My Neighbor Let Me Listen to Her Before Fucking Me

Her name wasn’t the one she gave me that first afternoon, but I ended up calling her Vera in my head long before she confessed the real one. To me, she was the blonde from 4B, the woman who went out every morning immaculate, in a pencil skirt, heels, and a brief smile, and who at night turned that filthy hallway into a silent parade of nervous men.

I had just moved into that cheap building, an old block wedged between a noisy avenue and the elevated train tracks. The apartment was a box made of plasterboard that smelled of damp, with a crooked window and a table that wobbled every time I leaned my elbow on it to write. It wasn’t where I’d imagined living, but it was what I could afford.

I met her the same day I was carrying up my last box.

She was leaving her apartment, locked the door, and stood looking at me for a second longer than usual. She was a confident adult woman, with the kind of body that didn’t need exaggeration to command attention: firm legs, full hips, a round ass, medium-sized high breasts beneath her blouse. Her short, wavy blonde hair framed her face with a classic air that made her smile more dangerous.

—New neighbor —she said.

—Looks that way.

—Then good luck. You’ll need it here.

She gave the faintest smile and went down the stairs. I stood there for a moment watching her hips, seeing how they tightened beneath the fabric as she descended the steps. That was where it all began, though I didn’t know it yet.

That same afternoon, the welcoming visits began. Nosy neighbors, falsely friendly, eager to tell me more gossip than useful directions. They all ended up talking about her. Some with contempt, others with envy, several with poorly concealed prurience. That she received men, that sometimes there were two in one night, that she was “paid,” that she worked in an office by day and did whatever the hell she wanted at night.

I cared little about those people’s judgment. The only thing that bothered me was being interrupted. I shut the door on all of them with minimal politeness and went back to my pages, my pen, and a blank sheet that refused to obey me.

When night fell, I still hadn’t written a single line worth anything. I had torn out so many pages that the floor looked covered in dead feathers. I ate a slice of cold pizza standing beside the refrigerator, and that was when I heard the first distinct moan through the wall.

I froze, the bite half-chewed in my mouth.

It wasn’t an ambiguous sound. It wasn’t furniture creaking or a loud television. It was a woman moaning with her throat wide open, without shame, and a man panting to a rhythm that was also marked in the shared wall. Then came the sharp thud of the headboard. Again. And again. Then her voice, hoarse and aroused, forcing the air between broken phrases.

—Like that… don’t stop… fuck… yes…

My cock hardened within seconds. I realized it the way one discovers an involuntary reaction that is, at the same time, inevitable. I left the plate on the counter, turned off the light so I could listen better, and moved closer to the wall.

I could imagine everything in far too much detail. Her legs spread, riding him or letting him fuck her from behind, it didn’t matter, because the sounds were enough to paint the scene for me. The wet slap of flesh, her broken breathing, the way she let out a higher moan when the other man thrust into her hard. I pressed my palm against the wall as if that would let me touch some part of what was happening on the other side.

That was my first mistake: believing I was only listening.

I went out into the hallway when the noises grew louder. The lights flickered with the sickly greenish tint everything in the building had. Some neighbors had turned up their music to cover the moans. Others were probably doing exactly what I was doing: paying attention with offended expressions and hard cocks inside their pants.

Half an hour later, her door opened. A man with a badly knotted tie came out, adjusting his jacket. I didn’t see his face for long, but I did hear her say goodbye to him from the doorway.

—Next time, don’t be in such a hurry.

—I’ll call you —he said, almost embarrassed.

She laughed softly. I couldn’t see all of her, only one bare leg showing through the gap in the door. The man left. The door closed. The hallway returned to its electrical hum and its usual silence.

That night I didn’t write another line. I lay down on the mattress on the floor and masturbated, imagining her pussy swallowing a cock that wasn’t mine. I came on my stomach, breathing as awkwardly as the man who had just left her apartment, and fell asleep with the sour smell of my own cum clinging to my fingers.

That was how my routine began.

From Monday to Saturday, after sunset, the men began arriving. I learned to recognize the sound of shoes outside her door, the awkward patience of someone waiting his turn, the blank expression with which they avoided looking at me when I passed through the hall. Some brought flowers. Others, bottles. One came once with a ridiculous box of chocolates that the doorkeeper ended up eating the next day.

And every night, almost without fail, I listened to her fuck.

It wasn’t always the same. Sometimes the session was long and unhurried, with plenty of panting and the occasional muffled cry. Other times it was quick and brutal: the bed pounding against the wall, her voice giving orders, the man huffing as if he were going to break her. Over time I began to tell things apart. When they were sucking her off, by the way she closed her throat around a continuous moan. When they took her from behind, by the rougher tone of her complaints. When she came, because then she let out an almost broken “fuck” that left me trembling on the other side.

I masturbated far more than I wanted to admit. In the bathroom, in bed, in the desk chair with my ear tuned to her wall. Sometimes I finished before they did and remained there breathing hard, ashamed and satisfied at the same time. Other times I forced myself to hold out, to follow the rhythm of her moans like an obedient idiot, until I came exactly when she released that final sound that emptied my head.

I wanted to sleep with her, yes. But I also wanted not to be like the others. That stupid fantasy lasted until the day we really started talking.

It was a Sunday morning, the only quiet day. I was going out to buy coffee when I saw her sitting on the stair landing, smoking barefoot, wearing dark glasses and an oversized T-shirt that left one knee exposed. Without her office uniform and heels, she looked different, but no less in command of herself.

—You always write in the early hours, don’t you? —she asked.

I stopped.

—How do you know I write?

—Because you pace back and forth when you get stuck. You can hear everything from here.

I laughed. So did she.

—Then we’re even —I said—. I hear quite a bit too.

The sentence hung in the air. I wanted to take it back, but it was too late.

Vera took off her glasses and looked straight at me. She had a way of holding someone’s gaze that felt like a hand slipping beneath their clothes.

—Do you? —she asked—. And what do you hear?

—Your headboard crying for help.

Her mouth curved.

—Poor thing. I’ll have to replace it someday.

She said nothing else. She stood, passed beside me smelling of cream and mild tobacco, and before entering her apartment brushed my forearm with her fingers. Barely a touch. It left me more agitated than all her moans together.

From then on, getting closer was easy. We started with greetings, then short conversations in the hallway, then coffees at the corner when our schedules happened to match. She told me she worked in administration at some random company and hated her boss. I told her I wrote, without exaggerating the little I had published. I changed her name in my head several times until she told me the real one, Mara, but by then I no longer cared what she was called. What mattered was the way she looked at me when she was bored and wanted to play.

I asked her out one Wednesday night. She accepted as if she had decided before I had.

We went to an unpretentious bar a few blocks from the building. We talked about everything except the obvious. She drank slowly, crossing and uncrossing her legs as if she had no idea what she was provoking. I pretended to be calm, but every time she smiled at me I remembered the sound of her pussy taking other men on the other side of my wall.

By the second drink, she was the one who leaned across the table.

—I’m curious about something —she said.

—Ask.

—When you hear me with someone… does it bother you or turn you on?

There was no point lying.

—It gets me hard.

—I see.

—And do you like being heard?

She didn’t look away.

—I like knowing who’s listening.

I felt the directness of her answer in my crotch.

—So you knew it was me.

—Since the second night —she said, bringing the glass to her lips—. The others turn up the music. You don’t.

I didn’t know what to say. She did.

—Relax. If it bothered me, I would have told you. Or charged you admission.

We laughed, but beneath the table I was already completely hard.

When we left the bar, she didn’t want to continue the night somewhere else. She wanted to return to the building. We walked together without touching, too close for the silence not to say something. The train passed overhead, making the air vibrate. When we entered the green, decaying hallway, Mara took out her keys, opened her door, and looked at me sideways.

—There are no clients tonight —she said—. In case you want to hear something different.

I went in.

Her apartment was almost as small as mine, but it was alive. There were burned-down candles, books scattered around, a glass on the low table, and a warm perfume mingled with the scent of fresh soap. She offered me something to drink. I said no. She left her purse on a chair, took off her shoes, and walked barefoot until she was very close to me.

—I want to know whether you look as well as you listen —she murmured.

I kissed her before thinking any further. Her mouth was soft and wet, with a faint taste of gin and mint. Mara responded at once, pushing her tongue into my mouth hungrily, grabbing the back of my neck as if she had been waiting days for that moment. The kiss quickly became rough, hot, full of teeth and shared breath.

My hands moved down to her waist, to her firm ass beneath the skirt. I squeezed it eagerly and she let out a small moan right against my mouth, the same tone that had made me jerk off like a sick man so many nights. This time it wasn’t filtered through a wall. This time it was for me.

—So it was you —she said, pulling back just enough to breathe—. The neighbor who came listening to me.

I tensed, but she smiled.

—Don’t make that face. The thought of it turns me on.

I kissed her again, and this time she pushed me against the wall. She opened my shirt impatiently, slid her hands over my chest, and lowered them to the hard bulge in my pants. She squeezed it through the fabric without the slightest delicacy.

—Fuck —she whispered—. I really did get you hard.

—You’re not helping.

—I don’t want to help. I want to use it.

She unbuttoned my pants right there in the middle of the room and slipped her hand inside my boxers to pull out my cock. She held it for a moment, heavy and rigid, and looked at me with a satisfied expression that made me moan prematurely.

—Pretty —she said—. Let’s see if you fuck better than you spy.

She knelt without putting on a show. Her hand kept stroking slowly as she ran her tongue over the tip, collecting the first thread of fluid with an almost cruel calm. Then she opened her mouth and swallowed me in one motion as far as she could. My knees buckled.

—Fuck, Mara…

She answered with a deep sound vibrating around my cock. She sucked me as if she knew exactly how long to hold on and when to pull away to leave me desperate. She came up to the head, circled it with her wet lips, and took me deep again, helping with her hand at the base. Every time she looked up at me, her mascara slightly smudged and her mouth full of me, I felt a brutal pull in my balls.

I grabbed her short hair, not to force her, but to steady myself. She understood anyway and sped up. Saliva ran down her chin. My cock slid in and out of her mouth with an obscene, wet, delicious sound. I panted like an idiot, watching my dick disappear between her lips, hearing the same hallway from which a satisfied man had so often emerged. Now the sound was mine.

—If you keep that up, I’m going to come —I warned her.

She released my cock with a pop and stood.

—Not yet. I want to feel it inside me.

She took my hand and led me to the bedroom. There was the famous bed, responsible for so many sleepless nights, its headboard scratched against the wall facing my desk. I laughed without meaning to. She noticed.

—What?

—Nothing. I was thinking about all the times I imagined this.

—I’m sure you fell short.

This time she undressed unhurriedly, knowing I couldn’t look away. First the blouse, then the skirt, then the black stockings held up by a simple garter. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her tits fell firm and round, with small, taut nipples. When she removed her thong, I saw her shaved pussy, swollen and glistening with arousal. I didn’t even have to touch her to know she was wet.

I took off my clothes almost clumsily. Mara pushed me down onto the bed and stood between my legs.

—Touch me.

I opened her thighs and slid two fingers between her lips. She was soaked. Not merely damp, not just ready: truly soaked. My fingers entered easily and she arched her back, letting the air out through her mouth.

—So you were waiting for me too —I said.

—I’ve been waiting for you for weeks, idiot.

I leaned in and licked her pussy without asking permission. I had wanted to taste at last what I had so often come imagining. Her flavor was salty and dense, clean, addictive. I opened her lips with my thumbs and sank my tongue from bottom to top, slowly at first, then more firmly, feeling her tremble over my mouth. Mara grabbed my hair and began moving against my face.

—Yes… like that… don’t slow down.

I inserted one finger, then two, curling them inside her while my tongue kept licking her clitoris. Her pussy tightened around me at once, reacting with increasingly clear spasms. The mattress creaked. Her breathing was already the same as I had so often heard through the wall, but now she was in front of me, thighs spread, using my mouth with an obscene frankness that drove me crazy.

—I’m going to come —she said—. Don’t stop, fuck.

I didn’t stop. I licked her harder, alternating circles with long strokes, while my fingers fucked her inside. Mara tensed, squeezed my head between her thighs, and came with a rough, drawn-out moan, holding nothing back. Her legs trembled. I felt her orgasm pulsing around my fingers and stayed there for another second, licking her gently as she came down.

When she let me go, she was breathing hard, her cheeks flushed.

—Now fuck me —she said, without embellishment.

I pushed her onto her back on the bed and settled between her legs. I rubbed the head of my cock against her wet entrance, getting myself even dirtier with what I had left on her pussy. Mara looked straight at me, hungry.

—Stop playing.

I entered her with one hard thrust.

We both moaned at the same time. She was hot and tight in an almost insulting way. My cock sank all the way in, and for a second I couldn’t move, focused on feeling her swallow me whole. Mara lifted her hips.

—Move.

I did. I pulled almost to the tip and drove back in hard. The headboard struck the wall. Again. And again. The sound went through my chest because I knew it too well. Only now every blow matched my hips, my cock entering the pussy I had heard working for other men for weeks.

—That’s how I heard you —I told her between breaths.

—Then listen to this up close.

She dug her nails into my back and opened her legs wider. I began fucking her with a hard, steady rhythm, making the most of how wet she was. Her pussy made that wet, dirty noise that makes any fantasy unnecessary. Every time I pulled out, I watched her open to take me again. Every time I entered, she released a more broken moan.

I kissed her, bit her neck, grabbed one tit, and squeezed the nipple between my fingers while I kept fucking her. Mara moved her hips to receive me better, to make me go deeper. It was obvious she knew exactly how to use her body, and far from intimidating me, it made me want to pound her even harder.

—Harder —she said.

I obeyed.

The bed began pounding violently against the wall. I held her behind the thighs and spread her wider, burying myself to the root again and again. My pubic bone struck her wet pussy. She cursed, moaned, and writhed beneath me. At one point she looked at me with a brief, filthy smile.

—The neighbor next door is probably jerking off right now.

I chuckled and thrust so hard that I tore a cry from her.

—Let him learn.

I turned her over on the mattress and put her on all fours. Mara immediately raised her ass, offering herself without shame. Seeing her that way made me even more animalistic. I parted her cheeks and admired her swollen, open pussy shining from how much I had worked her. I ran a hand over her back, gripped her hair from behind, and shoved my cock into her again.

—Fuck —she moaned, burying her face in the pillow.

From there I gave it to her harder. Her ass slammed against my groin with a meaty, repeated smack. One hand on her hip, the other on her nape, I drove deep while she arched her back and pushed backward, searching for more. The room filled with the sound of fucking without gentleness, broken breathing, the bed complaining, and our voices no longer capable of pretending anything.

—Tell me you wanted this —I said, pulling her hair so she raised her head.

—Yes… yes, I wanted this cock… I wanted you to fuck me…

—Since when?

—Since I saw you looking at my ass on the stairs… ah… fuck…

I pulled my cock out and slapped her ass. Not hard, but loud enough to leave her skin pink. She moaned and moved her buttocks, asking for another without words. I gave her one more, then inserted two fingers into her pussy while gripping her jaw from the side.

—Look at me.

She turned her face just enough.

—Do you like it?

—Yes.

—What do you like?

—That you fuck me. That you talk to me like this. That you don’t treat me like the others.

I put my cock back inside her before she finished saying it, and she lost her breath.

I kept her that way for quite a while, changing the rhythm, sometimes deep and slow so I could feel her tighten around me, sometimes fast and brutal, punishing the pussy that wouldn’t stop wetting me. Mara touched herself underneath with one hand and I let her, fascinated by the image: her body bent over, my cock sliding in and out, her fingers rubbing her clitoris while she moaned my name.

—Don’t stop —she said—. I’m going to come again.

I pulled out and made her turn over. I placed her at the edge of the bed, one leg over my shoulder. From there I entered her again and began fucking her with short, deep thrusts, right where I made her tremble most. She lowered her hand to her clitoris again, and I caught her wrist.

—Let me do it.

I rubbed it with my thumb while penetrating her. Mara opened her mouth in a long gasp. Her tits bounced with every thrust. Her nails dug into my arms. I felt her pussy closing around my cock, squeezing me tighter and tighter.

—Now —I told her—. Come now.

And she did. She came with a brutal spasm, her legs trembling, her pussy contracting so tightly that it almost made me come right then. She kept moaning while I thrust into her a couple more times, unable to stop abruptly. Her face was undone with pleasure. Beautiful in an indecent way.

I was already at my limit. She grabbed my neck and kissed me desperately.

—Come inside me —she whispered—. I want to feel your cum.

That order broke me.

I kept thrusting five or six more times, hard as I could, until I couldn’t hold back. I came inside her with a moan that emptied my chest. I felt my cum spurt out in hot pulses while her pussy continued squeezing me with echoes of her earlier orgasm. I stayed buried inside her for several seconds, breathing against her shoulder, completely gone.

When I finally pulled out, some of my semen slid down her thigh. Mara looked down, then back at me, satisfied.

—So this was what you wanted from the beginning.

—Not exactly.

—No?

—I wanted this… but I didn’t think you’d let me inside so easily.

She laughed, still panting.

—It wasn’t easy. It was just inevitable.

***

I woke on Monday with her beside me, naked beneath the sheets, her hair tousled and one leg crossed over my thigh. The gray morning light fell across her back, and for a moment I understood why she had gotten so deeply inside me before I had even touched her. It wasn’t only how beautiful she was. It was the way she occupied space, as if she owed no one any explanations.

She opened her eyes and smiled faintly.

—What time is it?

—Early.

—Then there’s still time.

She grabbed my half-asleep cock, which began hardening in her hand with almost humiliating obedience. She leaned in to kiss me without taking her eyes off me.

—Today you’re going to make noise —she murmured.

And we fucked again, more slowly at first, dirtier afterward, with the morning light showing every gesture, every smear of saliva, every jolt of the mattress. But that second time had nothing to do with fantasy anymore. The wall was still there. So was the hallway. The only thing that had changed was that I was no longer the neighbor who listened.

I was the man on the other side, the one who made her moan.