The coffee was nearly gone. The sun had risen fully now, filtering warm light through the gauzy living room curtains. It was shaping up to be a beautiful, unbearable day.
Lina stretched, catlike. "Alright. I'm dragging you out."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Shopping," she said. "You need clothes that don't scream 'ex-wife in exile.'"
I laughed despite myself. "That's harsh."
"It's true. Come on, get dressed. I'll shower after you."
I gave her a mock sigh. "Fine. But I'm not trying on anything ridiculous."
"No promises," she said, grinning.
I stood and headed for the stairs. It wasn't until I closed the bedroom door behind me that the heaviness crept in again.
I let the robe slide off my shoulders and stepped out of it. The water took a minute to heat up. Steam curled along the edges of the mirror, blurring my reflection into something softer. Something easier to look at.
I stepped into the shower, letting the heat run over me. It should have cleared my head. It didn't.
I reached for the soap. Then the loofah. Then the shampoo. And when I bent to pick up the razor I'd left by the base of the shower wall, my eyes caught something tucked behind the folded towel on the small bathroom shelf.
Lina's underwear.
A lacy, rose-colored pair she must've worn last night. Thin fabric. Barely more than a suggestion. Right beside it—David's boxers. Black, worn soft. Folded lazily.
They must've showered together before bed. Or after.
The water thundered around me.
I stared at the shelf.
The towel beneath them was dry.
The underwear wasn't.
My pulse quickened.
I reached out—slowly. My fingers grazed the lace. Damp. Warm from the room's heat, but unmistakably used. I could still smell her perfume on it. Mixed with something else.
Something raw.
Something unmistakably him.
I swallowed hard and dropped my hand.
This was not my place. Not my room. Not my business.
But my body didn't agree.
I stood there in the steam, frozen, watching the fabric sway faintly from the breath of the ceiling vent.
And I realized, with quiet horror, that I was clenching—everywhere. My legs tight. My breath caught.
They'd been right here. In this room. Tangled. Laughing. Fucking.
And now I was here.
In their wake.
Naked.
Alone.
And burning again.
I didn't move.
Not for a long time.
The shower sprayed steadily behind me, the sound distant, like it was happening in another world. All I could hear was my own breathing—ragged, shallow, wrong.
I stared at the underwear.Lina's. Damp and thin, soft as breath.David's. Black, worn. Still heavy with his shape.Together. Careless. Intimate. Left like a signature of the night I never got to see.
I reached for them again.
This time, I didn't stop.
My fingers closed around his boxers first. Soft cotton. Warm. A little stretch where his hips had pressed it wide. I lifted them slowly, the waistband brushing my knuckles. I held them to my nose and breathed in.
God.
It was him.
Soap and skin and something faintly primal. Faint, but there.
I exhaled hard, almost dizzy.
And then—before I could think, before guilt could crawl back in—I brought them lower. Down between my thighs.
I leaned against the tile, the steam soaking my hair, and pressed the fabric against my heat.
Not even touching directly.
But it didn't matter.
It burned.
I moved. Just slightly.
A roll of the hips. A subtle drag. My breath hitched so loud I bit it back into my wrist. The cotton slid perfectly where I needed it, and the thought of where it had been—on him, tight, rubbing, stretched across that thick—
I moaned. Silent. Strangled.
I was so wet it made no sense. Heat flooded through me like it had been waiting days, not hours.
I closed my eyes and imagined his hands. His mouth. His voice against my ear, low and filthy.
"You were thinking about me the whole time, weren't you?"
Yes.
"Did he ever fuck you right?"
No.
"You gonna cum for me just from this?"
Yes. God, yes.
"You don't even need me to touch you, do you?" he whispered in my mind, cruel and soft. "You're doing it yourself. Like a good girl."
I gasped, barely keeping it in.
"Did he ever make you this wet?"
No. No one did.
I rolled my hips against the boxers, slow and desperate, moaning into the steam. My thighs quivered. Every nerve felt scraped raw and aching, like my skin was made for this.
"I want to see you," his voice purred. "Right now. Fucking yourself with my boxers like the filthy little thing you are."
I shivered violently, knees nearly buckling.
"Say it," he ordered.
My lips moved around empty air. "I'm yours," I mouthed. "I need you."
"Louder."
"I need you…"
"You think I haven't noticed?" he growled. "You watching me. Imagining things. I bet you lie in that little bed and fuck yourself stupid every night, pretending it's me, don't you?"
A choked sound broke from my throat—half sob, half whimper.
My fingers tightened in the fabric. I pressed harder, faster. My legs shaking, my spine arched.
The steam wrapped around me like silk. My head fell back.
"You want it rough?"Yes."You want it slow?"Yes."You want me to ruin you?"God, yes.
I shoved against the corner of the shower wall, grinding mercilessly as wave after wave surged up my spine. My body convulsed—once, twice, shivering like it was trying to break free from itself.
I came so hard I almost collapsed.
My mouth was open, silent, biting into my wrist to muffle the scream. My thighs clenched, my back arched, my core pulsing with a rawness that left me lightheaded and helpless.
The fantasy broke slowly. Like glass cracking in silence.
I sagged against the tile. Slick with water. Shaking.
David's boxers were balled in my fist, soaked through with what I'd done to myself.
It took minutes to breathe again.
When I could finally stand, I didn't look at them.
I just folded the pair slowly. Carefully. Reverently.
And laid them back beside Lina's panties.
As if I had never touched them.
As if I hadn't just shattered into pieces over something that didn't even belong to me.
The air was too still now.
The water had gone lukewarm. Steam no longer hugged the mirror. The scent of him—of them—still hung faintly in the air, but it no longer stirred the same need.
I stood there, staring down at my hands.
My fingers were trembling.
Not from pleasure anymore.
But from the weight.
Of what I'd done.
My knees touched tile as I sank down, slowly, gently, into a crouch. One arm braced against the wall. The other wrapped around my chest like I was trying to hold something in—some part of me already trying to fold itself back into neatness, into denial.
My breath hitched once. Sharp. Audible in the silence.
I didn't want to cry.
I really didn't.
But it was already happening.
Tears welled without drama. No sobbing. No gasping. Just a slow, quiet unraveling.
My throat tightened. My lip trembled.
And then—like a cup tipping over—I broke.
The first tear rolled down my cheek and disappeared in the steam.
Then another.
I buried my face in the crook of my arm and cried—silent and still, like I was trying to hide from the walls. Like if I just stayed quiet enough, no one would hear the collapse.
No one would know what I'd become.
It wasn't the act that shamed me.
It was the truth it revealed.
The truth that I wanted more. That I wouldn't stop here. That I couldn't.
I had felt it—his voice in my head, his scent on my skin, my body betraying every boundary I swore I would never cross.
This wasn't a slip.
This was a slide.
And I was picking up speed.
So I cried.
Quietly.
Curled against the wall of someone else's bathroom, beside the forgotten clothes of someone else's love story.
Trying, for just a moment, to feel like a woman again.
Instead of whatever I had just become.