Don’t Have Sex So Close To Me
By Brad Pike
The entrance to my bedroom is a thin sliding door with two moderately large gaps on either side. The door isn’t sound proof. The door cannot lock. Whatever occurs in the living room might as well be occurring in my bedroom — both rooms are small and separated by little more than a sheet of cardboard. With these preconditions in mind, I can’t overstate the importance of people not having sex on the sofa bed next to my door. It’s simply unthinkable. It absolutely must not occur for my mental machinery to run properly during the daytime for I am a pure soul of delicate sensibilities, and I do not wish to be tainted by the lurid perversions of my morally deficient roommates.
One night, I heard my downstairs neighbor struggling with the front door, unable to twist her key in the lock. Being a heroic person of virtuous qualities and shit, I rushed downstairs and opened the door for her. Duty complete, right? But then she couldn’t open the door to her apartment either. We struggled with the key for ten minutes before she sat down on the stairs and looked at me with eyes full of sorrow. ‘Let me reaffirm my altruistic spirit,’ I thought to myself. So I offered her the extra couch upstairs next to the sofa bed — the sofa bed having already been claimed by a temporary occupant whose name I shall withhold.
We went upstairs, and I introduced her to the depraved couch surfer. She, unbeknownst to me, is a sexually indiscriminate person. She also: does not enunciate her words properly, reads the Bible at least one hour per day, and is somewhat invested in the lives of the Kardashians. My depraved couch surfer, unbeknownst to me, is also sexually undiscerning/ frustrated, and thus, I had inadvertently assembled the ingredients of a dark and lascivious brew. As I slipped into my closet/ bedroom, I heard them getting to know each other. ‘I’m such a nice person,’ I thought. ‘I wish I could somehow brandish this act of generosity whenever someone accuses me of selfishness.’
Some time later, I woke to gross lady noises, moaning so loud it might as well have been inside my bedroom. The springs of the sofa bed squeaked, and I could even hear the soft wet sounds of genital friction. I rolled over in bed and looked at the clock — one hour had passed. One hour since these two people had met. One hour of what I can only presume must have been the most scintillating conversation imaginable leading inexorably to carnal relations. Her moaning rose in volume with no regard for the boy laying not three feet away. Alone in the darkness, I witnessed the full arc of their sexual experience, and friends, I felt not one inkling of eroticism — only a powerful sensation of unease bordering on horror. After she orgasmed, the depraved couch surfer said, not in a whisper but in full outdoor voice, “Oh…oh shit…I’m still hard.” This was followed by more chattering in regards to how they felt about the experience (spoiler alert: they both enjoyed it).
Listening to their thunderous fornication, I had several thoughts. I thought, ‘Am I so insignificant a human being to them that my close proximity is no more discouraging than if a goldfish were in the room?’ I thought, ‘These two idiots get to enjoy having sex with each other, but here I am, the one of “superior moral judgment,” alone in my room, facing what I presume will be a long period of sleeping alone in my room. Where’s the justice.’ I thought, ‘I should go out there and say, “Sorry, gotta pee! Carry on though!” I should start imitating their sex noises to disconcert them. I should start screaming.’ I kept trying to return to dreamland, but found myself wide awake and alert.
I drifted through the following day in a fog (both psychological and the couch surfer’s Axe body spray). My kindness! My goodwill! Repaid with breathtakingly callous disrespect! I could peel off her face and wear it like a mask, but that seems like an overreaction. I could bake the couch surfer a cake and then throw the cake on the floor before he could eat any. I could stomp around the Lincoln Park zoo and yell at the monkeys. The fury, the unimaginably judicious fury!
A few days ago, my landlord moved this girl into my apartment temporarily while he prepared another room for her. Here she is now, my new morally bankrupt roommate, watching Friends—always watching Friends—not seven feet away from me. I think to myself, ‘Should I write a Thought Catalog article about her? Wouldn’t that be deliberately instigating discord? Wouldn’t that be astonishingly inconsiderate?” Yes. Yes, it would be. But not as inconsiderate as fucking right next to where I’m sleeping!