The Yellow Lamp

The courtyard was the cheap kind, four floors of brick around a square of uneven pavers and a bike rack nobody respected. Iris had the corner flat on the east side. The man opposite had a lamp with a yellow shade and the habit of reading in a chair that faced her windows. She noticed him the way you notice a repeated sound. Then one night in October she noticed she was timing her own lamp to his.

She was thirty-six, up too late grading. He looked a little older, glasses on, shirt untucked. The first look that counted was an accident. She had stood to stretch, blouse half undone from the heat of the radiator, and he had glanced up at the same moment. Both of them froze. He lifted a hand, not quite a wave. She lifted hers. The next night his curtain was open on purpose. So was hers.

They did not write signs. The distance was too far for cardboard, and Iris did not want a joke. She wanted the quieter thing. On the third night she left the yellow-white of her desk lamp on and sat where he could see her knees. He closed his book. For a long minute neither moved. Then he turned his own lamp one click brighter, which she chose to read as an answer.

On the fourth night she touched herself.

Not at once. She made tea. She answered a message from her sister. She let him see the indecision, because the indecision was the consent she could offer across a courtyard: he could look away, close the curtain, kill the lamp. He did none of those. He set the book on the floor. Iris slid a hand under her skirt, watching his face more than her own body, and the shame was thin and the arousal was not. When she came she kept her eyes open. Across the gap he had his cock in his hand. She had not seen him take it out. The sight knocked a second smaller shock through her, and she laughed once, breathless, alone in her flat.

He came a minute later, head tipped back, and then he did something careful. He held up his phone, screen dark, and shook his head. No pictures. Iris nodded, absurdly moved. They killed the lamps at the same time.

The fifth night was worse and better. She waited until his light came on, then opened her blouse fully and sat on the desk so the lamp made a clean line of her. He stood. She thought he might leave the window. Instead he braced one hand on the frame and stroked himself where she could see the pace. Iris matched it. The ritual had rules now, unspoken and already sturdy: lamps meant yes, a closed curtain meant no, no photos, no sudden visits. She came with two fingers in her cunt and her other hand on the glass, a print she would see in the morning. He watched her do it. She watched him finish against his stomach and wipe his hand on his shirt without embarrassment.

On the sixth night the courtyard gate clicked while she was still dressed. She went to the window and he was down there, coat on, looking up, not at her flat exactly, at the lit square. He had something in his hand. Paper. He set it under the brick that held the gate, looked up once, and left.

Iris waited ten minutes, then went down in boots and a coat over nothing sensible. The note was short.

I am Noah. 3C. I will not come up unless you ask. If the lamp is on tomorrow I will take it as yes to watching, not to the door. If you want the door, write back and put it here.

She stood in the cold with the paper shaking. Upstairs his lamp was off. Hers was on. She wrote on the back with a pen from her coat.

Iris. 2A. Lamp means watching. Saturday, if you want, coffee in the stairwell by the mailboxes. No touching unless we both say so. I liked your no-photos.

She put the note back under the brick. In her flat she left the lamp on and did not perform. Across the courtyard, a minute later, his yellow shade came on. Noah stood at the glass, dressed, and raised a hand. Iris raised hers. Neither of them reached for themselves. The restraint felt more obscene than the nights before, and she went to bed wet and smiling, already drafting the sentence she would say by the mailboxes, where the watching would finally have a voice.

Saturday came grey. Iris changed her shirt twice and then disliked herself for it. At eleven she went down. Noah was already by the mailboxes, coat damp at the shoulders, no performance of surprise. Up close he was tired around the eyes and careful with his hands, which stayed in his pockets.

"Coffee is terrible in this building," he said. "I brought some anyway."

They drank it standing up, a metre of stairwell between them. Iris told him the lamps had been the point, not an accident she wanted laundered. Noah said he had nearly closed the curtain on the fourth night and had not, because she had looked straight at him and not away. They agreed again: watching only when both lamps were on, no photos, no knocking. If either of them wanted the other flat, it would be said in daylight, not signalled by a hand on the glass.

"Tonight?" he asked.

"Lamp on," Iris said. "I'll be at the desk. You can look. I might look back. I don't want you in the doorway yet."

"Good," he said, and sounded like he meant the limit as much as the invitation.

That night the yellow shade and her desk lamp came on within a minute of each other. Iris sat where he could see her, skirt hiked, and touched herself slowly while Noah watched with his cock in his fist and his other hand flat on the glass. She came thinking of the stairwell, of his pockets, of the note under the brick. He finished after her and bowed his head, almost formal. Iris killed her lamp first. His went out a breath later. The courtyard went dark, and the ritual held.