I didn’t remember when I fell asleep.Only that the moment the door closed behind him, everything inside me caved in.
I needed space.
I needed air.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
My phone was buzzing somewhere beyond the door,again.The sound had been invading my subconscious as I still drifted between sleep and awake.The vibration felt aggressive, desperate, like it was trying to crawl through the walls and reach me.
I pushed myself up slowly, one hand braced against the vanity as I rose, limbs trembling like I’d run a marathon in my sleep.I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and winced.
Mascara smudged.Eyes puffy.My lip was marked red from where I’d bitten it to keep the sobs in.
The white silk slip I was still wearing hung from one shoulder, stained with tears, wrinkled and twisted around me like some discarded costume.
I let it fall to the floor and stepped into the shower.
The heat hit my skin like a purge.Steam rose around me, fogging the mirror behind the glass.I stood there, still, arms braced against the tile, and let the water do what I couldn’t.
Wash him off.
But my mind wouldn’t let him go.
He hadn’t said a word when he walked in last night.
Not hello, or I missed you.Not I love you, or How was your day.He just slammed the door, set down his keys, and had his hands on me before I could get a word out.
It was like he was starving.
There was nothing gentle about it.No slow kiss, no checking in.
Just heat.Hunger.Hands everywhere.Clothes half-ripped, breath caught in throats.
He took me right there in the hallway.
No words.Just grunts and growls and the way he liked it.The way I liked it, too, if I was being honest.
Rough.Bare.Deep.
He called me names I used to blush at.Called me his.Said I was made for him.
I used to think our passion meant something.
That it proved how intense our love was.How deep our connection ran.
That no one else could ever feel like this.
But maybe that was all we ever were.
Maybe that was allIever was to him.
I had made him wear condoms at first.Told him I wasn’t comfortable going without.
But he wore me down with soft words.Loving ones.Then the dirty ones about how good it felt to be inside me bare.Saying the idea of having any kind of barrier between us was unbearable.
He would whisper about how I was the only one.And then, when I knew...when I found out...he promised me that he hadn’t touched his wife in months, before he even met me.
That I could trust him.
