#fr goes to bed ass naked wakes up the next morning in bed ..

[paunchsalazar]

you know they fucked in that tempurpedic bed at the elderling Airbnb

[hawtsee]

The Good Neighbor

I usually like to embarrass Madge in my fics, today it’s Gale’s turn.

Madge really, really wishes it was otherwise, but she’s become very familiar with the amorous sounds of her next door neighbors. Their bedrooms are separated by only a thin wall and nothing can block out the nightly carnal noises.

She would complain, but the guy, Cato, is terrifying. He looks like the type who would rip your head off at the slightest provocation. The girl is kinda scary too. She certainly seems to hold her own during their screaming rows. More than once, Madge has sat on her couch, clutching her phone waiting to call 911 as she’s listened to them argue. Fortunately, they’ve never turned physical.

Or, never come to blows anyway. They do turn physical - long, loud sex marathons against the shared wall dividing their apartment from Madge’s.

She knows the difference between their drunk sex, their makeup sex, their romantic sex. She can tell when they’re high, when Glimmer is faking, when they’re using toys. She knows them all.

So when she’s woken up in the early hours of Saturday morning by loud carnal groaning, she instantly knows that it’s not Cato on the other side of the wall.

Madge stuffs in her ear plugs and goes back to sleep, trying to figure out if Glimmer is really stupid, or really brave.

The next time she wakes up, the sun’s out. She hauls herself out of bed and throws on her running gear. As she’s heading out the door, she hears the sounds of the pair starting up again next door.

It’s a pleasant morning, ideal for a run, and by the time she returns to her block, Madge has forgotten all about the pair in 22C. She’s doing some cooling down stretches on the stump outside when a familiar motorbike roars up.

Cato.

Madge knows that if Cato catches his girlfriend fucking another man he will murder one of them, and possibly both. She can’t let that happen. So she presses long and hard on the buzzer for the apartment. Nobody answers, and then Cato is climbing up the steps to the front door and she has to let go.  

He gives her a nod and a lecherous look as he passes in by her. She waits until he’s in the elevator before pressing the buzzer again.

This time a voice answers. “What do you want?” Glimmer asks angrily.

“Cato is on his way up right now,” Madge says urgently.

She hears an expletive and then the connection is cut. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Madge goes inside and takes the elevator up to her floor.

She stands outside the door to 22C, but can hear nothing. No fighting, no furniture being thrashed, nobody being beaten up. After a minute of further silence, Madge decides that Glimmer and her… companion weren’t found out.

She lets herself into her own apartment, strips off and hops into the shower. She takes her time, shampooing her hair and shaving her legs. By the time she gets out the water is turning cold and her skins is pruney. She wraps herself in a fluffy towel and pads into her bedroom.

There are sounds coming from the neighbor’s apartment. The sound of a bed thumping hard against the wall and Glimmer and Cato’s moans “Unbelieveable,” Madge mouths to herself. She tries not to judge, but come on!

Then she hears a tap coming from her left. She turns to her window and screams.

There’s a man standing right outside her window. He’s naked, save for a shoe which he’s using to cover his bits.

Madge scrambles around trying to find a weapon. She picks up and dismisses a bottle of perfume and her hair brush before seizing her nail scissors and pointing it towards the window.

The man knocks again, more urgently this time and uses his free hand to gesture towards the apartment next door, the ground three floors beneath him, and then into her room.

Slowly, the pieces fall into place. He’s Glimmer’s companion, forced to hide on the ledge because of Cato’s unexpected return. He makes another pleading gesture at her.

Madge really does not want to let a strange and naked man into her room, but she can’t leave him perched on the narrow ledge outside either, so reluctantly, she opens her window.

He clambers into the room and falls to the floor, clutching the carpet and breathing heavily. Madge stands over him with her scissors pointed at him.

“Thank you,” he pants. He rolls onto his back, forgetting his shoe and revealing his junk to Madge. She shrieks and and grabs the towel she’d been using to dry her hair and tosses it at him.

He laughs and wraps it around his waist as he rises to his feet. He’s about to say something, but pauses to listen to Glimmer and Cato reach their climax in a very vocal fashion. “Is that…. Jesus. She doesn’t waste time.”

“You are in no position to judge anybody right now,” Madge snaps. “Please, get out of my apartment.”

The guy makes a sound of protest. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m naked. My clothes are out on the street. Can you go get them for me?”

Madge really wants to tell him no, but she knows she can’t kick him out naked. For one thing, if anybody saw him leaving her apartment, they’d get the wrong impression. “Fine,” she huffs. She ducks into her closet and pulls on some clothes. When she goes back into her bedroom, the guy is examining the things on her dressing table. Madge examines him. He’s tall, well built but a little pudgy in the stomach, he badly needs a shave and a haircut and when he looks around at her, Madge sees that his eyes are bloodshot. She imagines that with a good sleep and a shower, he could be very handsome.

“Where are you clothes?” she asks. They go to the window and he points out where they’re scattered on the ground below.

“I don’t know where my other shoe went. Maybe you’ll be able to see it when you’re down there,” he says. “Hey, can I use your shower?”

“No, absolutely not,” she exclaims. She pushes him into a chair. “Sit there and don’t touch anything.”

Madge gives him one last glare before leaving the apartment to go outside and around the back of the building. She finds his sweater and jeans easily. There’s a pair of briefs hanging off a railing she can’t reach, and doesn’t really want to anyway. She finds a set of keys with a diamante ‘G’ hanging from them. She hunts around for the other shoe, but can’t find it.

“Fuck him,” she mutters under her breath. He can go barefoot. She trudges back inside and presses the call button for the elevator. The doors open revealing Cato pressing Glimmer against the wall of the carriage with his tongue jammed down her throat and his hand up her skirt. They split apart when they realize they’re no longer alone and step out. Cato nods at Madge, Glimmer ignores her completely. Neither of them notice the bundle of clothes in her hand.

‘Bitch’, Madge thinks to herself as she stabs the button for her floor.

Her bedroom is empty, but she can hear the guy peeing in her bathroom. When the toilet flushes, she knocks on the door and hands the clothes inside.

Instead of taking them from her, he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Are you sure you want me to put them on. We could-”

Madge cuts him off by shoving his clothes at him and slamming the bathroom door.

She’s totally regretting her good neighbor act.

While she waits for him to dress, she searches her closet for an old pair of flip flops belonging to her dad. He loaned them to her when she hurt her foot and couldn’t wear her own shoes. She’d never given them back and had been meaning to toss them. Might as well give them to… whatever his name is.

He emerges a moment later. He has washed his face and tidied his hair a little. He still looks like he desperately needs a good night’s sleep. She tosses the flip flops in his direction. He fumbles the catch and winces when he bends down to straighten them up so he can slip them on.

“Is breakfast ready?” he asks with a smirk.

Madge knows he just trying to get a rise from her. So she smiles tightly at him. “I think it’s time for you to go now.”

He rolls his eyes but follows her to the door. “So, uh, thanks, I guess.”

“You guess?” Madge whips around to face him, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but he’s still smirking. She dampens down on the retort and opens her front door.

At the exact same moment, the elevator doors slide open to reveal Cato and Glimmer. This time they appear to be in the middle of a heated argument. Glimmer spots the man standing in Madge’s doorway and gives a shriek of surprise. Cato turns, his eyes narrow with suspicion.

Madge really just wants to retreat into her apartment and let the three of them deal with their shit by themselves, but there’s an actual chance that Cato would murder somebody if he found out and Madge can’t have that on her conscience, no matter how much she loathes all three.

So she turns to the guy and flashes her biggest, fakest smile. “Thanks for an amazing night… stud. Maybe we could do it again some time.”

He grins at her. “Stud.” Then he grabs her waist, pulls her to him and plants a kiss on her mouth. He tastes of cigarettes and alcohol and god knows what else. One of his hands slides down to grab her ass. Madge pushes him away with as much force as she can muster. He smacks into the door frame and grunts.

Madge glances over her shoulder to see Cato and Glimmer enter their apartment. “I guess she’s not a total prude,” Glimmer says before the door closes.

“Bitch,” Madge mutters under her breath. She’s so done with this entire day and it’s not even ten in the morning. She pushes past the guy and slams the door to her apartment.

**

She sees him again six months later, though it takes her a while to recognize him.

Madge has been promoted at work, and one of her first roles is to liaise with the engineering team hired to undertake a major project with her company.

At the first meeting, she notices the tall, handsome man immediately. It’s hard not to. He has his back to her as she approaches, but she notes his broad shoulders and how well his suit fits him. He turns as she introduces herself to the head engineer. Madge is focusing her attention on Catherine Paylor, but from the corner of her eye, she sees the way his eyes widen in recognition.

Madge does not recognise him, and when Paylor introduces him as Gale Hawthorne, the name means nothing to her. Though he definitely seems to know her. He has a rabbit-stuck-in-headlights expression on his face. Madge can’t understand how she doesn’t recognize him if they have met before. Surely she would remember meeting somebody that handsome.

They’re about an hour into the tour of the building, when Paylor asks Gale his opinion on something. When she hears his voice, it clicks into place.

He was the naked guy on her window ledge.

She gasps. He hears her, goes pale and loses his train of thought. He stutters a little, regains his flow and finishes his answer. For the rest of the tour, he throws nervous glances her way. Madge pretends not to notice.

He doesn’t speak again, and does little more than nod his head when they leave. After saying goodbye to the engineers, Madge crosses the street to the coffee place.

She’s about to hand over the money for her coffee, when a deep voice comes from behind her. “I’ll get that.”

Madge turns to find Gale Hawthorne standing behind her. “It’s fine,” she insists.

“Please let me,” he says. “It’s the least I owe you.”

That’s true, so she accepts his offer. He tells her to sit and that he’ll bring the coffee down to her. She guesses that he wants to talk, which she’d really rather not, but knowing that they will have to work together, concedes that they should get it out of the way.

She finds a table towards the back of the room and waits. She examines him as he waits for the drinks. He has lost his beer belly, his face is clean shaven and his hair is combed neatly.  He looks so different from the guy who had fallen through her window that morning that it’s not wonder she couldn’t place him.

Gale comes over to her a minute later with their drinks and a lemon bar for her, which she decides to ignore. He gestures to the chair opposite her, asking if he can join her. Madge nods.

After a moment of awkwardness, he speaks. “You moved.”

Madge frowns. “What?”

“You moved apartments. I went back a few weeks after… after our previous encounter, but you had moved.”

Her frown deepens. “Why did you go back?”

He flushes. “I wanted to apologize to you. My behavior that morning was way out of line. It was very inappropriate and I am very sorry for putting you in that position with your neighbors, and making you uncomfortable in your own home.”

“Thank you. Apology accepted.”

They sip their drinks quietly. Madge gives in and breaks the lemon bar in half and nibbles on a piece. Gale opens his mouth several times, as if he’s going to speak and then thinks better of it.

Finally he does. “Look, this isn’t an excuse, but it’s an explanation. I was having a pretty hard time adjusting to civilian life after my tour, and I started drinking too much, and doing things that I’m not proud of. That morning was a wake up call for me. I’ve stopped drinking, I’m going to group therapy. Nothing like that will ever happen again.”

“You’re military?”

“Ex-military. Engineering corp. I wasn’t on the front lines or anything, but…” he trails off uncomfortably, then shakes himself. “Anyway, I got back from Iraq about nine months ago and, I started drinking too much, going out, doing stupid shit, turning up to work late and hungover. I’m still on probation from that. After I got home that morning, I started thinking about what would have happened if you hadn’t let me in. Or if I’d fallen. I kept imagining the phone call my mother would get, what she’d have to tell my baby sister. I realized I couldn’t go on like that anymore. So I started going to group therapy. I’ve decided to abstain from drink and…. Well other crutches for a year.”

Madge bites her lip. “Other crutches…. Like sex?”

Gale flushes again. “Yes, sex.”

“Wow, that will be hard.” Her eyes widen when she realizes the double entendre and they both laugh.

“It’s been six months,” Gale says when they’ve sobered. “It’s been fine really. I’m kind of relieved. All the hook-ups was making me feel pretty empty, but I wasn’t able to stop myself.” He shrugs. “I’m in a good place right now.”

“You look good,” Madge says. She runs her eyes over his chest. Very good. He smirks a little, not in the arrogant way he had that morning but simply acknowledging the strange chain of events that led them here. Madge doesn’t find this smirk nearly so infuriating as she did that morning, in fact, she finds it quite charming.

“So, you moved?” he prompts.

“Yeah. I couldn’t stay living beside those two anymore. So I moved out and now I live beside a lovely lesbian couple in their sixties. They have pretty loud sex too, but at least I don’t have to worry about strange, naked men dropping into my apartment unannounced.”

**

It becomes a habit for them, meeting up for coffee and lemon bars. At first, they only talk about the project. Gale has been appointed as her point of contact on the engineering team, so she goes to him with all her questions.

Little by little they start talking about their personal lives too. Gale talks about army life and his family. Madge tells him about her parents, her bad dates, her neighbors’ very active sex life.

Gale never shows up late, or hungover or even unshaven. When he talks about his weekends, it’s about the hikes he took with his friends, or coaching his sister’s basketball team, or spending time with his family. Occasionally he mentions his therapy and how well it’s going.

“Do you miss it?” she asks one day. She hadn’t meant to, but she’s been wondering about it a lot and it sort of slips out. “Sex, I mean,” she elaborates when he looks confused by her question.

“Not really. Not nearly as much as I thought I would,” he admits candidly. “Sometimes  I get really ho-,” he clears his throat. “There are times, yeah, but it passes. There are worse things.”

“It’s only another two months, right, and then you’ll be, um, able to get back on the horse. Are you counting down the days?”

Gale shakes his head. “No. Well, maybe a little bit. But, not so I can go out and get drunk and hook up with a stranger again. I’m done with all that. It never felt good afterwards. I always just felt empty. I am looking forward to having something meaningful with someone.”

Madge’s stomach twists at his words.

The next two months fly past. On Monday morning Gale buys the coffee and two lemon bars.

“Two? What’s the occasion?” Madge asks.

“It’s exactly a year since we met, I thought we should mark it,” Gale says.

“Oh really? Remind me again how that went?” Madge teases.

Gale groans and buries his face in his hands.

Madge giggles and decides to let him off the hook. “Did I tell you, I saw Glimmer recently. She was with a new guy; she and Cato broke up about four months ago.”

“What?” Gale feigns shock. “How can I ever believe in love if those two crazy kids couldn’t make it?”

“You know, she never ever thanked me for saving her ass that morning,” Madge says, stirring her coffee with a little more vigor than necessary. To this day, Madge is convinced that Cato would have murdered Glimmer if he’d found out she’d cheated on him. “Bitch.”

Gale reaches across the table and takes her head. “I don’t think I ever really did either. You saved me from whatever Cato would have done to me. You saved me from falling off that window ledge and breaking my mother’s heart. And you saved me from myself.”

Madge’s cheeks redden at the unnecessary praise. “Gale, I can’t take any credit for that. You’re the one who went to therapy and did all the work and saved yourself. I only let you in off the ledge.”

“No,” he says with intensity. “You did more than that, Madge. You made me take a good look at myself that morning and I realized that I didn’t like who was looking back at me. And for the past six months, you’ve been my friend. It’s been hard; the therapy and everything, it’s hard. But I do it, because I want to be a better man. I want to be a man that you’re proud of and not one you despise. I want to be a man worthy of you.”

“Gale…” Madge can barely speak. “I’m very proud of you.”

“Also, I want to be a man you want to see naked and not one you’re kicking out of your apartment.”

Madge laughs. She definitely wouldn’t kick him out if he was naked now.

“But, maybe a date, or three, first?” Gale asks hopefully.

“A date, and we’ll play it by ear.”