“Fuck.”

Carie tilted her head to the side and repeated, “Fuck.”

She observed her lips in the mirror carefully. “Fu-uck.”

She frowned momentarily before shaking her head side-to-side, tossing her lengthy cascade of sable hair into a seductive mess. She popped a brow, angled her chin over her bare shoulder, and cast a sultry, flirtatious gaze towards the mirror. Lips rounded, she loosed an aching, swooning breath: “Fu-uhh-ck!”

There. Yeah, that was it. That was the “fuck” that never failed to launch millions of spunky ships of satisfaction from her neighbor across the hall in Apartment Seven. Vasily, the apparent result of the genetic splicing of a rock and an oak tree, always lost it whenever she unleashed that obscenity while in the midst of their coital clashes. Honestly, she wasn’t quite sure what the big deal was. Was it her or was it simply the word?

“Fuck!” she said once more with sizzle.

Nope. Definitely her.

She giggled, amused both by the idea that she possessed the key to Vasily’s libido and how stupid it felt to be uttering “fuck” repeatedly into the mirror. If she said it any more times, she’d probably conjure up some dildo-shaped fuck spirit. She definitely should have had better things to do on a Saturday morning.

Still, for such a perky, diminutive woman like herself to have the brooding, granite statue that was Vasily so wrapped around her pinky with that simple word… she couldn’t help but be intrigued by its magic.

She was about to pull herself away from the mirror beside her apartment door when she heard heavy footsteps coming from the hallway outside. Carie grinned at first, then frowned. The plodding clomp of hooves was undeniably Vasily, but the sound of another set of footsteps accompanied them. The noise of conversation mingled in the air, increasing until she could tell they were standing just outside her door.

Carie turned and propped herself upon her toes to peek through her peephole. Though distorted by the fisheye view, it was undoubtedly Vasily standing across the hallway in front of his apartment door, jangling through his bull-nose ring of keys. Beside him was a tall, blonde woman carrying some sort of large travel bag.

Carie shifted her head, leaning her eye closer to the peephole.

They were quite loud and animated as they talked - well, the woman was, anyway. Vasily still droned like a rumbling boiler and as if he was being charged by the word, but his sentences were definitely longer than the terse grunts he typically graced upon her. Not that she could really eavesdrop on them since they were chattering in Russian... or was it Belarusian? Ukrainian? Carie, as usual, forgot where Vasily exactly came from.

Vasily was still fumbling for his keys. He seemed rattled, mildly so, but for him, it was highly unusual. The woman beside him laughed and jabbed him on the arm. Though Carie didn’t have a clear view of her --the woman's back was towards her-- her Spidey senses told her that this chick with the flowing golden tresses probably had the pristine face of some sort of Eastern Block sports-model goddess.

Vasily finally found the key and moved to unlock his door, mumbling. The woman laughed again. She flicked her long fingers at Vasily’s curls then followed with a playful push of his temple. Then she wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned her head on his broad shoulder, squeezing him with a hearty sigh.

That did it. Gripped by curiousity, Carie opened her door… and then immediately slammed it shut before Vasily and the woman could turn around.

“Stark. Naked. Idiot!” she fumed to herself, wincing and leaning back against the door. Indeed, she was only clad in a pair of rainbow-striped knee-socks, panties, and a blush of rosy embarrassment on her face.

The hallway went silent. After a moment, Carie quietly turned and peered through the peephole once more. Vasily and the woman exchanged what sounded like questions. They looked towards her door then each other, then he leaned forward, jutting his furry brow as he peered back at the tiny pinhole. Carie held her breath and froze.

Vasily muttered something. Again she couldn’t understand it, but he punctuated one word that sounded like ‘pat-sook’.

“Pat-sook?” the blonde repeated. Then she laughed again. She continued to laugh and carry on as they went into his apartment.

She listened for his door to shut then exhaled a puff of air. She still heard the muffled sounds of conversation and activity coming from Apartment Seven. Looking down, she thumped her forehead on the door and grumbled, “Fuck.”

----0----

Carie sat at her kitchen counter, one hand propping up the side of her head, the other swirling her bowl of Fruit Loops with a spoon. As the minutes ticked by, the small, colourful rings of sugar and wheat succumbed to the milk and became soggy mush, much like her spirits.

She was doing a poor job convincing herself that she wasn’t bothered by some strange, disgustingly beautiful and height-privileged swimsuit model gaining entry into her neighbour’s apartment. There was no reason to be jealous. She had no claim or ownership on him. For her, Vasily was basically a stray dog she played with every so often when she remembered it was across the hall-- a very big, handsome, well-endowed, sexually virile stray dog.

Carie stuffed a spoonful of cereal into her mouth, then immediately draped her tongue out. “Bleah!” she exclaimed. It tasted like mushy, rainbow-infused sawdust.

With breakfast ruined and agitation still pinching at her nerves, she decided it would be a good time to go for a latte and shopping. After quickly slipping into some clothes, she headed out. As she was locking her door, she heard music thrumming from Vasily’s apartment, his usual rumbling, techno beats.

Then she heard a groan.

Immediately she froze. Then, with pursed lips and her narrowed eyes shifting aside, she cocked her head like a puppy hearing a bell. Another deep grunt leaned her back in her heels as she glared at the door of Apartment Seven. She recognized that deep, manly moan. She had heard the sound often, up close, without the hindrance of a three inch deep plank of wood between her ears and the mouth that uttered it.

“Uhh!” The indulgent groans kept coming, creeping through the apartment hallway. They were chased by the quick, indecipherable mutterings of Vasily. His voice sounded strained, raspy. Again, Carie was not unfamiliar with the sounds. She had just never witnessed them while standing in the hallway fully clothed, an impotent third-party observer.

Then a woman’s voice joined in, also grunting aloud. Carie frowned and clenched her teeth. The sultry, rich feminine tones were liberally seasoned with rapid fire chatter that sounded like a mix of swearing and encouragement. Carie didn’t understand the language, but that didn’t stop her from realizing what was going on.

She tiptoed across the hall -- rather pointlessly as the noise emanating from Vasily’s apartment could drown out a stampede of sheep, if not quite cattle-- and leaned in close to the door. More sounds cascaded through: bumping, banging, thumping, the sound of furniture squeaking along the floor. All of it was highlighted but the incessant groans and moans of the two people within.

"Holy shit,” Carie mumbled. That was some seriously rigorous action going on in there, she thought.

“Ahr! Fuck!” Vasily’s breathless voice gasped out.

Carie’s mouth dropped. As the heaving breaths seeped unrelentingly through the door, she felt a hungry pang twist in her gut. A warm sigh escaped her mouth and she moistened her lips with a slip of her tongue. The grunts and groans invoked torrid memories and familiar sensations in her agitated brain and quivering belly. They crashed into the blistering images of Vasily and the blonde woman, with their perfect, statuesque bodies, indulging in a heated moment that she herself had the pleasure of sharing in with the man in the past.

Carie closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought. Her chin bobbed as she swallowed hard.

“Ahem.”

Carie’s eyes widened with a rattle of her head. Standing a few meters down the hall was earnest Mrs.Cooper from Apartment Six, always in her bathrobe and slippers, always clutching her cat like it was a gold brick.

“Uhh,” Carie shifted her jaw aside and slowly stood straight. She cleared her throat and proceeded down the hall. As she passed Mrs.Cooper, she grumbled, “I thought I heard mice.”

Mrs. Cooper smiled thoughtfully, stroking her cat. “Very busy mice,” she said.

Carie nodded as she walked to the stairs. “Very busy.”

----0----

Sunday morning, Carie stood at her bathroom mirror staring at the damage done to her face after a night of sleep deprivation. During the previous day, despite burning out her credit card on a needless new wardrobe, she couldn’t shake her experience from the morning. It was a vicious circle. It annoyed her that she was so bothered by it, and yet she couldn’t resist thinking about it.

Just to ratchet up the irksome feeling, the sounds resumed later Saturday evening, amplified in volume and intensity. She didn’t even have to open her door, the pornographic noise invading her apartment like a swarm of buzzing bees for almost a full hour.

Such busy, busy mice.

Twelve. That’s how many times she counted Vasily groan or grunt the word “fuck” during the extended session. His upper limit of expressing that joyful curse while in the throes of coital pleasure with Carie had been maybe a half dozen times, tops. And the reaction it drew from her now was bewildering.

At first it was annoying. Around the sixth time, it was stirring. By the time he hit double-digits, Carie was curled on her sofa, strangling a cushion between her legs, nipping anxiously at the corner of it with her teeth, moisture beading on her temple and building between her sticky thighs. The horny little hamster in her brain was running furiously, stoked by vivid, lurid thoughts.

Long after they had finished, Carie sat alone in the darkness of her apartment, her face twisted tighter than the cushion between her legs and fists.

She hadn’t slept much after that, and now she was paying for it with scraggly hair, flushed skin, and puffy eyes. Just as she stuck out her tongue to examine it, the din of an all too familiar techno beat resumed. Her sharp, black brows contorted as she turned her head, tongue still hanging out.

“You’ve got to be fucking me,” she seethed.

Even before she was halfway to her door, she could hear the grunts and groans swelling from Apartment Seven.

“You’ve got to be fucking me!”

Within moments the impassioned sounds were at a fervor, belting across the hallway, dancing around Carie’s ears like audible imps, taunting her.

“Oh, yeah!” She heard Vasily groan with his turgid accent. “Fuck! Yeah!”

A “fuck”? Already? That blonde managed to elicit a “fuck” from Vasily in under five minutes. Carie looked toward the ceiling and threw up her hands.

She stomped back to her bedroom and buried herself under the covers of her bed. She still couldn’t escape the noise.

“You’ve got to be fucking me!” she shouted into her mattress.

Alas, no, Vasily wasn’t fucking her.

She constricted another pillow between her thighs.

----0----

A day later...

“How long have you been living here?” Eric asked Carie as they walked up the stairs of her apartment building.

“About four years,” she replied. God, that long already?

“Can’t wait to get a place of my own,” Eric said.

“Well, once you graduate university and get a job, all of this… ” Carie paused and waved a limp hand around the modest environs, “ ...can be yours... along with your student debt.”

Her younger cousin chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, probably not going to be living in a penthouse anytime soon with just a Bachelor of Arts degree.”

Carie wagged her finger. “Don’t forget this Business Degree, though.”

“Oh, no. Definitely not. Thanks again for helping me prep for the exams, by the way,” he sighed. “I’m hopeless with numbers.”

He wasn’t kidding. ‘Hopeless‘ didn’t even begin to describe Eric. The only son of a traditional Chinese family who didn’t want to study either Business, Engineering, or Medicine in university and barely passed his high school math and science classes? Pfft! Just the fact that he was asking Carie for help with his studies was a cry of distress. Not that she was bad at math -- far from it. She was a junior accountant, after all.

It was her patience for teaching that was, for the lack of a better word, wanting. Eric was the kitten asking the badger how to forage for food.

The deal Eric had struck with his parents was that he could study whatever Arts degree he wanted as long as he double-majored in Business Economics, took over the family import business until he was thirty… and date --for the sole purpose of finding a wife-- only Chinese women.

He grudgingly agreed to the former two conditions. He was arguably mum on the latter.

As they turned a corner, he asked, “Do you get along with your neighbours?”

Carie sighed, “I guess you can say that.” Frivolous sex counted, she figured.

“It’d be cool to have your neighbours over for dinner parties or to hang out,” Eric added.

She frowned at him. “‘Dinner parties’? How old are you… fifty?” Eric was always a bit of an oddball. Young and seemingly unaware that he was blessed with Asian pop star good looks --tall and svelte, high cheek bones, red lips, and sharp eyes-- he had a kind of genuinely amiable, and painfully naive, soul that prevented him from exploiting his physically attractive qualities. He often offered a handshake to women who so obviously pined for him like an “Homme du Jour”.

As they approached her apartment, she suddenly heard the latch to Apartment Seven unlock and the door creak open.

Carie froze, Eric bumping up against her elbow. A match-stick of an idea ignited in her panicked brain. Within the moment of a blink, she clutched her cousin’s arm and plopped her head against his shoulder. Just as Vasily and his companion stepped into the hallway, she laughed, “Oh my god, that’s hiLARious!”

Vasily paused and jutted his square jaw towards her, frowning. The woman followed his gaze then smiled at Carie and Eric.

“Ow! What?” Eric flinched against her grip, but she held fast against his arm, giving him a firm squeeze.

“Well we’re here! My humble abode!” Carie continued talking and walking, not giving anyone a moment to comment. She dragged her cousin around like a sack. She quickly unlocked her apartment door and shoved Eric in. “Can’t wait for tonight!”

Eric turned around and stammered, “Aren’t we just going to…”

“Ah, ah! I’m keeping it a secret for now, sweetie!” she interrupted with an over-exaggerated nod. “Just you wait! You go in and make yourself comfortable while I say hello to the neighbours!” She pushed at his chest as he remained stalled at the doorway.

“Hullo,” the blonde said with a heavy Eastern accent. She flashed her perfect smile of perfect white teeth behind her perfect red lips. God, she was truly a specimen.

“Oh, hi!” Carie chimed in, tilting her head to the side and affecting a cupie-doll smile of her own. She noted that the statuesque woman --who was basically Wonder Woman bleached golden blonde-- was actually looking over her head towards Eric.

“Yo.” Vasily dropped his own flat iron greeting like a thud through the straight crack along his lips. His eyes were narrowed as he, too, looked past the top of Carie’s head at Eric.

Carie rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders. Nothing like feeling as if she was a mouse amongst the cats in the room. “Eric, this is Vasily... and apparently a Valkyrie. V and V, this is Eric,” she mumbled so rapidly that it was obvious the two people across from her didn’t understand what she was saying about them.

“Hey,” Eric said, waving his hand aimlessly.

The blonde nodded at him with a piqued grin, cocking her plucked brow sharply. Her gaze remained steadfast as she spoke aside to Vasily in her native dialect. Carie thought she heard a low grumble from deep within the big man’s chest. If he stared any harder at Eric, he would have eventually burned a hole through Carie’s cousin’s face.

After a couple of seconds of awkward silence flitted between the two couples, Carie jumped in again. “Why don’t you put away your overnight things in the bathroom, baby?” she said to Eric.

Eric knitted his brow and uttered, “My over… ?”

She craned her neck around, cast an evil eye, and urged, “Go.” Suddenly sweetening her voice to a saccharine level, she added, “I’ll be right along, babe.” Then she shoved him in and shut the door.

She turned to face Vasily and the woman once more. He was standing there unimpressed, jangling his keys in his pocket. The woman finally made the effort to lower high eyes down past the peak of Carie’s head, actually giving her a deliberate once over with her petal-shaped jade eyes. She offered Carie what seemed like a nod of predatory appreciation, the fox approving of the hen.

All Carie could think about was how much this Amazon’s radiance strained her eyes and how her height was putting a kink in her neck having to look up at her.

The woman nudged Vasily in the arm and said something to him with a musing, cajoling purr.

Carie caught her uttering “patsook” once again. She had no idea what the word was, but she didn’t like it at all.

Vasily seemed to notice the strain in her expression and motioned to her, about to speak, but she cut him off. “Well, it was nice saying hello! I hope you two are going to have a nice day out,” she spoke at a rapid clip, “I know we’re looking forward to having a fun night!” She laughed and offered a wink and a teasing shrug of her shoulder before quickly opening her door, backing into her apartment, and slamming it shut.

Her eyes did a 360 roll in their sockets as she exhaled a long sigh. It took a moment for her to realize Eric was still standing there in the middle of her apartment looking bewildered as if he were a priest who had walked into an orgy.

His lips flopped open, “Um… “

“Shut it,” Carie grumbled, eyes closed and solitary index finger cocked. “If you want to have even a smidgen of a chance of passing your stupid courses, you will just shut up right now.”

Eric held his breath as she stomped past him and into the bathroom.

----0----

If she had ever believed that spending the afternoon poring through economics textbooks and papers was going to be the equivalent of slogging through an endless desert of banality, Carie was at the edge of the Sahara pointed in the wrong direction. She had lost count how many times she had sighed due to tedium.

Eric probably could have provided an accurate tally. He was acutely aware of his cousin’s simmering impatience. He was probably more concerned about her relaxing beverage of choice. While he was still nursing the icky dregs of his first coffee, she was on her third glass of Shiraz. Still, she had managed to stay lucid and under control enough that he was satisfied with just making some progress with his studies, regardless of her acrimony.

Eric watched her carefully as she remained as rigid as a statue in her seat while staring down at one of his papers. He wasn’t sure if she had even blinked for the past five minutes. After another five silent minutes, he managed to clear his throat and ask in the softest voice possible, “So… what do you think?”

Carie was the moss on the stone in the forest.

Eric squirmed a little, then asked, “Carie?”

Her lips parted. “Fuck it.”

“Um,” Eric stammered, “that… that bad?”

“You know what?” Carie raised her head and shook out her hair as she took a deep, refreshing breath. “They can go ‘pat suck’ each other as much as they want. Pat suck, my ass.”

Eric’s mouth twitched like a dying cat’s. He didn’t want to think about anyone sucking his cousin’s butt, Pat or otherwise. “Are we still talking about my paper?” he asked.

Carie stood up from her chair and walked over to the kitchen. “Your paper is fine, Eric,” she mumbled as she poured another glass Shiraz, “You’ll pass with flying colours. Auntie and uncle will be really happy.”

“Whew. That’s a relief.” Eric smiled and sighed loudly. He added, “Thanks again for helping me out, Carie.”

“Yeah, you know what, Eric?” Carie said as she walked back to him. She pointed at him with the glass in her hand. “Do me a favour. After you pass your term, go out and celebrate or something?”

Eric shrugged with a goofy, sheepish grin that had no business being on his pop idol face.

“Seriously, you’re stiffer than a hobo’s crusty underwear. You need to get laid.”

Every feature on Eric’s face scrunched towards the center.

“Oh, pardon my French,” Carie corrected. She paused for a swift gulp of wine then added, wincing, “You need to get fucked.”

He blinked a few times, dumbfounded.

Carie took another hard sip from her glass then rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” she said, “It’s just that it seems like such a waste. You’ve got all these doe-eyed women gawking at you all the time… “

“What women?” Eric said, leaning back and smirking.

“Are you fucking serious?” Carie snapped. She walked towards her door waving her hand. “You’ve got the blonde Babushka over there looking like she’s gonna use you to floss her butt crack.”

Eric was momentarily flustered by her ranting but then suddenly appeared genuinely piqued. “Really?”

Carie glared at him then pressed the palm of her free hand against her forehead. “Gah!” she erupted, a primal gasp in an attempt to flush from her mind even the slightest notion of the aforementioned ‘Babushka’ having her ultra-woman ways with both Eric and Vasily. The woman could probably have any man she wanted with the snap of her fingers, and it was obvious she had set her eyes on Eric. It seemed apparent to Vasily as well, from the way he eyed her cousin.

Just as Carie was about to set off again, she heard the sound of laughter from the hallway. Even after only a few days, she had become all too familiar with the rich, hearty chortling of Vasily’s houseguest. She even made out a snigger or two from the big man himself --a true rarity-- although it did sound more like a horse fluttering its lips.

Eric stood up. “Is that… ?”

“Shh!” Carie frowned at him with her finger at her lips.

“Maybe we should say hello?”

She shot him daggers across her apartment floor. Eric sat back down realizing he had misspoken and that his eagerness to see the neighbours again was a definite no-no.

Carie listened to the couple just outside, Vasily fumbling with his keys, the woman chatting away like she was reading a news ticker. She felt uneasy and scratched the side of her head with an agitated whine.

God, she could tell. They were going to start up again as soon as they were in his apartment. The groaning. The moaning. The “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”… it was endless. And now with her cousin here...

Her cousin?

Eric. Carie’s eyes narrowed to even slits as she looked towards him.

Rightfully so, Eric shifted uneasily in his seat.

“Come here,” Carie said, waving him over to the door.

Eric cocked his head aside. “Why?”

“Get over here!” she urged through gritted teeth.

With all the caution of a lamb in the lion’s den, her cousin walked over to the door.

Carie leaned her ear up against the door. Eric cast her a wary gaze, then did the same. “What are we listening for?”

Ignoring him, she squinted as she listened carefully. She could still hear the sound of plain old chatter from Apartment Seven.

“Good,” she said, “let’s beat them to the punch.”

“What are you talking about?”

No time to explain; she was calling an audible. She looked at her cousin carefully with measured, serious eyes. With a cocked brow, she nodded and said, “Just follow my lead, okay?”

“Oh-- ah...okay… “ Eric replied, nodding along hesitantly. He was definitely not okay.

Carie turned her face towards the door, closed her eyes and moaned aloud, “Mmm! Ahh! Oh, yeah, baby!”

She paused for a second and listened. It had gone silent across the hallway. She took a deep breath then groaned again, “Oh! God, yes! Like that! Fuck me, Eric! Fuck me hard! Ohh!”

She turned and looked at Eric. Her cousin was instant-zombie: mouth hung open like it was broken, dead fish eyes, and skin as pale as toothpaste. She stabbed him with her fingers and sneered at him. “Get on with it!” she urged under breath.

“What are you doing?” he asked desperately.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Just pretend, okay?” she snapped.

“Pretend…?”

“Fake it!” she said, then turned back to the door keeping an insistent eye on him. “Fuck me, Eric! Do it now! Hard!”

Eric was still stuck. “Uhh… “

“Do it!” she bellowed then dropped to a whisper, “It’s just pretend! Close your eyes and just fake it, okay? Make it loud.”

She was hoping she wouldn’t have to beg him. Instead, she thrust her glass of wine at him and said, “Drink this… fast!”

Eric took the glass and gulped down the wine. He stuck out his tongue and made a sour face. “Guh!”

Carie nodded encouragingly. “That’s it!” she said. “Louder.”

“Uh-uhhh!” Eric groaned hesitantly, cringing away from her.

Carie slid down against the door, dragging her cousin along with her by the arm to the floor.

“Okay. Keep going!” she told him. Then she closed her eyes and moaned aloud, “Oh! Umm! Oh my god, like that! Yeah, baby!”

Cautiously following her lead, Eric also closed his eyes and let out another pained and stuttering groan. “Uh-uhh! Uhh!”

Carie pressed her back against the door repeatedly, making it creak and rattle at the hinges and frame. She breathed and gasped incessantly, “Oh shit! Oh fuck! Harder, Eric! Harder!”

“Uh-uhh!” Eric croaked.

“Can you mix it up a bit?” Carie whispered at him harshly, nudging him. “Get into it already!”

Beads of sweat had swelled upon the veins about to burst along Eric’s temple as he attempted to plead for a reprieve from the awkward charade. He knew better than to challenge his fiery cousin, though. “Oh! Y-yeah!” he coughed loudly, hoping it was acceptable.

“Just close your eyes and imagine someone you really want to fuck! It’ll work. Trust me,” Carie coached quietly. She turned aside and got into the act once more. “Ahh! Yeah, baby! Mmm! Eric, you’re so good, baby!”

Like a twenty year old beater engine turning over on a cold winter’s morning, Eric finally managed to chug to life -- or at least something mildly resembling the throes of a lustful banging. “Yeah! Oh! You’re… hot! It… uh… it feels so good!” he exclaimed in between genuinely desperate breaths and gulps.

For several more minutes, the two of them barrelled along against the door, moaning and groaning. Carie almost thought that this was half convincing. Maybe it would do her uptight cousin some good, too.

“Oh, fuck, Eric!” she cooed, slapping her hand against the door repeatedly.

“Oh, crap! Oh, Tamlyn!”

Carried jabbed him with a sharp elbow. Sneering, she hissed, “Who the fuck is, ‘Tamlyn’?!”

“The T.A. in my Social Anthropology class,” Eric blurted, blinking desperately at her as if he held a ticking grenade in his sweaty hands.

Her eyes flared at him. “You’re supposed to be fucking me! Carie!”

“You’re my cousin! I can’t do… my cousin!”

“We’re not… you’re not really… “ Carie sputtered then groaned through clenched teeth, her eyes rolling so far back she could see her brain melt. “Tamlyn?! Really?”

“Sorry!” he said, cringing. “I can’t do this and think about you, though!”

“You're not supposed to think of me!” Carie stabbed him with her eyes. She punched him in the arm and snarled, “Just say, ‘baby’, or ‘bitch’, or something! Make it dirty!”

Eric looked back at her like a confused puppy. Now probably wasn’t the time to mention how often their grandmother referred to Carie as her “angel princess”.

Carie sighed deeply as she shook her head and resumed her performance. “Oh! Oh, fuck, Eric! You’re so long! You’re so hard, baby!”

Eric closed his eyes again. He croaked, “Oh, baby! Oh, bitch, you’re so... uh… dirty! Like… uh… really dirty! Uhhn!”

Jesus, it sounded as if he was giving birth. If this was going to be the least bit convincing, she’d have to ramp up her performance and drag along her hopeless cousin.

She turned away from him, pressing her shoulder against the door. Still groaning and panting aloud, she cupped her hands around her breasts and caressed herself, pulling at her nipples through her top.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Eric gasped.

“Shut up and don’t look!” she hissed through her teeth. “Just keep doing whatever the fuck it is you’re doing… just make it hot and loud. And don’t fucking call me Tamlyn!”

Eric let out an audible whimper and scooched a couple more inches away from her, his back turned.

With that, Carie closed her eyes and resumed rubbing her breasts. Invigorated by the self-stimulation and Shiraz, it took little concentration to shunt Eric’s pathetic attempt at sexual theater out of her head. Her feverish imagination was filled instead by the thoughts of Vasily storming across the hall, blasting through her door, and pitching her cousin out the window in a fit of masculine bravado. Within moments, he was fucking her raw on the floor in front of her doorway, their bombastic cries of overheated lust sending Mrs.Cooper cringing in a corner of her apartment squishing her cat between thighs. She bit her bottom lip, sultry groans surging through her throat.

She plunged a hand down under the front of her jeans, pushing her fingers up and down crotch, burying her panties between her pussy lips. She rocked and pressed against the door, rattling it in its frame. “Oh! Oh fuck! You’re so fucking good!”

Oh Jesus, she never thought her own vivid fantasies could make her blush, but damn if she wasn’t getting into this. Even the sounds of her cousin’s mopish attempts at feigned lust, his meager whimpers of “Oh, baby. Yeah, you’re my hot bitch” couldn’t dissuade the pleasure sweeping through her. She latched onto the memories and sensations from her many rampaging fuck-fests with her rugged neighbour. The way he brandished his iron-hard shaft had left an indelible impression. She could picture Vasily shoving into her like some mad bull, with angry, teeth-jarring thrusts. Her imagination ran hot, picturing her arms and legs braced around his sweaty, solid, tree trunk of a body, holding on for dear ecstasy as a hurricane of hot lust raged around her.

“Mmm! Fuck! So fucking good!” Her slender, delicate fingers worked feverishly, pinching and stretching her nipples and rubbing the lips on her crotch till they were weeping with her slick juices, soaking her panties. She rattled and banged the door as she pushed and shoved against it violently with her back and shoulder.

“So hard, baby! So fucking hard!” She gasped and groaned, quickening the pace of her self-pleasuring as each second ticked by. In the virtual porn movie playing in her mind’s eye, her cousin was gone replaced by the image of her rugged Eastern Bloc neighbour just ravaging her endlessly with his swollen steel shaft. Vasily was fucking her ragged, more so than he had ever done, dripping his savoury sweat all over her quivering body, heaving, groaning, swearing, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Within moments, everything about her --her face, her body-- seized and clenched tight. She sucked in a wincing breath through her teeth, then let it all out in with an extended, heaving moan, “Uhh! Fuck me!”

Her shoulder and side of her mouth rubbed heavy against the door as her groans slowly subsided. Humming with satisfaction, she licked her dry lips and came back down from her erotic high. She pulled her fingers out from the grip of her thighs. They were pink and bore the shimmering, glossy evidence of the state of her panties. She rubbed her palm along her breasts, caressing her aching nipples.

It was after a couple of minutes that she suddenly remembered her cousin who was still in the midst of his meager sex pantomime. She reached around and shook his shoulder, “Eric… “

“Guuh!” Eric jumped half-groaning, half-yelping in shock.

Carie chewed her lower lip and sighed. Okay, that’ll have to pass for a vocal orgasm.

She swept aside her hair and then pressed her ear against the door. It was pretty quiet on the other side. Carie pursed her lips and nodded with certainty. Good. That shut them up.

Feeling surprisingly refreshed, she got to her feet and casually adjusted her clothes. She regarded her cousin still scrunched up like a ball on the floor. It was obvious he couldn’t look her in the eye for a little while.

“Who the hell takes Social Anthropology?” she asked bitterly, peering at him and shaking her head. She pointed at him as she walked away. “And Tamlyn had fucking better be Chinese, or auntie and uncle are gonna lock you up!”

-----0-----

All things considered, it wasn't too bad after that. While they dined on the pizza Carie had ordered for delivery, Eric was obviously shell shocked and quiet, occasionally clearing his throat and simply nodding when offered another slice. He still avoided eye contact for the most part. This was all fine with her; she didn’t feel much like chit-chatting herself. She was more attentive to the sounds coming from across the hallway outside her apartment, or the lack thereof.

There were some soft thumps and muffled conversation, but nothing close to the sounds of frenzied coitus like the past few days. It assured her Vasily and his guest were still in Apartment Seven, behaving themselves.

After dinner, Eric packed up his books and papers, and Carie led him to the door. She stopped him for a moment and looked him squarely in the eye. “Say nothing of this to auntie and uncle,” she warned.

Her cousin popped both his brows, stunned. Was she kidding? He nodded anyway, gripped by the urge to leave her apartment further unscathed

When he opened her door, the two of them were suddenly confronted with Vasily and the blonde standing across the hall in his own open doorway. The woman, holding her big duffel bag, froze in the middle of planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Oh!” the blonde said, turning to look at Carie and Eric. She smiled and offered a casual wave of her hand. “Well, hullo, again!”

“Uh… hi,” Carie replied, frowning. She glanced back and forth quickly to the woman and Vasily.

Vasily glared back, his eyes narrowed and jaw set off aside. He looked a little red. Carie caught a whiff of alcohol drifting from his apartment.

A couple of seconds ticked by with Carie stuck for words and Vasily doing his usual impression of a rock. So Eric took up the slack and said, “Hi… again.” He kept Vasily in his peripheral vision, preferring to set his sight on the much less threatening blue eyes of the woman.

“You… leave?” the woman said.

Both Carie and Eric blinked, hesitating. He looked toward his cousin quizzically. “Uh… I’m leaving?”

“Yeah?” she said, blank-faced. Finally her brain kicked back in realizing she had given the impression earlier that Eric was staying overnight. “Oh. Oh! Yeah… Eric, baby! I’m so sorry you have to go! But auntie… I mean… your mom comes first! Go get her to the hospital right away!”

“His mother… she is sick?” Vasily grumbled suspiciously.

“She, uhh... spilled cooking oil on herself!” Carie blurted.

“My god!” the woman exclaimed.

“What? Oh my god!” Eric parroted, so slow on the uptake.

Carie glared at him and said through gritted teeth, “But I think it’s just her toe. The little one.” She pushed him, throwing him a look that silently urged him to get the hell out of there already.

“Is terrible,” the woman said, apparently even less in command of her English than Vasily. She pointed down the hallway. “You take bus? I go bus stop, now.”

“Yeah, I bus. I mean, I’m catching the bus, too,” Eric said, nodding and showing an eager smile too wide for a person whose mother was barely hanging on to her burned little toe. “I’ll come with you!”

Carie had given up on all pretense of caring about was going on around her beyond the two meters of space between her and Vasily. He apparently was also preoccupied in his own limited field of thought as the both of them simply eyed each other as their two apartment guests waved good-bye and walked away down the hall together.

After they disappeared down the stairs, Carie shrugged with feigned indifference. “She seems nice,” she sniffed sourly. “Her hair and teeth are blinding.”

Vasily sort of nodded his chin up in response, more like a twitch, really. He didn’t bother to offer a similarly weak compliment for Eric.

“Guess it’s back to some peace and quiet now?” Carie said, arms folded and spiking her thin, black brow.

“Yes,” Vasily croaked from the corner of his mouth, “some peace and quiet.”

Still keeping leery eyes on each other, they both stepped back into their apartments and closed their doors.

----0----

Whatever small victory Carie had felt earlier by shutting Vasily and the woman down with the sexual theatrics she and her cousin had performed had quickly evaporated the moment she saw the flaxen haired woman pressing her plush lips on Vasily’s cheek. It had gotten under her skin so much that as soon as she had closed the door, she ran into her bathroom to take a quick shower. After changing into a night shirt and knee socks, she returned to her kitchen to polish off the rest of the bottle of Shiraz.

After gulping down the last glass, she stood by the breakfast counter, feeling a little woozy and droopy eyed. Unfortunately, she didn’t feel as numb as she had hoped. Just then, her cellphone rang. A picture of Eric appeared on the screen.

“Fuck,” she muttered. She slapped at the phone as she picked it up. “What?” she growled.

“Hey,” Eric said on the other end, “You know that woman from across the hall?”

Carie squinted and locked her jaw. “No. I have no idea who the fuck you’re talking about,” she seethed sarcastically.

“Oh, well,” Eric continued hesitantly, “she’s actually really nice.”

“You were able to talk to her?”

“Yeah, I’m taking second year Russian at school. Well, she’s actually Belarusian but… ”

Carie blocked out the rest. She was about to ask him why the hell he was taking Russian, but ended up just closing her eyes and shaking her head.

“Anyway,” Eric added, “she’s your neighbour’s sister.”

Carie’s eyes popped back open along with her mouth. “She’s his what?!” she hollered.

“His sis- “

Carie cut him off, hanging up and storming to her front door, blood and alcohol surging through her troubled brain. She threw open the door. At the very same instance, the door to Apartment Seven swung open, and Vasily stormed out brandishing his own cell phone.

“She’s your sister?!” she blurted.

“He is cousin?!” he bellowed at the same time.

The next twenty seconds were a conflagration of rapid fire Russian (possibly) and Chinese curses and expressions of incredulity as Carie and Vasily shouted at each other in the hallway. They waved their arms and hands like they were swatting at flies and stamped at the ground with their feet. Faces both pink and red, they spattered tiny drops of alcohol-laced saliva at each other as they raged.

Surprisingly, it was Vasily who managed to grasp hold of the common ground English language. “You fuck cousin?” he said, pointing his nose disgustedly at her.

“No! I did not fuck my cousin! I wasn’t thinking of him as my cousin when we…” No. No way to conclude that sentence. She tried again, “I mean he was just pretending… “ She bit her lip. Dead end once more.

She tried a different tact. She sneered and said, “You were screwing your sister!”

Vasily’s face contorted like it was in a blender. “I do not screw sister!” he said, his accent and grammar hammering his speech.

Carie’s phone chimed. A text message from Eric: “She’s a boot camp personal trainer. They were working out in his apartment. They’re like hard core fitness fanatics.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eric,” Carie thought, wincing and pressing her cellphone into her forehead as she cursed her cousin’s awful, awful timing.

“How you think I fuck sister?” Vasily demanded.

“Well, how you think I fuck cousin?” Carie responded, mocking his grammar.

Vasily pointed to his ear. “I hear. I hear, ‘Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck, Eric! You are so big, Eric! Your cock is so hard, Eric!’”

Despite all the rage and confusion, a pinch of amusement seeped into Carie’s head. Seeing Vasily agitated was always a welcome entertainment. Listening to him recount the sounds of a sexual liaison in his plodding monotone voice turned out to be an amusing delight, as well. Too bad she was too busy trying to defend herself and save face at the same time to truly appreciate it.

Carie continued to side-step his complaints. “Yeah? You and the golden bimbo called me a… a whatever suck!”

“‘Suck’? I don’t say you are suck.”

“Paw! Pad! Something sack, or sook, or sup… ”

Vasily cringed and frowned like there was a skunk under his nose. He clearly had no idea what she was trying to say. He shouted something again in his native dialect then threw up his hands at her ‘touchdown’ style. Then he stomped back into his apartment. A blast of air blew Carie’s hair back as he slammed the door.

Carie was left alone in the hallway, shaking in her socks, blasting a hole through his door with her eyes. “Yeah, you know what, Boris?” she yelled. “Fuck me!”

He opened his door. “What you say?”

Carie felt like she was standing on a hot plate, hopping around on her toes. She clenched her fists at her sides, narrowed her dark eyes and curled her lips, seething as she leaned forward. “I said fuck me!”

Vasily squared his jaw like an anvil, his own blue eyes straightening out to thin slits, as they stared each other down. “Fuck you?” he rumbled as he tilted his head aside.

“Yeah, you dumb rock.” Carie flipped back her long, black hair and planted her hands on her hips. She pinched her lower lip with her teeth then growled, “Fuck… me.”

“Fuck you?” He was stuck on flabbergasted repeat. He leaned back, squaring his broad shoulders.

She nodded her chin toward the ceiling, peering at him across the tip of her nose. She sniffed, “Yeah. Fuck m-... “

Vasily’s bulky frame magically moved like a flash of lightning across the hall. He scooped up Carie’s lithe little body in his long arms and shut her up with a full press of his mouth over hers. She barely had time to jump up as he barreled into her, but in one seamless, swift motion, her arms were around his neck, and her legs assumed a vice grip against his torso. Her lips were applied over his with an intense suction for good measure.

Vasily carried her forward into her apartment, full throttle. She cinched herself up against his body, climbing him like a squirrel shimmying up a tree, rubbing her panty clad crotch against his flat-iron belly.

They mowed their mouths over each other with angry, lustful kisses. Carie sucked on his tongue, trading the taste of wine in her mouth with the aromatic elixir of vodka in his. Each times their lips parted, they gasped the magic words.

“Fuck me. Oh god, fuck me good. Mmm,” Carie swooned.

“Fuck you. Mmm, fuck you,” Vasily growled.

He carried her clear across her living room, toppling her coffee table and running her right up against the far wall. Carie gasped, finally escaping his kiss, as her back bumped against the wall. Pinned there, she continued to clutch him and mash her crotch against his body as he worked desperately to unbuckle his belt with one hand.

“Mmm, fuck me, baby,” she purred as they covered each other with smearing, sloppy kisses. Her crotch was all a tingle. “Fuck me.”

Every utterance of the f-bomb kicked his urgency up a notch. She could feel his muscular frame practically trembling as he shoved his body against hers. As his heavy leather belt weighed his jeans to his feet, the thick tip of his lengthy cock spiked above the waistband of his boxer shorts, prodding angrily at her belly.

Carie managed to use her thighs and hands to push down his underwear just enough to fully release his rugged shaft of muscle. At the same time, she lost yet another pair of panties as Vasily’s strong hand tore the lace from her skin. At some point, she was going to have to start charging him for that.

“Uh! Fuck!” the two of them grunted in unison as he slammed into her, snapping their heads back. Skipping all formalities, they hit the nitro and went at it hard and fast. Vasily cranked his hips and flexed his buttocks infusing Carie with rapid, powerful strokes of his lengthy, throbbing cock. She met his motions with seductive rolls of her belly, mashing her crotch against his each time he thrust forward. She cooed and whimpered, savouring this fierce and indulgent clash. She was certain he would have driven her through the drywall if it was the slightest bit flimsier.

As he pulled her away from the wall and carried her to the center of her living room, she took the opportunity to strip off his shirt then cast away her own top. Vasily’s wet mouth found her pert, brown nipples, suckling hard on each of them and stretching her small breast with rough tugs of his beefy hand as he lowered her to the floor.

Carie slipped off of him. As he knelt on her rug, she curled down to get a closer view of his stiff, long cock. She giggled, looking up at him as she took hold of his length. “You’re such a naughty bastard,” she said.

His fingers tangled through her black hair as she plunged her mouth down hungrily upon him. His tip bumped the back of her throat repeatedly as she bobbed her head, then she churned it around in her mouth with her tongue, pressing it against her inner cheeks. Quickly, she alternated between sucking him and jacking his cock with her hand, slipping her saliva with a soft palm up and down from his tip to his balls.

“Oh, fuck,” Vasily breathed deeply.

Carie had to hide her a sharp, toothy grin of satisfaction.

A rigid finger slipped between her butt cheeks, plumbing the pucker of her anus. She loosed a muffled yelp, her mouth full of Vasily’s cock, but soon twisted and writhed seductively at the rough and bold fingering, humming her pleasure.

Panting hard and growling like animals, they pushed and shoved each other into another position. Suddenly, Carie was on her back, raised on her neck and shoulders, arms stretched out and hips lifted in the air. Vasily crouched over her on one knee, leaning forward and folding her legs over. His cock had a clear passage and he drove into her from above with a harsh thrust.

“Oh... fuck!” Carie yelled a growling groan, squeezing her eyes shut and pinching together her brows.

Holding her thigh, Vasily ploughed into her full, rapid bore, bracing her legs with his strong arms and throwing his head back with each stroke for full effect. He could have probably drilled a hole in concrete the way he was going.

Carie gasped and groaned loudly, the air driven from her lungs with each forward thrust of Vasily’s turgid shaft. Still, somehow through the exhaustive session, an undeniable smile appeared on her lips. Not only did this feel so fucking good, but the thought of how the two ended up like this couldn’t escape her brain. It was pretty ridiculous.

“Ah, shit! Ah, fuck!” Vasily gasped as he wrecked his muscles to relish Carie’s sensuous hole with twisting grinds and jackhammer thrusts.

Good Lord, it was like he was banging away at a carnival test of strength tower, Carie thought. She practically lit up and rewarded him with a pronounced “Fuck!” each time he rang her bell.

Then he suddenly froze, inches of his cock still inside of her.

Carie blinked. She moistened her lips, swallowed, and gasped, “Wha… What is it? Why did you… ?”

He wasn’t looking down towards her, but rather his eyes were staring up and ahead. She followed his gaze, arching her neck and tilting her head back. She also froze. “Oh… hi.”

From her upside down view from the floor, Carie saw in her open doorway Mrs. Cooper standing there in her night gown and slippers, casually stroking her cat.

Breathing hard, Carie looked at Vasily, his sweat dripping onto her nude body, then back at her next door neighbour. She couldn’t help but offer a sheepish smile. “Uhh… “

Mrs.Cooper tilted her head aside and smirked knowingly. Without a word, she reached for the knob and slowly pulled Carie’s door closed. “Such busy, busy mice, ” she slipped in before the door shut.

“Mice?” Vasily said, frowning.

Carie squinted, thinking for a millisecond. Fuck it. She didn’t want to bother to explain. She slid her legs around Vasily and locked her ankles at the small of his back, just above his big butt. Then she wrenched hard and pulled him down with her sock covered legs till his rugged frame smothered her lithe body. Her heels drove into his back, spurring him into action once more, and within seconds they were back at it, banging with delirious abandon.

Lips locked together, Carie welcomed every rolling, stiff thrust of Vasily’s hips with a muffled, desperate gasp of hot breath into his gaping mouth. She scraped her nails along his back and shoulders and arms leaving deep red scratch lines along his skin, drawing a pained groans from the big man above her. His cock throbbed deep within her and she groaned her urgent need for more.

They flipped positions, Carie mounting his torso and shoving him back so hard his head smacked the floor. Thank goodness for the plush rug. Ignoring the wince of pain on his face, she planted herself on his upright shaft, screwing it deep into her wet, tight hole with a silky move of her hips. She swept her long, sable hair back and moaned towards the ceiling, “Umm! Fuck, baby!”

Two rough, manly hands clamped down on her shimmering breasts as she rode her big buck with zeal. His cock stirred within her, probing her deep as he pushed his hips up to meet her with a sharp smack of hot flesh.

“How good am I?” Carie said through a wanton sneer, her motions unrelenting.

Vasily sneered back. “So good,” he moaned.

“I’m fucking good!” she said.

“Yes... fucking... good!” he answered, bucking his hips like a bronco.

Carie sputtered a laugh in the midst of her brutal groans of lust. “So fucking good!” she chimed, mimicking his hard accent. She collapsed on him, sealing his mouth with hers. “So fucking good… mmm!”

The frustration and annoyance of the past few days continued to be unleashed in a torrent of messy, erratic sex. Vasily pitched Carie’s petite body onto the sofa where he slathered her plush pink pussy lips with his tongue before resuming his relentless, brash thrusts, her ankles at his ears.

They christened Carie’s dining table doggy style, till the sound of one of the wooden legs cracking prompted a shift to the sturdier breakfast counter.

They barely made it into her bedroom, but ended up short of the actual bed and back on the floor. Somehow they managed to drag the bed sheets off as they rolled around, switching positions at a frantic pace all the while lacing their incessant moans and groans with the sexual trigger: “fuck”.

Finally they ended up with Vasily kneeling and Carie upon his lap, legs crushing against his torso. Their bodies were welded together by sweat and lust, arms clamped, lips locked, tongues twisted. They fucked with mounting desperation as they hurtled towards the peak of their ecstasy. Carie rolled her belly with an electrified rhythm as she grinded and mashed her crotch against him, consuming every bit of pleasure she could from his thick, throbbing cock stirring deep inside of her.

A few minutes later, her fingers clawed deep into Vasily’s skin and every muscle in her over-heated body tensed. Her moans sharpened and quickened until she burst a languid groan into Vasily’s mouth, “Ohh! Uhh!”

A purge of lusty wetness spilled from her, coating his stiff shaft still thrust deep within her. She trembled and shook, pulling away from his mouth and pressing her forehead against his. She emptied her lungs with a quivering groan, “Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh fucking god.” Her body hitched in endless release.

Almost instantly, Vasily’s head listed back. The strain in the veins on his neck and in his glowing red face bore evidence that he had gone well beyond his breaking point. His groan came out almost like a roar. “Ahh!” he hollered, rattling the light fixtures in the ceiling above. He pinched down on his bottom lip with his teeth than sounded off with a resounding, angry, “Fuck!”

Carie clutched at him, her teeth digging into his shoulder as he shuddered a forceful burst of his thick cum deep inside of her. She felt his frame of chiselled, solid muscles tighten and recoil as he continued to jet his spunk till it was spilling from her and coating the base of his aching cock.

Both indulging in the residual lust of their climax, they swept their mouths upon each other, along their cheeks and necks, lapping at their slick, shiny flesh and nibbling upon their nipples. Finally they collapsed against the bed, curling together amongst the nest of sheets crumpled together at the foot of it. The fire and alcohol was all burned out of them.

Cradled in the nook of his long, big arms, Carie mindlessly dragged her fingertips up and down Vasily’s sculpted abdomen. She smiled crookedly to herself as she pieced together all the stupid little moments from the last few days had come to a head with this explosive encounter in her apartment. It was really a silly sitcom come to life. She chuckled softly, accepting it and letting it go at that.

This generous offering of boisterous sex would be enough to ride a truce between Apartments Seven and Eight for a while, she thought.

There was just one thing…

She leaned aside and jabbed Vasily in the chest with her fingers. “Hey!”

“Ow,” the big man grumbled, woefully faking pain. He frowned his bushy brown brows at her. “What?”

Carie eyed him. “So, what the hell is a ‘pat sock’?”

Vasily’s eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips as his thought process cranked to life. “You mean pacuk?”

“Yeah. Pat’-sock.”

“Why?”

“You and your specimen of a sister called me that several times,” she said.

Vasily shook his head and shrugged. “Yana said you did not look like rat.”

Carie frowned, confused. “Well, that’s nice. But why would she… wait,” she said, pausing to quickly retrace the events all the way back to the beginning. “Who the hell called me a rat?”

Truce dissolved.

----0----

Eric sat on the workout bench recovering from an intense workout session with his new personal trainer. As he toweled off, he looked around in the spacious basement admiring how well designed it was, just like a real professional facility. The renovations to the private home that displaced the owner for a few days were well worth it.

He stood up and looked in the full length mirrors. His long muscles looked toned and glistened with perspiration. He had to admit, though the workout was intense, he felt invigorated. Hiring a personal trainer was a good idea.

He drank deeply from his bottle of water as he waited for the trainer to return from upstairs. After a few minutes, he heard her coming down the stairwell.

“Hey, just wanted to say again, that was a really great workout, Yana,” he said.

As he turned, Vasily’s sister came around the corner. Eric froze at the sight of the statuesque blonde standing before him wearing a red, sheer floral negligee. It was obvious she was wearing nothing underneath, the shape and tones of her super tight body pretty much all out there for the savouring. She struck a pose on her spiked heels --as if she wasn’t a towering and imposing figure already-- flipped her flaxen cascade of hair aside, and cast a beckoning gaze towards him. Licking her lips she asked, “Who said workout is finished?”

The bottle slipped out of Eric’s hands and water splashed onto the floor all around his feet. “Ohh… fuck.”

His parents were going to kill him.