The street lights dappled from the window frame to the foot of her bed. They dared to come closer when all other lights on the block had extinguished but now held firm. In position, telling her more about the time than any clock could. Late was the hour, but more importantly? Everyone else was in bed.
She had sat there on the bed, a library book in hand. The pages had turned, her eyes had glanced over them. But if asked in that instance about what it was she’d been reading, she couldn’t say. The book was a prop, much like this new house she found herself in. A buoy of normal out of the tumultuous last year. She’d sworn a change would do her good. It was an idea that had rooted in her mind, then her heart.
Yet her feet swayed from the center of the mattress out. The soles of her feet met the cool sag of wood. The boards groaned as the tired house turned at her restlessness. Every step brought a dissonant chorus of cracks, squeaks and household sighs.
They didn’t stop her, though. They never did. As the house warmed to her moving again, Melody reached the windowsill. She turned the latch, and lifted the panes in their frame. The cool street air filtered through the screen and kissed her cheek. It slid through the open folds in her robe around her hips, the backs of her leg.
Then the wind died. The night sounds of the street faded, and the house grew quiet.
At last, Melody began to sing.
@@@
A video. A photo. Seconds taken from the totality of someone’s existence, they can come to define them. Melody had seen it happen to countless people she knew. Her best friend had made it to America’s Got Talent. There was the guy at the coffee store, a scraggly haired man who always seemed so dour. He voiced acted in cartoons now. Her own mother had published several “granny mysteries” on several sites. Pictures, video. Seize the moment right, and you can become famous.
Nobody ever stipulates what kind of fame you’d get though.
Singing had always come natural to her. First it had been in the bathtub as a kid, then choir at church. She got her own solo at a few school performances. Afterwards, her mother would hug her. She’d say “Girl, please. Let’s get you somewhere, doing something. Anything, okay honey?”
But they never did.
Not for any fault of trying, but rather all those screens. They set every hair on Melody’s scalp on edge. Her voice would come, but it was always a cracked husk of what it could be. A shell for wind to blow through, hollow and decayed. Eventually, people stopped asking to film her. Opportunities to sing-for a crowd, at least-went away.
Yet she always had an audience. Even if it was just her. So she sang at night, with the window open and the neighbors tucked away and deaf. For a while, it was a wonderful thing. Her voice came clear and free as it always had.
Then one night, she watched the news.
Her mother and she had sat there, TV dinners on their trays in front of them. Dinner and the news was a ritual for both of them, one Melody held fast to as gray had begun to streak through her mother’s former midnight black locks. They had smiled, small talk passing the seconds by until the familiar jingle snaked from the speakers. The usual hosts-a man her mother said “had hair plugs like a porcupine has quills” and Jen, the redhead at the desk-smiled as they placed their papers upon the desk.
“Our top story tonight-the ghostly wails on Wabasaah Lane! Residents report that an unidentified source is-”
Wabasaah.
Their street.
Melody’s heart clenched as the screen showed shaky cell phone footage of the empty avenue she’s grown accustomed to. The same block she’d sang to, every night, for the past month. The one she thought was asleep. As her voice erupted through the speakers, she reached for the remote. The TV blipped off. She pushed her tray away and rose from the couch, almost to the stairs before her mother cried out.
“Melody! Melody honey it’s okay, they didn’t say you were bad! It could be a break, it could-”
Yet not a single syllable uttered could quell the stampede of her heart. She slammed the door to her room. She pressed herself against it, and slid until her ass met the floor.
A monster. They had confused her for a fucking monster.
That night, Melody booted up her computer. She started looking for houses, for apartments. Hell, a cardboard box would do. She started in the next city over, then the next state.
She settled for halfway across the country.
The next morning, her mother cried. She wailed, but Melody hugged her and told her it was best. That she didn’t want her life defined by these seconds, these moments.
That she wanted even one place she could sing, if only to herself.
So it went.
The new house was much like her old house. Two stories, simple. A bit smaller, but not so different. Moving her things had been as easy as mailing them. But among all the brikabrak and trinkets one thing was missing. The house was so quiet. At first Melody wasn’t sure how best to fight it. There was an answer, an obvious one, but she still couldn’t approach it. Not now, not yet. So she bought a radio instead. A TV. She filled the quiet hours with Netflix and Am broadcasts until it all became one continuous slurry of “same”. The quiet returned, but this time was paralyzingly loud.
This wasn’t normal. She knew what normal felt like.
So, one night. With the streetlights dancing towards her bed, Melody got an idea. She found what she had been missing in all those boxes.
Her home, the world, it all felt normal when she sang again.
At least, for a time.
@@@
Loud as a gunshot and just as alarming. That’s what the knock at the door sounded like. An expectation that utterly broke the world around it. The first time it happened, Melody had jumped in her seat. She sat there with her mug in her hand and simply stared. Then the knock came again and her heart pounded against her chest. The knock didn’t simply break. It inquired, and that’s when the terror gripped her.
She placed her ceramic mug-the one with the orange cat everyone liked-down on the table top and rose. Her chair let out a wail as it scraped across the tile, but she barely heard it. All was distant in that moment compared to the pound of her pulse and the rap, rap rapping at her door. Both seemed in sync as her mind raced over the who and whats dwelt beyond the threshold. Did I order something? Bam, bam, bam. Is it a neighbor? Bam, bam, bam. Did…did people from back home find me?
Her very veins felt chilled as the pauses between knocks grew longer. Melody, fingers still poised over her mug, stood as her breath hitched in her throat. The pauses grew into a quiet accented by the hum of her fridge, the click of an air conditioner starting. She swallowed the toxic bile of panic back down and crossed the distance from the kitchen to her door.
She didn’t even have pants on. People just weren’t supposed to disturb others when they didn’t have pants. She told herself this on loop as she undid the chain, the dead bolt and the lock. It wasn’t that this home was unsafe, not like that last one. Stepping outside didn’t grip her by the lungs, fearful others would turn their heads and ask that horrible thing.
Was that you?
Could you sing for us?
But.
These bits of metal, they kept her head from stirring.
The door opened towards her wordlessly by a sliver. She glanced out to the street. The Stepfords, with their perfect lawn. The Smiths, so uniform in everything they did. The Addams were the oddest of the lot with their dour paint job, but they seemed nice enough. Not a single house stirred. Why would they? Most people were at work this time of day. Melody almost pulled away then, the warmth of comfort beginning to unfurl across her mind.
Then she saw the basket.
It was a simple thing. Light wicker with a red and white checkered cloth within. Muffins of various kinds made the plastic wrap across them weep. But it was the envelope atop that seized her heart. It was addressed, naturally, to “the newest neighbor”.
But not just that.
“The Newest Neighbor Melody.”
Her name, in full. In a brilliant script across the plain white envelope.
She slammed the door closed.
She hit all the locks.
Bam, bam, bam.
@@@
The muffins were tasty enough to differ the terror of the envelope, but only slightly.
Carol. Her name was Carol, and she lived one house over. Carol had made the muffins and thought it pertinent to leave them on Melody’s doorstep. Perchance through a face to face meeting, but that hadn’t happened. Hence the note. It welcomed Melody to the neighborhood, and gave a brief overview of everyone she already knew.
Then featured a phone number at the bottom, curtailed by the promise of cocktails. Now here she was, a mouth full of bran and the phone in her hands. Her heart hadn’t stopped racing, but at least her fingers didn’t tremble.
Dialing was the longest part. Her digits moved, and numbers appeared sure enough. But when it came time to hit Dial, she paused. She didn’t know Carol. She didn’t know what she was like.
But Carol didn’t know her either.
When Melody swallowed, the tasty mass nearly choked her. In doing so she coughed and hit the dial, her body seizing the moment even if she couldn’t. As she reached for her mug she realized the phone had begun to ring on the other end. Her stomach turned as she froze-Do I hang up? Do I drink? Do I-
Her first moment with Melody was a gag as she answered, a husky voice chuckling as it slurred out a greeting.
“Well, that’s one way to start a conversation,” said the voice from her speaker.
Melody coughed, and grabbed her phone. She cradled it to her shoulder as she gasped for air. She sputtered out a “H-hello?” as she gulped down more tea.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“Uh, I-” Melody said, “You came by my house? With muffins?”
“So I did. Hi Melody. I hope they’re okay?” said Carol back.
“Oh, yeah. They’re wonderful. I uh-how did you know my name?” said Melody in reply, the words escaping her brain before politeness had time to stop them.
“Oh, Wednesday across the street. She’s the neighborhood gossip. Said you were new, caught your name when she heard you talking to your mother on the phone outside. She’s an odd one. I highly recommend staying away from her. But, welcome. Are you enjoying the place so far?”
“I-yes. I am. It’s a lot better than where I was,” said Melody.
“Oh? And what was so bad about that place?” replied Carol.
Melody paused. She thought it was only for a moment, but it grew long before her eyes until Carol let out a low, sultry laugh. “It doesn’t matter. Sometimes, it’s not where we were but where we’re going. Where would you like to be right now, Melody?”
The girl swallowed, and gave a laugh. “Just. Somewhere nice. Somewhere not there. Anywhere but there, but that life,”
Carol laughed again, and Melody could hear her shift in her seat. “Well, then I’d say you’ve made it. Almost. You could make the trip in full if you came over. Do you fancy a drink?”
“Right now?” said Melody as she glanced over her shoulder towards the clock. The hour hand had just crested twelve. “But it’s so early-”
“And? It’s the weekend,” said Carol.
“And-and I don’t know you,” said Melody.
“But you could. I’d certainly like that. Wouldn’t be right not to, since we’re neighbors. My doors unlocked. We do that here. So, come by if you’d like, or not. It’s up to you, alright?”
The pounding of Melody’s chest slowed to a crawl as the somber tick, tick tick of the minute hand drawled by on the clock. An invite. She’d not had one of those in so long.
“I-I think,” she sputtered, “I think I’ll get dressed and be on by then Carol. I’d like that,”
“Heh, no need,” said Carol.
“No need for w-” started Melody, only for Carol to break in with a laugh again.
“To get dressed. We’re quite relaxed here. Fair enough?”
A flush of warmth that started at her face cascaded down to her stomach. Melody swallowed again-but without the choking of a wad of bran. “Oh, I think I understand. Alright then. A house over? Left or right from my door?”
“Make your way left. I’m the brick two story. And again-the door is unlocked,”
There came a click as the line died. Melody pulled the phone away, and stared at it for a moment.
Drinks. An invite. Someone that wanted to see and meet and hear her, but not the singing.
Her, and her alone.
There came a pounding in her skull, a dull throb that punctuated every doubt of why she should do this. She silenced it by putting her flats on her feet and opening the door.
@@@
“Well, you most certainly don’t look like a monster,” Carol said.
She laughed again. It was the most pleasing rasp Melody had ever heard in her life. Carol tipped back her wine and drank deep. Melody joined her as she drained her glass. Hers met the table before Carols, which gave her ample opportunity to steal another glance.
She’d done that a few times now.
Looked Carol over.
It wasn’t the first time Melody had felt terror that day, but this wasn’t quite that. Adjacent to it, a familial cousin. Yet not close enough for the panic she’d known just hours before to come calling. This wasn’t fear, no. But close. Too spiced with curiosity to cross the line. She knew what it was.
Carol was beautiful.
So much it made Melody pause the moment she opened the door. That, or the fact she was dressed in an open kimono and nothing else. One of the two for sure. Carol, either aware of what she was doing or too confident to care, never made an attempt to close her silks.
Only the door.
The two of them sat on her couch. Melody listened, Carol talked and poured. The hours seemed to blur by in a torrent of laughter, bawdy jokes and chuckles. Every time Carol said a dirty word or told a secret about the neighbors, her silks slipped farther from her shoulders. Melody would try not to laugh, and then Carol would pour her another glass of wine.
Her own clothes began to slip, and Carol would pour more wine yet. When she was naked before her host, Carol grinned warmly as she reached between Melody’s legs. Her hands were warm and soft along her girth. As Carol lifted Melody’s cock, she sat her wine glass down. She gripped it with both hands. Her lips kissed the tip as her flushed face looked up at Melody.
“Well, not the kind of monster they were thinking of, at least,”
One inch, another. As Carol began to vigorously suck Melody’s cock, the girl felt herself tremble. But what’s more, she felt something she hadn’t since she was back home. Before the cameras, before the people and fanfare.
She felt the need to sing.
By the time Melody’s balls met Carol’s chin, she was hitting high notes. She pulled out of Carol’s throat and smacked her heavy girth against the woman’s cheek, the want hadn’t abated. The want to sing, to fill and fuck Carol.
So she did both. Carol reclined against the couch, her plump soft cunt spread before Melody. The singer gripped Carol’s ankles and pressed within her raw, their hips slapping against one another in a steady rhythm.
Bam, bam bam.
Carol gripped the arms and back of the couch until her knuckles turned white. Her voice joined Melody’s own as she parted her thighs wider, taking in as much of Melody as the girl could give. Their song only fell quiet as Melody’s lips met Carols, her balls tightening as she came deep within the woman. She fell atop her breathless, Carol’s massive breasts warm against her cheeks.
“I-fuck,” said Melody.
“Hah, you most certainly did. Welcome to the neighborhood. Do you give these concerts often?” said Carol.
Melody laughed. It was a warm, deep sound she hadn’t felt escape her throat in some time.
“Well, no. But I’d most certainly like to,” she said.