I gave myself a few trembling moments to recover after the click of the door signalled my unknown lover's departure. I couldn't decide how to feel or what to do, but at the moment I figured it would be best to at least get up and back into my apartment before someone else came along.
Groaning, cupping my sore backside I shuffled back to my apartment and walked right into it when it wouldn't open. I turned the knob again, as if I hadn't turned it far enough, and then I started to frantically yank it left and right, pushing and pulling as if the door might have been swapped for another while I was out of the apartment. In a final act of desperation, after checking the number was indeed mine, I went so far as to knock on the door, like maybe my goldfish would open it for me.
I blame it on the beer the last guy had been using as lubrication. Whatever the cause it didn't work, though maybe it was what prompted someone else to open their door down the hall. And not just anyone either. Mrs Gormley, crotchety, prudish old woman with a particular hatred for young women and a love-affair with gossip.
If she caught me out here everyone in the whole neighborhood would know about it and whatever else her fertile imagination could conjure up. I had to hide, fast!
Looking around in what must have been a split-second I could see few options. I could keep trying my door, as if it would miraculously unlock itself; I could try the closest neighbours; or I could run for the fire exit just down the hall and hope she didn't recognize my backside.
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