The Girl Next Door - Jenlisa

Chapter 4

Research more about the person. The more you know about them, the more you can create a plan about your approach.

The next few days felt like a test of Lisa's delayed gratification: she's itching to do something—anything—to initiate some form of contact, to relieve her need to prove she's still got it. She felt like a kid on a marshmallow test: eat the marshmallow now and maybe you'd see the neighbour ogling at you again, or play the cards right and maybe she'd get to hear her scream Lisa's name on her bed.

She's never found herself this impatient. Then again, no one has snubbed the blonde before, and it's getting on her little playgirl ego.

So instead, she tried to get as undercover as she could get.

In the mornings, she would refrain from showing herself through the windows but would peek to check if her neighbour was there. Sometimes she would listen to any activity if she would find her neighbour leaving her unit and Lisa would look at her door's peephole whenever there was any sound. She never saw any signs of her neighbour, however.

It's almost like the girl next door practically disappeared, except there are mornings Lisa would find the drapes half-pulled and would come home at night to find them all closed. She would see the light through the gaps and she'd feel a little disappointed that her neighbour isn't coming out to play.

On Wednesday, while she was getting her mail from the mailroom downstairs after work, she spied at the mailbox beside hers. She looked around the room before she tried to open the mail flap, trying to glance at the mail inside if there were any indication of the owner's name. When she couldn't, she tried pulling mail from her neighbour's mailbox, but for the first time, her reliable long fingers failed her.

Lisa's sure there's a joke somewhere about her fingers trying to go deep in slots but her frustration wasn't giving her much humour right now.

"Hey, do you know the family beside my unit?" Lisa tried asking their condominium security guy after she didn't get any details from the mailbox. At the risk of the admin frowning at her intentions of just stalking her neighbour, she refrained from calling up the building admin and asking for a tenant list. She's almost sure she'll be on a watch list if that happens.

So she tried getting friendly with the security.

"Your neighbour?" The security guy was devoid of suspicions and was even overly friendly.

To be fair, no one would suspect anything from Lisa: wearing a soft silk cream blouse tucked into a pencil skirt that was a little short and paired with a tall pair of stilettos, she mesmerized people instead of arousing suspicions.

"Yeah, Unit 23-02. They're kind of a little noisy sometimes."

"You mean Miss J?" He looked confused. "She's alone there. Are you sure it sounded like a family?"

She tried not to let her satisfaction show all over her face. She flipped through her mails nonchalantly.

"Oh. So, she's single? I was almost sure I heard multiple voices."

"Maybe it was visiting family? Miss J is living alone in that unit, I think."

"Yeah, maybe it's just TV." Lisa slowly conceded, trying to think of ways to pry. "What's her name?"