I pushed through the front door of my building with a little more gusto than was needed, cringing as I heard the door slam in the frame behind me. Shyly grinning in response to the inquisitive glances of neighbors I passed, I strode across the weathered carpet to the stairwell, again applying more force than the light door required and wincing as the impact of the recoil behind me boomed and echoed through the open six-story column. I began climbing toward my fifth-floor apartment, steadying myself with a tight grip on the handrail as gravity and my brunch mimosas conspired to keep me from my home.
It was a warm late summer day, and some friends and I had enjoyed the morning with the cliched city-girl tradition of brunch. A few hours and a few bottomless pitchers of mimosas later, my strappy brown heels and I were fighting a pitched battle against my early-afternoon buzz and the accompanying inclination to nap. I tugged up the lip of my light blue off-the-shoulder peasant top which had begun to ski down the slope of my ample breasts. It was just a few more flights of stairs (I rarely trusted my building's rickety elevator) and then I could collapse on my couch in my undies for a nap.
Finally, I reached the door to my floor. Careful not to overuse my booze-strength in opening it, I slipped stealthily into the long hallway that ended at my apartment. Slightly out of breath from my battle against the elements, the elevator chimed behind me, as though mocking my struggle. I turned as the doors opened and Mr. Abbott, my retired neighbor from down the hall, stepped out.
Mr. Abbott squinted toward me through the column of glowing sunbeams twirling below the skylight, then began shuffling in my direction. His right arm hung in a sling, his wrist in a soft cast. With his free hand, he struggled to push a rickety grocery cart. Recognizing me, he smiled warmly at my bare shoulders.
"Mr. Abbott, can I help you with that?" I was already walking towards him with my arms extended.
"Why thank you, S-... Sarah. That's very kind." As we walked the thirty feet to his door, Mr. Abbott gave me a thorough description of the wrist procedure he had undergone, as well as a summary of the four years of discomfort he had endured prior. "I'll take it from here." He said as he unlocked the door, but the cart refused to budge, its wheels stuck against the wooden threshold. I offered to help him put away his groceries, and we entered the apartment.
"You're young, so you don't know..." he launched into a lifetime's worth of relationship knowledge, centering on his divorce twenty years prior, while I tucked cans of tomato sauce and vegetables into the cabinets. Stretching on my tip-toes to push a box of rice to a top shelf, I sensed my jean-skirt hike up dangerously high on my hamstrings, almost to my glutes, though if Mr. Abbott noticed, it didn't slow his sermon. He followed me with his advice as I moved to the bathroom closet to put away antacids and Tylenol. His lecture continued while I moved back to the kitchen after discovering a jar of spices at the bottom of the last bag.
Balling the plastic grocery bags together, I tucked them into a drawer and looked around the apartment.
"Is there anything else I can help you with?" I looked at the vast collection of plants next to the apartment's wall of exterior windows. "If you like, I can water your plants." He stared at me intently, long enough that it began to make me uncomfortable, before he stated the watering can was beneath the kitchen sink.
While I filled the pitcher at the sink, I heard him shamble from the living room to his bedroom. I watered the first section of plants, went back to the kitchen, and dosed the next row of houseplants and he still hadn't returned. As I was carrying the heavy can across the apartment a third time, he reemerged, instructing me to be mindful not to overwater his dragon tree. Sensing my buzz fading and nearing my fill of old-man for the afternoon, I turned to inform him that I knew only to moisten the soil for Dracaenas, to see that he had changed clothes into pajama bottoms under his button-down shirt.
I bent at the waist as I tended to a last low shelf of ferns and ivy, glancing over to seemingly catch Mr. Abbott staring down the drooping front of my shirt. Finished with his plants, I returned the can to the kitchen and started toward the door when he called me over.
"Sarah, would you please be a dear and make me a cup of tea? Fix one for yourself, too." Mr. Abbott sat heavily on the couch, grimacing and grasping at his injured arm. My sympathy returned, and I felt ashamed of my irritation, remembering that he was a man in pain and needed my aid. I smiled obligingly and walked to the kitchen, filling the kettle and placing it on the burner, then digging through cabinets until I located tea bags and mugs. I returned to the living room and helped Mr. Abbott remove his sling, leaning over him, my breasts grazed against his shoulder as I lifted the strap over his head. Folding the sling over the arm of the couch, I hurried back to the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle.
"Here your go." I said in an artificially sweet voice as I bent over to place his mug on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him. He smiled gratefully, blowing across the rim as he looked at me through the rising steam. I'd picked the chair closest to the door across the table from him; politely sipping my tea, but my mind on my nap.
We sat in awkward silence for a time, interrupted only by slurps of tea. As we sat, I noticed the prominent tent that had sprung in Mr. Abbott's pants. I tried to look away, instead focusing on the display of photographs littering the far wall. After a few minutes, he acknowledged my awareness of his condition.
"I... this is sort of embarrassing." His gaze shifted from my eyes to my breasts. "I take Tadalafil - you know, uh, Cialis - for hypertension." I nodded absently. "Sometimes there's this, uh... side effect."
"Well, that's..." I started, without knowing how to finish my statement and decided to abandon the thought altogether. "I should probably get going." I stood and bent over to pick up my mug. He grimaced, almost doubled-over in discomfort. "What's wrong? Are you all right, Mr. Abbott?"
He looked at me with a troubled expression on his face. "It's those pills and..." He looked from me to the floor in apparent embarrassment.
"And... and what?"
