Melinda opened the door mid-knock. The man smiled down at her.
“I’m your new neighbor, right next door. I wanted to introduce myself,” he said. With a smirking shrug, he swept past her into the apartment. When he spoke again, it sounded breezily rehearsed. “You don’t mind if I come in? I like your books. Why don’t we sit down?”
She was confused, and almost absentmindedly pushed her door shut before following him down the hall to the living room.
“I’m—” she began, realizing the absurdity of being the one to introduce herself, and yet unable to resist. “I’m Melinda.”
“I knew a girl with that name once,” he said as he dropped roughly on to her couch. He made himself comfortable and grinned. “I fucking hated her.”
Again, she couldn’t help herself. “Why? Wh— what did she do?”
“She talked too much,” he said flatly, the grin disappearing completely.
“Oh! Oh. Um—” she said, thinking it through.
“But that’s not what I hated,” he interjected. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared deeply into her eyes. “What I hated was everything I had to do to shut her up. What she made me do.”
Melinda nodded. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Sit,” he directed, and she did.
For some reason, she picked the most uncomfortable chair in the room.
“But see, I’m counting on you here.” The smile returned, like spring come early. There was a buzzing in her ears. “I’m counting on you to do better than that other Melinda. I’m counting on you to be smart. You can be smart, can’t you, Better Melinda?”
Her “yes” was in the air before she’d even considered the question.
“Good. Very good,” he said, returning to his relaxed posture. “Do you have traditions, Better Melinda?”
“I—” Her thoughts raced. She had cravings… so, so many cravings. She had habits that regulated the cravings. She had fears that felt ancient and hereditary. But traditions? She couldn’t say. It felt wrong, being almost thirty and unable to say. “I’m not sure.”
“That’s okay. I’m always sure enough for both of us. ” He lightly patted the couch cushion next to him. “You probably don’t know this, but there’s a tradition in this building.”
Her eyes narrowed, as if the spell had been broken. “You just moved—”
“I used to live in the building, with my ex.” He patted the couch again. “One floor down. I could have moved into one of the units down there, but I told the super that this is as close as I want to get.”
She had, as it turned out, a weakness to magic. “Oh.”
“I lived there —suffered there, really— for three long years. Longer than you’ve been here, according to the super.” Without warning, his eyes hardened and he brought his hand down on the cushion with a slap that suggested dire things for her face.
She was frozen in place, but a voice inside her knew what to do. She stood —and wobbled, as she realized she was shaking— and moved to his side. He put his arm around her and she settled into the embrace.
If there were any voices screaming at her to run, she couldn’t hear them.
“You should really be careful about that guy, the super,” he warned. “He told me a lot about you even before I slipped him a hundred bucks. He lets himself into your apartment when you’re on campus. Did you know that?”
Her alarm was balanced by his warmth. It had to be wrong, the way she’d gone from feeling afraid to secure in a matter of minutes. It couldn’t happen like that, not the right way. But she couldn’t think about it too much; she was just too warm.
“No, I didn’t know,” was all she could reply.
“He goes through your stuff, copies your photos and videos off your iMac, cums in your food… the same stuff he does to all the women in the building.” He laughed. “He’s an old school pervert. He’s always wanted to tell someone. He looked relieved.”
“My— what food? Did he— did he say if he— with the videos—?” She felt serene, but her breathing quickened, and tears ran down her otherwise placid face.
He continued to laugh. “Are you talking about your personal collection of shame? Yes, hon. He told me I could buy a copy. (You’re not his type, by the way. He wanted me to tell you that, if it ever came up.)” He sighed in exaggerated relief and this task completed. “He was asking a fortune… I suppose he could see I was a motivated buyer.”
He sighed again, this time with something like sincerity.
“That’s okay, though. I’ll even things up with him someday.”
“So, now you have—” she began.
“Yes,” he said gently. “Now I have.”
She appeared to be thinking. She wasn’t thinking at all. Months later, when he recalled the moment in conversation, she would wonder for hours why he couldn’t tell. She didn’t like wondering about that. It made her sad.
“So in this building, there’s a tradition,” he said, confident she understood the backstory. “We’re not just neighbors. We’re partners. We share a wall, we share a duty… we share everything. We swap wifi passwords. We swap keys. We can count on each other.”
He patted her thigh just as he’d patted the cushion earlier. She knew if she were slow to act, the escalation would be even swifter. She stood and looked at him curiously.
“Go get me your spare set,” he instructed, waving her away with a flick of his wrist. “And write down your password.”
She would not remember searching through her junk drawer for the spare set. She would not remember writing down the password for her router. What she would remember was his voice saying, “Y’know what? Just write down all your passwords.” She would remember the way her hand would not reach out to offer him the folded piece of paper, no matter how hard she tried. She would remember him leaning close and taking it.
“I obviously don’t have to tell you why you’re going to do as you’re told. You understand your situation.” He pulled her back down to the couch with him. “So really, we just have that one big question left to answer.”
“What— which question?” she asked.
“The question I should have asked Other Melinda, when we were living downstairs.” He gripped her shoulder tighter, and leaned his face close to hers. She felt the world shrinking.
“Which question?” she whispered, her gaze unfocused.
“How much are you going to make me hate you?”