It was a still night. It hadn’t snowed, but the air felt cold and cushioned like it could. The naked branches loomed above and the occasional motion light cast spidered shadows on the pavement where I tread. I was walking home, mitten-less, as usual. Hands moist and shoved inside my pockets. Keeping a brisk pace as the air stung at my ear lobes and exposed slivers of cheek. The pain was pleasant, numbed by the cheap wine that warmed my core. I felt like a small animal. Alert, even if half-drunk. But also comfortable in the dark. I felt belonging there.

I was coming home from a witchy, pagan-themed Halloween party — my circle’s femme take on the holiday. We’d dipped hearty chunks of sour dough into boozy cheese fondue and danced around in black garb. Some friends had hunched over a tarot deck, seeing their futures in the waxy cards. Others broke off, the way women tend to do, in clumped conversations composed of intense eye contact and reassuring coos. You’re a bombshell Brittney. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’d smirked when I overheard someone respond to a question about their husband with an exasperated, Oh, you know Connor. He’s in a perpetual state of crisis.

I’d found that gendered events, even those intended to celebrate the feminine, could unconsciously centre around men. Our relation to them. Our anxieties about them. Their antics. Their privilege. Their cocks. I was grateful to be single, alone. I felt free then, and again, on this walk home. Unburdened and a bit unhinged. The stupid-happy of solitude. I thought to text a friend this revelation but changed my mind in reverence. The impulse an irony I did not miss.

As I walked, my right knee began to ache. A familiar hum of discomfort. Years earlier, I was told I had an osteochondroma; a piece of random, growing bone, protruding out the side of my leg. My genes had gotten the blueprint of a femur wrong and decided to go off-course, adding an extra limb of sorts. It wasn’t large. I liked to exaggerate the grotesque. But when walking, the muscle would occasionally rub against this osseous matter, and remind me of the x-ray saved to my phone. The slow, creeping horror. The thing, inside me, that shouldn’t be there. My body’s glitch.

Nearing my apartment, a mid-rise, mid-century building named The Manhattan, I felt a pang in leaving the night and smell of earth behind. All that awaited me inside was Ikea furniture and the sound of neighbours caged behind each wall.

As I drew closer to home, I could see the outline of a man at the building’s entrance, backlit by the orange of the lobby. As he came into focus, I saw he was combing awkwardly through a leather satchel. Struggling single-handed, with his left arm in what appeared to be a sling. He wore a dark peacoat and a navy scarf looped around his collar.

“Forget your key?” I called, drawing near. The boozed made me generous in spirit.

“Got it… Well, here. Somewhere.” He continued his lopsided rummaging, though he appeared disarmed by the sudden company.

At the entrance now, I raised my hand, swiping my access card to the keypad mounted on the column beside us. The thin glass door of the building hummed and lurched. The man opened it, with a grateful nod, using his good arm. He held it for me with a murmured, “After you.”

“Oh, I should have got that” I said, “I have both hands.” I held them up as evidence — a childlike, cheerful gesture that I immediately regretted.

We walked in silence to the elevator. The man, a few steps behind me. For a moment I wasn’t sure if he was even following me. Maybe he had stopped to check his mailbox, stalling out of polite distance, putting space between us, two strangers in the night. I wanted to look back to see if we were in stride but resisted.

Instead, I pulled down my hood, a staticky lock of blonde clinging to my brow. I brushed it away, imagining myself as a mad scientist in the dry of late fall. At the elevator, I waited, smoothing my hair, shifting my weight, preening. The man emerged beside me. My god, the lift was slow.

When the elevator doors finally opened, I stepped inside — first, once more. I hit my button. As the man joined, I held the door, my finger firm to the button. The elevator was snug. It smelt dank and muddy, of intimacy and old boots. I waited. The man made no gesture, no reach for his floor. Instead, he looked me over, stopping at my face. Staring now. It wasn’t a leering stare, nothing pornographic, but he was too comfortable, too confident in his gaze. This was clear despite my hazed lens.

“Are you on the 8th floor too?” I asked, my voice sounding not quite my own. I wondered if my teeth had been purpled by the wine. I wondered if I was embarrassing myself. The man said nothing. “I don’t know many people in the building yet,” I offered, uncertain.

“I’m not your neighbour.” he replied, shrugging. “Sorry.”

Sorry? I froze. I’m not your neighbour? The words echoed in the hollowed space between us. My body stiffened, pulse quickening. I could feel the prickle of anxiety, even in my tipsy state, make home behind my neck and in my fingertips. Still, I forced my jaw to remain soft. I’d let this person in. I glanced at the orbed security camera in the corner of the box, then held the man’s eye.

Finally, after a good beat, he spoke.

“12th,” he nodded.

Simple. I hit the button, relieved.

As the elevator began to whirr, moving upwards, he asked, “Are you from around here?” It was a lame question but made the moment friendly. And, just as dread had set in, it dissipated.

“Yeah. My whole life,” I replied. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’m from out of town. Down south. But I’m here each month. For a week, give or take. This isn’t home.”

“What brings you here?”

“I work at the hospital,” he smiled. “I’m an anesthesiologist.”

“Ah.” I knew this was impressive. He’d probably spent 12 years studying, maybe more if he’d specialized. He probably made a quarter of a million dollars a year. Again, more if he’d specialized. He was well dressed — expensively dressed — handsome, lean, a few years shy of 50 perhaps. A Just For Men commercial in the flesh. The kind of man my horny, pseudo-Wiccan friends would long to devour, both sexually and psychologically. Fucking and fighting against their fathers. I liked to think I was different. But was I? There was an appeal.

“What do you do?” He returned the question.

— The door to the eight-floor opened.

“I work at the University. In the library.”

“Noble work,” he nodded. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to master an authoritative shush.”

“Oh, I like it,” he grinned.

We kept chatting. The subject of my studies and former research seemed to interest him. The man that began our interaction with single word responses was becoming effusive.

— The elevator door closed. Going up; I could feel the nauseous lurch.

You know you missed your stop,” he laughed, with a bit of pride.

The chatting was flirting now. I couldn’t make out the moment we'd entered this new social space; my guard rising and falling like the floor beneath us. This is how people have casual sex. Strangers meeting in elevators at 2:30 in the morning. I would not sleep with this man, I knew. Still.

— The elevator was suddenly on his floor. The doors opened, but he was still speaking.

“I noticed you limping.”

“Yeah? I don’t think I was,” I felt defensive.

“It was slight. But am I right? Do you have a sore leg?”

“Not really. Just this bone thing. Osteochondroma?” I said it like a question, thought I knew very well.

“Yes. Those are common. And operable.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said. “But I can’t understand why a body would do this. It seems so purposeless, a wasted effort.”

“Frankly, you’re a stunning woman, I wouldn’t concern yourself with a little stray bone.”

I disregarded his compliment.

“Well, from a philosophical standpoint, I wonder what it means that my DNA has gone a bit rogue…”

“Trust me,” he said. “Mine has too.” Then a pause. “I’m glad we met.”

I didn’t respond, chalking this nicety up to the hour, and the fast familiarity of our conversation. Perhaps he was also a bit drunk, or riding a slight high from something he’d nabbed from the hospital. Maybe he was tired from a long shift. I expected him to go. For that to be it.

— The doors closed once again.

“I’ll ride it back down,” he laughed. “It’s only fair.”

I felt clumsy as the cable lowered the small room in which we stood, back to my floor. This couldn’’t last all night. My back was damp under the weight of a sweater, a winter coat, this coy act. Since the onset of our meeting, I’d seen myself oscillate and adjust, girlie and young, one moment, then wry and inviting, the next. A little scared, a little forward. My own desires unclear. I could admit I was flattered to be interesting to this man of science, this doctor, but I was also humiliated because well, it was a ruse — a libidinous disguise. His compliments were unfounded. His charm a strange lie. I was smart enough to see our exchange as feeble. I didn’t want this man, just the attention. But only so much and only not so long.

As we neared my flat, he said he wanted to hear more about my research.

“Do you have a card?” he finally asked.

I knew this moment well — a precipice. I rubbed my chest pocket, feeling for a card in the silken lining of my coat. I rarely gave out cards. Librarians don’t do much networking. Still, it safeguarded a professional boundary, a way to exit with grace. I found one. It was worn at the edge, soft and furred, fabric-like. Scanning the details, I realized it was outdated. My cellphone number had changed. I thought for a moment of anonymity: it would be a relief.

Yet, mysteriously, obliging some force unknown, I reached for a pen, using the elevator wall as a prop. I wrote down my real number.

“Here you are.”

“Claire?” He read the card over, learning my name. “That’s a nice name. Claire, the librarian.”

“Indeed. And you?

He told me his name.

His smile was wide. He was harmless. An older man, with a broken arm. Tired from a night on shift.

— Back on my floor, the 8th floor.

I bid him goodnight, stepped out of the elevator and turned toward my flat. As I began unlocking my door, I caught him in my peripheral. My head tilted slightly; eyes strained to look without looking. But still, it was clear. His shadowed body was straddling the threshold of the elevator, watching me for just a second. One foot out into the hall. To see. To see which apartment was mine.

It was a slight movement. A quick transfer of weight, a sudden lunge. In a second, he was back inside, bound upwards for his floor —or wherever he was from. What was cordial and pithy became fearful once more.

“Fuck,” I whispered, entering my apartment. Apartment number #803 of The Manhattan. From which I often walked to my place of work, at the address inked in neat Helvetica on my business card, beside the personal number I had penned, underneath my bolded full name.

Inside, I gulped ginger-ale and washed my face with the coldest water my tap would run. Slinking into the cradle of bed, I could hear breathy moans resounding from my neighbour’s laptop, reverberating through our shared wall. The first time I heard these sounds, I assumed they were authentic. Maybe he had a girl over. I'd realized since that he just liked his porn loud. The noise a slight but regular violence.

I shut off the light and let the dark swallow me. I was almost sober, with no buzz to lull me to sleep. I felt around in the grey for my phone. Ignoring my text messages, I scrolled through a few apps. Time passed in a flood of smirks and memes, until finally, inevitably, I opened the blue safari icon, and googled the anesthesiologist’s name.

Nothing.

I took a deep breath and placed my cellphone on the nightside table. Almost instantly, I heard its eerie vibration, a reliable and deep tone against the pine. A text.

It hummed again. And again.

I lay flat on my back, recognizing the warning.

This will be a problem.

“Not Your Neighbour” appeared in the Fall/Winter issue #89 of subTerrain Magazine