Some time after we have sex

I told myself that all I had to do was get her in bed and pleasure her in a way that fat pig never could, and all these twisted feelings would go away. I may not have known much about the way I was feeling, but I did know that when I beat that fucking fat pig cheater fair and square, like a real man, everything would finally make sense, and my feelings would be back to normal.

This is what I repeated to myself in the bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth so hard my gums bled, swearing at my own reflection to be better, to be stronger, to take what I wanted and not let the memory of that ugly pig trample my pride again. It became a mantra, growing more fevered as I planned it out: I would take her, pleasure her, make her moan and cry out for me, and then, finally, the curse that sat on my chest like a sodden blanket would lift. Maybe I would even look down at her after, see the dazed, happy smile, and then I’d know I’d won.

That very night, I tried to make my move. I started with dinner—pizza and ice cream, her favorite, extra sprinkles—then moved to a movie on the couch, her head in my lap, my hand moving absently through her hair, the way she liked. I was hot all over. I could barely focus on the plot, didn’t even catch the title. I replayed in my head the steps I needed to follow, the careful escalation of intimacy, the gentle persuasive ****. But she was standoffish, all clipped responses and a heaviness in her eyes. She kept her arms wound around her own knees, only half-watching the screen, and every time I tried to touch her, she stiffened.

We argued instead. At first, it was about the movie—she thought it was sexist, I thought it was just a joke—but quickly it spiraled into the old, raw thing that never healed, about trust, about my insecurities, about the way I called him names even when I promised not to. She stormed off to the bedroom and locked the door.

I slept on the couch, staring at the dark ceiling as the clock burned through the hours. I jacked off twice, both times angry, both times picturing Wiley’s red, greasy face, his dumb lopsided smile, the way he probably pawed Sarah, pawed her and made her like it. I imagined her moaning for him, and I came harder than I ever had, then felt sick and full of hate after.

Sunday I tried again—brought her breakfast in bed, apologized for my behavior, promised to do better. We spent the day in awkward truce, cleaning the apartment and grocery shopping. She started to thaw by late afternoon, even laughed at one of my jokes, and I felt hope again. I counted down the hours until bedtime, barely listening as she talked about work, nodding and smiling and planning. All that mattered was that tonight was my chance. She’d forgive me, she’d let me in, and this time I’d show her, I’d make her want me, not him, me.

Bedtime. I carefully brushed my teeth, used mouthwash, flossed. I wore the cologne she said she liked. I peeled off my shirt in front of the bathroom mirror and flexed my arms, checking for any new definition since the last time, then caught myself and laughed, because what did it matter? She was already mine.

She returned to our bedroom in the threadbare t-shirt and faded cotton shorts she always wore to bed, her hair still wet and combed into a dark tail down her back. She padded silently across the carpet, barely glancing at me, her eyes fixed on the phone she cradled to her chest. I watched the blue glow of the screen flicker on her face as she paused just inside the doorway, thumb hovering, then locked the screen and left the phone face-down on her nightstand. The movement was deliberate, almost ceremonial—a point made, a flag planted. She slid beneath the covers, back rigid and turned to me, and curled reflexively around her own knees the way she did when she wanted to hide.

I lay paralyzed on my own side of the bed, listening to her shift and settle, the small sounds of her adjusting the sheets, the soft exhale as she finally stilled. I counted the inches of mattress between us, the crisp line of separation even though our legs almost touched. I debated, in those first few seconds, whether to reach for her at all. My mind collected reasons not to, excuses: She’s tired. She’s had a long day. Don’t push. But the pep talk I’d given myself in the bathroom had built to a fever pitch, and if I didn’t act now, the whole point of the exercise would be lost.

I marshaled my courage, scooted closer, and spooned my body to hers, letting my chest press against her back, my knees bending to cradle the curve of her thighs. For a moment, she stiffened—a defensive, involuntary reaction—but then she exhaled and the tension melted out of her. I felt her hair, damp and cold against my nose, and I breathed in the scent of her shampoo, something synthetic and sweet that made my head swim.

“Are you still mad at me?” I whispered, voice low and tentative. The question hung there, vibrating between us.

She didn’t answer at first. I could feel her mind working, the cogs of her silence turning, and then finally, “No. I just—I’m tired, okay?” She sounded almost apologetic, but the walls were still up. I waited for her to pull away, to shift further from my touch, but she didn’t. If anything, she relaxed into me a little, her breathing slowing, her body yielding to the heaviness of sleep.

I let my hand rest on her hip, light and undemanding, just the barest contact. I told myself I would leave it at that, be content with the simple comfort of touch, but the longer I lay there, the more the pressure built—not just in my body, but in my chest, my throat, the places where resentments and wants get stuck. I remembered every article I’d read, every piece of advice about “making up” after a fight, how important it was to reestablish intimacy, to not let things fester. I imagined Wiley’s ugly, fat hands touching her, and the thought made me angry and **** all at once.

Minutes passed. I traced a slow line along her thigh, down to her knee and back up again. She didn’t flinch. I kept going, my hand gliding up, over the soft curve of her waist, the silky band of her shorts, the gentle slope to her ribs. I was careful, patient, the way I’d read you were supposed to be. I stopped at the hem of her shirt, fingers grazing the exposed skin of her stomach, and felt her shiver—not from cold, I hoped.

I leaned in, pressed my face into her hair, and kissed the back of her neck. She made a small sound, maybe a sigh, maybe nothing at all, but she didn’t move away. I let my lips trail up, to her ear, then her jaw, each kiss deliberate, a question and a plea.

She shifted under me, rolled onto her back, eyes open now, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. There was a moment of pure suspension, as if the world had stopped spinning to see what would happen next. I moved over her, bracing myself on my elbow, and searched her face for any sign that she wanted this, that she wanted me. Her lips parted, and I kissed her, slow and soft at first, then harder when she responded.

It was a good kiss—hungry, a little ****. She pulled me closer with her hands, her nails digging into my arms, and for a second I thought: Yes. This is it. It’s working. I wanted to say her name, to tell her she was beautiful and that I was sorry, but I didn’t trust my voice not to break. Instead I let my hands do the talking, moving over her body, mapping every inch of her as if to erase all the memories of who might have touched her before.

Her skin was warm, flushed from the shower. I breathed in her scent, a mixture of sweat and mint toothpaste and the faintest hint of yeast from the pizza. I kissed down her neck, across her collarbone, and she arched her back just enough that I could slip my hand under her shirt. I felt her heartbeat flutter against my palm, and a surge of triumph shot through me. This was how it was supposed to feel. This was how you won.

We made out for a while, the kind of slow, meandering kissing that’s more about comfort than arousal—though I was aroused, and so was she, or at least I thought so. Her hands roamed over my back, my shoulders, gripping and releasing in a rhythm that matched her breathing. I peeled off her shirt and shorts, marveling at how naked she looked without them, how ****. She had a new tan line, a band of pale skin across her hips, and when I traced it with my finger she actually smiled, a tiny, real smile that made my chest ache.

I undressed quickly, awkwardly, nearly getting my boxers tangled around my knees, but she laughed quietly and helped me, and for a moment it was like we were back in the beginning, everything easy and silly and right. We got under the covers, limbs tangling, and I positioned myself over her, careful not to put too much weight on her small frame. I kissed her again, rougher this time, and she opened her mouth for me. I felt her hands guiding me, her legs wrapping around my waist, and I tried to slow down, to savor it.

I entered her, gently at first, then all at once because I couldn’t help myself. I was trembling, not just from how good it felt, but from fear—fear that she would stop me, that she would turn away, that she would close up and freeze me out like she had so many times before. But she took me in, gazed up at me with those sad, heavy-lidded eyes, and I felt, in that instant, a kind of animal relief.

I tried to do everything right. I focused on her, kissing her jaw, her neck, her breasts, moving in the rhythm I thought she liked. I reached down and touched her where she liked to be touched, careful and precise, the way you do when you spend too much time reading sex advice on Reddit. I whispered that she was beautiful, that I loved her, that I was sorry, the words coming out in a rush, half-mumbled into her skin.

I wanted to make her come first. I wanted to make her scream, or at least gasp, or at the very least shudder in a way that proved she was really there, in it with me. I wanted to banish Wiley Henderson and his smug, porky face from my mind forever. I wanted Sarah to be mine again.

I wanted to obliterate every memory she might have of Wiley Henderson’s pasty, freckled hands and his weird, wet mouth. I wanted to make Sarah feel something so sharp and new that it would cauterize the wound between us. But the truth was, I was barely holding it together. Every time I tried to push deeper, to **** a reaction from her, my whole body would tense, nerves zapping to the edge, so I’d have to stop, grit my teeth, and count backward from ten. If I didn’t, I would finish right there, and I knew that would ruin everything—to lose on the very first play.

So mostly I just hovered over her, braced on my elbows, moving with a mechanical steadiness that felt almost clinical. My thighs started to tremble. The angle was slightly off, and I kept slipping out, fumbling, and having to guide myself back in with a shaky hand. At first Sarah kept her eyes open, watching me, but after a while she shut them, and the rest of her face went blank. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe she was waiting for it to be over. Maybe she was pretending I was someone else.

I tried to shake off the thought, to focus on the warm, slick pulse of her around me, but the harder I tried, the less real it felt, like I was inside a stranger. I grunted, reached down to grab the backs of her thighs and lift her hips. She let me, pliant and silent, her hair spread in a black halo on the pillow. I thrust harder, a little desperately, the sound of my own skin slapping against hers echoing in the tight darkness of the room, the only thing I could hear.

I remembered reading somewhere—probably Reddit, definitely not a peer-reviewed journal—that women liked it when you talked during sex, so I tried. I told her she was beautiful, that I loved her, that I wanted her so bad I could barely breathe. I wasn’t sure any of it landed. The words hung in the air for half a second, then fell away, joining the damp, heavy silence between us. I couldn’t even tell if she heard me.

As I kept going, my brain started to fragment. On one level I was counting the seconds, trying to last longer, pushing the mental boulder up the endless hill: Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come. But under that, I was cataloging every sign of disappointment in her face, every subtle motion or lack thereof, every micro-expression—was she bored? Was she sad? Was I hurting her? Was she thinking about Wiley? Maybe she wished she’d never come back to me in the first place. Maybe she was only with me now out of inertia or pity, and this was her way of confirming it, her body communicating in the only language left.

I tried to change tactics, to make her feel something. I shifted my weight, leaned in and captured her mouth with mine, kissed her hard, biting just enough to make her gasp. But she didn’t. She kept her mouth closed, lips soft and still, like she was waiting politely for the moment to end.

I pulled back, tried again, this time slower, more deliberate, dragging the tip of my tongue along her jawline, her neck, the little hollow at her collarbone. She shivered, but it felt more like an autonomic response than any actual desire. My hands moved over her shoulders, down her arms, squeezing, then back up, fingers tracing the outline of her ribs as if I could tickle a reaction out of her.

When I reached her breast, I cupped it gently, thumb circling the nipple the way she liked, or at least used to. Nothing. I tried harder, pinched the nipple, rolled it between my fingers. Still nothing. I thought about asking her what she wanted, but the words stuck in my throat. What if she said “nothing”? What if she asked me to stop?

My cheeks burned with frustration. Sweat was already slicking my forehead, and I felt a gross panic rising in my chest. I wanted so badly to be good, to be enough, to be the guy she bragged about to her friends. Every story she’d ever told about the sex she’d had before me ran on a loop in my head—how “wild” it was, how she and Wiley once did it in a Walmart parking lot, how she used to sneak boys into her parents’ basement after midnight and fuck on the laundry room floor. I had done none of those things. I’d lost my virginity to a girl from summer camp, in a tent, and she’d cried afterward and made me promise never to tell anyone.

Now, lying over Sarah, I felt like that same kid—awkward, ashamed, **** to be seen as more than I was.

She opened her eyes suddenly, looked up at me, and for a second I thought she was going to say something, but then she just reached up and pulled my face down to hers. Her arms went around my neck, and she kissed me, slow and deep, the way she used to. I felt her tongue, tasted the faintest trace of mint from her toothpaste, and my whole body lit up. It was like getting a hit of pure oxygen after being underwater for too long. I kissed her back, with everything I had, and as I did, the rhythm of my hips sped up, the tension in my body spiking until I could barely stand it.

I tried to hold on, to stretch it out, but the feeling was too much. I slammed into her one last time, barely registering the sound I made—some ugly, guttural moan—and then I was coming, so hard it felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside. I pressed my face into her neck, biting down on the urge to cry, and for a few seconds I just existed, shaking and empty, not thinking about anything at all.

After, I lay half-collapsed on top of her, not wanting to move. I was terrified to look at her face, to see what she was thinking, but also **** for some sign that I hadn’t fucked everything up. I could feel her heartbeat under my cheek, steady and slow, and I listened to it like it was a secret she was trying to tell me.

Finally, I rolled off and propped myself on one elbow, looking down at her. She stared back, her eyes glassy and unfocused, a faint smile on her lips. She looked happy, I told myself. She looked satisfied.

I reached for her hand, squeezed it, waited for her to squeeze back. She did, but only for a minute, then let her arm go limp again. I wanted to say something, to ask if she was okay, but I was afraid of the answer. So instead, I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her close, and buried my face in her hair. She let me hold her, melted into my chest, her body soft and small, and for five blissful minutes I felt like maybe everything was fine. Maybe this was enough.

But then she started to drift, and I realized: she hadn’t made a sound, not one, the whole time. No gasp, no moan, nothing. She’d just blinked up at the ceiling with that same heavy look in her eyes, and now she was almost asleep, her face turned away from me.