by Lily Zante
“My girlfriend’s hot—and she has a great body, now that she’s working out. How about you drop it and we move on?” He gave her a lopsided grin, which soon disappeared when she didn’t answer. “What’s the matter, Mel? Still so cold? Do you need more time or something? ‘Cos I want you back.”
It was now or never. She felt the saliva drain right out of her mouth, shivered when the hairs at the back of her neck stood to attention. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure coming back is the right thing.” The words fell out, came out easier than she thought, even though she was trapped in a corner.
He took a step closer and sucked the sudden strength she’d found right out of here. Bending down until his face was level with hers, he ran a finger down her cheek. “It must have been some night.” She instinctively moved back until her back pressed firmly against the back of the chair. She felt her chest fall and rise quickly, and with a heroic shift of focus managed to stand up slowly, hoping he would move back. He didn’t.
“Matt,” she said, edging away.
He ran his thumb slowly over her bottom lip. “I’ve missed you, Mel. Last night, when we should have been together, I missed you real bad. And when I look at those pictures of you, I get lonely. You make me want to—” His voice was low, the intensity in his eyes slicing through her.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to know what she made him feel. But her legs started to buckle under her. She opened her eyes again, forced herself to stand taller. “You make me feel cheap and dirty when you say things like that.”
“You’re nothing like cheap and dirty.” He moved closer, until she could feel his breath on her face. When she turned her head away, he took her jaw in his hands and moved her face back to center so that she was forced to stare at him. She moved her hand to pull his thumb away, but he gripped it. “You’re my girl and when you’re not around—when you need your space, it’s all I have.”
Say it. But she couldn’t. Paralysis glued her rigid, rendered her motionless. “I want my photos back.”
He did a double take. “Why?” He still held her hand even as she tried to edge away, the front of the chair hard against the back of her knee.
She dared herself to meet his stare and looked right at him when the unspoken consequences of her request finally hit him. She felt powerless.
Smiling, he slipped her bag off her shoulder and moved his hand around her neck, his fingers nudging against her nape. “Why do you want them back, Melissa?”
She jerked at his touch. “You should never have taken them in the first place.”
“I don’t recall you complaining too much when I took them.” He breathed in. “God, you smell good enough to eat. You have no idea how you make me feel.”
She tried to pry his finger away from her neck. “We need to talk.” But he’d dipped his head and sunk his lips onto hers. A ball of anger rolled inside her when she felt his heavy tongue deep in her mouth. She tried again, to pry his fingers away, but without success.
He groaned into her mouth and, suddenly seeing red, she tried to lift her knee to kick him but couldn’t move. She wriggled until he finally pulled away, his lips wet, his eyes dark, and his heavy breathing the only noise between them.
“Asshole,” she said, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
He stepped back, grinning at her. “Told you I missed you.”
Her rage simmered silently below the surface. “You’re not listening to me.”
“I heard you. What do you want to talk about?” She saw the muscle at the side of his temple twitch.
“I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve thought some more about us—you and me—and I don’t need anymore time to tell me what I already know.”
“And what would that be?” He moved back into her private space and leaned closer still, as close as he could without touching her.
“I can’t be with you anymore.”
“Can’t be? It sounds like someone’s stopping you.”
“I don’t want to be.” She tried to swallow lightly. “We don’t work.” She waited for his response.
Silence.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” She’d expected him to be that wheedling, needy Matt of a few days ago, the one who’d turned up on her doorstep and pleaded for her to think about it. This time, his gaze said otherwise.
“Seems to me that you’ve already made your mind up.” He didn’t move an inch.
Her heart pounded and she heard the rush of blood in her ears. And saw the bulge in his trousers. She swallowed again. She had to get out now.
If only it was as easy as walking out of his place and out of his life forever. And starting anew with Noah. “I want one thing.” She picked up her bag and held it in front of her stomach again. It was the one thing that kept his body from touching hers.
“What’s that?”
“My photos. I want them back. Every single one of them. Off your phone and off your PC.” If she had only known back then how things would turn out, she would have spoken up sooner, defended herself, not given in to his sulky moods. Not let him have it his way.
“See, that’s just it. I want one thing too.” He licked his lips.
She prepared herself. “What?”
“You.”
She exhaled slowly. “I don’t know how to get this through to you, but I don’t think we’re going to work.”
He smiled then. “Who’s talking about us working?” He dipped his head towards her until he was so close to her she could feel his hot breath skimming her skin. She swallowed the urge to sprint out of the door.
“I’m talking about a goodbye present.”
She frowned. A present? “What goodbye present?”
“A last time with you. You know what I mean.” She shrank back as his intention revealed itself to her already troubled mind.
“A final fuck.” He demanded, in case she was left in doubt.
The reality of his demand flared before her and she suppressed the thought in the moment it took her to blink once, twice. “You can’t be serious.” He traced a finger lightly up and down her waist. “One last time. Think about it.”
“You’re disgusting.” Her voice lowered to a whisper.
“And then I’ll let you go.”
“I’m not yours to let go. I can walk out of here anytime I want.”
He moved away completely, held his hands up as if admitting defeat. “So go.”
She flinched at the sudden howl of laughter out in the hallway. In the fog of fear surrounding her, the thought that she wasn’t alone, that the other guys would help her, came to her. But her body felt limp. Her legs, her arms, her head were heavy and it was a struggle to move, even though she focused on the door—a mere few tantalizing steps away.
She could escape.
“I’m as hard as hell for you right now, Mel. Think about it. One last time, and I’ll give you the photos. All of them. And I’ll never hound you again or beg you to come back. You’ll never have to worry about those pictures turning up on some social media site, or being accidentally sent to your family, or hell, your employer. You wouldn’t want those images on the net, would you?”
She’d been frozen in place, unable to take a step forward the whole time she’d been staring at the door.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she whispered, turning to look at him in shock. But even as her gaze drifted from his face and fell to the floor, she knew what he was capable of. And that she could not get away.
“Wouldn’t I?”
“You bastard.”
“Come on, Mel. What do you say?” His voice, the lowest she’d ever heard it, spoke softly into her ear and her heart pounded against her ribcage as if it too was desperate for escape.
Chapter 29
One time. One time only. Then never again. Ever. If she did this one thing, she would never have to worry about him posting those pictures of her anywhere. She’d never have to worry about them showing up suddenly on her c
omputer at work, or being emailed to her on her phone, in a year, or five, ten or twenty years from now.
One time. She still hadn’t taken a step forward. One time.
“Come on, Mel. One last time. Give me a proper ‘goodbye’ ‘cos you know how much I’m going to miss you and that beautiful body of yours.”
Her mind scrambled to make meaning of his filthy request. She tried to convince herself it would just be sex. No different from most of the other times with him. It had only been sex then too. Two bodies rubbing together. No emotion, no feeling, nothing much in it for her.
One time.
One.
More.
Time.
She could do this. Nobody would ever find out what she had done. How she’d lowered herself.
“One time,” she said, surprising herself with her ability to suddenly find her voice.
“Really?” The way his eyebrows lifted told her he’d not been expecting this answer.
“I want all the photos. All of them. Put them on a memory stick now. And I want to see you delete them in front of me. Do you hear me?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “Yeah, sure.”
“Now.”
“Now?” He angled his head, looking at her closely with a mixture of surprise and urgency, as though she might change her mind suddenly.
“The photos first.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.” He moved fast. Grabbed his phone. She moved over to watch him closely. “I want to see you delete them.” Her voice didn’t even sound like hers and she was already miles away in her head, in some far off distant place. But she watched him like a hawk. He came over to her and flicked through them, deleting each one before forwarding to the next one.
Jesus Christ. How many had he taken? There must have been about twenty or more. She’d never realized there were that many.
“Done,” he said, finally, looking a little shamefaced.
“Your PC.” She motioned over to this desk, and he started on that next. It had a password and she watched him type it in. Then he fiddled around with the different folders, pointing and clicking his mouse until he had located her images.
“Show me and then I want to see you delete them,” she ordered.
He showed her the thumbnails of files she recognized as hers and then he copied them over for her onto a memory stick. Then he hit the delete button on his computer.
“Here you go.” He removed the memory stick from the computer and handed it to her. “Why do you want them anyway? I thought you hated those pictures.”
“They’re mine.” She wasn’t sure, but something told her it made sense for her to have them. She took the USB and put it away safely into her bag, finding herself watching everything going on around her as if she had stepped outside her body. Time had slowed down. Opening her bag, dropping the USB stick inside it, zipping it shut again, seemed to take forever and all the while that beating drum she’d been hearing was the sound of her own frightened heart.
“You’ve got what you wanted.” His voice was hoarse.
She heard him and watched him walk over to lock the door, but felt rooted to the spot, unable to move. He sauntered back to her, raising his arms and tearing off his T-shirt.
Now.
She was filled with dread; acutely aware of her tongue sticking to the root of her mouth, of her shallow breaths that made her feel dizzy.
Shirtless, he approached her. “Taking this off would be a start.” He moved the strap of her handbag off her shoulder and her body started to shake at his touch.
Counting.
She would count. It would give her something to focus on. He started to slip off her sweatshirt, but she moved away and, without saying a word, began to do it herself.
It felt strange. Preparing for sex. Like a clinical examination. She slipped off her sneakers next, then her jeans, until all she had on was her T-shirt and underwear. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. When he came up behind her and she felt his hardness against her bottom, she knew he was completely naked. Every fiber in her body tensed.
His fingers slipped through her hair then slid along her arms like a thousand spiders crawling over her skin, until they reached the bottom hem of her T-shirt. “Everything comes off.” He tugged the flimsy cotton up and over her head, and released a low moan as he stared at her body.
She watched, as if from another place in the room, somewhere over by the door, or so it felt. She wasn’t here, the person who let him do this to her.
When he had stripped her bare, he laid her down against the bed. When he tried to kiss her, she turned her head away, twice. “No kissing.” Her voice was dead, barely a whisper he either didn’t hear or ignored as he draped his body over hers.
She reached down to check he had protection, and shuddered knowing he was bigger and harder than she ever remembered from before. She knew just how badly he had missed this. Not her. Just this. She started to count.
Moving her face away again, she refused to let his kiss reach her. Stiff fingers grabbed her mouth. “We had a deal,” he hissed, before reaching down, and plundering her mouth with his.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…
Salt tears mixed with saliva and then rolled down the sides of her face as he moved down hungrily to her breasts.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty…
Her arms lay splayed out on the bed, and if she stared at the dirty mark on the ceiling she could temporarily fixate on that instead of this. He was like a rutting pig, and she was dry, and in pain. She clenched her teeth.
Fifty-four, fifty-five, fifty-six…
Ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three…
She didn’t even realize when it was over, when he’d pulled out, and clambered off her. She was still counting and the tears still rolled down her cheeks.
He looked over at her as he dressed. “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” His words were spoken in fast anger. She got up quickly and rushed her clothes on as fast as she could.
“Mel?” He buttoned up his jeans and walked over to her when she didn’t reply. She threw on her T-shirt, covered her bare skin as fast as she could, then climbed into the safety of her jeans.
Ignoring him completely, she looked around the room making sure she hadn’t left anything. Then opened her purse and double-checked she had the memory stick.
“Mel?” He stood directly in front of her, blocking her path. His face was softer now, almost as if an ounce of regret had mellowed the hardness. She wanted to spit at his face.
“It wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“I don’t even know you anymore.”
“Come on, we were good once.” He seemed to want proof of validation.
“When you were the IT guy and nothing else.” She sidestepped him and walked towards the door, needing to escape and put this sorry episode behind her, to forever wash it out of her memories.
He buttressed himself against the door. “Don’t say that. You make me sound like a monster.”
“You are a monster.” She tugged at the door handle. “Let me go. We had a deal and I delivered my end of it.”
“I love you, Mel.”
“Fuck you.”
He moved then, to let her go, but followed closely on her heels, still shirtless. She charged out of the room, down his end of the hallway and prayed that the kitchen would be empty.
Like a playful puppy at her heels, he pranced behind her, trying to grab her attention. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to—”
“Oh, hey, Matt. I didn’t know you were—”
She’d walked through the kitchen, her eyes trained on the front door up ahead. But someone was already in there. The greeting stopped Melissa in her tracks and she knew Matt, behind her, had stopped too.
“Hey. I uh—” Matt stood beside her. Melissa stopped and turned.
And saw Noah staring at them both as if they were apparitions. His face a picture of scarlet disbelief
Her morning breakfast churned inside her
stomach, like spider ants on the rampage, eating their way out. Noah’s mouth hung open and he looked from Melissa to Matt. She recognized the fleeting movement behind his eyes, the way his head lifted up slowly, and then he swallowed, and composed himself quickly.
He’d already placed his verdict.
“This is Melissa.” Matt turned to her, as though he’d claimed a victory, oblivious to her distress. “And this is Noah, the new guy who’s just moved in.”
Her body turned to pulp, and she felt as though her insides would cave any moment. The look of hurt in Noah’s eyes cut her to the core. She stared back, beaten, guilty as sin, seeing her shame reflected in the expression he wore.
Matt, topless, and barefoot, wearing only jeans was advertisement enough of what had gone on. But she couldn’t say anything.
“Hi,” was the only word she could utter. She looked at him, but he barely glanced at her, dismissing her as casually as lint on a carpet with a cursory nod of his head.
“Nice to meet you,” Noah said, his eyes cold. In the next second, he looked away from her; it was as if he’d pulled a switch, and shut off any feelings he might have had for her.
She had no words, no voice, no movement, no will. It was only the way Matt looked at her that made her snap back into the present. “She wanted to pay me a morning visit, seeing that we didn’t get to see each other last night.” His bragging words would have humiliated her further, but she was beyond the point of caring.
Panic settled into her bloodstream, seeped into her cells.
She had lost everything.
“Happy New Year, guys.” Noah’s greeting was aimed at Matt. “I didn’t know you were busy, sorry, dude.” The way he said “busy” made her insides squirm.
Frozen in time and space in the kitchen, Matt appeared to be the only one of them who felt no awkwardness at this meeting. At last Noah moved. He placed his cup in the sink and slowly walked away, not looking at her again.
At that moment, the kettle he’d switched on, finished boiling. Melissa watched the steam rise out of the snout and the sound of a door slam hard.
She ran out of the apartment, heartbroken.
Chapter 30
