"I have been married for seven years but I am celibate for seven months. I don't know what is wrong. I feel confused. Every night when I go to bed, my husband, Walter, is still watching TV. He comes to bed when I have gone to sleep. I went to see my doctor. He says Walter is going through the change of life. I have never heard men going through the change of life. The doctor says `Give him some time, he will be okay'. But I feel nervous. I don't know what's wrong with him. Is he becoming impotent? Is he having an affair? Is he losing interest in sex forever? Maybe we will just be friends for the rest of our lives. But I don't want to be friends with my husband. I want us to be lovers. What do you think? You are a psychiatrist. You know all the answers."

         While Monica was talking I could see tears rolling down her cheeks. She wasn't eating. She had filled her plate with the steak, mushrooms, rice and pasta, but she had only eaten half of her dinner. Her glass of wine was still full. While she was talking I was wondering about my own relationship. How could I tell her that I was in a similar situation. I had been celibate for six months too. My girlfriend was unsure of her love for me and I was nervous about the outcome of our relationship.

         "Your story makes me feel sad." I was sympathetic. I looked at the candle on the table. She had tears in her eyes too.

         Jessica had been a good host. She had done all the cooking on her own. She knew that Monica and I wanted to meet, so one day when she called me to tell me that Monica was coming to her place for dinner, I was quite willing to change my plans and join them.

         The first time I met Monica was a few weeks earlier when she was attending the security booth called the Gatehouse which was outside Jessica's apartment building. Monica was wearing a blue uniform. She stopped me at the gate the way she stopped all the visitors.

         "Who are you visiting sir?" She was pleasant but I could see mischievousness in her eyes, as if asking me `Are you here to pick up someone else's wife!'

         "Jessica" I answered briefly.

         "What's her buzzer number?"

         "I think it is 113." I was never sure of the numbers.

         "What building does she live in?"

         "I don't know the number. It is the first one on the right."

         "What's her apartment number?"

         "I don't remember. Do you want me to check? She changes her apartment so frequently I sometimes forget, and end up driving to her previous apartment."

         "No that's okay."

         "You'd be a good police investigator," I smiled.

         "Funny, funny," she laughed. "Let me check with Jessica."

         So she spoke with Jessica on the phone and then asked the last question.

         "What's your car plate number?"

         "Do you want my telephone number too." And we both laughed out loud. She let me in and when I came upstairs I asked Jessica, "Who is that woman in the watchtower?"

         "Why?"

         "She is nuts."

         "Oh Monica, she is a sweetheart! She is lots of fun."

         Later on Jessica called me to tell me that Monica thought I was cute. After that Jessica mentioned Monica a few times and told me that she wanted to meet me. Whenever I came and Monica was attending the booth, she would let me in without asking questions. I was always curious about people in watchtowers. I thought they knew all kinds of secrets, and as a writer I always wanted to meet them.

         The evening I met Monica for dinner at Jessica's place, I did not recognize her. She was wearing a green top and black trousers. She was not in her usual blue uniform. She seemed very excited. She told me that most tenants were reserved and distant. Jessica was one of the few who would invite her for a cup of tea. She was thrilled to be invited for dinner and she had heard that I was a writer and a psychiatrist, so she was a bit nervous meeting me.

         After Monica and I got our glasses of wine and Jessica went to prepare dinner, we started to talk in the living room. Monica went on talking for nearly an hour with minor interruptions and brief questions from me. She had a lot to share and since I found her experiences interesting, I let her talk.

         "I have been working here for fifteen months. It is a nice job, comfortable, but sometimes I feel lonely cooped up in that little room with a little TV. I like day shifts the most, night shifts are a little scary, the evening shifts are sometimes so busy they are crazy. But those are the ones that are most interesting."

         "What's interesting about them?"

         "Last week someone's boyfriend came in. I did not let him in because I knew his girlfriend was with another man.

         "I sometimes set people up too. There are so many single and lonely men and women living in these buildings. They work all day long and watch TV or do aerobics in the evening. I gave one man a number of a woman and asked him to call her. She waited and waited. She was desperate to meet him. But when he did not call her in three months, I confronted him. He apologized. I told him I thought he was gay. The next day that jerk sent a box of chocolates for that woman. What an idiot.

         "But we also have a middle aged gay man in this building. There are two young teenagers who visit him regularly, one on Tuesday evenings, the other on Thursday evenings."

         "Do they stay overnight?"

         "No just for a couple of hours. He sometimes comes for a chat. He always bums cigarettes. He says he is trying to quit. One day I told him I ran out of cigarettes and asked him to go to the corner store and get me a pack and he did. He did not even charge me anything. I even told him he was gay."

         "How do you know?" he asked.

         "I let your friends in every week."

         "Oh! That's true" he said, and smiled.

         "We also have another woman who is looking for a stud."

         "What does that mean?"

         "She wants to have a child but does not want to get married. I suggested she look into artificial insemination. She said these days you can't have fresh sperm. It can cause diseases. One has to wait for six months and use frozen sperm.

         We also have high class prostitutes here. I think they call them "Call Girls." I see special limos coming here. Someone told me they are university students and earn their money this way for their tuition fees. One is a student of philosophy and the other psychology. I wanted to talk to them once but they were in a hurry."

         "But what do you like the best about the job?"

         "The camera. I can turn on the TV anytime and see what is happening. There are cameras in the elevators, ramps, parking lots and jacuzzi. I saw women getting in the jacuzzi naked. I saw two women necking, two men naked holding hands, and a man and a woman making love. A couple of times I turned on the intercom and said `Are you having a good time?' They didn't know who was talking."

         When we sat down to have dinner, Jessica joined us in the conversation too.

         "Is there anything about your job that worries you?"

         "Yeah! A couple of things. There is a young man who lives here. He is emotionally disturbed. Whenever his girlfriend dumps him he gets depressed and suicidal, sometimes angry and violent. Once he was so upset, he broke the windows. I called 911 and the police came right away and took him to the hospital. He has a new girlfriend now. She looks like a nice girl. But she does not know his past.

         But the main thing that worries me is the apartment in which they gamble all night long. The people have lots of guns. I think they are trouble. I would not be surprised if there is a murder here one of these days."

         "In my building?" Jessica looked pale.

         "No, the next building."

         "Did you tell the police?"

         "The police know it all."

         "Why don't you tell us about your own family, since you have fifteen brothers and sisters." Jessica wanted to change the subject.

         "Yes, we are sixteen in all. My mother is 83 and my father 93. My mother loved children. She is Catholic. She says if she had to do it all over again she would have had twenty. We used to have a big table, eight on one side, eight on the other, one parent at each end. We had at least one student in each grade of the school. When I married my first husband I was surprised to know that he was one of nineteen children. But his family was quite dysfunctional, I found out later on. He was very abusive. He was an alcoholic, and jealous. It was hell living with him. I stuck around only because of my children. The day my last child went to university, I packed my bags and left."

         "What's the worst thing he did to you?"

         "I used to keep a diary which I wrote in every day for twenty years. I kept it locked inside a special cabinet. I told my husband about it, and then I came home from work one day and found he had burned the entire cabinet, because it was locked and that infuriated him. I cried for months. I never wrote a word again.

         "After I left him I was alone for three years. I had lost trust and faith in men and relationships. Then I met my present husband. We were both patients in the same hospital at the same time. We were the only two smokers on the ward, so we used to meet in the smoking room and offer each other cigarettes. Cigarettes led to beers and then dinners. We were living together after six months. He is so kind and gentle and caring. I can't believe someone can be so nice to me. But now in the last few months, I don't know what happened."

         Monica was quiet again. She looked sad.

         Jessica brought some tea and dessert. It was chocolate cake. She has known me for nearly ten years but still does not remember that I don't like chocolate; and I, knowing her for this long, could not remind her. So I ate half of the cake.

         "Do you think there is hope?" Monica asked.

         "I am an eternal optimist. Maybe he is just going through a rough time."

         "Do you think he still loves me?"

         "Do you still love him?"

         "Yes I do. But I don't know anymore. I don't know how to find out what true love is."

         "My grandmother used to say `True love is the one that can wait.'"

         "I can wait."

         Jessica was being a little mischievous and so she asked, "But what are you going to do while you are waiting? Do you want to borrow my dildo?"

         "No, I am self-sufficient."

         "Does that mean you are self-abusive?"

         "They used to call it self-abuse in Victorian times."

         "And these days?"

         "Self-pleasure. Maybe I will marry a third time, a rich man this time."

         When I was driving home that evening I wondered how come even after listening to Monica's story I could not tell her that I was celibate for six months too and it wasn't that bad after all. It builds one's character.