Author William Kitcher offers a sultry tale of interaction between a voyeur and an exhibitionist. Some adult themes.

The references to ‘housecoat’ are for an item that I would call a bathrobe or dressing gown.

Window and Patio

The window in the bathroom of my new apartment looks out over backyards and I never saw anyone in those backyards, especially at night, and I never bought a blind for the window and never thought about it until a few months later when I saw a man standing on a patio two doors down.

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I was smoking outside on my patio on a warm summer night when I saw the woman in the bathroom in the apartment that had no blinds. She got up from a sitting position so I assumed she was on the john. She washed her hands, then leaned over to adjust the taps of her bath. Standing upright again, she brushed her teeth and was obviously looking at herself in the mirror. She pulled her hair back with her other hand, looked, then let it fall forward and looked some more. She brushed her teeth thoroughly and spat several times. She then turned toward the window and took her housecoat off.

#

He was smoking and turned slightly away from my direction so I didn’t know if he could see me. I felt confident and a little aroused thinking he might be able to see me. I looked at myself in the mirror, liked what I saw, and liked the idea he might still be looking at me. I stretched my arms up, brought them down behind me, turned to the window, looked down at him, then climbed into my bath that cooled down the warm night.

#

I think she knew I was there but I didn’t really know and I turned slightly away from her window. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, and thought that if she saw I was turned away and hadn’t seen her, she wouldn’t become embarrassed and immediately think she needed to buy some blinds. If it happened once, it could happen again… She stretched so beautifully and her breasts rose, and she must have known that a woman’s body looks its best when in that pose. She turned and seemed to look right at me. And if she did see me, she didn’t care, and that was incredibly exciting. And in the next moment, she disappeared into her bath. Once, I saw her long brown hair rise above the window sill.

#

As I soaked, I wanted to know if he was still standing there. Once or twice, I almost rose out of the bath to look out the window but I stopped myself. If he saw me, he would know I’d done this deliberately and I didn’t want him to know that. And I wanted him to think that he’d had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, something he’d tell his buddies in a bar. And for me, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’d tell my buddies in a bar, being that random unknown woman who can act like that and be comfortable with that, and not be a blushing child. It made me laugh and I kept laughing as I got out of the bath, dried myself, put my housecoat on, and went to bed. I didn’t look out the window again that night, and didn’t really think about it a whole lot as summer turned into autumn.

#

I would try to guess when she might be taking her bath, and would go out for a cigarette but only saw her twice over the next few months, brushing her teeth.

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I was brushing my teeth one night and wondered if he might be there. I turned off the light, the bathroom was in darkness, and I looked outside, and saw him standing there, looking up, and I think he started to wave.

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She turned off the light in the bathroom but, as the bathroom door wasn’t closed, light from her apartment illuminated her from behind. She came to the window and peered out, looking right at me, so it seemed. I brought my hand up as if to wave, and then scratched my ear and smiled to myself.

#

In the winter, the steam from the bath would rise and fog up the window and I knew the most anyone could see would be my shadow, my vague dark outline in the light, my image.

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Once, I saw her running her bath, and didn’t see her again for several minutes. When she returned, the window was steamy. She took off her housecoat and stood there, just a silhouette in the window, and she was sexier than ever.

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My downstairs neighbour is very outgoing and knew several of our neighbours. I asked her if she knew the man. She didn’t but she asked around and found out he was single, about my age, and went to work every day, dressed nicely, and didn’t carry a briefcase. He may have been in insurance or publishing, she said. I didn’t know how those were similar.

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I had no way of meeting her. I couldn’t knock on her door and say, “Hi, I’m your neighbour. I’ve seen you take a bath.” I didn’t know any of my neighbours, so I couldn’t get them to introduce us. Sometimes I would smoke on my front porch and hope she’d walk by, and I could say, “Hi, neighbour…” But I never saw her.

#

Suppose I did meet him, and suppose we talked and we liked each other and began to see each other. At some point, wouldn’t I have to say to him that I was the woman in the window and I knew that he’d seen me from his patio? But suppose he hadn’t seen me? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing, and what might he think of me? Would he think I was an exhibitionist?

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Suppose I met her, and we hit it off. Would I be able to tell her that I saw her from my patio? Would she think I was a voyeur? Would I be able to ask her if she knew I was there, and if she minded? Would she tell me the truth? Would I know the difference?

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If I were to admit I was a little bit of an exhibitionist, and he were to admit he was a little bit of a voyeur, would we still respect each other? Or would I find out that was the least of his problems?

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Maybe she was a stripper.

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The following summer on our street, a car crashed into a telephone pole and everyone went outside to take a look. The driver wasn’t hurt but everyone still loitered in the street. I saw him and, pretending to move through the crowd to get a better look at the crash, went closer to him.

#

She was taking a great interest in the crash scene, and moved closer to it coming towards me. She hadn’t seen me and was coming my way, as if by fate. I stood there, suddenly feeling nervous, but not wanting to move in case I moved away from her trajectory. So many phrases ran through my head, but they all sounded forced or trite, and I had no idea what, if anything, I would say to her. I even thought of saying to her, “Hey, you’re the woman in the window”, and getting it all out in the open right from the start.

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I was moving toward him and had no idea what I would say, and wanted to prolong the time before our eyes would meet. Could I say to him, “You’re the guy who looks at me”? Could I be that upfront? Would that embarrass him? Would we laugh?

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It was ridiculous. She knew that I saw her in the window, and I knew she knew that. Or didn’t she know that?

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He must have known I knew he was looking, and he must have known that I was posing for him. Or maybe he didn’t know that…

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She was less than three feet from me when she looked up, and looked into my eyes. We both smiled, and said “Hi” at the same time. There was a pause and then we spoke again at the same time. I said, “You’re the woman in the window”, but because I was speaking, I didn’t hear what she said.

#

So, I said to him, just for the hell of it, “You’re the guy on the patio,” but he spoke at exactly the same time, so I didn’t know what he said. We laughed, and I said, “What?” and he said, “Oh, nothing, it doesn’t matter. What did you say?” And I said, “Nothing important. Just saying hello.” “Would you like to go for a coffee?” he asked. I said yes, and we went to a café nearby. We went out several times after that, and that was really good. I really liked him, and we had good times, but it seemed to be a temporary relationship for him. I’m not a great judge of people but there seemed to be something vague about his feelings so I backed off. I probably would have become more interested had he stayed, but when he got a job in another city, that was the end of that. There were a few phone calls and texts at first but they dwindled away and I didn’t know why. We never did talk about when we first saw each other.

#

She was amazing, and I wanted to be with her all the time, but she seemed somewhat reticent, and I figured I just wasn’t the guy for her. When a job in another city was offered to me, I took it. I knew it would be best for both of us for me to leave. That was a tough time for me. Despite my leaving, I still loved her, and I called her pretty regularly at first, always having the hope that she’d express any feelings for me. After some months, it seemed futile, and I stopped calling. Only then did it occur to me that we’d never talked about how we knew each other.

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I wished he’d been more adamant about staying in touch with me, but I guess he had a new life. Several years later, I saw him at a wedding reception, of all things. I was a friend of the groom, and he was a cousin of the bride. We chatted for a while, and he was very friendly. When we were saying goodbye, he got this serious look on his face, and I asked, “What is it?” He smiled and said, “Listen, I have to tell you something.” I put my finger on his lips, and said, “Yes. I know.”

❦

I never understood why, if she knew she had food on the end of her nose, she didn’t wipe it off.

William Kitcher

Bill’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published and/or produced in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, England, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.S. Recent stories were published in Aphelion, Eunoia Review, Once Upon A Crocodile, Ariel Chart, Litbreak, New Contrast, The Bookends Review, Spank The Carp, Little Old Lady Comedy, Black Petals, and Slippage Lit, and he has stories forthcoming in Fiery Scribe Review, The Metaworker, Close To The Bone, Evening Street Review, Truffle, AntipodeanSF, The MacGuffin, and October Hill Magazine.