Page 20 of Venus

I’m halfway through a protein bar and a Monster energy drink.

Boots off, hogging the entire bunkroom couch while the low murmur of an old documentary plays in the background.

The station is quiet, with the always-lingering smell of coffee, sweat, and soot that never quite leaves no matter how often we mop the floors.

My phone vibrates, and I jolt upright when I see the name on the screen.

Venus: You busy tonight?

Just like that. No emoji. No excited punctuation. An uncomplicated question with a very complicated answer.

Me: Sorry. On shift until tomorrow morning.

Venus: Tomorrow night, then?

I stare at the screen for much longer than needed, just trying to form rational thoughts. I know what she wants. She’s made it very clear it’s the only thing she’s willing to take from me, despite me being so ready to give her everything .

Me: What time?

Venus: 10?

Me: Okay.

I drop my phone into my lap and rub my face with both hands, stretching the skin under my eyes, hoping that when my skin pops back into place it will knock some sense into me.

It doesn’t.

A few weeks ago, her texts asking to meet up would have had me cleaning the apartment, giving my face a fresh shave, maybe even stocking the fridge with her favorite snacks. Maybe even shaving my nuts.

Do you know how uncomfortable shaving your nuts is?

Now, though? Her texts just sit uneasy in my gut. Sits heavy on my chest like a weight that’s waiting to crush me flat into the ground.

The thing we had before, it worked when it was new. It worked when I didn’t care, or at least tried to tell myself I didn’t.

Now? It just hurts. Like an inevitable breakup, and we were never together in the first place. Just a dull and constant ache that I can’t remedy with ibuprofen.

Venus has always been clear with me. She didn’t want strings and she didn’t want pressure. She just wanted a good time. For a while, I was happy to give her that, but it’s become too obvious that it’s no longer enough for me .

I want her laugh to echo off the walls in the morning and her snoring to fill my ears every night. I want her to tell me how her day went in the morning after a shift while she showers and I brush my teeth.

I don’t want her to leave after a good night. I want her to stay.

And that’s the exact opposite of what she wants.

For a moment, I think about canceling. Just texting her back and making up some sorry excuse for why I can’t see her.

But I don’t, because the truth is, I’m not ready to let her go, even if every part of me is screaming to just get it over with to protect myself from any more hurt.

I finish my shift. Three false alarms and a tiny trash fire. Nothing that wears me out enough to give her a truthful excuse of ‘ I’m tired ’ to cancel on her. So I drive home, take a long, hot shower, and try to pull myself together enough to try and convince her to stay this time.

I’m still dripping wet, trying to use my towel to remove the conditioner I didn’t rinse out well enough from my hair when I hear a knock on my door. I wrap the towel around my hips and walk to the door, peeking through the peephole.

I check the clock hanging above my couch. 9:42. She’s early.

My heart jumps as if it doesn’t know any better. When I open the door, she’s standing there in a hoodie she’s stolen from me and a smile brighter than the sun. I wish I could give her that same smile back, but I can’t, and she notices .

Her smile falls. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” I reply, trying to keep my voice normal. I find myself leaning against the doorframe, almost blocking her way in. Her eyes sweep over my wet hair and bare chest. “Sorry, you’re a little early.”

She shrugs. “I was bored.”

Yeah. That’s the problem. I’m the sucker she runs to when she’s bored.

“But I can come back if you need some extra time to get pretty for me,” she adds.

“No, you’re good. Just give me a sec to get dressed.”

She walks past me like she belongs in my apartment, like how I desperately wished she did. I close the door behind her and she drops her bag and tosses off her hoodie. Underneath, that red lace bra from before.

“You don’t need clothes,” she says, before stripping off her leggings too.

Like the sad, lovesick man that I am, I give her exactly what she wants. No bargaining, no sweet kisses, no anything that would make this mean anything to her.

I get on my knees and pull her panties down her legs. I hook one of her thighs over my shoulder and suck on her clit from my place on the ground. She grinds her hips on my face, spreading her wetness across my lips and chin.

I try to keep eye contact with her, but it’s almost like she knows that’s what I want, and so she looks everywhere but at me. Like she doesn’t want to see what she’s done to me.

She doesn’t want to see how much I want more than just sex.

Like she can feel my thoughts, she steps away from me, takes my hand, and pulls me to the bedroom. She climbs on the bed, face down, ass up, wiggling her hips and showing me exactly what she wants from me.

But if this is really what she wants, then I want her to see me. So I force her to flip over. Not in a rough way, but in a desperate way. She finally finds the courage to look at me, and only then do I slip inside her. No condom this time.

Just me and her and nothing in between.

And I do mean literally nothing. She’s looking at me, but there’s nothing there. It’s like she’s a shell. The walls I’ve spent so long trying to break through with love, she’s rebuilt them.

I snap my hips into hers, no longer interested in prolonging this. This should be a beautiful moment, but instead, it’s just two people who couldn’t be more opposite in their expectations, pretending everything is okay.

She grabs my shoulders and forces my head into her neck, no longer willing to look at me, and I don’t fight it. I simply fuck her like she wants.

Emotionlessly. Passionless.

I seat myself deep inside her when I come, and I’m not even sure I paid attention to if she finished as well .

But this is the kind of inattentiveness she should expect from sex that should mean nothing.

This is what she wants, right? So I shouldn’t force myself to feel bad about it.

When we catch our breath still tangled in each other’s arms, there’s a moment that lasts no more than a millisecond, where she looks like maybe she’s considering staying.

But I know better than that.

“It’s late. I’m kinda beat from work. You should probably head out soon,” I say, though it’s really not what I want.

She stiffens. “Oh,” she whispers, then untangles herself from me. “Right. Yeah.”

A stupid part of my heart convinces me I see a flicker of hurt in her eyes, but I know better than that, too.

She gets dressed in silence, facing away from me to save us both the awkward glances.

I don’t want her to leave, but I also don’t want my heart to feel like a liability to her.

No dinner. No small talk. No breakfast.

She texts, I answer. We meet, we fuck, we leave.

That’s our pattern for a month .

At first, it’s a way for me to take back control of this thing we have. I follow the rules, never overstaying my welcome or bombarding her with my feelings. I tell myself that this is better, that I’m saving myself the heartbreak.

But by the fourth or fifth time, it starts wearing down on me, like a grindstone straight to my soul. Every time I see her, it now fills me with dread. I’m cold, robotic, and hollow when I’m around her. Literally a different person than when I’m with my buddies or anyone else.

I’m no longer saving myself the heartbreak, just prolonging it.

Venus is different too. She smiles less. She’s quieter. She’s less mouthy, which is one of the things I love about her.

But she never bothers to ask why I’ve suddenly grown detached, and the longer this goes on, the less I think she cares. I won’t bother giving her any more of me, and I won’t offer her another version of this.

One, because I’m scared she’ll say no, and two, because she’s always made it so clear to me that it’s not what she wants.

This time, when the door closes behind her, I go back to my room and sit on the edge of my bed. I stare at my rumpled sheets that still linger with her scent. My chest feels tight. My throat burns.

This isn’t working for me. Not anymore. I’m not willing to keep going like this–with this distance between us .

I miss her laugh and the way she borrows my socks while hers are in my washing machine. The way she hums while she brushes her teeth and steals a handful of black licorice before she leaves.

I miss her. Not the hookup or the distraction. Her.

I get up and walk to the kitchen, filling a glass of water from the tap. I take a small sip and stare at my empty apartment. It feels uncomfortably big and void of life. This has been my home for years, but suddenly, it’s missing something.

And I know exactly what it is.

Or rather–who.

The next time she texts me comes just the next day.

Venus: Free tonight?

I don’t reply right away, just let it sit there while I stare at the words on the screen.

I want her, I do. Just not like this.

Me: Can we talk first?

She reads the message. Then a typing bubble pops up. Then disappears. Then comes back before disappearing again, before it leaves for good.

No response. The phone is as empty as my apartment.

I wait aimlessly on my couch with a movie on mute in the background. I just want an answer, even if it confirms this is as one-sided as it feels.

She never bothers replying. I tell myself she’s just busy…or just forgot to press send. I set my phone down an d resist the urge to check it every few seconds. I even ignore the phantom vibrations. Just let it sit there.

On the back of my phone case, there’s a holographic sticker of a stegosaurus that she won from the bowling alley. It’s a harmless, stupid thing, but it’s something else that hurts my chest.

Just another reminder of something I can’t have.

I don’t know if she’ll reply, but even if she doesn’t, I need to tell her the truth. Just let her know what’s going on with us from my perspective, and hope to God she’ll meet me halfway. I want to be seen by her. I want her to choose this. Choose us.

I can’t keep carving myself up into little pieces just to keep her more comfortable.

If she’s not even willing to hear me out, then I’ll have to let her go.

Even if it splits me open.