(For those of you who have read Chapters 1&2, thanks so much for all the feedback. If you have read the first two chapters, you might notice the action here actually takes place before the action in Chapter 2. It's just how the ideas came to me. Thanks!)
*
I climbed the subway stairs, nervously jumping two at a time. A herd of teenagers with skateboards barreled down, and I barely avoided getting knocked on my ass. As I reached the top of the stairs, feeling a cold blast of wind whipping down the street, I wondered what I had gotten myself into.
I had placed an unusual amount of trust in a woman I barely knew, handing her a spare set of keys to my apartment after she had spent exactly one evening there. Granted, it was a very eventful evening. Carmen picked me up in a cab after night court the week before, and after she got into a fight with her ex over the phone, I invited her up to my apartment to settle down. One thing led to another, which led to a night of the most spectacular sex of my life. Afterward, Carmen told me she needed to make some extra cash, and suggested she could come around to my place a couple of times a week and clean it up, make it more hospitable.
I don't know whether it was the haze from the great sex, the exhaustion from the great sex, or the desperation at the thought she might not return, but I agreed. I gave her a copy of my keys the next morning, even though she said she wouldn't be able to come back for a week, because of her grad school duties. Now, as the week had passed, I was nervously walking up the block, thinking I would be pleasantly surprised if there were still furniture in my apartment.
I stopped in the store on the corner of the block, and bought a bottle of water. Despite the bracing wind, I stood outside on the corner and slowly drank the entire sixteen ounces of water. I watched a few mothers cajoling their bundled up children to keep up as they walked up the block. I was afraid to go home and find Carmen had cleaned out my apartment. I was even more afraid to go home and find she simply hadn't come.
I tossed the empty bottle into the trash can on the corner and turned to face the music. I was halfway up the block when I saw the silver Lincoln town car with the taxi license plate, parked ten feet away from my building. My stomach twisted as I approached the car, but I recognized the Cuban and American flag decals pasted to the passenger window. I looked into the interior of the car, and caught my smiling reflection.
I spun around and nearly toppled a woman walking behind me.
"Sorry!" I yelped, grabbing the woman's arm. "I didn't see you . . . oh, hi, Hannah."
I recognized my downstairs neighbor, Hannah Morton, as she steadied herself for a moment before rising to her full six-foot height.
"Hello, Manuel," she said curtly as she tugged on her red overcoat. "you should be more careful where you are walking."
"I know," I offered meekly. "I was lost in thought."
We both turned and walked of the front of the building. Climbing the cement steps, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys. I pushed the door open and held it for Hannah, being as gallant as I possibly could. As she passed, I noticed she smelled like lavender.
"I never get lost in thought on the street," Hannah said over the clacking of her chunky heels on the linoleum tile. "You never know who might be out there."
I followed her to the mailboxes and slipped by as she opened her box. I frowned for a moment when I saw my empty box.
"No mail today?" Hannah asked.
"Guess not," I chuckled, smiling and wondering where Carmen had put the mail.
"You're better off," Hannah sighed as she grabbed the handrail and started up the stairs. "If it isn't a bill, its another offer from a credit company inviting me to go deeper in debt."
"No letters from the family?"
"They mostly email and call at this point."
Hannah's coat was mid-length, stopping just above the knee, and cream colored slacks stretched down, barely avoiding sweeping the floor.
"How were the kids today?" I asked as we reached the third floor landing. On the odd occasions we ran into each other in the building, Hannah and I mostly talked about our jobs. She taught English to seventh and eighth graders at a school for gifted children.
"You know how it is, one minute they're angels, the next they're monsters." she chuckled as she took off her beret, letting a mass of strawberry blond curls spill down around her shoulders.
"They sound a lot like my clients."
"Yes, but I have more angelic days," she laughed as she opened her door. "Have a good night, Manuel."
"Same to you," I answered.
Turning around, I finished the climb to the fourth floor. Standing ten feet away from my door, I swallowed hard, wondering what I might find inside.
"Only one way to find out," I whispered, sticking my key in the deadbolt lock and turning it.
Momentarily satisfied when I heard the click of the lock, I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Carmen was on her knees, facing away from me, rummaging through a cabinet underneath the kitchen sink. Her round, full ass was attractively wrapped in mid-length denim skirt, and tight blond curls tumbled around her shoulders, over a white tee shirt. It sounded like she was muttering.
"What are you looking for?" I half shouted.
"Where's the furniture polish?" she asked in her husky, lightly accented voice, not even turning around.
"Furniture polish?" I stared in the air as I set my briefcase on the floor. "I don't think I've ever owned furniture polish."
"Of course not," she huffed. Pushing herself off the floor, she grabbed a pen off the kitchen counter and scribbled on a piece of lined paper. "Your shopping list is already fifteen items long, and I've only been here an hour." She turned around and walked past me toward the living room.
"Hi, nice to see you too."
As I looked in the living room, I was struck by how orderly everything looked. Granted, I had picked some stuff up in anticipation of her coming, but it looked so different. No clothes lying around, newspapers in a pile next to the couch, and mail in a couple of neat stacks on the dining table. The dish drain was full of plates and glasses still dripping water. All in all, it looked perfectly normal.
"You've been busy," I smirked.
"You're a pig," she snorted in response. "I haven't even started with the bathroom yet. It might take two days by itself."
She walked over to the front door and picked up my briefcase.
"I cleared a pace over here, by the bookcase. You can set it there when you come-"
Her next words were lost, smothered by my mouth crushing hers. I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against me, grinding my groin into hers. Her tongue darted into my mouth as I pushed her back against the refrigerator. Grabbing a fistful of hair in her hand, Carmen yanked my head back hard.
