Chapter 1

Cindy lived in the house next to mine, one of a row of near-identical two story frame buildings on our suburban Boston street. I had met her, and her husband, Fred, a few days after I moved in, and noticed right away that she was lovely, with a certain look of fun about her, too. She wasn't actually flirtatious; she and Fred just seemed to be genuinely friendly, welcoming me to the neighborhood and getting acquainted, so I felt vaguely ashamed of my thoughts about her, which were frankly lustful. Yet I couldn't help myself. I had been a long time without a lover, and she was simply too attractive to ignore.

I probably would have spent even more time thinking about her, as I went on with the process of moving in and starting a new job and a new, unmarried life, if I hadn't been distracted by the activities of my fellow renters in the apartment upstairs from mine. I was certainly lonely, and was becoming accustomed to being single again, and I was very much inclined to find female companionship, so I might well have soon done something about Cindy. The sounds from upstairs, though, quickly seized all my attention.

It started, in fact, the evening after I had met Cindy and Fred. I was finishing up my dinner and absently scanning the newspaper, musing on how Cindy's braless breasts had moved under her Red Sox tee shirt. The shirt had apparently belonged to a younger and smaller sister, and the breasts could easily have belonged to a somewhat larger girl. My thoughts were moving pleasantly in an erotic direction - picturing how those breasts might look without the shirt and while moving beneath me, and what sweet sounds Cindy might make - when I realized that those sweetly urgent feminine sounds of pleasure and encouragement were not in my imagination, but were definitely, faintly, coming from somewhere nearby.

I put down the Globe, the paper and Cindy both forgotten in that instant, and stood up, listening intently, pushing the chair slowly away so as not to make any noise. Again I heard it, the words themselves unintelligible, but the pitch, the tone, the murmured syllables, unmistakably conveying passion, pleasure and growing urgency. I was electrified. My entire consciousness seemed focused on my sense of hearing as I strained to draw in those fascinating sounds. Moving slowly away from the kitchen table where I'd been, I realized the sounds were coming through the ceiling, and seemed to be stronger as I neared the hallway toward the back of the house. I padded quietly in that direction and sensed that the soft moans, little squeals and sighs were clearest as I approached the door to the back porch, though they were coming through the ceiling, also.

The couple above were approaching the end of their lovemaking, however, and their cries, her soprano voice and now, his deeper accompaniment, peaked and faded before I could move closer to their source. A few indistinct murmurs and a low, languorous, chuckle, then silence. I stood there a few moments more, my face lifted to the ceiling and my ears straining vainly for more, then I slumped and exhaled as I became aware of myself and of what had happened.

My heart was beating rapidly, even pounding, and my penis was rigid and aching in my pants. I tried to understand what I was feeling. Obviously I was sexually aroused, but it seemed all out of proportion to the faint and not-so-exceptional sounds I'd heard. I was excited, even thrilled, as if I somehow had done something dangerous. Or maybe not dangerous, but illicit and risky. That was it: I'd enjoyed hearing the couple above, almost as if I were participating in their coupling, but without their knowledge, and almost certainly against their will. If they knew, they'd be embarrassed and angry, perhaps labeling me a pervert or weirdo. If they told anyone else, I'd be publicly disgraced. I didn't care, though. It had been wonderful, and I wanted to do it again. Of that, there was no doubt.

Well, now. What was all this about? I'd never thought of myself as a voyeur. I'd looked at and listened to the usual porn, especially since it became universally available on the internet. In everyday life I'd sometimes caught sight of an exposed female thigh or even the occasional nipple, and I'd certainly enjoyed that. Not in the same breathless, riveting way I'd reacted to the sounds above my apartment tonight, though. Whatever the reasons were, it was inescapable: I was a voyeur now, and, I imagined, a voyeur I'd remain. I wanted to hear them up there above my bedroom doing it again. Not only that; I wanted to see them, too, if I could manage it without being caught. What if the male upstairs found out and wanted to fight? I'm not a weakling, but I had no idea what he was like. He could be a weight lifter or a black belt.

Clearly, the solution was never, ever, to be caught. As I continued to examine my feelings, I realized that while I definitely wanted to voyeur women or couples, I thankfully had no desire to voyeur males. Was voyeur a verb? I didn't even know. My thoughts were scattered, jumping crazily between topics. I did know, however, that there were millions of couples out there, and surely some of them were careless enough that I could see or hear them if I really wanted to. An entire new activity was opening up for me, and I was going to need some time to understand it all.

Apparently, during these fevered and confused thoughts, I'd found my way back to the kitchen table and seated myself before the remains of my dinner. I pulled myself together and forced myself to think more rationally. Obviously, there were issues to be dealt with here, and new pleasures to be examined, but the immediacy and intensity of the past few minutes were receding, and I could view what had transpired more coolly. I cleaned up my meal and went to bed, where I quickly fell into a deep sleep, shadowed by strange superimpositions of Cindy and the sounds from above.

I spent the next day on campus at my new office, attempting to prepare my lecture notes and organize my desk in anticipation of the upcoming semester, but made hard work of it. My thoughts constantly wandered to the sounds I had heard from the apartment above, and, more importantly, to how I could improve my ability to hear them. I left my office as soon as decently possible and hurried back to my apartment, bemused and self-conscious, but still determined to pursue my plan.

That plan, plainly, was to find places and methods for hearing and even seeing the lovemaking of my neighbors. I could think of nothing else. It seemed supremely important, if not entirely rational. The train ride and walk home seemed endless. Immediately on entering my apartment, I put down my briefcase and began. I went out onto the back porch of my apartment and checked the parking area behind the house, making sure my neighbors' car wasn't there. I listened carefully for the sound of movement upstairs. Hearing nothing, I eased up the back stairs from my porch to the porch above, until my head rose above the porch floor and I could see the back door of the second floor apartment. Next to the door was a window, which, if the layout of the apartment were identical to mine, would open into the bedroom. Perfect.

I looked around with my best imitation of nonchalance, hoping to appear as if I belonged there, and saw no obvious onlookers, so I climbed two more steps, bringing my eyes up to the level of the windowsill. With a little thrill, I saw that the curtains hung an inch short of the sill, permitting a clear view into the bedroom. I looked around again, nervously, as my next move would make it considerably more obvious that I was doing something out of the ordinary. Seeing no suspicious neighbors, I moved up to the porch floor on hands and knees and crept up to the window. In this position my eyes were comfortably located opposite the gap beneath the curtains and I could peer directly inside.

Now my hopes were answered completely, as I saw the bedroom laid out before me like a theater set. Against the opposite wall, at center stage, were a king size mattress and box springs resting directly on the floor, so that the surface of the mattress was perfectly positioned a short distance below my eyes. The bedspread and blanket were pushed down off the foot of the bed onto the floor. The sheets were rumpled and, I saw in a shock of titillation, spotted with the unmistakable signs of the lovemaking I had heard the previous evening.

I sank back onto my heels for a moment, to absorb what I had seen and the opportunities that were presented. After one more quick look around, I moved closer to the window again and examined the room, which turned out to contain only a few additional pieces of inexpensive furniture: a framed mirror over a dresser, and a standing floor lamp beside a chair just to the right of "my" window. With newly-developing awareness, I made certain that my face at the window would not be seen in the mirror by someone on the bed, and that the floor lamp, if illuminated, would not reveal me, outside. I could not be certain of the latter, but it appeared that the window frame would shadow me from the direct light of the lamp, making my features, in relative darkness, even more difficult to discern from inside the room.

Congratulating myself on my cleverness, and filled with anticipation of returning later in the evening, I backed away on hands and knees until I was again on the stairs, then turned carefully and descended casually to my own porch below. As I turned from the stairs toward my back door, I realized that someone was ringing my front doorbell, and might have been doing so for some time. Guiltily, as if I had been caught, I hurried through the apartment to the front door, where I could see the silhouette of my caller through the frosted glass. I quickly unfastened the latch and opened the door, and found myself suddenly blushing into the smiling, exuberant, and innocently sexual face of my neighbor, Cindy.

Of course Cindy immediately wanted to know why I was so flustered, but I knew I couldn't possibly confess to her the complex mixture of thoughts and emotions that were spinning through my mind. Her sudden appearance, when I was immersed in an activity I was sure she would find reprehensible, coupled with the memory of my earlier erotic fantasies about her, and the sheer arousing force of her presence, left me stunned and embarrassed. I feared she would somehow guess my thoughts, or I would blurt them out, and she would be shocked and contemptuous.

I finally recovered sufficiently to mutter vaguely about difficulty opening the door and waved my hand distractedly, inviting her in. She clearly didn't believe me, and grinned slyly as she moved past me, her unfettered breasts in their customary tee shirt lightly brushing my chest, perhaps by accident. I was in no condition to guess. I literally took a deep breath, attempted to gather my wits, and exhaled slowly, before following her into the kitchen, where she was already helping herself to a beer from the refrigerator.

She'd just dropped by for some company, she explained, as she expertly twisted the cap from the bottle, flipped it accurately into the wastebasket, took a full, unladylike swallow, sighed her appreciation, and nimbly hoisted half of her tightly denim-encased rear onto the edge of my kitchen table. Fred, it seemed, was working late as usual, and it was just too nice of an evening to sit inside at home, alone. I was left trying to catch up again, groping for a response while dealing with the movement of her mouth on the bottle and the way her thighs opened carelessly to me as she perched on my table.

I suppose I had been in a state of excitement for quite a while, with the goings-on upstairs, my explorations on the porch, and Cindy's own earlier effects. In any event, I seemed still to be unable to steer my thoughts away from erotic directions. As we continued to chat, Cindy quite unselfconsciously and myself less so, I found myself fixating on her mouth. She had that sort of small, sweet mouth, with lovely little-girl lips, that had always appealed to me. As I watched those lips move, I pictured them stretching to accommodate the head of my penis, then relaxing slightly, sliding slowly down my shaft. As one might imagine, that particular image was somewhat distracting, but I gradually pulled my thoughts into order and began to simply enjoy our conversation.

Cindy, the conversation revealed, actually was just as cheerful, sunny and open as she had seemed on first impression, but not simple. She also brought an educated, unconventional intelligence and a healthy cynicism into the mix. An artist, she had studied and thought deeply in areas about which I knew little, but her wit and depth of knowledge were apparent. I would come to find her intelligence to be as delightful as her sexiness, but for me her frank and intense sensuality was, at first, the overwhelming factor. Still, that late summer night in my kitchen, we talked long and widely, through a few more beers and a takeout pizza, and became friends.

There was always an undercurrent, it seemed to me, of sexual awareness. Of course there was no question of my own interest, but hers was harder to pin down. I've never been an especially accurate interpreter of female behavior—though I've certainly enjoyed watching it all my life - so I couldn't say exactly what Cindy was doing, but I constantly sensed that she was presenting her body to me. First a nipple, for instance, tenting the material of her shirt, then the fullness of her breasts moving in that classic, elastic bounce as she lifted her arms to emphasize a point, or later, the intriguing tilt and sway of her slender hips as she moved away from me to the refrigerator for another beer. As time went by I was increasingly convinced she was doing it on purpose, even if I couldn't say how.

Eventually, with the beer gone and the pizza long cooled, we slowed down and simply kept company with each other, speaking infrequently and sharing relaxed silences, listening to the night sounds outside. Finally, we heard Fred pull into the driveway next door, and we walked somewhat muzzily to my door, where she unconsciously, sleepily kissed me and went off home.

I stood, bemused, fingering my lips where they had touched hers, and watched her go. So many things were happening in my life, and particularly, it seemed, in the possible revival of my sex life. First, a sudden and exciting voyeuristic bent discovered. Now, a growing friendship with a young woman who fired my most intense erotic impulses, and who just might, I sensed, be interested in sharing those impulses with me.