The Neighbor's Door

I was on my couch on a Tuesday night, staring at my phone like it owed me money, when somebody knocked on my door. Three soft raps. I almost didn't answer. But then I heard, "Lindsey? It's Jeffrey, from across the hall."

Jeffrey. The guy who moved into the building two years ago and somehow never once came over even though we'd been doing mailbox small talk since the day he carried in a giant cardboard cat carrier.

I opened the door and there he was, thirty-seven years old and holding a bottle of wine like he'd been caught stealing it. He was tall, dark hair going a little gray at the temples, and he had that apologetic smile he always wore.

"So this is going to sound weird," he said, "but I made too much pasta and invited nobody, and now the pasta's gone and I feel like an idiot, so I bought wine instead. Want to come over? You don't have to."

I laughed. "You had pasta and your backup plan was wine?"

"The pasta got eaten. Fast. I have a cat, Lindsey, she has no shame."

"Well then I definitely can't say no. Give me five minutes!"

I fixed my hair, which I hadn't done since I got home from the office, and put on a real shirt. I'm thirty-four and single and I've been telling myself for years that I just like my own space. Sometimes that's even true.

His apartment was the mirror image of mine, which felt funny, like walking into my own place with better furniture. His cat, Olive, a fat gray thing, immediately climbed onto my lap like we were old friends.

"Traitor," Jeffrey said. "She never sits with me."

We talked about nothing for an hour. My job in accounts payable, which I apologized for. His freelance design work. Whether the elevator had been fixed or just emotionally scarred. Whether the Thai place on Fifth was still good or if we'd all just been remembering it wrong.

Then he refilled my glass and asked, kind of casually, "Can I ask you something? Why have you never brought anyone home? In two years I've never seen a single person on your couch."

I don't know why it came out. Maybe the wine, maybe the cat purring on me, maybe the fact that I'd been staring at my phone thinking about exactly this before he knocked.

"Because I've been curious about something for years and I never felt safe enough to ask anybody for it," I said.

He didn't laugh. He didn't lean in either. He just set his glass down and said, "Do you want to talk about it? Or should we talk about the Thai place some more?"

Oh. That was the moment, honestly. That he asked which one I wanted.

"I've always wondered what anal sex feels like," I said, and my face went hot. "There. Twelve years of dating and I finally said it out loud. To the neighbor, of all people."

"Thank you for telling me," he said, quiet and plain. "That took guts."

"You're not grossed out?"

"Why would I be? It's a thing people do. I've been with partners who loved it. And I've been with one who didn't, because the guy she'd tried it with before treated it like a punishment. It's not supposed to be like that at all. It's patience and trust. If it hurts, somebody's rushing."

I blinked at him. "That's it? Patience and trust?"

"Plus a lot of lube. But mostly, yeah. And you stop whenever you want. The whole point is that you want it."

I looked down at Olive, asleep on my thighs now like a warm bag of flour. And I thought about every guy I'd dated since college who either laughed at the subject or got weird about it or treated my body like a vending machine. Here was Jeffrey, two years of nothing but hallway hi, talking to me like I was a person with a question that had an answer.

"Okay," I said, before I could chicken out. "Okay. I want to try. Tonight. With you."

He looked at me carefully, no smirk anywhere on him. "You're sure? You can sleep on it. The offer doesn't expire."

"I've slept on it for about twelve years, Jeffrey. I'm thirty-four. I'm sure."

"Then come here," he said, and stood, and held out his hand.

I set the cat down and took it. He led me to his bedroom, which I'd never seen, blue walls and a big bed with a gray comforter. He pulled open his nightstand and took out a bottle of lube and a folded towel, and he set both on the bed like this was a normal thing he'd prepared for, which apparently he had, because who keeps those in the nightstand otherwise?

"Ground rules first," he said, sitting on the edge of the bed. "You say stop, I stop, all the way, no negotiation. You say slower, we go slower. And at any point you want to just stop and finish watching a movie instead, that's a fine evening too. Deal?"

"Deal," I said. "You're very good at this."

"I like this," he said, shrugging. "I like that you trusted me with it."

He kissed me then, after asking, "Can I kiss you?" which nobody had bothered to do in so long I'd forgotten it was a thing. I said yes and his mouth was soft and unhurried and I made a little noise into it that embarrassed me until he made one back.

We got my shirt off, then his, and he laid me back on the comforter and took his time. His hands were warm. He kissed my neck, my collarbone, my nipples until they were hard and aching, and I was already breathing funny by the time his fingers slipped under my waistband.

"Still sure?" he asked.

"God, yes!"

He eased my jeans and panties off, then told me to bend my knees, feet flat on the bed. He uncapped the lube and warmed it between his fingers, which I thought was such a considerate detail. Cold lube would have killed the mood dead.

"We start small," he said. "Just one finger, just the edge, and we breathe. Nothing goes in until your body says it wants it in."

I felt his fingertip circle me there, slow and light, and I gripped the sheets. "Okay. Okay. That's not what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"More of a shock? It's just warm?"

"Relax your hips. There you go. Breathe out."

I breathed out, and the tip of his finger slipped in, just barely, and I moaned before I meant to. It didn't hurt. It was pressure and heat and a strange fullness that I'd spent twelve years being afraid of.

"Still okay?" he murmured.

"Yes. Don't stop. I mean, keep going. Slowly. But don't stop."

He chuckled low in his chest. "That's the spirit."

He worked that one finger in and out, shallow, patient, while his other hand rubbed slow circles on my stomach like he was petting a nervous animal. Somewhere in there I stopped being nervous. He slid in deeper and crooked his finger