When you live in an apartment building, you never know who the hell is gonna move in next door. I remember being in my late teens when a Greek family moved out two doors down and an older couple took the apartment. The guy’s name was Dom and he fixed televisions for a living. A congenial guy with white hair, mustache, and beard, he drove a funny-looking truck emblazoned with the words: Dom’s TV. Real clever.

Dom’s wife (I never did get her name) was a different story. While she remained remarkably slim for a woman in her 50s, she was an extremely ugly woman by just about anyone’s standards. I’m no beauty snob and I’m not trying impose societal standards. This woman was just plain unattractive. The pounds of make-up she utilized to disguise this unsightliness only made it worse.

This odd couple always said hello to me but aside from the occasional comment about Dom’s silly truck or his wife’s looks, they remained relatively anonymous in my building and on my block…until one night.

My friends and I were standing around, as usual, when we heard Dom’s wife yelling at him in their bedroom. I paraphrase here but this is pretty damn close to her soliloquy: “I need a man! Make me feel like a woman, Dom! Don’t tell me you can’t! I am a sexual woman and I need man to fulfill my needs! I get all worked up and you can’t deliver! I should go out and find a real man to satisfy me!”

Lots of folks in my building also heard this tirade and, man, it instantly became legend. None of us could look at poor Dom the same way again. He’d shuffle out, stoop-shouldered, to his van and we’d snicker like idiots. We thought we had a right to judge the poor bastard…but things weren’t over for us with Dom’s wife.

Sitting on the stoop one night, I was talking serious sports with Hank and another friend, Chuck, who lived in my building. Dom’s kitchen window was directly to our right, light on, shades almost all the way down. Chuck, never as interested in sports as Hank and I, started to daze out with all our bullshit over RBI, ERA, and stuff like that. When he heard a clanging noise in Dom’s kitchen, Chuck squatted down and peeked in. His eyes grew wide and he called us over.

Dom’s wife was straightening up the kitchen in nothing but a long black t-shirt. It reached just past her navel and her pubic hair was exactly at our eye level. We sniggered like goddamned morons but I couldn’t help but notice her toned legs and firm butt. Dom’s wife kept herself in great shape and I found it very arousing that she walked around half-naked while doing chores. She wasn’t kidding when she told her husband she was a sexual woman.

Inevitably, Dom’s wife heard our juvenile laughing, froze in place, and yelled out for her beleaguered husband. It didn’t sound like: “Dom!” No, the sound dredged up from the depths of her soul sounded more like:

“Nnnnnnnnnnddddddddaaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnn!!!!”

We took off before “nnnDom” showed up (he had forever earned a new nickname among our crew). About an hour later, when I was coming home for the night, her kitchen shade was pulled all the way down but it was too late. I knew a little more about the mysteries that lurked beyond.