Chapter 3: The Breaking Point
The smell of her own room was unfamiliar to her now.
It used to be lavender detergent and turpentine. Now it was the sharp, coppery scent of exertion and the faint, musky odor that seemed to emanate from her own skin, no matter how she scrubbed. Emily stood in the center of the chaos, staring at the poster of a willow tree she’d painted last spring. It seemed like it belonged to another person. A smaller, softer person.
A knock at the door. Two firm raps, then a hesitant third.
She knew it was Jake. He had texted. He was coming to talk. The word “talk” felt brittle, a tiny shell over a void. She didn’t move. Her heart was a frantic bird in a cage of new bone.
“Em? It’s me.” His voice was muffled, strained.
She willed her feet to carry her to the door. They felt like blocks of concrete. When she opened it, the sight of him hit her with a physical ache. He looked smaller. Not just because she had gained another inch overnight, her head now brushing the top of the doorframe, but because he seemed diminished, hunched into his jacket. His eyes, wide and blue, traveled up her body—over the stretched fabric of her college sweatshirt across her shoulders, down the length of the gray sweatpants that were tight across her quadriceps, and then stopped, freezing at her groin.
The sweats did little to hide the persistent, heavy swell there. It was semi-aroused, a constant, humiliating state since dawn. She saw his jaw tighten.
“Can I come in?” he asked, not meeting her eyes.
She stepped back silently. He edged past her, careful not to touch her. The room felt minuscule with both of them in it. He looked at the bed, its sheets still twisted from her restless night, the large men’s boxers clearly visible. His boxers.
“So,” he began, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We need to… figure this out.”
“Figure what out, Jake?” Her voice was lower, a resonance that still surprised her. “The CDC doesn’t know. The doctors don’t know. What exactly are we going to figure out?”
“Us!” he burst out, finally looking at her. His face was pale, his brow furrowed with a frustration that bordered on panic. “What is this, Emily? What are you? What are we? I can’t… I don’t know how to be around you.”
The words were little knives. “You seemed to know how to be around me yesterday morning,” she said, the memory a raw, open wound.
He flinched. “That wasn’t us! That was… a thing that happened. It was freaky. You were so strong, and you had… and I just…” He trailed off, his cheeks flushing. “I liked it,” he whispered, horrified. “And it scared the shit out of me.”
The confession hung between them. Emily felt a corresponding twist in her gut—a flicker of that same, dark hunger his words invoked. It was awake instantly, a sleeping beast poked with a stick. She felt a throbbing pulse between her legs, a firming, a swelling that made the sweatpants strain further.
Jake’s eyes dropped again, magnetized. He saw the movement. He took an involuntary step back, his shoulders hitting the door he’d just closed.
“See?” he breathed, his voice trembling. “It’s doing it now. Just because I said that.”
“It’s not an ‘it,’” she growled, the frustration boiling over. “It’s me. This is me now. And you standing there, looking at me like I’m a monster, that’s you now.”
“I don’t know how else to look!” he shouted. “My girlfriend is taller than me! She’s got more muscle than the guys on the wrestling team! She’s got a fucking…” He couldn’t say the word. He just gestured helplessly at her crotch.
The beast in her broke its chain.
In two long strides, she closed the distance. He shrunk back, but there was nowhere to go. She pinned him against the door, one massive hand splayed on the wood beside his head, the other gripping his wrist. Her strength was absolute, effortless. He struggled for a second, a feeble push against her chest that accomplished nothing. The feel of his resistance, his vulnerable, pounding pulse under her thumb, sent a surge of pure dominance through her veins.
Her body pressed against his. The thick, hard length of her, now fully erect, ground against his stomach through the layers of fabric. He gasped, a sharp intake of breath. His face was a mask of terror and a dark, undeniable arousal.
“Is this what you’re scared of, Jake?” she murmured, her lips close to his ear. Her voice was a dark, velvety thing. “Or is this what you came back for?”
“Emily, stop,” he whimpered, but his body betrayed him. She could feel his own erection pressing against his jeans.
“You don’t want me to stop,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. The intellectual, gentle Emily was gone, submerged under a tidal wave of imperative need. She needed to conquer this fear between them. She needed to use this new, terrible power. She needed him.
She released his wrist and yanked his shirt up, her fingers rough. He didn’t fight her. He was pliant, caught in the current. She unfastened his jeans with quick, efficient tugs, pushing them and his briefs down to his knees. His cock sprang free, hard and leaking. He was panting now, his eyes glazed.
“Please,” he whispered, but the meaning was ambiguous—a plea for mercy or for more.
Emily stepped back just enough to shove her own sweatpants and underwear down to her thighs. Her cock stood out, thick and veined, ruddy and alien. She saw his eyes lock onto it, his mouth slack. She took herself in hand, giving a few rough strokes. A droplet of precum welled at the slit. The vulgarity of the act, right in front of him, was part of the point.
“Turn around,” she commanded.
“Wh-what?”
“Turn. Around. Face the door.”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then obeyed, his movements clumsy with fear and desire. He bent forward slightly, bracing his hands on the door. The position was one of utter submission. Emily moved close, her body enveloping his from behind. She was so much larger, her frame swallowing his. She spat into her palm again, the sound obscenely loud, and slicked her length. Then she pressed the blunt head against him.
He cried out as she entered, a choked, guttural sound. It was tighter than anything she could remember, a blistering, clutching heat. She pushed forward steadily, inexorably, feeling his body fight and then relent, accepting the brutal invasion. She sank to the hilt, her hips flush against his ass, her groin a furnace of sensation. She stayed there, buried deep, feeling his every tremble.
“Oh God,” he sobbed, his forehead against the door.
She began to move. It was not love-making. It was a physical argument, a taking. Each thrust slammed his body into the solid wood with a dull, rhythmic thud. The room filled with the sounds of it: skin slapping against skin, his ragged whimpers, her own low, grunting breaths. She gripped his hips, her fingers digging into his flesh, sure to leave bruises.
“You like this, you fucking liar,” she snarled into the back of his neck. “You love feeling how strong I am. You love getting fucked by your freak girlfriend.”
“Yes,” he moaned, the word shattered. “Fuck, yes.”
His admission unleashed something in her. Her thrusts became harder, faster, punishing. The pleasure was a crude, building storm, centered in that new, sensitive flesh. It was about control. It was about obliterating the scared boy from the library and the confused boyfriend from five minutes ago. It was about being this new thing, fully and without apology.
“I’m gonna come,” she growled, the tension coiling impossibly tight at her base. “Gonna fill you up. Mark what’s mine.”
With a final, driving plunge, she peaked. The orgasm racked her, a seismic, whole-body convulsion that pulled a raw shout from her throat. She pulsed inside him, her release hot and violent. As the waves receded, she slumped over him, her weight driving him harder into the door.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their breathing. Then, slowly, she withdrew. He sagged against the door, his legs shaking. A trickle of her spend leaked down his thigh.
She pulled her pants up, the act mechanical. The beast was sated. It retreated, and in its wake rushed the cold, horrifying clarity. She looked at Jake’s vulnerable, used body, the red marks on his hips from her hands, the way he slowly, painfully straightened up.
He turned around. His eyes were red, his face slick with sweat and tears. He looked shattered.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words ash in her mouth.
He didn’t answer. He just pulled his clothes up with trembling hands, wincing as he moved. He couldn’t look at her.
“Jake…”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice hollow. He fumbled for the doorknob. “Just don’t, Emily.”
He opened the door and left, moving stiffly down the hall without a backward glance. Emily stood alone in the center of the room, the smell of sex and sweat and shame thick in the air. She looked at her hands—the hands that had pinned him, possessed him. A dry, heaving sob built in her chest, but no tears came. She was a desert.
Across campus, Ethan walked. The soreness was a constant, deep reminder with every step. He had showered until the water ran cold, scrubbing at his skin until it was pink, but he couldn’t erase the feeling of Bree above him, inside him. The memory was a twisted knot of shame and a dark, secret thrill.
He found himself outside Crosby Hall, his own dorm. He couldn’t go up to his room. The silence there would be deafening. His phone buzzed. A message from Bree. A single question mark. He deleted it, his thumb shaking.
His mind, desperate for shelter, returned to the library. To the quiet aisle. To the girl named Emily, who had looked at him not with hunger, but with a shared, devastating loss. Her eyes had held a pain that mirrored the confusion swirling in his own gut. She hadn’t wanted anything from him. She had just… seen him.
He turned on his heel and began walking back toward the library. It was a compulsion, a pull toward the only connection that hadn’t felt like being consumed. He needed to see if she was still there. He needed, absurdly, to know if she was okay.
Bree stared at the question mark on her screen, unsent. No reply. The emptiness in the room expanded. The satisfaction from earlier was gone, a cheap sugar rush that had crashed. She scrolled to the linebacker’s profile. She typed a message.
Room 207. Now. Bring a friend.
She sent it, a cold smile touching her lips. The hunger was back. It was always back. And this time, she wouldn’t be satisfied with just one.