Three Girls Moved Into My Bedroom

Every night a strange sound came through the wall, like a cat crying — ever since three party girls moved into my primary bedroom.

I never did figure out what they were doing in there.

Until the day I picked up a pink remote in the living room and hit the switch — and that was when I found out what they were into was way bigger than I'd imagined.

Chapter 1 When my ex and I broke up, she left me the apartment. I say apartment.

It was really just a small unit in an old building, and the one thing it had going for it was the location — a few busy commercial streets right around it.

We'd bought it back when we were talking about getting married. We both put money in.

I caught her cheating, and after the blowup I didn't want to drag it out, so I gave her back her share and told her to get out.

Now I was carrying the mortgage alone, and the pressure was getting to me. I decided to sublet the big primary bedroom to take some of the pressure off.

I put up a post in the rooms & shares section on Craigslist. [Primary bedroom in an older building for sublet, price negotiable.] At the bottom I left my Instagram.

And I added one more line. [Girls only.] I'll admit I had my own little agenda. Just the thought of sharing a place with a girl got my heart going a little.

Not that I was looking for anything to happen.

I just figured, coming home from work to a girl curled up on the couch watching TV, colorful little outfits hanging out on the balcony — that had to beat living there alone.

The post was up a few days and plenty of people asked about it.

The place was too old, the place was too rundown—every one of them eventually worked their way around to haggling the price down.

I got sick of it and was about ready to give up on renting it out. Then an account with the handle @kyliesosweet sent me a DM asking to see the room.

We set it up for Saturday morning. There was a knock, and when I opened the door there were three girls standing there.

The one in front had her bleached platinumblond hair up in two ponytails, her lips shiny with gloss.

She had on a silver sequined tank top, and what it showed off below the collarbone was big and round. There were huge flowers tattooed on her bare arm. Right.

One of those. "Hey, Vinny! I'm Kylie!" Her voice was bright and sweet.

Before I could get a word out, the tall girl behind her shoved past her, impatient, and walked right in. "Let's get inside.

It's boiling out here." This tall girl had her hair up in a high ponytail and was wearing black short shorts, and her legs went on forever. I couldn't stop staring.

The last one kept her head down and looked like she had a bit of social anxiety, in a black pleated skirt, soft and fragilelooking. I frowned.

All three of them were dressed like party girls, no question about it.

The tall one had an attitude, but the three of them weren't badlooking, so I invited them in to see the room and handed each of them a Coke.

The tall girl started looking the place over the second she was inside — living room to balcony to bathroom, heels clacking the whole way.

After they'd all seen the bedroom, the tall girl looked a little unhappy. "That's it?" That got under my skin right away. What did she mean, that's it?

Kylie jumped in to smooth it over. "Vinny, sure it's old, but you keep it really clean in here." "Damn right." "Vinnyyy, come on.

Knock a little off." I shook my head. "$800 is already cheap.

Go look around and see if you can find anything cheaper." Kylie grabbed my arm with both hands and kept working on me. "Vinnyyy, take $300 off.

If you do, the three of us will pay right now." That actually stopped me. "The three of you?

In one room?" The primary bedroom was maybe a little over two hundred square feet, with a double bed in it. How were three people going to live in there?

Kylie blinked at me and hung on my arm, swinging it back and forth. Chapter 2 "We don't have much money.

The three of us can squeeze in, it's fine." "What do you all do?" "I work parttime at a boba place.

The other two are about the same." "How much can that bring in?" "Enough for rent." She stuck her lip out and leaned all the way into me, and that little tank top left nothing hidden. "Vinny, a little cheaper.

Please?" She dragged that please out long. "$200 off, that's as far as I go.

Any lower and it's a no." Kylie jumped up and threw her arms around the two girls next to her. "We got a place!" Between Venmo, Cash App, and the cash in their pockets, it took the three of them forever to scrape together one month's rent.

Watching that, I started to have second thoughts. Living with girls was fun, sure. But I was really worried they weren't going to make rent next month. Kylie introduced them to me.

The tall girl was Nyla, and the one with the social anxiety was Iris. Nyla did a complete turnaround, holding her Coke and telling me over and over how goodlooking I was.

I found out later the three of them had been running an act on me to get the rent down. Kylie led — the sweet talk, the cute act.

Nyla worked the flank — bad cop, picking at everything. As for Iris, her social anxiety was real. She barely said a word. They moved in that same day.

Three girls' worth of stuff filled the living room. Big suitcases dumped out piles of tank tops and short shorts, and shoes and socks of every kind.

It filled up the primary bedroom closet and the shoe rack by the door in no time. That first stretch of living together, I was pretty happy.

Underwear and socks, the things you can't throw in the dryer, hung on folding drying racks in the bathroom and out on the balcony, every color and every style.

Even the air in the place smelled good. I'd come home from work and the three of them would be sprawled all over the couch. Three pairs of long bare legs. It hurt to look at them.

Each of them had her own thing going for her. I was getting an eyeful. They'd been in the place a week when I noticed a problem.

Their habits were what you'd generously call laidback. Less generously, lazy. Whatever they'd been wearing underneath could turn up in any random corner of the apartment.

That part I could live with. I didn't pay much attention to cleaning either, and I got to it when I got to it.

I told them to pick their things up and put them away, and I didn't make more of it than that. Besides that, there was the noise. At night the place just buzzed.

The three of them would be in the living room yelling over a game, loud enough to keep me up in the middle of the night. I'd open my door and chew them out one by one.

The worst was the hair in the bathroom. It clogged the drain more than once. But I didn't say much. Because they'd started revolving around me. It started simple enough.

I had a PS5 I'd barely played. One weekend I got it out and Kylie caught me with it. She yelled, "Vinny, you have a PS5?!" and then all three of them were crowding me to play.

Kylie and Iris played It Takes Two and couldn't get past the same part, both of them hopeless at it.

Nyla coached from the sidelines, all fired up, then couldn't take it and grabbed the controller herself. Still couldn't get past it.

The three of them shook my arm, wheedling. "Vinny, get us past it." Besides the console, there was the latenight food.

I stayed up late on Saturdays, and I'd usually order delivery after midnight and watch the West Coast game.

The first time I did, Kylie stuck her head out of the bedroom and sniffed hard. "Vinny, what are you eating?" "Wings." Her eyes lit up, and she yelled back into the room, "Vinny got wings!" Then all three of them came pouring out and stood there giving me that pitiful look.

Chapter 3 I pushed the box over. "Go on, eat." They swarmed it, fighting over it. "You skipped dinner again?" Nyla answered with her mouth full, hard to make out. "This is the first thing I've eaten today…" I didn't know what to say.

I went back to the kitchen and cooked a few packs of instant ramen for them.

The three of them crowded around me laying it on thick, and even Iris, with all her social anxiety, didn't look anxious anymore. A house full of girls fussing over me. It felt good.

I realized these three were different from every other girl I knew. And not just the tattoos and that kind of thing. It was mostly their attitude toward life.

All three of them worked parttime. When they ran out of money they'd go pick up a few days of work.

When they got fed up they'd quit, and the three of them would pile onto one used moped and cruise around. When it was hot out they'd hole up at home and play games.

The way it looked to me, they lived free and easy.

Some weekends they decided that me sitting home gaming was boring and dragged me out with them, saying they'd show me what a day in the life of a party girl was like.

I'm a guy, and pride matters, so I made a big show of saying it was all on me. That day just about killed me physically.

Same allyoucaneat Korean BBQ chain, just because the location six miles away was $10 cheaper a person. They walked me the whole six miles!

No wonder the three of them were that skinny. But I still had a good day. The three of them were all around me the whole way, and people kept turning to look.

Filled a man's vanity right up. The four of us drank one lemonade with four straws. It did a lot of healing for me in that stretch after the breakup. But these three were strange.

They had rules and they didn't. For instance, they would absolutely never touch my snacks or my console without asking.

Kylie hadn't quit yet back then, and I happened to walk past the boba place where she worked parttime. She waved at me from inside. I was already there, so I figured I'd get one.

Kylie packed my cup full of boba and jelly, filled right to the top. The other customers were all looking at me, and it was a little embarrassing. The three of them were loyal.

Some weekends I needed help at a trade show, and I paid them a day rate to work the booth.

When somebody swiped the giveaways off the table, they'd chase the guy down cussing him out the whole way. Looking at that, the three of them weren't bad at all.

But it didn't take them long to open my eyes again. One day I got home from work and a very workedup DoorDash driver blocked me at the door.

He wanted to know why I'd reported an order as never delivered when I'd gotten it, and now he'd been docked for it. I had no idea what he was talking about.

I pulled out my phone and showed it to him, asked him which order it was. He swiped around for a while and couldn't find it, and his voice got smaller.

He kept muttering that it was this address. Maybe I looked too big to mess with, because he left on his own. I went inside and asked, and found out the three of them had done it.

I laid into them. What was the point? Pushing somebody around like that, weren't they afraid of it coming back on them? I started laying down rules. No scummy stuff.

Nobody comes over. Pick up after yourself. Keep the place decent. No cussing in the house. And so on. If they couldn't manage it, the lease was over and they could move out.

The three of them lined up and nodded, and for the most part they went by my rules. There was only one thing they never took to heart, no matter how many times I said it.

They didn't seem to think of me as a man. Nyla would pull on her tights right in front of me, and those long legs made it impossible to keep my eyes open.

I said something about it a few times. She couldn't have cared less. And sometimes I'd be in the bathroom.

Chapter 4 Iris, with all her social anxiety, would come barging in without knocking, look me right in the eye, and back out again with no expression at all.

Those two I could handle. A word or two and they'd adjust a little. The one who gave me the most trouble was Kylie.

I'd be in the living room gaming, and she'd come out of the shower wearing almost nothing and blowdry her hair out there.

Every so often she'd lean over to tell me how good I was at the game. The smell of her body wash reached my nose and got me itching.

All I could do was give her half answers while my eyes kept sliding over to her. Saying I never fantasized about anything would be a lie.

The three of them were adults, sure, but they hadn't finished school and didn't have much going for them. They ate my food and drank my drinks.

And if something happened between us on top of that… It always felt to me like taking advantage. Besides, getting to look was good enough.

Once I had it worked out, I sat the three of them down. I'm a man, after all — pay a little attention to what you wear around the house.

I laid out my concerns, and of all things, the three of them thought it was funny. They stuck their legs out. Six long bare legs lined up in front of me.

Kylie laughed. "Vinny, it's nothing. Look all you want. We don't mind." Huh??? I thought she was joking. They really didn't care.

Nyla even said, "A body this good is for looking at, isn't it?" Kylie and Iris both agreed. I was floored. But if none of you care, then I don't either.

So after that I looked their outfits over openly every day and gave my notes. When they bought clothes and things, they'd come ask my opinion too.

I was pretty much their best friend at that point. Everything a girl should know and shouldn't know, I knew. They even made a habit of it. When in doubt, go ask Vince.

At work my phone would be dinging all day. At home it was nonstop chatter. Thanks to them, I got carried all the way up to Unreal in Fortnite. After a while I noticed something.

The three of them piled in together every day and looked like they got along great. But Kylie and Iris were clearly closer to each other than either of them was to Nyla.

One time we were watching a movie in the living room. The three of them were squeezed onto the couch and I was in the armchair beside them.

Since I smoked now and then, whoever sat closest could bum one off me easily enough. All three of them wanted the spot next to me.

In the end Kylie was in the middle, Nyla on the side next to me, Iris on the other end.

Halfway through the movie I turned my head and saw Kylie leaning back into Iris, Iris's chin resting on top of her head, one hand holding a cigarette and the fingers of the other winding through the ends of Kylie's hair, around and around.

Kylie tilted her face up and said something to Iris, their noses almost touching. It gave me a feeling I couldn't put into words.

Then I told myself, girls hang all over each other, it's normal. Nyla saw me watching the two of them, and she turned to look too, then made a face at me.

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Kylie must have noticed me looking.

She sat up out of Iris's arms and winked at me. "Vinny, do you want a hug too?" "Hug my ass." That was the night I blacked out. Department dinner.

I drank a lot, and my impression was that a coworker had brought me home. I woke up in the middle of the night, dying of thirst.

Somebody was next to me, handing me a glass of water. A cool hand wiped the sweat off me with a tissue. Chapter 5