The Neighbor Who Followed Me Home One Summer Night

The breakup was, deep down, a relief. When I signed the lease on that small apartment in a neighborhood I owed nothing to, I felt like I was letting go of something I’d had clenched for years. The place was tiny: a long hallway, four doors including mine, a kitchen with a window onto the courtyard, and a bathroom with no ventilation. But it was mine. Mine alone. And that changed everything.

The first thing I noticed when I unpacked was that I had more women’s clothes than men’s. It wasn’t a surprise: it was a confirmation. Bras, thongs, panties, tight leggings, some silk slip I’d bought in a burst of provisional freedom and ended up at the bottom of a cardboard box. I’d donated them more than once in moments of guilt, in those instances when you decide to be someone else and fill a bag with everything that doesn’t fit the new version of yourself. They always came back. Renewed, multiplied, a little better than the ones before.

I was slim, tall, with hips more pronounced than any pair of men’s pants could hide. I’d been shaving almost my whole body for a long time: first awkwardly, then with the same ease with which one clips one’s nails. When I put on a lace set in front of the new bathroom mirror, what I saw didn’t confuse me. I felt something much calmer and much more mine: I liked what was there.

It had taken four years of therapy to bring me to that stillness. Four years talking about desire, identity, the difference between what you do and what you are. I didn’t want to be a woman. That had always been clear to me, without any effort at all to make it clear. What I wanted was the texture of lace against my skin, to go out to work with a thong under my pants and carry that secret without it weighing me down. What I wanted was to be able to be with a woman on a Tuesday and a man on a Thursday, and not have to choose, and not have to explain it to anyone who didn’t ask.

Once a coworker had told me, with the best intentions in the world, that he found “that dressing up” weird.

—I’m not dressing up —I told him—. I don’t want to be something else. I just like this clothing. And I like having it ripped off me.

He nodded with a face that showed he understood nothing. It didn’t matter.

***

The hallway in the new building had four apartments. First was the one belonging to a woman in her seventies who always had the radio on and greeted people with her door half open, never quite opening it all the way. Then mine. Then a solitary man in his fifties whom I’d run into now and then on the stairs, exchanging little more than a nod. And at the far end, the apartment of a woman and her grown daughter, who used the washing machine at impossible hours.

The first night I went out was a Tuesday. I put on a black lace bra, a matching thong, leggings that came up to my waist, and a T-shirt with a wide neckline that slid slightly off one shoulder. No wig, no makeup, nothing special. Just me in those clothes and my heart beating a little faster than usual when I put my hand on the front-door handle.

It was one in the morning.

I went out.

The night was still and the neighborhood smelled of wet asphalt. I got to the corner and came back. Then to the other corner, and back. Then I walked all the way around the block, with slow steps, feeling the cold air at my cleavage and the looks of the few people out at that hour. No one said anything to me. A kid with headphones passed me without looking up. An older man with a small dog gave me a long look from the opposite sidewalk, but kept walking.

I went home without taking off my clothes. I got into bed still wearing the T-shirt, the thong in place, and slept straight through until nine in the morning. I couldn’t remember having slept like that in months.

***

The nighttime outings became a habit. Two or three times a week, after midnight, me and that neighborhood that still hadn’t quite gotten to know me. There was something addictive about the combination: the quiet street, the clothes, the ever-present possibility of crossing paths with someone who would look in a certain way. I ran into dog walkers, guys coming back from somewhere, people smoking in doorways. No one told me anything worth remembering.

It was on a Thursday that I saw the guy standing on the corner. He didn’t fit: he had no dog, wasn’t checking his phone, wasn’t waiting for the bus. He stood with his hands in his pockets and watched me coming from the moment I stepped out of the hallway. He looked to be about thirty, maybe a little older. Dark hair, strong jaw, a long-sleeved T-shirt that looked like it belonged to another season.

I passed him and nodded hello.

I kept walking.

Twenty meters later I heard his steps behind mine.

I stopped. Turned around slowly.

—Good evening —I said.

—Good evening —he replied, coming closer without hurry—. Nice neighborhood for walking at this hour.

—Yeah. Do you live around here?

—A block and a half away. Still with my mom. —He gestured south—. I had insomnia.

—I go out when I can’t sleep too —I said, though that wasn’t exactly true.

—Do you always go out like that? —he asked, and for a moment let his eyes drop to the leggings, to what was outlined underneath the T-shirt.

—Whenever I feel like it —I answered.

He smiled. It was a calm smile, the kind someone with an easygoing nature gives.

There was a silence that wasn’t awkward. It was the kind of silence that comes before a question both people already know how will end.

—Want to come in for a drink? —I asked.

—Sure —he said, without hesitation—. Though I didn’t come all the way over here for a drink.

—Even better —I told him—. I didn’t invite you for that either.

***

We walked back to my place together. He stayed a step behind me. In the hallway, before I took out my keys, I felt his open hand on my hip, resting lightly, as if testing the weight of what was about to happen. Then he moved it lower. He squeezed my ass over the leggings, with his whole palm, weighing it. I didn’t move it away. I walked more slowly and felt his breathing harden behind me.

Inside the apartment I turned on only the bathroom light. Everything stayed dim, which was what I wanted. I turned around and he was already close, without waiting for any formal invitation. He took me by the waist and pressed me against the entry hall wall. He kissed me on the mouth with his whole tongue, without asking, and slid one hand down my neck, inside the T-shirt, until he found my bra. He tugged the cup down to pinch my nipple between two fingers, and when I let out a moan into his mouth he squeezed harder.

—Well, look at that —he said softly—. You’ve got little hard tits under that bra.

—And more —I answered.

I guided his hand to the bulge in my leggings. He was already hard underneath. He smiled with his mouth against mine and squeezed me there too, with the same palm he’d used to size up my ass. He slipped his fingers inside the waistband of the leggings and the thong, and took hold of me with his warm hand, directly, with no fabric between us.

—Get on your knees —he whispered in my ear.

I knelt down.

I opened his fly with both hands and yanked his pants and boxer briefs down to his knees. He was thick, shorter than long, with a red head and a clear drop at the tip. I grabbed him at the base with my left hand, stuck out my tongue, and licked that drop off first, slowly, looking up at him while I did it. He let his head fall back against the wall, eyes half-closed.

Then I took him into my mouth. All at once. I felt him hit the back of my throat and stayed there for a second, tears beginning to well in my eyes, breathing through my nose against the smell of skin and the neighbor’s cheap soap. I pulled back slowly, lips tight around him, and went down again. And again. I sucked him like you suck a cock for real, with plenty of saliva, cheeks hollowed out, letting the sound carry through the whole apartment hallway. I ran my tongue under him, along the thick vein stretching down the length, and then I tended to his balls: took them into my mouth one by one, licked them slowly, never stopping moving his shaft with my hand.

—Fuck —he said—. You suck better than any girl I’ve ever known.

I stared up at him from below and smiled with my mouth full. I pushed him back to the base again. I grabbed his ass with both hands and pulled him toward me, so he could fuck my mouth at whatever pace he wanted. He fucked it. He shoved himself from my throat to my lips, gripping the back of my neck with one hand and my hair with the other, and I let him, saliva dripping down my chin, breathing between thrusts.

—Stop —he said at some point, voice rough—. Stop, because I’m going to come and I want more.

I stood up with my mouth swollen. I took his hand and led him to the bed, pulling him by the arm, both of us still laughing like idiots with his pants around his knees. I finished taking off his pants and boxers and looked at him for a moment before bending down again, because I like that moment beforehand: when both people know what’s coming and no one rushes it.

I licked him some more, but this time without hurry, playing with the tip, kissing along the sides. He pulled my T-shirt over my head. He left my bra on but pushed it down below my chest, so my nipples showed through the black lace. He pulled my leggings down to my knees and slapped my ass twice, hard, with an open hand.

—Turn around —he told me—. Get on all fours.

I got on all fours on the mattress. I felt him settle in behind me, felt him move my thong aside with care, almost delicately, as if he wanted to preserve it for the nights to come. Then I felt his tongue. He ran it from bottom to top, all of it hot, along the entire groove. He spread my cheeks with both hands and ate my ass with enthusiasm, his pointed tongue buried deep inside, circling, sucking me like I was a cunt. I pressed my face into the pillow so I wouldn’t scream and clutched the sheet in my fists.

—You’re wet everywhere —he said, almost to himself—. Look at you melting.

He put a finger in. Then two. He moved them slowly until I got used to it, then not so slowly anymore. When he felt me open, he spat into his hand and spread it over his cock. He pressed it against me and pushed just a little, not going in, measuring.

—Put it in —I said—. Put all of it in.

He went in slowly at first. He opened me with one long thrust that reached all the way to my stomach, and I bit the pillow to keep from howling. He stayed there for a second, all the way in, letting me feel everything. Then not so slowly anymore. His hands were steady on my hips and I moved to find him, to give him the angle he was looking for, so he wouldn’t have to work so hard. He started fucking me for real, with his body thrown over mine, his mouth against the back of my neck, biting my shoulder.

—You’re so good —he told me between thrusts—. You’ve got such a fucking ass, Jesus Christ.

—Tell me —I answered—. Tell me more.

—You’re a slut. You’re my little slut. Look at you, you love being fucked like this.

—I love it —I told him, squeezing my ass around him—. Fuck me harder.

He fucked me harder. He took my hair in one hand and yanked my head back, arching me, and drove into me all the way with dry thrusts that made the bed bang against the neighbor’s wall. His other hand went forward, under the shifted thong, and grabbed my cock and started jerking me off to the rhythm of his fucking. I didn’t last long like that. I came over the sheets and over his hand, with long spasms that clenched around him and threw off his rhythm.

—I’m almost there, I’m almost there —he told me close to my ear—. In you?

—Inside —I said—. Fill it all up.

He came with two or three more thrusts, each one deeper than the last, and I felt his cock shudder as he emptied hot semen inside me. He stayed still for a second, resting over my back, breathing into the nape of my neck, and then let himself fall onto his side beside me. When he pulled out, everything in me kept dripping down the insides of my thighs, mixed with mine on the sheet.

—You’re incredible —he said.

—Thanks —I replied—. You can come back whenever you want.

—I’m going to come back often.

It wasn’t that often. I saw him three more times in the year I spent in that apartment. But he did make sure, quite generously, to tell half the neighborhood that I went out at night in women’s clothes and that in bed I was a filthy slut. I didn’t mind in the least. If anything, it made things easier.

***

The second one was a younger guy, early twenties, who didn’t wait for me to make the first move: he asked me straight out if I wanted to go to his place. I said yes. He lived four blocks away, on a second floor with a low ceiling and traffic noise filtering in through the window. We didn’t talk much. There was no need. The moment he closed the door he had me against it, his hand inside my leggings, squeezing my ass with his fingers spread apart, as if he needed to make sure what he was seeing was real.

I knelt right there in the entryway. I took him out with both hands and sucked him without preamble, to the very back, swallowing him whole. He was thinner than the first one but longer, curving upward. I made him finish the first time in my mouth, after twenty minutes of slow blow job. He came with two pushes in my throat and I swallowed everything, not spitting out a single drop, and licked the tip when he was done to leave it clean.

Then he took me to the bed and fucked me a second time, slower, taking his time. He put me on my back, with my legs against his chest, and entered me while looking me in the eyes. He made me come like that, with him inside me and one of his hands working my cock, and came again a minute later, inside me too. There was something comfortable in that, in the efficiency of two people who know exactly why they’re there.

The third was different. The third was the neighbor.

One Saturday morning I decided to sunbathe in the small patio outside the kitchen window. I wore only a thong and lay there with headphones on and my eyes closed, not thinking about anything in particular. I don’t know how long I’d been there when I heard movement on the other side of the low wall that separated our patios. I greeted him without taking off my headphones. He greeted me back. I could feel him staying there longer than necessary, watching the sun hit my ass over the thong’s elastic band.

That afternoon, while I was reading on the couch with a long slip on over me, he knocked on my door. The excuse was pretty transparent, something about whether I had a charger he could borrow, but neither of us bothered pretending it was true.

He came in. He saw the slip. He said nothing about it, but I saw where his eyes went.

He sat on the opposite couch. We talked for half an hour about anything and everything: the building, neighborhood prices, whether there was any decent place to eat nearby. But while we talked there was another conversation happening, the one carried by silences, by when you let your gaze drop and take a little longer than necessary to lift it again.

When he stood up to leave, he didn’t leave. Instead he came closer, took my face in both hands, and kissed me slowly, as if he’d been thinking about it since Saturday morning out on the patio. He probably had. He kissed me for a long time, with his tongue in my mouth, and with one hand he lifted my slip up my thigh to my hip. I had nothing on underneath. When his hand found me naked, it made a dull sound against my mouth.

—You’re wearing nothing underneath —he said.

—I was waiting —I told him.

I knelt right there in the living room and opened his pants. I took him out and kept him in my mouth for a long time, longer than any of the others, because with him there was something different: he wasn’t a stranger but someone who would be on the other side of my wall every night. That changed the texture of everything. I did it calmly, without hurry, letting it build. I sucked him while he sat on the couch and I was between his legs, my hands resting on his thighs, looking up at him between sucks. I licked his balls one by one. I ran my tongue over his perineum and heard him let out a low moan he hadn’t expected from himself. I went back to the cock and took him all the way to the back, staying there with my nose pressed against his pubic hair until tears blurred my eyes.

—Come here —he told me, pulling my arm.

I straddled him, with the slip lifted to my waist. He spat into his hand, ran it over the tip, and positioned himself at my entrance. I sank down slowly, feeling him slide in little by little, breathing through my mouth. When I had him all inside me I stayed still for a second, holding onto his shoulders, my forehead against his.

—Move me —I told him.

And he moved me. He grabbed my hips with both hands and started lifting me up and down on his cock, first slowly, measuring. Then he fucked me faster, pushing up each time I came down so he could drive all the way in. He sucked on my nipples over the slip, biting them through the fabric, and made me come like that, sitting on top of him, my cock trapped between our two bodies, cumming all over his shirt without him touching me.

He held out a little longer. He turned me around against the back of the couch, braced my hands there and drove into me from behind, standing with his pants still around his knees. He fucked me like that until he came, slower and deeper each time, until he came pressed against me, biting my shoulder beneath the slip.

He stayed the night. The next morning he left for work from my front door, keys in hand and an expression like someone who has something new in his head.

After that, things between us settled into a natural rhythm. Sometimes I was the one having him, sometimes it was the other way around. I learned that he liked getting his cock sucked long before fucking, that he liked watching my face when he pushed into me, that he came harder when I talked dirty in his ear. He learned that I liked being grabbed by the hair, being talked to, being thrown face down and fucked with little preamble when I came home from the street in my night clothes. There was no conversation about it, no agreements or definitions. We just learned each other’s tastes with the same calm with which one learns the schedule of someone who lives nearby.

***

Over that year in the small apartment, men cycled through constantly. Four or five a week at the busiest times, sometimes two on the same afternoon but at non-overlapping hours. I never stopped being with women: I like them, I still like them, and when there was one in my life I gave her everything I had to give.

But what I learned in that neighborhood was that there was something in me I wasn’t going to put on pause anymore. Not because I couldn’t, but because I had taken too long to stop, and the difference between before and after was too great to go back.

I went out at night in women’s clothes and came home with someone. Sometimes. Not always. But the nights I came home alone were good too: the hallway, the door, the bathroom in half-light, me in the mirror wearing those clothes I should never have donated, my hand inside my thong finishing what the street hadn’t wanted to give me that night.