Chapter 1: Sweat
Gavin’s key scratched in the lock before the door slammed shut behind him, sealing him back into the studio’s stale, cloistered air. He toed off his sneakers without untying them, their thump against the wall the only greeting he’d get. His shirt, smelling of espresso grounds and other people’s conversations, was over his head and dropped to the floor in one tired motion. The jeans followed, kicked into the dark corner near the futon, leaving him in just his boxers in the room’s blue electronic gloom. He stood there for a second, skin cooling in the silence, the day’s grime still clinging to him even with the clothes gone.
He grabbed his phone from the charger, the screen blinding in the dark room, and thumbed it open, scrolling mindlessly through the curated highlight reels of Instagram and the frantic outrage on Twitter, none of it sticking, all of it just noise against the static in his head. Nothing occupied the frustration, it only amplified it, a tight coil in his gut that the digital world couldn’t unwind.
He swiped away from the feeds, the action sharp and final, and opened the other app, the one with the pale aqua icon. The screen loaded to a familiar profile, Gina’s latest post autoplaying: a slow-motion clip of her tracing a fingernail along the lace edge of a bra, her smirk knowing and direct through the lens. A low sound, part sigh, part groan, escaped him as his thumb hovered, then tapped the message icon.
His thumb moved with a dull, practiced defiance, tapping out letters on the glowing screen. Watched that clip about ten times. Christ. What I wouldn’t give to be that lace right now. He hit send before the smarter part of his brain could veto it, the whoosh sound final.
A fresh, sharp wave of heat pulsed through him, his free hand already sliding down his stomach. Idiot, he thought, even as his breathing shallowed, the phone’s light casting hollows across his face in the dark.
He scrolled back through her feed, past the teasing lace and arched backs, his jaw tightening with each repeated image of her ass—always her ass, never anything more. "Fuck's sake, just once," he muttered to the glowing screen, his hand moving in a rough, rhythmic stroke under his boxers.
Frustration coiled tight in his gut, sharpening the need but dulling the pleasure, every touch feeling desperate and incomplete. His thumb paused on a coy shot where she looked away, and he let out a harsh breath, the room's air thick with stale coffee and his own sweat.
The phone buzzed, a sharp vibration against his palm. Her reply glowed on the screen: The lace is pretty lucky.
A dry laugh escaped him. It’s fucking jealous, he typed back, the words feeling clumsy even as he sent them. He stared at the screen, the coil in his gut tightening, then added a separate message, the letters stark and humiliating: Tell me what to do. Would you help?
The reply came fast, clinical. "I can do an hour for two-fifty."
The numbers sat on the screen, bright and definitive, stripping the fantasy bare into a transaction. He stared at the digits until they blurred, the cheap whiskey bitter on his tongue. His thumb hovered over the payment link, a hollow ache spreading through his chest, before he finally tapped it and entered his credit card details. The confirmation screen loaded, a stark digital receipt for his loneliness.
"Any chance for a friendlier rate?" he typed, the words tasting of cheap whiskey and thinner pride.
The three dots appeared, pulsed, and disappeared. "Two hundred for forty, babe?"
Gavin exhaled, a slow release of tension he hadn't realized he was holding. He paid.
A new message appeared. "Thanks babe..What would you do?”
He felt too lazy to get into the preamble, the hollow seduction. His hand moved again, a rough, functional rhythm under the sheet. “Tell you to turn around,” he typed, the words stark and unadorned. The silence after felt heavier than the room’s stale air.
The silence after felt heavier than the room’s stale air. Her reply came through, blunt and stripped of pretence. “You eat ass?” His breath hitched, the image hitting him with a visceral, unwanted clarity—the taste of salt and skin, the submission of it—as his hand kept moving. A low, wounded groan tore from his throat, raw and alone in the dark. "Yeah."
The word hung in the digital space between them, a blunt admission. His thumb was slippery on the screen. He could almost smell the cheap vanilla of her room through the phone. “God, I want to fuck you,” he typed, the letters a stark confession in the glow.
The phone grew hot in his hand. He tried to imagine her genuine reaction to fucking him, not the performative gasp, but a real, flinching distaste in her eyes, a turned head, the silent endurance of a transaction, leaving a coppery taste of shame in his mouth.
He stroked himself harder, the friction turning urgent and raw. “Keep typing,” he typed, groaning aloud to the empty room, his voice a strained command.
The phone buzzed. “Tell me more about my ass.”
His hips stuttered, a sharp, involuntary thrust into his own tightening fist.
His thumb smeared the screen as he typed, the words coming in a rushed, unpunctuated stream. "just want to bury my face in it," he said. "use my tongue until you forget your name."
“Good boy,” Gina’s message flashed back, immediate and mechanical. “Tell me how bad you want it.”
“Bad enough to pay for it,” Gavin typed, the truth of it acidic in his throat. “Show me your pussy.”
A notification popped up immediately: Gina sent a photo set. He tapped it, his breath held, only to be met with a blurred mosaic grid and a bright yellow lock icon. Unlock for 80 USD, the text beneath it stated.
Eighty American was a hundred fifteen give or take. His hand kept moving, a rough, distracted rhythm, as he calculated the total spent tonight against his remaining money. "Fuck it," he muttered before hitting buy.
The screen refreshed, displaying three images. They were POV shots from her bed, the angle intimate and invasive. The skin was laser-smooth, digitally perfected to a poreless sheen. The framing showed just enough shadow and curve to imply everything without revealing a single defining detail. A hollow, mechanical climax tightened his gut as he stared at the flawless, anonymous geometry.
The tension in his gut crested, a blunt and urgent wave. “Close,” he typed, the word a stripped wire of need.
Her reply was instant. “Tell me what you’d say to me while you fucked me.”
“I’d tell you you’re perfect,” he typed, the lie tasting like ash. He stared at the words, then added a separate, hollowed-out question: “What would you say to me?”
The phone’s glare painted the silent room in waiting blue. Her three dots appeared, pulsed once, and vanished entirely.
Gavin’s breath hitched, the coiled need in his gut turning into a blunt, urgent demand. "Fuck, I'm close. Where?" he typed, the single word swallowed by the glowing screen.
Her answer appeared, devoid of any warmth: "Anywhere you want, baby."
The words “Anywhere you want, baby” pulsed on the screen, a vacant permission that made his stomach clench.
“I want to come inside you,” Gavin typed, the declaration a stark, graceless line in the chat. He tried to lock in, picturing the heat, the clench, fucking harder into his own fist, a brutal, rhythmic piston against the rumpled sheet. But the fantasy crumbled at the edges, replaced by the visceral memory of cold, sticky linen and the phantom scent of her cheap vanilla perfume mixing with his own sweat. A choked, ragged sound tore from him as he finished, alone in the dark, the phone’s glow etching the hollow triumph on his face.