She had never been truly happy for any length of time in her entire life. Not really. Worse still, she had never really succeeded or achieved anything of note despite her intelligence. She had tried, of course. But she had always failed. She had tried to be good enough for her parents but it was never enough. She had tried to excel at school, but there weren’t enough hours to study, to master all the material that would be needed for her to be the best. Not only that, but the constant pressure tore at her flaws and insecurities, slowly unpeeling her mental health apart until she was ready to shatter.

She had tried to be a good girl outside of school as well. She had dated repeatedly but she struggled to maintain any long relationships. She didn’t want to be a slut but men could smell the weakness in her and would just take what they wanted and leave as she cried and leaked their contempt for her from between her legs. Even the one she eventually married after dropping out of college cared little for her. She was just a notch in his professional life, to have a dutiful wife. Everything she did for him went unnoticed. He didn’t care what she had to say nor what she did at home, as long as she smiled the right way and laughed at the right times at dinner parties. And all the time, she was slowly dying inside. No one saw it, no one cared, and she thought more and more of the pills in the cabinet. How many to take and which ones would be the quickest. It would be the only way she could ever escape.

And then at the grocery one day, she ran into him. He smelled the damage and desperation on her like all the abusers before had. He followed her around the store and when no one was nearby, he pounced. She felt his hand on her ass, rubbing insistently, as he chatted to her like he had known her for years. Anyone walking by would have thought they were simply old friends, despite him being twice her age. She didn’t respond as her head tilted down, suddenly meek, just an object with a set of holes again. She wanted to cry as her heart raced and her cunt soaked her panties. He whispered in her ear that he knew what she was as he pulled her away from her cart. She meekly followed him to the men’s room that reeked of urine and when he pushed her into the stall, she put her hands on the cold wall. She knew what he wanted and cried at how easily his cock slid into her. He used her, all but raped her, bent over a toilet backed up with too much toilet paper with a swirl of shit on top. And she came. God, how she had cum on his cock.

When he pulled out, his white dripped out of her cunt into the dirty toilet. He turned her around and did something that truly terrified her. He kissed her, softly and gently, then patted her head. He thanked her, stroked her cheek, and demanded her phone. She pulled it out and unlocked it before sitting down, unprompted, and sucked his cock clean. She didn’t flinch as he took pictures and he wiped her mouth clean as he handed it back to her. Then he slapped her so hard her head hit the stall. He kissed her gently once more and left. She sat there for an hour in the men’s room, staring at the photos and the number he had left for her.

It was a month before she called him. After another dinner party where she was ignored by her husband, and where she served no purpose other than to ensure his checklist of things a perfect host had was completed. She couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed her beyond a peck on the cheek. When he had last asked her how her day had been. When he had last appreciated anything she had done. He had even shoved her away that night when she urgently tried to give him a blow job, asking her what the fuck was wrong with her. She had gone into the bathroom after that as he fell asleep and pulled out over twenty pills from a dozen different medications. Then she had counted out twenty more. She wanted to swallow them so badly. And then, the thought of the stranger at the store entered her mind. She looked at her phone and at the pills for several long minutes before putting them in her purse, and then she called him.

The next night found her being used worse than the cheapest whore by him. She didn’t even know his name but she screamed and cried as he slapped her around, choked her unconscious so many times she could barely think, and fucked her ass bloody. By the time he was done, she was in a fetal position and sobbing hysterically. But then, he truly terrified her. He picked her up and gently sat her down in the shower. He knelt and cleaned her, kissing every mark on her battered body. When he held her and thanked her again under the hot water, she sobbed with a fear she had never felt before. It was the most unnatural thing to her to be held like that and she honestly wanted to die. But he didn’t let go. Not after five minutes. Not after twenty. Only when the water turned to ice did he move, and only then to pick her up and carry her to bed. She cried the entire time, a wild animal feeling things it had never felt before and was incapable of trusting them. A broken animal terrified of a simple act, howling in the night.