The Window Across the Court

The two blocks of flats faced each other across a narrow courtyard barely wide enough for the bins and a strip of concrete. Mara had lived on the third floor for eight months before she started noticing the man opposite properly. He kept late hours. Most nights the kitchen light in his flat came on around eleven and stayed on until after one. She began leaving her own lights off and standing at the dark window with a mug of tea she rarely finished. He cooked badly, the kind of meals that involved a lot of stirring and not much skill. He watered a stubborn plant on the sill that looked half dead no matter what he did. One night he walked through the kitchen in a towel that slipped when he reached up for something on a high shelf. She looked away on instinct, then looked back. He did not know she was there. She liked that most.

On the fourth night she saw more than cooking. He was on the sofa with a laptop open. The angle from her window let her see the blue glow on his face and the steady motion of his hand in his lap. She understood what he was doing when his head tipped back against the cushion and his hips lifted once, sharp. She stayed exactly where she was. Her own hand had slid under the waistband of her shorts without a conscious decision. She rubbed herself in slow circles and came quietly, biting her lip, while she watched him finish and wipe his hand on his thigh. After that she waited for the kitchen light every night.

He started leaving the curtains open wider. Or she told herself he did. One evening he stood closer to the glass, fully naked, and stroked his cock while he looked out across the courtyard. She could not tell whether he was looking toward her window or simply at the dark space between the buildings. She came twice that night, fingers working steadily, eyes fixed on the motion of his hand and the way his stomach tightened when he got close. The next day she bought a cheap pair of binoculars from a shop on the high street and told the cashier they were for birds. She used them once, from the dark of her own flat. The detail was almost too much: the exact shape of his hand, the shine at the head of his cock, the way his mouth opened. She put the binoculars in a drawer and went back to standing barefoot in the dark with one hand between her legs and the other braced on the window frame.

On a Friday he held a piece of paper up to the glass. The writing was large and blocky. ARE YOU WATCHING? She froze with her hand still in her shorts. Then she found a marker, tore the back off an envelope, and wrote YES in capital letters. She held it up to her own window. He smiled. The paper came down. A minute later he was naked again, standing closer to the glass than before, cock in his hand. He stroked himself slowly and kept his eyes on her side of the courtyard. She matched his pace without thinking. When he came she saw the mess stripe the inside of his window. She came at the same moment, one hand gripping the frame, the other buried between her legs. The next evening there was a new sign, same handwriting. COME OVER. THIRD FLOOR. LEFT DOOR. IT IS OPEN. She put on a long coat and nothing underneath, locked her own flat, and crossed the courtyard in the dark. His door was unlocked. He was waiting on the sofa, still naked, cock half-hard against his stomach. She locked the door behind her, dropped the coat on the floor, and knelt between his knees without a word. She had already watched him for weeks. Now she wanted the taste of him on her tongue and the weight of him in her mouth while he watched her do it. She sucked him slow at first, then deeper, until he came across her tongue. She swallowed and then climbed into his lap and rode him while he kept his eyes on her face. She came twice. He came inside her. Afterward they stood at his window together, naked, and looked across at her dark flat. He asked if she wanted to keep watching sometimes. She said yes, but only if he knew she was there and put on a show. He agreed. She went home with his come still inside her and texted him from her own window twenty minutes later: lights off. Your turn.