April

Part 1

Is he kidding me?

"Let me rephrase, I don't want to borrow the toilet paper . . . that would be unacceptable. I meant, could you spare a square." His moss green gaze looks me right in the eye while his hands slip into his jean pockets. He'd look late twenty, if it wasn't for the gray at his temple and the peppering of salt in a day-old scruff.

"Well, more than a square. Like the whole roll.

He rocks back on his heels while I stare at him, still considering he must be joking. We are in a state of pandemic crisis all over the world, and for some reason, the United States has gone crazy over toilet paper—hoarding it like tissue-thin paper squares sustain life, prevent the virus from spreading, or provide a sense of preparedness. Of course, this guy is not prepared which leads me to immediately assume he's unmarried. No wife would send her husband to the neighbor for a spare roll of toilet paper. She'd tell him to get his fine backside to the store for the supply. Unfortunately, a surplus is a sparse commodity.

"Mom, who's here?" My eleven-year old son asks as he's home from the mandatory school closures.

I actually don't know the man in front of me. Our apartment building has a series of people coming and going.

"Hey, aren't you Henry's dad?" My son Mason questions, and I glance over my shoulder.

"Hey, man," the man says, nodding his head at Mason. "I'm asking your sister for a roll of toilet paper." He winks at my almost-teenager who shakes his head.

"She's not my sister. Ew. She's my mom." Mason laughs, and then without even asking me for permission he says, "I'll go get you a roll."

"Mason," I hiss under my breath as I watch my son disappear into the apartment before turning my attention back to the man standing just outside my door.

"Sister?" I question, crossing my arms over my chest and hitching my hip to the side. "Really?" I mean, really? The gray at the roots of my hair give away the fact I'm clearly not Mason's sister.

"Harris Spellman," he says, holding out his hand to shake mine.

"We're in a state of emergency. Haven't you heard of no hand shaking and social distancing?" I ask, staring down at his thick fingers with nails like he chews them.

"I figured if I held up my elbow, you'd think I looked like a rooster. Didn't want to come across like a cocky cock." He winks at me.

Is he kidding me again?

"Uhm-hm," I groan. "Because you aren't coming across that way right now?" My lips twist. He's kind of a cute cock. Maybe not the smartest rooster in the hen house but still, the sheepish look on his face. The spark to his forestry eyes. The silver in his scruff. At least he isn't twenty-something.

"So the no-touching thing would include not fixing that piece of hair fall against your cheek?" The mention of my hair, which slipping forward, makes my cheek heat, and I hastily brush back the errant strands on my own.

"I'm Iris Yonker," I say, offering my own name, willing myself to stop blushing and then continuing to blush even more as if I'm twenty-something.

"Like the Goo Goo Dolls song?" he questions, a brow tipping upward. Specks of gold dance in his eyes, like sunlight filtering through trees.

I'm mesmerized.

He smiles.

Then, I remember he asked a question.

"No, like my grandmother who was named after the flower."

"Ah," he nods like a bobblehead and Mason returns with not one roll of toilet paper but three.

"Mason," I mutter under my breath. I'm not above being neighborly, but I'm also not interested in stocking things up for an unprepared neighbor. So typical of a man.

"Thanks, little man," Harris says, reaching out for the rolls and Mason dumps them in his hands. "I'd fist bump ya', but your ma here is holding fast to the no-touching rule."

"I'm just trying to be cautious, and safe, and follow the ru—"

"I get it you're a rule-stickler." He tucks the toilet paper underneath his arm and gives me one more glance. "But you know what they say about rules, they're meant to be broken." He winks one final time.

"See ya' round, Iris the flower," he says, offering once more smile. Which has my heart pattering faster than it should be as he disappears down the hallway. I fight the urge to stick my head out and see where he goes.

I will not look. I will not look.

"Who's Henry?" I ask Mason, turning back to him while I close the door.

"He's a boxer."

"Like a fighter?" My God, no wonder he doesn't have toilet paper. He lets his kid fight.

"No, he's a dog he rescued."

What? I laugh. "But you said he was Henry's dad?"

"He is. He's his dog dad."

"His what?" I laugh again wondering who comes up with these things.

Another thought hits me causing me to shake my head. "Mason, you know you shouldn't talk to strangers." At eleven-year old, he shouldn't need reminding of this.

"Yeah, but he's not a stranger. He's Harris and he lives downstairs."

"How is it you know this?" I question.

"Because I'm the mayor." Our landlord has graciously given this title to Mason, telling him he's the man about campus, or in our case, the man about the courtyard apartments, a three-story building in a U-shape, facing a courtyard with a locked iron gate at the end of the walk. It's quaint and secure, and one reason I love this place. As an accountant, it wasn't the most affordable, but I wanted somewhere close to work.

When I graduated from college, I began working for a big six accounting firm. Over the years, I didn't have time for anything but my job which lead to one-night stands, short-term relationships, and random hook-ups. And as a result, I had Mason. Not from all of them collectively, of course, but I had a good idea who his father was. However, I didn't need his support nor want it, so it's always been just Mason and me.

"Well, Mayor, may I remind you, you still shouldn't speak with strangers, and you shouldn't be passing out our toilet paper to the neighbors?"

"He seemed desperate. He was doing the poop dance."

"The what?" I chuckle and watch as Mason imitates how our neighbor stood, rocking on his heels and clenching his backside. And here I thought his moves were an inappropriate thrust, forcing my eyes to lower to his zipper region where he caught me checking him out. Taking in the muscles exposed from his short sleeves, and the low sling of his jeans when he tucked his hands in the pockets and the waistband dipped a bit lower, he was difficult to dismiss. Obviously, he wasn't doing that thrust for my attention. He just needed to take a shit and needed paper to wipe his ass.

I'm an idiot.

"Okay, Mister Mayor. Online. Time for school." With the government closing schools and mandating e-learning days so the students didn't have to make up the time in the summer, Mason had a few hours ahead of him to enlighten his brain while I needed to get some work done from home.

+ + +

I'd worked hours past Mason's school-time and into the dark evening when I heard a strumming noise.

"What the hell?" I have a few more hours of calculations to complete. It's tax season after all, and while the government is shutting down everything in its power, there are still taxes to be paid by the fine citizens of this country which means I have work to do.

The strumming grows louder, and I cross my kitchen to the living room. As I look out the sliding glass doors, I notice several of my neighbors standing on their balconies, bundled in their coats or wrapped in blankets. There was Mrs. Havish across the way, and the elderly Mr. Pluckton two doors down from her. The Viselli family on the level below, and Lotus and Theo, a newly married couple who need to learn to close their curtains.

The strumming is loudest near the glass pane, so I open the door and the music swirls around me. The sound is haunting but inviting, and I reach back inside for the blanket falling off the couch from where Mason sat earlier watching television. Flipping it over my shoulders, and tucking my arms inside the warm material, I step out into the brisk April evening air, watching my neighbors first before noticing the sound comes from my left. Crossing to the edge of my balcony, I peer over the side to see a man one level below leaning against the railing of his, playing a guitar. As the song ends, people applaud, and I smile at the sense of community.

The man shifts, his backside pressing off the iron barrier, and he spins. Looking up at my balcony, Harris catches me watching, and smiles slowly while he begins a new song.

One about giving up forever to touch someone and knowing that person can feel him somehow.

As cliché as the song is, and not because it's titled after my namesake, with every stroke of his fingers on the strings, I do feel his words. With every tremble to his gravelly tone. With every lyric vibrating up to me from the balcony below.

I do feel him somehow, caressing my skin when we aren't allowed to touch others and I suddenly crave his touch even more. A complete stranger. And yet, I want him to trace every word on my body, around my breasts, over my belly, and between my thighs. I want the lyrics to press where I long to be pressed and slip inside me where I've been empty for too long. I want the fullness of such a song, one of longing and desire.

When everything was broken, he just wanted me to know him.

Suddenly, it's all I want for myself—to know him, understand him, be with him—which makes no sense.

However, the power of a song is strong. Music is a universal language, spoken and comprehended by all, no matter age, gender, orientation or creed. It has the strength to possess your soul, and in my case, my body, because there isn't anything I desire more than the man serenading me from a balcony below to touch me.

My body betrays me with a sway of my hips, as I follow the rock of his. We fall into rhythm with one another, as if dancing together yet separated by space. Then he shifts, moving forward instead of side to side, and I fall under his spell, mindlessly imagining what we could be doing. If only he were on my balcony, or I was on his. If only touching someone didn't scare me so much. And it isn't just this moment in time but throughout my entire life. I'm afraid to be close to someone else. I've been holding myself at bay since the arrival of Mason, and it's had been a long dozen years.

He continues to sing about fighting tears that are permanently held back and the moment of truth in lies.

And the truth was, it has been a damn lonely decade, one filled with denial. Not regret. I do not regret my child, but my heart is missing a piece that needs to be fixed, and this song teases me with the possibility of someone actually wanting a single mother of one, who is hard-working and underwhelming.

My fingers hold the blanket near my waist, gripping the metal railing with firm blanket-covered fists, clutching the metal like the hips of a man. I rock forward slowly, falling deeper under the lull of his voice, flirting with me, encouraging me to surrender to him despite the distance. My core pulses louder than my heart. So loud, I'm worried he'll hear it a story below me, if that were even possible.

I just want you to know who I am, he sings, and my body responds to the call.

"I want to know who you are," I whisper.

With fingers curling over the railing and hips moving in time to his words, the unfamiliar creeps inside my lower belly, tingling, teasing. While I don't think it's possible, I'm might be close to giving into the unthinkable. Close enough I'll spend extra time in the shower or covering my mouth in my pillow, face first on my bed. With his voice in my head, it won't take long to cross over this edge.

In my imagination, those moss-green eyes will look into mine.

The low hang of his pants will tease me with the hint of hair leading lower.

The slow smile of those lips will tempt me with the desire to taste him.

The thickness of his fingers tells me his rough touch would still be gentle.

On the final chorus of the song, his voice elevates, and if I don't reach release during the next three lines, it will be a miracle.

Not disappointing me, his tone deepens, his voice commanding.

Give in. Give in. Give in.

Thankful for the darkness, and the intent interest of my neighbors on the stranger making his presence known, I'm confident I could follow his demand without notice from others.

Only he is watching me, intention clear.

Touch. Feel. Caress. Come.

My fingers clutch harder at the blanket over the railing, and I still, closing my eyes while my mouth slowly gapes. My hips tap the balcony spindles, and my legs stiffen, as I curl into myself, letting the wave hit me like the increased tempo of his song. The lyrics are over, but he continues to strum, fingers brushing those strings like he might play me. Winding me down like the gentle stroke of fingertips on my cheek, brushing back my hair, and whispering breathlessly in my ear.

Know me.

My eyes slowly open, and I turn my head as if in a daze. My neighbors are applauding once again, along with a catcall of praise, and a sharp whistle of appreciation. I loosen my tightly curled fingers from the railing and my legs tremble underneath the blanket. Hesitantly, I return my gaze to my new neighbor's balcony, the one offering the loss of forever if he can touch me, but he'd disappeared.

I blink.

I squint.

I shake my head, certain I didn't imagine this moment.

Then through the sliver of the sliding glass I'd left open, I hear hammering on my front dor.

And I had a decision to make.

Follow the rules or break them, just this once.