Chapter 1: Reward
The door slammed shut with a final, hollow thud, the sound swallowed by the apartment’s stale quiet. Fuckin' hell, Gavin thought as he peeled the stiff, coffee-scented shirt over his head, dropped it onto a pyramid of takeout containers, and shucked his jeans, leaving them in a heap on the floor. The evening light, weak and grey through the filthy blinds, cut across the framed photo on the nightstand. The smiling group in the framed photo felt from another, cleaner universe.
He didn't look at it. He kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks, sniffed under his pits for good measure. Not great, but not awful. He decided the shower could wait. He took his underwear off soon after, the fabric joining the discard pile on the floor as he turned toward the bedside table.
He reached in and pulled out the Fleshlight, its cold, synthetic skin yielding under his grip. He briefly stroked himself with the other hand, thinking aimlessly about a woman. Any woman, her warmth, the sound of her breathing. The sharp, chemical smell of the toy’s lubricant mixed with the stale room. He needed to get lost in her. Just for a few moments.
He thumbed his phone to life, the cool glow washing over his face as he scrolled through Instagram with a practiced, empty rhythm. Past a laughing girl from his media seminar, past a luxury influencer draped across a Balinese infinity pool, past a celebrity’s curated beach sunset. His thumb kept moving, a tired search for a specific charge, a particular curve of a smile, until it stopped. The screen filled with the sharp, knowing eyes of Katy Herzog in a muted video reel. She was mid-laugh at some off-screen question, her head tilting back, a strand of blonde hair catching the light.
He brought the toy to himself, the warmth of his skin a stark contrast to its clinical coolness. As he moved, his gaze fixed on the pixelated curve of her jaw, the wet, artificial sound in the room growing louder than the traffic outside. But the rhythm faltered, the illusion thinning; he pulled the toy away with a frustrated sigh, replacing it with the rough, calloused heat of his own hand.
He gradually strokes himself dry, remembering some of those old Reddit comments about her sex life. “I heard she’s a total dead fish, just lies there,” one anon had typed, and another, “Bet she’s into some freaky shit to feel anything.” The words were coarse and speculative, painting a grotesque, competing image over the smiling woman on the screen. A sharp, familiar tension coiled tight in his gut, part arousal and part something uglier, a spectator’s grim curiosity. His hand stilled, the moment collapsing into a quiet, hollow ache.
He stood up, taking the sleeve from its case, and placed it over the warming rod, the faint electrical hum the only sound in the room. He reorganised the pillows against the headboard, stacking them for support, thinking about what she’d say if they were about to fuck. “Just be quiet,” she might whisper, her voice all business, and he’d probably laugh nervously, fumbling with the lube.
His phone buzzed sharply against the sheet, the screen lighting up with a text from Cameron that simply read: “You alive?”
He stared at the message, thumbs hovering over the screen before tapping out, “Yeah, surviving. Buried in assignments. Talk soon,” and hitting send.
The phone’s glow lit his face as he flicked back to Katy’s Instagram, scrolling past another glossy press shot until he landed on a candid where her smile seemed less practiced. He remembered another forum comment, buried in the sludge, some anonymous user insisting, “Nah, she prefers them younger, less baggage.” A faint, ridiculous spark ignited in his chest. Maybe he wasn’t completely out of the running.
He took the sleeve off the warming rod; it was lifelike, the skin-toned silicone still holding a faint, mechanical heat. He placed it back in the case, squeezing a cold, clear line of lube into the hole, using his finger to spread it in a slow, circular motion before briefly stroking the rest over his cock.
The sharp, sweet smell of the lubricant filled the air as he positioned himself, kneeling on the bed, his gaze drifting back to the phone screen where Katy’s video had looped back to the beginning. His phone buzzed again against the sheet, a violent skitter that broke the rhythm, and he glanced at the screen to see his mother’s name flashing over Katy’s smiling face.
He let it ring out, the screen going dark, then lit again with her follow-up text: “Just checking in. Call me when you’re free xx.” He typed “Flat out. Will do. Love you,” sent it, and thumbed the phone to silent.
No distractions.
He repositioned himself, shoving the Fleshlight firmly between two pillows, creating a shallow, yielding space. He imagined her just laying there, the cool, detached expression from the reddit comments settling over her video-lit face.
He groaned as he slid inside, imagining he’d just gone down on her, the taste a phantom memory on his tongue. “Just don’t… don’t look at me like that,” he imagined her whispering, her voice flat and distant against his ear.
He began to fuck the makeshift space with a rough, building rhythm, the slick sound loud in the quiet room.
“Fuck… fucking Christ,” he groaned out for her, for the image on the screen, for the empty apartment. A shudder ran through him, part release and part profound, echoing solitude.
The other comments surfaced then, ugly and insistent: she just starfishes, total pillow princess, clashing violently with his fantasy of her whispering, “Harder, just like that,” into the sweat-damp skin of his neck. I heard she cries afterwards, every time, someone else had written, but in his head she was laughing, breathless and real. He drove himself further into the yielding silicone, a grim, mechanical rhythm chasing a feeling that the comments and the fantasy both stripped away.
He leaned on his forearms, wincing as he felt himself precum, imagining muttering something in her ear about a condom but he couldn't think what exactly.
She responded, but he only heard some of it—"...just hurry up..."—the words dissolving into static.
'I'm gonna come right inside you,' Gavin gasped, the confession raw and too loud in the quiet room. 'Whatever,' the fantasy-Katy replied, her voice a dismissive, icy sigh that held no protest, only vacant allowance.
That hollow acceptance snapped something in him, and a jolt of pure, adrenal panic seized his muscles as the climax built up through him, inevitable and blinding. He quickly pulled up her picture, needing to look at her when it happened.
Her age–forty two—flashed in his mind again, a number that felt illicit, a threshold. The phone collapsed, folding into the pillow. He moved faster, mind set, nearing the inevitable, the violent, possessive fantasy coming in a wave. His body locked, a silent shout etched into the lines of his neck, voice wavering in his blurred vision.
Gavin comes loudly, spilling into her, the choked sound ripped from his throat as his vision whited out at the edges. A shudder ran through him, followed by a swift, hollowing drop as reality rushed back in: the chemical smell, the cooling silicone, the video still playing silently on his phone screen. He collapsed onto his side, pulling away, the fantasy of Katy evaporating like steam off pavement. Fuck, he thought, staring at the water stain on the ceiling, his breath slowing to a shallow, regular rhythm. The phone’s light, now dimming, cast a pallid glow over the abandoned toy and the framed photo he still wouldn’t look at.
In his mind, she turned her face away, a faint, almost imperceptible flinch of her nostrils as if smelling something spoiled. "Are you done?" she asked, the words barely a whisper, already receding. Then the physical wave hit him, a brutal, shuddering punctuation that emptied him into the slick silicone. The fantasy vaporized, leaving only the ache in his knees and the phone’s screen, now dark. He slumped forward, the cooling device sticky against his stomach, the room rushing back in with its stale, quiet weight.