Chapter 1: The First Moan

Sarah Kline fumbled her keys into the lock of apartment 4B, the humid night air still clinging to her skin like a second, unwelcome layer. The parent-teacher conferences had dragged on for hours—smiling through complaints about little Timmy’s reading level, nodding while Mrs. Hargrove droned on about organic snacks, all while her feet screamed inside the sensible black flats she’d worn since seven that morning. Thirty-one years old, curvy in all the ways that made shopping for professional clothes a quiet battle, and tonight she felt every ounce of it. Her modest knee-length skirt clung to the soft swell of her hips, the pale blue blouse sticking damply between her shoulder blades. Even her glasses were fogged at the edges from the stuffy school gym.

She pushed the door open with her shoulder, kicked the flats off in the narrow entryway, and let them clatter across the scarred hardwood. The apartment exhaled its familiar cheap-rent sigh—distant city hum filtering through the single-pane windows, the low creak of old floorboards under her bare feet. She dropped her tote bag by the couch, padded straight to the kitchenette, and poured herself a generous glass of the five-dollar cabernet she kept on the counter for nights like this. The first sip burned pleasantly down her throat, loosening the knot between her shoulders just enough to remind her she was home.

In the bedroom she peeled off the blouse, the fabric whispering against her skin as it fell away. Her full C-cup breasts—D on a bad day when the bra was old—spilled softly over the plain beige cups, heavy and warm from the long evening. She unhooked the bra with a sigh of relief, letting it drop beside the blouse, then tugged on the oversized sleep shirt she’d stolen from an ex two boyfriends ago. The hem barely skimmed the tops of her thick thighs, the soft cotton brushing the wide curve of her hips and the gentle swell of her belly. She caught her reflection in the full-length mirror for a second—messy dark hair escaping its ponytail, cheeks still flushed from the walk home, the faint vanilla scent of her lotion mixing with the faint must of the old building. Ordinary. Tired. Normal.

She flopped onto the bed, phone in hand, and scrolled through the dating app she’d promised herself she’d delete last week. Another ghosted match stared back at her: Hey, sorry, work got crazy. She deleted it with a vicious tap, tossed the phone onto the nightstand, and reached for the wine again. The apartment was quiet except for the low thrum of traffic far below and the occasional creak of the building settling.