Chapter 6: The Hunger Deepens

The condom’s warmth still clung to my palm, phantom heat, imagined latex. The librarian’s glasses on the sticky floor. My mother’s throat working around that stranger’s cock, my father’s bare shaft sinking into her from behind while she swallowed another man’s cock. Three months of Friday nights.

Three months of this.

I made it to the Honda. My hands shook so bad I dropped the keys twice. The engine turned over with a sound too loud for the empty street, and I pulled away without checking my mirror, without signaling, without thinking. The tires squealed around the first corner.

The images followed me home.

Every red light burned like the glow from that gloryhole booth. Every shadow by the roadside was my father’s silhouette, his hips slapping against my mother’s ass while she moaned around a stranger’s cock. The smell was still in my nose, stale cum, cheap perfume, the metallic tang of latex and sweat. I could taste it. I could feel it, lodged in my throat like a bone I couldn’t swallow past.

The garage door opened. I killed the engine and sat in the dark, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles ached.

My jeans were damp. The crotch clung to my skin, soaked through with the evidence of what I’d done, standing there, rubbing myself through the denim, watching my own mother get used by two men at once. A hot wave of shame rolled through me, starting in my chest and ending between my legs, where it ignited into something else entirely.

Disgusting.

I was disgusting.

I stumbled out of the car, through the mudroom, up the stairs. My feet found the bathroom on autopilot. The shower knob squeaked as I twisted it, and water hammered against the tile, drowning out the sound of my own ragged breathing.

I didn’t wait for it to warm up.

Cold water hit my face first, then my shoulders, then my chest. I stood there fully clothed for a long moment, letting the shock of it ground me. Then I peeled off the wet cotton, the damp denim, and stepped under the spray.

The water ran clear. I scrubbed between my legs, hard, desperate, trying to erase the heat that still pulsed there.

It didn’t work.

My fingers found my clit before I could stop them. The pad of my middle finger circled the swollen nub, and a gasp escaped my lips, swallowed by the drumming water. I leaned against the tile, my forehead pressed to the cool ceramic, and let my hand work.