Chapter 10: The Girl Next Door

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10. The Girl Next Door

That night, as darkness fell outside, I opened my door to find a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread and a small container of yogurt. My stomach had settle several hours before and I was hungry so wolfed them down with gulps from the large water bottle that was always there in my room. It was still more than a half hour until the official Lights Out, near as I could tell, but I was tired of the brightness so I turned my light out early, willing myself to face the darkness, telling myself that I was done with visualizing the ghosts in the basement.

The light in the room next door, the one on the other side of the partition that had been put up to make two rooms out of one large room, was still on. Even from the bed I could see that the darkness outside had turned the window that we shared into a mirror, allowing me a peek into the lighted room from my dark room. On the wall I could see something with feathers and tree bark. I had thought that decorations were forbidden, but apparently not. That piqued my curiosity, and part of me wanted to know more about the girl who had been my neighbor for the entire week that I had been at Holshue House.

Excited but spider quiet, I slipped off the bed and crept over closer to the window. By shifting left and right I could see the reflection of most of the room next door, and then I saw her. It was her. The girl with the beautiful russet skin and the blonde highlights in her wild curly hair. She was standing in the middle of the room, flipping her hair, seeming to watch herself in some mirror that I couldn’t see from my angle. Then she began to undress.

I watched as she unfastened and unzipped her jeans, and then with her back to me she lowered them to the floor, exposing satin salmon-colored underwear, shiny and tight across her butt. After doing a quick turn she peeled off her t-shirt, showing that she was wearing a white, lacey bra. I kept watching.

Then she turned once again so all I could see was the smooth curvature of her back, that beautiful skin, reddish brown, the color of ripe acorn. She reached up behind herself to undo the clasp of the bra, and then shucked it off her shoulder. I felt an excitement, a naughty anticipation, as she turned back towards me. Her areolas were a rich chestnut topped with pinkish nipples. And then the light went out. There was only darkness in my window-mirror, my breath gently fogging the pane below my chin.

Suddenly there was her voice, “Did you enjoy the show?” and laughter twittering, almost like a bird mocking me.

I fell back on the floor, blushing with embarrassment, ashamed of what I had been doing, feeling more like a pervert than ever. I wanted to cry, and yet I also still wanted more of her. I licked my lips, and then scolded myself once again, before I stripped off my own clothes and climbed into bed.

It was then I remembered that she had seen me coming out of the basement, and that she had been there when I threw up in the bathroom. She had said something, a word I don’t think that I ever heard before, but one that still somehow felt familiar, an echo of some of other time, “Gesama.” The way she said it sounded like it might be a name. I played her soft low voice in my head. It had been said with tenderness, so my guess was that if it were a something from another language it was a term of endearment.

Perhaps she had noticed that I had been looking at her, almost staring at her, in class and other places around Holshue House. Perhaps she didn’t hate me for it. Perhaps we would be friends, and perhaps she didn’t mind that I found her so attractive. My God, was she ever beautiful. Instead of ghosts I fell asleep with images of myself pushing up against her, and I pushed down Allison’s uneasiness about it being improper. Even if she was having trouble admitting it to herself, I knew that Allison also found the girl next door irresistible. And she didn’t complain when I touched our body thinking about her, as we drifted off to sleep.

Submitted: September 17, 2023

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