![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lanalucyMany fervent thanks to
newnumbertwo and laura_mayfair for their beta and friendship.They were doing it again.
The curtains were open wider this time, and he had to wonder if she left them that way on purpose. How could she not know this stretch of apartments had a perfect view? Of course even if she did, she couldn’t know that one of the neighbors had a telescope.
He loved watching, especially when the man had to coax her out of a bad mood. She played at being cranky to make the man work for it, and it was fun to watch the expressions on her face, knowing that her partner couldn’t see them.
Today, she’d been leaning against the table, beer in hand, just staring out at the sky and drinking, a deep frown settled on her face. He’d watched her drink four beers in rapid succession before her partner got home. He’d walked to her side and tried kissing her, and she’d jerked her head away, pushing at him with her elbows. He’d kept at it, clearly knowing she just needed convincing.
There it was. The corner of her mouth quirked up as he kissed the side of her neck, and she pushed him away again, less forcefully this time. He changed tactics, stepping in front of her to undo her buttons, it looked like, because her partner sank down where he couldn’t see him anymore, and her shirt hung open, her bra unhooked in the middle with the cups still covering her breasts.
She tilted the bottle up and drained it, then maybe knocked it softly on his head. He got up and was back seconds later with a new bottle, and was out of view again immediately. She was staring out the window again, her gaze lower now, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think she was watching him, too. But he knew she couldn’t see him; his lights were off, and his blinds were at just the right angle.
She took a swig, rolled the bottle over her forehead and looked down, not quite smiling at her partner. She shimmied a little, then her waist and hips were naked as far as he could tell. She took another drink, mouthing the longneck obscenely. Her partner stood and pushed the edges of her shirt off her shoulders, slowly, without her cooperation. Her bra miraculously stayed in place.
All he could see of him was the back of his head. Her partner knelt to kiss her belly, and he watched her face relax out of the frown, not into a smile, but still and almost peaceful. As her partner continued, she drank less frequently, and a light flush washed up into her chest, arousal hardening her nipples. She put the bottle between her breasts, sliding it up and down, the condensation on the bottle lubricating her skin, leaving dots of moisture behind.
Her eyes fell closed and she bit her lip, the hand holding the bottle falling slowly to her side. He watched her fingers flex on the neck of the bottle, watched her chest rise and fall faster, watched her face light up as she approached climax.
But something was different tonight. Even as her body was clearly in the throes of orgasm, a shadow fell over her face, and when she glanced down at her partner, her face was unbearably sad. He wondered what had happened, guessed that he’d be seeing less of the man in the coming days.
He felt like he knew her, wanted to knock on her door and ask if there was anything he could do to help, but suppressed the desire as foolish. “Hi, I’ve been watching you frak your boyfriend for months” was a terrible way to meet the neighbor.
~*~*~*~*~*~
This time when he got home, she was already there, stripped down to panties, her head and one shoulder leaned against the window, face up to the darkening sky. Her left arm was trapped between her hip and the windowsill, the side of her breast pressed flat against the pane. As he watched, she put her right hand up to the window, just barely touching it with her fingertips, then let it slide slowly down to rest on the sill. She closed her eyes tight, a tear tracing down her cheek. He ached with the need to comfort her.
She straightened suddenly, the bottle now in her right hand, and she looked as if she were going to throw it through the window. Her head snapped around and she disappeared from view.
She was back, further away from the window, and a man was there. Not her boyfriend. Much taller. She paced and yelled and walked up to him and pounded her fists into his chest, then grabbed his shirt and tried to kiss him. The man pushed her gently away, kissed her forehead, and wrapped her in his arms, rocking her while her naked shoulders shook.
He felt a desperate desire to take care of her, and knew it for the ridiculous notion it was - he didn’t even know her name, and now was not the time to find a way to introduce himself to her. He was happy that she had a friend who cared enough to refuse her advances, and wondered why he never saw her with women friends. Even before now, she’d always seemed vaguely lonely under her smiling exterior.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The next time he saw her, it wasn’t in her apartment. He was at the cemetery visiting his brother, and he caught a flash of her face, then later, at the graveside, holding the hand of an older man. He didn’t recognize either the man she was with or the man in the picture. Most of the crowd, including his mystery woman, were in Colonial Fleet uniforms. He watched from afar as she jerked each time the shots fired.
Later, as he watched through her open blinds, she was hollow-eyed, crying quietly, her body barely moving. He wondered who the man had been to her. He had to stop watching for a while, he was so undone by the grief in her face. He’d been raw like that, just after his brother had been killed. He wanted so much to offer her comfort, but knew that nothing he could say or do would make her feel any better.
For the next few days, she didn’t leave the apartment. She wore the same clothes, ate little that he could see, drank endless bottles of beer or ambrosia. She became gaunt, and she’d been sparely built to begin with.
On the day he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn’t find a pretext on which to visit her after all, he saw a hand on her shoulder. At first, she relaxed into the body of the person behind her, sheer joy washing over her face, followed almost immediately by the blank, haunted expression that had become normal since the funeral. The arms wrapped around her from behind, and she hung onto them until her fingers were white, even as she turned her head aside and sobbed.
Eventually, she turned in the arms and plastered herself against the man. Yes, it was a man, he could see that now. She kissed him frantically, and though he resisted at first, he gave in, his thumbs tracing the tears under her eyes, his motions careful and controlled. His hands wandered her body reverently, and soon enough, they disappeared from view. He caught a flash of her later, in nothing but panties, going from the kitchen back in the direction of what was probably the bedroom.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Weeks passed in which he didn’t see her at all. No lights. No activity. Then the blinds were thrown open one day, figures busily painting the walls of an empty apartment. His lonely, sad mystery woman was gone.
He never saw her again. He wondered about her frequently - how she was doing, if she was safe, whether she’d found someone to make her happy. Two years later, he stopped wondering.
