The only negative fallout of my all-star Beverly Hills luxury apartment remodeling job has been the unfortunate relocation of my bed. Prior to my celebrity urban glamorization program of Taj Mahal proportions, my Queen-sized bed was banked up against a wall, in the corner of my front room. The feng shui was miserable; the bed's chi was deficient; it's chakras were on lockdown. But at least it was anchored, in a very Western way.

Now, as a direct result of the high priority placed on my desk's location, my bed has been relegated to the middle of the room, where one long side aligns with a wall, while the headboard is supported by nothing more than the loosely-packed molecular vapors emanating from the stench of my own failures.

It doesn't look terrible in this location, necessarily (yes it does), but it has immediately presented an unforeseen problem. Each time I climb into bed – no, each time I touch my bed or approach it, readying myself for entry – it emits a loud creak. If I lived in a haunted house or dracula's castle, this creak would no doubt add character and perhaps resale value, but since I live in a pre-war apartment building with a thin adjoining wall between my bedroom and my next door neighbor's bedroom, the creak only means that I'm giving off the false impression that I'm fucking very hard, and constantly.

I've always been very self-conscious about the amount of noise I cause while having sex. I've been with a couple of very loud partners, and I always suspected the amount of noise they made was wildly disproportionate to the amount of actual pleasure I was providing. And when I'm not preoccupied with being ashamed of my partner and myself for actually truly enjoying ourselves, I am afraid of being admonished by my neighbors for being a dirty fornicator. Sometimes, in the middle of sex, and always the next morning following it, my thoughts turn to the Sunni Muslim mother of four living directly below me, her head and body concealed beneath heavy, slattern wraps. She is passing judgement, I think. She is covering her ears with a prayer rug right now. By simply passing her in the hallway, freshly fornicated, I'm sure I'm committing a terrible offense against her religion. At times like these I wish my sexual partners could shout their excitement into a paper bag and empty the contents of that bag somewhere distant, with looser moral fiber – like Las Vegas or Whoreville.

Given my anxiety over experiencing actual pleasure, imagine how awful I feel when I'm producing the same bed-shaking soundtrack of light fornication night after night, in total absence of sexual activity. Upon my initial discovery of the loud creaking, and after learning that this problem could not be resolved by tightening a few bolts, I actually tried to imagine a way I could explain the noise to my neighbors through perfectly innocence means. I thought about inviting them over, under the pretense of showing them the Gold Standard of Class and Sophistication renovation I've done to my apartment and then, casually, as a footnote, lead them into the bedroom and say, "Oh yeah, here's the only problem – this bed!" Then I could lean into it, producing the simulated-sex-creaks, and just regard my neighbors with a "can you believe this craziness" expression, hoping they'd connect all the dots themselves. And if they didn't, I could leap atop my bed, jam a pillow betwixt my knees and begin slowly screwing my pelvis into it as the bed plays its song. And while I'm pillow-fucking on my bed, I thought I would turn to my neighbors (if they haven't left by now) and ask them, "have you ever seen such a thing? I mean, honestly! This bed!!"

I would never do that. Regrettably, I've actually done something much worse. When I climb into bed, it starts creaking. As I get settled beneath the sheets, the creaking continues, for a total of 15-20 seconds. At some point it occurred to me that if my neighbors did associate those bed sounds with getting sexed over, then they must think I come very fast. And they'd be right, but I don't want them thinking that. So now, every time I get into bed, if I can't do it carefully enough to avoid creaks, I have to make sure to roll around for at least 10 or 15 minutes before resting to sleep. I usually start by bouncing from side to side. Then I turn over on my stomach and bounce my face into the pillows for a few minutes, and roll out of that into reverse cowboy position. Finally, when I'm confident that my neighbors are both disgusted and impressed by the noises they've heard, I pull out quickly and ejaculate on my bed's ass.