Have you ever made love and in doing so experienced pure enraptured ecstasy? Perhaps that little pleasure has been yours to treasure, okay, but have you obtained those dizzy heights without having barely touched your partner? This is the bond my girl and I share. For the umpteenth time, I caught sight of her on the bus, but everything changed when I brushed against her and literally shook with the thrill of it all.

That was three months ago. For hours last night, I crouched on the floor, my ear pressed to the wall, listening to her and the stranger. Not sure what they were doing exactly, but he sure grunts a lot. Still, he does help out with the rent. Does it make up for that kid who plays in the garden? It must be his and my girl feeds and clothes him. The books aren’t balancing. We’ll have to talk about this, my girl and me, how much longer we’re going to tolerate having this boorish oaf living in the building.

This morning he tried a weasel move, giving me a smile and a hello. The more I consider his duplicity the closer I come to dealing with him by way of drastic measure. We’ve put up with him for long enough. Christ knows, I’ve been patient. I was just in the garden and peered over the fence. The kid is playing with a teenage girl who we organized to look after him while me and my girl are in college and the stranger is at work. I’ll leave the kid out of things. Probably the girl too. They can wait it out in the basement. No it’s the stranger I want.

Around 5 pm he’ll be home. I’ll be waiting for him. When my girl rocks in she’ll stumble across his corpse and what’s more she’ll have some explaining to do. Something tells me we’re in for a long night, but this must be done. She created this dilemma, not me. All I’m doing is cleaning up her mess.