This is a work of fiction.

creak-creak.
Creak-Creak.
CREAK-CREAK!
(Gasp!) (Moan!)

I turned down the volume on my computer and looked at the wall as if I could see through it. I then regretted that thought, as what lay on the other side was obvious. More to the point, with the way my desk and Heather’s bed are configured, I’d get a feet-first view of Mark (Heather’s boyfriend) pumping away industriously. I obviously didn’t care that they were having sex, although a part of me couldn’t help but wonder why anyone else should be getting any when I sure as hell wasn’t, and they weren’t even being particularly loud. Unfortunately, our rooms have a linking door (a holdover from design decisions neither I, my roommates, or our landlords entirely understand) and the thin wood of the door did little to muffle any sounds.

I sighed. The irony was, Heather and I had had a conversation just days earlier about whether I could hear her having sex. I had said that I couldn’t, which had been true at the time but was no longer the case. How do you handle situations like these? As I said, it wasn’t an issue of wanting them to stop having sex in general, just that I don’t have enough of a voyeur in me to enjoy listening in on two friends having sex. Particularly when I know there’s no chance I’ll be invited to participate, and particularly if I’m sober.

I got up, walked down the hall to John’s room, and knocked. “Can I come in?”

“What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

“Uhh…sure.”

I went in, and closed the door behind me while apologizing, “Sorry, I just didn’t want to yell this through the door.” I paused.

John looked up from his computer, “What’s up? Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” I dawdled, looking at everything in John’s room but him. “See, I can…I can hear Heather and Mark having sex, and I’m not sure what to do about it.”

John gave out a single laugh and then, attempting to peer through the wall much like I had and realizing that Heather and my rooms were adjacent, let out an “Ahhh.”

“So what do I do about it?”

After pausing to consider, John allowed, “You could ignore it.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“You could go watch.”

“Ew. No thanks. Besides which, I don’t think I could sneak in unnoticed (although I guess it depends on how…involved…they are) and the main door of her room is frosted glass, not just a plate of clear glass.” Like the doors connecting our rooms, I wasn’t sure why Heather’s door was frosted glass, but there you go.”

“Well, clearly we need to do some research.” John got up and went out into the hall, walking quietly. I followed, not sure where, exactly, we were headed. He paused in the dining room, outside my room and down the hall from Heather’s, and said “You can hear them from out here, too.”

I cocked my head to listen and sure enough, there it was:

creak-creak.
Creak-Creak.
CREAK-CREAK!
(Gasp!) (Moan!)

John turned to me and said, “I know!” before grabbing a chair to sit down. “Woo! Yeah! You go in there!”

My head snapped to him. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Looking at me, he replied, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m chearing them on! I think they deserve a little encouragement.” He turned back to Heather’s room, shouting “That’s right! Oh, great job!”

Not surprisingly, the creaking stopped and there was muffled talking in Heather’s room. A moment later, her door popped open and she stuck her head out. She was clothed in a bathroom and (obviously) nothing else. “What the hell are you doing?”

“That’s what I asked,” I offered, trying to stick up for myself. Not that standing in the dining room with your roommate while appearing to listen to your other roommate have sex with her boyfriend and cheer them on is an easy-to-defend position.

“Well it’s fucking creepy! Emma, John, cut it out!”

“But I didn’t – ” Too late. The door had slammed, and I wasn’t able to redeem my good name.

I turned back to John and asked him again, “What the hell were you doing?” He held up a finger, indicating I should wait. “But-” He simply shook his head and shushed me.

Moments later, after more muffled talking, we could hear them again:

creak-creak.
Creak-Creak.
CREAK-CREAK!
(Gasp!) (Moan!)

(At the time, I was impressed that they were able to get back in the mood so quickly.)

But not a minute passed before John starrted up again with a solid, “Oh, good job!” Immediately, all sound from Heather’s room ceased. John kept the silence, holding up his hand to indicate I should do the same. I had quite a bit of trouble not laughing, but I don’t think I can be blamed for that.

When Heather and Mark decided John was really done, we heard more creaking from her room. This time John launched right in: “Beautiful! Simply beautiful!”

Again, all noise ceased.

But this time there was a shorter pause before we could hear them again. And this time, I let out a solid whoop of encouragement. And Heather and Mark didn’t even pause. Well, that let the gates open. John and I started cheering madly, crying out every cheesy thing we could think of to say at a sports game: Get it, get it, get it, GOAL! That’s it, right there! You can do it! (That’s not counting the crazy nonsensical cheers we let out.)

At last, although I can only imagine they were trying to be as silent as possible, we could hear the creaking speed up and some high-pitched moans (presumably Heather’s). This time the noise stayed silent for good, and John got up. “Well, that was something new,” he said to me with a grin. “Goodnight.” Before I could gather my thoughts, he went back to his room and shut the door. I was left alone in the dining room. I looked at Heather’s door, looked back at John’s door, shruged, and went into my room.

The next morning, while I was eating breakfast, Heather came out to the kitchen. “Hey,” she grumbled as she got a glass of milk. I could see the exact moment she remembered last night, and she spun around in fury. “What the fuck were you two doing last night?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I did a lot of things last night.”

Heather put the milk down on the counter and started toward me. “Don’t give me that bullshit. What the hell possessed you and John to yell at Mark and I?! And why didn’t you tell me you could hear me?!” The last part was said in almost a whisper, her anger ranging so high that her volume had to drop to convey it.

I tried to defend myself, although I expected it to be unsuccessful. “Don’t look at me. I went to John to ask how to politely and diplomatically handle hearing you from my room when he decided to come out and make an event out of it! You heard it! He was the one who cheered first!”

“I am so pissed at you right now! Do you have any idea how degrading it was having you two yelling from the dining room? I wanted to crawl under the covers and die! Mark convinced me that the best way to make you go away was to pretend we didn’t notice you, but that sure didn’t work out well. Don’t you ever even think of doing anything like that again, or I swear I’ll…”

At this point, I noticed that Heather was flush, the red spreading down her face and across her neck. And either the temperature in the kitchen had dropped, or she was enjoying retelling what had happened last night. When she saw me glancing down, she trailed off.

While crossing her arms over her chest, she tried to get back on topic. “If you ever…”

I spoke over her, asking “Wait, did last night turn you on?”

“What?!”

“It did, didn’t it!”

She looked left and right, as if searching for a safe answer. “What? No…it…”

“Admit it! Admit it!”

“How could you possibly even think that?”

I paused, pretending to consider, “I don’t know. Maybe because your nipples went ‘sproing!’ when you started talking about it? Because even trying to be quite last not, you weren’t particularly good at it?”

She paused, before finally forcing the words out: “Fine! So what if it did?! But you’re still an ass for doing it!”

She stomped out of the kitchen in anger. In retrospect, I’m not sure how she worked up the courage to come back and talk with me. And I definitely don’t know how I allowed her to rope me in. But now, “every so often” I cheer her and Mark when I hear them. The rest of the time, I pretend I can’t hear a thing and just turn up the volume on my computer. But Heather told me their sex is better than it’s ever been; that the knowledge I might hear them drives her wild. Which is how I ended up as her one-woman cheerleading squad, apparently able to help Mark drive her to heretofore unknown heights.

Good for them – I’m still not getting any.