Chapter 1: Late Night Call
The sheets were cold against her back, the dampness from her shower turning the cotton clammy where her skin touched it. Her thumb hovered over Damon’s name in her contacts, the screen’s blue light stark against the room’s shadowed concrete..She pressed call.
It rang once—a single, brutal bleat, twice, before his voice came through, a low vibration against her ear. “Aye” He said the word like he’d been waiting, like he’d won something.
A shiver, involuntary and deep, tracked down her spine. This is a mistake. She stared at the ceiling, at the reflected neon smears from the boulevard below. "Hey."
Silence pooled between them, thick and heavy. “You just get home?” His voice was a gravel road at midnight, familiar and unsettling.
“Yeah,” she said, her free hand absently tracing the damp line where her thigh met the sheet. "Talk to me. I can't sleep."
"That part of the job now?"
"C'mon," she said. "Don't make me feel stupid."
“Just got back from my mom’s, actually,” he said, the rhythm of his speech shifting.
She closed her eyes against the silence that followed, feeling obligated to fill it. “How was that?” she asked, the words tasting like lint.
He exhaled, a soft, almost staticky sound. "Good. Loud. She makes this stew, man... ans she’s happy, you know? My niece was there, drawing on the tablecloth with crayon. Real, like… domestic shit.” He paused. “Kept trying to hold my hand.”
He talked in flat, whole sentences about the structural integrity of his family dynamic. The normalcy of it was a closed fist in her solar plexus. Rachel felt her throat dry, swallowing, unclear how to respond to any of it. The stale air of the apartment thickened around her naked shoulders. She stared at the pulse of light on the ceiling, listening to a man she barely knew discuss rebar.
The jesting confession felt idiotic the second it left her mouth. “Guess that nixes my plus one, huh?” The silence that followed was a physical weight. He knew. The line seemed to deaden, the connection hardening into something crystalline and sharp.
Then his voice came again, lower, a confidential rumble that traveled straight down her spine. "Wouldn't wanna give my mom's the wrong impression..."
A low groan escaped her, part frustration, part unwanted thrill. “Fuck.”
The sound that came through the speaker then was soft, wet, and unmistakable—a slow, rhythmic friction. “Tell me what you’re wearing,” he breathed, his voice thick.
She felt a cold knot of humiliation tighten in her stomach, even as heat flushed her skin. “Just my underwear,” she lied, the words sticking in her dry throat.
“Take ‘em off,” he commanded, the rhythm on his end not breaking.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she muttered into the phone, the oath a thin veneer over the hollow in her chest. She let out a short, strained grunt, a sound meant to mimic the effort of removal, the soft shift of fabric over skin.
The damp sheets were real against her bare legs. Why the hell did I say that? The question cycled, frantic and useless, as the wet sound on the other end of the line synced with the pulse in her temples. She was naked, alone, and lying to a man who could hear the emptiness in every breath she took.
A sharp wince traveled through the phone, followed by a low groan. “That’s right,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a rougher, intimate cadence. “Show me how bad you want it.”
Her own hand slid down her stomach, fingers clutching roughly at her vagina, weaving through the coarse, unkempt bush there—a tangible, isolating truth in the dark. The emptiness in her breath turned into a silent, open-mouthed gasp against the phone’s microphone.
The wet sound on the line stopped. “You gonna let a nigga hit, baby?” His voice was soft, clinical.
She felt her face flush in the dark, the words like a shard of glass in her throat. “Yeah,” she whispered, the syllable cracking on the dry air.
His breath hitched, a sharp, humid sound in her ear. “You want this dick, baby? Let me hear it.”
Her fingers moved in a slow, absent circle over her clit, the pressure just enough to blunt the sharpest edge of the silence in her head. It was a mechanical motion, a release of tension, not a path to any real feeling. “Yeah,” she breathed again, the word hollow, a fallen leaf skittering across concrete.
The wet sound on his end resumed, faster now, edged with frustration. “Damn, girl... hmm. C’mon, suck that shit.”
The command was a guttural scrape against her ear, the language coarse and territorial. Rachel’s breath hitched, a sharp, silent spike of adrenaline cutting through the numbness. He was a stranger in the dark, pressing against a boundary she hadn’t even known was there.
She forced a question, her voice thin. “What… what did you have for dinner?” He grunted, a dismissive sound. “Leftovers. Now quit stalling.”
Another question formed, a stupid one about his mother’s stew, but he cut through it, his voice dropping to a rough, vivid whisper. “Suck that shit,” he breathed, imagining her mouth full.
The words landed like a physical intrusion, a warm, wet weight against her inner ear. A cold spike of revulsion shot through her, her jaw clenching as she pictured a hand, his hand, pressing against the back of her head, holding her in place while she gagged. Fuck no. The neon glow on the ceiling blurred as her eyes stung with a sudden, humiliated heat.
“Shit, you on the pill or what?” he panted, the words rushed and thick.
“No,” she said, the truth a simple, cold stone dropped into the space between them.
He groaned, a strangled sound of effort. “Fuck, fuck, hold on—” His breath came in sharp, ragged hits, a fight for control she felt through the phone.
Rachel forced the words out, her voice flat."What position?"
He didn't hesitate. "Doggy style. Think about it."
Her free hand slid across the cold sheets to the nightstand drawer, found the hard, slick plastic of the bullet vibe. She switched it on; the low buzz was a tangible hum in the silent room, a localized earthquake against her skin. She pressed it to her clit, the sensation a sharp, clarifying static that hollowed her out further.
She flipped onto her stomach, the mattress groaning under her. “Pull that ass up,” he growled into her ear. She reached for two pillows, shoved them under her hips, and raised herself into the vacant dark. A rough, choked sound escaped her throat. “You’re a real fucking poet,” she spat into the phone.
He chuckled, the sound low and grinding as it turned into a groan. "Yeah, well... gotta take what I got..." he swore, the words a harsh reminder of the act he was picturing. She closed her eyes, trying to force the image into the blank darkness behind her lids: a faceless shape, a weight, a feeling of being filled that was nothing like the empty buzz against her clit. The vibe’s mechanical whine climbed, a trapped insect sound, as her free hand fisted in the damp sheet.
“Fuck baby, just—just take it," he gasped, the bravado dissolving into a raw, choked whimper. To her shock, the crack in his performance didn’t piss her off to; it ignited a sudden, fierce warmth low in her belly. She loved it.
“Yeah,” she managed, her voice a strained, unfamiliar rasp against the sheets, “give it to me, I want… all of it.” The clumsy words tipped her over the edge, her body seizing in a silent, violent convulsion as the mechanical buzz devoured everything.
“Fuck, girl—I’m gonna nut,” he grunted, the warning ragged and strained through the line.
“Yeah, do it,” she forced out, the encouragement feeling flat and performative even to her own ears.
He came with a sharp, guttural curse that dissolved into wet, heavy breathing, the sound of it tinny and distant in her hand. She pressed the buzzing toy hard against herself, chasing the fading echo of his release with a second, quieter tremor that felt more like a shrug than a surrender.
The buzzing died, leaving a hollow ring in her ears and the raw sound of their breathing—wet, ragged, and synchronized through the phone. She lay there, hips still propped on the pillows, the chill of the sheets now seeping into her skin. A slow, thick curl of embarrassment tried to surface, but it drowned in a deeper, weirder pool of satisfaction. She didn’t regret it; she just existed in the humid, awkward silence of what they’d done. With a click that echoed in the quiet room, she ended the call.