Kirk Antipov waited until the steel gate raised open all the way to the top. He drove his dark-colored Nissan down the steep cement ramp toward his lower level underground parking stall. As he had done each time before—hundreds of times over the last three years—he honked his horn before the sharp turn. Best to warn other drivers he was approaching. But no one was there. No one usually was on Sunday nights at eleven.

The best time to shop was right before midnight. He'd had the aisles to himself. He parked and grabbed the two plastic bags of groceries from the passenger seat. His door slammed. It echoed in the sprawling, brightly lit concrete bunker. The faint odors of exhaust, rubber and oil hung in the air. He pushed the elevator button for the twenty-first floor. No one got on with him at any point and he exited at his floor. His runners made a slapping sound on the matted red carpet as he walked to the end of the hallway to the last apartment, noticing the same odd fishy hallway smell he could never quite place.

Standing at his door, he stared at the three keys on the ring; car, office, apartment. Darkness and silence greeted him as the door closed automatically behind him. His hand hit the light switch without him having to look.

He knew the four-hundred-square-foot bachelor suite defined who he was. Everything he had was contained within the concrete walls. A twenty-four-inch iMac that doubled as his television sat on the Ikea computer table that doubled as his kitchen table. Next to the table was a sofa that folded out into a bed. In the corner beside his mountain bike was a coat rack that doubled as a hanger for his clothes.

The kitchen light cast a wobbly glow on the eggshell white walls and chipped countertop, piled with a few washed dishes. He unpacked the two small plastic bags of groceries, which would last him the week. Mostly lunch meat and pasta, along with a six pack of grape Gatorade. He didn't care that the fridge handle was held on by black electrical tape and the stove top had only two burners, or that the one pot he owned never left the top of the element. The left one worked if he let it run long enough to generate heat. He had given up long ago trying to scrape away the dark mold that was ingrained along the sink's faucet.

Kirk moved to the only glass window in the room. If he pressed his face against the glass and looked left, he had an angled view of the city.

His eyes locked onto the reflection of his body on the glass, spotted by rain and dust. He did nothing physically to look after himself. If he let his arms dangle, he could feel the rolls around his waist. He had never carried his weight well; never removed his shirt outside of his apartment which explained the blanched look of his skin. He peered out of the window past his reflection. The night shrouded the summer leaves.

Every day, when he looked out this window, he regretted settling for an apartment without a balcony, which would offer a reprieve from the stifling heat inside. He was one floor too high to legally have a balcony according to city zoning. So he cranked open the two-foot pane that allowed him three inches of air. He could faintly hear the road noise below—bus brakes, irate horns and the occasional hard acceleration of a motorbike. He took in a long sniff of humid air. Was this how a prisioner gathered his external sense of the world outside of his cell?

Anxiety gnawed at him. He dreaded work. Another weekend of uneventful seclusion had disappeared from his life. He pulled away from the window when the familiar uneasiness in his gut started again, building, about to surge, working its way up to his fluttering heart and then to his head. His palms became damp.

The phone rang. He jumped. He never got phone calls. Who? A forgotten friend who wanted to catch up? He was ready to talk. He needed to.

The second ring had nearly finished as he held the iPhone to his mouth.

"Hello!" He fought to clear his throat that had been silent for so long.

A laugh. Then the male voice responding to his desperation. "Sorry, buddy, wrong number." The phone in his hand went quiet against his ear.

Kirk slipped the phone back onto the table. He resumed his position in front of the window. No one. What did he expect? He made no effort to socialize, to make a new friend. Any friend.

He was twenty-four years old, trapped in a job he hated. The sales targets never went away, nor did the daily pressure to perform. The pressure was all on the fault of his supervisor. She was an emotionally ugly person who didn't understand and didn't care what he felt. Her relentless torments in the office ridiculed him and led to sleepless nights. He felt his heart beating rapidly like it was about to burst as he thought of his nemesis.

Tomorrow began another five days of her mental torture. He was a year and a half into the position. Too soon to bail. His previous job hadn't lasted much longer. The one before, even less. It wasn't him. It was the people he worked with that made his professional life so uncomfortable. Whatever happened to management having compassion toward employees? Instead, it was all about performance and shareholders, fuck the employees and how they felt.

Kirk moved to the bathroom, pushed aside the greasy bottom edge of the clear plastic curtain sticking to the tub and started the shower. He kicked off his clothes, spreading them around his feet on the linoleum floor. The mirror was small but it allowed the gaunt face under his red hair to mimic his hollow facade. He cringed in shame, realizing his face belied what he thought was craftily bottled up inside himself. Instead, the wariness was spread out around his eyes and mouth for all to see. The receding hairline made him look ten years older than his mid- twenties. He had tortured himself long enough with the mirror. He stepped into the tepid flow of water from the corroded shower head, and stood motionless with his eyes closed.

Five more days. Every Sunday he had to focus on getting through the next five work days as unscathed as possible by his boss. Work wasn't merely an income, it was survival from the brutality of her remarks. Was this the extent of his remaining life, enduring each month, week by week, until something broke inside himself?

He towelled off, crawled into bed—the futon—and sank into the uncomfortable grip of its played-out mattress.

Kirk closed his eyes.

Stillness.

Please let sleep come, he begged silently.

It didn't. Instead, the knotting, pulling tension inside moved upwards. His heartbeat waivered, then pounded out an unsteady rhythm.

Please stop, he urged, grinding his teeth.

Cold sweat crawled across his body. He involuntarily shivered. Please. He opened his eyes and watched the red numbering on the microwave oven countdown until six a.m. finally won out, signalled by the jabbering of his phone alarm.

His hands gripped the lint-covered blanket in defeat. The next five days of survival had officially begun.

* * *

Jo-Ann Fuentes told her twelve-year-old daughter, Nikki to brush her teeth. "Now. It's bedtime." Her daughter seemed to be feeling rebellious. She brushed really slowly, taking her time, standing in front of the bathroom sink dressed in her favorite light blue pajamas that had large bright red buttons on the front. Jo-Ann's patience ran out and she playfully chased her daughter to her own bedroom. Nikki leaped into the twin bed. Somehow she was able to skillfully dig herself under the mass of stuffed animals and pull the duvet up under her chin. She grinned up at her mother.

Smiling, Jo-Ann leaned over and kissed her forehead. She brushed aside the fine strands of brown hair that normally hung uncurving to her daughter's hips. She wondered when the day would come when Nikki would ask for it to be cut.

"Did you have a good evening?" Jo-Ann said.

Nikki didn't mince words about her mother's blind date. "That guy who came over was weird."

"The perfect match," her friend at work had assured her. There was nothing perfect about wasting what could have been a quiet evening at home with Nikki. He was balding, poorly dressed and even worse, a conversation controller. It was all about him, his past girlfriends and why they were all defective. Jo-Ann wasn't convinced by the end of the evening if he even knew her name.

They'd spent a painful three hours on the sofa trying to watch a movie. He'd talked non-stop throughout it, Nikki squirming beside her. Jo-Ann swore to herself this was the last blind date—and likely the last date—with anyone for a while. She had taken extra time earlier in the evening putting on her makeup and even trying to add a little style to her self-cut hair. None of it ended up being worthwhile. Her date never made a comment about how she looked. She could have grown out the hair on her legs and he wouldn't have noticed. Being a single parent, she rarely had time to fix herself up, and this proved to her that she shouldn't bother in the future. Sure, she was a little overweight, and when she laughed her chin doubled. Still, just to have her date acknowledge that she looked pretty would go a long way.

Somehow Dolores, her sometimes-partner at work, had talked her into spending her valuable Sunday evening with this idiot, her cousin. Not that Jo-Ann had visions of this blind date being any more fulfilling than the others. She had lost that Disney notion of romance years before. Twelve years as a single mother, never married; at thirty, she already was who she was going to be. Raising a pre-teenage daughter and working full-time at a physical job as a home care worker left little time to even shave her legs once a month.

Dating was a shot in the dark anyway. What was done was done.

"Yes, he was, Nikki. Some people are." They both laughed. Jo-Ann sat down on her daughter's bed, smoothed the black ankle-length skirt she had chosen for her "date" and crossed her legs. She glanced around the cramped bedroom her daughter had brightened up wonderfully with colorful drawings, posters and stacks of books she enjoyed reading.

"Will he be coming back?"

"Nope. That was the last we'll be hearing of Walter's voice." She pulled free the four clips that held her curly brown hair in place. It felt good to be able to be herself again and not worry about someone else's approval.

Nikki perked up. "Good. He was weird." Her full eyebrows crinkled around her brown eyes in amusement.

Jo-Ann grinned. "Remember this when you get old enough to date. Stay away from the weird ones."

Nikki made a face. "How will I know, Mom?"

Jo-Ann smiled and winked and stood up to leave the room and retire to her own bedroom. At the doorway, she stopped and turned.

"You will. You just will."

* * *

Rick Byrne massaged Robin's back. His wife, forty-five, had a body most thirty-year-olds had already left behind. Any chance he got to run his hands on it, he took, enjoying the fact that her libido had never waned during the twenty-five years of their marriage.

He stood leaning against their king-sized bed wearing only a white towel wrapped around his waist. Six-foot-four, lithe and lightly tanned by salons, with a sprinkling of white spattering his chest hair, he worked his thumbs slowly along the muscles of his wife's middle back. The sun had begun to set, its rays slanting in through the open doors of the private balcony off their bedroom. He chuckled to himself, wondering how many binoculars were focused on their high-rise sixteen-hundred square foot condo from the surrounding buildings. He held out hope that he'd be able to wear down his wife's continued conservative resistance and convince her of a risque romp on their balcony.

"Good—takeout tonight," she purred, her face sideways on the satin pillow, eyes closed, her highlighted blonde hair spread out seductively around her head.

He grunted. "I agree. That Italian joint makes fantastic lasagna." He spread another generous amount of vanilla-scented massage oil across her back and down her legs. The well-defined muscles around her hamstrings and calves beneath his fingers felt good. For a woman just under six feet tall, she retained all the curves and tautness he liked in a female. "Nice way to end a perfect weekend."

He thought back to the patio cafe where they had spent the afternoon having drinks, putting on a good load. Whenever his wife went to the bathroom, he took an opportunity to flirt with the young, vibrant red-headed waitress wearing a torturous plaid skirt and white knee-high socks. All innocent banter, of course. After all the booze, they decided to grab the pasta to go.

He ran his hands along her left leg gently stroking her smooth skin. "How's your day looking tomorrow?" he asked faintly. He felt her tense.

She spoke without lifting her head off the pillow or opening her eyes. "Good. Can't wait. I've been riding a few slackers. They can't seem to get it in their heads that it's a place of business. They're about to find out they need to do it my way or hit the highway." The comment made Rick laugh because it was so typically her style to make work life miserable for her employees.

He refocused on where his hands went. "How's this feel?" he asked, rubbing the skin along her hips and buttocks. The heat that rose from his wife's body was driving him crazy.

She moaned. "So good, Rick. You have magic hands."

He pressed down firmly, but still softly enough to make it feel good. Just the way he knew she liked.

"Oh. Did I tell you another girl in my office is going on maternity leave?" Robin asked.

A smile crossed Rick's hawkish, unshaven Sunday face and he laughed, his silver-speckled hair shaking with the movement of his head. "Didn't you have a girl leave last month, too?"

"Yes." She breathed heavily. "What's with women today? Doesn't anyone want to have a career? I tell you, this mistaken belief women have thinking they can balance a career and a family is bullshit. In my opinion it's one or the other. You can only do one very well or suck at both."

"Well, we do need babies for evolution."

Robin perked up, laughing. "But does it have to be my office that sustains this planet?"

Rick snickered, working his hands over her shoulders. "My love, not everyone can be so focused on work that she cuts out her womb in the literal sense, like you."

Robin glanced up at her husband. "I made my choice to not have kids and focus on my career. You're a guy, so when you had kids with your ex, your career didn't suffer. Just think if I wanted kids right now. There's no way in hell you'd be getting out of diaper duty, buster."

He grinned. "At fifty-five, my patience for cleaning diapers is long gone, honeybunny."

"You even remember how?" she asked slyly.

"Hey, my ex didn't want me having anything to do with it. She always complained that I put the diapers on the wrong way. As babies, my two daughters seemed to be excrement machines," he said. "And from what I hear, they are now having babies themselves. God bless those who procreate despite the insanity that comes with it."

"See?" Robin boasted. "Aren't you glad you met me when you did so you could get yourself out of that hellish marriage and mounds of baby poop?"

Rick snickered. "It was over by then, my dear. She wanted out as bad as I did. If she and I had listened to her mother on our wedding day and called it off, I'd have saved myself fifteen years of alimony and support."

"And don't forget, you'd probably have been able to retire by now instead of paying that bitch alimony all these years," added Robin. She pushed up with her arms and rolled over, exposing her naked front to her husband.

His hands didn't hesitate to move to her upper thighs. "Oh, yes, right there, baby," she urged, squirming as his hands worked her soft flesh.

Rick smiled, agreeing with her previous comment partially. "I've had my executive days, my love. I'm all about coasting now. Perhaps not exactly freedom at fifty, but my position demands no more of me than to show up, drink coffee, and make sure the lights are turned off at the end of the day."

"Must be nice," she murmured. She liked where his hands were going.

"Renewing car insurance polices is as simple as signing the renewal form, my dear. That's what I have staff for."

It was time to focus on his wife and his immediate needs. He let the towel slip from his waist and moved his wife's legs further apart.

"A little higher, baby. Just a little higher, please." She squirmed more emphatically. He gladly did as told, climbing on top of the bed to better straddle his wife. He had something that would completely take her mind off corporate reports for the next hour

* * *

"Just a minute, Ira. I need to find the light switch." In her brown nightgown and thick robe, Betsy's discolored and parchment-skinned hand moved slowly along the wall searching for the lever's familiar feel. She found it with throbbing fingers. Her arthritic joints flared with pain, even from the gentle motion of turning on a switch.

The one-hundred-year-old bedroom came to life from the two overhead bulbs centered in the ceiling. Betsy blinked and stared unseeingly at her surroundings. The last aesthetic remodelling had been over twenty years ago, and the heavily textured wallpaper betrayed every year of it. The dark green carpet had a noticeably worn trail from the hallway, circling around both sides of the double bed. The age of the home spoke to a time of craftsmanship, with thickly varnished oak wood trim baseboards, sculpted crown moldings, and around every interior door.