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CHAPTERONE
Anonymous
The way she chews her hair while she’s thinking, reading, lost in thought, is what draws me into the enigma of her. It’s not why I started this voyeurism venture. No, what began the spiral into where I am now is much more striking. Running into her in the downtown market, literally, had set this madness into motion. And my foot has been on the pedal ever since.
She leans forward on the couch, grabbing for wine she finished ten minutes ago absently as she teeters the laptop on her leg. Working. She’s always working. And I’m always watching. She doesn’t know that, of course, but I’m her guardian angel. I lay in wait for my chance to pounce. But will I ever take that leap?
I wonder if I don’t like the arrangement we have now. The one where she doesn’t know who I am, but I know all about her. I know all her dirtiest, darkest secrets. Like how she’s going to grope for that fucking glass four more times before she gets up and refills it. Or how she’ll rest her head on the counter in the morning and glare at her coffee pot while it brews as she drifts in and out of sleep.
At first, I’d felt a little fucked up for watching her. Now, it’s an obsession I can’t kick. There’s no cure for what ails me. Because nothing will cure the longing inside. Nothing except touching her. And that’s out of the question. I’m nothing against the likes of her. She didn’t look at me twice in the market when she collided with me, and her bag dropped to the concrete.
No, she apologized politely, offered to clean her pumpkin spiced latte off my shirt front, and then smiled as she sauntered off. She went about her day as if she had never met me.
I couldn’t do that.
She etched herself into my brain that day. Wormed her way into my frontal cortex like a burned image on a fucking broken television.
At first, I’d decided she’d be mine, even if I had to force her to be. Then, I’d watched her chewing her hair subtly, fluffy socks on her feet and wine in her glass, and I wanted to know her.
But I’m no fool. I know she never gave a backward glance toward me. I know I’m not her type. I know I’m not on her level.
She yawns a weighty yawn of bone deep tiredness and closes her computer, sliding it off her lap onto the gray-blue couch.
Her orange tabby cat jumps up, seeing her lap empty finally, and stretches in a salacious way before lying down.
Her smile at the cat’s action is something I move closer to the glass to witness. She lays a hand on the cat’s back, rubbing as, no doubt, it begins to purr its approval.
Lucky bastard.
I shake my head at myself.
It would be too easy to take what I want. I’ve already been inside her home. I’ve already sampled what she tastes like. Well, what’s left behind of her taste in her discarded underwear in the hamper at the end of the day.
She snores when she sleeps. And when she sleeps, let me tell you, she sleeps deeply. She’s unworried and unbothered about the world carrying on around her.
All she does snore, surrounded by her three feline companions, unperturbed by the man who stands beside her bed, her panties to his nose, dreaming of the day she finds him out.
Of course, in my dreams she’s turned on by me and bares herself to me, and I fuck her deeply, hand over her throat, muffling her screams. But if she welcomed me, there would be no screams, would there?
See, this is why I haven’t made my move yet.
My plan isn’t formed enough. My plan of attack as well as my plan of what to do to her when I make my move has to be better laid out for the strike.
She stands and drops the cat to the floor, turning off the lamp beside the couch and leaving her laptop and empty glass behind. I’ll plug her laptop up, clean the glass, and in the morning, she’ll be none the wiser. She’ll think she did it. Such is the flow of our nights lately.
Since she got laid off, she’s been chugging away at job applications and interviews, burning the midnight oil in hopes of finding one job that others are sleeping on, literally.
Your time will come, sweet pet. Even if I have to slit throats to make it so.
I use the key that’s under the mat—ignorant place for a key if you ask me—letting myself in to go about my nightly routine. I plug her laptop in, moving the glass to the sink for washing once she’s fallen asleep. She’ll be brushing her teeth now, slipping into one of her famed silk night outfits afterward.
I lick my lips as I lean against the counter to wait for her to get into bed.
The floorboard next to her bed has been loose—since I loosened it—so, I’ll know the precise moment she enters it. She’s the type to drift off smooth and rapid, so I won’t have to stand here long.
In the early days, I’d stand here for hours, heart pounding away in my chest at the exhilaration of being caught. Now, I sigh and let myself in, taking care of my girl as she does the best that she can in the state she’s in.
The floor creaks once as she gets into bed. The telltale sounds of her patting the top of the down comforter to beckon the cats up from the floor drifts down to me and I smile.
