you come."
My face is on fire.
"It made me feel alive again," she whispers. "So I gave you more. Louder. Longer. Put on a whole damn show for you every night, hoping—praying—that one of these days you'd do something about it."
"Something like what?"
She takes my hand. Places it on her hip. The fabric is thin, and I can feel the warmth of her skin beneath it, the soft give of her flesh.
"Something like touch me for real. Instead of just imagining."
I kiss her.
I don't decide to do it. It just happens—my hands on her hips, my mouth on hers, her body pressing against me until there's no space left between us.
She tastes like honey and red wine.
"Bedroom," she gasps. "Now."
I walk her backward through my apartment, knocking into furniture, not caring. We fall onto my bed—the same bed where I've spent three months listening to her, imagining her, wanting her—and she pulls me on top of her.
"Undress me," she commands. "I want you to see what you've been fantasizing about."
I reach for the zipper of her dress.
It falls away, and she's wearing nothing underneath.
Her body is even more than I imagined. Breasts that overflow my hands, nipples dark and thick. A belly that curves and folds, soft as clouds. Hips that flare wide, leading to thighs I want to bury myself between.
"Like what you see?"
"I've been dreaming about this for months."
"I know." She pulls me down. "I heard you say my name. Whispered it when you came. Took me a while to figure out you'd learned it from my mail."
I blush. She laughs.
"I loved it. Loved knowing you thought about me. Loved imagining what you'd do if you ever had the chance." She spreads her legs. "Now's your chance, baby. Show me what you've been practicing."
I worship her the way I've imagined every night.
I kiss my way down her body—her neck, her breasts, her belly. I spend long minutes on each nipple, sucking and biting until she's gasping. I trace my tongue along every fold and curve of her stomach, feeling her shiver.
And then I reach her pussy.
She's shaved, wet, swollen with need. I spread her thighs—so much flesh, so much softness—and lower my mouth.
The first taste of her makes me groan.
"Yes," she hisses, her hands finding my hair. "Right there—just like that—fuck—"
I eat her like I've been starving. Because I have been. Three months of listening, three months of imagining, and now she's real, she's here, she's flooding my tongue with her taste while her thighs squeeze my head.
She comes fast the first time—crying out, her body shaking, her pussy clenching against my mouth. I don't stop. I work her through it, gentler now, building her back up.
"Inside me," she gasps. "I need you inside me."
I strip off my clothes and crawl up her body. She watches with hungry eyes, her gaze fixed on my cock.
"I knew you'd be big," she murmurs. "Knew from the sounds you made."
I position myself at her entrance. Pause.
"You sure?"
"Baby, I've been sure for three months. Fuck me."
I push inside.
She's tight.
That's the first thing I notice—impossibly, wonderfully tight, gripping me like she's been waiting for exactly this. The second thing I notice is her moan—the same moan I've heard through the wall a hundred times, but now it's right in my ear, vibrating against my skin.
"Yes—oh God—yes—"
I start to move.
Slow at first, finding our rhythm. Her body yields beneath me, all that softness cushioning every thrust. Her breasts bounce against my chest. Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me deeper.
"Harder," she demands.
I give her harder. The bed slams against the wall—the same wall I've pressed my ear to so many nights, listening. Now I'm making the sounds. We both are.
"That's it—fuck—right there—don't stop—"
I don't stop. I fuck her hard and deep, one hand gripping her hip, the other braced beside her head. She's moaning continuously now, that familiar rhythm I know so well, building toward the peak.
"Make me come," she gasps. "Make me come on your cock—want you to hear it for real—"
I shift my angle. Hit something deep. She screams.
Her pussy clamps around me. Her whole body convulses—two hundred and forty pounds of flesh trembling beneath me, around me, gripping me. She throws her head back and wails, and I follow her over.
I bury myself deep and explode.
Filling her. Marking her. Making real every fantasy I've had since I moved into this apartment.
We collapse together, panting, trembling.
"That," she breathes, "was worth the wait."
Later, we lie tangled in my sheets.
"The walls really are thin," she says, tracing patterns on my chest.
"I know."
"So whatever we do in here... whoever's in 4C is going to hear."
I hadn't thought about that. The apartment on my other side. An old man who goes to bed at 9 PM.
"Sorry, Mr. Patterson," I mutter.
Denise laughs. "Don't be sorry. Give him something worth listening to." She rolls on top of me, her weight settling onto my hips. My cock stirs against her thigh. "Wouldn't it be nice if someone was listening to us for a change?"
"You want to put on a show?"
"Baby, I've been putting on a show. Now I just have a co-star." She grinds against me. I'm hardening fast. "What do you say? Want to give the neighbors something to talk about?"
I grab her hips. Pull her down onto me.
Her moan echoes off the walls.
And somewhere in 4C, Mr. Patterson is having a very interesting night.
Six months later, I move into 4B.
Not officially. I still pay rent on my place. But every night, I'm in her bed—or she's in mine—and the sounds we make together have become legend in the building.
The couple across the hall complains about the noise.
Mr. Patterson leaves a note that says only: Thank you.
And Denise?
Denise has never been happier.
"I was so lonely before you," she tells me one night, her head on my chest. "I thought that part of my life was over. That no one would want an old fat woman like me."
"You're not old. And you're not fat." I cup her face, make her look at me. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. And I'm the luckiest man alive."
She kisses me. Soft at first, then deeper.
"Through the wall," she murmurs. "That's how you found me. Through the wall."
"Best thing I ever heard."
She smiles against my lips.
"Then let's give you something even better."
We do.
Every single night.
And the walls?
The walls hear everything.