Years ago—long before he had moved to the loft—Brandon had this neighbor in the apartment above him who he thought was a royal dick.  Having been himself in his second floor apartment for the past four years, he had seen plenty of tenants come and go—some of them cool, some of them not.  With each new turnover, he said to himself that this new neighbor would be the last—that he would get another place where he wouldn’t have to endure the cooking smells, the heavy footed walking, the bass booms of some detestable music, or the shrill laughter at all hours.  

But it wasn’t that easy.  He had fallen in love the with charm of the Victorian building.  The intricate moldings, the high ceilings, the filigreed hinge plates on the doors—he was a designer, for fuck’s sake.  How could he not love it?  And it was entirely possible that he had spent way too much of his own money painting the walls, wiring in new light fixtures, and hanging window treatments because he knew could make the old bones of this house sing again.

But Drew could outweigh that.  A recent grad of culinary school an now an executive chef at this month’s hot spot downtown, he had the quintessential chaotic lifestyle of someone in the food industry.  If he wasn’t filling the house with smoky olive oil or the pungent smell of seared meat, he was playing video games when returning home from work at three in the morning, shouting at the tv for the fucker to die already.

Bags of trash sat in the stairwell until their ripeness drifted under Brandon’s door and forced him to throw them away himself.  Once his illegal cat pissed in his gym bag and he had tossed that into the hallway as well, the heavy ammonia tang permeating the rest of the house.  Brandon was always ready to say something when he saw him, but somehow could never find the words when the moment actually struck.

Brandon was lounging in a chair on the generous front porch one lazy afternoon, his nose in an issue of AD, and Drew came clomping out the front door and paused before the front steps, lighting a cigarette.  Brandon was fully prepared to chide him for smoking so close to the open door, then launch into a diatribe of how his many disgusting habits were saturating the walls of his apartment with a funk when he stopped himself, noticing his uniform.  He had the double breasted jacket, the requisite arm pocket with the thermometer in it, juxtaposed to the tattoos snaking down his arms.  Brandon watched mesmerized as he brought the cigarette to his lips, which were framed by a sculpted ginger beard, before he flicked it into the bushes.  He gave Brandon a cursory look and a indifferent nod before bounding down the steps.  Drew was certainly a douche.  Drew was also hot.

On another day, Brandon was out on the landing, tying to clear a mass of plastic bags from a grocery delivery.  As he picked through the refrigerated items, cursing the shopper for putting one or two items in each bag, Drew strolled up from below.  He had a linen button down with short sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular inked arms, and skinny jeans that had been cuffed to show his ankles.  He gave Brandon a curt glance as he stepped his red Vans classics between the bags on his way up to his foul abode. 

But it was when Drew finally moved out that Brandon had his final annoyance.  Drew had left a multitude of garbage bags on the front porch when his packed car drove away—some of them filled with stinking garbage, others filled with abandoned possessions.  As Brandon lugged them to the dumpster, however, he discovered shoes in the bottom of one.  

He didn’t study them until he had brought them back into his now blessedly quiet apartment, having cradled them as discreetly as possible under his arm.  The windows were open and the summer evening air was already flowing in as the house exhaled the last of Drew’s putrid existence. Only this one thing—well, two things—had been left behind.  It was a pair of maroon and white ASICS gel MTs.  To Brandon, they were unattractive and awkward looking shoes—zip up flaps attempting to look like one sneaker nested within another. But knowing that they had been on Drew’s feet made them oddly appealing.

Brandon slipped them on his feet, the soft, slippery material of the lining rubbing against his ankles as they had their owner’s.  They were only half a size too big.  He started to play with his cock as he thought about what Drew had done in those shoes.  Had he worn them in the kitchen upstairs, sliding on the greasy floor as he flipped an omelet, a cigarette dangling from his lips?  Maybe he had worn them on a night that he had drunkenly stumbled up the stairs with yet another nameless leggy girl.  Perhaps he had been too drunk or lazy to even take them off as he screwed her on his bed, and they pushed against the unwashed sheets until he came.  

Did Drew even know he had left them behind?  Would he come bursting in the door, looking for them, and catch Brandon sitting on the floor of his living room, rubbing his dick against the quilted leather pattern on the vamps?  What would he say?  Brandon could see him screwing up his face in disgust.  Of all the things—this would be the one thing capable of disgusting this foul man.  Maybe he’d crouch down on the floor and say, “what the fuck do you think you’re doing to my sneakers, you little fag?  You like that, huh?  You like the way they feel on your little prick?  Then go ahead, you fuck.  Cum on them for me.  Let me see you cream those fucking sneakers!”  Brandon moaned as he shot all over the laces and tongue of the shoe in his hand.  

He played through this troubling fantasy the next two days.  Then he tossed the ASICS in the dumpster and reunited them with the rest of Drew’s forgotten possessions. He had tried humiliation on for size—it just wasn’t his dish. Brandon only saw Drew again one more time after that.  About two years later, he was waiting for a table with a friend for dinner one evening, when he spied Drew behind the counter in the kitchen.  Same beard, same tattoos, same everything.  He turned to his friend and suggested they find somewhere else to eat that night.