THE GHOST OF ROOM 4B

“Ohh, Daddy, don't stop. Hmm, yeah. Stretch me well, I am your whore.” A voice moaned from the room above, followed by the creaking of a luxurious bed.

"Say that again," I said into the phone, pressing my palm flat against the ceiling, wishing I could physically hold it still. "Because I don't think I heard you over the sound of my upstairs neighbour losing his entire mind. That annoying jerk is at it again."

"Ann, it's two in the morning," Jess mumbled. "Everyone's losing their mind at two in the morning. Some of us are just doing it horizontally."

"This isn't cute. This is a structural issue." The headboard — it had to be a headboard — cracked against the floor above me in a rhythm that was somehow both relentless and smug. A woman's voice rose under it, breathless and theatrical. "I have a job interview in six hours. It is impossible to relax or even watch a movie."

"You have a job interview you're not going to get."

"Thank you, Jess, that's very supportive."

"I'm being realistic so you don't have to be devastated twice." A pause. Ice clinking in a glass on her end. She was three time zones calmer than me, and it showed. "Just bang on the ceiling. Broom handle. Works every time."

"I don't own a broom. I own a bank account with forty-one dollars in it and a landlord who thinks smoke detectors are optional."

"Then go bang on his door."

"In my pajamas."

"Ann. It's a nightgown covered in cartoon avocados. Nobody's going to propose."

"That's not the point."

"What's the point?"

"The point is I have dignity."

"You called me at two a.m. to complain about a stranger's sex life. Your dignity left the building an hour ago." Jess yawned, unbothered, like this was a rerun of a conversation we'd already had a dozen times, which — fine — it kind of was. "Just go tell him to keep it down. You're allowed to be annoyed. You're not allowed to lie there stewing about it until sunrise."

“Oh, God! Fuccck me harder and faster. I am going to cum, Papi. Yes, destroy me. Finish me. Yes, yes, don't stop. Please, fuck me.” The moan overhead climbed an octave, absurd, and cinematic. It was the kind of noise that belonged in a bad movie and not in a hundred-year-old building with paper for walls. Something, probably a bottle, a lamp, or my last nerve tipped, and rolled across his floor directly above my head.

"I'm going up there. I've had enough, babe," I said.

"Ann—"

"I applied to eleven jobs this week, Jess. Eleven. I sat in the library for six hours today because my own apartment smells like burnt toast and desperation, and I came home to finally sleep, and this — this absolute audiobook of a sex scene — is happening directly above my head." I was already sliding my feet into slippers, already yanking my cardigan off the doorknob. "I didn't move to this building for ambience. I moved here because it was cheap."

"It's cheap because of soundproofing like this."

"I'm aware."

"Please don't get arrested."

"I'm going to knock on a door, not commit a felony."

"Text me if you get murdered."

"You'll be the first to know," I said, and hung up before she could talk me down, because if I stood still for one more second and listened to one more breathy, unnecessary sound effect, I was going to combust.

The stairwell light buzzed and flickered like it, too, resented being awake. I took the steps two at a time, cardigan flapping, avocados marching across my chest in solidarity, my socked feet slapping concrete that had definitely never been mopped in this decade. By the time I hit the fourth floor, I wasn't nervous. I wasn't embarrassed about the pajamas. I was furious in the specific, focused way that only comes from exhaustion plus poverty plus the distinct sound of someone else's headboard punishing drywall.

Room 4B. The door was ordinary. Scuffed white paint, a peephole, a number plate with the four hanging slightly crooked, like even the apartment couldn't be bothered to commit to symmetry.

I could still hear it through the door. Muffled now, but there was low laughter, or maybe just a groan, a shift of weight, that reckless human noise of somebody having an incredible time while I stood in the hallway rehearsing what I was going to say.

I raised my fist as I thought of banging the door until his ears hurt.

I thought about my interview. About the forty-one dollars left in my account. About six hours in a library chair that had personally offended my spine. About every night this week I'd fallen asleep to the sound of somebody else's happiness through eight inches of drywall while my own life sat outside my door with the lights off, waiting for me to be brave enough to open it.

Whoever was on the other side of Room 4B was about to learn my name whether he wanted to or not. I knocked softly at first, then I didn't wait. I pounded, flat-palmed, three sharp cracks that echoed down the empty hall like a verdict.

The noise inside stopped dead. I heard footsteps. Unhurried. Almost amused, if footsteps could be amused. I contemplated running away or acting drunk to avoid confronting him and getting lost in his blue eyes, but it was too late. The lock turned.