He stays

I stared down at her body on the sheets, beautiful yet strangely sad. With her arms and legs curled into her body like a knot, she seemed so much smaller than he had been a few minutes ago, loud and full of life.

She was facing away from me, but in the reflection of the black television, I could see her staring at me. The door beckoned.

Still naked, I crawled onto the bed behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and pulled her sweaty body tight against mine, burying my face into the dark roughness of her hair. Her strange perfume was intense here. I finally recognized the smells. Cinnamon and witch-hazel, of all things. Definitely home-made.

"You don't have to stay. You are free to go."

"No, but I want to stay. I want to hold you, for a little while."

"Why?"

"Because I like you."

"Why?" her voice sounded eve flatter than usual. Hollow. Jaded.

"I don't know. I suppose I'm just a good judge of character."

I pulled her body in tighter. The air-conditioning was off, the window open, and the cold autumn evening air was pouring in. Her body was warm and alive against me. I kissed her lightly on the neck, and she squirmed under my lips, though she did not make a sound. I pulled the covers of the bed up over both of us and wrapped it tightly around us both, so as to hold in the heat.

"Thank you for your time. For putting up with... someone like me." Her voice was still hollow, but it seemed to be wavering somehow. Not flat. A flat sheet thrown over some jagged, hidden thing.

"What do you mean by 'like me'?"

"Cold. Black. Blunt. Ugly"

"You are not ugly!" I said, a little louder than I intended. "You are an utterly gorgeous woman."

"With a personality like damp gravel."

I did not answer. Inarguably, she took some getting used to.

"I've met someone like you before. Quiet, blunt, no time for small talk, more than a bit rude, if I'm being honest. But he was a decent man, fundamentally, despite his quirks."

She was silent for a time. Before she began to speak. She spoke quickly, and quietly. Like she just wanted to get it over with.

"A couple of years ago I hooked up with a really bad man. He was nice to me, at the surface level, and I being me I did not read any deeper. Why would anyone lie about that? But he was actually a really racist rat-bastard, and all of his friends were even worse. At his twenty-first birthday, he and all his friends got drunk and gangraped me while shouting slurs at me. The really bad ones you wouldn't say. They video taped it too. It's still out there, if you know where to look, though I look quite a bit different. Thinner, no tattoos. Thankfully no-one has ever recognized me. I kept dating him for a few weeks after that. I broke up with him because he showed up late to a scheduled date one too many times, so I ghosted him."

"I've always been... like this, more or less, but I basically forgot how to be a person for a while. Had to re-learn from scratch. My roommate was nice to me, mostly because we were on different sleep schedules and she never had to actually put up with me for more than a few minutes. You are the closest thing I have to a friend."

"Sorry for burdening you by saying all that."

I stared at the back of her head, dumbfounded. I shifted, pulling tighter against her, intertwining my legs with hers, trying to get every inch of skin-on-skin I could manage. My soft cock rested against her ass. Our nudity and contact lost all sexual element. She was like a puppy. I wanted to hold her close, shield her, make her feel safe.

"Oh, Aisha. You aren't a burden. I am so, so sorry you went through that."

The last thing I remember feeling before I nodded off was her fingers intertwining with mine.

******************

When I woke up, the next morning, she was already gone. My phone listed one message- a direct text, not an in-app message.

at work. lock the door before you leave.

I returned sent a message, before I got dressed.

I had a great time. You are magnificent. Could we maybe do this again, some time? Same time and place, next week?

By the time she response, I was already home. A simple response, straightforward and unceremonious, as she was.

yes

[The End]