Chapter 1 #2
"They can hear you," Logan tells her, pumping his fingers slowly. "They know what we're doing. They're watching through the curtain, imagining your tight little pussy stretched around my fingers."
Ivy should be mortified. She should pull away, tell him this is too much, she can't—
But her hips are grinding against his hand, chasing the pressure, desperate for more.
I stop running.
My chest heaves, my pulse thundering in my ears, and I press my hands against my knees, trying to catch my breath.
The fantasy isn't working.
It should be working. Ivy's exactly the kind of protagonist I've always loved writing—awkward, ashamed, desperate to surrender to someone who sees through her performance. Logan's the perfect dominant—confident, controlling, obsessed with breaking down her walls.
The sex club scene is hot. I know it's hot. I can feel the architecture of the arousal, the way the layers should stack—public humiliation, forced confession, the terror of being watched mixing with the desperate need to be seen.
I understand the mechanics.
My pussy doesn't care.
I straighten up and look around. I'm about three miles into the Greenbelt now, near the section where the trail curves away from the river and into a thicker stretch of trees. There's a cluster of large boulders just off the path, partially hidden by scrub brush and cottonwood saplings.
Semi-private.
I could duck behind them. Pull my shorts to the side. Try to finish what Ivy and Logan started.
The thought sends absolutely nothing through my body.
No heat. No clench. No wetness spreading between my thighs.
Just the same dull, empty ache that's been living inside me for six months.
I close my eyes and let myself imagine it—just for a second. Just to see if maybe…
It comes to me immediately.
The memory, the scene, the arousal…
Caleb standing over a motionless heap of dead flesh, his fist working up and down the length of his massive, hard cock with brutal, punishing strokes.
His jaw is locked tight and his eyes are fixed on the corpse at his feet—watching his come explode in thick, obscene ropes across the still-warm body of the Russian intruder he just beat to death.
The visual is so visceral I can hear the wet sound of his sticky hand slapping against his flesh, can see the tendons standing out in his forearm as he grips himself harder.
His breathing comes in controlled, measured pants, not from exertion but from something darker, more primal.
His face is a mask of cold satisfaction—not pleasure exactly, but the fulfilled look of a man who's taken exactly what he wanted, consequences be damned.
I can practically smell the blood. Almost see the way his come glistens against the body at his feet.
His gaze is so intense, alike he's memorizing every detail. Cataloging the exact way his seed marks his victory.
There's no remorse in his expression, no horror at what he's done—only a terrible, perfect focus.
My clit pulses.
Once.
Sharp and undeniable.
"Fuck," I whisper.
No.
Absolutely not.
I'm not doing this. I'm not indulging the fantasy of the man who came over a dead, bloody body.
I'm not getting wet thinking about Caleb MacLeay.
I won't.
I start running again, harder this time, pushing my pace until my lungs burn, and my thighs scream, and there's no room left in my head for anything except the physical demand of keeping my body moving forward.
No Ivy.
No Logan.
No sex club.
No masked man with his cock inside my pussy, whispering into my ear, telling me I'm exactly the kind of broken he needs.
Just the rhythm of my feet hitting pavement.
Just the river beside me, indifferent and cold.
Just the empty, hollow space where my desire used to live.
Back at the apartment, I strip off my running clothes and step into the shower, turning the water hot enough to scald. The steam fills the bathroom until I can barely see my own hand pressed against the tile.
I scrub hard. Wash my hair. Shave my legs even though there's no one to feel them.
When I finally step out, I dress in the first thing I grab from the drawer—denim shorts and a black tank top. Nothing special. Nothing that requires thought.
I zip my new laptop into my backpack, slinging it over one shoulder. Purchased because my old laptop is still sitting in the blanket fort in my old apartment.
The apartment I haven't moved out of.
The apartment I still pay rent on every month—on time now, with money left over.
The irony isn't lost on me. Eight months ago, I was four months behind on a studio I could barely afford. Now I'm paying for two places.
The old one because I can't bring myself to pack up the wreckage, and this new one because living in the squalor of your own depression doesn't heal you, and I desperately want to be healed.
Fixed.
Normal.
I grab my keys and leave.
The coffee shop is three blocks away, tucked into the ground floor of another converted historic building. I order a latte—whole milk, extra shot—and find my usual corner table by the window.
I pull out the laptop, open it, and stare at the blank document on the screen.
Cursor blinking.
Waiting.
I type: Ivy pressed her back against the wall as Logan—
Delete.
The curtains at Velvet Underground were—
Delete.
I close the document without saving and open a browser instead, scrolling aimlessly through social media I don't post to, articles I don't finish reading, anything that looks like productivity from a distance.
People come and go around me. I watch them all. I pretend to work.
I haven't written a single fucking word since I got home from Story Island.
When the tables start filling up around noon, I pack up my laptop, leave, and walk home.
Third outfit change. Athletic leggings, sports bra, oversized tee knotted at my hip.
Grab a second backpack already pre-loaded with gear. Shove a beef stick into my mouth, eat a second one on the drive. Guzzle some water.
The gym is six blocks away, but closer to the river. I've been coming every day since I moved in to the new apartment. The front desk staff know my name. The regulars nod when I walk past the free weights.
I smile back. Wave sometimes. Ask how their weekend was.
I'm outgoing here. Friendly, even.
I'm performing normal girl who goes to the gym.
None of them know I'm just killing time.
I claim a treadmill, plug in my earbuds, and run. Again. Miles I don't need, burning energy I don't have. When my legs start shaking, I switch to the stair climber and punish myself for another thirty minutes.
I'm not training for anything.
I'm not working toward a goal.
I'm just… here.
I shower. Fourth outfit change. Strappy-back jumpsuit in lavender made of organic cotton because that kind of shit matters in the next place.
Today's yoga studio is across town.
This is where I meet men.
Soy boy feminists who've never seen a pair of handcuffs outside a joke shop. Men who say things like "I really respect your boundaries" and "consent is so important to me" with the earnest intensity of someone who's never had a dark thought in their entire life.
I've been on twelve dates since Caleb.
Twelve different men from twelve different yoga classes scattered across many different studios. Each studio has dozens of classes. I almost never run into the same guy twice unless I want to.
I don't want to.
One date, maybe two if he's boring enough to be safe.
Never a third.
Today's class is at 4 PM in a studio I've only been to twice before. I recognize no one, which is perfect. I unroll my mat in the back corner and sink into child's pose while the instructor dims the lights and starts the playlist—something with chimes and a woman's voice humming.
I'm surprisingly flexible these days.
All that running. All that gym time. All those hours spent anywhere but in my own head.
I flow through the poses on autopilot. Downward dog. Warrior two. Triangle. My body bends and stretches and holds, and I feel absolutely nothing.
After class, I eat a take-out salad in my car, then drive to the community center on the east side.
Not to a "I'm a sick submissive who gets off on men coming on dead bodies" support group, because those don't exist.
To a divorced women's support group.
They don't check ID at the door, and no one asks follow-up questions when you say you're "going through something" so I sit in the circle of folding chairs and listen to the stories.
Margaret's ex-husband emptied their bank accounts and moved to Florida with his dental hygienist.
Sharon's fighting for custody of her kids even though she supports the family and her ex hasn't worked a job since he made sandwiches in college.
Linda just wants to know if it's normal to cry every time she sees a couple holding hands at the grocery store.
I like the stories.
I'm ashamed of this.
I'm ashamed that I sit here, pretending to belong, harvesting other people's pain like research notes for a book I'll never write.
But I come back anyway.
I have a whole list of them set up all across the city.
This and the yoga was the whole reason I bought myself a new Jeep.
Black, lifted, aggressive muddy tires the size of small planets.
Something that screams "I belong here, I'm one of you, I've always been local"—which is technically true, but also the most pathetic kind of lie.
Because I don't leave town. I don't venture into the Tetons for hikes or climbs.
I hoard support groups like they're gold and yoga classes like they might save me.
I've attended every 'Anonymous' group within twenty miles over the past six months. Depression groups. Illness support circles. Grief counseling. Addiction recovery. Trauma survivors. I don't discriminate.
If it eats hours in my day, I'm in.
When the session ends, I slip out before anyone can ask how I'm doing.
Home again. Third shower of the day.
I stand under the spray until the water runs cold, then wrap myself in a towel and crawl into bed.
I pull up the Ivy and Logan scene from my head… maybe tonight it'll work.
Maybe tonight my body will remember how to want something.
I slide my hand between my thighs.
Nothing.
I try anyway. Force myself to focus on the scene—Logan's fingers inside Ivy, the strangers watching through the curtain, the humiliation and desire tangled together.
I give up after five minutes and blank my mind.
This is my life now.
Coffee shops, and gyms, and yoga classes, and support groups I don't belong to.
Running from nothing. Toward nothing.
Pretending I'm fine.
Pretending I'm normal.
Pretending I don't spend every night trying to masturbate to fantasies that don't work anymore because the only thing that gets me wet is the memory of a man ejaculating on a corpse.
I turn off the light.
I turn off my life.
I turn off everything.
Because if I don't turn it off then I'll have to admit that what Caleb did…
How he did it…
How he looked—his eyes, his jaw, his grip on his cock, the way his come spewed out in streams…
Was… hot.