(copyright held by the author, February 2003)

The only reason I'd hesitated at taking the apartment - on a beautiful block in east Midtown Manhattan, walking distance to my office, and below-market rent - was that it was not on the top floor, because, after all, one man's ceiling is another man's floor. In the end, I was seduced by the wood-burning fireplace, set in a beautiful, gray marble mantel. I decided I'd take a chance.

I have been fortunate with most of the tenants who rented the apartment above mine. With only two exceptions, they have been very quiet and considerate. And only one was really noisy and inconsiderate, but after I explained to him how cranky I get when I am excessively disturbed, he decided he'd rather live elsewhere than abandon playing Really Bad Disco loud enough to drown out jet engines or the screams of a man who has just had his liver ripped out and displayed to him.

But in six years, much to my disappointment, the only young (i.e., younger than me) women who'd lived in the building were invariably living with someone of the male persuasion. Not that I was neglected, mind you; I had a couple of close friends - and one in particular - of long standing, not to mention strong survival instincts (necessary in this age of killer STDs). If only for aesthetic reasons and the pleasures of the occasional harmless flirtation, however, I really wanted to know why, in the heart of a city that may have more beautiful, available women per square yard than any other in the world, none of them were in my building.

Then Chloe moved in.

Someone was walking around in the vacant apartment upstairs. That was what had awakened me. Over the course of showering, feeding the cat, drinking coffee and checking the news online, I heard heavy footfalls up and down the stairs and occasional muttered grunts of effort. It was a May Friday, around nine in the morning, and glorious sunshine beamed down. As I reached the vestibule doors - both wedged open with books (a good sign) - two large and very good-looking young men were just entering, lugging a steamer trunk.

"Good morning," I said, and stepped back and out of their way. "Just moving in, eh?"

"Not us," replied one, a blond.

"No, just helping a friend who has the heaviest collection of junk on the planet," added the other, a crewcut redhead. Between the two of them, they looked like an ad for the Aryan Nation.

Outside, in a Stanza - with Kansas plates, for crying out loud - was presumably the friend who had the heaviest collection of junk on the planet. At the moment, said friend was kneeling doubled over on the backseat, rummaging among miscellaneous shopping bags and, not incidentally, flexing, through a pair of pale green tights, a pair of buttocks that could have polished a dime.

"Hi! I'm your downstairs neighbor, Michael."

She backed out of the car and stood, turning to me. "I'm Chloe." She smiled. She had a great, soft smile. She was tall, maybe 5-foot-7, had frizzy dark-brown hair pulled back with a band, big brown eyes, an honest nose and slightly overwide lips. But did I mention her smile? Oh. Since she was clad in a baggy sweatsuit, I couldn't even guess at her figure, but that smile was - well, great.

"You don't by any chance have any pets, do you?"

She shook her head. "I thought pets weren't allowed in the building - "

"It's not a problem unless someone complains," I said. "I have a cat."

She raised her eyebrows and looked plainly pensive. "That's... nice."

I chuckled. "It's not a conversational ploy or obsession. Nobody else in the building has pets; I was hoping you might, so we could work a trade."

"I don't understand."

"Take turns looking in on each other's pets. I'm going out of town for a week."

"Oh!" She brightened. "I really wouldn't mind - "

The two guys came out of the vestibule. "Chloe, for someone who had so much stuff to move, that apartment looks pretty bare."

"It's OK; furniture is supposed to start being delivered this afternoon." She turned back to me. "I really wouldn't mind - "

"Naaahhh, that's okay; it's got to be an even trade. I'll get someone in my office to look in on Arnold. I work about five blocks from here." I gave her my card. "Don't hesitate to ask for help or information. Even just to use the phone. Welcome, Kansas."

She blushed and hit me with that smile again.

As matters worked out, I didn't see Chloe again until almost a month later, on a drizzling Monday. We were leaving the building simultaneously. She was, I learned, in her residency at a nearby teaching hospital. Ahhh - that explained why I occasionally found a doctor's greens in the basement laundry room.

"How did you decide to get into advertising?" She asked, as we crossed Lexington Avenue.

"Necessity of food. Some years ago, I learned that it was not a good sign to have your published novels sell fewer copies than your collected poems. So I made the rounds and eventually got a job. You've already adopted some New York traits."

She wrinkled her nose at me and unleashed that five-megawatt smile. She was wearing a light raincoat over loose jeans and a loose blouse. "Such as?"

"Identifying people by their work. At least you didn't ask me my sign." I smiled to let her know it was a joke.

"Oh; you're a Gemini."

I blinked. She had me.

She laughed softly. "Sorry; I couldn't resist. It's adapt or perish."

"No - it's adapt and thrive."

She gave me an odd look. "I like that," she said.

She had to go south on Park, I continued west, and that was that.

It was the Fourth of July in New York City. Which meant I - along with Gina - was jockeying for a good perch from which to see the fabled fireworks display over the East River. (Which is not really a river; it's an estuary - but, I digress.)

Fortunately, Gina had an acquaintance, a "person" (Gina-ese: someone for whom she had the hots) named Karen, a putative artist, who had a studio at the tip of Greenpoint, which is the neighborhood that occupies the northern triangle of Brooklyn bounded by the East River, the Newtown Creek and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Greenpoint is a great neighborhood to be from, as in "having left." I speak from experience, here. It took its name from the description of Dutch sailors in the 1600s, who referred to a "green point" of land interrupting the flow of the river. (I mean "estuary." But, I digress.)

So we took the No.7 train (Anyone remember John Rocker? Never mind.) to Long Island City (known as "Lie City" in the Point), and then we walked across the Pulaski Bridge (named for Kasimir Pulaski, the scion of a noble Polish family, who was so swollen with the ideas of Robespierre and Marat that when he learned the colonists in the New World were fighting to establish a land of equality for all [white male property owners] - a radical idea at the time - he sailed to North America and offered his expertise. As the scion of nobility, he'd grown up the way a mascot would grow up in West Point, and he taught the bumbling but undeniably brave and committed hayseeds of the Continental Army how to function as an army, which was a terrible shock to the mercenaries hired by England to quash said bumbling hayseeds... but, I digress) to the Point, since Karen's studio was actually closer on foot that way than taking the G [formerly the GG] to the Greenpoint Avenue station. (Which is yet another digression.)

So we got to Karen's building, and we searched for the entrance - this happens in Greenpoint; don't ask - and in the process we met and cross-introduced ourselves to William and his friend, Christine.

I was struck immediately by two things about William: He was about my age but not carrying the years as well (which I say with no modesty whatsoever), and he was a dweeb. Worse: an overbearing dweeb, but I'll get to that.

Christine struck me a different way. She was wearing faded, baggy denim and an old giveaway ballcap, and she was the most beautiful woman I had every seen face to face.

(Elaboration: I wrote ad copy for a New York City agency that specializes in the fashion industry. I have had occasions to meet some of the most beautiful women in the world who get into the public eye. Christine made all but a few of them look shabby - and the few exceptions didn't come close to Christine.)

Gina summarized it superbly:

"She is the perfect Nordic blonde."

And she was. Maybe eight inches shorter than me, her hair was almost - not quite - platinum. Her complexion was almost but not quite translucent yet glowed with good health. Her eyes were the color of blue ice. And her lips, under the lipstick, were lush, pale and small - in fact, her mouth was small. I guessed she was somewhere between 22 and 26 years old, because there was maturity in her face, yet she still had that wonderful, barely contained vitality that in most people seems to fade out by the 30th birthday. She was wearing jeans that had to have been tailored, because her legs were a bit long for her height. Ahhhh! A flaw! She had a lightweight, matching denim jacket that was unbuttoned over a navy blue tee-shirt. The tee-shirt was tucked into the waist of the jeans and was beautifully filled by breasts so firm that she had to have been wearing a bra, even though no lines showed.

She was so beautiful; I was intimidated. Yes, me, who traded bad puns with Iman (before she got the boob job and a spouse) and got a peck on the cheek from Tyra Banks (who regarded me as a nice-guy-uncle-type, to my extreme displeasure) when she learned it was my 40th birthday. And I won't go into the whole incident with Frederique's broken strap or Claudia laughing herself right out of her dress at the sight of my screen-saver.

As we watched the rockets' red glare over the East (non-)River of what had been a Tory, Loyalist town during the Revolution, it occasionally occurred to me to wonder why Christine was with the dweeb.

But, then I would catch sight of Gina's butt in her jeans - by the light of a bomb bursting in midair - and I would immediately remember: Beautiful women who accept how beautiful they are seldom let go in bed; Gina did. William was probably satisfied just having Christine on his arm, like some gorgeous trinket. Looking at Gina's round, ripe, denim-clad backside really focused priorities for me. There were some things I would rather have on an extremity than Christine on my arm.

After the (truly majestic) fireworks display had ended, one of the other guests gave Gina and me a ride back to Midtown, within a few blocks of my place. We walked, arms around each others' waists, back to my building, climbed the stairs to the third floor and oozed inside with the ease and comfort of people who have been lovers and felt no pressure to perform. We quickly changed into the slouch clothes we preferred when hanging out in my place - old jeans and a Mets tee-shirt (from the days before the appropriately named Third Strike, which was when I joined about 20 million other people and completely gave up on Major League Greedball - but, I digress), and Gina in a long, faded, yellow Road Runner™ sweatshirt and panties (black). It was while changing in my bedroom that Gina made the observation about Christine.

Gina: "What was she doing with that dweeb?"

Me: "He's a painter. Model?"

Gina: "At least."

Me: "Meaning?"

Gina: "Did she give you a hard on?"

Me: "No."

Gina: "That's because you're old."

Me: "Un-uh. I found her intimidating."

Gina (clad only in panties, nipples outstanding): "You?" (Skeptical.)

Me: "You betcha. She's so... beautiful..."

Gina: "She is the perfect Nordic blonde." (Slipping her Road Runner™ sweatshirt over her head, pulling it down to but not covering her hips.) "If I was a guy, she would have given me a hard on."

Me: "Instead you - ?"

Gina: "A wet on, I guess. I hope your tongue is feeling energetic tonight. Want a nightcap?"

I followed her into the living room of my apartment. "If you'll join me."

She rolled her eyes - Gina was very good at this - and pouted. "Michael, you know what happens if I have as much as a half-ounce of alcohol." Gina, like a significant number of people who are of Asian descent, simply couldn't handle alcohol. At best, she would become terribly nauseated; but she could also break out in dreadful hives and have even more serious allergic reactions. All of which made her absolutely nuts when I had an interesting wine, which she could sniff but not taste.

"It was meant as a joke. Ha." Pause. "Ha. Did she really turn you on that much?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Are you totally numb? Michael, she was one of the most beautiful and sexiest women I have ever seen in my life." Gina's nipples were quite hard - sufficiently erect under the heavy material of her Road Runner™ sweatshirt to be visible across the living room.

I couldn't resist. "Don't you wish she was here now?"

"Yeah, just the two of us. Alone, by the fire..."

I ambled closer.

She turned to the liquor cabinet. "Knob Creek?"

"Please. Just the two of you?"

She shrugged, then began putting ice in the glass and poured a drink for me. For some reason, she enjoyed doing this. "What do you care? She intimidated you."

I slipped my arms around her, then slid my hands up under her Road Runner™ sweatshirt and cupped her breasts in my palms. I really liked Gina's breasts; I really, really, liked them; especially when her nipples were hard. (And they were.) Gina stood almost 5-foot-9, and while her bust measured 34 inches, she had a waist measuring just 22 inches, Getting the picture? Gina was into fitness (which was how we met, at a gym - not a "health club"; I digress). But Gina's nipples - !

What can I say? I was mesmerized by them. When Regina Chow was aroused, her nipples swelled out and out and out - almost a full inch, I guessed, thought I never dared presume to suggest measuring. She loved to have those wondrous nipples played with. And I delighted in playing with them. Holding them, rubbing them, very carefully flicking my fingertips across them - she called it "twinking" them - sucking them and licking them and even nibbling them.

At that moment, her nipples were fully swollen - I think "turgid" is the word - and I was savoring the feel of them between my thumbs and forefingers.

"I can feel your chauvinism showing itself," she said softly, wriggling her black-panty-clad butt against my stiffening chauvinism. I nibbled the side of her neck, then slowly licked the little hollow under her ear. "But you're not going to make me stop fantasizing about the beautiful blonde." Then she ground her backside against my fully stiffened chauvinism.

It had been her perfect ass - tiny, especially for a woman as tall as she - in her leotard that had first caught my attention at the gym, followed by her lithe, grace in the ring (Yes, Gina boxed), and then her buzz cut when the helmet came off intrigued me. Her forthright intelligence had cemented my interest. But, the first time I saw her nipples stiffening - within a sweatshirt - I was totally taken with her. Having the aforementioned nipples in my grasp with the above-cited posterior against me would make even a 40-plus ad copywriter get a chauvinism-er of surpassing rigidity, i.e., I had a boner a kitten couldn't scratch.

So, being in the bedroom already and both of us turned on - albeit, for different reasons - what ensued was somewhat predictable. Within five minutes, I was making the most of lips, tongue and (gently) teeth on her spectacular nipples, and five minutes later, my face was between her legs, each hand cupping a taut Gina-cheek and my tongue and lips busily at work on her (very lightly) furred pussy, happily slobbering in her rather copious lubricants. We're talking snorkeling, here.

Gina came only about 60 times in the next 20 minutes, but I can't credit that solely to my skill: Gina was a very orgasmic woman to begin with, and on that occasion she was unabashedly fantasizing about having the "perfect Nordic blonde" between her legs (managing to ignore my beard - but, I digress). I, on the other hand, had not cum, and nothing turns me on more than a woman cumming, preferably with me. So what had begun as an adamantine steel erection was rapidly adding a critical mass in my testicles as an accessory. (Translation: My nuts were overfull. Duh.)

She finally pushed my face away and gasped "That was so good!" She groaned. "Ouch! I think I may have pulled something."

I crawled up next to her and pulled her into my arms, my chauvinism (stiffly) nestling between the aforementioned perfect cheeks. "Sorry," I muttered. I mean, what else can you say at a time like that in response to a statement like that? "So, what did you think of the O.J. civil-trial verdict vis-a-vis the criminal acquittal?" No; I don't think so.

She reached back over her shoulder and caressed the back of my head. "Don't be. I came so good and hard and long, it was worth it." She cranked her face around -

Did I mention Gina's face? She wore no makeup - well, damned little - but with her cheekbones and... Let's just say she had a wonderful face, full of character and strength and too much of both to be "cute," "pretty" or "lovely"; her face was beautiful. And when I eventually learned the experiences she had overcome that had given her so much character and strength, not to mention a preference for women as sex-play partners, it became a face I could easily have fallen in love with. Maybe I did, a little bit - but, I digress.

- and we kissed, gently, on the lips, not much tongue but just, well, "sweetly" comes to mind.

"I really need you inside me," she breathed when we broke the kiss. "You know how I am when I cum so much like that."

Happy happy, joy joy. I nuzzled the tip of my chauvinism up to her pussy. We wriggled and writhed, slipping it slowly into her. ("Slowly" because after Gina came a lot, she was greatly tightened, and I, though not overly long, am a tad thick in that department.)

"Perfect," she wheezed when I was all the way in. I had reluctantly relinquished the grip of one hand (left) on one breast (left) with accompanying nipple and slipped it down to toy with her swollen labia (lips) and clitoris (love nubbin, et cetera).

We began to undulate, like a twinned serpent, slowly and appreciatively: her, of the way I filled her, and me, of the way she had clamped onto my penis and begun pulling on it with her athletic pussy.

"I'm, uh, not gonna last long," I warned. (Panted, really.)

"Will - UH - you take - UH - care of - UH - my needs?"

"Guaranteed."

"Let go."

Her wish, et cetera. Hearing those words was the last thing my self-control needed. I let go. And then some. I came hard in her. I kissed the back of her neck as the spasms ended and waited till my wilting chauvinism slid out of her, then kissed my way down her back, between her buttocks and used my hands on her slender hips to urge her to turn over. Still panting slightly, she did, swinging one long leg over my head and shoulders till I was back between her lanky and tremulous thighs, my lips and tongue confronted with her swollen and still-hungry cunt. Not to mention, my fresh sperm. I didn't mind - haven't since I was 30 (but, I digress). I chowed down, so to speak. But, I knew what she really craved.

I slipped one hand from beneath her butt to her cunt, wriggling a finger inside, then - quickly - a second. And then, in about a minute, a third.

"Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!"

My pinky slid inside with a bit o' twisting.

"All! More!"

Many people have the idea that all women of Asian descent have tiny, tight pussies. I knew - and know - better. Even slender Gina could have a capacious cunt ( <- nice alliteration, eh?). So, with my Experience & Knowledge™, I folded my thumb across my palm and slowly and gently worked my hand into her.

Gina went nuts. She howled and then began bucking and humping madly, driving her pussy onto my hand and a significant portion of my forearm. She fucked herself on my hand for what seemed like hours (i.e., about a minute and half) and then went totally limp. I carefully, gently withdrew said hand and crawled up over her. She snuggled - happily, I think - into my encircling arms as we rolled onto our right sides and spooned, nestling with her back to my front. The only problem was that since she had just cum a lot with me, we were now in a situation ("predicament" comes to mind as a more appropriate description, but it seems too much like a bad play on word sounds) identical to the one we had been in when this episode had started: My rigid chauvinism trapped between her perfect buns, my arms around her, and her stupendous nipples swollen in each of my palms.

"Something's up," she whispered.

"I noticed."

"... try something different..." she hummed, arching away from me. The tip of my cock caught momentarily on the puckered little rosette of her butt, her perfect butt, the butt you would expect on a slender almost-30-year-old woman who was into fitness Big Time.

"We need some slippery stuff," I whispered, rolling toward the little bed-table.

"I don't want to wait."

"The last time we tried it without - "

"I might lose the mood."

(The rest of my truncated remark was " - lube there was some blood and much discomfort every time you sat down for some four days." I weighed my urge, her horniness, her perfect ass and my conscience. For a change, the conscience won.)

"We use the lube, or we don't do it. I felt like a shit the last time we didn't."

"How... appropriate." She sighed as I retrieved the K-Y, then hissed when I inserted a lubricating fingertip-full. "You - you will go slow?"

"Slowly," I corrected. I got myself lined up - still oiling my raging chauvinism - and gently pushed... and slid off the mark. High.

"Bad shot," she whispered.

I realigned and pushed.

"Bing-O," she gasped.

I gasped right back. K-Y or no, when you push something a shade under two inches thick into an opening so small - no matter how relaxed and welcoming - the sensations are a bit maddening. On the one hand, her sphincter was holding my glans so tightly that the flow of blood might have been cut off; on the other hand, the little trembling spasms seemed to be sucking my cock into her tight, hot butt, which made me want to jam it in immediately... which, of course, was neither thoughtful nor practical.

I inhaled the scent of her arousal and sweat, then licked her shoulder. I put my left hand - since we were spooning on our right sides - on her upper arm, then slid it lightly down to her wrist. I nibbled the back of her neck again as I moved my left palm over her breasts and spectacular nipples, then trilled my finger tips down to her mons, covering her hand with my own, all the while inhaling deeply through my nose, the better to savor her clean, invigorating arousal. And slowly, gently, eased a little more of my cock up her asshole. And a little more. Repeatedly, until my nuts were nuzzled against her labia, and her anus was pulling at my copper-colored curlies. My right forearm was lying across her left breast, and my right hand was cupping her right breast and - Ahhh! - her turgid right nipple.

"Ungggggg," she grunted. "I'd forgotten how much you stretch me there... don't move!"

I stopped withdrawing.

"I think... I'm going to - I am... going to... cum..."

She breathed as her rectum sucked and pulled at my dick, coating my cock like a covetous second dermis. As her sphincter clenched powerfully at three-quarter-second intervals; as her labia tightened and swelled in synch; she tightened, all 69 lean, strong, sinewy inches of her, in my arms, and then she started grunting frantically, working her perfect, toned butt rapidly back and forth, releasing and then engulfing about a sixth of my desperately swollen chauvinism with her rectum.

"Gina," whispered with all the breath I could spare. "Gina, I can't - hold - it - too - long - like -"

"Fill me up, you fucker!"

Her wish, et cetera. My loins responded before my head. My hips jerked forward, my cock swelled, and my balls lurched, and suddenly I was flooding her bowel with my cum. I mean flooded and swamped. I came so hard on the first shot, I was momentarily afraid I'd broken something. Gina reacted by clenching madly on my cock, and I'm certain I felt her nipple pulse in my right palm. Then I felt the heat and wetness of my own semen on my glans, further lubricating her vibrating rectum, and I came again. And again.

And each time, Gina's moans got louder until, by the fifth (diminishing) spurt, she was damn near squealing, as if I were injecting some fiery substance into her. Did I mention that Gina sometimes got vocal?

And then she began screaming. The formerly muffling pillow had been spastically hurled out of reach, and her shrill trills of orgasm were probably audible throughout much of the Tristate Metropolitan Area.

For what seemed like a long time - maybe 10 minutes or so - after the convulsions stopped, we just lay there, happily intertwined. We luxuriated in the closeness and the huggling (her word for it), enjoying all the slippery moisture of our coupling and well-earned perspiration and arousal. It was so good, being so intimately joined, that for a while I couldn't be sure where "I" ended and "she" began; that close.

"I think that's the first time I've actually cum just from that," she said.

I nibbled the side of her neck. "I know where your hand was; mine was there, too."

She slowly turned her head from side to side. "Un-uh. I was kind of... overwhelmed by the sensations, and I never actually rubbed it. I came just from having you in my butt." She snuggled back against me even more tightly.

I felt pretty proud of myself and very pleased. I mean, this long and lean Korean babe is a piece of work, and she'd been with more than a few guys before me, and I was the first one she'd had an orgasm with just from...

"And I kept imagining what it'd be like to have you, you know, buggering me while that perfect Nordic blonde was licking me..."

"That's nice," I said softly as she continued describing her fantasy.

Whuuuup-whuuuup-whuuup-whuuup...

"What is that noise?"

Whuuuup-whuuuup-whuuup-whuuup...

It was coming from the ceiling. "Judging by the duration and vibration, I suspect my upstairs neighbor has a NordicTrak or some similar instrument of torture."

Whuuuup-whuuuup-whuuup-whuuup...

That seemed to suffice for about 10 seconds, after which Gina stiffened in my arms. "If we can hear that, then she must have heard..."

Whuuuup-whuuuup-whuuup-whuuup...

"Well, it sounds like she's working off her energy," I offered.

Gina groaned. "Or frustrations?" I'd told her of meeting Chloe and her smile. "Is that what you're hoping?"

Whuuuup-whuuuup-whuuup-whuuup...

"I just hope she's smiling," I whispered.

"Frankly, Rhett, I don't give a damn." She gave me a quick clench back there. We fell asleep that way.

As we left my apartment the next morning, on our way out to get a late breakfast and pick up the papers, who should be coming up the stairs but Chloe, apparently returning from jogging, as she was wearing a pair of Spandex HotPants, a nicely filled tee-shirt-covered JogBra, Nikes and a sweatband.

"Good morning," I said cheerfully. "I'd like you to meet my good friend, Gina."

Chloe turned crimson. "Hello, Gina. I'm Chloe, Michael's upstairs neighbor."

Gina's smile seemed a little brittle, but she shook hands warmly with Chloe, and then we went on our ways.

"She's a doctor?" Gina asked when we were out on the sunny Midtown sidewalk. She sounded skeptical.

"Yeah. Why?"

"You barely mentioned that terrific smile, and never said what a great shape she has."

"I never knew until now." I explained about the shape-hiding attire of our previous chance encounters. "I guess all the jogging and NordicTrakking works."

"And how." We ambled toward Lexington Avenue. We were going to take advantage of the paucity of vehicular traffic - Midtown is deserted on any summer weekend; on three-day weekends you can bowl on Fifth Avenue undisturbed - and dine al fresco.

"Actually, the two of you have similar figures."

"She's just got more T&A."

"I didn't notice."

She bumped me with her hip. "Seriously, you better promise me something."

"What?"

"If you get chummy with your upstairs neighbor - "

"Not likely."

" - make sure to put in a good word for me."

I rolled my eyes - Gina was more accomplished at this, but I was learning - as we approached Park Avenue. "For one thing, I really doubt that a 25-year-old resident osteopath will have a hell of a lot of interest in a downstairs neighbor who happens to be more than 15 years older than her. For another, what makes you think she has any interest in women?"