"Harder! Harder, damn you! Keep going till you drop…"
The sound was a raw, aggressive symphony of pleasure, the kind that didn't invite you in—it commanded your attention. It wasn't a gentle murmur; it was the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of her headboard against their shared wall, underscored by a rising tide of guttural, demanding moans.
The acoustic ambush yanked Luke from the brief respite of sleep, leaving him instantly, violently awake.
It was his wallsider, his long-time crush trish, locked in her morning ritual with her burly boyfriend.
Every single sunrise, they hammered out their intimacy right next to Luke's pillow. It was a calculated, unconscious cruelty that had carved a deep, aching groove of frustration into his soul.
The sound didn't just irritate him; it ignited him. Her voice, husky and thick with release, was a potent narcotic that sent a white-hot surge straight to his groin.
When he heard her demanding cries, his cotton pajamas instantly grew tight, stretched taut over a straining, throbbing proof of his longing.
His cock started to bulge, insistent and hard, an urgent response to a pleasure he was utterly excluded from.
Luke would squeeze his eyes shut, his knuckles white against the sweat-dampened sheets. He knew the truth: that muscular body driving into her was not, and would never be, his. He could only endure the symphony of her climax, biting back his own silent groan, condemned to the sweaty, frantic confines of his own fantasy, alone.
It was an impossible distraction, a siren call muffled only slightly by the flimsy, shared wall. Her apartment. His neighbor.
The woman he barely knew, the woman who would never spare him a glance, yet whose existence now felt like a cruel, magnetic force against his will.
A spike of heat, sharp and immediate, cut through the cold calculation of his financial ruin.
This was the worst possible time for this, he thought, the protest weak and useless. His plans—his promise to himself to take control—dissipated like steam.
He was helplessly, utterly aroused.
He pulled down his pants, the material catching briefly on his bulging tension, and staggered to the battered wardrobe.
It wasn't just a place for clothes; it was his fortress, his hiding place for the shame and the relief. Inside, hidden behind a stack of threadbare shirts, was the cream.
He uncapped it, his hand trembling slightly, and applied it coolly to his throbbing skin. The sound from the other side intensified—a gasp, a melodic moan—and Luke let the sound become his sole focus, his mind emptying of job interviews, rent checks, and self-respect.
Just for a moment, the voice in his head whispered, let it all go.
The pleasure was intense, a brief, blinding escape from reality. But as the sound on her side of the wall reached its crescendo and then faded, so did he. He spilled his semen onto the floorboards, a hot, sticky mess, and the wave of release was immediately drowned by a surge of icy, gut-wrenching regret.
He sank onto his knees, head against the cool wood of the wardrobe.
I swore I wouldn't let this happen.
The promise he'd made—that he wouldn't let someone who could never look at him control his actions—felt like ash in his mouth. He wasn't just unemployed; he was defeated, not by the economy, but by his own desperate, uncontrollable weakness.
This was bad enough but laying back down and looking at his room further reduced his morale.
It was a single room, slapped together with a row of other single rooms, all divided by cardboard-thin walls.
That was why Luke could always hear his neighbour fucking—every moan, every grunt, every squeak of that rusty spring mattress. Privacy wasn't just a luxury here; it was a myth.
Parts of the roof leaked whenever it rained, and it rained often enough to remind him that the bucket in the corner wasn't optional décor. The room didn't have a bathroom either.
For that, he had to share a public one with at least fifteen other people in the complex, half of whom were hookers who treated the place like their personal backstage. Most days, the stench hit him before he even turned the corner.
Television? Nope.
A ceiling fan? Not even a distant dream. But truth be told, those things didn't matter much anyway—not in a place where electricity had become a polite rumour. The entire area was known for power shortages that lasted days, sometimes weeks. You couldn't miss what you never had.
Slum City—that was what people called it. The name stuck so well that even official forms used it now. Nobody bothered with its real name anymore, not when the poverty and rotting infrastructure painted a clearer picture than any map ever could.
Only the lowest of the low lived in Slum City. To qualify as a resident, you practically had to fall off the economic ladder and hit every rung on the way down.
Bottom two percent of the population, that's what folks said.
And even among that bottom two percent, Luke was probably dead last.
The kind of last where no one bothered kicking you because life had already done the job for them.
His bed was just a battered foam mattress thrown on a wooden pallet.
The sheets were clean only because he scrubbed them himself every Sunday, hauling water from the pump two blocks away. His clothes hung on a wire nailed between two walls, swaying whenever the wind sneaked through the cracks.
Most nights, he lay awake listening to the mix of distant sirens, drunk arguments, and the neighbour's nightly cardio session.
The walls trembled with the rhythm of Slum City's chaos, and he'd stare up at the water-stained ceiling, tracing the shapes the mildew made. Some people counted sheep. Luke counted mould spots.
Still, he endured. Because Slum City was ugly, broken, and loud—but it was the only place he could afford. The only place where someone like him didn't stick out. Where no one asked questions. Where anonymity wasn't a gift; it was a survival tactic.
And for now, this leaking, cramped, cardboard-walled box was home. Not because it deserved to be. But because Luke had nowhere lower left to go.