I was at work—a job I had loved, a job I had known I wanted from the moment I picked up my first magazine at 14 years old and saw the articles written specially for young girls like me, a job I had worked my ass off to get—and I looked around, unable to see what it was that I had ever loved about the position. It was all just so pointless. Who gave a fuck about the proper way to apply make-up or which prom dresses were in that year? Who gave one single fuck about an advice column in a teen magazine? Not me. Definitely not me.
I didn’t give a fuck about anything anymore.
With the determination of a woman who no longer gives an actual fuck, I packed up my office and gave my boss my resignation by email. And when I arrived home three hours before I was supposed to, I walked in to find my husband’s bare ass flexing as he thrust into Alyssa, bent over my couch. The same friend who took me shopping for baby clothes. The same friend who was there for most of my firsts, from my first pimple to my first child. The same friend who was my maid of honor. Bowed over the leather sectional Darren and I had bought together.
She saw me first, shock and horror registering on her pretty, perspiration-covered face. Darren didn’t notice the way she stopped moaning. Didn’t notice his wife standing just feet from where he was destroying our marriage. He continued to plunge inside of her with wild abandon, the sound of his wet flesh hitting hers echoing throughout the room. That was the soundtrack to the end of my marriage.
I wasn’t hurt, I couldn’t be. He needed someone and I wasn’t there. Hadn’t been for a year now. But I was pissed. I was disgusted by the expression of pleasure on Darren’s face. Livid that he got to feel good. That he could feel good. On this day, of all days. I was in turmoil, and he was shedding his pain one sloppy pump at a time.
In that moment, I hated him. I hated them both.
I released my box of office supplies, letting it drop to the hardwood floor loudly, breaking everything within—it seemed fitting, after all. And then, I turned around and walked out of my four-bedroom colonial home, away from my husband, my marriage, my life, and my memories.
I stopped at the bank, closing out my personal account. I didn’t touch the joint account Darren and I shared. He could have it. He could have it all. With the clothes on my back and a couple thousand dollars in cash, I drove without destination, only stopping when I needed more gas. Early the next morning, I pulled into a truck stop for a cup of coffee, not ready to sleep yet. Not ready to deal with the pain of remembering once I woke up. So I sat in a booth, sipping my coffee and slicing my credit cards into pieces with a steak knife. I cut them all. My Visa, my MasterCard, my gas card, my rewards cards, hell, I even destroyed my library card. I obliterated every last link to my old life, knowing I would never go back. Knowing I never could go back. I wasn’t the same person anymore. That Holland was gone. I was a different person, and so I needed a different life. A fresh start.
When my cup was drained, I got back in my car and continued to drive, releasing pieces of the cut-up plastic cards along the way. When I let the last piece of my life drop from my fingers in a small town in Ohio, that’s when I finally stopped.
So, you see, I had no more attachments. No mother, no father, no husband, no child—no family whatsoever. No real friends. No job. All of the people I loved most in the world had destroyed me. They left me and it ruined everything I was. I had no one I had to answer to. No one who cared where I was or what I was doing. Most importantly, I didn’t care.
And I still don’t.
1
Jensen
I have been watching her for three months.
For ninety-two days, I’ve looked into those lifeless green eyes. Let my gaze slide over her flawless, pale skin. Fantasized about her luscious lips.
For ninety-two days she has inspired me in ways I never knew possible. A muse, unbeknownst to her. Motivating me. Encouraging my darkest desires to life through my work. Just when I was so close to giving up, surrendering to my unchangeable fate, I spotted her, and haven’t been able to look away since.
I don’t think she has a clue that my eyes find her the moment I step into this establishment. She’s oblivious to the way I always sit at the same table—the one with the best view of the bar. Of her. Unaware I spend my evenings watching her.
Memorizing her. Inch by exquisite inch.
Her soft beauty and innocent naivety keeps me coming back. Over and over, since the day she first served me. My cock grows hard beneath the shelter of the table as she strides toward me, her breasts bouncing lightly with each step. My arousal has nothing to do with sexual gratification. Though she has a beautiful body, curvy in all the places a man’s hands like to grip, and hold, and conquer, I’m turned on by the way she makes me feel inside. By the strength and craving and ambition she has unknowingly restored in me.