I discovered one of the apartment's best features after living there less than a month. I had just moved out of a place I was sharing with three other people (that's another story) and was rather enjoying living on my own. It was a little lonely, but even this was a relief after the constant emotional turmoil of my previous situation.
One night, very late, I was reading a book. Sitting right next to an open window because it was a typical steaming Chicago summer night. I happened to catch a flash of light out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked up, I nearly fell off my chair.
The apartment building was U-shaped and my window overlooked the courtyard, across which was the other half of the building. In the apartment directly across from mine, one floor down, I saw a beautiful black woman emerge from her bathroom completely naked, toweling herself off.
My jaw nearly dropped to my knees. The woman was gorgeous, with Amazonian proportions. Tall, broad-shouldered, with fantastic heavy breasts and a great big heart-shaped ass. I'm not typically what you'd call an ass man, but with this girl it was hard not to notice. She had short hair and very dark skin, looked to be about my age (23 then.) I sank back into the shadows of my apartment and watched.
I've never been a lurk-in-the-bushes Peeping Tom type, but I'm not one to ignore a free show, either. I watched the woman for several minutes as she walked around her apartment un-self-consciously, obviously trying to cool off by air-drying. Finally, she crawled into bed, still naked, and turned off the lights, ending that night's performance.
Needless to say, I kept an eye on her windows. Every few nights I would be rewarded. Even when she didn't walk around her place completely nude, she didn't wear much. In the heat, she never bothered to close her blinds either. I became moderately obsessed, and a check of the mailboxes downstairs revealed that her name was Erica Tate.
Also through my observations, I learned that Erica would sometimes have overnight company. Two different guys, who would each come over about once a week. I never watched them get it on because a) I would feel like a total pervert and b) I don't think I could have handled the jealousy of knowing someone else was sharing a bed with my beautiful Erica.
At this time, I was working the graveyard shift at a all-night print shop in Evanston, hence the late nights. I slept during the day, but had a hard time of it with the bright sunlight and the constant city street noise. Of course, hot as it was, I couldn't shut the windows, so I just had to endure the less-than-perfect sleeping conditions.
One day I was awoken at around noon by a car alarm in the alley right behind my bedroom window. I crawled out of bed, grumbling and cursing, totally naked, and stumbled out to the kitchen for a glass of water. On the way back to my bed, I passed through the living room, and happened to glance up to see . . . Erica watching me curiously from across the way.
I was too groggy to be embarrassed at my own nudity. Erica saw that I had seen her. She wasn't embarrassed, either. In fact, she actually waved at me. Sheepishly, I waved back, then shuffled back into the bedroom, scratching my skinny white ass.
A couple days later, I was down getting my mail when Erica approached me. She was wearing a tight-fitting white top and black shorts.
"Hey, you live right across from me, right?" she asked.
I answered cautiously, afraid that she was going to complain about either my peeping or my walking the place naked in broad daylight. "Uh, yeah."
"My name's Erica," she smiled.
"Hi, I'm Christian," I said, my heart beating a little fast.
"Yeah, I know, I read it on your mailbox," she said. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you something."
Oh boy, I thought, here it comes. I was sure she was going to ask me if I wanted one of her boyfriends to come over and stomp the shit out of me. But instead, she asked: "You smoke reefer?"
I grinned in relief. As it happened, I had just bought an ounce of some pretty good stuff from a Jamaican guy who worked with me at the print shop. I told this to Erica. She said that she had run out and her usual supplier was out of town, and then she asked me if she could buy a little bit off me.
"Sure," I said. Hardly believing my luck, I led Erica up to my apartment.
I poured a good quarter of my ounce into a separate baggy and told Erica she could have it for nothing. She insisted, though, that she had not come up looking for free weed and tried to pay me twenty bucks. Finally, we compromised at ten, what I called a "friendly neighbor" price. The deal struck, Erica asked if we could smoke a joint.
Of course, I did not hesitate. The pot relaxed both of us and we were soon talking and laughing like we'd known each other for a long time. Erica had a talent for doing spot-perfect impressions of other people who lived in the building, and she got me laughing hard doing her versions of Mr. Yamaki, the old Japanese guy who walked his little terrier at odd hours, or Mrs. Washington, who lived underneath Erica and always complained about the noise. By the time she got around to Bob the handyman, who always flashed the crack of his ass whenever he bent over to fix something, I had tears running down my face.
We were sitting pretty close on my couch, despite the heat, and I was getting pretty aroused by the proximity of such an attractive girl. I don't know if Erica was turned on, too, but I can say that her nipples were hard. In fact, they were like little bullets poking through her shirt. This made it very difficult to look her in the eye.
She caught me looking and followed my gaze.
"Will you look at that?" she said. "Tittie hard-on again. I swear, I could wear a padded bra, a wool sweater and a jacket and those things would still poke through. Raphael says I got nipples of steel."
"Oh, I hadn't noticed," I said.
"Bullshit," Erica laughed hard at that one. She leaned even closer. On impulse, I kissed her.
She was a little surprised at first, and I was afraid I'd made a terrible mistake, but then she started kissing me back. I loved the way her full lips moved against mine.
"Damn," she said when we pulled apart. "You're a bold one."
I shrugged, tingling all over. The first time you kiss anyone is always mind blowing.
"You ever kiss a black girl before?" she asked.
"No," I said. "You ever kiss a white boy?"
