He had no idea if his neighbor was aware of the hole or not. The turnover rate of residents in the house was so fast, he assumed that the hole must have been created by somebody long-gone. Perhaps the original owner, who had first converted the house to apartments. Either way, he had no desire to be spied upon and so, using duct tape and a piece of cardboard, he devised a flap that covered his side of the hole. But, being a flap, it allowed him to look into the adjoining apartment whenever he wanted.

Thus began his adventure in harmless voyeurism.

His interest in the peephole fluctuated. It depended on the nature of his current neighbor.
His first subject was an overweight man who he dubbed Beergut. Beergut was a recent divorcee and, as the nickname implied, was rapidly descending into alcoholism. His life was as boring as it was depressing and Carl all but gave up on the peephole while they lived beside one another. Like most of his neighbors, Beergut simply left one day and never returned.

As the years went by, Carl had the pleasure of getting to know a quite diverse cast of characters, all of whom were given colorful nicknames. There was Shakes, the meth addict who seemingly never ate, slept or bathed. There was No-Show, a man who barely spent any time in the apartment, basically only sleeping and bathing there, and even then only doing so about one night a week. There was Broodmother, a single mom who seemed to have at least four children, who came and went. There was never a dull moment with her but the racket the family made in the tiny apartment made it difficult to sleep and he was glad when she and her rotating cast of offspring moved out.

Every so often, his peepshow was sexual in nature.

The first of these was with Cletus, the redneck amateur pimp who whored out his chain smoking girlfriend, Six-Pack-a-Day, to seemingly anyone he could find. Cletus had even propositioned Carl one day as he was walking up to the house, although he declined for myriad reasons. Carl had had the opportunity to watch Six-Pack-a-Day get fucked by a fair number of clients (including a fellow housemate who lived in the basement) but none of these encounters had even come close to being erotic.

Another couple who had lived next to him were Roidrage and Eyeliner. Their sex together was loud, to say the least--Carl barely needed the peephole to know what was going on when the two of the went at it. In fact, their sex often looked downright abusive as Roidrage spanked and hammered away at her with all of his musclebound might. Eyeliner’s moans usually sounded pained and he never heard what sounded like a genuine climax from her. He never got a good look at it, but he liked to think that the excessive sound and fury was Roidrage’s way of compensating for a steroid-shriveled dick.

And there were many, many more. But among the dozens of neighbors that Carl had had while living in that apartment, one easily stood out. Maddie.

She was so special, he thought of her by her real name instead of a nickname. He had learned it by overhearing her answer a wrong-number phone call, clarifying the error by saying “No, this is Maddie.”

Before that, her name had been Blondie. This was obviously due to her dyed blonde hair but the name never really seemed to fit since she didn’t at all come off as a bimbo. In fact, nothing about her really seemed to fit. She kind of seemed like a hippie/stoner, due to her fashion sense: well-worn Birkenstocks, long plain-colored skirts and complete absence of makeup. But, unlike 90% of the people in the house, she never seemed to do drugs of any kind, even pot. And what kind of stoner would take the time and money to keep their hair dyed? And blonde of all things?