13. Zoya #3
Last night, my hand slipped between my legs, and I tried to follow his instructions slowly. It felt impossible. I was already wet, already aching, already too aware of the silence around me and the phone glowing beside my pillow.
Unknown Number: Are you touching your clit?
Me: Yes.
Unknown Number: How?
I covered my face with one hand, mortified even though he couldn’t see me.
Me: You are really asking for detail?
Unknown Number: Yes.
Me: Circles.
Unknown Number: Soft or hard?
I swallowed a sound.
Me: Soft.
Unknown Number: Harder.
My hips lifted slightly into my own hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Me: You’re going to get me in trouble.
Unknown Number: With who?
I almost laughed, but it came out as a shaky breath.
Me: My children are asleep in the next room.
Unknown Number: Then stay quiet.
That did something terrible to me.
I turned my face into the pillow and moved my fingers faster, trying to keep control while my body had absolutely no interest in control. He kept texting, each message short enough to read through blurred vision, calm enough to make me feel like he was there in the room, telling me what to do.
Unknown Number: Breathe.
Unknown Number: Don’t stop.
Unknown Number: Think of a mouth there, my mouth. I’m excellent with my mouth.
Unknown Number: Think of being held down.
I thought of Ruslan then.
Not because I wanted to, but because the body is a traitor with a long memory.
I saw his shoulders over me, felt the weight of him, heard his voice telling me not to hide. The image hit so hard that my fingers slipped and I had to stop for a second, breathing into the pillow, angry with myself for needing a man who had sent me away.
Unknown Number: Did you stop?
Me: I needed a second.
Unknown Number: Why?
Me: Bad memory.
Unknown Number: Or good one?
I stared at the screen. My throat tightened.
Me: Both.
There was a long pause. For once, I thought he might ask.
He didn’t.
Unknown Number: Then use the good part.
I hated how kind that felt. I hated that it felt like permission.
So I closed my eyes, let the bad part fade as much as it could, and kept the good part. The heat. The weight. The voice. The way wanting had felt simple for a few breathless moments before life came back with teeth.
My fingers moved again. Slow at first, then not slow at all.
Me: I’m close.
Unknown Number: Good.
Me: Don’t say good like that.
Unknown Number: Come for me.
I turned my face into the pillow and came so hard my whole body shook, one hand pressed over my mouth, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes because pleasure and grief are apparently neighbors when you haven’t slept properly in five years.
For a few minutes, I didn’t move.
Then my phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number: You still there?
I stared at the message with my heart beating too fast.
Me: Yes.
Unknown Number: Better?
I typed back with fingers that still trembled.
Me: A little.
Unknown Number: Sleep.
Me: Bossy again.
Unknown Number: You like it.
I smiled into the dark despite myself.
Me: Unfortunately.
Unknown Number: Good night.
Me: Good night, stranger.
He didn’t reply after that.
I lay awake for another hour, staring at the ceiling, one hand over my stomach out of old habit, listening to my daughters breathe through the baby monitor they were too old for but I still kept because some part of me would always need proof they were safe.
Now morning traffic crawls around me, and I feel the aftertaste of last night like guilt under my tongue.
Not because I touched myself. Because I answered him.
Because he texted first, and I was glad.
Because I’m thirty steps away from a school gate, six years older, a mother of two, and still keeping a secret unknown number alive like a match I strike whenever I need to remember I can burn.
Karina calls again when I’m two minutes from the café.
I hit the button on the steering wheel.
“Do you want pancakes or eggs?”
“Coffee,” I say.
Karina says, “That’s not breakfast.”
“It is when you’re wounded,” I say.
“You’re getting pancakes.”
“Fine,” I say, turning into the parking lot.
I park outside the café but don’t get out immediately.
My phone sits in the cup holder now. The message thread is closed. The number is hidden again behind everyday things: school, friends, errands, reminders, the sensible architecture of a life I built because there was no one coming to build it for me.
Karina taps on the passenger window and makes me jump. She bends down and peers in. “Are you having a breakdown in there?”
I unlock the door.
She opens it and looks at me carefully. “You cried.”
“A dignified amount,” I say.
“Then stop looking like you’re about to throw yourself into the sea over kindergarten.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
Karina pulls back and studies my face. “You’re lying, but I’m hungry, so I’ll interrogate you after pancakes.”
“Very generous.”
She steps back. “Come on.”
I pick up my phone and shove it into my bag without looking at it again.
And I follow Karina into the café, where the coffee is strong, the pancakes are too sweet, and for the next hour, I can pretend the only thing aching inside me is the normal grief of watching my daughters grow up.