James-Chapter 1 C

      After climbing the long flight of stairs of an abandoned apartment building, James dare not pant aloud.  He breathed long and lightly, both winded and excited.

All of the apartments in the building were abandoned. James had delivered tax inheritance documents to an elderly client in 504 last year.  Soon after, the man moved out of the apartment, and as he was the last to leave, the building was officially condemned.

The man had been elderly and lived alone.  Having lived  on the fifth floor, the man hardly ever left and there was years worth of clutter scattered about.  Originally, when James arrived, the disarray made his head swirl and the human smell of the apartment made him sick.  The documents James had delivered last year had shown the man to be the recipient of a considerable sum of funds unclaimed.  Thus allowing the man to move into a better neighborhood. James had managed his move, for a sum of course. He hired movers and a cleaning lady and cleared the apartment in a week. 

The only thing he asked the cleaner to leave in the apartment was the iridescent curtain and an old desk chair which sat in front of the window looking out into the world. The cleaning lady had raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

It was during the time of this coming and going from the apartment that he had first seen her. The young woman in the apartment across from the old mans.  Even across the alleyway he could tell the angle of her chiseled face. He couldn't help but watch her.

She seemed to hold to a routine, like him.  She hung her apron when she arrived home and placed the kettle on for tea.  She usually unwrapped a pie for dinner and read.  She laundered her things on Saturday and went to market. Attended church on Sunday and on Tuesday night at five thirty, she filled a basin with warm water and bathed.

James sat breathlessly in the chair.  She had already begun filling the basin and had removed her outer dress.  He was sad to miss that.  He relished every bit of her ritual and delighted in every layer of anticipation.  The basin steamed in the cool of the night.  She stoked her fire and added a log. Next her stockings were removed and she let her hair down. It billowed over her shoulders and all around her. the strap of her slip fell to her shoulder and she let it. The ridge of her breast shown through like a tease at her décolleté, tight and ample.  She fussed over the temperature of the tub a bit more and unwrapped a bar of soap.  All the fussing made the other strap fall and James swelled at the sight of her.  Seeing a woman half dressed was almost better than what was about to come.  He savored being taunted by his desire to see her entirely undressed and wishing she would stay like that all evening.

But before he could relish another moment of taunting. suddenly she was bare. It took his breath away every time and shook his body. There were places on her that were narrow and slight, places that were plump and firm and her hair fell over all of them.  

He wondered what color her eyes might be and what kid of soap she used. He imagined what her voice sounded like and what book she read.  He wondered what her skin tasted like...God forgive him.  James had never been with a woman.  He had courted women that his family had arranged.  Taking woman for walks, attending a dance or driving with others.  Things people must do.  But the women he courted were always dry and  calculating, formal.  He wanted to be with a woman that made him feel what he felt when he first saw her.

He wanted someone to melt into him and laugh. To overcome him. To emancipate him from the cage he was in.

He stayed until she was dressed and blew out her candle for the night