It was an addiction, really. It had been slowly spiraling out of her control, not that she cared to control it. The random men, the pain, the way they used her, hurt her, choked her. It left her tingling in ways that no other moment of her life did. She didn’t want a nice guy. Indeed, those men scared her. She couldn’t understand what they wanted or what their motives were. Clearly, they were up to something, but what that was, was hidden.

The men at the bars, in the chat rooms, the ones that leered at her, she knew what they wanted. There was a strange safety in that, even if they didn’t care if she wanted it as well. And that was fine with her. People pretended otherwise, but experience had taught her that was how things worked. It was that way in high school, in college, everywhere. And you either fought or accepted it. You might even begin to seek it out.

After a drunken night, alone and depressed, she had met some guys hanging out at a bar. Did some coke with them, partied, made out, and danced, and afterward she didn’t remember much. Until the morning at least.

Then, she woke to a man grunting and thrusting into her, finishing and dumping a load into her. He got up and left, which was when she realized she wasn’t even in a room, but in the dirty stairwell of some run-down apartment complex. Her body was covered in bruises, and she reeked of cum and piss. She had been used and just dumped. She slowly walked home, barefoot, her purse stolen. When she got home, she vomited in the toilet, sick. She passed out again, exhausted, dirty against the clean toilet.