Flash Fiction.
When I was feeling lonely I’d knock on the thin wall two times.
Well, not every time I was feeling lonely.
That’d be too much.
You’ve gotta keep yourself from knocking at some point.
Show some restraint.
I mean this both literally and metaphorically.
I guess it was mostly nights when I decided I didn’t want to be lonely if there was a convenient option to not be, if only for a few hours.
It never happened more than twice per week.
Maybe we didn’t want to get used to each other.
Anyway, the two knocks.
They were enough to get attention but not too much to where it becomes out of the question that the consecutive sounds may have been unintentional.
If she was alone she’d knock back exactly seven times.
If she wasn’t she’d not knock back at all and I’d turn over or change the channel or snap one off or whatever — then I’d go to bed.
This wouldn’t happen that often, though.
I mean a non-response, because, like I said, thin walls, so I’d usually already have an idea if someone else was there with her.
It just depended on if she was in the mood for company and was willing to loosen up morally for the evening.
These seven knocks, they weren’t in that rhythmic cadence you might be thinking of in your head right now.
(Knock-kn-kn-knock-knock, knock knock.)
No — it was seven straight taps in rapid succession.
We’d landed on seven when making the arrangement because it was her — really original — lucky number, and it was innocuous enough.
We didn’t want to make any mistakes with something that could be easily emulated by others.
We didn’t want to make any mistakes within what was, inherently, and we knew it, a huge mistake, at least for her.
I personally had no qualms with home wrecking.
Long as I wasn’t going to get caught.
Half a minute or so would pass after those first seven knocks (meant to acknowledge receipt) before the next seven would come if she felt like coming over and he was going to be gone for at least a while.
Then I’d stand at the door looking through the peephole until she showed up and I’d usher her in, quickly, hoping no neighbors were looking.
The congress always took place at my place because she wouldn’t have to change the sheets in her bed afterward, wouldn’t have to risk the potential of his finding some stray chest hair or whatever that didn’t match his.
When he left — and not even partially because of knowing about me, to my knowledge — she kept the apartment.
We could now do our thing whenever we felt like it.
Didn’t even have to hide it.
We stopped knocking because we didn’t need to.
But then before too long we stopped seeing each other in that way because we no longer felt excited about doing so.
We could tell that now the magic was gone.
Funny how that works, right?
Sometimes you have to be able to truly have something to figure out what you want is something else.
And then there are times it’s only entertaining if it’s somehow wrong.
Now if I knock on the thin walls it’s loud and abrasive.
Conveys the sentiment of, “Hey, keep it the fuck down. Some of us are trying to get some shut-eye.”
Just because I don’t necessarily want her doesn’t mean I cherish the sound of someone who really, extremely does, judging from the noises, the pitches she hits that I could never make her come even close to.
Several times an evening, most nights.
Can’t knock that kind of vigor, though.