My cheek rubs up against the bunched cotton sheet with each punishing thrust of his hips. I want to cry, but I hold it back, the pressure inside me building and building at an embarrassing rate.
Since the second he pushed inside me with one, strong, relentless drive of his cock, I’d been wet and aching for him. I wanted him to use me, despite the humiliating knowledge that I meant nothing to him. Despite knowing that we share nothing but the connection of our bodies and that I’m no more than a willing, warm hole for him to fill, and to fuck, and to spill into without remorse. I should be mortified that I’m letting him use me this way, and my impending tears tell me I will be, but the rising tide of my orgasm holds my emotions at bay. All I can think about is the delicious ache he’s building inside me as he bruises me with a brutal and unsophisticated pounding.
Nobody could confuse this as anything more than a fuck. He can’t even see my face, doesn’t bother to run his hands over my body or seek out my pleasure. He just hammers into me again and again and again, almost silently except for the slap of his skin against mine and the squeak of the bed beneath our combined weight.
I come soundlessly, clutching the bed sheet at my sides, and a few violent thrusts later he does the same, spilling his release deep inside my body as his legs lock, his hip bones cut into the soft flesh of my buttocks, and the edge of his zipper digs painfully into my softest skin. I expect him to collapse onto my back, his body spent, but he doesn’t. Before I can catch my breath, he’s pulled out of me, and I feel the warm stickiness of his come as it dribbles out and runs over my abused flesh to puddle on the sheets below. Then without a word spoken, and with just the brief buzz of his zipper when he harshly yanks it back up as the soundtrack to his departure, he’s gone.
No, ‘Thanks for the fuck’.
No, ‘Sorry for the inevitable bruises I’ll leave on your skin’.
No, ‘See you around sometime’.
Just the empty and hollow sound of the door as it clicks shut behind him.
That’s when I cry just as silently as I came.
As his seed spills from my body, my shame falls from my eyes. Both soak my white cotton sheets and stain them with the evidence of my stupidity.
“Halle, are you home?”
Rachel’s voice breaks through the painfully loud silence of our apartment, rattling at my brain and forcing my sore eyes open. I’m still where he left me, albeit now curled up on my side, my tears long dried making the skin on my cheeks tight and uncomfortable.
I ignore her cheery question and tug the bed sheet higher up my body.
“Halle? I can see your bag in the hall. Can I come in? I’m bursting to tell someone about my date with Zeke.”
Her voice is closer now, and she’s right outside my door. My only saving grace is that unlike Zoey, Rach knows to respect personal boundaries and won’t come in until I invite her.
I remain silent.
“Halle? Are you okay?” her tone has lost the excitement of wanting to tell me about her date and has taken on an edge of obvious concern. I hate that I’m taking the shine off what must have been a great day, so I reluctantly clear my throat and invite her in.
“I’m fine. Everything is okay. Come in, Rach.”
Shifting on the bed, I sit up against the headboard and run a hand through my tangled hair. I know as soon as she sees me she’ll know I’m lying, but if I brush it off, I won’t have to confess how fucking stupid I’ve been, and with a man I barely know.
Rachel slowly pushes the door open and pokes her head around the gap. When her smiling gaze lands on mine her face drops, and she rushes into the room, coming to sit next to me on the bed and holding out her arms to beckon me into her embrace.
“Halle, are you sick? Has your dickhead ex got in touch after all this time? What’s happened, my little berry?”
The use of her nickname for me and the worry marring her pretty face is enough to make me crack, and I launch myself into her arms unable to hold back the wracking sobs that take over my body.
“Shh, I’ve got you, I’ve got you. Let it all out,” she soothes while rocking me gently and running her hands over my long, tangled, hair and down my back repeatedly until I calm enough to speak.
Without lifting my head from her chest and with the wetness of my tears on her shirt, I tell her what a fool I’ve been.
“He left without a word, and I deserved it. I deserved it for letting a man use me again. I haven’t learned from my past, Rach. You’d think after everything I went through with Ian that I’d be able to hold myself back and not let it happen again.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t put yourself down like that,” she states forcefully. “You trusted Ian, and he abused that trust in the worst way. I know you haven’t told us all that happened, but I’m not stupid, Halle. I know whatever it was must have been awful and what just happened with Josh is nothing like what happened with Ian. Yes, you got caught up in a moment with a broken man, and you let yourself go, but you’re not to blame for his actions afterwards. You hear me?”
I nod against her chest more to appease her than because I agreed. Whatever she said would be to make me feel better, but I’d just slept with a man who only saw me as a vessel for his release and nothing more. I’d let that happen. I’d brought him home knowing that it would happen. Josh isn’t to blame for this mess. It’s all on me.
And the worst part, I’d let him fuck me without a condom.
There is nothing, nothing that anyone can say to make this situation better.
I’ve never been loved.
I never will be loved.
And I deserve everything that has ever happened to me.