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Tuesday, 8:14 AM.
She's supposed to be writing a pitch.
The cursor blinks like an accusation--twelve words in, two of them "synergy." Her coffee's cold. Her phone keeps lighting up. She's already opened the same email draft five times. Deleted the same sentence four.
It's not the pitch. It's not even work.
It's her body.
She shifts in the chair again. Crosses her legs, then uncrosses them. Her underwear sticks when she moves, and she tells herself it's just the heat, just the polyester, just--
She doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't want to.
There's a text from Lauren.
"You good?"
She doesn't answer.
Her laptop's screen dims. She taps the trackpad, stares blankly at the document, then closes it.
She thinks about last night.
Not the whole thing. Just the parts that don't go away. The way the hallway smelled--laundry soap and something else. The flicker of a shadow across her wrist. The look that lodged under her ribs like a nail.
She touches her lower lip without thinking. Pulls her hand away when she catches herself doing it.
Her body's humming. Low. Constant. Like she's holding something in, but it's not words. It's not a secret. It's want.
She gets up to make more coffee. Stands in the kitchen too long, staring at nothing. Her reflection in the microwave looks undone.
When the machine beeps, she flinches.
12:11 PM.
She's been pretending to work for three hours. Tabs open. Slack pinging. Outlook flashing little red flags like it's urgent that she give a fuck. She doesn't.
The same three words keep circling in her head:
What was that?
No one asked. No one will. But her body won't shut up about it.
Her phone buzzes with a calendar alert:
Lunch with Meredith -- 12:30 -- Franklin's Deli
She stares at it like it's a foreign language. She's not doing lunch. She's not doing Meredith. Not today. Maybe not ever again. Meredith can be so much.
Her stomach flips. Not hunger. Nerves. Or heat. Or maybe guilt, curling low and wet in her gut. She closes her laptop lid too hard. It claps like a gavel.
Her hand moves to the mouse. Clicks open Microsoft Teams.
She finds her manager's name, heart thudding like she's about to lie on a stand in court.
[me]
Hey--taking some PTO for the rest of the day. Not feeling well.
She doesn't wait for a response.
Slack is muted. Email is closed. Her calendar goes blank.
She sits there for a second, frozen, then pushes back from the desk and stands.
Her thighs brush, and it's there again. The throb. The remembering. The echo of something that shouldn't have felt so good.
She puts her hands on the counter. Breathes.
Her mind keeps slipping back to the way her name sounded in that voice. The way her knees almost gave out when--
No. No. No.
She goes to shower. Not because she needs one. Just because she hopes maybe it'll wash off the feeling. Even though part of her doesn't want to lose it.
12:37 PM.
The bathroom fills with steam before she even steps in. She stands naked in front of the mirror, not looking at her face. Just the fog creeping across the glass, softening her outline until she barely exists. Just skin now. Just heat.
Her shirt had stuck to her. Her bra, damp. Her panties--she had to peel them down, slow, careful, because the fabric clung in that wet way that made her breath catch. Not arousal. Something worse. Something haunting.
She steps under the water.
Hot. Too hot. That's the point.
It hits her shoulders like punishment. She turns her back to it, presses her palms to the tile. Lets it drum across her skin, across the soft slope of her back, down to where her spine arches just slightly. Her chest rises and falls--small breasts, pink-tipped, barely more than handfuls. They lift with each breath, nipples tightening in the heat.
The water trickles down her belly. Past the shallow dip of her navel. It darkens the patch of curls between her thighs, clinging there, heavy and unruly. She used to like the way it made her feel grown--earthy, real, not some sculpted pornographic ideal. She liked the roughness of it.
But now?
She stares down at it like it's the enemy. Like it remembers too much.
She grabs the shaving cream from the back of the shelf. It's not the kind meant for this, but she doesn't care. It's lavender-scented, girlish, comforting in a way that makes her feel fragile. She lathers it onto her mound with slow, deliberate fingers, coating each curl until they're lost beneath the foam.
Then she takes the razor. New blade. No hesitation.
Her hand shakes a little at first, but steadies by the third stroke.
She starts at the top--short, careful strokes, rinsing the blade after every pass. She's methodical. Focused. It's not about being pretty. It's about removing. Each strip leaves her barer. Smoother. Vulnerable. She shaves downward, then sideways. Each direction catches a little more. She parts her lips to get underneath, breath held, neck flushed with the effort.
By the time she crouches to get the underside--perineum, folds, everything--her thighs are trembling. Not from arousal. From the sheer attention she's giving herself. Like she's excavating her own body. Like she needs it gone.
The hair clogs the drain. She watches it circle, then vanish.
She rinses herself off slowly. Water sliding over her now-slick skin, over the raw pink of her pussy, bare and almost unfamiliar. She looks down and feels a pang of--what? Regret? Relief?
It's too smooth now. Exposed. Nothing left to hide behind.
She shuts the water off. Stands dripping, shivering in the sudden silence.
The steam settles. The mirror starts to clear.
She still doesn't look at her face.
She wraps herself in a towel but doesn't dry off. Doesn't bother. Water beads on her collarbones, clings to her thighs, slides down the slick new skin between her legs. She's clean now, but it doesn't help. Not really.
She steps toward the mirror.
It's only half-cleared, fog curling around the edges like it's trying to shield her from what she's about to see. She reaches up, wipes a streak through it with her palm, and there she is.
Hair dripping in limp, dark red ropes. Freckles bleeding across her cheekbones. A smear of shaving cream still clinging to the curve of her jaw.
And her eyes--green, wide, accusing.
She stares at herself for a long time.
Then:
"What's wrong with you?"
It comes out hoarse. More breath than voice.
The girl in the mirror doesn't answer. She just looks back, damp and stripped and wrong, like someone cracked her open in the middle of the night and something shifted inside her. Something tilted.
She drops the towel.
It puddles at her feet.
She looks at her body now like it betrayed her. Pale skin, flushed from the shower. Pink nipples standing sharp in the cool air. Her pubic mound--bare, soft, trembling faintly with the leftover adrenaline of the shave.
She runs a fingertip down her belly, stops just above the cleft.
No hair. No hiding.
She's never been this bare before. Not for anyone. Not even herself.
"What the fuck is wrong with you," she whispers again.
And this time, her voice breaks.
She presses both hands to the sink, shoulders shaking, mouth drawn tight like she's trying not to cry, not to scream, not to come just from the memory of someone else's breath on her skin.
That's the worst part.
That she wants to remember. That some part of her is still wet.
She doesn't dry off. She just walks--naked, damp, clean in the most unnatural way--back to the bedroom. Her thighs brush as she moves, and it's different. Every step a soft friction. Her bare pussy slick from steam, from the tiniest pulse of memory.
The sheets are cool. She pulls them down, slides in, lies on her back.
The ceiling doesn't say anything, but she stares at it anyway.
Her hand finds her breast first. She always starts there. She tells herself it's comforting. Just a soft brush, a fingertip circling her nipple, light enough to tease but not press. But her breath still catches. Her body still arches, just slightly. She cups herself. Squeezes. Traces a path downward.
