Drawing the bath, she walked naked along the perimeter of the room tending to things. The curtains of the large windows were open to the anonymous city outside. This quiet, dead-end street had few passers-by, and housed a small cafe with about five occupied tables this evening and a hotel across the street. Most of those rooms were quiet - either dark or curtains drawn with hints of light around the edges, sometimes bluish - hinting at the residents inside and their televisions.
One room directly across, and just slightly down a level had some movement in it. A couple had entered from their evening out, and were settling in for the night. The bedside table light was on and the curtains were open, as they each went about readying for sleep. The man was in his early 50's, dark hair, glasses - definitely European, as evidenced by the shape of his glasses; his casual, but polished, style; and graceful, distinguished ageing. As the wife disappeared into the bathroom, he removed his pants and sweater, leaving on a white button-down shirt and dark briefs. He sat on the edge of the bed - his side - and looked out the window.
Aware she could be seen, the bather approached the window, and looked outside into the night towards the sky, as if contemplating tomorrow's weather. The windowsill came to about the level of her hips baring her upper torso - breasts most prominently on display, hair pulled back in a loose twist, with strands astray falling about her face, the curve of her hips and ass. She turned towards the closet just beside the window and opened it, her body still visible in profile. She pretended to look for something, perhaps tomorrow's clothes - she bent down towards the shoes, stretched upwards towards the tee-shirt sitting on the closet shelf. She turned back toward the window, and they looked straight at each other.
She left the window, busied herself again about the room, turned off the bathwater - it could wait -and considered her next move. She adjusted the lighting in the room to create balance of both shadows and visibility, and walked back towards the window. Again, he looked out as her figure darkened the window frame. She glanced towards him and pretended not to notice, as she again contemplated the sky, then the cafe down below, and the closet. He remained looking out right towards her window, but also made no acknowledgment of her presence. Unable to linger any longer, and not sure what to do next, she busied herself about the room - arranging the papers and magazines, pouring a glass of water.
A few moments later, she returned to her windowside perch. He was lying in bed, now wearing a charcoal grey tee, reading a book, the sheets were pulled across his thighs. His wife was now beside him, alike, except in a light blue tee, also reading a book. They mirrored each other in their bedside reading. The lone bather looked out, and saw him look away from his book and towards her window. She wondered if - she hoped- he was sufficiently distracted to perhaps kiss his wife good night and run his hand along her thigh - an advance - and then she could watch their coupling. The bather and the reader did their rounds a few more times - she leaving her window, returning, he glancing away from his book towards her - but both he and his wife never left their reading positions, and eventually the game of the bather and the handsome stranger ran its course.
The bather was disappointed he hadn't touched his wife. Or perhaps, if their life was how she grimly imagined, they couldn't remember the last time they made love, even vacation sex, and the wife would have been surprised by his move or rebuffed him. Or perhaps he was not prepared with his Viagra. Had she been more bold, or even slightly more practiced at nude city-night people-watching (perhaps even next time), the bather might have lingered longer and more purposefully at the window, leaning in to look up the street toward the corner, or even ran her hand along her sides, and absentmindedly touched her breasts, even traced her nipples - as if he had caught her in a private reverie - as if. Perhaps, if this were true Penthouse letters, she would have been brasher still - directly acknowledging him, letting her hands wander more deliberately, or even signaled to him to make a move on his wife, so she could watch for all of their excitement. But not that either, and likely not that ever.
Following her bath, in which her mind wandered to the possibilities and pondered the thoughts of the man across the street, she, too, put on her bed clothes - a navy tee, and loose cotton pants, no underwear, and slept with the light sheet twisted around her body. She awoke in the early morning light, the curtains were still open, and looked across the street. They were both sleeping. A few minutes later, he was reading and she had left the bed. In the broad daylight, her presence at the window did not change anything like it had in the night lights. She readied herself for the day, and when she looked out the window again before heading for breakfast, they were both gone.
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