From outside the brownstone, the windows above his own remained darkly lidded eyes refusing to acknowledge his curiosity when he came home from the brokerage each night. It was almost two full weeks before his awareness of the renewed rustle and thump of activity upstairs signaled that all again might be right with the world. And soon, the lyrical tender melodies of the delicate guitar confirmed it.
There was no sound of voices and Arthur took a perverse and jealous pleasure in thinking his neighbor had ended a relationship. Perhaps she was lonely, and these were possibly fertile grounds for the seeds of a new friendship. If only he could meet her by accident - even a contrived one - or find some valid excuse to go up and introduce himself. No sooner contemplated than accomplished! The clarity of the night was unusually mild for November and a welcome respite from freezing temperatures. Thanksgiving was on the horizon, and the late October and early November storms of rain and sleet had become a faded memory laying its own subconscious preparations for winter. Arthur was unsuccessfully fighting off the ennui of an overly large solitary meal when the sound of shattering glass disturbed his torpor. He could hear it above and then tinkling onto the sidewalk outside of his rooms.
He ran to the window just in time to see an unruly gang of shaved heads running down the street, indiscriminately throwing rocks and bits of road debris at the buildings as they rapidly passed.
Noting that his own two front windows were intact, he realized that his upstairs neighbor’s panes must have suffered damage and it would be a responsible act of kindness for him to check on her welfare.
For the second time Arthur remanded himself to the stairway to heaven and terminated the climb with a polite but, this time, assertive knock on the door of the flat above. The sound of footsteps and a hand on the doorknob rewarded his efforts.
With a sudden chilling breath of sickening intuition, Arthur pictured the hand on the other side of the door as being attached to a flabby arm protruding from a brightly colored Mu-Mu, which concealed the massive girth of an obese recluse who would destroy all of his illusions the minute she opened the door. How could he have been so stupid to think...? It was too late to back down. He was committed.
With the door open a minute crack Arthur could just make
out the timorous gaze of a single Mediterranean-green eye
above the heavy brass links of a security chain. The voice that accompanied the eye was as wonderfully melodious as the guitar harmonies he had grown to enjoy.
“Yes?” the voice quavered with repressed anxiety. Suddenly he was speechless. “Uh... I...uh, I’m Art, Artie Crenshaw. I... I’m your neighbor downstairs.” “Yes, I know. I’ve seen you coming into the building.” The thought of an unattractive behemoth now erased from his mind, Arthur was thrilled to hear that she had taken notice of him.
“I... I heard glass breaking and I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
The space between the door and its jamb widened and now two green eyes shaded by a cloud of soft shinning auburn hair appraised him more closely.
“Oh, it’s the window in the bathroom. I... I’m fine, but it startled me.” He could see that she was still trembling and her vulnerability was almost palpable through the door. “I’m okay. Thank you for checking. Your concern is appreciated.” Arthur thought that, under the circumstances, this was the most marvelous little speech, filled with all of the important information required in response to his quick trip up the stairs; and yet he found it sadly lacking in expectations of enough damage and disaster, which might require his immediate intervention. Although, only God knew what that could be. He realized that what he wanted was the stuff of heroic fantasies, but when faced with the cold hard facts of reality, he understood that there wasn’t much he could do regardless of the situation.
“I was afraid you might have been hurt by flying glass, or something,” he hastened to re-justify his presence at her door. “No, I’m fine, but the bathroom floor looks like a war zone. I suppose I’ll have to get a glazier to come in and replace the window.”
Ah, to slay dragons and win the hand of fair maiden! At last the hero could ride to the rescue. “Oh, that won’t be necessary. I can fix it for you. Why don’t you let me take a look at it?”
She seemed to hesitate for a moment and then, as if she had finally assured herself that she would be safe with him, the door closed so that there was enough slack in the night chain to unlatch it, and he found himself welcomed into the warmth of her living room.
So much for his image of a ‘60’s folk singer! This was definitely neither a Buffey nor a Tammie. The girl, in her early twenties, graced Levi 501’s with the contours of a modern model. The expected neck to foot dress and open sandals were instead a bulky sweatshirt that proclaimed “I ♥ N.Y.” and a beat-up pair of Nike’s. The hair parted in the middle and cascading to her hips did not exist. Arthur would have been hard-pressed to find the proper words to describe the cap of copper-colored tresses that curved around the sides of a delicate oval face.
He thought that she had the gentle waif-like features of an angel placed on earth to tempt him with the possibilities of celestial beauty far beyond his wildest imagination. “I’m Belinda McCauley,” she said, holding out her small hand, completely unaware that her downstairs neighbor was thunderstruck with instantaneous love - or at least a bright burst of incipient lust.
“Arthur Crenshaw... uh, oh, I already said that, didn’t I?” Just call me Artie.” He didn’t know why he said that. He hated the diminutive, “Artie,” but somehow felt that on her succulent red, bee-stung lips it would he a hymn of endearment. He wanted to ask her a hundred mundane questions, including every cliché in the book: “Why haven’t we met before?” “Where have you been all of my life?” Instead he fumbled out, “you play the guitar?”
Of course she played the guitar! How often had he heard it? And besides, the damn thing was lying against a chair right in front of them. What an inept conversationalist he had become in the face of beauty!
“Yes, I do, but I’m afraid I’m not very good. I just fuss around a bit,” she said with a deprecating smile.
He wanted to tell her that it was the most beautiful “fussing” he had ever heard, that he had spent many evenings under the enchanted spell of her dulcet melodies. But since he had already asked the inane question, predisposing his ignorance of the music, he could only say, “I’m sure you are very good. I’d like to hear you play sometime.” Her eyes sought sincerity in his, and when she saw no patronizing glint, she smiled and said, “It’s your eardrums!” He found the bathroom littered with the diamond dust of the small opaque window that once permitted a subdued shadow of outside light during the day, but now provided insight into the harsher realities of the cold urban night. With a broom and dustpan, Arthur removed the debris. He measured the space with a ruler she provided and assured her that it would be no problem replacing the glass tomorrow. In the meantime, he helped her tape a piece of cardboard over the black hole.
He was rewarded for his efforts with the invitation to share a glass of wine. Although Arthur found little or no pleasure in the classic comforts of the vintner’s art, he could hardly pass up the opportunity to spend more time within the heady sphere of the girl’s exciting loveliness.
It was only after they were seated demurely apart that he finally noticed the gun on the table by the guitar. “Good Lord!” he pointed, “What’s that for?” She looked in the direction indicated, and he could tell that she had completely forgotten it was there. “Oh, that! I took it out when the glass broke. I was frightened and didn’t know what was happening. It was... uh...an old...er, an ex-boy friend who gave it to me for protection. He was a bit paranoid about living in the city.” “I hope I never get that paranoid.”
“I know,” she said, looking at the pistol with mild disgust, “but taking it out was my first reaction. Isn’t that terrible?” They talked about life in, and the ways of, the cit
y, and Arthur tried to ferret out as much information from her as he could to use as ammunition for future fantasies and perhaps, with luck, the prelude to an eventual conquest. After all, he was still of an age when there were untasted delicacies which demanded attention lest he live long enough to discover that he had not had them all. Also, his sabbatical from the graces of the fairer sex was beginning to weigh heavily upon his temporarily deactivated libido.
He learned that she worked mostly at home, transcribing medical reports for a group of doctors and, although shunning any notion of the paranoia they both disdained, indicated that she appreciated the opportunity to earn her living without venturing much further than the mail box on the corner and an occasional foray to the local market.
All in all, it was a completely satisfactory evening and introduction to the most beautiful girl Arthur Crenshaw had ever had the privilege of spending time with in close quarters. The next night, laden with material from the hardware store, Arthur made his way up the stairs and found his knock on Belinda’s door ignored. He would have sworn that, when he came home, he could hear her stirring above him, but a late November wind battered about the eves of the old building, and he rationalized that he could have been mistaken. Of course he conveniently forgot, for the sake of his bruised pride at the possibility of being snubbed, that she had told him she seldom ventured beyond the confines of her own rooms and the mail box on the corner, and assumed she was out. It was four days before her beautiful smiling face rewarded his nightly treks up the stairs. She made no remark about the short hiatus between his offer to repair the window and her willingness to open the door to him. But he was so pleased to be again in the presence of her radiant loveliness that he wouldn’t even consider questioning her absence. The glass replaced and the mess cleaned up, they both surveyed the results.
“Take a razor blade in a couple of days and scrape off the excess putty on the window,” he said, and then offered, “or I can come back and do it for you.”
“Oh, that would be nice,” she said, the sweetness of her acquiescence filling him with the hope of closer contact. If the anticipation of further handiwork was fraught with the specter of having to wait a number of days before she would again grant him access, that particular misconception was instantly relieved when she offered him another glass of wine. He accepted his recompense with the alacrity of a connoisseur invited to the epitome of the vintner’s most coveted harvest, deciding that wine wasn’t so bad after all. One glass led to another and conversation ticked away the muted clatter of the clock on the mantle.
When she offered to play the guitar for him, it brought both of their eyes again to the cold ugliness of the device for destruction, which still lay on the nearby table. “Here,” she said, picking up the pistol by its chrome barrel. “Why don’t you take this with you. I’m afraid it’s making me more nervous than the reason for having it.” Arthur didn’t know whether he was more impressed by her willingness to give up the weapon or the unexpected weight and cold iciness of it in his hand.
He slipped the pistol into his pocket and, very much aware of its cold bulk against his thigh, settled down to listen to his private recital.
All thoughts of the weapon soon flew away on the wings of wonderful music. The vague familiarity of her tunes took on a new life now that he could appreciate them without the muffled intervention of her floor and his ceiling between them. Belinda stroked, strummed, and fingered the strings with such ease that it seemed as if the music were coming from somewhere else. It floated around the room, moving from an ethereal whisper of gentle delight to triumphant arpeggios of incredible power and beauty.
Arthur was enthralled. The perfection of the night was interrupted by nothing but the eventual realization that time once again had meaning and the hour was late. “Will you come back again?” she asked. “May I?” he inquired more politely than was his normal habit.
“Of course.”
“Tomorrow?” he ventured.
Perhaps.” But she cautioned, “I don’t know...if... Why don’t you come up and knock. See if I’m here.” The next night he did and she wasn’t there. It was little more than a week later when he finally found her home and she greeted him with an acknowledgment that neglected the fact it was not just the previous night when they last met.
Again, they sat and talked, drank long draughts of cool wine, and she played the guitar with an even more delicate touch and yearning appeal than before.
She seemed reticent to discuss more of her background and he honored her wishes, just happy enough to bask in the light of her presence and the wonderful music she shared. This time when they parted at the door, Arthur was sufficiently presumptuous to give her a goodnight kiss, which he placed first on her cool cheek before she turned her head in acceptance and allowed him access to her lips. He floated down the stairs to his own flat under the impression that he was really in love for the first time in his life, and that if he were not indeed in love, at least he would approach the possibilities of a carnal relationship with more consideration and delicacy than he normally employed. But Arthur discovered that the girl of his latest dreams was a most timid creature. Whether it was a racial incident on the west side of town, a well-publicized mugging in Central Park - which Belinda never entered - or the murder of an old woman three blocks away, it was all excellent rationale for her to stay locked within her apartment and not allow the filth of the world to rub off on her.
Perhaps, Arthur thought, she has a bit of agoraphobia. Which wasn’t all bad because it should make her more available to him.
Each untoward event that came to her attention caused a combination of anguish and fear, all of which provided him with additional opportunities to comfort and reassure her. The constant reassurances eventually led him into the warm shelter of her bed where he discovered that she was a virgin.
Needless to say this physical condition was no hindrance to Arthur’s seduction, and he found that, when he wished, he could be a gentle and thoughtful lover. This little bit of consideration was the least he was willing to offer to have the convenience of a girl immediately upstairs from his own quarters. It even occurred to him that the same advantage to his ongoing sexual conquest was a benefit to the girl.
When the time came, and it would he knew, to let her slip into the past along with the others who had come and gone since his freedom, he would have to confront her presence more frequently than he wished. Living in the same building had its disadvantages. He could only hope that her mild agoraphobia would continue to progress at its present rate and he would not have to suffer uncomfortable encounters in the stairwell or at their mailboxes.
That he was taking advantage of her vulnerability and need for companionship was not as yet a conscious consideration. But he recognized the inevitable eventuality of their parting, and he would try to let her down as gently as possible. After all, Arthur was not so reprehensible that he would use a woman and discard her with the callous custom of so many other young men. But that was the point, wasn’t it: he was still young and had a lot of living - and loving - to do.
Once the decision was made to sleep together, he no longer found any resistance to his knock at her door. She was always there to accommodate him with the sweet innocence of a child trying to please. She made no demands upon him. If he didn’t come to her for three or four days, there were no questions or recriminations; there were no jealous inquiries regarding his absence, only open arms and a warm loving smile. The only condition she placed on their togetherness was that he could not stay the night. Regardless of how warm and loving and cozy they were, snuggled under the covers against the depths of freezing weather, she made him get up and go back downstairs before the darkness was diluted by the watery winter sun.
A small price to pay, and since he had need of some sleep uninterrupted by their mutual sexual insistence, he readily acceded to her wishes.
It could have been an idyllic life if Arthur would only all
ow himself to forget the world and the pleasures he had yet to taste. But the lure of delights still inexperienced called to him with the clarion of possibilities that he was missing out on something, something so much more satisfying than the beautiful girl who had become too accessible. Yes, she was the most beautiful and wonderful creature that he had ever been with, but that was not enough, not while he could always dream that right around the corner there might be something better.
Eventually, he tempered his access to Belinda’s body with the charms of others. He even had the temerity to bring them into the building when he saw her light was off and he thought that she might be already asleep.
On the infrequent occasions now when he marched up the stairs in a spirit of sacrifice to offer his obligation to the virginity he once took from her, she greeted him with the same placid smile and warmth as if the last contact were just the previous night. She never expressed doubt nor reservation, nor concern about his growing absences from her bed. Finally, even the intermittent voyages of duty into the quarters above his own stopped altogether, and for weeks he waited to hear her at his own door, knocking and asking where he had been.
But there was only silence. Not even the sound of her footsteps on the floor above.
And then, almost in a strange replay of when he first moved in, he heard footsteps across the length and breadth of the ceiling, and eventually the gentle reprise of familiar guitar melodies.
Arthur took this as a sign that she had gone through some private agony and then reconciled herself to the separation without their having to thrash it out like an old disenchanted married couple.
She was mature enough to know and understand that when something was over, it was over, and there was no sense dissecting and performing a post mortem over the corpse of the relationship. Good girl! Arthur thought, delighted that there would be no ugly scenes.
As strange as the cycle of Belinda’s activities overhead, Arthur’s awareness of it became positively focused when the deja vu of her weeping filtered down in the middle of the night. He remembered similar muffled sobs right after he first became cognizant of her; and now the repetition of the sad sound was even more poignant for his having known her so intimately.