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The couple who live directly above a special friend of mine's apartment have what sounds like a tumultuous relationship. My friend sometimes hears crazy fighting coming from up above: her screams and cries, his muffled yells, doors slamming and breakable things crashing to the floor/ceiling. Not unusual sounds by city living standards.

I've never seen the two myself. Allegedly they're an hyper-hipster East Village couple. They never smile or speak a word when passing a neighbor in the hallway, even if that neighbor extends a hello. They respond with matching blank stares.

I've never heard them fight, either. I guess the times I've been over there happened to have been good nights for them. But even when there's no audible evidence of an argument, you can hear them. It's the strangest thing. It's constant noise that sounds like things falling to the ground, furniture being moved, and clomping footsteps as if they never take their shoes off and they never sit down.

It wouldn't be so annoying if it wasn't so insanely weird. It's as if anytime someone upstairs picks up a pen to write a letter or a fork to eat their spaghetti (both done either standing up or while pacing, we've concluded) they simply toss said pen or fork on the floor when they're done with it. A magic 8-ball thuds up above and rolls across the floor, she takes a brisk walk in platform shoes, he plays 52-Pick Up over and over again...

My friend (and even I've started doing it) has gotten into the habit of yelling ridiculous things up toward the ceiling in response to the ridiculous sounds. "Hey! Where are you going? Your apartment must be BIG! Lots of places to WALK TO! Take your SHOES OFF! Hey! What WAS that? I think you dropped your TOOTHBRUSH AGAIN!"

The other night my special friend and I were undercover, horizontal and so forth. Now, I'm not a quiet one when it comes to canoodling. Though I do get embarrassed about it on occasion, I could never be a silent partner. I'm too expressive of a person, I can't help it. So we're having some of the business and I'm making my noises and it's good. It's very good. We've just settled in all cozy-like after collapsing on each other naked and sweaty when we start to hear signs of life above. Only it's these sounds are not the ones we were used to. What we were now hearing was the unmistakable rhythmic creaks and thumps of a big old bed moving underneath a grunting man humping his lady.

"Oh my god, they're doing it!" I whisper and my friend and I both start giggling like two kids who've just found their parents' nudie mags under the mattress.

"Wow," he says. "I haven't heard them doing that in a long time." It was instantly clear to me that we'd inspired a new kind of audio entertainment emanating from the apartment upstairs and it made me giddy. It was even better that they supposedly hadn't given each other a tumble in a while. Our arms wrapped around eachother, sleepy and satisfied, we listened and fell asleep after the guy upstairs came (like me, he was the loud one in their relationship and like my special friend, she hardly made a peep) and then mumbled muffled sweet nothings and everything went quiet and still.

In the morning while we got ready for work, the familiar footsteps of clunky shoes sounded overhead. We giggled and exchanged eye-rolling glances. I have to say, I was rather proud. The people upstairs had heard us makin' it the night before and they started makin' it too. I was feeling the love. I felt like I'd unwittingly done a good deed. I was a Sex Samaritan! Our coitus was catching! Our screwing was boundless! Our fornicating filtered up through the fifth floor! Rising! Rising to no telling where it would go!

But then my friend said, "I think it was just a coincidence. They probably didn't even hear your nocturnal emissions." Was he kidding? It was so obvious to me that we'd spread the love when I spread my legs. Could he not get off with me on the idea of an infectious moment of the old in and out? His was just not a romantic way of thinking at all.