“Nice costume,” he said, smirking like he hadn’t been the one to tell her to wear this, and begged for pictures all week.
“Thanks,” she muttered, crawling into the backseat like a woman entering a grave.
The vinyl seat was freezing and sticky against her thighs. The windows fogged, trapping the heat of two bodies and none of the pleasure. Her head thunked against the door with every jackhammer thrust like he was trying to split her in half, emotionally and otherwise.
Why do men think this is what we want? The jackhammer. She blamed porn.
Maybe she should take comfort in the fact that he wasn’t big enough to hit her cervix. Honestly, for a man who boasted about how big he was, someone should have told him that four inches wasn’t a brag by now.
Did she even have to count this toward her number? Like, shouldn’t a man or woman have to make you orgasm at least once to count as a sexual partner?
Listening to the sound of the heat wheezing out of the vents, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine she was on a beach somewhere, sun on her face, drink in hand, but it felt more like a trip to hell. Hot, cramped, suffocating. She wondered if it was possible for her night to actually get any worse.
As his sweat dripped down her body, she grimaced. She could feel every inch of his skin, damp and smothering, like a too-wet bandage after he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
She guessed that part was kind of sweet.
Maybe this guy wasn’t the worst.
After he came, he lay there like he’d just conquered Mount Everest. They always do. She lay there as if she’d survived a car crash.
She thought she needed to go take some ibuprofen and rethink her life choices.
The guy, with his dark black hair and a cute little smirk. At least he was attractive, she tried to tell herself. Like a discount Timothée Chalamet with the moral compass of a half-charged vape pen in a college bar.
But he wasn’t always a disaster. Once, he brought her soup when she was sick. Just showed up with a plastic bag full of microwaveable soup and sat on the floor next to her couch like it was nothing. And once, he told her she was the funniest woman he’d ever met. That was the thing that made his words feel like promises. She should’ve known better.
“I’ve developed feelings for someone else,” he said after finishing. “Do you think it was immoral to have sex with you tonight? I don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
She blinked. Did he use the word, immoral? Her body still sticky with him, her soul trying to claw its way out through her ribs.
He was still dripping down her leg. And now he wanted moral clarity? From her?
No, it wasn’t okay.
You have feelings for someone else. What about my feelings in this situation? Of course, this other woman would be hurt. You’ve already told her how you feel. And still you thought, I might as well have a one-night stand with the cougar I’ve been leading on?
“I think she might be the one, and I wanted to makesure I checked off an older woman on my list.”
“What list? And I’m only 5 years older than you, it’s not some huge age gap.”
“You know, different people you have sex with in life, list?” He completely ignored the comment about the age gap, probably for his own good.
“No, I haven’t a clue which list you mean.”
“And don’t worry, we’ll stay friends after this. You’re my homie,” he had the audacity to say.
Homie? Was this all a joke? Some elaborate Halloween trick that we’d be laughing about tomorrow?
No, as it turned out, it was not.
So she did what she did best: she lied. She told him exactly what he wanted to hear, as she held the tears back so he couldn’t see them.
Something had gone so very wrong in her life that she was always everyone’s second choice. Not the one you build a life with, just the placeholder, the cautionary tale, the footnote. She never thought she’d get used to it, but here she was, learning.
She wasn’t the girl guys fell in love with. Not the one they committed to. She was the one they cheated with. This was essentially what it was, even though he explained over and over again that they wouldn’t be “officially” boyfriend and girlfriend until next week.
He’d confessed his feelings a month ago and didn’t even think to tell the other girl, herself, he was talking to, so she could protect her heart this one time.
