This is a short story. This is a short story about a guy thinking about his cute co-worker and trying to rub one out with both of his hands bandaged. He broke them two weeks ago while driving his bike to work on the way when he saw her and caused him to have this little accident and only because her skirt blew up and he saw something that was completely worth it to him. But now, he has a hard time masturbating and this story is about all the objects in his house that he is trying to use. He tried his pillow and the mattress itself, the chair and the table. He went into the shower and even tried the bath. He went between the sofa cushions and into his garden to a tree, which only attracted his old nanny and neighbor, an old lady who was watching him with curiosity until he retreated and knowing no other way, thought about what he could possibly do.

Chapter 1: Pillow and Desperation

The pillowcase was cotton, threadbare in the center from years of use and now, for the last seventeen minutes, from the frantic, grinding motion of his hips. Theo lay face-down, a shipwrecked sailor on a raft of rumpled sheets, his bandaged hands splayed out at his sides like useless white paddles. A groan escaped him, part frustration, part exertion. The friction built, a warm, promising pressure, and then… nothing. It dissolved, slipping away like smoke.

He collapsed, his face mashed into the pillow. It smelled like laundry detergent and his own sour desperation.

“Come on,” he muttered to the empty room. The single bare bulb overhead flickered in agreement, casting jumping shadows across the towers of half-unpacked moving boxes. He’d been here six months. The place still felt temporary, a waiting room for a life that hadn’t started.

On the desk, his laptop glowed. Penny’s work email was still open. RE: Q3 Fiscal Projections. He’d read it fourteen times. The clinical corporate language was a secret treasure map; he read devotion in her use of bullet points, a hidden warmth in her closing “Best, Penny.” He could see her at her desk, two cubicles down, biting the end of her pen while she composed it. The memory clicked, seamlessly replaced by the one that played on a constant, torturous loop: a gust of wind from a passing bus, the sudden ascent of her summer skirt, a brief, glorious snapshot of white lace against tan thigh before his front wheel kissed the curb and the world became a exploding collage of pain and ambulance lights.

Worth it. Absolutely, stupidly worth it.

But now, trapped in these fiberglass shells, he was a prisoner in his own body. The doctor had been cheerfully grim. “Six weeks minimum, Mr. Miller. No stress on the hands. Let them heal.” The man had no idea. Stress wasn’t the problem. It was the relentless, buzzing need that lived in him now, amplified a thousandfold by sheer impossibility.

He rolled onto his back, staring at the water-stained ceiling. The failed pillow attempt joined a mental hall of shame. The mattress corner had been too soft. The wooden arm of his desk chair too blunt and unyielding. He’d tried the shower floor, sliding against the cold tile until he felt like a beached fish. The lip of the bathtub had offered better leverage but threatened spinal damage. The sofa cushions conspired against him, swallowing momentum. Two days ago, in a fit of madness, he’d gone into the small, overgrown garden and tried to use the knobbled bark of the apple tree. He’d given up when a neighbor’s curtain twitched.

He was a man reduced to biology, a simple circuit unable to close.

His eyes landed on his phone, charging on the nightstand. A dangerous idea, born of despair, took root. He shuffled to the edge of the bed, leaned over, and pressed his nose to the screen. Using his tongue, a tool of pathetic last resort, he clumsily tapped the phone icon. He had her mobile number from a team-building spreadsheet. He’d never used it.

His heart hammered against his ribs as he tongued the cold glass, bringing up the keypad. Each digit was an ordeal. A sweaty mis-tap. A stabbing cramp in his neck. Finally, her name appeared. Penny Chen - Mobile.

He hovered. What would he say? His tongue was poised over the green call icon. He imagined her voice, confused, perhaps annoyed at the late hour. “Theo? Is everything okay?” He could lie. Say he was in pain, needed help. She was kind. She might come over.

The fantasy unfolded in glorious, catastrophic detail: her at his door, concern in her dark eyes, stepping into his messy apartment, the proximity, the scent of her shampoo cutting through the smell of his own neglect…

A sharp, metallic taste hit his tongue. The screen, under prolonged, damp pressure, did something. The phone made a soft click-whirr noise he’d never heard before. The call screen vanished, replaced by his camera app. In an instant of horrifying clarity, he realized what was happening. His tongue, still bridging the gap between his body and the device, had somehow activated the front-facing camera.

A face filled the screen. Not Penny’s. His.

Wide, wild eyes stared back from a pale, clammy landscape. Hair plastered to a sweaty forehead. A twisted, desperate expression he didn’t recognize. He looked, he realized with a jolt that felt like ice water dumped down his spine, utterly unhinged.

He recoiled, jerking his head back as if burned. The phone clattered to the floor.

Silence, thick and choking, filled the room. The flickering bulb hummed. Somewhere downstairs, a toilet flushed.

The raw, physical need was still there, a throbbing ache. But it was suddenly dwarfed by a crushing wave of shame. This wasn't a funny predicament. It was a pit. He was in a pit, down among the roots with the worms and the damp soil, staring up at a distant circle of light where normal people, people like Penny, lived.

He slowly eased himself off the bed and walked to the cracked mirror above his dresser. The man in the glass looked tired. Pathetic. A pair of white clubs dangling from his wrists. He leaned in, his breath fogging the glass over his own reflected mouth.

A low, humorless laugh escaped him. “You colossal idiot.”

He needed a better plan. A human plan. Not this frantic, lonely archaeology of friction. He turned from the mirror, his gaze sweeping the chaotic room—the boxes, the receipts, the sock of hers he’d “rescued” from the office lost-and-found, now hidden under his pillow. It still carried the faint, ghostly trace of her perfume, a citrus and jasmine siren song.

The phone, screen-side down on the floor, buzzed.

Once. Twice.

A notification.

Every nerve in his body went taut. It was probably a spam email. A reminder from his physiotherapist. But it was 10:17 PM.

He knelt, an awkward, clumsy descent, and nudged the phone over with his elbow. The screen lit up.

It was a text message.

The sender’s name made the breath stop in his lungs.

Penny Chen.

The preview text, bold and devastatingly casual, glowed in the dark room:

Hey Theo! Sorry for the late text. I was just going over those Caldwell files and I found a note I think is in your handwriting. It’s about the Park project? My brain is fried. Any chance I could pop by tomorrow and—

He didn’t read the rest. He didn’t need to. The world, which had shrunk to the size of his mattress, the texture of his pillowcase, the grain of his tree bark, suddenly exploded back into vivid, terrifying, glorious possibility. She was coming here.

Tomorrow.

He stared at the message, at her name, his mind blank of everything except a single, deafening thought.

The clock was now ticking, and he had two useless hands and a room that looked like a crime scene.

“Okay,” he said to the empty air. “Okay, think.”

He couldn’t let her see this. The towering chaos of cardboard, the film of dust on every surface, the single plate fossilized with pasta sauce by the bed. His shameful little museum of failed attempts. He began to pace, the casts swinging like pendulums. Cleaning. He had to clean. It was the only way.

The operation began with a kind of frenzied, full-body commitment. He used his elbows to nudge boxes into a closet, his teeth to grip trash bags and drag them to the kitchen. He got on his knees and pushed dust bunnies with his forearms into a pile, then scraped them onto a piece of cardboard to dump. He used his feet to straighten the rug. He bent and used his chin and shoulder to pin the comforter, shuffling backwards to pull it roughly over the bed. Every task was a ridiculous, sweaty ordeal. His biceps ached. The plaster itched. But a clear space began to emerge from the clutter.

He found an old spray bottle of all-purpose cleaner and gripped it between his forearms, squeezing the trigger with a clumsy,交叉ed motion, spattering the desk. He used a dish towel hooked over his foot to wipe it down, hopping unsteadily. He was a circus act of desperation.

Then he got the mop. He wedged the handle between his torso and his bicep, slopping water onto the linoleum of the tiny kitchenette. The rhythmic squeak of the mop head, the push and pull—it was almost meditative. But with each forward thrust, the worn wooden handle pressed firmly into his groin.

A bolt of pure, unwelcome electricity shot through him.

He stopped, breathing hard. No. He was working. He was cleaning. This was not the time.

But the ache, which had only been banked, roared back into a furnace. The pressure of the handle was a stark, undeniable reminder. His cock, trapped in his briefs and jeans, twitched against the rigid wood. A low groan escaped his lips. The cleaning fantasy had dissolved, replaced by something more primal. His inner voice, usually a whisper of anxiety, became a clear, brutal command.

You’re not going to be able to think straight with her here if you’re this wound up. You’ll say something stupid. You’ll stare. You need to take the edge off. A lot of edges. Empty the tank.

It was logistical. A matter of hygiene, almost.

He dropped the mop. It clattered to the wet floor. He walked, stiff-legged, back to the main room. His eyes scanned the cleared space, no longer seeing furniture, but a topography of potential.

The arm of the sofa was first. It was firm, upholstered in a rough, nubbly fabric. He shoved the coffee table aside with his knee, turned his back to the room, and positioned himself. He rocked his hips, grinding himself against the corner where the vertical arm met the horizontal seat. The fabric rasped through his jeans. He pictured her leaning over his desk at work, the drape of her blouse. It built quickly, a tight coiling, and then released with a shudder that was more frustration than relief. It was pathetic, a dry, cramped little tremor. He was still rock hard. It hadn’t been enough. It had just reminded his body what it was missing.

That was just a test. A warm-up.

He moved to the kitchen. The counter’s edge was too high. The table was better. He hiked himself onto it, lying back, the cold laminate against his spine. He scooted to the edge, letting his legs dangle. He could rut against the squared-off corner. It was sharper, more direct. He bucked his hips, the hard line digging into the base of his shaft. He focused on the memory of the wind, the lace. The white. The shocking reveal. His balls, tight and full, slapped against the wood with each thrust. This was better. A raw, grinding friction. Tension gathered, a storm front in his pelvis. He was getting close, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He shoved harder, chasing it.

The table leg screeched against the floor.

The sound was like a bucket of cold water. He froze, heart hammering, listening for a thump

from the ceiling or a knock on the wall. Silence. But the spell was broken. The climax receded, leaving him panting and painfully erect on the table.

He slid off, landing with a thud. This was insane. He was a fucking animal.

But the need was a physical pain now, a throbbing insistence that drowned out the shame. It was a mechanical problem. A pressure valve that needed blowing.

His eyes landed on the rolled-up sleeping bag leaning in the corner by the boxes. The main bulk of it was soft, but the end had a hard, plastic toggle on the drawstring. He dragged it to the center of the floor with his foot, unrolled it partway with his elbows. He lay on his stomach atop the puffy nylon, positioning himself so the hard plastic nub of the toggle was right where he needed it. He began to move, a slow, deliberate sawing motion. The plastic knob was small, unforgiving. It wasn’t about pleasure; it was about targeted pressure. A focused, brutal assault on the frenulum. His mind went blank, white. No more pictures of Penny. Just sensation, impact, release. It came suddenly, a violent, shuddering clench that ripped through him. He cried out, his face buried in the musty sleeping bag. His body jerked, pulsing, finally emptying in hot, wet surges that soaked through his jeans.

He lay there for a long minute, breathing in dust and defeat.

It wasn’t over. The relief was a phantom, fleeting for a second before the hunger yawned open again, wider, hungrier. It was like trying to bail out a boat with a hole the size of his fist.

Again. You have to do it again. Until there’s nothing left.

He pushed himself up. The wet spot on his jeans was cold and clammy. He ignored it. He shuffled to the bathroom. The sink was a pedestal, curved. He turned, backed up to it, pressing his ass against the cool porcelain rim. He could hook his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans and briefs, using the casts as clumsy levers to shove them down over his hips. His penis, flushed dark and slick at the tip from his last orgasm, sprang free. It ached, sensitive and overstimulated but still demanding.

He maneuvered himself, bending his knees, until the rim of the sink pressed against his perineum, the hard curve cradling his scrotum from below. He started to move, a shallow, rocking motion, letting the porcelain grind into that ultra-sensitive space behind his balls. He watched himself in the mirror, a sweaty, wild-eyed stranger with two white clubs for hands, humping his sink. His own reflection disgusted him, which somehow fed the frenzy. This was the truth of him. This pathetic, leaking need. He came again, a weaker, thinner stream that dribbled down the white porcelain and onto the tile floor.

He was shaking. His legs felt like water. He pulled his pants up with his forearms, not bothering to fasten them. He stumbled back to the bedroom, crashing onto the freshly made bed. The clean sheets. Penny. She couldn’t see him like this. She could never, ever know.

He rolled onto his stomach. The pillow. He’d started with the pillow. He shoved his face into it, inhaling the clean cotton smell, now mixed with his own sweat. He rutted against the mattress, a slow, exhausted grind. This one took longer. His body was running on empty, but his mind, feverish, supplied the final image: not the skirt, but her text. Pop by tomorrow. Her voice saying it. Her standing in his cleared, clean space. Smiling at him.

The final orgasm was barely a spasm, a hollow, aching pull that left him feeling scraped raw. He went limp, a void. The frantic energy was gone, replaced by a deep, trembling exhaustion. The tension was finally, truly spent.

He lay there in the silent, tidied room. The clock ticked. The fridge hummed. He was empty. He was clean. He was ready.

For about six hours, anyway. Then the whole terrible cycle would begin again.