Chapter 20
Bridget
I had just gotten the silicone dicking down of a lifetime, and I still felt nothing.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so turned off during a live show, and I’d ended up faking an orgasm, which felt gross—I’d always taken pride in the fact that I wasn’t faking anything for the viewers, but I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I definitely wasn’t explaining to a horny audience who was here to rub one out real quick I’m just devastated by not having been enough to keep around the person I care for the most and turn it into a therapy session to the tune of a fucking machine dolefully pounding my pussy.
But I did my part to look sweaty and tired and spent even though mostly I just felt a little sore down there, and I gave the audience my best attempt at blissed-out satisfaction saying bye and thanks for being a part, and I ended the live show, pulling my panties back on and slumping back in the chair.
I’d been on that live for a while… trying to get to a real orgasm before I finally gave up.
My computer said almost two in the morning.
A whole lot of interest in late-night lives from disaster sapphics with fucked-up sleep schedules, some west-coasters, and a smattering of Euro girls who, I guess, wanted to start the day off right.
Always a lucrative time to run a show. I hadn’t been doing them as much lately…
preferred to be in bed earlier, adapting more to Victoria’s sleep schedule.
But my inspiration had quickly run dry, and I wasn’t able to knock out other content like I had been while Victoria and I were…
Just a couple days now until she left. I’d already been talking with a landlord for a smaller place that was, as I’d planned a whole lifetime ago, out in the middle of nowheresville.
I didn’t want to move there, but I knew my income was about to flatline while I got over Victoria, so I had to play it safe and smart this time.
Get steady, get solvent, and then worry about getting somewhere I liked better.
So I kept telling myself, anyway, but… I still hadn’t signed the contract, and I only had two and a half weeks left until my lease was up here.
My phone lit up with a text from Gina. omgggg you were so sexyyy along with a row of hot-face emojis. I opened the message.
had fun?
yesss evie watched it with me and it ended with her fucking me face-first into the mattress so thank you!!
I nodded. At least somebody had a good time. I am so happy to have helped
She called me. I made a face, but I answered the call. “Hi, Gina, hi, Evie.”
“Oh, Evie’s getting snacks right now. You know, plowing a girl from behind takes some energy. Are you okay? You’re texting like you’re not okay!”
“Yeah… just did that live show because I thought maybe it would help distract me, but now I’m just sitting here tired and sticky and sore and sad about Victoria.
I just hate that she’s so hurt and so afraid to have anything good and how not only does this hurt me, but I know she’s going to go and experience this same thing over and over again unless somebody can find the magic words to convince her she doesn’t deserve to suffer, but even then I wish it could have been me to find those words, so I’m just going to sit here and mope and cry until I wither away into a little husk and die. ”
“Oh, no, don’t die,” she said, her voice all too genuine. I needed to stop saying things like that in front of Gina. “Do you want me to come over there and give you a hug? I can put some clothes on and book a flight real quick. Evie can come and she can bring those snacks!”
“I could really use a hug. I just… really want it from Victoria.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry about how things have been going…”
“It’s… it’s fine. Really. I’ve got no one to blame for it but myself.” I shrugged. “Maybe I should get into casual sex or something. All that… oxytocin release of actually having sex with someone, I’m not used to it. I need to build up better senses around these things for if it happens again.”
“You could come visit me and Evie and Cara!”
“I’m sure a foursome with you all would be super fun and all that, but right now the thought just feels sad.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair. I would feel that way too. Have you considered, like, a really big cup of hot chocolate? With saltine crackers? Dipped in? I like it like that.”
Thank god I had friends to keep me grounded. Even if they were a little more unhinged than most. “Maybe I’ll go try that,” I said. “Hot chocolate with saltines. Yeah. Why not?”
“Yay, I hope it’s delicious! Just…” Her tone got more serious. “Just sit with yourself and give yourself time, okay? We’re all here for you. And just for the record… I don’t think it’s a lost cause. Maybe Victoria just needs some time.”
“Don’t give me false hope. Go tell your girlfriend I said hi and have her sit on your face and stuff.”
“Okay. But I’ll be thinking of you.”
“While you’re doing that, best to just be thinking of her.” I hung up, setting the phone down with a weary sensation that made my face ache.
I wasn’t thinking things like Victoria just needs time. If I let myself go down that rabbit hole, I’d never make it back out. But Gina was right that all I could do was take it one day at a time, one… one hour at a time. That was closer to how it felt right now.
And right now, hot chocolate sounded good.
Probably without saltines. I stopped to give Mary a hug, burying my face against her briefly so I didn’t cry, and I headed out of the room, just pausing long enough to pull on a skirt so I looked decent.
I mean, it was a slutty little miniskirt, so decent was a stretch, but whatever, the hope was to not run into Victoria in the middle of the night anyway.
And in so thinking, I doomed myself to the exact fate I’d been trying to avoid, because I slipped into the bathroom, washed my hands, and I nipped into the hallway and felt my heart stop at the sight of Victoria, standing in the living room with her back to me, lit only by the streetlights from the window, looking up at the painting on the wall.
Well, painting was generous. I’d only gotten it up on the wall because Victoria liked it and I was a sucker for her.
Despite her best efforts, she’d never won me over on the weird rectangles that made a classic Rothko painting.
Hard to believe somewhere out there was an original version of that painting that was worth a million dollars or something.
We’d always snuck past each other with glassy half-acknowledgements ever since we’d ended whatever we were doing.
But now, like this, I found I couldn’t take my eyes off her—something so small and vulnerable about the woman looking up at the painting.
Probably wondering if she was supposed to subtly throw it out as part of her move-out, since she knew I’d never liked it.
But knowing what she’d said about those paintings before…
maybe I assigned more meaning to it than it really was. Which felt appropriate for a Rothko.
I moved carefully, my heart beating fast, as I sidled up next to her. “Not to offend,” I said, and she didn’t react—knew I’d been there, knew I’d been coming. Had been hoping I would? “But it’s just squares.”
“You know,” she said quietly, “he was a remarkably tortured soul.”
“Well, yeah. Modern artist and all that.”
“He died under tragic circumstances while still bemoaning that he was misunderstood…”
I shrugged. “He could have painted something other than vaguely menacing squares if he wanted to be understood.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a smile flicker over her features. “Maybe that’s why he always spoke to me. Maybe there was always something in those paintings that was just… screaming, waiting for someone to look and see something that had always been waiting to be seen.”
I looked at her, and I looked back at the painting, staring for a long minute before I looked back at her. “No, I think they’re just squares.”
“They’re rectangles.”
“Okay, I take it back. High art indeed.”
She laughed—a soft, barely-there thing, but I felt like I hadn’t heard her laughter in years, and I ached, wanting to wrap myself up in it. “You talked to my mother,” she said quietly, and I scratched my head.
“Oh, yeah. Um… I was moody and I was going around burning bridges.”
“Not the best arsonist,” she said with a wistful smile back at the painting. “She still told me she wished I would get together with you. Said you were… intelligent, creative, hardworking, dedicated…”
I blinked fast. “She… said that? She wants you dating a girl whose job is to get fucked on camera moaning like a slut?”
“She didn’t quite use those words.”
“She sure didn’t seem fond of the idea when I talked to her.”
She laughed thinly. “I guess she just has to take some time to come around on things.” She looked down. “She invited me around for cinnamon rolls she made.”
“Oh. That’s… decent of her.”
“We never… had cinnamon rolls except for Christmas morning,” she said quietly, her voice barely there. “Never.”
I looked over at her, my heart beating faster. I wasn’t claiming to be a great genius, but… I could tell there was more to this than just wanting to have cinnamon rolls. “What… did she say?”
She took a long breath. “That she loved me.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know what your problem is, Bridget,” she laughed wetly, turning to face me with the first buds of tears on her cheeks, eyes crinkling through a breathless smile.
“I do all of this—I swear I do everything wrong, and I hurt you like this, I let you down, and I won’t even give it to you straight, and what do you do? ”
“C-cry, mostly.”