Chapter 3: The Aftermath Inspection
The word “concept” seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room, leaving a vacuum filled only with the electric hum of the phone and the ragged sound of their breathing. Melissa lay perfectly still, the admission hanging in the air around her like a shroud. Over a hundred. She had said it. The number, once her most guarded secret, now belonged to them, to the chat, to the flickering motel light.
It was Darius who broke the silence, his voice low and intrigued, all traces of his earlier theatricality gone. “A hundred.” He said it not as a question, but as a fact he was turning over in his mind. He took a step closer to the bed, his shadow falling across her. “So, what’s the story there, Melissa? You just really, really like dick?”
A weak, watery sound escaped her lips. It might have been a laugh. Or a sob. She didn’t know anymore. The boundaries had dissolved. “It wasn’t about… liking it.”
“Then what was it about?” Jamal’s voice came from the corner, quiet but insistent. The phone was still in his hand, but it was lowered, his focus entirely on her.
She closed her eyes, the water-stained ceiling replaced by the dark backs of her eyelids. “It was about… not being there.” The words felt thick, clumsy. “When I was with someone, I wasn’t in my own head. I wasn’t… me. It was an escape. A really… effective one.”
“An escape from what?” Darius pressed, his tone not unkind, but relentlessly curious. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping violently. “From dear old Brandon? The white picket fence? The nine-to-five?”
“From the quiet,” she whispered. “The… emptiness. Brandon is a good man. He’s kind. He’s steady. And our life is so… quiet. It’s like living in a museum. Everything is in its place. Nothing is ever loud or messy or… real.” She opened her eyes and looked at Darius. “This is real. This room. You. What you’re doing. It’s the most real thing I’ve felt in years.”
Kwame let out a low whistle. “Damn. So we’re… what? Therapy?”
“You’re a wrecking ball,” she said, a strange, serene clarity settling over her. “And I asked for it. I went to Applebee’s hoping one would swing my way.”
Darius smiled, a slow, predatory unfolding. “And you got three.” He glanced at Jamal, a silent communication passing between them. Jamal raised the phone again, the red light winking back on. “Chat, you getting this? This is better than the fucking.” He looked back at her. “Keep going. Tell us about the first one. The very first time you cheated.”
The memory surfaced, sharp and clear, unbidden. “It was a real estate agent. We were looking for our first house. Brandon was obsessed with square footage and school districts. This guy, Mark, he was… different. He smelled like cigar smoke and expensive cologne. He took me to a vacant colonial on a cul-de-sac. The owners had left a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen.” She could still feel the cold granite countertop against her back. “He poured me a drink. Said I looked too young to be buying a house. Said I had restless eyes. He kissed me by the stainless-steel fridge. And I let him. I didn’t think about Brandon measuring for curtains. I just… felt.”
“In the house you were gonna buy?” Kwame asked, his eyes wide. “That’s cold.”
“We didn’t end up buying it,” she said flatly. “The foundation was cracked.”
Darius laughed, a sharp, genuine bark of amusement. “No shit. Okay, what about the best one? Out of all hundred-plus. The one you actually think about.”
Melissa was silent for a long moment, traveling back through the gallery of faces and bodies. “A bartender. In the city. I told Brandon I was at a book club. This guy, Leo, he had hands… they were rough. From lifting kegs, I guess. He didn’t say much. Just looked at me like he knew exactly what I was and exactly what I needed. He took me in the stock room, up against a pallet of vodka. It was fast. And hard. And when it was over, he handed me my clothes and went back to work. I sat in my car for an hour afterward, just… vibrating.”
“And the worst?” Jamal’s question was soft, but it cut deeper than the others.
Her breath hitched. “My brother’s best friend. At our family’s lake house. Two years ago.” The shame of this one was a physical weight, hot and leaden in her stomach. “It was after my mom’s funeral. Everyone was drunk and sad. He found me crying on the dock. It was… pathetic. Clumsy. We were both a mess. I kept thinking my brother was going to walk out of the house and see us. I felt like I was defiling my mother’s memory. I threw up afterward.”
The room was utterly still. The confession hung in the air, darker and more intimate than any sexual act they had performed.
“Jesus,” Kwame muttered, looking away.
Darius, however, was captivated. His eyes gleamed with a hunter’s focus. He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “And Brandon? He never had a clue? Not once?”
Melissa shook her head slowly, a single tear tracing a path through the smeared makeup on her cheek. “No. He trusts me. He thinks I’m… good.” The word tasted like ash. “He’d ask me how book club was. I’d tell him we discussed the protagonist’s motivation. He’d make me tea and rub my feet.”
The absurd, crushing normality of it all seemed to fill the grimy room. The contrast was more shocking than any perversion the chat could demand.
Darius looked at Jamal, then at the phone. He made a decision. “We’re taking a five-minute break. Tell them we’ll be back.” Jamal nodded, speaking softly into the device before setting it face down on the nightstand.
The sudden absence of the live stream’s gaze was its own kind of shock. The room felt different, smaller, the reality of what was happening pressing in from the walls.
Darius stood up and walked to the small, grimy bathroom, returning with a thin, rough motel towel dampened with cold water. He didn’t hand it to her. Instead, he sat back on the bed and began to wipe her stomach, her thighs, with a strange, clinical gentleness. The coolness was a shock against her feverish skin.
“You’re a piece of work, Melissa,” he said, almost admiringly. “You know that? You built this perfect little life just so you could set it on fire from the inside.”
She didn’t answer. She just watched him, this man who had orchestrated her unraveling, now cleaning her like a caregiver.
He tossed the towel onto the floor. “We’re not done. The stream’s coming back. But we’re changing the game.” He looked at her, his gaze intense. “You’re not our toy anymore. You’re our co-host. You’re going to talk to them. You’re going to answer their questions yourself.”
He picked up the phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. “You wanted real? This is as real as it gets. You get to look into the lens and tell the whole world who you really are.”
The red light blinked on, a cyclops eye opening once more. Darius held the phone out, positioning it so it captured both of their faces. He smiled, the charming, dangerous smile from the Applebee’s bar.
“We’re back, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the intermission. Melissa here has been sharing some incredible stories. And now… she’s going to take your questions live.” He turned to her, his voice a soft, encouraging murmur that only she could hear. “Go on. Tell them what you told me. Tell them why you’re really here.”
He moved the phone until the lens was inches from her face. She could see her own reflection in the dark glass—her smudged eyes, her flushed skin, her hair matted and wild. She saw the ghost of the woman from Applebee’s, the echo of Brandon’s wife. And then she saw the woman who had confessed to over a hundred men, the woman who found wrecking balls therapeutic.
She took a shallow, shaky breath and leaned toward the unblinking eye.
“My name is Melissa Brown,” she began, her voice a fragile thread. “And I’m here because my life is a beautifully decorated cage…”