Serenading Stanley (7 page)

“There’s Charlie. He lives on three. You’ll know Charlie when you see him. He has carrot-red hair. Charlie also has a bit of a problem with sticky fingers. He’ll take anything that isn’t nailed down, whether he wants it or not. I like Charlie. He works for UPS, and he’s always bringing boxes home. I can’t help wondering how many people out there aren’t getting their deliveries. If he steals something he doesn’t really want, he’ll sooner or later give it away as a gift. Charlie is sort of a conflicted personality. What you might call a generous thief. He gave Ramon his own toaster back for Christmas. Came over for breakfast one morning and left with the toaster. Ramon thought it was cute that Charlie forgot he stole the toaster from him, then turned right around and gave it back as a gift. That’s how nice Ramon is. Not the brightest light bulb in the socket, but nice as nice can be.”

Stanley laughed. “Who else?”

“I understand you met Arthur in drag, so there’s nothing more to be said about that.”

“No indeed. Arthur I understand perfectly.”

Sylvia clapped her hands together under her chin. “Oh! My favorite person in the whole building is Roger. Roger Jane. He lives right below you, you know. He’s a nurse. He helped me through a case of flu a few months ago. He was still a student then himself, but oh, he was so sweet and kind to me. You must get to know Roger. You absolutely
must.”

Stanley felt the blood creep into his face. “I already did. He helped me when Arthur passed out on the landing. He’s very… nice.”

Sylvia tapped his hand, like a schoolmarm trying to get a point across to a particularly slow student. “He’s more than nice. He’s sweet and sincere and kind and fun. He’s also the most beautiful specimen of manhood I’ve ever seen in my life. God, he’s gorgeous.” Sylvia batted her lashes. “Don’t you think he’s gorgeous?”

Stanley stuffed another cookie in his mouth while he thought that over. Finally, he said, “I suppose he’s gorgeous, if you like the Hugh Jackman type.”

Sylvia laughed. “And who the heck doesn’t?”

She glanced at her wristwatch. “Oh, dear, I have to get ready for work. I’m a waitress at the deli on Fourth and Broadway. Jimbo’s. Stop by sometime and I’ll try to sneak you a freebie. Roger stops by there all the time, you know. He loves our corned beef.” She sprang to her feet and once again blew the hair from her eyes. “You need a bigger fan, Stanley. They’re going to find you up here parboiled like a chicken.”

She kissed his cheek in farewell, and with a singsong “Enjoy the cookies!” was gone as quickly as she came, leaving Stanley a little bit breathless. Breathless and full.

But not full enough, apparently, since his hand was already reaching out for another cookie as though it had a will of its own. And while he devoured
that
cookie, he wondered why Sylvia hadn’t shown him her brand-new tits as Arthur had said she would.

Stanley was a little surprised to find himself disappointed. He would like to have seen them.

For purely esthetic reasons, of course. They really were lovely.

A
S
THE
seemingly endless two-week wait before classes finally began to wind down to a close, Stanley realized that his tiptoeing between the fourth- and sixth-floor landings had paid off. He had not seen Roger Jane the whole time. But every time he
hadn’t
seen Roger Jane, he’d felt guilty about it, remembering the hurt look on the man’s face when Stanley had blown off his invitation to come down for a drink. He rehearsed in his mind all the different ways he might atone for his breach of etiquette without really getting himself cornered into accepting
another
invitation. In the end, he had to admit it was probably better simply not to see Roger Jane at all.

The school year ultimately got underway with a flurry of activity, as school years always do. Stanley was thrilled about the curriculum but not nearly as thrilled as he was by the fact that the campus classrooms were actually air-conditioned. He liked his professors, and he fit in with the other students without much emotional trauma. His shyness did not magically evaporate, but it was lessened by the fact that his mind was now centered solely on his studies. And when Stanley focused on something, he did it wholeheartedly, often to the exclusion of everything else. He suspected that was one of the reasons he fell down a lot. With his mind on this, that, and the other thing, half the time he simply wasn’t watching where he was going.

And because of this singleness of purpose when it came to schoolwork, Stanley’s practice of tiptoeing between flights four and six gradually petered out. And it pretty much petered out without Stanley even noticing. His thoughts were so buried in dates and civilizations and long-dead ancestors from the Paleolithic period, not to mention the stone tools they wielded and the cave art they painted, sometimes he didn’t notice the flights in the stairwell going past at all. For an archaeologist in training, he was remarkably unobservant. If he hadn’t lived on the top floor, he suspected he would have regularly kept right on climbing past his own apartment.

Thus it was that on the second Monday after his classes started, he stumbled headlong into Roger Jane. Literally. Yep. His luck finally ran out. Stanley was climbing upward after school, and Roger was clomping downward with a gigantic basket of laundry in his arms, headed for the laundry room in the basement. Stanley didn’t see Roger coming down because his head was filled with prehistoric shit. Roger didn’t see Stanley rising up to meet him because he couldn’t see past the bigass pile of laundry in his arms.

Their collision knocked them both off their feet. An avalanche of dirty clothes and textbooks went sliding down the stairs, and it was only because their legs were tangled around each other’s that Stanley and Roger didn’t go sliding along with them.

After the initial mind-jarring realization that their asses were on the floor and nothing seemed to have been broken in the process, no bones at any rate, they both started apologizing at the same time. Then they started giggling at the same time.

“I’m sorry.” Stanley giggled, straightening his glasses.

Roger laughed. “Me too.”

“I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Me either.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.”

Then they started giggling again.

“So you’re a
clumsy
little mouse,” Roger said, eyes bright, white teeth peeking out between laughing lips.

Stanley watched the tip of Roger’s tongue lick at the corner of his smile, as if he could taste it. Mesmerized, Stanley answered, “It would certainly appear so.”

Stanley finally managed to pull himself together and take stock of the situation. He unwrapped his legs from around Roger’s and hauled himself to his feet, offering a hand to Roger as he did. Roger accepted the offer and pulled himself up. They were both still laughing and brushing themselves off.

They began retrieving their belongings from the steps. Stanley handed Roger a pair of undershorts and Roger handed Stanley a book on Aztec ceremonies.

“Uh,” Roger said, “since my laundry is dirty and your books are clean, let’s just pick up our own stuff, okay? I’d hate for you to be stricken blind with Dengue fever because of coming into contact with my soiled undergarments. Although actually that is a misrepresentation of the possibilities since Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne virus, and I’m not sure one of the symptoms is blindness, and I don’t know why I’m talking so much. By the way, I love reading about the Aztecs. If we were back in Tenochtitlan a few hundred years ago, it would be our heads rolling down these stairs instead of our books and dirty laundry.”

“Only if we were prisoners slated for sacrifice to appease the gods,” Stanley lectured, scooping one of Roger’s T-shirts off the floor and wishing he was all by himself so he could stick the filthy shirt in his face and breathe in a good whiff of Roger’s smell. Just the thought made Stanley’s dick move inside his slacks. Or maybe it was due to Roger lecturing him on Aztec sacrificial practices. That was a turn-on, too, but even Stanley had to admit it probably wouldn’t be a turn-on for anyone other than himself. And maybe some long-dead Aztec.

To take his mind off the fact his dick was still moving, and praying to God Roger wasn’t
seeing
it moving, Stanley started jabbering mindlessly. He knew it was mindless when he heard the words pouring out of his mouth.

“If you like Aztec lore, I have a dozen books on the subject you can borrow. It is fascinating stuff. Quite a civilization while it lasted. You’re more than welcome to come up and—” Stanley blinked. He knew, suddenly, what he was about to say, but of course, by now, he also knew there was no way to gracefully backpedal. Was there? And did he really want to?

Roger gave him a quizzical look, his smile threatening to break through again in all its glory. “I’m welcome to…
what
exactly?”

Stanley took a deep shuddering breath, all the while wondering if from now on he could tie a bunch of sheets together and gain access to his apartment by climbing up and down the outside of the building like a gecko, where there would be no chance whatsoever of running headlong into Roger Jane. “You can come up and borrow them anytime you like,” Stanley finished at a gallop.

And there it was. After coming to terms with refusing Roger’s invitation to pop downstairs for a drink and beating himself up over it for the past three weeks, here Stanley had up and extended an invitation of his own. And there was no way in hell he could get out of this one.

Roger was wide-eyed and beautiful standing there with an armload of filthy laundry tucked up under his chin. His five o’clock shadow was as heavy as Stanley had ever seen it. So this was what Roger looked like when he wasn’t going to work. Blue-jeaned, barefoot, haphazardly thrown together, and stunning.

Roger’s head was tilted to the side. He was staring at Stanley in the same way Stanley stared at those museum exhibits he so admired. Roger’s soulful green eyes burned into Stanley like a couple of blowtorches, and Stanley could swear he felt the heat of them searing his skin. Roger seemed to be powerfully confused all of a sudden, although there was a hint of a grin still twitching at the corners of that luscious mouth of his.

Stanley wished he could lean in and kiss the twitch away, and boy, didn’t
that
thought make his dick give a lurch. It startled him so, he actually jumped.

When Roger spoke, his words were softly clipped, carefully enunciated, as if he were speaking to someone with only a basic knowledge of English. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

Stanley didn’t hear him. He was too busy wondering what it would feel like to run his hand over Roger Jane’s buzz-cut hair. Would it be all bristly and poky, or would it be as soft as eiderdown?

Roger clutched his laundry in one arm to free up the other so he could wave a gentle hand in front of Stanley’s face.

“Earth to Stanley. I said I wouldn’t want to be a bother. That’s your cue to say I wouldn’t be a bother at all.”

“You wouldn’t be a bother at all,” Stanley echoed, blinking himself back to the present.

Roger laughed. “Well, phew! That’s a relief.”

Stanley blushed and gave himself a shake. “I’ll let you finish your laundry,” he said.

Roger blessed him with a radiant smile that would fill Stanley’s mind for the next three days. He reached out his strong hand and gave Stanley’s hair a tousle. “Okay, Little Mouse, I’ll let you go do your homework. Don’t worry. I’ll call before I come up.”

And to make matters worse, Stanley heard himself say, “Oh, no. Just drop in any old time.”

Roger tilted his head to the side again. And there was that kissable twitch once more, too, Stanley noticed, playing at the corners of those extremely kissable lips.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Roger said, finally giving the twitch full rein to be a proper smile, and flashing those pearly whites when it did. “I’ll look forward to it, then.”

Stanley simply nodded, knowing full well he was incapable of coherent speech at that moment. Better to keep his flapping trap shut before he blabbered out something else he would end up regretting even more.

Two minutes later, Roger was humming and padding barefoot down the stairwell, his dirty laundry back in the basket where it belonged, once again en route to the laundry room in the basement.

Just before Stanley ducked into his apartment, books and papers all jumbled together and hugged to his chest, he heard Roger call out from somewhere below.

“See you later, Little Mouse!”

Stanley rolled his eyes, ducked inside, and locked the door behind him. He was as happy—and as scared—as he had ever been in his life. And all because the man was going to borrow a book.

How fucking pathetic was
that?

And why did he still have a hard-on
?
As if he didn’t know.

O
NCE
his hard-on subsided, so did the euphoria brought about by his little interaction in the stairwell with Roger Jane.