The Elevator. The Penis. The Harlem.

It started as a night like any other.

I knocked off work and decided to walk home via Times Square. All up this would take me about one hour and forty-five minutes, but then you add in all the shopping/browsing/staring at items waaay outta my budget and I end up getting home around 10ish.

I live on the sixth floor, so taking the stairs is not unreasonabe. Our elevator gives a new dimension to the word skanky. It is the most revolting 2 metres x 2 metres that you'll ever have to stand it. But I was feeling lazy. I had just walked a long way so decided I could deal with the two or three minutes in the cage of rank-ness.

So I pressed the button and checked my mail box while waiting for the elevator to arrive and was vaguely aware of a black guy behind me, hanging about the lobby. Nothing unusual in that. This apartment building is 45% blacks, 45% latinos. As a whitey I'm a minority for the first time.

We get into the elevator and I press the big 6 button. He doesn't make a move towards pressing any buttons. Hmm, still not so strange. There are plenty of other apartments on the sixth floor. He seems to have his hand close to his pants. Is that some fiddling with the dick I see? Surely not. I focus my gaze straight ahead. And plan to make a quick exit from this elevator.

We get out of the elevator. He's walking behind me. There are other apartments this side of the elevator, he's probably just heading there I tell myself. But I quicken my pace.

I'm walking towards my apartment door. Getting my keys out as I go. He's behind me. Coming closer. His body is now pushed up against mine. He's on top of me, shoving me into the wall. He was a short man, probably at least two inches shorter than me, but he's a stocky fellow. As disgusting as riding in our festy-fied elevator is, it is nothing compared to feeling his breath on the back of my neck. His body has basically enveloped mine against the wall.

So I scream like a little girl.

And thankfully I'm still able to get the keys into the door and open it. Yeah, because opening your door to a potential rapist is such a good idea. Good one Fran.

This time however (and I hope there's not a next time) it worked in my favour. My flatmates Fiona and Sally are right there in our apartment to greet us both as I'm screaming "Get down! Get down! Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!" Somehow I thought he might have had a gun, though there's entirely no logic to that thought.

Fiona is a fiesty pit-bull terrior when she's been drinking, and the couple of wines under her belt bought out the best in her this night. She scared him off then declared she was going to go downstairs, bare-handed and slight-framed as she is, to look for him.

No sexy NYPD or SVU Detective Stabler came rushing to our aid. We called the cops who never showed. Still no idea why?

I hadn't been the only one with dramas that night. Seemed poor old Sal had met the same bloke in the elevator only minutes earlier and he'd flopped out a big black cock and asked her to "kiss this". She ran out as the doors were closing so was physically unharmed, but soon the tears started flowing and it seemed the elevator, the penis and the Harlem had been too much for her that night.

She moved out days later. Couldn't handle the neighborhood it seemed. But Fiona and I continue to love East Harlem for its hidden charms. The cheap groceries for example - did I ever tell you I got six bananas once for $1.06? And a dozen eggs for $0.89! True stories :-)

Pervy black elevator man hasn't been seen since. Neither has Sally round these parts. But if some dude with a dick thinks he can scare me into giving up my neighbourhood of piraguas, huevos on toast, mashed plaintains, fried pollo, fajitas and tacos then he just underestimated how much I'm enjoying this el barrio!

Salud!