It's just after 3 a.m. and I hear the front door open and close softly. The lock turns. My dog's tail thumps on his bed as she passes by. She barely acknowledges him.
She slips into my bedroom through the open door. It's dark, but the city's lights filter in through the open blinds. I pretend I'm asleep, hoping that just maybe she'll turn around and walk out while silently willing her to stay.
I'm on my side, facing away from the door, so she can't see my face. It's early summer, so the window is open and I'm sleeping naked under nothing but a sheet. A zipper is undone. Leather boots clump softly on the hardwood floor as they're removed. There's the swish of fabric as she pulls off her dress.
Her scent is in the air. Musky perfume, smoke from whatever bar she was in, whiskey.
Still, I pretend to sleep. I want her to go. I don't know if I can do this again.
I am also hard. So hard. My cock is throbbing for her. My body wants what my rational mind knows it shouldn't.
She slides into bed and under the sheet, pulling herself close to me. Her breasts press into my back as she slips an arm over my chest. Her nipples are hard. Her fingers are like ice and fire on my skin.
"I know you're awake," she breathes. She kisses the back of my neck and nibbles on my earlobe.
I don't reply.
Her hand slides down and finds my hard cock, caressing it gently.
"He kicked me out again," she whispers and presses her face into my shoulder. I can feel the tears there.
She's strokes me so slowly. Painfully slowly.
"Talk to me," she pleads.
I hesitate for another moment and then roll onto my back, looking into her eyes. Those incredible steel blue eyes.
"Steph ... I ... I don't know ...," I whisper. I don't know why I'm whispering. We're alone in the house other than the dog.
"We can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this. What do you want?"
She pulls herself on top of me and I'm struck again by the power she has over me. She grinds on me and moans. With a deft hip movement she slips me inside her. She is soaking wet. So hot. So tight.
"I just need this," she moans.
Then her mouth is on mine and I can taste the whiskey and the cigarettes. And I can taste the bitterness of cocaine from the bump she did in the car before coming in.
I can't pretend any longer that I don't want this. And we move together.
---------
Steph and I went to the same high school, though we ran in very different circles. She was a cheerleader and dated various athletes. I was a punk kid in a band who hung out at college parties. She was a year behind me and, through cheerleading, was friends with my younger sister. We were friendly, but not friends.
She was stunningly beautiful. Dark curly hair that fell down past her shoulders and striking, piercing blue eyes. Tall and thin with long legs and medium-sized breasts that never quite foretold the incredible ass that perfectly filled out her jeans.
After I graduated, I worked in a local pizza joint while attending college. That same year, for reasons I still don't really know, Steph changed. She stopped cheering. She cut her hair in to a sexy pixie cut became a flannel-wearing grunge girl. Nose piercing. The whole bit.
She stopped hanging out with her friends and started hanging out with mine. And she came to work with me at the pizzeria.
All through high school I thought she was gorgeous, but not much else. I realized pretty quickly that I had misjudged her. She was smart and funny. She had great taste in music and we often shared new bands with each other. We became good friends in those late nights when it was often just the two of us working.
We started hanging out outside of work, too. She'd come to parties with me and I'd make sure she got home safely. We had long, deep conversations while driving around our small town late at night. We'd watch movies together and wake up in the middle of the night on her parents' couch with her head in my lap.
There was sex, too. Casual. Never planned, never more than a passionate night at a time. I knew she was fucking other people. So was I, for that matter, but my trysts were almost to spite her. Like, if I fucked a hot-enough woman, she'd get jealous and beg me to be with only her.
She never did. But no matter how many other men or women there were, she always came back to me.
"I can't explain it," she said to me once. "You just feel like home."
I fell in love with her. She loved me, but not in the same way. I knew that and it hurt, but I couldn't stay away.
I don't know exactly when the drugs became a problem. She was always casually into drugs. Some pills or coke at a party. Weed. It was sporadic and social. Something she did to enhance her fun.
But somewhere along the line I started noticing that she was high more regularly. I asked her to stop. I told her I was worried about her. She'd say she didn't have a problem. And then she'd pull me into bed and I'd stop asking questions.
She knew exactly how to manipulate me.
Out of the blue, she met Jake. She didn't tell me. She sprung him on me.
One night we were out at a bar when suddenly she was jumping up and down and screaming as a tall, tanned, muscled guy was walking toward us. She hugged him and kissed him deeply as I watched helpless.
She pulled herself away from him and introduced us to each other. She introduced him as her "boyfriend." I shook his hand. He smiled and told me it was nice to meet me, but that smile never reached his eyes. He hated me from the start.
Their relationship was stormy at best. Outwardly he was a nice guy, but he was controlling and jealous. He hated that Steph and I were friends. I'm sure he suspected were more than friends. We had to stop seeing each other as often. There were no more hangouts. No more movies. No more nights where she fell asleep with her head in my lap.
They married in a small ceremony just a few months later. I was invited, but Jake privately warned me I wasn't welcome.
