Chapter 5: The Watch and a Kiss
The lavender silk felt like cool water against my skin. I stood before Sabrina’s closet, the camisole so thin it was nearly sheer, the shorts cut high on the thigh. Slipping them on was an exercise in surreal intimacy. The fabric whispered over curves that weren’t mine, clinging to the swell of hips, the full, heavy weight of my chest. The thong, a persistent, floss-like presence, remained.This was to be my skin now. I was just turning, feeling the slippery slide of silk against my inner thighs, when the knock came.
Not a knock.A tattoo—confident, rhythmic.Rat-a-tat-tat.
My new heart vaulted into my throat.I knew.
I crept to the door, my smaller bare feet silent on the cool hardwood. Through the peephole, the world warped into a fisheye lens of Ben’s handsome, expectant face. I unlocked the door, pulling it open just a crack, the chain lock engaged.
“Hey,” I said, my voice an octave higher with nerves.“The watch is on the bench.Right there.”
He smiled, that easy, white smile. He wasn’t holding the watch.“I saw it. Thought I’d say thanks in person. You ran me off pretty quick before.”
“It’s not a good time,” I repeated, the phrase feeling brittle.“C’mon, Sabrina. Five minutes.” His hand came up, not to push the door, but to cover my fingers where they gripped the edge. His touch was warm, rough.A bolt of something—not mine, not mine—shot up my arm. “You seemed off. Let me just check on you.”
Before I could protest further, he slid the chain lock free with a deft, practiced motion.The door swung open. He stood there, bigger in the doorway than I remembered, the porch light casting shadows over the hard planes of his chest under his tight t-shirt.He smelled of clean sweat and his stupid cologne.
He cupped my face.His palm was calloused.“See? All good,” he murmured, but his eyes were searching mine, seeing a panic he misinterpreted.Then he kissed me.It wasn't gentle. It was a claim. His lips were firm, insistent, and my body—her body—responded before my mind could form a single coherent thought. My knees buckled, a liquid weakness flooding my limbs. My mouth opened under his, not by my command, but by a deep, cellular programming. A small, pathetic sound escaped my throat as he stepped fully inside, kicking the door shut behind him with his foot.
The taste of him—spearmint gum, a hint of beer—was foreign and overwhelmingly masculine. My hands, of their own volition, came up to his shoulders, feeling the hard cap of muscle there.Every nerve ending was singing a song of want. My nipples, sensitive and taut against the thin silk, brushed his chest, and a shockwave of pleasure-pain radiated through me.I was a passenger.A prisoner.
“Missed you already,” he breathed against my mouth, and I hated the thrill that shot through her—my—our stomach.
He walked me backward, his arms strong around me, until my calves hit the edge of the bed. Then he spun me, one smooth motion, his hands on my hips. Facing away from him, I stared at the tangled sheets, the scent of our previous encounter rising thick in the air. My mind screamed.My body arched back into him.He didn’t undress me. He just pushed the flimsy silk shorts and the thong down my thighs. The cool air hit my bare skin, and I shuddered.His hands were on my hips, gripping, holding me in place. I felt his weight shift, the denim of his jeans rough against the back of my thighs, and then the blunt, hot pressure of him, nudging, seeking.
There was no preparation, no tenderness. Just one smooth, devastating thrust that filled a space I had never known existed with a blinding, stretching fullness. I cried out, the sound a high, desperate wail that was utterly alien.“God, you’re tight,” he groaned, his voice guttural.
Then he moved.His rhythm was relentless, a pounding, driving pace that shook me to my core. One hand anchored me by the hip, the other tangled in my hair, pulling my head back. Each thrust was a collision that sent a jolt through my entire frame; my breasts swung heavily with the motion, a separate, aching rhythm. The sensation was unbearable—a violent, overwhelming friction that sparked a fire in my nerves, building with terrifying speed. I was sobbing, my face pressed into the lavender sheets, my fingers clutching at the fabric. My body was coiling, tightening, a spring wound beyond its limit.The climax, when it broke, was catastrophic. It tore through me with no permission, a raw, convulsing wave that locked my muscles and blinded me. I heard my own voice, a shattered, keening sound, as the world dissolved into pure, shattering sensation. He followed a few brutal strokes later, a hot flood spreading across my lower back as he pulled out.Silence, except for our ragged breathing.He stepped back. I heard the rustle of his clothes, the zip of his jeans.I couldn’t move. I lay collapsed on the bed, my limbs trembling violently, the silk camisole twisted around my torso. The warm wetness on my skin was a brand of shame.
“See you around, Sabrina,” he said, his voice already casual, detached.The door opened and closed.The lock clicked.
I lay there for a long time, the tremors slowly subsiding into a deep, hollow ache. The physical echo of him lingered inside me, a phantom fullness.I finally pushed myself up, my arms shaking. In Sabrina’s vanity mirror, I saw a stranger—flushed, tear-streaked, hair wild, with a slick, cooling patch on her skin.Her plump lips were swollen. Her eyes were wide with a horror that went beyond violation.It was the horror of complicity. My body had welcomed it.Craved it.Betrayed every part of who I was.
In my—Justin’s—house, Sabrina stared at the work email on the phone. The server outage ticket glowed with urgent, meaningless jargon. Andrea was in the living room, folding laundry with a crisp, efficient fury.“You have to call them,” Andrea said, not looking up from a towel. “It’s part of the cover.”
Sabrina took a deep breath, the air filling Justin’s larger lungs.She dialed the number from the ticket.“Uh, hi. This is Justin Zygurski. Ticket four-five-eight-two-one.” Her voice, in his baritone, felt like a poor impersonation.“I’m… working remotely today. Can you read me the error log?”
A bored tech on the other end recited a string of codes and failures. Sabrina scribbled them down on a pad, her handwriting in Justin’s blocky print.“Right. And the IP of the primary switch?” she asked, parroting a phrase she’d heard Justin use once.She hung up ten minutes later, sweating. She looked at the codes, then at Justin’s desktop computer.With a grimace, she googled one. Then she typed a response into the ticket system, a stalling, technical-sounding request for more information. It bought a few hours.She leaned back in Justin’s chair, the old leather groaning. The model train town sat under its dome, perfect and still. From the living room, she could hear the soft rustle of fabric as Andrea folded.A strange warmth spread through her—through Justin’s chest. It was admiration.This woman, steadfast, holding her world together even as it cracked. There was a gravity to Andrea she’d never noticed before, a quiet, formidable strength. Sabrina felt a pull toward it, a desire to be the kind of man who deserved that strength.
She got up and walked to the living room doorway. Andrea was bent over the laundry basket, the line of her neck graceful.“I stalled them,” Sabrina said.
Andrea looked up, her expression unreadable. “Good.”
“Can I… help?”
Andrea studied her—the face of her husband, the stance a little wrong, the eyes holding a foreign curiosity. For a second, something softened.Then it hardened again.“No.You should figure out what to do next on that ticket. He would.” She went back to folding. “We can’t afford for you to get him fired.”
The rebuke was gentle but absolute. Sabrina retreated, the warmth curdling into a chill.She was an imposter here, too. In both bodies, we were ghosts, haunting the wrong lives, desperately trying to puppeteer the strings while the flesh itself conspired against us. My night had ended in a violation that felt like surrender.Hers was a loneliness that felt like exile. And tomorrow, for both of us, the performance had to go on.