Thin Ceilings

All characters are above the age of 18 unless otherwise specified.

Author's Note: This is only my second stab at this genre, hope yall enjoy it. This story has a fair bit of buildup, so if you're just looking for a quick stroke story, I'd recommend some of my other works instead.

*********

"Harder baby!"

My husband threw the covers off and shot out of bed.

"That's it!" he exclaimed, striding across our bedroom in a flash.

"No, sweetie, please!" I pleaded with him. "We just moved in, we don't need to be picking fights with the neighbors already."

"Are you listening to this?" Nate asked. "It's like wild animals, how are we supposed to sleep?"

As if on cue, a loud scream permeated through the ceiling above. The sound was partially muffled, but still very loud.

"It's past midnight, Brooke, I have to work in 7 hours," my husband continued his case. "This isn't me picking a fight, it's common courtesy."

He wasn't wrong, but still. My husband and I had just purchased our first apartment, now free from the scam of renting that had drained our bank accounts through the first 8 years we had been married. And complaining to our neighbors on our second night in the building was not a great way to build trust and good will.

Plus, I was not ready to be labelled the building Karen. My short, straight A-line bob cut already strayed too close to "I'm gonna need to speak to your manager" territory for me to start embodying that spirit too.

"I know honey, but please. I really think this could be a forever place for us and I don't want to get it started off on the wrong foot. Please, for me."

I gave my husband the biggest puppydog eyes I could muster, something he'd seen plenty of over the years. Just about anything I wanted from him, I could get with that look.

He sighed, and gave in.

"Fine. I'll leave it alone for tonight," Nate said. "For you."

He moved back towards our bed, and another loud "fuuuck!" came from upstairs. Nate grimaced, and took a second Melatonin pill from the bottle on his nightstand.

"But this is only for you. And if it happens again...."

He didn't need to finish the thought. I kissed the nape of his neck as he climbed back into bed with his back towards me.

"Thank you honey," I whispered.

Nate grunted back a response. My eyes started to drift closed.

"Fuuuck, I'm cumming!" a muffled voice cried out.

***

It was deja vu the next night. Almost exactly the same scenario. Loud screams of carnal pleasure, Nate getting irate and threatening to go up to confront him, and me talking him down.

Honestly I'm not even sure how necessary my protestations were to stopping Nate, he had a tendency to be all bark and no bite.

Regardless, I was fine without there being a confrontation. I really didn't want to make a scene and be *that* neighbor. And once I was out, I was a pretty heavy sleeper, so the noise didn't bother me that much. Plus when I was in college, I lived on a co-ed floor and our walls were very thin. I was pretty used to it.

So when it continued throughout our first two weeks in our new apartment, about every other night, my irritation was raised slightly, but I was more than able to get through it.

What my husband didn't realize because he worked was that the noises didn't always stop during the day.

I had no idea if the couple above us didn't work or what their situation was, but there was way more lascivious moaning at 3 pm on a Wednesday than you would expect. It actually started to make me wonder. How could they have sex this often? Did this man really have that much energy to be able to fuck so often? And what was he doing that made her keep coming back?

The only weird part was that the girl's voice seemed to be slightly different from the first nights. I chalked it up to me mishearing things.

Other than the most unusual acoustic intruder, Nate and I were adjusting to our new apartment and new lives quite well. We'd moved to D.C. from Richmond, where we'd met, dated, gotten married, and lived happily for 8 years. Nate had gotten an offer to work for his insurance agency's main office instead of the satellite in Richmond, and couldn't turn it down.

I'd been happy to leave my hair stylist position behind, knowing there would be plenty more options in the much bigger city. Nate and I had agreed I'd take a month or two to get us settled in to the apartment before I started looking for work again.

Which is what left me at home on a Wednesday at 3 pm listening to those screams.

My next-door neighbor, Maryanne, was a 50-something housewife whose husband was nearing retirement. She was a very nice and helpful person - she'd helped us move all our stuff into our apartment on our first day, and seemed genuinely excited that she had new neighbors.

"Well we're not really that exciting," I'd respond when she made mention of it.

"Nonsense," she replied on this particular Friday. Maryanne was helping me unpack accessories and re-do the layout of our living room. Or less living "room" and more living "area of the open kitchen/den/dining/entryway space" that constituted the main room of our apartment. It wasn't huge: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, a small office/spare bedroom, and the bigger open area. With D.C. mortgage prices we couldn't afford much more, but the important part was that it was ours.

"You guys are independent workers, you're homeowners at 26? 27?"

"31," I corrected her. "But you flatter me too much."

"With that bod?" Maryanne huffed. "Brooke, you're killing it for 31."

I couldn't help but blush. Even if it was a 50 year old housewife complimenting you, it still felt good. And I was glad someone noticed. I did pilates and yoga multiple times a week back in Richmond to keep myself in good shape. Both for myself and for Nate, although the only thing he seemed to notice about it was how much the classes cost. That did bother me a little bit, but I knew where he was coming from.

"Stop, you're too kind," I replied, making sure the picture I was hanging was perfectly level.

"Well anyway, you guys are doing great for yourselves. That's exciting in my book. Not many people your age are set up that well, most millennials just want everything handed to them."

I didn't want to argue with Maryanne and get into student loan debt, housing prices, or anything else. So I just nodded and took the compliment. Besides, she was very sweet and clearly meant well. Even if her worldview was a little antiquated.

"But you guys are set. Happily married, Nate's got a good job, owning your own property."

"Well thank you," I said. "It can feel like a lot at times, a lot of responsibility."

"I totally know what you mean. There's a lot of things to manage. I was fortunate that Richard did well enough that I could afford to stay home and just be with our kids."

Maryanne's 3 children were adults now, scattered across the country.

"Yeah, I don't think we can quite afford that yet," I laughed. "At least not if we want to keep the same life we had in Richmond."

"True, sacrifices always have to be made somewhere," Maryanne remarked while I pushed a shelving unit into place. I couldn't help but notice she was doing very little actual work, but I didn't mind the company. "Do you know when you're going back to work?"

"Not sure," I grunted, getting the IKEA unit flush against the wall with one last push. "I'll probably start looking for jobs at the end of the month, once the whole place is set up. It'll be good, just so I'm not cooped up. I almost feel like it's lockdown again," I chuckled.

"Yeah, that should be good, getting yourself away from home."

Maryanne started to continue, but one of the moans I'd come to know too well suddenly percolated through the ceiling. I'd noticed a slight murmur from above earlier, but nothing suggesting any extracurricular proclivities were occurring.

"And away from that," she finished with more than a hint of loathing in her voice and a roll of her eyes.

"Oh shit!" came on cue.

"Yeah I've been meaning to ask, what's the deal with that?" I asked Maryanne.

She huffed and took a seat.

"The deal with that is your upstairs neighbor Liam. He's some young kid, probably a bit younger than you."

"How does he afford his own apartment?" I inquired.

"No idea," Maryanne replied. "I've only spoken directly with him once. But he's been in the building for a few months now, and the complaint list against him is a mile long."

"Complaint list?"

"Yeah, late-night parties, loud... noises... at all hours day and night, trash bags outside his door, even the smell of pot all through that whole hallway. He's a menace."

"Yeah, sounds like it," I answered. I couldn't imagine myself in that position. Not only did I feel I had more tact and decorum, but I'd just never been that wild. I mean, I'd gotten married at 23, I'd been dating Nate since freshman year of college. How wild can you really get?

Besides, that just wasn't my personality. I'd rather curl up at home with a book or good tv show and cuddle with Nate than go to a rager. Sure, I felt the occasional pang of jealousy or FOMO whenever I heard about some of the stuff a few of my friends got up to, but I knew that life wasn't meant for me. I'd been raised pretty conservative by my Christian parents, and even though the spirituality aspect wasn't a huge thing for me (although Nate was pretty religious), the lessons always stayed with me. I liked to think that, even though I didn't really believe in heaven, I'd get there anyway once I died if it did exist, and living my life with that in mind was more probably more rewarding than engaging in sin just for fun.

Most of the time, anyway.

Apparently an old philosopher named Pascal stole my idea preemptively and made it famous, so I wasn't that groundbreaking or unique.

Maryanne brought me out of my trance.

"I've been lobbying the HOA to force him out for a while. It's absurd."

"Yeah, I guess. It's pretty annoying."

"And to have it happen throughout all hours of the day? I mean, there's no need whatsoever for him and his floozies to be so... so... disruptive to everyone else at any time, but in the middle of the night? On weekdays? Ridiculous, an absolute disgrace."

"Well, it is his own apartment, I suppose," I countered. I didn't necessarily sympathize with Liam, and I did want the sounds to stop, but I also didn't feel like stirring the pot. "It's not his fault the ceilings are thin."

"I suppose so but if you're him you just have to learn to adapt then. Do you think Richard and I go shouting about our apartment? No, we're considerate people," Maryanne continued as she watched me struggle to pick up a heavy box of knick-knacks. "We don't inconvenience anyone else like that."

"Yeah that's fair. I'm just a more timid person I guess," I laughed. "I don't like confrontation, I probably let people get their way too often."

I said it in a joking self-deprecating manner but it was something that I genuinely disliked about myself. I tried not to be a pushover but with my truly tiny 4'11" frame (yes, I still shopped in the kids section quite often), I guess I came across as an easy target. At my old work place, I got handed all the Karen customers. My coworkers always joked it was because I had a Karen haircut so I'd have better personal experience giving them the cuts they wanted.

Which admittedly was funny, but still irked me.

Even with Nate, he tended to get his way a lot more often. It was a small thing but me getting him to not confront our upstairs neighbor already was a pretty big victory for me. I was trying to be more assertive, take what I wanted more often, so I was a little proud of myself.

"Well every woman needs to have a strong backbone, to be able to stand up for herself."

"Hey I'm trying to get there," I responded, still in a jesting manner.

"But it's true, you'll never have a good relationship or be a dignified lady if you can't."

I didn't respond, sensing Maryanne was on a roll.

"Like think, do you really think the parade of girls Liam has up there have any self-respect? Do you think their mothers raised them well?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I wouldn't really want to judge without knowing them."

"Oh trust me, we know enough." Maryanne continued as soft moans continued to rain down from above. "It's just the type."

"Take for instance, yourself. You were clearly raised well by a good family. You're a good girl. Could you ever imagine yourself up there?" she motioned.

A thud from above.

"Doing that?"

A loud squeal.

"With him?"

And a deeply carnal moan.

My mouth hung slack-jawed for a second, unsure of how to respond. I tried to picture myself up there. What was going through that girl's mind?

Clearly only good things for now. She was having the time of her life. Maryanne seemed to be implying she was low-class or reprehensible. And maybe I was on a higher horse than her, maybe I was more noble.

But where was that getting me? Sitting in my living room getting lectured by an old housewife on morals? Afraid to ever truly let go and have fun? Not just because my husband wouldn't ever let me, but because I couldn't ever let myself?

Wow, where did this suddenly come from, I had to ask myself. The FOMO or jealousy or whatever was coming on a little strong right now. I had to push that down.

"No, never," I finally answered. "I don't think I could ever let myself do that."

As much as maybe I was now thinking about it.

***

The next little bit flew by. I finished setting up the apartment, Nate was settling in well at work. I had an interview coming up at a salon, and our new lives were starting to fall into place well. I'd found a cool yoga studio I liked; they did hot yoga once a week which I'd never tried before but really enjoyed.

And I'd even started to make a few friends there, and around the building. Everyone was super friendly, more so than Richmond. Maybe it was just some selection bias in who I interacted with, but I felt more welcomed in DC.

Everything was chugging along smoothly.

Except for Liam.

I'd gotten pretty used to the sounds now whenever they came up, and even a little bit familiar. I thought it was kind of funny at this point, the only little fly in the ointment of our otherwise straight-laced lives. And I didn't think that was a bad thing. You can't be too boring. Maybe it was just me living a tiny prt of my life vicariously through more adventurous people, but I had grown accustomed, and maybe even liked the noise.

Nate did not feel the same way. But, for whatever reason, it seemed to happen most often during the middle of the day while Nate was at work, or late at night (and thankfully we'd been going to bed earlier recently, so usually it was after Nate was asleep).

So it had come close to a non-issue.

Except for the night before my interview.

Nate had stayed up later helping me get everything ready and make sure all my clothes and things were set for the morning. We were settling into bed, both of us set to get a good night's sleep; I was excited for the prospect of getting back to work finally. Maybe I'd been on the verge of being a little bored.

Anyway, we'd just turned the lights out when the noise started.

"Ugh, there it goes again," Nate chided.

"Yeah, don't worry about it, sweetie. Let's get a good night's sleep."

"Hard to with that going on," he responded as it sounded like someone was jumping on the bed above us.

We tried falling asleep. Nate hadn't had to deal with it in a bit and I'd been able to tune it out, but for whatever reason, maybe the nerves, it was getting to me tonight.

Both of us lay wide awake for a few minutes; the silence in our bedroom seemed to hang heavy in the air compared to the apartment above.

"I wish you'd let me talk to him," Nate finally remarked. He was lying facing away from me, so I was looking at his back.

"I know. But we've been over this."

That was the conversation. We went silent again, trying to sleep as the din cascaded down. It kept going, damn near 15 minutes by this point, which was really borderline impressive. No way Nate could last that long.

Not that I was keeping track. Or comparing. Or thinking about that at all.

I took a long sigh. I did actually have to get to sleep. I was nervous, in my own head.

Nate noticed. His gaze moved to the nightstand. A little past 10:30.

"Alright, that's it," he said as he rose out of bed. "This has gone on far too long."

I picked myself up out of bed too. "Okay."

Nate looked up as he put some slippers on, maybe a little surprised. "You're not gonna fight me this time?"

I shook my head no. Maybe I was selfish. Actually, not maybe, I was selfish. But now that it was personally impacting me, I suddenly had a bit of an urge to get the situation resolved.

"Okay, well put on a robe or something, let's go talk to him."

I quickly threw a robe on over my sports bra and panties (my standard sleeping attire) and followed behind Nate, who was in a t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of ankle-high Uggs (which looked rather humorous).

We paraded our way upstairs to Nate's apartment, 867 (ours was 767). He had a sticky note stuck to the door next to the cast-iron numbers with 5309 written on it. I chuckled to myself.

The noise was actually less noticeable now, even that we were right outside the door. Kind of strange that the ceilings seemed to be thinner than the walls. But we could still hear the lascivious moans coming from inside.

Nate looked to me with a steely stare, his game face (or what passed for it). He cleared this throat and rasped sharply on the door.

Some sort of surprised exclamation came from inside the apartment, and the noises stopped. Some shuffling around, and then a "Gimme a sec!"

We waited for a few moments before the door swung open, and we met our upstairs neighbor for the first time.

"Hey, what's up guys?" Liam asked nonchalantly.

He stood in the door frame, one hand on the handle and the other leaning against the threshold. And his body was basically all you could see. Liam was massive, easily 6'4" or 6'5". Nate was about 5'9", nearly a foot taller than me, and I always felt like he was tall and dominating from my perspective. But seeing Liam made me question how we were even the same species.

He was lean but very well-built. Even in the dim light I could see the contours and shadows of his six pack and well-defined pecs, plus long, tight biceps.

Liam had long wavy dirty-blonde hair that fell down around his shoulders. It was strange seeing guys with longer hair than me, but he certainly rocked it. When I thought of stereotypically douchy hockey/lacrosse "flow", Liam's was it. It framed a chiseled jawline, high cheekbones, striking blue eyes, and a little bit of stubble.

I could see why this guy pulled non-stop. God damn.

Not helping matters was the fact that he was wearing boxer-briefs, and nothing else. He was still clearly sporting a chub from the activities before we interrupted. And he seemed pretty damn well-endowed. Made sense for how big he was.

My eyes immediately darted away from his crotch. You know, since I wasn't paying attention to his body or any of those parts or anything.

"Hey, I'm Nate," my husband said, reaching out his hand."

"Liam dude, I won't shake your hand but super nice to meet you," he responded before his gaze turned to me. "Who's this?"

"I'm-"

"This is my wife Brooke," Nate cut me off. "We're your direct downstairs neighbors."

"Nice to meet you Brooke," Liam said. His eyes carved a trail over my body, scanning the short distance from head to toe. It sent shivers down my spine and made me more conscious of the amount of bare skin showing off my legs and cleavage. I pulled the robe tighter around me.