CHAPTER 1
It’s Friday night, and I’m alone in my apartment again. But that’s okay. I have my boyfriend, Charles, with me. He’s the perfect boyfriend; he’s warm, reliable, knows exactly how to please me, and most of all, we never argue.
I’m reaching for him when my phone buzzes and nearly scares me out of bed. It’s my friend, Reese, my polar opposite. In every way I’m calm and restrained, she’s wild and loves to let loose. Maybe that’s why we get along so well.
I know she won’t stop calling unless I answer, so I do. My right ear is greeted with sounds of loud voices and glasses clinking together. “Evie!” she shouts. “Evie, get your lazy ass out of bed and come out! I’m coming to get you in five!”
I glance at the bedroom door, already closed and double locked. This is my ritual: the lights are off, my vanilla-lavender candles are burning, and I’m in nothing but my underwear ready for some me time.
“I’m not going anywhere, Reese,” I say, trying not to come off as grouchy, but I can practically see the frown in her tone when she responds.
“It’s been two months since you’ve been out. And if you spend any more time with Charles, your hoohoo is going to fall off. Bet.”
“My hoohoo is just fine, thank you,” I reply. “I’m gonna go now. Have fun.”
“Bye, loser,” she replies.
“Bye, bitch.” I smirk as I hang up. I set my phone on the side table and reach into Charles’ drawer where he’s been sleeping since this afternoon.
I took him out and used him twice this morning, once after lunch, once in the afternoon, but those were all just to tide me over until tonight. Tonight is when the magic happens.
I twist Charles’ bottom and feel him come to life, vibrating softly in my fingers. Charles looks like lipstick, nice and discrete, and the familiar feeling gets my lips twisting into a smile as I slide him down into my panties to my special place.
The familiar sensation is like instant joy spreading through my body. My hips rock, and my back bucks off the mattress. I grab a fistful of the sheets, take a deep breath, and close my eyes.
The pressure inside me builds. My chest tightens and my core goes tight. Warmth spreads through my belly as my thighs begin to tingle. My tongue slides out and traces a line across my lower lip, mimicking a man’s kiss.
“More…” I moan, my voice barely a breath as I twist Charles’ base and increase his speed. After all the times I’ve used him, I can go all the way to the maximum with no problem. Reese calls me Teflon Pussy.
It doesn’t take long before I’m coming, soaring over the edge, yelping into my pillow as my body takes over, quivering and shaking, my thighs clenched down on Old Reliable, as I like to call him.
I could keep going, but I give myself a break and twist the base of my toy to shut him off. Heart pounding, I feel it again—that hollow sensation that’s been eating at me for the last few months.
Sure, I can bring myself to orgasm no problem. And I do it so many times a day that my best friend is starting to think I’m psychotic, but there’s a growing emptiness that follows that’s starting to get worse.
I’m twenty-one and have never been with a man. Never even kissed one.
I want a man. Desperately. I’ve just never had the guts to actually go through with it. The thought of being naked, exposed, actually seen by a man? That’s just insane. Impossible even.
So Charles it is. “You’re the best, buddy.”
Reese keeps telling me I’m going to desensitize myself. That I’m ‘training my body to only respond to a machine.’ And honestly, I’m starting to get more and more afraid that this might actually be happening.
But I just can’t stop. Maybe there’s something wrong with me. Maybe I’m a nymphomaniac that’s also got a man phobia. But my time with Charles is the only release valve I have.
Am I addicted to him? I don’t want to believe so. I mean, I enjoy him. Why shouldn’t I partake whenever the urge strikes? Right? There’s nothing wrong with that. So even though I know I should put him away, I go back to him again.
I’m already hypersensitive from the first one, so as I press him to my button, my whole body jerks, causing the headboard to knock back against the wall. My mouth falls open, and I give myself over to him—to my own compulsion. Yet each orgasm feels softer than the last. Doesn’t quite hit as hard.
It’s like I’m chasing a high that keeps eluding me. Like there’s a hollowness inside me that I’m trying and failing to fill. But I’m not stopping.
One, two, three, four orgasms later, I’m finally starting to sweat. My pulse pounds in my ears, but that impalpable spot within still cries out, desperate for satisfaction. I turn Charles off and slide him back in his drawer.
“God, I love you, pal,” I say with a heavy sigh.
I don’t love him. Not really. I’ve never felt love for anyone other than my parents. Reese is awesome, but I don’t love her. That’s an emotion you’re supposed to feel for ‘the one.’ Who I have not met yet.
Staring up at the ceiling, I wonder if this will be the view for the rest of my life from bed.
Alone. Isolated from the rest of the world.
Pleasuring myself with a mechanically made boyfriend while dreaming of what all the other girls are out there doing.
Girls who actually have the courage to talk to a member of the other sex.
I wish someone would just make me.
Make me talk to a guy, make me kiss a guy, make me just spread my legs for the right man so I can get over this anxiety I have.
Four whole orgasms—not including the ones from earlier today—and I’m still unsatisfied. The ache between my legs is still there, beneath the pulsing aftershocks of my last climax.
A breeze blows in, and the candles gutter out, leaving me in a king-sized bed by myself, aching with desperate need, too shy to go out with my only friend to actually meet someone who could change my life.
Can I be cured?
Or will this ritual be the only thing that keeps me sane?…