There is a knock on the door. Not a loud knock, but a firm one, a man’s knock, and she hurries quietly across the living room where she had been sitting absorbed in a book. Don’t get the wrong idea: she isn’t the kind of woman who belongs to a book club and cruises through all of the best sellers in the order they are suggested on Oprah’s book list. The book that she flips over and lays down, wide open, on the arm of her couch before jumping up an — no, she gets two steps towards the window before she hastily turns around and folds back the top corner of the page she had been reading before closing it and stuffing it awkwardly in between the plump leather couch cushions where it wasn’t likely to be found. The book that she was reading would never be found in the Times with raving reviews, as it is a trashy romance novel, full of disgusting smut and idealistic relationships that would never work in real life, but that make mothers blush when they so much as read the title and see the cheesy cover art that looks like it was made in the 80s, even though the book was copyrighted barely a year ago. But this woman isn’t a mother (never), and she isn’t a wife (not anymore), and she is horny lonely. Unbearably lonely. Most of her friends are happily married, living the domestic dream with three perfect children, a dog, a minivan, and a husband that comes home every night instead of citing “late nights at the office” as his excuse for being gone.
     He had done that to her at least five nights a week, and when she finally found out what was going on, she didn’t know what to feel: anger and heartbreak knowing the man she married was cheating on her, or relief at knowing the man she married didn’t find her so dull that he was working overtime just to get away from her, just dull enough to cheat on. She didn’t love him anyway, she decided finally, after spending a week in her pjs, wandering around the house with a box of tissues in her hand and sobbing every time something in her too-big-for-a-single-woman — oh god, she is a single woman now! and this thought brought with it a fresh cascade of tears from her wishing well eyes caked with several day old, smeared make up — when her big, empty house reminded her of how that lying, cheating, manipulative, backstabbing, deceiving, heart-breaking, dream smashing, life-plan-ruining, low-down, filthy, no good, two-faced, jackasshole son of a bitch had left her for some (her mother’s word) floozy from the office. Of course she is lonely! so when she stuffs her trashy romance novel into her couch cushions she is not just hiding an embarrassing choice of reading material, she is hiding the fact that she is lonely. Only a three and a half months since he’s been gone, and she’s already lonely.
     The visitor at the door knocks again, but she doesn’t open right away because she is looking out the window, across her front yard, to the street to see if she recognizes the visitor’s vehicle. It’s the plumber she called for a couple days ago. Her eyes trail from the logo on the plumber’s truck to her unkempt yard, tall grass and weeds swaying in the light, late-spring breeze. He used to mow the grass and fix the minor leaks when he was here. Aside from being a brilliant businessman and a spectacular lover (when his heart was in it, as well as his dick), he was also quite the handyman.
     She remembered how she used to fix sandwiches and lemonade; he’d take a break from mowing and they’d sit on an old blanket in the half-trimmed yard and eat together. Sometimes they’d talk, and sometimes they didn’t need to talk, but eventually they just didn’t, and eventually, she stopped making picnics and just sat at the window, fingers absently tracing patterns in the condensation beads that formed on her tall, icy glass of lemonade. She often thought about adding some of his vodka, but she wasn’t a drinker, so instead of the slow burn of the vodka in her throat, she watched him push the lawn mower back and forth across the yard with a slower, more painful burn in her chest. She’d get up and fix him some lemonade, and with shaky hands that made the ice cubes clink against the sides of the glass she’d carry it outside and wait on the sidewalk for him to turn around and see her. When he did, he would shut off the mower and walk across the yard to where she stood, smiling sweetly as she raised the glass towards him slightly with one hand while brushing her hair from her face with the other, gestures that meant, to her at least, “i’m here, and i’m yours.” When he didn’t see her, she would wait until the sun-heated pavement became unbearable to her bare feet before heading back up the sidewalk, leaving the glass, no longer clinking (but not because she wasn’t trembling), on the front porch railing, and slipping silently back inside.
     Once, she waited just inside the entryway, crouched down where she couldn’t be seen through the two long, cut-glass windows on either side of the front door. She raised herself up so that she could just watch out one of the windows as he shut off the mower and walked across the yard to sit on the porch and drink the lemonade. Now there is a stranger on the porch, but as she walks quickly on bare feet towards the door, she realizes that there always was a stranger on the porch.
     She opens the door, interrupting another one of those persistent knocks, and finds herself looking up into the most ruggedly handsome face that the gods must have chiseled from the stones of Mt. Olympus itself and animated his electric blue eyes with its sacred fire. His charcoal-colored shirt, embroidered across both pockets with his name and the company logo, is curiously tight and loose in all the perfect places, loose and comfortable where it tucks into his dark blue pants held up by a simple black belt, tight and thin across his muscled chest and arms, biceps bulging beneath the fabric that looks as if it will burst if this blue collar Adonis even thought about flexing those amazing arms. Noticing her astonishment before she does, he flashes a dazzling smile while simultaneously placing his toolbox on the ground, wiping his right hand against the side of his pants before extending it to her, and brushing his slightly wavy, chestnut colored hair away from his forehead with the fingers of his left. “I’m Dave,” he says with a slight Southern drawl that makes the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up with excitement. She simply nods in response, knowing somewhere that she must appear stupid but finding herself unable to do anything about it. Finally, he loosens his grip on her hand, and this simple movement seems to bring her back into reality. “Hi, I’m Anna,” she replies quickly, while letting go of his hand, pulling away from his hand more than slightly embarrassed.
     “The leak is in here,” she says as she turns towards the kitchen, and he follows behind, but not before taking care to shut the front door behind him. When they are both standing in the center of her spotless kitchen with its lustrous countertops and gleaming white and slate-grey tile floor, she motions towards the sink and says, “It’s been like this for a couple of days. When I turn on the sink, water comes out.” With a slight chuckle, he replies in that cool, hypnotic voice, “Isn’t that kind of the point?” Becoming conscious of her crimson-flushed face, she laughs as well, but without the same ease. As Dave bends down to look at the pipes under the sink, Anna realizes with a slight shock that there is more than embarrassment burning her face red. There is also desire there, a desire not felt since...
     Well she used to sit and watch him work, when he’d let her. She always marveled that those powerful arms that could do anything were also able to hold her gently; the mouth spouting expletives like a fountain at whatever task he was working on would also plant tender kisses on her face and whisper sweetness in her ear. There were other times when...
     She comes back into reality to find herself sitting on the cool tile, staring at him, but more importantly, that he is staring back at her with a bemused, quizzical expression playing around the corners of his mouth and in his sparkling eyes. She stands up quickly, frantically searching for an explanation she could give him. “Would you like anything to drink?” she offers, while backing towards the fridge. “Thank you. Some OJ would be real nice, ma’am, if you have it,” he replies. She retrieves a glass from the cabinet and turns to get the orange juice from the fridge, shaking the carton before filling the glass almost to the rim. When she turns back around, Dave is standing behind her. Startled, she narrowly avoids spilling the juice all over him and the floor. He accepts with a smile the glass that she offers with a nervous laugh, draining half of its contents in a couple big gulps. “Thanks,” he says again, and as he reaches to put the glass on the countertop that Anna is standing against, his hand brushes hers, and she a shiver runs down her spine from that simple contact. She brushes her hand against his again, and this time he takes it in his own before bending down to kiss her.
     While she finds this act surprising, she is more surprised to find that she is thoroughly enjoying the feeling of this stranger wrapping his arms around her and pressing her up against the side of the fridge. She raises her arms as he lifts her blouse over her head before tossing it on the floor and beginning work on removing her skirt, only stopping long enough to allow her to slide his own shirt off of his muscled back. She feels his lips part slightly, and she tilts her head more to allow him to deepen the kiss, moaning gently as his skilled hands begin to touch in all the right places...
     Like His hands once did, back before they were divorced, before they were married, when he would visit her at the TasteeTreet. She was sixteen, he was seventeen, and nothing seemed to make more sense back then than to spend slow afternoons with him in the back, making out against the freezer. Then she was nineteen, he was twenty, and they would spend long winter nights making love in his dorm room. And then she was twenty-two and he was twenty-three, and they christened each room in the house they moved into the week after their honeymoon with sex that would make her blush when she would get random memories of that first night while at the grocery store. And then she was twenty-four, and he was twenty-five, and one night he came home late and she just knew that he had been giving someone else memories that would make someone else blush...
     A tear rolls down her cheek, and she begins to sob, startling Dave and causing him to take a step back from her. She brings her hands up to her face and mumbles, “We can’t do this.” Confused, he stops unbuckling his belt, moves her hands from her tear drenched face and cradles her chin in his own hand, reaching up with his thumb to wipe the fresh sadness from her left eye, while the right still flowed unimpeded. “Sure we can, baby,” he whispers softly in a reassuring tone that causes her to pause her crying for a moment as she looks up into his brilliant blue eyes. “Sure we can. I’ve got a condom in my wallet, you’ve got a gorgeous body, and I don’t have another appointment for an hour and a half.” This only serves to bring the tears back with redoubled strength, and before he can get away, she throws herself at him, pressing their two mostly naked bodies against each other. This act would ordinarily be a suggestion to invite a move to the next level of intimacy, but instead, she just wraps her arms around him and bawls into his bare chest. Panicked, he pats her head awkwardly with one hand while trying to unfasten her arms from their death grip on his body with the other. “Lady, you’re weirding me out!” he exclaims as he tries once more to struggle away from the breakdown-in-progress that seems now permanently attached to him. He suddenly stopped reading. “Wait just a damn minute! What the hell is this? what the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

Currently Listening 9 By Damien Rice 08 - Grey Room see related

This story was for my creative writing class. it's a fictional story, well,  most of it anyway. But like Chief said in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, "It's the truth, even if it didn't happen." What I mean is, it's just a story. Take it for what you will.

Snow was falling in the grassy field below my slightly open dorm room window. I was sitting on my bed, pushed up to the wall below the window, watching the wind catch the flakes and send them spiraling through the air in flurries. With a quick glance up and down the sidewalk fifteen feet blow my second floor window, I paused momentarily to wonder if anyone would see me as I lit the cigarette held lightly between my lips. I inhaled leisurely, taking in the smoke through my mouth, the soothing, crackling sound of burning cloves through my ears. Djarum Blacks. Since my first time smoking one of these sweet smelling clove cigarettes, I have had a hard time believing that anything so pleasant could ever kill someone. I exhaled slowly, but with enough force to send the cloud well past my window sill and into breezes that would take it far from me. Looking up into the darkness overhead, I took another drag from my cigarette, released the smoke from my lungs with a slight sigh. There are no stars here.
           One would think that after living here since August, I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not. For the first few weeks, I would throw open my window every night and stare futilely into the sky. Every night, brave burning balls of gaseous hope and light would pose a challenge to Springfield, sending armies of starshine to battle through the dull orange city glow. Even for the ones that won their way through, it was an empty victory. The survivors left lonely on the battlefield bled the last of their feeble life-light down to earth, the greedy city taking no notice of their valiant struggle. I over-romanticized like this for longer than is healthy. Then for a long time, I stupidly assumed the sky was just overcast. Now I keep my blinds closed.
           I used to believe that there was little to no difference in what you want to do and what you actually do. I used to believe that the only necessary thing is to follow your heart, that all other necessary things fall into place, that there is little to no difference in where your soul directs and where your less enlightened feet must actually trail. For the first time in my life, I’m seeing why people sometimes have a hard time seeing the beauty in everything around us. There’s so much in the way. It’s like star gazing in a city.
            I remember nights we spent outside, bodies stretched along the ground, side by side, all quiet and dark like a pair of shadows in the grass. You taught me about constellations; I taught you about living without fear. We would lie there, staring into the sky, past those tiny pinpoints of light into the place where time and space and everything coalesce into blackness, into the empty and the cold and the silence. You would get lost in the beauty of the night sky; I would get lost in the beauty of your form, the way the darkness melted softly into your skin, the way light gathered in your eyes. We talked about the future the way small children do, without a proper concept of time or distance. I wish we could have known back then how close it really was. I wonder if knowing would have changed anything. I wonder sometimes if it would have mattered.
            Voices from below startled me. A small group of chattering drunks stumbled past on their way home, laughing and rambling about nothing in loud, slurred voices. I thought about quickly extinguishing my cigarette, but changed my mind. Who would say anything anyway? As soon as I slipped back from alert mode, there was a knock on my door. “Who is it?” I asked, coughing a bit from the smoke still trapped in my lungs. After hearing a faint reply of “It’s me” from the hall outside my door, I asked again, somewhat louder, “Who is it?” This time, I was greeted with a more helpful reply. “The Queen of fucking England. Who do you think it is?” “God save the queen,” I hollered towards the still closed door. Half a second later and it was opened to let in a rather awkward looking guy with a small build and windblown, thin brown hair. He was wearing a navy blue pea coat and a brown and cream striped scarf neatly around his neck to complement his light brown pants. “He carries himself like a Yankee: quick step, sharply dressed, sexually ambiguous...” I thought, a smile of amusement playing around the corners of my mouth. He was about to speak when he noticed with a shock the burning cigarette in my hand. I took a long drag, looking him coolly in the eyes as I let the smoke pour out of my nose and slightly parted lips, flicking the ash from the end for good measure. “Jesus, what the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, sparkling eyes and crazy grin betraying the irritably surprised tone to his voice. I shrugged in response, returning his grin with one of my own, patted the bed beside me, inviting him to have a seat. He sat down and glanced out the window. I pointed the butt of the half-finished cigarette at him, an offer to have a draw. “I don’t smoke,” he replied quickly, throwing his hands up and leaning back before taking the offered cigarette and inhaling deep. We sat talking for a bit, until the sound of his stomach rumbling made him glare at it with disgust and contempt. “Holy God, I’m hungry. But I think the CX is closed,” he said sadly. “We could always walk to the gas station down the street,” I suggested. This prompted another one of his looks. “Are you kid--,” he stopped when he saw the serious look on my face, then explained with an exaggerated, exasperated sigh. “If we don’t freeze to death we’ll be mugged. How smart would it be to go skipping down to a gas station in the dark, by ourselves?” I shrugged again, inviting more social commentary from the boy on the bed next to me. “Well it’s not smart. Not safe either. This isn’t Eureka. You’re not in Arkansas.” He was right, of course. This isn’t Eureka. This isn’t home.
            The first time I went home was a strange experience. It was during fall break, a short break scheduled about a month before Thanksgiving. I wanted, more than anything, to see you. I called over and over; at first it was in hopes of getting to talk to you, to ask you if you were busy or if you had time to see me. Then I realized that the only reason I kept calling was to hear your voice on the out-message of your answering machine. You didn’t answer. You didn’t call back. I taught you how to regret; you taught me what it meant to miss you until your memory burned inside my chest like naphthalene in my lungs. But you didn’t answer. You didn’t call me back. I needed something familiar.
            They say that the only thing that stays the same is the fact that everything changes. Eureka Springs is testament to that old adage. The amazing thing about Eureka is its consistency. To an outsider, however, this place will appear to be anything but that. There's always so much going on, so many eccentric characters, so many things changing all the time at such an incredible pace for a town this size, snuggled comfortably into the arms of the quiet Ozark hills. Despite all this, it has the peculiar quality of always feeling like home. I went downtown to walk on streets my feet remembered, to see places my soul remembered.
           The downtown shopping area is the heart of Eureka Springs. The winding roads, the cracked sidewalks are its veins and arteries. While wandering along those familiar streets, it seemed that the town was poised on the brink of a coronary, yet again. People, all visitors, tourists, clogged the sidewalks and blocked the usually fluid motion of the town like they have done every year that I can ever remember, every year that I can't. It was strange to return and find that they still came. Even though I was no longer here to greet them, gripe at them, narrowly avoid smearing them across Pendergrass corner, they had come; I watched them mill around store windows before filing faithfully in like Sunday morning regulars in Bible Belt buckle churches. There's something odd about returning to a place like this. When you're here, you would give anything to not have to call this place "home". When you leave, you would do anything to get that feeling back again. I walked into a store on the corner, the name of which I have never remembered though I've spent a considerable amount of time and money inside. The lady at the counter. I smiled and waved because I remember her well, her musky hippie scent that clung to her clothes and long grey hair and left the air around her hefting the weight of its strange heaviness. She smiled and waved back, not because she remembered me too but because in small town shops like these you are not just selling the stock of your store, you are selling a feeling of inclusiveness and friendship, an atmosphere of amiability. I looked around the store again, only half interested.
           My mind wandered back to summers we would meander along the sidewalks, floating in and out of stores, never intending to buy anything we looked at. We came to this store so many times to look at all the neat handcrafted jewelry and hippie clothing. We came to this store because it was near the ice cream shop and was one of the only businesses that would let us walk around in their store with our waffle cones. Days when we were low on funds, we would put our money together and get one waffle cone with your favorite flavor, cotton candy. I hated cotton candy ice cream, but I never would have told you that. The days that we shared our cone, I often suggested staying in the store, sitting at a table away from the huge windows in the front. One time you asked me why, and I explained, blushing, that I was afraid people passing by would think we were together. Given the town’s reputation, this wasn’t an entirely unreasonable worry. This reasoning seemed to amuse you, however, as you stood up suddenly and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the table for two, right next to the window. When people would pass by, you would look into my eyes before licking the ice cream from your side of the cone. It was awkward, but hilarious. I have often wondered what to think about that now, now that I know you knew the entire time that I have always been crazy about you. Even though it doesn’t make a difference now. That was before, when you always answered my calls and I didn’t have to call your voicemail over and over just to hear your voice.
           It was a long time before either of us spoke again. The boy in the pea coat was staring out the window, following the random motion of the still-falling snowflakes with his eyes. I started watching again too, soon finding myself lost in the frost laced beauty of the night. It came as a complete shock that when I looked down, I noticed that a barely smoked cigarette hung limply from my hand, which was still mostly outside the window and partially frozen. I must have absentmindedly started another one while still lost in thought. I pulled my hand back through the window and put the cigarette to my lips before thinking better of it and threw it out the window to the sidewalk below. The bits of burning ash scattered from the tip as the wind dragged it across the pavement below looked, for a second, like the sparks that scatter from the burning fuse of a firework moments before it shoots into the heavens and bursts into flame. This seemed to break the boy’s trance and turn his attention back towards me, asking, “Are you okay?”
           I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know how to explain why I didn’t know how to answer. Words I didn’t say crept slowly back down into my throat where they gathered until I could hardly breathe. There aren’t words for the way I miss you. I remember porch swings and lemonade, honeydew melon and summer nights spent out of doors, swimming in piles of raked leaves and stories told beside a crackling fire, a second pair of footprints trailing carelessly along with my own, tracking through a sea of glittering powder snow. I didn’t know how to explain that looking at stars makes me hopeful; when I’m looking up into the night sky, I can feel you beside me, breathing the same rhythm, certain somehow that your heart is beating the same time.
           But when I look down, you’re gone.
           “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired is all,” I replied with a weak smile, and he nodded, unconvinced, before sliding off my bed to stand awkwardly picking at the fuzzy things electrostatically fused to his coat. I stood up too and walked the few steps to the door to give him a hug and wish him a good night before he headed off to his room down the hall. As soon as he left, I closed and locked the door before lying down on my back in my bed in the dark, staring out the window. Absently, I reached around for my phone.
           I knew the number I was dialing before my brain even had the chance to register that I was dialing you. I didn’t ever hit the Send button. Instead, I flipped my phone to close it with a loud snap before sitting it on the desk by my bed, and pressed my hands over my eyes and forehead until streams of color and light cascaded behind my eyelids. When I opened my eyes again, after what felt like hours, I noticed the snow was still falling and the window was still open. Out of boredom rather than need or real desire, I sidled up close to the window again and lit another cigarette. The ground was now covered almost completely with a thin layer of snow. Icicles hung from every available space, looking as comfortable to be wherever they were as if they had grown there like stalactites over years and years. The bent trees looked like tired old people encased in solid ice. The night was simply stunning in ways I didn’t notice before. I wanted you beside me, to see this. I wonder, if you could be here now, would you? I wonder so many things. Chancing a glance at the sky, I noticed that it would be far too cloudy to see anything tonight. There’s not enough stars here. There’s not enough you here.