Just on time.
Like clockwork.
I squint and my mouth drops open, gasping for air as I spend my loneliness onto the man’s chest. He claws at me, tearing at the flesh of my ass as he edges closer to release.
But I’m no longer interested. I raise myself off him with apopand roll onto my back, chest heaving, well aware I haven’t fully held up my end of the bargain.
He tugs at his condom-covered cock and grunts out, “Turn over.”
And I do as told, shifting my weight to the side and rolling over. He climbs on top of me, the weight of his body pushing me down into the mattress, and wastes no time burying himself in me once more.
The thrill is gone because once I’m spent, the world turns dark again. No purpose. No enjoyment. Just apathy. Lying dead while a man hammers into me on the verge of a breakthrough of ecstasy. Each thrust stings. His grunts and groans burn ragged while his motions become feral. He buries himself to the hilt, stills, and then finally collapses onto me, the sweat of his chest slicking my back while his weight suffocates me.
His breath is hot against the nape of my neck as he wages a war to catch his breath.
This is probably the greatest fuck of his life and hedoesn’t even care that I’ve slipped into my natural state of being kind of dead. But what else is a ghost, other than someone already dead?
An older man killed me once. And then he killed me again and again on repeat for three thousand nights. I was his most expensive toy, sold to him by a mother who really should have known better. I suppose she did know better. She just didn’t care. And then I suppose I killed him too, many times over—a constant sledgehammer to the heart of a man who only ever wanted to be loved. Too bad nobody ever told him he couldn’t buy it. He was always kept at a distance emotionally, but physically I was always his.
Until I wasn’t.
Until I pushed him down a flight of stairs.
The only times I really think of him are when I catch a glance at the ring on my left hand or in the silence that follows another empty fuck.
Empty-fuck of the night climbs off of me and shifts to the side of the bed. He lets out a soft chuckle as he rips off the condom and ties it in a knot. “I just realized I don’t even know your name.”
I turn to my side, my body still exposed, and cradle my head in my hand. “Call me Casper.”
“Yeah, right,” he says with a huff and stands up to collect his clothing off the floor. “Well, thanks for a good time, Casper.”
I watch as he puts on a show of getting dressed.He’s moseying and taking his time, and I’ve never quite understood the casualness of nudity when we spend most of our lives covering our bodies up. After he finishes buttoning his shirt, he reaches into the back of his pocket and pulls out his wallet.
Oh no.
He retrieves a fifty-dollar bill and drops it onto the bed beside me.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I sit up nd pull the sheets over my naked body. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“Yikes.” He reaches for the money, wads it up, and stuffs it into the front pocket of his black sweats.
“Yikes is right.” I gesture with my hand for him to take a look around. “This is my room. I paid for it, remember?”
He thumbs at his eyebrow and drops his head, unable to hide a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that, but maybe I could get your number?”
“I don’t have a phone,” I say, and it’s close to being the first time I haven’t lied to this man.
He shakes his head. Disbelief. “What kind of person doesn’t have a phone?”
“The kind that doesn’t want to be found.” I climb out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower, but it was nice meeting you.”
Another lie, and he has to have caught on by now that I’m a liar, but I shut the door behind me and wait with my body pressed against it. Just waiting for thefamiliar sound of a door slamming shut. But it doesn’t slam. Just opens and comes to a gentle close.
And then he’s gone, forever. Another lonely stranger on the same lonely road and we will exist only in each other’s memories. He’ll go back to his wife and she’ll be none the wiser that her husband gets off on dicking down young men in trashy motel rooms.
I avoid my reflection in the mirror as I step into the shower and turn on the water. Ice-cold water pelts my face before I’m thrashed with a rainbow of temperatures until steam pools all around me. I bow my head and inhale between the gaps of water ribbons that trail down my face.
Mama always said it was important to wash the sin off, but never took responsibility for being the brush, the tool, that painted it upon me. She’d look at me when the men were done with me with disgust in her eyes. Looking back, I try to reconcile that the disgust was her own. However, she never apologized, not even in her final breaths. The first time was when I was fifteen. She waited for me on the front porch while I sold myself inside. She took only half, so it didn’t feel like the worst deal in the world, but that’s what trauma does to you. Makes you rationalize the shitty things shitty people do to you.
