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One Night StandHumorous short guy. Black man. Computer operator at a bank. Forget his name. Something with a Y on the end. Keep thinking Pilly but that's not it. He took me home with him, in my car, to a once elegant building with etched glass entrance doors, faded floral carpeting in the lobby, up sagging stairs. Raised us up into a dense musty odor hanging in a warm cloud at just the step corresponding to ceiling level. Cooler up above up into a darker region. A few more stairs, a narrow hall, he opened his apartment door. Head down a reluctance in his step, leading the way into a tiny room overwhelmed with enormous furniture left-over from a past marriage. His wife got the kids, but he got the orange crushed velvet sofa and two matching chairs. A rumpled sheet and blanket on a tiny cot shoved against one wall. I GOT MORE STUFF, he says, BUT IT'S IN STORAGE. WON'T FIT IN HERE. I had a stunned look on my face, for next he asked, WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? I just shrugged. What did I care what kind of furniture he had? Entered further into the room. Sat down on the long stiff couch. Now I could see that the entire wall of rectangular mirror panels folded open and closed over closet space. I checked my lipstick. He listened at the door. Nervous. Asking, DID YOU EVER HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE WHO LIVED IN THE SAME BUILDING YOU DID? THAT'S A MISTAKE. Describes a one night stand with a woman in an apartment below. How everyday afterward, she listened for his arrival, and the second he got home from work she would come up and knock on his door. When he tried to get rid of her, she cried and told everyone in the building he'd made her pregnant. Sometimes he'd catch her listening at his door early in the morning or late at night. When his mother came to visit, the woman from down below came up and talked to her. Told his mother she was pregnant with his child, though they'd only had sex once and he'd used a condom.
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© Marie A. Kazalia