ONE.
Lightening boomed overhead as the bathroom light flickered. Will hardly noticed. Instead, he looked up from the bathroom sink, catching his haggard reflection in the mirror. Sleep didn't come easily in his new apartment, but he reckoned after a couple of weeks or so it would catch up to him.
A noise from out in the hall caught his attention. A tick-tick-tick he barely heard over the faucet running. Will cocked his head, listening for it again. When he didn't hear it for some time, he sighed and mumbled to himself that he was working too hard. But after Will turned the tap off, the tapping started up, and he knew it wasn't his imagination.
He leaned out of the bathroom with his toothbrush wedged between his back molars and looked around curiously. "Hello?" Only, Will had a mouth full of foamy toothpaste, so it came out, "Hewow?" He sounded a little like Elmer Fudd, but then the tapping came again, and Will tracked the sound to the window out in the hallway. There, shivering and wet from the storm, was a woman crouched on his fire escape.
When they finally locked eyes, she waved and offered him a pathetic smile. Will returned her wave with a lackluster one of his own. Then he reached up and pulled the toothbrush from his mouth, not bothering to wipe the small spat of paste from his chin. Who the hell was this woman and why was she out on the fire escape in this dogged weather?
Instead of an answer, Will smoothed out his shirt, dimly aware that it was half-buttoned, disheveled, and pulled free from his slacks. He'd just come in from work and looked a mess. Had another ten minutes passed, he would have been naked, and wouldn't that just be a great story to tell in the office come Monday?
She gestured to the window latch and then put her hands together in a plea. Please let me in.
The rain was coming down in buckets, and Will thought she looked cold and a little afraid, not the sort of woman who'd gut him and steal his wallet. Still, he hesitated. He wasn't exactly the best judge of character. Besides, she could have a knife, pepper spray, or a gun.
"Probably not," he told himself. "She looks like a discount Abercrombie & Fitch model. I doubt she has anything on her more lethal than lip gloss."
Still, Will hesitated. He came right up to the window, studying her wet locks of hair, trembling lips, and pleading expression. At last, he swallowed and reached for the latch to unlock it. Before opening the window, Will whispered a prayer under his breath, "Please don't let this woman be crazy."
She spilled in through the open window and stripped off her stone jean coat and Chelsea boots immediately. "Thank God," she said damply. "Stupid fucking storm." It came out in an angry wretch as if her clumpy dark hair and drowned rat look were somehow the storm's fault. Then she turned on him, wiping rainwater out of her eyes.
"You're not a creep, are you?"
Will's brow creased at her words before a weird defensiveness took hold of his tongue. "No. Why would I be the weird one?"
"You're letting a total stranger in your place. Also, you have toothpaste, right-" She finished by tapping her chin on the left side.
Will frowned and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm letting you in out of the rain. As far as I know, you could be some crazy lady."
He tried not to stare at her wet shirt clinging to her body. Instead, he fetched her a towel while she explained that she wasn't crazy. He sat her down at his kitchen table and fed her soup where she thanked him and said to call her Charlotte. A fake name if Will had ever heard one, but decided not to press that issue.
Will wondered what she was doing here. The apartment was little more than mortar, brick, wood, and wires cobbled together to somehow resemble a building. Was she squatting, and if so, why? Why would anyone want to be here of all places?
Those questions paddled around in his mind while he watched her slurp from a bowl. He thought she might be a junkie, then brushed the idea away. She was too buxom to be a junkie. Hips, ass, and thighs too full, and eyes too alive. He couldn't make out any marks on her wrist or arms. No tattoos or scars either, say for a small spider tattoo behind her right ear. As far as he could tell, she was just some woman named Charlotte who was asking if he had any more cans of chicken noodle soup.
After her second bowl, she'd finally stopped shivering. Will offered her a hot shower while he put her clothes in the dryer. Then, ignoring the alarm bells and sirens wailing in his head, Will offered her his couch.
"You can crash here for the night, but *tonight only*." He warned her. "Tomorrow, you're out on your own."
TWO.
Four weeks later, Charlotte burst into his apartment with two bags, one with some groceries, and one with some clothes she'd picked up at Target. "Hungry?" She asked, as she strode past him on the couch and went straight for the kitchen. "I picked up some burgers with pepperjack in them for us."
Though that sounded delicious, he was surprised to see her. Once a week she disappeared for an entire day, then returned with money, food, and new clothes. He asked her about it, but she'd dance around the answer which only annoyed him.
"You're not supposed to be here." But here she stayed, cooking, reading, and fucking him when the mood struck her, which was often. And, while Will wasn't too happy about his new roommate, the sex was good enough and frequent enough to not push the issue.
When they weren't fucking, they talked about - well, anything and everything. They both liked horror movies, which was no surprise, and they both loved coffee. She was pleasant enough, but Will wished he knew more. He hadn't learned anything new about her in the time they'd been living together, and he ached to know who she was when she wasn't with him.
On her second week with Will, she'd bought him a coffee mug that simply read, "Don't talk to me before my coffee." He'd laughed at it, and proclaimed that this would be his work mug, and that had them both laughing.
Will didn't want to admit it, but he liked having Charlotte around. Loneliness had snuck up on him as he approached his late thirties, and Charlotte's company had eased that feeling.
Then, she'd woken him up with a finger grazing his chest. Will remembered a musky scent filling the room. He remembered Charlotte being next to him in his bed. In the dim light of the bedroom, he saw that she was wearing a loose band shirt and nothing else. He remember how pleased her carmine lips had looked as a question formed on his.
