Across the road, over yonder, in the apartment building, a mere two blocks into the Expanse, lives a man. Let’s call him Frank. Franks, a lonely man, a loser, afraid of change, having locked himself into a comfortable routine. Frank hates his schedule is altered, for he finds change unnerving. But change is coming, change is inevitable, and Franky boy will have to ride the changes like a man on a bucking horse. But, then again, Frank isn’t much of a man.

When the mysterious leather-clad woman moves in across the breezeway, well, change happens, shit happens. Franky’s in for a revolutionary, life-altering, mind-bending encounter with the Bossy Bitch.

”I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Dorothy Gail, from The Wizard of Oz

Often, life isn’t all bright and cheery. We fall into patterns, develop a comfort with the shape of things, dare nothing, and gain nothing. At times, our complacency’s roots are grounded in an event. For Frank, his hum-drum existence had started when his high school sweetheart left him for another, more exciting person. So, Frank settled into a monotonous routine. Fearing for his heart, he risked nothing, expected nothing, and his prospects evaporated. Having no expectations, Frank was never disappointed. He also never experienced the overwhelming joy of experiencing something entirely different.

Living life with his hand as his only lover, for Frank, was utterly comfortable. After all, his hand didn’t have headaches, mood swings, or other lovers.

In his work, he was perfectly adequate. So very suitable for the task he performed. As if being ideal for data entry wasn’t bad enough, he realized no promotion would ever be offered, and he would never hear a hint of advancement. This pleased him, for a promotion would bring about responsibility with further opportunities.

In truth, those burdens would weigh him down. He might not live up to others’ expectations, or worse, they would promote him until his insufficiencies exposed him as a fraud. He had enough money. He didn’t need a new car or a bigger apartment—why risk anything when you could lose everything?

He made no attempt to have a love life. Women leave you, stomping on your heart in the process. He didn’t need his heart warmed by another woman only to have rip ripping his soul out later. The risk just wasn’t worth the reward. He had his hand and the internet—life was tolerable. His life wasn’t glamorous or electrifying. He lived an ordered existence. If he could find a woman who delights in his shortcomings, a woman who would be satisfied with his inadequacies, would be a lady worth meeting. He understood no such woman existed.

Frank didn’t like change. His neighbors, a gay couple with a small child, had lived across the breezeway for more than two years. He enjoyed watching them through the peephole or the slits in the blinds. He loved to see them play with the kid. So when the gay couple left, he worried what kind of people would move into the apartment.

The apartment stood vacant for two weeks. The complex painted the domicile, replaced the carpets and appliances. Spying on the workers as they hauled away the old dishwasher and stove and installed the new ones, Frank wondered if management only replaced things when they had new tenants. He had lived here for five years. No one changed anything for him. Then again, he didn’t want anything replaced or altered. He was comfortable with the stains on the carpet. He enjoyed the sound of grinding when the dishwasher cleaned his dishes.

On Saturday at the end of the second week, a young woman—a few years younger than him, say twenty-two or twenty-three—looked at the apartment. She seemed like a biker bitch to him. That wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all. He didn’t need freaks in his life, not a freaky lady living across the breezeway.

The following Monday, sitting in the break room at work downing coffee, Frank told his friend Dave about his distress over the changes, how he had a perception of dread gnawing away at him.

“I think—not positive, but pretty sure—they rented the place to his tough chick,” Frank said.

“What do you mean?” Dave asked as he joined Frank at the tiny break table.

“She’s muscled up, wears leather—y’know, chaps and a jacket,” Frank told him.

“When you say muscled, like a bodybuilder?”

“No, she’s just super fit, rippled belly, tight everywhere. Like maybe she’s a fitness instructor,” Frank explained. “She had the attitude, too, the better than you attitude. You could see her arrogance in the way this girl strutted around. Her jacket was flung over her shoulder, and she held the coat with her index finger. So, I think, I mean, well, she looks—well, like, um, she’s a dyke.”

“I don’t think lesbians like the term,” Dave said. “Butch might be okay. So, you really believe she’s a beaver eater?”

“I don’t think,” Frank said, clearing his thoughts he wanted to explain things better. “She’s rough, she smokes cigars—not ladylike. I don’t like women who smoke cigars. She has a mean look about her, hard eyes ... you get me.”

“No, I don’t,” Dave said.

“I mean, she’s like some biker babe. She rode a Harley. They just left her there on her own. The girl meandered around the breezeway, the apartment, the yard in front of the building. She just made herself at home for an hour, smoking her cigars, drinking a beer, and looking at everything.”

“I didn’t like it. I don’t like the woman. But, everything’s changing, and I can’t stop it,” Frank said.

“Yeah, I understand. You ever think maybe things might change for the better?”

“Nothing ever changes for the better. Girlfriends decide you’re not good enough, not man enough, and poof!—they’re gone.”

His life had fallen into a pattern. For years, his weeknights were filled with TV dinners and TV shows. The man’s Friday and Saturday nights hadn’t changed, not one jot. First, he had two beers at the bar near the apartments, after which he went home and read a book.

Frank didn’t want some wild child living across from him, disrupting his life. He could just see it, her throwing loud parties, coming in at all hours leading some dude like a puppy on a leash. David just didn’t understand. For Frant, this woman living across the breezeway from him, this would be a major disaster once the bitch moved into Apartment 3401.

The break concluded, the two men went back to work, entering numbers into spreadsheets. Frank shook the woman from his thoughts, consumed with his work. His tedious, boring work, blessedly free of strife or change, was comfortable. Numbers never change, never lie, and never leave. They’re always there when you need them.

The following morning at the break, Dave got how aggravated Frank appeared. He held his tongue for some time until the grunts and exclamations at roughly regular intervals forced him to ask the question to open the door for Frank to complain about something, anything. The little outcries, finally, compelled his friend to ask.

He held his tongue for some time until the grunts and exclamations at roughly regular intervals forced him to ask the question and opened the door for Frank to complain about something, anything. This is what Frank does: bitch, bitch, moan, whine, and bitch more.

“So, what’s wrong now?” Dave asked, wanting to just curl up in a ball and cover his ears.

“She was back last night looking around,” Frank said. “I don’t understand all this window shopping. The manager left her there on her own for hours. I don’t understand how the apartment got locked up after she left.”

“So, she rolled in on her ‘hog’ again?”

“No, she drove a Vette, can you believe it? A freaking Corvette. Who can afford that kind of car?” Frank fiddled with his coffee, burned his mouth on his first sip. “Shit,” he said. The profanity was new. David had never heard Frank curse, not since they met in fourth grade.

“Man, calm down. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Dave said. “Still dressed like a gang member?”

“No, she wore some pink, slinky outfit which clung to her every curve. She still had curly blonde hair, but minus the biker bitch outfit. She looked more feminine last night.” Frank took another sip of his coffee as he thought about the woman. “She was quite fetching, actually.”

“Fetching?”

“Y’know, pretty ... Well, no, not pretty—cute. Well, better, gorgeous! Yeah, that’s the word, man. I sure don’t need a woman like her living across from me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you understand,” Frank said.

“Again, no, I don’t understand. I don’t comprehend what you mean at all.”

“I don’t need a beautiful woman living across the hall from me, making me think about ... sex ... all the time,” Frank said. “She had her earbuds in, I guess listening to music from her phone, and she danced around the living room. And let me tell you, this dancing wasn’t regular dancing. No, she moved her hips and her body ... like ... like ... like she was laying down with someone.”

“Frank, you’re my oldest friend, but man, you’re weird. What are you doing, jacking your wiener while you watch her through the peephole?”

“Of course not,” he said, and his cheeks flushed beet red. “You can’t think.”

“Shit, you do. Oh man, you look through the peephole and jerk off.” His friend broke into laughter.

“Not the peephole, the blinds in the living room. I only masturbated once,” Frank confessed.

“If she moves in, there will be more times you whack off, many more times,” Dave teased.

As the day dragged by, Frank found it impossible to push the woman out of his mind. The numbers failed him. He couldn’t concentrate on them. The pure simplicity of the figures, his fortress of solitude, offered him no freedom. He had no way of escaping from his growing obsession with the woman. Frank hoped she didn’t take the apartment. He prayed she didn’t.

That night she didn’t show. Nor the following evening. Frank felt relief mixed with a degree of disappointment. She was about the sexiest woman he had ever seen. He didn’t need this kind of distraction in his life. A woman so far out of his league, all he hoped for, was jacking off while spying on her. What kind of man does such a thing? No sort of man—that’s what boys do.

When Friday rolled around, Frank and Dave sat at the booth, in the bar, and talked about weekend plans. Dave had a date with a woman he visited on weekends. He was always mysterious about her. He called her his “fuck buddy.” Frank suspected she was married. For his part, Frank told Dave he found a Grisham thriller to read, one he had missed somehow. Dave shook his head, muttering under his breath about Frank’s absence of life.

“Shit,” Frank said, “that’s her.” He pointed to a young woman at the bar. She wore cutoff jeans, a man’s sleeveless t-shirt, and tennis shoes. She was shapely. Her curly blonde hair had a somewhat unnatural tint, reflecting the colored lights over the bar. She flirted with a muscular, tattooed man. As she spoke to him, her foot would run and down his leg. He’d turn and frown at her, hold up his left hand, brandishing his wedding ring. Finally, she held out her hand to him, and he shook his head.

Dave and Frank eyeballed the spectacle of her wanton cajolery of the man. The friends stayed longer than usual and consumed much more beer than was ordinary for them. The woman kept after the man, pressing her ample breast against him and whispering in his ear, but he kept shaking his head. She was persistent, and finally, his resolve broke. He laughed with her, hugged her, and attempted to kiss her—his wife, hearth, and home was forgotten. She deftly deflected every attempt of his to kiss her on the lips.

“No, I’m not doing that,” he told the woman as they strolled to the door. She stopped, pushed him away, and held her hand out to him. He pulled out the bundle of money again, pulled off some bills, and put them in her hand.

The woman shook her head, and he peeled off three more bills and placed them on her palm. The woman pointed to the wedding ring, he shook his head, and she gave him an angry scowl. He pulled the ring off and shoved the gold ring into his pocket. The woman kissed him like he was her brother, and the couple walked out of the bar.

“She’s a whore,” Frank said.

“You don’t know that,” Dave said. “I think she has a Swedish accent. Not much of one, though.”

“It’s German or Russian, not Swedish,” Frank said. This little scene perturbed Frank, and he couldn’t say why. Still, if she moved in, he had a whore living across from him.

Due to the significant amount of beer he consumed, Frank didn’t drive home. Instead, he walked the two blocks. He saw the Vette and bike sitting in the parking lot outside his building. Another, bigger Harley Hog sat next to the woman’s motorcycle. Shrugging his shoulders, he walked to his front door. The moment the door opened, and the biker from the bar sauntered out of apartment 3401. The woman followed him out, waving her arms and cussing him with profanities in English and Russian.

“You keep your sorry ass away from me,” she said. “Another thing, I want the rest of my damn money by tomorrow, or I’m calling your mother.”

“Oh, leave mom out of this,” the man said.

She threw his leather jacket at him. He picked up the coat and stood there, daring her to do something.

“Rest of my money, or I’m ratting you out to mommy. And don’t wear the fucking ring anymore. We aren’t married anymore. Stop pretending.” She slammed the door.

Frank stood on the sidewalk looking for all the world like a deer in headlights.

“My ex,” the tattooed man said to Frank. “I owe her a shit load of bread.” He had this snarled, pained smirk on his face. “Call her the bossy bitch in 3401. Lots of luck living near her. FUCKING MAN HATER!”