Chapter 13

When I woke up, the bedroom light was filtered through the curtains, and the silence of the house felt like it was in on it. Manu was still asleep, her face buried in the pillow, and I… I felt like a sweaty corpse from pleasure. My thighs stuck together, my ass hurt, and there was a weird pressure in my rectum, like I’d taken it up the ass in a really rough way — even though I knew that wasn’t exactly it. I reeked of man. The stench of his cum still soaked into me, that nasty musk mixed with sweat and semen.

I got up slowly, walking like I’d been beaten up, and headed straight to the bathroom. I grabbed a towel from the cabinet, hung it on the hook, and left my phone charging on the sink while the water heated up. I needed to wash my soul, my body, and the sins from the night before.

In the shower, as the hot water ran down my back, I felt a nagging stab of guilt — but I pushed it away quick. Tommy. He must be freaking out. But you know what? Fuck it. Every time I forgot that I didn’t owe him shit anymore. We weren’t together. He was my ex. And even so… something in me still wanted to be nice. Not for him. For me. Because ghosting without a heads-up, even if I didn’t owe him an explanation, still felt like being careless. I didn’t want to be that woman. Even if, maybe, I already was.

When I got back to the bedroom, I picked up the phone with my still-wet fingers and unlocked the screen. The full charge notification stared at me like it was saying: “ready to see some shit?” And I did. I saw it all. A history of sent videos. My stomach dropped.

Three. Four. Five videos. All from last night. Of me. Fucking. With the guy.

I froze. An ice ran down my spine like someone had dumped a bucket of water on my soul. My chest stopped for a second, then raced like an alarm going off.

“But what the fuck did I do?”

My fingers slid over the thumbnails of the recordings — and there I was. On all fours. On my side. Riding him. Moaning like a slut filmed for a porn site. And all that… sent to Tommy. One by one.

“My God…” I whispered to myself, my heart pounding.

My mind spun between two thoughts: “What the fuck did you do?” and “Holy shit, fuck, holy shiiiit!” But then, like flipping a switch, an instinct lit up inside me. A mix of denial, self-defense, and pure rage. I took a deep breath and whispered low, with a dry, almost cynical laugh:

“Fuck it… fuck it. Wanna spread it around? Go ahead. Fuck it.”

The truth was, the idea of him sharing that all over the internet scared me, sure. But there was something freeing in that vulnerability. I was naked, raw, stripped of morals or pretense. Nothing left to lose.

I leaned against the wall, still holding the phone, my whole body sweaty from anguish and heat. “I’m so fucking stupid,” I thought. “But stupid on purpose.” And that, in some sick way, calmed me down.

I took off my clothes, got in the shower, and let the water fall, washing away last night; the cold water was invigorating running down my body. I heard the door open slowly. Manu shuffled in, still half-asleep and wobbly. Her panties halfway down her thighs, hair a mess. She sat on the toilet with her head in her hands and started mumbling something I couldn’t make out.

“Manu… you up?”

“Shut up and don’t talk to me till I have coffee.” Her voice came out muffled, raspy, with unfiltered anger. “Fuck, it’s eight in the morning. Why the hell are you up so early?”

“I gotta go home, babe. I have a place. And there’s Tom — ”

“What Tommy, fuck.” She cut me off sharp, her voice rougher than I was ready for. “You broke up with him and now you’ve sent a bunch of videos of you fucking another guy.”

I went quiet for two seconds. It stung. But she was right. And it wasn’t like I had much to argue.

“I know. And I’m gonna sort it out soon.”

Manu muttered about ten curse words while she peed, bitching about everything: the headache, the light on, my voice, life. Then she stood up, yanked her panties up with a disgusted sigh, and went back to bed without looking at me. I’m pretty sure she won’t remember any of what she said. The tone, maybe. The words, I doubt it.

I got out of the shower, dried off quick, and put on yesterday’s clothes, which were tossed on the chair. They still smelled like the night. When I went to the kitchen to grab my bag, I spotted — by chance — my panties hanging on the drying rack. Still damp.

Manu must’ve washed them for me before I passed out.

I stood there staring for a second. It gave me a lump in my throat I didn’t get. I picked up the piece carefully, like it belonged to someone else, and put it on even though it was wet. It was uncomfortable, but not worse than going without.

I ate some cookies off the table. Made coffee and left it in the pot, more for her than me. When I finally thought I was ready, I closed the door soft and left, phone in my pocket and the weight of the whole day waiting outside.

When I got home, I pushed the door open carefully, like I wanted to sneak in unnoticed. The living room was clean, tidy, couch straight, stuff in place. I went to the bathroom, then the kitchen — everything spotless and smelling like disinfectant. And I hadn’t called anyone. No cleaner. No mom.

It had to be Tommy.

I stood in the middle of the kitchen with my bag still on my shoulder, trying to figure what kind of anger makes a guy clean the whole house. Passive rage? Pity rage? Or just guilt he didn’t know where to shove?

I went to the bedroom quietly. Tommy was still asleep, body turned to the side, face smashed into the pillow like nothing happened. Like nothing had been sent to him.

I went back to the living room and sat on the arm of the couch, kinda dizzy. I thought about what I’d done. The videos. His face seeing that. The kind of man who vacuums the whole house after watching his woman fuck another guy. The Tommy I knew would’ve called me names. This Tommy ghosted me and… ran the vacuum?

I remembered the pic he sent and opened it again. It was his dick. He’d always had a nice dick, proportional, with a vein running up the side. Too bad he never trimmed his pubes. We’d fought about it more than once, but he never took care of it right.

I looked at the phone. But what the hell did that mean?

While I got lost in that kind of thought that goes nowhere, he woke up. He passed me in the living room with his face all creased, hair messed up, quiet.

“Morning, want coffee?” he said, already heading to the kitchen.

“No, I already had some. Morning,” I replied.

And that was it.

No fight.
No questions.
No scene.

And I sat there, not knowing what kind of purgatory I was in. This needed to be sorted.

“Tommy, come here so we can talk.”

“Be right there! Just a minute.”

He showed up in the kitchen doorway, still yawning, face creased and t-shirt crooked.

“You wanna talk to me?”

“Yeah. I don’t know exactly how to start, but… we need to talk about this.”

He looked at me like he was waiting for an accusation or a fight. But I didn’t have either ready. Just half-baked questions.

“But are you mad at me?”

“No. I’m not…”

“You’re not pissed I sent the videos?”

“No. I liked them.”

“You liked them?”

“Yeah, I liked them. I don’t know… maybe it was a fetish I had and never realized. It turned me on. I don’t know.”

“You weren’t jealous?”

“Yeah. A little. But I liked it.”

He was serious. No sarcasm in his voice, no smile. And that, somehow, confused me more than any yell or insult. I stared at him trying to figure if it was true or just a calculated way to deny me the power of breaking something inside him.

“You wanna ask me something or you gonna keep pretending everything’s fine? You gonna stay in one-word mode?”

“You want me to ask, but you don’t wanna answer. So… why?”

“Just ask, Tommy.”

“Who were you with?”

“You don’t know him. It was a guy I met at the bar yesterday. It happened. I didn’t plan it. It just… happened.”

He went quiet for a second, but he didn’t seem surprised. Just… cold.

“And the other person?”

My spine went cold. The blood seemed to rush up and down at the same time. How did he know? I hadn’t said. Hadn’t left a clue. Or did I? Did I overreact?

“Yeah… there was another person. She filmed the video.”

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, in a scary calm. A calm of someone planning slow.

“It was a woman.”

“Who?”

“I can’t say, Tommy. You know her…”

“It’s fine, I know it’s Manu. I’m not stupid. You went out with her and I heard her voice in the background of the video. She laughs, then says something. I know her laugh.”

I had no reaction. Just nodded.

“Yeah… it’s Manu. But no one has to know about it. Okay? No one.”

“Didn’t know you hooked up with women too. Good to know. Too bad we don’t have anything anymore.”

He said it with a neutrality that punched me in the gut. I laughed. I shouldn’t have. But I did.

“Yeah, Tommy. I remember how much you pushed that threesome talk. Years ago. I never wanted to. But things change. And it happened.”

“Forgive me for the pics, okay? I didn’t think straight…”

“No. I liked it. I wanted to see everything.” He said it with his eyes kinda cloudy, half avoiding mine. “Is there any you didn’t send?”

I furrowed my brow, not believing it.

“Any what, Tommy? What the hell are you talking about? Dude?! You crazy?”

He hesitated. Took a deep breath. Looked down.

“I liked feeling like a cuckold. That’s all.”

The words dropped between us like a stone.

“I know we don’t have anything anymore. But I liked it. I wanted to see you fucking. I got hard. I thought it’d hurt, but… no. I came watching.”

I stood there, frozen, not knowing if I felt pity, anger, fear, or horniness. Maybe all at once.
And the worst: part of me got it.

And liked it.