Now that I look at 2B as an apartment in which I might not be living much longer I guess I can see it for what it is: Kind of a dump. I’ve seen worse. I’ve lived in worse. Yet its dumpiness does not make itself obvious to visitors, who uniformly say this place looks fine to them. But doorknobs are broken, little patches of soot soil frequently-touched spots, the bathroom wall looks like it could come tumbling down at any time, and every faucet leaks.
Today those leaky faucets brought memories of a woman, memories so vivid I can hardly believe they have not entered my mind anytime recently. In college I knew Jennifer. Jennifer was, at that time, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was no one’s idea of bombshell gorgeous, but even then I was never drawn to that kind of woman. Beauty is a pain in the ass. Jennifer was taller than me with hair so long it covered the back of her knees. She had a sour personality. At first I interpreted her airs of derision to reflect an admirable confidence. I later decided she was just born with an inexplicable bitterness, and that I would never understand why. She maintained a sense of humor, though, and never became angry. It took me years to realize how much those last qualities drew me in to her.
I wanted to go down on her so bad it made my mouth water. Thinking of it today, studying this apartment’s leaky faucets, I remembered how I used to hold a shower head to my face and spray water down my mouth imagining all that wetness was her. I could feel her legs wrapping around me, those long beautiful legs.
I never had any kind of way with her, but I could make her laugh like no one else, and we stayed friends. If I had ever tried to make romance happen she probably would have thought I was joking. I don’t know where they are now but I should still have a few letters she sent me after we graduated and she moved back to Arizona.
I fell in love with Jennifer on account of a leaky faucet. We were standing in her kitchen talking about what I do not know. She was facing away from me, washing dishes at the sink. My eyes rambled up and down her legs. I can still see them in my mind, from the tops of her legs all the way down to her inordinately big feet and the strange way her Achilles merged with her heels.
She turned one of the dials on the sink and a stream of water poured from the base of the faucet, leaking onto the kitchen counter and flowing all the way down to the floor. It makes my head burn and my crotch spurt thinking about it even now, 28 years later. I equated the leaky faucet with something that she never showed, which was weakness or vulnerability. If she let the faucet leak like that then she must have had leaks of her own, physical and emotional.
I once saw all of her. Well, almost all of her. Jennifer lived with Jeff, with whom I was friends. Their relationship was platonic, as was mine with my woman roommates. Jeff and I were talking at the front door of their apartment. From there I could see her bedroom door, which was closed. A breeze coming through the hallway caused her bedroom door to blow open and then blow shut, not even making a noise. Through that door I saw that Jennifer had just gotten out of the shower and was in her bedroom, drying her hair. The towel covered her face for the half second this glorious moment lasted. Whatever I was saying I paused for a moment but otherwise acted normal, as if I had not just seen the most beautiful cunt God ever created. It was perfect. The leaky faucet incident had happened just two days earlier and, in that brief continuum, I felt lust mixed with love such as I had never known.
After a few years of letter-writing Jennifer and I lost touch. I tried to look her up a few times but her name is very common and assuming she stayed true to her college-age nature I take her to be someone who wants nothing to do with the public Internet. Th
