Chapter 4
B y late afternoon, the heat had turned heavy, like the sky was pressing its full weight against the Earth and daring you to move.
Charleston in the summer didn’t forgive. It clung. It smothered. It made you remember you had a body, whether you wanted to or not.
I walked barefoot across the cool hardwood floors of my townhouse, half-dressed in an old tank top and a pair of black cotton underwear.
The windows were open, letting in the sound of cicadas screaming like the end times.
My long brown hair was damp from the shower and curling wildly at the edges, refusing to be tamed.
I hadn’t written a single word all day.
My laptop sat closed on the kitchen table, the cursor in my head blinking louder than the one on the screen. I’d tried—twice—to open a new document, but the only thing I could think about was the possibility of a knock. The sheer, erotic weight of it.
Three days .
Mina said hers came after three days.
The memory made me press my thighs together on instinct.
Outside, a car rolled past slowly. I froze by the kitchen counter, hand still wrapped around the cold stem of a wine glass I hadn’t touched. My breath caught, irrational and breathless.
No knock. Just tires. Just nerves.
God, I was losing it.
I wandered back into the living room, still warm from where the sun had baked the furniture all day. A patch of light lingered on the arm of the couch. My phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Mom.
I exhaled, steadying myself before answering. “Hey.”
“Hi, honey.” Her voice was soft, but curious in that gentle way mothers always seemed to have. “You sound … different.”
I’d only said one word.
“Different how?”
She paused. “I don’t know. Lighter. Or tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“You sleeping?”
“Sure.”
A beat of silence passed. I could hear wind chimes in the background.
The nursery, probably. She and my dad had started it on John’s Island twenty years ago, long before I ever thought I’d come back here.
Back then, I’d sworn I’d never return to the sticky heat of Charleston once I grew up and got out, never crawl back beneath the blanket of Southern civility that kept everyone polite and seething.
I’d gone to Penn. Got my bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics with a specialization in Public Policy and Governance. Yeah, try saying that three times, fast.
I’d learned to wear all black and argue policy over sushi. And still, here I was—living in a Charleston townhouse with quaint shutters and iron railings, writing columns that pissed off half the city and pretending I didn’t feel trapped.
But my parents needed me. And I loved them.
Hope and Greg Hughes had raised me on compost and Billie Holiday and the unspoken truth that being liberal on John’s Island meant keeping your head down.
They were the kind of progressives who still volunteered at the food co-op and made friends with their conservative neighbors out of necessity, not naiveté.
They didn’t ask for much.
So I gave them presence.
“How’s the nursery?” I asked.
“We had a couple more customers than usual today,” she said. “Mostly folks buying summer herbs. We put out the lavender in front, like you suggested. Drew them right in.”
I smiled, letting her voice settle over me like a clean sheet. “Good. Dad okay?”
“He’s fighting with a weedwhacker. So yes, perfectly himself.”
We talked for another few minutes, nothing urgent. But when she paused again, her voice dropped to something quieter.
“Zara …”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t mean to pry. I just … I know your patterns. And you sound like you’re waiting on something. ”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“Mom,” I said, too quickly. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“Okay,” she said gently. “I just love you, that’s all.”
“I love you, too.”
There was a pause.
Then her voice, soft but teasing: “Is there someone new?”
My stomach flipped. “What?”
“Like I said, you sound … funny. Not in a bad way. Just … lighter, maybe. Like someone’s been making you smile when you don’t mean to.”
I swallowed, trying not to let anything shift in my tone. “No. There’s no one.”
“Zara.”
“Mom.”
She laughed quietly. “All right, all right. Just promise me if someone does come along—and I mean someone real—you bring him out to the nursery sometime. We’ve got the pool open.
The crepe myrtles are finally blooming around the fence, and the whole back garden smells like basil and orange blossoms by late afternoon. It’s damn near romantic.”
I blinked, startled by the invitation. “You want me to bring a guy to the nursery?”
“Sure. He might want to go for a swim.” Her tone was casual, like it was no big deal. “It’s hot as hell out here. Man might appreciate a cool dip.”
And just like that, my imagination betrayed me.
I pictured it—him, whoever he was, stepping out of his clothes in the golden haze of late summer.
Bare skin gleaming with water. Muscles taut beneath the sun.
Standing there in the Hughes family nursery like some kind of sin, framed by vines.
My father probably pruning zinnias ten feet away while I tried not to combust .
The image was obscene.
And beautiful.
And so wildly inappropriate it made my ears burn.
“I don’t think it’s that kind of thing,” I managed, voice thinner than I wanted.
“Well,” she said, amused now, “whatever kind of thing it is … don’t hide from it, honey. Life’s too short.”
“Okay,” I said quickly, cheeks blazing. “I should go. Got some writing to finish.”
“Mmhmm,” she said, still smiling. “Just don’t forget—you’re allowed to be happy, too.”
When I hung up, the silence fell hard. I let it fill the corners of the room.
And then I remembered.
The first time I’d felt this way.
I was nineteen. Sophomore year. Philadelphia had been bitter cold that fall, the kind that makes your bones feel like glass. I’d been wearing fingerless gloves and a parka that didn’t quite zip over my hoodie, and he’d been leaning against the wall outside the library with a cigarette.
I can’t remember his name. Just the look in his eyes when I said something smart, and he smiled like he wanted to ruin me for it.
We’d ended up in his apartment. An attic walk-up with slanted ceilings and stacks of records in milk crates.
He was older. Tense. Rough around the edges in a way that made me nervous and high at the same time.
He was tall, too—easily over six feet—with a body that didn’t just look strong, but was capable.
Muscular, dense. Built like he did real things with his hands.
There was nothing soft about him. Not his voice, not his jaw, not the way he looked at me like I was a question he already knew the answer to .
He’d grabbed my wrists when I touched him, pushed me back into his sheets, and whispered something I still wasn’t brave enough to write down. I remember the way his hand slid up my thigh. The bruises that bloomed like violets on my hips the next morning.
It had scared me.
Not because it had hurt, but because I had wanted it to.
I’d broken things off after that. Told myself it was unhealthy. Unsafe. I’d gone back to boys who quoted bell hooks during foreplay and called it emotional literacy.
But that moment—those hands—never left me.
And now here I was, barefoot and flushed in a Charleston townhouse, heart racing at the sound of a passing car.
Waiting for it again. Waiting for more.
I walked to the door.
Put my hand on the knob.
Listened.
Nothing.
I stepped back. Pressed my palms to my chest. I could feel my pulse there—steady but loud, like something alive was stirring beneath the surface.
And for a moment, I swore I smelled something unfamiliar in the air.
Leather.
Smoke.
Sandalwood, maybe.
I shook my head and turned away.
Not yet.
But it was close.
I could feel it.
I wandered back toward the bedroom, skin humming with tension, nipples tight beneath the cotton of my tank. Every sense felt heightened, like my body was tuning itself to a frequency I didn’t know how to speak aloud.
I had no idea how this would go. What it would feel like when he did show up. If he showed up. That was the worst part—the not-knowing. No confirmation. No countdown. Just that hollow, breathless wait.
All I’d given Alpha Mail was a short form. My address. A list of preferences, likes and dislikes, hard limits, soft ones. I told them my profession. I gave a few adjectives—bratty, defiant, curious. I told them what I couldn’t say out loud.
That was it.
It had felt like nothing. And too much. Not even enough for a dating profile, but enough to be chosen. Enough for him to know where I lived. What to do with me once he got here.
I knew nothing about him.
Zero.
He could be anyone.
The thought made my stomach twist.
There were a dozen ways this could end badly. Disappointment. Regret. Worse. But my fear wasn’t the kind that made you run—it was the kind that made you ache.
I sat on the edge of the bed and glanced at the drawer beside it. My vibrator was tucked inside, along with a bottle of lube and a half-used candle. I reached for the handle, then stopped.
No.
I wanted to save it.
All of it .
For him.
The arousal hadn’t gone anywhere—it was coiled low in my belly, warm and needy. But something about touching myself now felt … wrong. Like lighting a match before the fuse had been laid. I wanted to be empty for him. Ready. Starving.
Forbidden.
The thought made my breath hitch.
I stood and stripped the sheets off the bed. Washed them on the fastest setting. Put on a fresh set—white linen, still faintly warm from the dryer. I smoothed the corners like it mattered, like the state of the bed might change the way he touched me. Or how long he stayed.
I picked out candles. Lit three in the living room, one in the bedroom, one in the bathroom. I played music on low—something instrumental, no lyrics. I set out water on the nightstand like I was hosting a guest. I don’t know why. Ritual, maybe.
Then I stepped into the shower.
I shaved everything—legs, underarms, a delicate line along my bikini.
Carefully, like I was offering up my skin for inspection.
I used the lotion I usually saved for date nights or fancy dinners with visiting editors.
The expensive stuff. Fig leaf and black pepper.
I watched my hands move over my own body and imagined his hands following.
My thighs were slick with heat before I even stepped out of the steam.
Wrapped in a towel, I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself.
Was this desperation?
Was this delusion?
Or was it the most honest thing I’d done in years ?
I stood at my dresser, fingers grazing the edge of a black lace thong—then stopped.
No.
Not tonight.
No barriers. No pretense.
I let the panties fall back into the drawer. No bra, either. Just the towel around my hair and skin that smelled like sex and soap.
I padded barefoot through the townhouse, dimming lights, checking locks, trying not to glance at the clock every five seconds.
I told myself I wasn’t waiting.
But, of course, I was.
I just didn’t want anyone to know.
Not my mother. Not the neighbors. Not the world I’d built from my words and my values and my curated image of what modern feminism should look like.
God, what would people say?
What would they think if they saw me like this—primed and wet and trembling for a man I didn’t know, a man I’d invited not with a name but a need?
What if someone found out?
What if Mina told someone?
I flinched at the thought, then shook it off. No. She wouldn’t. She knew better. She knew what exposure meant. She understood that some hungers had to be protected like secrets or they’d be devoured by the world before they ever got to bloom.
This wasn’t for anyone else.
This was mine.
The shame. The silence. The soaking anticipation between my thighs.
All mine .
I sat on the edge of the bed again, back straight, heart pounding.
Three days.
It had been three days.
I listened to the wind outside.
To the creak of the wood floors.
To the sound of my own breath.
And I waited.