The Thirst Within (11 page)

I’m prepared. On the way out I purposely hang
back, as if giving one last look, admiring the splendor. I let her go out
first, then I pretend to admire the stained glass panel above the door, which she
calls a transom. While looking up, I stash her business card, which I’ve pre-folded
during the tour, inside the sill plate hole so that the door won’t lock when it
closes.

Luckily, Lucy is convinced that I’ll sign the
papers tomorrow, and is not paying that close attention to me. She’s also not
that interested in making sure the door stays locked, either because it’s a
second story, or because the apartment is empty. Or because she has no reason
to doubt it locked as I closed the door behind me. I’m guessing a little of
each.

We shake hands enthusiastically and part ways;
I walk one block away to the main road, then I go into a store and wait ten
minutes for the coast to clear. Then I come straight back to the apartment.

I feel like a total criminal when I climb the
stairs to the second story. I tentatively push the door… yes! It worked; it
opens. I walk inside, remove my booby trap and let the door lock softly behind
me. I look around the empty apartment, and marvel again at how beautiful it is.
But I’m not here for the apartment. I already toured it and I didn’t find what
I was looking for. My last hope is the porch.

I walk to the master bedroom and approach the
window, which is sliding glass; I unlock it, open it and ease myself out onto
the porch roof. I land softly and try not to make a sound. I shut the window
behind me. I can’t lock it from the outside, but hopefully Lucy won’t notice.
The building next door is a one-story house, and I’m facing its high roof. I
pray no one sees me, and if someone happens to, that they don’t care about some
girl on top of a porch.

The porch butts against a windowless brick wall
to the back, which I’m assuming denotes the dividing line between the front
apartments and Thierry’s. That makes the back apartments—Thierry’s and his empty
downstairs—wider by almost ten feet, although they don’t have a porch. But who
needs a porch when you have the awesome little courtyard with a hot tub? I hope
I can get in somehow. I move on.

There are two windows between the one I climbed
out of and the brick wall ahead. The first one is the master bathroom’s window;
I ignore it. As for the second…
score
. It’s what I was hoping for. A
possible way inside Thierry’s apartment.

The pane is narrow like some bathroom windows.
I look in and all I see is stairs inside.
Please be unlocked
, I pray.
Please
be unlocked
.

The window
is
unlocked, but at first I
think it isn’t. It hasn’t been opened in forever. I lift it, hating the noise
it makes. I only need to raise the pane about a foot, enough for me to ease
through, but I try to open it as high as it’ll go. I want to give myself as much
room as I can get because the sill is really dirty and I’m afraid I’ll leave a
trail on the dust. Whoever thought to put this window here at the stairs
landing, bless their heart, did it possibly to get some light to their stairs,
but was not too practical when it came to figuring out how to clean it. I’m not
complaining, though, as it’s presently convenient for me.

Here goes…. I ease my torso through the window and
look down. If I lower myself down as far as I can go, holding on to the
windowsill, my fall is only about three or four feet to the stair landing below.
I won’t be able to climb back this way if the upstairs and downstairs doors are
both locked. I’d be trapped. The thought is unnerving, so I almost slide back
out. But first I look down the stairs, and see the deadbolt on the door below.
That means I can leave that way if the upstairs is locked, that I won’t be
stuck in the staircase.

So okay, I can do this. I come through and
balance precariously on the inner ledge to close the window behind me. I lower
myself holding to the ledge and then drop down, and fall neatly without making
a lot of noise. I take a second to congratulate myself.

I climb the stairs quietly because I’m
committing a crime, but I shouldn’t be worried because Thierry’s out of town,
and Corben is supposedly with him. I take a deep breath and turn the doorknob…
and it’s unlocked. Yes! I wasn’t sure it would be. This isn’t the main entrance
to the apartment. I’m not sure where it leads. I open the door and peek in, and
find myself in Thierry’s kitchen. I hadn’t noticed this door before.

Holy crap, I did it. I’m in Thierry’s apartment.
My heart is beating like I just ran a mile in five minutes. Apparently
committing crimes is a huge adrenaline rush for me. I try to calm myself while
I figure out what to do next.

But now that I’m here, I simply stand, not
doing anything. I don’t remember what I wanted to do in the first place. I
didn’t come here to read Thierry’s journal or his ex-girlfriends’ love letters.
I didn’t even think I would make it inside. But I tried, because I wanted to
be
in his house. What do I do now?

I close the door behind me and notice a similar
door on the wall to the right. I open it and see a wide pantry, almost empty.
Thierry takes his not cooking habit to the next level. I can’t believe I didn’t
notice any of these two doors before.

That gives me an idea for something to do.

My heart still beating fast with the feeling of
wrongdoing, I cross the dining room and move towards the living room,
determined to open every little door that I’ve seen in this apartment, and the
ones that I haven’t noticed before.

Luckily, every window in the whole apartment is
covered with curtains that are presently drawn. Thierry must have closed them
when he went out of town. I walk around at ease, knowing no one can see me. I
turn on a lamp, but don’t go crazy with turning all the lights on.

Aha. Unknown door number one. I find a coat
closet off the living room wall by the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.
There are a few coats hanging here, and I touch them wistfully, missing
Thierry. I close the door slowly, scared to make a sound, as if someone could
hear me.

Then I enter the first bathroom. Inside there’s
a narrow door—linen closet. Nothing new here. I exit the bathroom and move to
the next room. This is the first bedroom, which is the guest room. It has a bed
and an empty desk with a chair in a corner. There’s only a door to a closet,
which is empty. I continue down the hallway.

I enter the second, larger bedroom, but stop after
a few steps. A strangely familiar scent invades my nostrils, to which my body
responds earnestly. It’s homey, but I can’t place it. Then I notice that this
room’s bed is larger and is dressed more ornately, if that’s the word, than the
first bedroom’s. It feels more private. I see a few personal articles on a
small desk and I remember.
Corben
. This is his room. I leave and don’t
open any of the doors, afraid of him somehow, even though he isn’t here. Thierry
said this bedroom has a bathroom, but I don’t need to see it. And I certainly
don’t need to see inside the closet where I suspect there is more personal
stuff.

Back in the hallway, two doors remain between
Corben’s and Thierry’s rooms. The first is a huge laundry room that I can’t
believe I didn’t notice before. It’s so big that it even contains a utility closet.
The second is a small hallway closet, mostly empty.

Then I enter the master bedroom.

I see the bed by where Thierry and I kissed the
first time. I take a minute to recall every detail of the kiss; how I enjoyed his
lips over mine, his body pressed against my chest, and my hands trailing through
his hair. I smile as I remember, purposely leaving out the part where Thierry
ended it so abruptly. I haven’t been here since that fateful afternoon; when
I’ve visited Thierry this week we’ve always stayed in the living room area.

I wish he were here now. I look at his bed and
imagine myself on it. The furniture in this room is handsome, polished wood as
the rest of the apartment. A quick glance around the room does not reveal his
journal, which I know to be the same as mine. As the small pang of
disappointment settles, I realize that although I’m not going to look for it in
his drawers or anything, I totally would’ve read it if it had been lying
around. I’m such a snoop.

I’m almost at the end of my self-guided tour,
and my body is tingling, either from remembering Thierry or from acknowledgement
of my faults and the felony I’m committing.

There are two doors in Thierry’s bedroom on the
opposite wall, which would be the end of this building. A third door in his
room, to my right, leads to the balcony that overlooks the patio. I cross the
room slowly, my hand trailing the foot of the bed, and walk towards the two
doors on the opposite wall. The one closest to the center of the room is just a
walk-in closet. The door is ajar, so I can tell what’s behind it, but I don’t
want to open it further for fear he’ll be able to tell someone was here.

The master bathroom door is next to the wall
that faces the courtyard. I open it and enter his bathroom, and my jaw drops.

It’s huge. There is a short, four or five-foot
long hallway before reaching the actual bathroom space. To my left is a wall
behind which I’m assuming is Thierry’s walk-in closet. There is a row of
windows to the right. I push a window curtain to the side and see the courtyard
below, but it’s nighttime. Interesting. I didn’t realize the sun had set, since
all the curtains are drawn. It’ll make sneaking out of here easier.

I walk the length of hallway and reach the open
space. It’s twice the size of the bathroom outside, and yes, it does have a
clawfoot tub in addition to a shower lined with glass doors. I can’t remember
what the claws in the front apartment were, but these are some sort of silver
bird talons wrapped around spheres. They’re intriguing. Both the floor and
walls are covered in the same type of marble, white with delicate gray veins.
The towel hangers, hooks and shower hardware are polished silver or something
that resembles it, which matches the tub claws.

Everything is luxurious. I touch the white
towels and they are so fluffy I want to strip down and cover myself in them. I
wonder if there’s a robe; I’m sure it would smell of him. I turn around looking
for one hanging somewhere. Then I notice a door I didn’t see on the way in, on
the wall behind me, which looks like the linen closet door in the first
bathroom, but not as narrow.

I pull the door open, expecting shelves like
the first bathroom. However, I’m surprised to see the closet is much deeper
than the first bathroom’s. In fact, it’s like a walk-in linen closet, but the
space inside is only about three feet by three feet, just a tad wider than the
door. The shelves are on the wall in front of me, opposite of the door, and are
full of different-colored towels, baskets with soaps and hair products, even a
few books. The wall to the left is the hallway wall, and it’s plain, free of
shelves. So is the wall to the right.

Hold on. This wall to the right… there’s
something odd about it.

There’s a half-inch gap on the edge of this
wall. I examine it further and realize I’m not looking at a wall; it’s a door.
A plain door that slides into the wall where the shelves are. It doesn’t even have
a doorknob.

I stick my fingers in the gap and slide the
door open, now feeling a little apprehensive. This is beginning to feel wrong.
I’m not just sneaking in my boyfriend’s empty apartment, but now I’m opening
this door which feels like a secret passageway.

When I have it halfway open, with the light
coming in from the bathroom behind me I can see high, narrow wooden steps
leading up to another door, which is closed. Oh. It’s probably just the attic.
I guess I never expected this place to have an attic, but that’s got to be it.
I consider going up, wondering what’s up there, but it looks a little spooky. I
don’t see a light switch.

I take a last look upstairs, and am about to
try to pull the door to slide it back to about where it was before, when something
catches my eye upstairs. I look back but I can’t see it anymore. It was like a flickering
light. I move my head left to right slowly until I see it again. Apparently
there’s a door upstairs as well, and it is also ajar, and I must be seeing a twinkling
star. Or, most likely, a streetlight.

The door doesn’t lead to a creepy attic. It
leads to the outside; the roof, maybe. And it’s
open
.

Now I’m intrigued.

I slide open the door enough for me to pass
through it, and very deliberately climb the steps. It’s not as dusty as I was
expecting, like the steps going up to an attic. These are transited more
frequently.

At the top of the stairs there’s a short
landing. The door in front of me swings to the outside, and it’s open a few
inches. I peek through the gap, feeling the chill of the outside air. I push
the door open and slide out into the young night.

It’s not completely dark because of the city
lights on the street and the courtyard below. I can tell the roof is lined with
large stone pavers, and the area in front of the door is covered by an
overhang. But it’s dark, so I almost miss it.

There is a large figure in the center of the
roof.

My heart stops.

I take a step back automatically, but it’s too
late. The person may have seen me already. Then as my eyes adjust, I notice
it’s not a large person but what looks like two people embracing. One of them
has their back to me, and all I can see from the second person is their hands
at the other one’s back, their partly-concealed face, and their hair.

His
hair.

Thierry’s
.

I
know
it’s him. That’s his hair, short,
but not too short. It falls forward over his handsome face, bent towards the
other person. That’s the coat that he wore last week when he rescued me from
Mardi Gras. And those are the lips that kissed mine, now wrapped around someone
else’s neck. And the other person looks very male.