Chapter nine:
I’m home and the woman upstairs is being banged by some new john. Thethump, thump, thumpof the bed against the floorboards makes me agitated tonight. Normally it doesn’t bother me so much. It even provides some small semblance of comfort most nights. It’s one of my constants, something I can rely on. The world and its people continue to fuck no matter what’s happening. We could all go down in a burning mass and people would still be fucking their lives away while the earth crumbled beneath their trembling knees.
But not tonight.
Tonight it grinds on my every nerve.
I think about Carrie, and what she’ll think when I bring her here and show her my home—her new home. She never cared about things like that before. Her house was the shittiest on the street.
Her porch paint was always peeling.
Her lawn always overgrown.
Her windows forever dirty.
But perhaps she’ll care now.
Perhaps she likes the things that Mister Fancy Asshole gives her—things that I can’t afford to buy her, not on my minimum-wage job. Perhaps he takes her to nice places and buys her nice things—things that he should be buying for his loving wife.
Oh Carrie, what are you doing?
First things first, I’ll need to get a better job. But who’s going to employ someone like me? Someone with my history? The thought makes me angry again.
She’s done so much with her life, I can see that with her fancy coat and shiny hair. And all the while I’ve done nothing with mine. She’ll see that too. She’s moved forward and I’ve stayed still.
Of course, it’s not all my fault. I wasn’t always free, not like her.
She escaped.
She got out.
Ran away.
I pace my apartment, going from one room to the next, thinking of ways to make it nicer for her. Better for her. It’s clean, of course it is, but it’s not good enough for her. She deserves better. Much better.
A lamp here. A rug there. A picture hung to cover up the cracks. But it will never be perfect, not like she deserves. But then that was what we were about. We were the imperfect ones. The ones that didn’t fit in.
Her, with her lice-riddled hair and abusive father.
Me, with my overbearing mother, hard-working father, and my own obsessive nature.
We were perfect in our imperfectness.
My stomach rumbles in hunger but I can’t eat. It’s not food I’m hungry for anyways. I stand at my spot by the window and I think of her. One hand down my pants, tugging on myself.
And it’s like she’s here with me.
Her hand on my cock.
Fingers wrapped tightly around it, pulling it up and down.
Her mouth kissing my neck.
Stroking me.
Sucking on my earlobe, and God, I can’t take it…
I make myself cum. And it’s the best fucking orgasm I’ve ever had, barring the one I had with her. And I’m whispering her name and thanking her, like I always do. And I can’t wait for us to be together again.
