Jenny was glad she got this flat. True, it was the cheapest kind of one-room studio, with the kitchen and even the toilet just in different corners of the same room, but at least it was hers and she could afford it. There was a whole building of those studios, and the residents were mostly the same kind as Jenny, that is, students and recent graduates without families and stable jobs yet. It suited her perfectly.

Of course, there were other drawbacks - like almost no soundproofing and the neighbors throwing raucous parties here and there, but who was she to judge? She liked partying no less.

And as for the loud sounds of passionate sex coming from all directions, Jenny actually liked them. She was often so turned on by those sweet noises that she masturbated a lot, and only a thin veneer of dignity and reserve sometimes kept her from knocking on the neighbors’ doors and asking to join in the fun.

Jenny in particular was in awe of her neighbor on the other side of the wall. Judging by the frequency and intensity of the vocalizations, she was either streaming the porn webcam or working as a whore from home, full time. Jenny was extremely curious, but they weren’t acquainted yet, and she’d never been able to meet the girl at the door to strike up a conversation.

Well, maybe one day Jenny will pluck up the courage to knock on that door. What’s stopping her? Inhibitions? Fear of embarrassment? Or jealousy? Maybe the neighbor had such good sex because she had a very skilled lover? Um, probably at least three or four lovers...

In any case, Jenny was also inspired by her neighbor’s shamelessness and was just waiting for the right opportunity ... or the right mood.

The mood came first, in about two weeks. Jenny had a large document to finish, and the moans, gasps, and occasional screams from behind the wall distracted her too much. She pulled on her home robe, grinned, feeling more excited than irritated, and walked barefoot to the next door.

Oddly enough, the sounds in the hallway were quieter. What a strange house design, Jenny shrugged. Then she pressed the doorbell.

She expected ... different things. Maybe they just won’t open, she probably wouldn’t break such wonderful fucking for a doorbell herself. Or she would arrive in the middle of the wild orgy. Or...

The girl who promptly opened the door was about Jenny’s age, in a similar plain robe, a bit shorter and chubbier, her hair longer and darker ... And she showed no signs of just getting out of intense sex. And, what’s even stranger, the sounds became even quieter.

“Um ... Hi!” Jenny mumbled tentatively. “I’m Jenny, your neighbor. It’s probably none of my business ... And I adore your loud lovemaking ... But I have some urgent work to do. Could you please be a little quieter for a while?”

The girl blinked in disbelief.

“Loud lovemaking?! Why ... I would love to, of course ... but I haven’t had anyone for two months...” She giggled. “I’m Violet. And I’m actually a big fan of your daily sex screams!”

It was Jenny’s turn to stare blankly. Her jaw dropped.

“Screams?!...” She finally asked. “But I did’t have any sex recently! I’m usually alone here! Just me and my laptop! Well...” she blushed, “sometimes me and my vibrator, but I’m not that loud when I’m alone with myself...”

Violet widened her eyes.

“But you were screaming just a minute ago! Oh...” she listened and continued in a lowered voice, “And you’re still screaming ... I don’t get it ... Come in, I’ll show you...”

Jenny followed her into the flat. It was almost identical to Jenny’s own studio, just with a little more stuff: clothes, books, a small make-up table...

And, really, there were passionate cries from behind the wall. From behind her wall, from her own apartment! The woman was clearly close to orgasm, she sounded almost painful on top of her ecstasy...

“I don’t get it,” Jenny said. “Maybe it’s someone from upstairs or downstairs...”

Violet listened. “But the voice is yours!”

“Are you sure?” Jenny listened. She knew that everyone hears their own voice differently than it sounds to others, and she actually never heard herself during sex...

“Absolutely. I have professional hearing.”

“Well, when I heard you talking ... I’m sure now that it was your voice that I heard for weeks...”

They stared at each other.

“Let’s check it from your side.”

They came over to Jenny’s side, and yes! There were still loud sex moans coming from behind the wall, and they were definitely Violet’s. She was clearly having a great time, almost choking from the non-stop vocalization.

“That’s crazy!” Violet exclaimed. “How can it be?!”

Jenny just shook her head. “It’s too weird, really...”

They exchanged glances.

“Well,” Violet sighed. “Looks like we’ve already met. Come for coffee, I want to get to know you better...”

They spent a few nice hours together. They drank coffee, smoked (it turned out they liked the same brand), and talked about everything. Violet’s life was very similar to Jenny’s, except she was a journalist and not a tech writer. From time to time their hands met above the table, and they did not rush to part. They kissed goodbye when Jenny went home.

Well, she still had work to do. She put on her headphones and turned up the music.

In the morning, Jenny went down to the café in the basement. The coffee here wasn’t really any better than the one she made herself, and it was more expensive here, but it was the perfect place for the whole house to meet. All of Jenny’s neighborhood contacts, except for Violet, were made here.

Like almost everyone else, she did not bother to change out of her home clothes. Barefoot and in her robe, still yawning, she took her place at the end of the line and listened to the chatter.

“ ... the landlord, he installed the special sound absorbers himself, he told me yesterday...”

“Did it help?”

“Nope.”

“ ... they say it happened once before. Last year...”

Hmmm...

A couple joined the line behind her. Jenny greeted them and smiled in admiration. She knew both Tom and Maggie but had never seen them together. And now, voila, they held hands and looked at each other lovingly!

“May I greet you? Are you engaged?”

“Um ... It seems so...” Maggie blushed.

“My congratulations! When did you have time?”

“It was pretty spontaneous. Uh ... it’s an odd story...” Tom looked at Maggie. “May I share it?”

She grinned. “Go on! You probably won’t believe it, Jenny...”

“Long story short, Maggie and I live next door. And for weeks I listened to her make passionate love, day and night, and ... it turned me on so much that one day I knocked on her door.”

“Only I didn’t make it!” Maggie laughed. “I was single for several months. But I admired Tom’s performance, from what I heard...”

“Only I didn’t make it either!” Tom finished. “But we got together by then, and so ... But it’s so weird! We keep hearing these moans on the other side of the wall, even when we are in bed together! I don’t know what to think...”

“Oh...” Jenny stared at them. “May I know your apartment number?”

“326 and 327. Why?”

She did a quick calculation in her head.

“It seems you are right below me, several floors below. We share the same bearing wall.”

Maggie looked at her face and raised her eyebrows.

“And you too...”

“Well, unlike you, we’re not engaged yet...”

At that moment Violet came in, also in her robe and barefoot. Without hesitation, she hugged Jenny and kissed her on the lips. Startled for a second, Jenny returned the kiss.

“ ... oh, um, it seems we already are...”

Their part of the line erupted in laughter. Someone whistled. Jenny felt Violet’s hand slip into her robe...

“Uh ... Sorry...”

“Don’t apologize, it’s great! Congratulations!”

Tom and Maggie moved closer. They even squeezed each other’s butts!

“Wait a minute. We are all happy and everything, but still ... what the hell is with this wall?”

“Hey guys!” Tom yelled. “Does anyone else hear people behind the wall having all this sex that they’re not really having?”

The line grew loud. Everyone started talking and sharing their stories. Jenny noticed more new couples holding hands.

But nobody had the answer.

So Jenny and Violet drank their coffee and went home. They quickly chose Jenny’s place for this time, and in a few minutes, their increasingly loud moans joined the ones coming from the wall.

“This is getting on my nerves...” Violet said thoughtfully.

They lay naked in the same bed, catching their breath after the long lovemaking. They had been officially together for about two weeks, exchanging keys and treating their flats as two rooms of the same apartment, walking naked to each other and sleeping together here and there. But the wall did not stop adding its notes to their lives - fortunately only several times a day, but still.

“We could probably move somewhere else,” Jenny pondered. “Together we can afford a bigger apartment in another house...”

“And carry this unsolved mystery with us for the rest of our lives? I don’t know about you, but I would die of curiosity!”

“Point taken.”

They lie, cuddle, and slowly crawl their fingers to each other’s most intimate places.

“If we lived in a mystical story, it would be a fucking horny matchmaking ghost haunting our wall,” Jenny said.

“And in sci-fi, the whole house could be the aliens’ lab maze for researching human sexuality,” Violet chuckled.

“In gothic horror, the women in the wall would soon start screaming in pain and crying for help, and one of us would disappear, leaving only splashes of blood on the wall...” Jenny continued.

They both shuddered.

“What a creepy imagination you have! I hope it’s not horror...” Violet muttered.