The man on the screen began to advance, and the woman began to back away simultaneously, a terrified look on her face. “No…please…” But oh, behind the fear was the unmistakable quiver of desire, and they both knew it. She was the typical housewife: loving but unappreciated, her needs left unanswered by her selfish, workaholic husband.

As for the intruder - he was everything her husband wasn’t: tall and strapping, with a look of menacing hunger in his dark eyes. He wanted to fuck her, the way her husband no longer cared to do so.

When he lunged for her suddenly, she screamed, but her scream was like the sound of liberation. He tore her clothes from her body, and she screamed again, but the sound was even more erotic than the previous one, and it was too much…for me.

My fingers drifted down my body, one hand cupping my breast while my other hand began to stroke my wet and throbbing pussy over my panties.

Dirty.

So damn dirty.

The words echoed in my mind, but I didn’t care.

This was all I had, all I could do.

As the Japanese AV actress playing the housewife started to pant, I panted with her.

When the intruder pushed the housewife on the floor, I could imagine myself losing control as she did, and oh, the feeling of surrender was unimaginably exquisite.

My entire life, I had always, always been in control. How glorious it would be if I could have someone to lose control with – someone I could trust to fuck me hard without breaking me?

Moans poured out of my laptop’s speakers, and my gaze drifted back to the screen. The intruder had his pants down to his knees, and he was now fucking the housewife from behind.

Hard.

So damn hard he had her gasping, her huge breasts swaying with every thrust---

Oh God.

My fingers started moving faster.

The sound of the intruder’s balls slapping against the housewife’s naked body – the sound of his thick cock sliding in and out of her pussy – filled the room, mingling with the sounds of my own movements. Squishing sounds that should have sounded gross but oh God, they just made my insides clench even more.

Almost…almost…almost…there…

The intruder’s fingers dug into the housewife’s ass, and he stiffened for a moment before coming inside her with a harsh groan.

His body began to jerk and twitch as he came, but all the while he kept ramming into her, and the housewife moaned, her legs tightening around his waist. When she reached her climax, I was right behind her, my own lips parting to let out a whimper as my own pussy shook at the strength of my orgasm.

Sooooo…gooood…

My body arched under my still furiously moving fingers, and my eyes squeezed shut as tortuously sweet pleasure washed over me.

I kept moving my fingers, trying to extend the pleasure for as long as I could.

If only it could last forever.

If only my life could be this one long moment of bliss, this one moment where I could forget what I was in reality---

Dirty. Discarded. Disgraced.

But it never did.

* * *

“Where are you?” Jane, the owner of the newly opened La Maison de Petit Gateau, demanded the moment I answered her call. “What’s taking you so long?”

Masturbating, I thought right away. But of course I couldn’t say that to a client, or anyone for that matter. I was a wild girl in most people’s eyes, which was fine with me, but I wasn’t that wild.

“I’m coming.” I paused right after, trying not to laugh at my unintentional joke. Ah God, did I really just say that? And was I actually finding it funny?

“Are you sure?”

“Yup.” Because I already did, and it had lasted for a good two minutes, too.

“You better write me a two-page post after this,” Jane muttered. “I can’t believe you’re so late. You’ve changed so much ever since you left your old job.”

Ha. I stared at my phone as the call ended, and only after Jane had somehow manipulated me into saying yes to the two-page post. Everyone thought leaving my job had changed me, which I supposed was a blessing in disguise.

It was so much better than everyone knowing I had changed because I had fallen for him.

When I finally made it to Jane’s cupcake café, it was a few minutes past one. I was two hours late, but still well within the fashionably late realm, since the soft launch was slated to last until four.

Ignoring the daggers Jane was throwing at me from one corner – quite an accomplishment, really, considering she was also fielding questions from a couple of YouTubers – I went to work immediately, scribbling notes on my pad so I wouldn’t forget my first impressions.

The media kit Jane emailed a week ago had already given me an idea of how beautiful the place was, but even so I found myself pleasantly stunned.

The pictures don’t do it justice. My pen flew over the pad, my fingers doing its best to catch up with my thoughts. It’s charmingly gorgeous, a tiny rustic haven hidden in the heart of the city.

I flipped to the next page.

Everything about it is just cozy and cute, from its fabric lamps and teacup chandeliers to the hand-painted quotes on palette frames hanging on the multi-patterned walls. Adding a playful tone to the atmosphere is its mismatched chairs, ranging from pastel velvet couches to reupholstered armchairs boasting of whimsical designs that seemed to have been taken straight out of Wonderland.

I should find it absurdly cheesy really, but because of the way the place so happily embraced its fanciful theme, I just found myself reaching for my inner child and going with the flow.

Turning my Leica camera on, which I had strapped around my neck for easy access, I started taking photos.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

The sound reverberated throughout the place since most people were doing the same. It seemed like everyone invited to the soft opening had come, and the place was so crowded I had to resort to soft-focus shots most of the time. Thankfully, every little detail of Jane’s place was well thought out. Every item making up the eclectic assortment of table centerpieces had a story to tell: the DIY miniature birdhouse which Jane’s parents had built, the mason jars of crayon bits Jane had ordered from a favorite local charity, and then there were those vases of lovely paper flowers, which were surplus favors from a friend’s wedding.

Bending down, I tried to take a close-up shot of the birdhouse but suddenly, I just couldn’t.

Oh no, not again.

But it was already happening.

I looked at the birdhouse again, and it was no longer just a birdhouse. It had turned into something more, a place that could be a cage or a home.

Because that’s how love is – throw two people together, and if they love each other then you could lock them up for eternity, and it wouldn’t matter. As long as they were together, then that place was home.

But if it wasn’t love for both of them, then how beautiful a place was wouldn’t matter. It would always, always be a cage---

OH MY GOD, HAD I JUST LEGIT THOUGHT THAT?

I spun away, the sight of the birdcage now making me want to gag. That was the thing about being secretly – and immorally – heartbroken. It could drive you crazy when you had no one to talk to…like now.

Hurrying towards the patisserie display, I tried looking for something else to focus on and take photos of. The first tier of cupcakes offered the usual classics: French vanilla, carrot and cream cheese, red velvet, and lemon raspberry. But what set them apart were their adorable edible cupcake toppers, all of them supposedly containing a magical spell.

Pink unicorns to grant sweet dreams, lavender clouds to whisk away your sadness, and black-and-white hearts to ensure you looked good on your next date.

Great marketing strategy, I thought. Strategy was everything, really, and I could easily foresee the cupcake café’s success as long as it didn’t stop with the innovations. Bending down, I started taking photos of each cupcake.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

I zoomed in on the pink unicorn.

Snap.

A creature our minds knew was mythical but our hearts secretly insisted was real---

Just like when you love someone who already loved someone else.

Your mind would tell you it wasn’t possible. A person in love with someone else would stay in love with someone else. But the heart was a different matter. It would insist on the impossible. It would insist on dreaming when---

OH MY GOD, I’M AT IT AGAIN.

I was aghast and halfway to being hysterical. When the fuck would this end? When? Knowing that there was just no point taking more pictures when my stupid and immoral heartbreak had already ruined the sight of cupcakes for me, I straightened up and as I turned away---

“Aaah!”

Shit. Because I had been so distracted, I hadn’t seen the woman behind me and the next thing I knew, I had caused her to spill bubble-gum soda on her dress.

“I’m so sorry,” I immediately apologized.

The other woman looked up, and I recognized her right away. Shit. It was none other than Willa Ingress, a Snapchat user in her early twenties. She wasn’t beautiful in any sense of the word, but she did have the sexiest figure, and the younger woman hadn’t hesitated to use it to her advantage.

Her meteoric rise to popularity was rooted in two things: her penchant for wearing lingerie tops and a unique rating system for the places and products she was asked to review. A pout for the mediocre stuff, a wink for the stuff that she approved, an eye-roll for those that she hated, and a happy wiggle of her huge breasts for all the things that she absolutely loved.

Word on the street was that those breast jigs weren’t quite authentic, and Willa would be more than happy to shake them for the right price. It was grossly unethical, but since I had always been the live-and-let-live type, how she worked wasn’t my business. And it still wasn’t, even though by the way she was glaring at me, I could tell it wasn’t the same for her.

Shit, I thought again. Her last client, a popular sports footwear brand, had recently purchased a couple of sponsored posts on my site, and I had a feeling Willa saw it as a declaration of war – from me.

“You’re such a bitch.”

And the gauntlet has been thrown, I thought. Clearing my throat, I did my best to sound conciliatory, saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean---”

I couldn’t say anything else.

Willa had just thrown herself at me, trying to tear my hair out as we fell to the floor.

What the fuck?

But then she started trying to claw my eyes out, and all thoughts of pacifying her were forgotten. “Get off me!” A hard shove managed to get her off, but just as I tried getting up, she pulled me right back, and I heard my blouse tearing from the back.

What the---