He drove me home shortly before going to work, dropping me off at my door. I'm used to it now. It took me a little while; I don't like other people to see my apartment, which is a converted attic above a duplex home, and now that it's almost summer, I really don't want visitors, because I have no air conditioner, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to stay for even a few minutes in the heat. It's too stifling. I do have a floor fan and a window fan, but they can only do so much.

For one hundred eighty-five per month, you get what you pay for.

If either of my downstairs neighbors moves out, I'm going to take over before the newly vacant apartment even has a chance to be advertised in the classifieds. I don't know what I'll do with that much space, given that both apartments below me are two-bedroom apartments; and I'll have to pay more in rent, of course. Having an apartment with more windows would be nice, though, as would having a kitchen that's equipped with more than just a hot plate, a microwave oven, a toaster oven, and a cube-sized refrigerator. I suppose I'll just have to bite the bullet and look for a roommate.

Another pleasant thing about moving downstairs would be the knowledge that my new dwelling would be legal to inhabit. The reason this attic I'm renting now is so cheap is that it isn't zoned for residence. That's also why the lease is month-by-month, whereas the two regular apartments downstairs have year-long leases.

As I climb the dogleg back stairs from the ground floor to the attic, the heat presses against me, clinging to me until I stagger and have to stop and pant for breath. I'll get used to it in a few minutes. It could be worse. It probably will be worse in a week or two.

I have a few hours to kill until I have to catch the bus. Finally, they transferred me to an evening shift - and the days are long enough that I won't have to walk home in the dark when I get off at my bus stop on the way back. Later in the year, getting home from work is going to be scarier, because I'll have to walk on several blocks of dark side streets, but I'll deal with that when the time comes. 

It could be worse. 

The neighborhood I'm in is at least half populated by college students who wanted something within walking distance of the university but couldn't afford student housing. Or at least, that's the case about half a mile or so north. Students don't seem to want to live here on my section of the street. I'm not sure why. It's run-down, and it's noisy on the weekends, but it's not awful. 

A few blocks away is the street that runs by the county jail. That neighborhood's rougher than this one. No students would ever want to live there, even though it's a little closer to the university than the community here.

On my way to lying down on the mattress I use as my bed, I grab a box of store-brand cornflakes. I'll eat them dry. I have no milk right now, and I won't be able to shop for food until next payday. I make a note to get the toasted oat cereal next time in case I go without milk again. The box of cornflakes is larger, but toasted oats are more filling and easier to eat dry.

I also grab the copy of Wuthering Heights that I took out of the library. It's interesting how much more fun it is to read literary classics on my own than it is to read them because I was assigned the book as part of an English class. It's nice to not be compelled. Or maybe I just appreciate my assignments more now that I no longer have access to them. I'm reading the Cliff's Notes to the books, as well. They're the next best thing to a lecture or a discussion, and I'm not even being graded on my work. It's an interesting change of pace from my usual fare of science fiction and fantasy novels.

Especially this one. Catherine and Heathcliff are complete jerks. I can't wait to see what they'll do to each other and their hapless relatives next. The Kate Bush song makes their story sound so very romantic; it lies by omission. These two are not a romantic couple. They're an evening soap opera waiting for a scriptwriter.

When I first moved up here with the girlfriend I was seeing at the time, we signed the lease for this apartment because it was a place that we could get on short notice, without needing a massive deposit. 

(I had met her through the campus gaming group and the campus Lambda Society, which, like the medieval reenactment club, were also open to townies, including former-students-become-townies like me. As it turned out, we had almost nothing in common except gaming and sapphistry; but we were both women, we were both unattached, and we happened). 

We moved to this city because she had been hired as a grocery store cashier here; she had interviewed for the out-of-town position because she wanted to be closer geographically to her grandmother, who was getting on in years and needed a little help. 

The only problem with getting employed immediately at a job that is an hour away from where you live is that you have to move right away. So we moved. New jobs, new apartment. And yes, a toaster oven was involved. One can't set up lesbian house without a toaster oven. It is known.

The timing couldn't have been better. After the next-door neighbor caught a brief glimpse of me and my new girlfriend through my apartment window before we pulled down the shade and turned off the lights, he'd taken to standing at his window, directly opposite from the one he saw us through, with a shotgun in his arms. Through the window, he could see that all I had was an efficiency apartment and that there was only one bed: a double mattress, the mattress that we wound up taking up here to the new place when we moved. 

It had gotten to the point where I was avoiding my own apartment and we were spending almost all our time at hers, just to avoid being shot. It was not at all an easy walk to and from the fast-food restaurant where I worked stocking the salad bar and washing dishes, but at least she didn't have neighbors pointing shotguns at her.

The new job and the new apartment in the new city outlasted the relationship. My girlfriend met a man shortly after we settled in here, and that was that.

It happens.

From what I've read, it happens a lot.

Unfortunately, what I've read also says that I am just as likely as my ex to leave a girlfriend for a man the instant a man shows up in my life, because I'm bisexual and therefore not really "womyn-identified," whatever that means, and so I shouldn't be surprised or hurt if my bisexual girlfriend abandons me for a guy, since I'd do the same to her, and really, oughtn't I be looking for couples to date, so that I could be truly satisfied, and not have to inflict myself on proper lesbians when I'm just going to break their hearts with my inherent faithlessness anyway?

Needless to say, I find that advice less than helpful.

The drunks are yelling more loudly, now; I hear the sound of glass shattering. I hope somebody with a telephone line calls the police soon before things get really out of hand.

When we were first settling in, the noises on our block used to keep us awake. Neither my girlfriend nor I had yet grown accustomed to sleeping through yelling, loud music, and other disturbances. We'd been spoiled by living in a small college town on a street that was well away from both the main drag and the college itself. (It took her less time to acclimate to our new surroundings, though than it took me; she had been raised here and was coming back, so none of this was new to her).

One night I had been startled to hear a chainsaw. "It's three in the morning. Isn't it unsafe to chop down trees? Is that even allowed?"

My girlfriend gave me an odd look. "That's not a chainsaw. It's a machine gun."

Oh.

This is why I don't go out much unless it's to catch the bus to work, buy food, or go to the library.

I'm used to it now. Really, I am.

Four more hours until my shift in the call center starts. If I soak one of my tee shirts with water, the evaporation might keep me cool for the time I need to kill. I get up, strip off my clothes, wet down a large tee shirt that I wear when I sleep, and flop back onto my mattress. If I pretend hard enough, the air blowing on me from the floor fan will transform into the wind blowing across the moors. I will enjoy Cathy and Heathcliff behaving badly better if I can sit on the moor to watch them.