Love, sans mute

Third-floor tenant,

I've never met you, but while living above you in this ramshackle apartment, we have shared too many intimate moments. I have watched television while hearing you moan. I have eaten dinner while hearing your girlfriend squeal. I have gone to sleep to the soothing sound of muffled conversation such as "Oh god, yeah" and "I want you so bad." One time, as I was getting dressed for work, I heard a smack so loud that there is no doubt someone's ass gained a permanent handprint.

Don't get me wrong, here. When I signed my lease, I applauded the free heat and cheap rent, but being within earshot of the squeakiest bed in New England was not part of the deal. Do you even leave that bed? I don't think I've ever seen you out of the house before. I'd shudder to see your mattress. I imagine a tattered mess of fabric, its springs exhausted from being treated like an accordion, caved in, completely contoured to your body. I know women can have multiple orgasms, but my god man, you've either got an extremely rare gift or your girlfriend deserves an Oscar.

No, this is not the confessions of a pervert, thankyouverymuch. This is the plea of someone who prefers to live in an apartment where he is not surrounded by loud, unrelenting sex. It is really uncanny. Living room or kitchen, bedroom or bathroom, I can not escape it. One time, I brought a co-worker home for dinner, and after hearing you, she said, "I hope this isn't a hint." Morning, noon, night, dinnertime, lunchtime - it matters not, because the musical notes of your horizontal mambo know no rest. It is deafening sex. It is abrasive sex. It is get-me-some-ice-because-this-is-going-to-swell-afterwards sex. Hell, it isn't even sex sex. It is fucking.

Please, I beg of you. Stop fucking so loudly. It's not asking much. You're more than welcome to continue fucking. Fuck all you want. Fuck until the world runs out of condoms, and then fuck until you've birthed a population overload in Wyoming. Fuck until you have achieved a permanent state of fucking. Fuck until, well, I don't fucking know. Just, for my sanity's sake, turn down the fucking volume.

Second-floor tenant