Dear Neighbor Read online

  The screamer’s response to my eye flick was instantaneous.

  She laid her claim by moving closer to him and draping her hand over his arm. Our eyes met. Hers were smug. She was what you’d expect, blonde, beautiful, and skinny, although the word I prefer is ‘bitch’. I calmly shifted my gaze to the lighted numbers and refrained from telling her that Sex God preferred quantity over quality. I doubted she would be coming around again.

  The lift doors opened with laborious slowness.

  Gray eyes trained on me. “After you.”

  His gravelly, deep voice melted its way down my back. I stepped into the lift and stared straight ahead as they came in and the doors closed. The journey down was a bit of an ordeal. No one spoke. The shrew threw me dirty looks and I fought the urge not to fidget.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours later, the torture ended. The lift jerked and doors slowly creaked open at ground level. I was in such a rush I nearly tumbled out. I didn’t hang around long enough to hear the doors close behind me. The pair could have carried on down to the depths of hell for all I cared.

  4

  Mimi

  I picked up an egg white sandwich and a skinny soy latte from my local café and rushed through the revolving doors of Jett & Stone Investments. Flying through the glass, chrome, and granite foyer I just managed to squeeze into the lift before it closed.

  My boss, Josh wouldn’t be around this morning. He was meeting some clients. A smile came to my lips as I thought of him. After two years of working here, we became a ‘thing’ last month.

  Yeah, I know. I was sleeping with the boss.

  Not officially, obviously, because of office gossip and uncomfortable situations, but we were both going at it like rabbits. It started one day while we were working late. He turned his head and suddenly kissed me.

  The earth didn’t move, or anything like that, but it was more than nice, and it made me realize how long it had been since I had been with a man. Josh was quite good-looking with a slim athletic body. His fingernails were always clean and he didn’t live too far away from me. Not a bad catch.

  The lift doors opened at floor fourteen and I walked briskly into the Private Equity department. The good thing about showing up late on a Monday morning was not being the only one. I could sort of blend in with the rest of the shifty-eyed latecomers and get to my desk without too much notice.

  Nobody blinked an eye as I made my way down the narrow glass corridor and slipped into my cubicle. I booted up my computer, and to make it look like I’d been there for a while I placed my sandwich and latte on my desk and strategically scattered some paperwork around them.

  By the time my computer came on, it looked like I’d been there for ages. The first thing I always did on Monday morning was to tackle my inbox. It would be full of a weekend’s worth of emails from clients, both happy and less-than, and if I didn’t clear them, piles of new emails would get dumped on top of them, which I hated, but since I had the unenviable task of preparing for a status meeting at half-past twelve I decided to do it after I finished my notes for the meeting.

  I worked on my notes for two hours solid then started on my emails.

  We’d recently launched a new version of our online access portal. It was supposed to allow clients to get into their statements day or night. Most of my emails appeared to be from clients requesting help accessing their accounts.

  I sighed and opened the first one. The email icon blinked at the top left-hand corner of my screen and I smiled. Josh. He must be back if he was sending me an email. I looked around to be sure nobody was looking over my shoulder before opening it.

  Guess what I thought about all weekend long? The way you taste. Your smell, and those little mewing, kitten sounds you make when I eat you out.

  I grinned and craned my neck to see into his office. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up and was talking to Drake from Accounting. I dropped my eyes back to the screen.

  I wish I had been with you this weekend instead of with my parents. All I did was walk around trying to hide a hard-on because I couldn’t stop thinking about your pussy.

  I can’t wait to devour you tonight.

  The whole time I was pretending to listen to those asses downtown, I was imagining you under my desk sucking me off.

  Hope you’re wearing your red thong!

  Josh xx

  I blew out a long, slow breath. Oh, Josh, you dirty dog you, but in fact, I was wearing a red thong. Once I knew it was his thing—he liked tearing it off with his teeth—I ordered two dozen from the internet. I pictured him between my legs, humming to himself as he ate me out, and started to feel warm and tingly. Yes, Josh sure knew what I wanted, and how I wanted it.

  I enjoyed my relationship with Josh. Maybe it was because we had worked with each other for so long I felt I really knew him. Unlike my manwhore neighbor, he could be completely trusted.

  Of course, my bestie, Megan, was dead set against the idea of me and Josh. In her books, sleeping with the boss was always a recipe for disaster, but I told her it would be all right since he wasn’t exactly my direct boss. I quoted one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings to her: stop buying trouble before it goes on sale.

  I reread his dirty email. We hadn’t been together since Thursday night at my place. That’s three days without sex while Josh visited his parents in Schenectady. I was just as eager to be devoured by him as he was to devour me.

  I hit “Reply,” then typed:

  Dear Josh,

  If absolutely necessary I can tentatively pencil you into my diary for a good sucking under the desk after lunch. Please confirm a time that would suit you.

  Best regards.

  Mimi xx

  Smiling to myself, I hit ‘Send’.

  5

  Mimi

  At the precise instant I clicked send, another email titled URGENT from someone called Lillian Taylor appeared at the top left-hand corner of my screen. Later I would marvel at what strange coincidence it was, but at that moment I had no idea who she was. I just thought she was a client or a prospect. The word urgent made me open it.

  Without warning my safe little world with its little plan of illicit oral sex under Josh’s desk crumbled into dust. My whole body went cold. I read the all-caps message in a state of blank shock.

  HAVE YOU BEEN HAVING FUN FUCKING MY MAN?

  GUESS WHAT, SLUT? I’M PREGNANT WITH JOSH’S BABY. WHY DON’T YOU GO FIND A MAN OF YOUR OWN, YOU NASTY PIG!!!!! GET SOME MORALS AND CLASS, SLUT. AND DON’T EVER TOUCH MY MAN AGAIN.

  LILLIAN

  The words swam before my shocked eyes. It had to be a joke. I wanted it so much to be someone’s sick sense of humor. It just had to be, only it wasn’t. I felt the venom of the words seeping through my skin, infecting my flesh and poisoning my blood.

  Breathlessly, I stared at the scanned photo of an ultrasound. The mother’s name was on the photo, too. Lillian Taylor. The photo was taken three days ago.

  He had a girlfriend.

  Oh shit. He had a fucking girlfriend.

  A pregnant girlfriend.

  I’d felt my world was falling apart around me twice before. When my parents announced their divorce and when Grandma died.

  But this email… It was like a whole new level of world-shattering. I was in a threesome and I didn’t even know it. I had somehow become the hated other woman. That creature that steals other women’s men. Me? Just when I was thinking about taking things to the next level with Josh, I find out he’s a fucking two-timing piece of shit.

  I trusted him and he turned out to be no better than my slutty neighbor. Maybe even worse. At least that guy never let them expect anything more than a screaming orgasm. To think Josh had been lying lied to me all along hurt.

  How could he have done what we did—lying in bed with me, kissing me, looking into my eyes and telling me how important I was becoming to him while he was having unprotected sex with a woman who sent out all-caps emails?

  Thank God, we always
used a condom.

  I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. With anger. The liar. He was such a fucking liar. All those long lingering looks. There was no way I could sit at my desk for the rest of the day and pretend I didn’t know about her when I all wanted to do was go up to him and throat-punch him. How dare he? How long had Lillian been in the picture? The fact that she knew about me and I didn’t know about her, meant she’d been in the picture the whole time.

  I lifted my head and looked around me. Everyone else had their heads down and seemed to be engrossed in their work. I needed to professional about this. Be cool, Mimi. You’re not the first fool to get played. Be professional. No need to fuck up your career over a cheating prick.

  I took three deep breaths. I could be professional about this. I could play this game. Three calming breaths was obviously not enough because my blood was still boiling.

  Alice popped her head around my cubicle.

  I whipped my head around. “What?” I growled.

  Her eyes widened. “Never mind,” she muttered and slunk away

  I took another three breaths. Calm down, Mimi. You worked long and hard at this job. You’re going to be out of this cubicle and into your own glass office in a few months. Mustn’t jeopardize that. Oh no, no, no. No fucking man was worth that.

  Three more extra-deep breaths.

  But, nope. I couldn’t be professional about it. I needed to talk to that lowlife or I would explode. I stood. My legs were shaking. Actually, everything shook. Even my insides. My stomach roiled.

  I took another steadying breath.

  He was definitely not worth losing my breakfast over. I paid good money for that egg white sandwich, and even if I was going to lose it, I want to lose it on his shirt-front. My head turned automatically in the direction of his office. He waved and winked at me.

  Bastard. Cheating, lying bastard!

  But I had more chutzpah in me than I realized: I waved back.

  I picked up my cell phone from my bag, straightened my skirt, and with my head held up high, I walked past all the glass offices towards the restrooms. As I passed his office, I pretended I had just received a call and made out as if I was completely engrossed in my fake telephone conversation.

  By the time I reached the washroom, my whole body was rigid with fury. Wow! I’d never been so spectacularly cheated on before. I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. How amazing to see that I looked so normal on the outside while inside I was churning so much I could start making butter. I called my Megan. She was always the first one I called whenever something great, bad, or in between happened. The girl could have been in the middle of the biggest deal of her life, but she would’ve dropped everything for me. And I’d do the same for her.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at work,” I said, “but everything just went to hell here.”

  “Why? What happened?” she asked in an urgent whisper. If she was whispering it meant other people were in the next room.

  “Josh has a girlfriend and she’s pregnant.”

  “What? The little snake,” she shouted, then remembered herself and dropped back down to a fierce whisper. “That two-timing, creepy jerk. I knew he was no good. How did you find out?” I heard her footsteps. She must be leaving her office and going out of earshot.

  “She sent me an all-caps email, that’s how,” I replied, my voice shaking with shock.

  “Oh. My. God. Forward it to me,” she demanded in her normal voice.

  “Megan?”

  “What? I’d love to see what an email from a wronged girlfriend all in caps looks like.”

  “This is serious. I’m so angry I feel like killing him.”

  “Um…okay. What are you going to do?”

  “Confront him.”

  “What? Like now?” she asks incredulously.

  “No, next year. Of course, now.”

  “I think you better wait until after office hours, babe,” she suggests seriously.

  “I don’t think I can last that long. I’ll explode.”

  “Of course, you can wait. You need your job, Mimi. Fuck him. He doesn’t deserve you and he’s definitely not worth losing your job over.”

  “No, I’m going to confront that lying rat right now,” I yelled

  “No,” she yelled right back. “If you do, things are going to get so uncomfortable you’re just going to end up without a job.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “Don’t do it,’ she warned, but I rang off, and marched to Josh’s office.

  6

  Mimi

  He was alone. How many times had I looked through those glass walls and smiled at him? How many times had he smiled back when he felt my eyes on him? I used to fantasize about going in, locking the door behind me, pulling the blinds shut, and straddling him, right there in his chair. Or, maybe letting him take me on the desk. All sorts of things. Now I wanted to lock the door and kick his face in.

  Feeling the weight of my stare, he looked up and smiled.

  I closed the glass door behind me and locked it. “Funny thing,” I said, as I walked over and started pulling the blinds closed. His eyes lit up. Ass wipe thought I was coming to give him a blowjob under the desk.

  “Oh, come to Big Daddy,” he smirked and I actually felt physically sick. Funny how I would have thought that was sexy at one time—maybe ten minutes earlier. Right now, letting me anywhere near his dick could result in serious, probably untreatable injury.

  I wished I could hurt him as much as I was hurting just then. I swallowed hard. The fury was like a stone in my throat. “Maybe you should check with your girlfriend first.”

  “What?” he asked, and his voice must have risen an entire octave.

  “Are you honestly gonna pretend you don’t know who I mean? You’re going to sit there, and act like I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

  He stood, hands out. “Mimi, is this a joke?”

  “I haven’t gotten to the funny part yet,” I said. “I got an email from a woman who claims to be pregnant with your child.”

  His first reaction actually made me doubt myself. Either he was a damn good actor or Lillian Taylor was a wholesale liar. He looked at me as if I had turned into a giant scaly lizard. “What on God’s sweet earth are you talking about?”

  The sensation of hope that fluttered inside me was almost as strong as the sense of guilt. I hadn’t given him a chance to defend himself. She could be some crazy lunatic. I didn’t have a shred of proof other than a stupid scan with her name on it. That proved nothing. What if I had jumped to the wrong conclusion?

  With much less certainty than I had come into the room with, I walked up to him and showed him my phone.

  He gasped. Unlike his original fake surprise, I believed this expression of shock.

  “She’s pregnant?” He stared up at me his eyes wide and shining. “Hell, who knew? I’m shooting live rounds. Why didn’t she tell me?” he crowed. There was a strange mixture of joy, hope, and exasperation in his voice. It told me everything I needed to know.

  I felt as if I was in an alternate reality. I wanted to break something. Preferably, his legs. Or neck. Or at the very least, bash his head in with the spiky end of my shoe. Multiple times. I’d probably ruin it, but it would be worth it if I could see his brain flow out.

  “So, you are seeing someone else,” I said through clenched teeth.

  He looked distractedly at the phone sitting on his table before dragging his eyes back to me. The fucking bastard couldn’t wait to call her!

  “Look,” he cajoled. “I never said we were exclusive.”

  My gut burned. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Come on, Mimi. You’re a grown woman. I thought you knew we were just messing about.”

  I took a step back and stared at him with hatred. “You told me I was special.”

  “You are special.”

  “To you,” I reminded.

  “Well, it was a heat of the moment thing.”

>   “You told me you were single.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, technically I am single.”

  I shook my head incredulously. “I don’t believe this.”

  He looked at me with bovine stupidity. “Come on, Mimi. None of this needs to get awkward. We just lived a little.”

  “Lived a little?” I exploded. “I can’t believe you could be so callous. How could you lie like that?”

  I might as well have been talking to myself. From the moment I mentioned his fetus, everything else went out the window. He ran his hands through his short, curly brown hair—hair I’d tangled in my fingers—and hit his chair with a soft thump when he fell into it. His eyes darted back and forth.

  “Hello?” I waved my arms back and forth furiously.

  “Oh, yeah. Um. I’m sorry…but this has really thrown me.” He laughed nervously, clearly in shock. He didn’t care about me at all and never would.

  I watched him make an effort to placate me. “We had some fun. Let’s just put it behind us and… um… go back to what things were like before any of this happened. We’re a good team and there’s no need to spoil that. Obviously, I’m really sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  I hated it when someone used the word ‘if’ and ‘hurt your feelings’ in the same sentence. What the fuck? That means you don’t even recognize that you did, but even if I didn’t take that into consideration his little speech must have been the fakest, lamest, most insincere apology in the history of mankind.

  How could I have been so blind not see what a slippery weasel he really was? At least weasels were cute. He wasn’t even worth my anger. I straightened my spine and threw him a fake smile.

  “Don’t worry about it. I lied too. You know, that little problem of yours, the one that makes you eat pussy instead of fucking it, it’s not normal, and you really should see a professional about it.”