Chapter Text
“Oh god. God, yes, fuck, that feels so good,” the girl on top of Carol moaned. “Does it feel good for you too?”
“Um. Yeah,” Carol lied.
“God, fuck,” the girl continued, getting herself off against Carol’s cunt. She was the one who had suggested the scissoring. Carol was glad the girl seemed to be enjoying herself; for her part, she was mostly lying there, letting her hump her pubic bone while she pretended to be getting something out of it. At this point, Carol was growing a bit sore, and had long since stopped trying to get her own clit any satisfaction. She hoped that if she was still enough, the girl might finish quicker, and they could get this over with.
“Um, can you open your eyes?” The girl said, panting. “It’s kind of like, not as hot with them closed.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Carol said, not even having realized that she’d been jamming them shut. It took conscious effort to keep them open, and the more she looked, the less sexy it all felt; the girl, sweaty and red, using Carol’s body to get off; Carol’s breasts, bouncing up and down with each thrust of the girl’s hips. She tried to stare at the wall, but she could see them in her periphery, feel them moving on her body. She screwed her eyes shut again.
“Oh, oh yes, god, yes,” The girl whined.
“Are you close?” Carol asked, doing her best to imbue her voice with some degree of sexual huskiness. Anything to keep it from coming out sounding as bored as she felt.
“Fuck, yes, I’m gonna—oh—”
With a breathy moan, her hips stuttered against Carol’s and at long last she seemed to finish, seizing up on top of her and finally collapsing. Carol gingerly extricated her thighs, wincing as she closed her legs. For a few minutes the girl lay there in post-orgasmic bliss, naked next to Carol in her double bed. Carol looked at her watch. Ten minutes seemed like a reasonable amount of time to let her come down from it before she kicked her out.
Carol crossed her arms over her chest, staring up at the ceiling. Was it worth it? she found herself thinking, a thought she quickly tried to stamp out before it spiraled into the sinister voices of the counselors at Camp Freedom Falls. She had long since abandoned any notion that her body was precious or worth saving. This was a more mundane sort of regret. She thought mostly about her time, this night off from work that she would never get back. In the corner of her room sat a pile of laundry. In the sink, last night’s dishes festered. The chores would have to wait another day. For better or for worse, this was what she’d decided to do with her evening.
“I’m gonna go pee,” Carol said to the girl, who made no acknowledgement of having heard her. When she sat down on the toilet, she grimaced. Her pussy was sore, and not in the satisfying post-coital kind of way. Just…kind of bruised. Hurting. She forced out a feeble stream of urine, carefully wiped her tender vulva, and psyched herself up in the mirror. Time to get her bed back.
Before she stepped out of the bathroom, though, she noticed a dark purple splotch at the base of her neck. Fuck. She’d asked Kelly not to leave any marks. A visible hickey at work meant fielding disgusting questions from the old men that hogged the barstools. Ergo, a visible hickey was not an option. She’d need some way to cover it up. The summer heat was turtleneck-prohibitive, so makeup would have to do. Except Carol owned none. Which meant she had just been granted the pleasure of running to the drugstore and spending her hard-earned wages on concealer. Was it worth it? she asked herself again. Decidedly not, Carol thought.
“Hey, Kelly—” Carol said, standing in the bedroom doorway. Kelly didn’t move. “Kelly?” She said again. Nothing. She walked over to the bed to find the girl asleep, snoozing completely nude on Carol’s side of the bed. Carol shook her shoulder gently, and she stirred, blinking her eyes open.
“Hey, um, sorry to do this but you gotta head home,” Carol said, not sounding very sorry at all.
“Mmm,” Kelly groaned, playfully batting Carol’s hand away. “Can’t I just stay the night? I’ll leave early, I promise,” She said, batting her eyelashes. Carol was unimpressed.
“Yeah, uh, sorry, but I have work in the morning,” Carol lied. She worked closing shifts. But it was easier than explaining the truth, which was that Carol desperately wanted to sleep alone in her bed, unencumbered by any blonde visitors. “Maybe next time?”
Kelly got dressed begrudgingly, shooting Carol a dirty look. Carol stood there awkwardly, arms crossed over her chest.
“Get home safe,” Carol called after her. Kelly said nothing, closing the door harder than necessary behind her.
Then Carol was alone.
She climbed back into her bed. It smelled like sex and Kelly’s saccharine shampoo. She added “wash sheets” to the running list of housekeeping items she was behind on.
She tried, briefly, to touch herself, as she hadn’t come anywhere close to orgasm during the sexual encounter. She found herself bone-dry and too sore to enjoy it. Resigned, she rolled over. Better luck next time, pal.
…
Carol did not hear from Kelly again, which to her seemed unfair, as she believed she’d provided adequate service. Not that Carol exactly wanted to sleep with her again, either. She just would’ve liked to have been the one to break things off. Oh well.
Days passed in a blur. She slept late, worked late, and wrote in the middle if she was lucky.
She did her best to tend to her bachelor pad, dealing with the shitty AC, the futzy outlets and crappy water pressure. She tried to eat at least twice a day. Keep her clothes clean.
Never before in her life had she spent so much of her time alone. She longed for people, but she choked on the word lonely. Admitting it felt like giving up.
She thought that the casual sex would help. And it did, a little bit. It made her feel useful. She liked giving. Liked to wind someone up and disassemble them, make them fall apart on her hands. If she could make them feel good, maybe she was good—good for something, at least. If she could not be loved as a friend, as a daughter, or as a partner, perhaps she could be loved like this. Loved like a tool. Like a chef loves his sharpest knife, or a carpenter his saw. Worth keeping around if she did her job right. If she stayed sharp.
She was less concerned with her own pleasure. More often than not, it didn’t feel worth the effort. All the direction, all the “touch me here” and “no, not like that”—for what? A mediocre orgasm? Carol’s partners took one look at her short-shorn hair and her butchy bravado and had already decided what they wanted from her. There wasn’t much room for conversation about it.
So Carol became what they expected of her. She gave them what they wanted.
…
“Does that feel good?” Carol asked, two fingers buried to the hilt. “Jen? Am I making you feel good?” She lay between her legs, one arm wrapped around a thigh and the other cocked awkwardly under her torso. Jen seemed to be enjoying herself: she reached for Carol’s hair, rasping over the buzz in the back until she found purchase in the longer strands on top.
“Yeah, yeah, it feels good,” Jen said. “Want your mouth.” She pushed Carol’s head into her cunt. Carol was happy to oblige.
Carol licked and sucked at her clit as she fingered her, enjoying the taste but trying to ignore the burning in her very fatigued wrist. They’d been at it…awhile. And Carol lived to please, but she was only human. Fortunately, Jen seemed to prefer her tongue; she reached down to still Carol’s wrist, who pulled out, relieved.
Carol lay her tongue flat against Jen’s clit, who took it as an invitation to begin riding Carol’s face as hard as she could. Carol was pleased, feeling herself getting wet solely from the thrill of getting Jen off.
Jen came quietly, but hard; Carol thought her head was gonna pop off from the pressure between Jen’s thighs, her whole body going rigid before she twitched away, sensitive.
Carol shifted in bed to kiss her on the lips, giving Jen a taste of herself. Jen smiled against Carol’s lips.
“Your turn?” She offered, running a hand down Carol’s back, catching the band of her sports bra with a finger. Carol hesitated. Jen, to her credit, noticed. “We don’t have to,” she said quickly. “But it’s just…” she slipped her fingers into the elastic waistband of Carol’s gym shorts. “You seem like you need it.”
Carol did need it. And things were going well so far. Jen seemed to be having a good time. So she relented.
“Okay,” she said, wiggling closer to Jen on the bed. They resumed kissing and Jen’s hands wandered back to Carol’s bra, coaxing it over Carol’s shoulders before tossing it to the side. Carol would’ve been content to have left it on, but whatever.
Jen kissed her again on the lips, but then split off, sucking down her chin, her jaw, her neck until she arrived at Carol’s chest. Carol’s breath quickened, but she wasn’t sure whether it was arousal or discomfort. Aren’t they the same thing, a little bit? Jen took one of her nipples into her mouth all of a sudden, and Carol jerked. She watched it happen as though from outside of her body. The sensation was immediately overwhelming and shot straight to her pussy, but she wasn’t sure that she liked it. Jen, taking Carol’s spasms a green light, tweaked her other nipple with her hand, and Carol arched involuntarily.
She reached down to push away Jen’s head and hands, hoping to disguise the redirection as impatience. Jen didn’t take the hint, ignoring Carol’s attempts to bat her away. She kept sucking at Carol’s tits, squeezing and nipping and pulling. The longer it went on, the more Carol was sure that she wasn’t enjoying herself. It felt grotesque and pornographic. Like her body wasn’t her own.
“Stop,” she whispered. Jen didn’t seem to hear her. “Jen, uh, can you—that’s—um—” Carol couldn’t articulate what it was she wanted to say—she didn’t know what she wanted to say—but she knew she wanted it to be over. She pushed Jen’s hands away again, and finally Jen seemed to take notice.
“What’s the problem?” She asked, panting.
“Nothing,” Carol said quickly. “It’s just not working for me.”
“Doesn’t seem that way,” Jen teased, throwing a glance to the wet spot on Carol’s underwear.
“No, it’s…just trust me. It’s not.”
“Okay, jeez,” Jen said, rolling her eyes. “Moving on.” She adjusted her position and trailed her hands down to Carol’s pussy. Carol tried to get herself back into it, tried to tilt her hips towards Jen’s wandering fingers, convince herself that she was in the mood. No luck. She felt like a puppet whose strings had been tangled, or a computer wired up the wrong way. Every touch was alarming. All the sensory input was computing incorrectly. Every brush of Jen’s hand sent her skin crawling. Every graze of her fingers made Carol seize.
“Does that feel good?” Jen purred, two fingers inside Carol’s cunt, completely oblivious to her discomfort..
“Yeah,” Carol managed, trying to affect breathiness into her voice. Whatever she needed to say, she could say it. Whatever she needed to take, she could take it. Jen didn’t know her well enough to be able to spot the performance. It wasn’t her fault, really. She hadn’t known. Frankly, Carol hadn’t known.
She fucked her even as Carol dried up, even as her cunt began to burn, even as the ache of arousal calcified into pure muscular tension. Carol gave it about five minutes before she pretended to come, squeezing and clenching herself around Jen’s hand for effect.
When they were done, she picked her sports bra off the floor. She turned her back to Jen as she put it on, like she had any modesty left to salvage.
“I had fun,” Jen said, still sprawled on the sheets. “Won’t you stay awhile?”
“Can’t,” Carol lied. “Got work in the morning.”
And with that she slipped out into the night.
…
Carol tried not to think about the Jen fiasco. In fact, she tried not to think about any of the sex she had at all. She didn’t understand what had triggered such enormous discomfort so rapidly, and decided that the best way to cope with such an event was to simply never allow anyone to touch her again.
It seemed like a workable solution for the foreseeable future, at least. Take a girl home, fuck her, tell her to keep her hands to herself. Surely there were enough pillow princesses in Albuquerque such that she could make this arrangement work. And when she had a clearer idea of what the hell was wrong with her…well, then she would consider letting someone get her off.
But for now, her self-imposed pseudocelibacy would have to do. She needed to scrub the whole experience from her skin, overwrite the memory with a new save.
She made her plan. Tonight, she would go to the bar. She’d find a pretty girl. She’d take her home and fuck her and it would fix her. Surely.
…
This was NOT how Carol had meant for things to go.
Helen Umstead
505-205-9922
Carol did not usually do phone numbers.
In fact, she didn’t usually do plans. Her preferred strategy involved staking out a barstool at one of the student watering holes and going fishing. If she brought someone home, great. If she went home with someone else, even better. The more they drank, the less they needed to talk, and the easier it was for Carol to get what she wanted out of the whole endeavor.
But now Carol stared at the crumpled piece of paper, remembering the girl who had pressed it into her palm. The girl that she did not take home and fuck.
“Five-oh-five, two-oh-five, nine-nine…” Carol whispered to herself as she punched in the numbers, reading off the slip. “...two-two.”
After the last digit, she paused, finger hovering over the green “call” button. Is it worth it? She thought of Helen’s face, dimly lit by streetlight. She remembered the sound of her laugh, the way it seemed to hatch butterflies inside her stomach. Carol hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Not since before Freedom Falls. She wanted to run from it. She wanted to tear up the paper.
She pressed the button.
Every ring felt like an eternity. Would she pick up? She hoped not.
“Hi! You’ve reached Helen Umstead. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you when I can.”
Sweet relief. Helen’s answering machine.
“Hi, uh, hi Helen. It’s Carol. Sturka. We, um, met at the bar a few nights ago. You gave me your number,” Carol spoke haltingly, unsure of each word that came out of her mouth. “You, um, said I should take you out sometime, so, I thought…well, I thought that would be nice. If you wanted to. Just call me back.” Carol pulled the phone away from her ear, resisting the urge to smack herself in the head with it. She hung up the phone, staring at it like it might bite her. Then: fuck. She hadn’t left her number. Carol redialed.
“Hi! You’ve reached Helen Umstead. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you when I can.”
Carol paced around her room like a dog on a chain, the cord on her phone leashing her to the wall.
“Hi Helen, sorry, it’s Carol again. I just realized I didn’t leave my phone number. It’s, um, five-oh-five, eight-three-seven, two-four-four-four. And, um, I work most nights but I’m free Tuesdays. So Tuesday would be good. But I’m also free during the day. So whatever works for you.”
She hung up. Good enough.
Wait, shit.
She dialed again.
“Hi! You’ve reached Helen Umstead. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you when I can.”
“Hi Helen, sorry, I just remembered it was a Tuesday when we met and you were working at the bar. So you probably work Tuesdays. So if that doesn’t work I can maybe try and move my shift or something and we can find another ni—”
“Hi, Carol,” a light voice interrupted. Carol nearly dropped the receiver.
“Uh, hi. Is this, uh, Helen?”
“Yes, this is she,” Helen said, plainly amused.
“Hi Helen.”
“Yeah, I got that bit,” Helen laughed. Carol felt her cheeks reddening and silently thanked the sweet Lord that Helen could not see her face. “You were saying?”
“Um,” Carol stumbled, dumbstruck. “Uh. I was saying that, if, uh, Tuesday didn’t work for you, I could try to swap my shifts.”
“For what?” Helen said innocently.
“For, um. If you wanted to go out. Sometime.”
“Mmm. Let me think about it.”
“Forget it. I don’t even—”
“Oh, c’mon, Carol, I’m just messing with you. I can make Tuesday work.”
“Oh,” Carol said. “Okay, then. Um, yeah. This Tuesday? Like, tomorrow Tuesday?”
“Yeah,” Helen said. Carol swore she could hear a smile in her voice. “Like tomorrow Tuesday.”
“Great.” Carol swallowed. “So, uh, where did you want to go?”
“I was under the impression that you were the one asking me on a date.”
“I was asking you to drinks,” Carol corrected.
“Drinks are a date.”
“Drinks are drinks.”
“Well, that’s a bummer, then. I only go on dates,” Helen said. “Nice talking with you, Carol—”
“No! Wait. Fine. Whatever.” She huffed. “Um, The Elbow Room. At seven o’clock?”
“It’s a date,” Helen said smoothly. “See you tomorrow, Carol.” Then the line went dead.
Carol leaned against the wall, then slid to the floor, letting out an enormous exhale.
Well, fuck. Change of plans.