I’ve been living in Brighton Beach for three months now. When I first moved to New York, I had this illusion that I’d be able to find a decent studio in Manhattan with the money I had. Reality turned out to be harsher: my savings were melting away faster than the snow on this damn boardwalk. The real estate agent—a heavyset man with a cigar—looked at me with such pity, as if I were a stray cat. He said, “Listen, kid, with your budget, there’s only one option—Brighton. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a room with a view of the dumpster.” And he was right.

I rented a tiny studio on the second floor of an old building on Brighton Beach Avenue. The building smells of damp plaster, fish, and other people’s lives. My room is a nine-square-meter cage where the kitchen doubles as a bedroom, and the shower is a stall I share with cockroaches. But it’s cheap. Very cheap. Rent takes up only a third of my waitress’s salary, and I can afford to buy apple juice instead of tap water.

The door next door leads to a room occupied by a man in his mid-thirties to forties. His name is Dima—or, I think, Dmitry. He isn’t handsome in the conventional sense: he has a square face with coarse features, a bulbous nose, skin pitted by old acne scars, a low forehead, and deep-set eyes. But there’s a certain animalistic, primal allure to his appearance. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, with powerful arms, and always wears an old leather jacket, even in the heat. He smells of male sweat, cheap tobacco, and something else—something warm and spicy that makes my insides churn.

That very first week, I noticed something strange: there was a hole in the wall between our rooms. It was small, about the size of a fist. It was covered by an old poster showing a view of Sochi, but the poster was held up by nothing more than a promise. One evening, as I lay in bed unable to sleep, I heard muffled sounds coming through the wall—heavy breathing, the creaking of a bed. I got up, pulled the poster aside, and pressed my ear against the hole. Through the crack, I could see part of his room: the bed, a floor lamp, and him—sitting on a chair, his jeans unbuttoned, jerking off. It was rough, rhythmic, and completely uninhibited. His cock was big, with a dark head, and I watched as he squeezed it, his fingers sliding over the wet skin. I couldn’t look away. I watched, holding my breath, feeling my mouth go dry and my crotch grow hot. He came with a muffled groan, and I saw a white stream hit the floor. I flinched, trembling, and crawled back under the blanket. But I couldn’t sleep until morning.

It became my little ritual. I waited for nightfall so I could press myself against the hole again. Sometimes he’d masturbate to videos on porn sites; other times he’d just sit there naked, staring at his phone. Once, he walked into the room after a shower, and I saw him completely naked—muscular thighs, a flat stomach, a dark triangle of hair, and his penis, which looked impressive even when flaccid. I studied every crease, every vein on him. I felt like a pervert, but I couldn’t stop myself. There was only a wall between us, and I began to fantasize about how I would touch him, how I would run my fingers over his chest, his stomach, and lower.