Page 14 of Things We Fake
The TV went dark with four of the guys yelling at Sebastian, one of them turning to stare at me.
“Well, well, what have we here? Hi there, pretty lady. You been holding out on us, Sebastian?”
“Susanne.” Cam got to his feet, his eyes wide, a beer bottle in his hand.
“Susanne takes you down to her place by the river...” A guy I vaguely remembered meeting before sang the words to the Leonard Cohen tune.
“Down, Frank. I saw her first.” Cam winked at me. “Hey, neighbor. Want a beer?”
From his glassy eyes, I could tell he’d had way more than he needed.
Mortified by the way the others were eying me, I snapped. “No, I don’t want a damn beer. I want to go to bed.”
Six heads turned my way, with grins worthy of any big bad wolf decorating their faces. A couple of them whistled. Men were such pigs.
“I mean I want to go to sleep.” My cheeks burned as though I was in hell. “It’s after midnight. I need you to turn the sound down before one of the other tenants calls the cops.” I sounded like a prissy old maid, but I couldn’t help myself. “You should think of the neighbors, you inconsiderate pricks.”
With as much dignity as I could muster in my fluffy bunny slippers, I retraced my steps, leaving only silence behind me. I slammed the door for good measure and rushed back to my apartment.
Hurrying to get safely behind my door, I was stopped cold by the sight of it firmly closed. I’d left it open, hadn’t I?
“Great, just freaking great.” Usually when I left the apartment like I had tonight, I unlocked the knob, theway I had for Mrs. H. Idiot that I was, I’d locked it before bed and had gone out—not expecting it to swing closed and lock, which had probably happened when I’d slammed Sebastian’s door.
Jesse had a key to my apartment, so all wasn’t lost. Going down the stairs to 1 A, I knocked on the door. No answer. Maybe she wasn’t home yet. If she were and she’d gone to bed, then she slept like the dead, and if she’d put in her earplugs because of the noise, I’d never wake her. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t spend the night sitting in the hall.
Drawing on every single ounce of bravery I possessed, I walked over to the flight of stairs leading to the basement. Gripping my housecoat at the throat, like a Victorian maiden in a Gothic novel, praying there wasn’t some undead creature lying in wait for me, I slowly descended the stairs into the basement. Mr. Gore, the super, had keys to everyone’s apartment. I would have to wake him and ask him to let me back into my place.
There was nothing spookier than that old basement at night. The light fixtures might be the same as on the other floors, but the ceiling was lower, and the lights seemed dimmer, colder, eerier. Cautiously, I inched my way past the laundry room, the storage locker, and the furnace room. I could swear I smelled sulfur and brimstone. I hurried along to the door marked Superintendent at the end of the hall, and after taking a deep breath, I knocked.
When he didn’t answer, I knocked again.
“Coming.” The voice was muffled and sounded far away.
I heard footsteps and waited as the locks were undone. The door opened.
“What ya want?” Obviously he wasn’t happy with me interrupting his sleep or whatever else he’d been doing. Was there a Mrs. Gore? No one had ever mentioned her.
“Mr. Gore, hi.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m Susanne Morelli. I left my apartment, 2 A, to run a quick errand next door, and my door closed by accident. Now I’m locked out.”
Wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that almost covered his gut, revealing one of the hairiest bellies I’d ever seen, he narrowed his eyes and stared down at me. His long hair was matted and disheveled. His feet were bare. My eyes were drawn to his hairy toes and impossibly long, crusty toenails. I’d never seen a man with hairy toes. I blinked and looked up at his bearded face. There was a full moon tonight. Could I be right about him being a werewolf? God, I prayed not! Today had been eventful enough.
“Can you let me back into my apartment?” My voice had taken on a fearful, whiny quality.
He raised the left side of his lip, revealing yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, and sneered. Without a word, he walked back into his apartment. I stood rooted to the spot, exhaling when he returned moments later with a big ring of keys. He’d put on shoes and a shirt. Without a word, he walked in front of me, silently climbing the two sets of stairs to my floor.
At one point he moved to the side to let a couple of Sebastian’s drunk friends stumble by. One was tall and black, the other was short and blond.
The blond one made kissy noises at me.
“Hands off, mate,” the black guy said. “Cam has his eye on her, and he could break you in two.”
The blond guy scoffed. “He could breakherin two. I’ve seen him naked in the locker. The son of a bitch is hung like a horse.”
Oh, my… The image of a naked Cam with a horse dick popped into my head, and I clutched my robe tighter to my chest. What did those guys mean, that he had his eye on me? Surely they had mistaken the situation in Sebastian’s apartment and had taken Cam’s drunken flirting seriously. Between these two pigs and the possible werewolf, I was beginning to miss Sam and his murderabilia stories. Was I a magnet for weirdoes or what?
Once we reached my apartment, Mr. Gore unlocked my door, turned, and walked away.
“Thank you,” I called to his retreating back, grabbing the door seconds before it would’ve shut again.
