Page 5 of The Player (Close Quarters 5)

She sucks her lower lip between her teeth while she contemplates her response. There’s a smudge of black under her eyes, like she’d removed her makeup hastily. I can guess why now, because our bathrooms must share a wall.

“Youmade it my business by not keeping your voice down.”

“Do you prefer to have sex in complete silence?” I can barely keep a straight face. “Isn’t that a little...weird?”

“We’re not doing this.” She holds up a hand like I’m a naughty schoolboy and she’s my teacher. “I won’t let you bait me into talking about my sex life. All I’m asking is that you have some respect for your neighbours and when you have someone over, just keep it down. Okay?”

“Sure thing.” I nod. “But I don’t have anyone over tonight.”

She blinks. “What?”

I step back and hold the door so she can see more easily into my apartment. “Home alone.”

“But I...” Realisation floods her face with the sweetest shade of pink. “Oh.”

“Yeah, you just knocked on my door to complain that I was masturbating too loudly.” If she expects me to be embarrassed about it, then she’s going to be sorely disappointed. People masturbate. It’s normal, and I don’t feel ashamed about shit like that.

Life’s too short.

Her eyes dart down the hallway as though she can’t believe I said that out loud.

“You got a problem with masturbating, Emery?”

The pink turns to bright red. “Well, no...yes. No, that’s not...”

She sputters like a computer that’s malfunctioning. I picture her brain overlaid with one of those spinning MacBook beach ball things that pops up whenever a program crashes.

I watch her getting progressively more horrified that she was clearly listening to me work out some of the day’s stress in the shower. I don’t know why that would be worse than listening to me sleeping with someone. But her expression tells me she’s regretting coming to my doorstep.

“I’ll keep it down next time,” I say, deciding to let her off the hook in case she actually explodes. “Sorry I disturbed you.”

“It’s fine.” She’s backing away now, shaking her head and raking a hand through her long blue hair. “I...yeah.”

Then she’s gone, her front door slamming behind her.

The following day, any slight relief I had from the funny interlude with Emery last night is long gone. I’m sitting in the office on top of Galleria D’Arte, the art gallery I run with my brother, Dom. The office is open plan and airy, with windows all around letting the afternoon sun stream in from all angles. The furniture is funky and artistic, many items being gifts or commissions from the artists we work with. My desk is a slab of pale wood with upcycled industrial materials for legs—bits of pipe and joinery welded together for structure. We have a huge sculpture in lipstick-red and a light fixture “chandelier” made with an upside-down chair and naked bulbs.

Everything else is white, to let the art stand out.

My mother designed the top floor this way—with lots of white space and stillness, to contrast the pieces that made her happiest.

“Ro?” My brother’s voice floats up the stairs and his thudding footsteps follow. “You up here?”

“Yeah, mate.”

Dom appears a second later, filling the doorway like the grizzly bear he is. “The final piece from the Lights and Love exhibition is gone and we’ve cleared out the second room in time for the Hot Local delivery tomorrow.”

Hot Local is an art exhibition we host each year to showcase up-and-coming Melbourne talent. It’s great exposure for the artists and has helped launch several careers. The idea came to Dom and me one night while we were thinking about how to move the gallery forward, how to put our stamp on the place. Lots has changed in the five years since we took over the family business.

In the five years since our mother died.

Well...almost five years.That’swhat I’m working on at the moment—her anniversary show.

“Thanks, Dom.” My gaze trails out one of the windows looking over the hustle and bustle of Melbourne below. It’s a perfect late spring day—white clouds, blue skies and people milling.

“Everything okay?”

He mightlooklike a giant bear, but my younger brother has a heart of gold. One of those gentle giant types, if you know what I mean. Dom’s a more highly evolved being than I am, better with emotions and feelings. Better at dealing.

---