by Jeremy Edwards
(09/19/07)

Will you believe me when I tell you that I didn't go looking for that secret voyeur's perch? I'm good with boundaries, actually, and I like to think I respect people's privacy.

But I couldn't help that I'm observant. And I couldn't help that when I sat at my desk, in the small apartment that doubled as my office, I saw directly out my window into the window of that travel agency. I found myself watching that window like it was a television with the sound turned all the way down. Involuntarily.

What was I supposed to do -- close the blinds and deprive myself of daylight? I certainly wasn't going to move my desk. I'm a decent person, but there are limits.

Anyway, I never saw anything that was specifically intended to be screened from public view. It was G-rated, and the X-rated effect it happened to have on me didn't violate anyone's space: It was a private matter between me and my supply of handkerchiefs.

So, being observant, I became familiar with the wardrobes, routines, and body language of the three gorgeous women who worked at the agency -- and even with their personalities. If you think you can't learn anything about someone's personality by watching her through a window, then you're not watching right. You can't tell me that the particular way the sunny little blonde's mouth curled up when she was on the phone wasn't studied flirting. Or that the willowy redhead's eyes constantly drifting toward a stuffed hedgehog on her desk didn't reveal a sentimental heart.

Eventually, since I didn't know their names, I made up my own for each of them. This wasn't something I did in a conscious way. I don't think I would have indulged in that level of linguistic masturbation. No, it just sort of happened. Involuntarily. For example, one day I realized that I had come to think of the fast-typing ace with dark hair and glasses as "Paula." Evidently, she looked like a Paula to me, and that was that. I also realized that she was my favorite. You have to have a favorite, right? To tell you the truth, though, she would have been my favorite even if I didn't have to have one.

Paula, I had observed, was the quiet one. Lips that don't move much means quiet. But she liked to hum to herself -- and, yes, you can tell the difference between singing and humming from across the street, through a window. She looked particularly sexy when she was humming, which was usually during the afternoon. (Her heavy eyelids earlier in the day suggested that Paula wasn't a morning person; she practically typed in her sleep.)

I'll do my best to explain this next part. Being observant, I learned without any real effort how often each of them needed a pee break. They were predictable, from the redhead ("Lynne," in my mind) who could hold it all morning to the blonde ("Frannie") who punctuated frequent cups of coffee with equally-frequent visits to the little room whose door was just at the edge of my field of vision. I knew this was the bathroom because they never entered more than one at a time, and they always closed the door when they went in (but not when they came out). Observant -- see?

I'd watch each of them, on her own schedule, go through that door. And I couldn't help focusing on the fact -- a fact -- that beyond that door, skirts were raised and panties were lowered. When one of them emerged after I'd stared, involuntarily, at the closed door for the duration of her private minute, all I could think about was that I was looking at a woman who'd had her panties down just moments before.

I should clarify: It wasn't about the peeing. Yeah, I know some people are into that. But for me, it was all about the displaced panties, the bunched skirts, and the bared asses. That closed door drew my attention like a magnet.

Think of it this way: There they all were each day, so businesslike as they bustled around the office in their stylish outfits, from Lynne's conservative business suits to Frannie's color-splashed dresses to Paula's retro-chic skirts and sweaters. And I was sure that they were, indeed, professional and intelligent and efficient. But I also knew that each of them, x or y or z number of times a day, was ass-naked for a minute behind that door. I had all but seen it.

Mind you, this did not detract from their dignity, in my eyes. It wasn't an audience-in-its-underwear phenomenon. If anything, it was the opposite: I revered these beautiful women for being so businesslike and for routinely pulling down their panties, for expressing both facets of themselves under the same roof.

I knew, of course, that women everywhere did this all day long. But it made it different to see it happen -- well, almost see it happen-- right out my window, day after day, as a matter of routine. And to know that I had more or less gotten as close to their private ass-baring moments as decency allowed.

I loved the way they would unconsciously smooth their skirts back into place as they exited the restroom. If they had nothing else in common, they had this.

Eventually, I figured out that if I timed things right -- if I got my jeans unzipped a few minutes before one of them was due for a bathroom break, and eased myself along with steady strokes -- I could make myself come while staring at the closed door...thinking about the descended panties of whichever beauty was in there...visualizing those panties clinging around her knees. Clinging passionately to my own exposure below my desk.

Yes, though I wasn't out to become a habitual voyeur, I had developed a habit of jerking off while I contemplated the travel agency's closed restroom door. I couldn't help seeing them walk into that room. I couldn't help knowing about the nakedness within. And I couldn't help the fact that it made me want to touch myself. Perhaps I could have waited and touched myself later, after they'd all gone home and their office was dark. But ethically speaking, I didn't see why it really mattered whether I stroked then or a few hours later. So I elected to stroke while the iron was hot.

And because my body couldn't generate enough orgasms to keep up with the bathroom visits of three women, I had to choose which travel agent's break I would climax to on a given morning or afternoon. I favored them all to some degree; but, as I said, I liked Paula best.

Summer was in full flower on the day I saw a plumber arrive at the travel agency. Through the window, I saw him head straight for their bathroom.

It was 2:15, and I happened to know that Paula was already behind schedule for the bathroom break predicted by my cumulative data. She probably wouldn't be waiting until the plumber departed.

Sure enough, she stepped outside the office and onto the pavement. She looked around. Then she crossed the street.

I was at the door almost before she knocked.

I guess I tipped my hand when, without even waiting for her to speak, I gestured toward my bathroom. "It's in there," I said helpfully but prematurely.

Her eyes flickered momentarily with surprise. But she needed what I was offering and she didn't stop to sort out any mysteries.

I could have stared at the bathroom door -- my bathroom door -- while she was behind it. But in such close quarters, that seemed inappropriate. So I deliberately retreated into the kitchen. As a host, Paula's privacy was my responsibility. I felt so fucking virtuous, rinsing a few dishes while harboring a hard-on, telling myself I would wait till she left to begin visualizing her pulling her panties down in my bathroom.

"Thank you."

I'd been so absorbed in my virtuous dishwashing that her voice took me by surprise. I switched off the water and turned. "No problem, Paula. Anytime."

Again, a puzzled expression crossed her intelligent face. "It's May."

It was July. "What's May?"

"I am. Not Paula."

A sense of my own foolishness snapped into place. "Oh! Of course. Hi, May." I shook the excess water from my hands and approached her, extending one of them. "I'm Alec."

She accepted the handshake and smiled. "Why did you call me Paula?"

"You must look like a Paula," I said.

She frowned.

"That's a compliment," I added.

She now studied me through her nerdy-cool glasses with a mixture of amusement and, I hoped, fondness. It suddenly mattered very much to me that she not only accept me but like me.

"Would you like coffee or anything? Water? Juice?" I caught myself before offering iced tea, which always sounds appealing but which I never actually have on hand, making it an impractical thing to suggest.

"Thanks, no. I have to get back to work. Alec." She had added my name as a separate sentence, as though sharing in a private joke. Then she made her way to the door.

She was almost out the door when she turned. "I have to work till 4:30." And she left me with that single piece of information. Well, that and the fact that her name was May and not Paula.

I looked through the window to see her glance back toward my building before re-entering her office.

I hesitated before sitting down. Now that May was part of my real world, it didn't feel like I should be watching her. At that moment, I realized that I would have to move. If she never interacted with me again, I would have to move. If she and I became lovers, I would have to move. Even if she moved in with me, we would have to move. Because, if we became a couple, I would inevitably meet her co-workers, and I could then no longer in good conscience observe Lynne and Frannie, or whatever their real names were. It was funny: You could violate the privacy of friends more easily than that of strangers. One of life's little paradoxes, I noted as I shut the blinds.

May's knock came promptly at 4:35. I ushered her in, and she seemed to notice right away that the side of the room by my desk was unnaturally dim.

"You closed the blinds." She did something with her eyebrows, and I realized at once that she had put two and two together.

"Yeah, I thought I...I'm -- I'm sorry..."

Her smile was as strong as it was reassuring. "Don't be. I probably would have done the same thing you've been doing. I mean, what were you supposed to do -- shut out the daylight just so as not to spy on us?"

"Earlier today, I noticed the plumber's truck, and I --"

"Oh yes, the plumber's truck," she laughed. "Today. But I'm guessing you've seen a lot more, day in and day out. You and your desk and your open blinds."

I shrugged sheepishly, knowing any further excuses would be futile. And unnecessary.

May continued: "After I went back to the office this afternoon, I was thinking about you here, watching us. It was definitely bizarre to think that you could sit at your desk and keep track of all our routines and habits." She blushed. "But it made me...hot." Her voice had gone soft and husky. She stepped forward and gave me an earnest, inquiring look through her thick lenses.

"Did it turn you on to look at us?" she whispered.

As I pulled her into an embrace, I wondered how moist her panties were. A universe of bliss was opening up before me, but my mind was only large enough to hold that one little unspoken question.

They were moist, all right. And soon they were gone. As were the glasses. And whatever the hell else she and I had been wearing.

That very morning, I'd been intensely horny just from knowing that May's ass was bare behind a closed door across the street. Now, miraculously, she lay naked and aroused on my bed. My eyes roved across her, and it seemed like every cell of her flesh wanted me. Her cunt, her nipples, her underarms, her tummy. All of it yearned to be taken, fucked, brought to a boil. All I had to do was slide into her and give, give, give her what she craved.

And it hit me -- the giving was what I craved. It was the supreme privilege that I'd been missing when I'd been quietly watching and privately jerking off. So I slid into her and gave, gave, gave, and I watched her body soak up my physical attention until she was so immersed in delirium that she was incapable of absorbing any more pleasure.

When she went over the brink, my powers of observation allowed me to become a partner in her ecstasy. And I felt myself giving her just one more gift, in the form of my eruption. Then our bodies stuttered together in involuntary aftershocks, and I closed my eyes.

As I floated in peaceful, self-imposed darkness, the sound of May's postcoital humming reverberated around me. Her humming was bolder and more tuneful than I'd imagined through my window, with more definition and tone.

So much to observe. So much to learn.

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