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I perched on the edge of the kitchen chair, my whole body a single quivering nerve. The hard lacquered wood pressed up into my tailbone, but I didn’t dare adjust—it felt as though any sudden movement on my part would send a shockwave down the hallway. My hands trembled so violently I gripped the edge of the table, white-knuckled and sweating. I bit deep into my lower lip, so hard the metallic tang of blood filled my mouth, something primal and humiliating and self-inflicted. My ears strained at the air, **** to catch every single sound leaking down the hallway, every shift of weight, every word, every animal grunt.

Wiley didn’t bother with words. I heard the mattress springs squeal under his sudden, awkward weight, the heavy wheeze of his breath, the faint patter of his shoes thudding to the carpet. Then the sounds of fabric—buttons scraping, zippers unzipping, the slithering hiss of clothes being peeled away—layered over the silence like some foley artist’s audio track. I turn to see him start stripping my girlfriend. He did so slow, clumsy, eager, but I had to admit: there was a tenderness in the way he handled her, like he was afraid she might laugh at him or snap in two. Even through the door, I had a perfect view of those fat, stubby fingers trembling on her bare shoulders, the spilled milk of his belly jutting forward, the acne shining on the back of his neck in the lamplight.

At first, I couldn’t tell if Sarah was angry, or scared, or just resigned. But the longer I listened, the more I realized that she wasn’t fighting him, wasn’t ducking away, wasn’t even protesting in that half-hearted, performative way some people do when they want to say no but really mean yes. She just allowed him to strip her down until she bared it all for him.

I heard the first little sigh escape her lips—a quavering, high-pitched thing, almost a whimper. Then another, lower and slower, as Wiley eased her down onto the mattress. The sheets made a hollow, papery rasp as she shifted underneath his weight.

Their bodies moved together, flesh on flesh, the squeaking of the bed a metronome driving everything forward. I couldn’t help but imagine it all in precise, excruciating detail: Sarah’s pale skin pressed up against Wiley’s blotchy, pimpled chest; the way his belly folded over her hips; the way her hair fanned out across the pillow. There was a rhythm to it, at first slow and unsteady, then suddenly frantic, like Wiley had been holding himself back for years and was now determined to fuck her as though his entire personality depended on it.

Sarah moaned—a sound I recognized, hated, craved—and then it changed, deepened, like she was giving herself over to the moment, letting the wave of sensation roll her under. It was unmistakable: she was enjoying it. More, maybe, than I could ever remember her enjoying it with me. It was a different sound, richer and more full-throated than the awkward sex noises she’d made with me.

It hurt, of course it hurt. I felt myself shrinking, curling inward, shrinking down to some infinitesimal point of humiliation. As the lie I told myself about the only reason it was better with that gross pig, was because it was her first time came crashing down. My ears burned. My mouth flooded with saliva; I nearly gagged. But I couldn’t look away from what was happening inside the door. I wanted to punch a hole in the drywall, to upend the table and storm in and drag them apart—but I didn’t. I sat, rigid and trembling, listened and watching as the two of them lost themselves in each other.

The sounds from the bedroom grew louder, more insistent, as if Sarah and Wiley were trying to drown out the world—or, more realistically, trying to **** me to bear witness to every humiliating, exhilarating detail. I sat in the kitchen, every muscle locked, tasting the metallic spike of adrenaline in my veins. Time lost its bearings and bent itself around the echoing slap of skin, the groaning bed frame, the staccato huff of Wiley’s breath. Nothing in my life had prepared me for the experience of listening to my girlfriend get fucked by someone I’d always considered less than human—a walking punchline, a blemish on the collective memory of our friend group. But here he was, hammering away at her, making her moan, turning the air electric with words I couldn’t quite make out, though I tried, desperately.

I pressed my palms over my ears, then immediately took them away. The silence was worse; the silence left only my own thoughts, which were infinitely more punishing. I needed to hear it, every second of it. I needed the evidence that Wiley was currently winning.

In the haze of my vigilance, I heard them talking—first little grunts and syllables, then actual, unmistakable words. Sarah’s voice, breathless and pleading, repeating Wiley’s name in a way I’d never heard before. She was using it as a kind of mantra, a spell she cast over the two of them to keep the rest of the world at bay. I heard the peculiar, half-mad laughter that always bubbled out of her when she lost control, when emotion or sensation overran her defences. She sounded high, intoxicated, more alive than she ever did with me, and I wanted to break something just so she’d stop.

But then the laughter gave way to something else: a long, low whine, followed by a muffled sob. I heard Wiley’s voice, wet and ****, talking over her, shushing her, or maybe egging her on. It was hard to tell. I pressed my forehead against the table and tried to listen harder, to become nothing but an ear grafted onto a trembling body.

The sequence played out with excruciating slowness. I heard the impact of Wiley’s body as he caught his breath and braced himself for another push. I heard Sarah gasp and curse, and for one deranged instant, I felt proud—a trapped, delusional optimism that maybe she was thinking of me, maybe she was performing for my benefit, maybe I still mattered. But the sounds only intensified. There was no performance here, only two people losing themselves in the animal pleasure of the moment. I remembered the way Wiley looked at Sarah back in high school, his eyes full of naked longing, the way he’d linger at the edge of every party or gathering, just waiting for someone, anyone, to notice him. He always had a crush on her—everyone knew it but Sarah knew it and no matter know told her she never would believe it. Now, years later, she was giving him everything he wanted and letting me listen to it all.

My hands shook so hard I nearly cracked the tabletop. The bed frame had a distinct rhythm now, a creaking, pulsing cadence that set my teeth on edge. I could hear Wiley wheezing, crying out in weirdly tender tones, his voice a hodgepodge of apology and awe."Oh Sara-bear you’re so—” Then a thud, his clumsy fat ass had caused them to fall off the mattress, then more laughter, frantic and triumphant. I almost admired them, for a split-second: the sheer audacity of it, the refusal to pretend they were anything but animals.

The laughter died away and was replaced by something else: that taut, breathless silence that always comes right before the end. I could time it to the second—the ****, sloppy acceleration of movement, the gasp, the long shudder, the satisfied slump. Wiley made a sound like a dying animal, a cross between a sob and a giggle, and I heard Sarah say his name one last time, low and satisfied. Then the quiet—the victorious, post-coital hush—as if the entire house was pausing to catch its breath.

I expected her to come out right away, to say something, to half-hearted ask if I was ok or at least acknowledge I was still there. Instead, I heard the faintest conversation, a sleepy, murmured exchange.

I leaned forward to get a better view. They had found their way back onto the bed. They were tangled together, Wiley’s fat arm draped across her chest, her hair wild and stuck to her forehead, both of them looking up at the ceiling as if expecting the world to offer its congratulations.

I wanted to say something. Anything. But I didn’t. I just stack there, watched as Sarah slid out from under Wiley’s arm, smoothed her hair and gathered her clothes from the floor. She didn’t even look at me—in fact, she seemed to be avoiding the door, as if the existence of the rest of the house was too much for her to face.

Wiley rolled over and immediately began to snore, the kind of drunken, satisfied snore that filled the whole apartment with a sense of finality. Sarah hesitated, then padded across the room in her bare feet, moving with the same solemn grace she used when she thought she was alone. She touched the doorknob, paused, and for a moment, I thought she was going to walk through and talk to me, to give me some scrap of dignity. Instead, without looking, she gently but firmly pushed it shut. The click of the latch was louder than any of their moans or laughter—a statement, a boundary.

She left me out there, in the half-lit hallway, with nothing but my thoughts and the secondhand warmth of what they’d done. I pressed my palm against the wall near me, half in anger, half in awe. I still didn’t know what I was feeling, but I did know two things. What I watches was hot as hell, and I was going to find a way to beat him!

I didn’t sleep a wink; my body wouldn’t let me. At first, I consider to relief my anxiety by messaging old from, or even Sarah herself. But then I remember they were all likely asleep and Sarah’s phone was lying face-down somewhere in the other room next to Wiley sleeping body. So, there was no way I would be getting a hold of any of them. So, the only thing my mind and lust would allow me to do was to pace back and forth as I kept constructing different way I was going to beat that pathic ugly gross human being. But each way I picture always ended up coming back to Sarah, and her screaming Wiley’s name in pleasure in our room as his tiny smelly cock fucked her pussy.

For a second there, I even thought about texting Wiley about how Sarah felt so tight when I fucked her early it was like he had never even enter her. But that just didn’t seem right. Because my mind already figured out 12 different come-backs he would use, all of which I didn’t have a response to, so I just didn’t message him either.

When my feet gave out, I sat down at the table and sipped on the day-old coffee and even then, I didn’t stop envisioning my victory.

When the morning finally came, it was Wiley who moved first. I heard the floorboards pop in the hall, the scuff of his socked feet as he tiptoed past the living room. He paused in the archway, looked right at me—caught me staring right back at him. For that split atom of a second, there was something feral in his eyes, like a raccoon with its face in the garbage bin. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, shoulders hunching as he made a beeline for the front door. Seconds later I heard him drive off into the morning light.