Opportunity Knocks

Each and every time he left her flat, she shut the door and locked it good and tight, deadbolt and all. She put her back up against the door, with her tailbone pushing through the green and tattered wood. She made sure to push her shoulder blades in and slid up and down, up and down, the way the lever went up and down on the High Striker at the Cook County Fair when she was a little girl. Even when her father took charge of that mallet, he couldn't make the lever go up and down the way she would when he put the door between them.

On most nights, she imagined him standing there on the other side of that ingress. She dug her fingernails into the threshold and she pulled her silk green dress up just enough so she could see her lacy magenta panties. There were splinters in her clothing and she was out of breath, but she just sighed louder and louder, in hopes that he would knock again and tell her he couldn't wait much longer. That he would have to have her then and there. And not because she was forbidden, but because he couldn't imagine going another night not holding her hand and not looking her in the eye.

She had the upper hand, especially with the only working view through the peephole. But she never looked. She just wanted to believe that he would wait. That she was worth waiting for.

When her feet were bleeding from standing like the Eiffel Tower all that time, and when she noticed she was now clawing into cat marks from hours and hours ago, she made her way to the white porcelain bathtub. As she took off her stilettos and climbed in, she let the warm water run all over her body. The sound of the water would put her out of her misery.

And just outside the bathroom, now full of steam and amatory musings, the persistent sound of pebbles hitting the window was muffled by the rumble of the running water and the puddle splashing she was doing to bide the time.

Her knees, she thought, they were wilting around the rim. She'd need to do something about that sooner rather than later.