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I don’t know what to call him, but that’s okay. This won’t happen again. I’ll find a job and fix my life, and I won’t have to have sex with anyone to pay the rent ever again. I was acting out a fantasy. One that paid well. But I will never do that again.
Even if I did like it.
Even if I did comehardwhile he was inside me. I came on his cock like he told me to. I’ve never been talked to like that. Not once. And I loved it.
That didn’t happen with Kevin. I never came that hard. I’m more ashamed of the fact that I used to wait until he fell asleep and get myself off under the covers so I didn’t hurt his feelings. How did I ever accept that as my normal life when something so much better was out there?
I take a deep breath of hot steam, pushing the wet hair from my face, and let it out.
He seemed stable and kind. That’s why I was with Kevin. He was so nice…so nice that I didn’t see through the lies and the cheating. I’ve been through bad breakups before, and I thought my relationship with him was the next step in my life. I thought I was leaving behind all those unpredictable men and finally growing up.
I’m not going to blame myself for that.
I’m not going to downplay the memories of Graham, either.
I shake my head under the hot water, unable to stop imagining what just happened. That feltgood. It feltamazing. Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have demanded that he buy me dinner and roses before we had sex. Kevin did all those things for me. He bought bouquets of roses and took me out to dinner and asked me to marry him…and he left.
But I didn’t want those things in the moment. I wanted a quickie with the guy from the elevator with fuck-me eyes.
I’mnotgoing to get hung up on either Kevin or Graham. That’s not what I’m going to do.
I focus back on the shower. I’m not in any hurry to get the scent of his cologne off my skin. I mostly came here as a matter of habit, but I regret it a little as I’m soaping up my skin. I can still feel the places he touched me. He wasn’t rough. He was firm, though. Like he already knew me. Like I already belonged to him.
Except this was never about belonging to anybody. It was just to pay the rent.
I keep convincing myself of that as I get out of the shower and get dressed. I feel like I’ve just woken up from a deep, refreshing sleep, and my mind is clear for the first time since my ex left.
Is that what happens when you’re with a person who understands you? Because it felt like Graham understood me.
I might not know much about the man, but I understood what he needed from me in that moment.Needed.That wasright there in his eyes. I pause, the towel wrapped around me, in front of the mirror that’s edged with steam. Hopeless romantics get their hearts broken. Suzette told me that just last week over red wine and another hard cry.
I need to stop these thoughts. I need to focus on the task at hand.
I shut down all thoughts as I get ready and get back to emails and resumés intent on finding a job and writing Graham off as a one-time divulgence.
That’s the plan, anyway, until my phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. I hear the soft hum from my walk-in closet and dash out through the apartment in bare feet. It’s too big a place for one person with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office, and a breakfast nook. But I’ve done the math on getting a new place on short notice. I was five hundred dollars short on this rent. I don’t have enough to cover a deposit on another place, either, unless I have roommate.
I reach the phone and snatch it up from the countertop without looking at the screen.
“Hello?”
“Maddie, it’s me.”
“Kenzie! How are you?” My heart speeds up again at the sound of my cousin’s voice. I love Kenzie to death, but her life is even more precarious than mine was before I met Kevin. “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” she says with a sigh. “I need help.”
“Oh, Kenzie,” I can’t hide the strain in my voice. My stomach sinks. I want to be in a position to help my cousin any time she calls, but I’m not. I used to be, and I will be again, but right now? I can’t even help myself.
I’m hoping all she needs is to talk things over.
“I didn’t want to have to call you,” she continues. “But I don’t have any other choice.”
“What’s due?” I ask, pacing out of the kitchen and back to the big picture windows in the living room.
“My student loans.”
My cousin never made it to graduation. She had a hard time the first two years of college. It wasn’t easy for her to settle on a major. She went through three student advisers, and all suggested she get a different degree. Now she’s part way through two separate majors and three minors and hasn’t taken classes in a year. The student loan companies won’t let her off the hook. She’s young and in severe debt.