MrPlayaZ: Last night was amazing, wanna grab a drink again this weekend?
CandyCane: I have to wait that long to feel that sexy tongue of yours again?
Or another.
MrPlayaZ: I can make you come in ways you can’t even imagine, babe.
XtraSaucy: You’re welcome to try anytime you think you can handle this ;)
And more. And more. I scroll through them all, even the longer conversations, full on sexts with women, describing how hard they make him, asking them to finger themselves. Details of how they touch themselves thinking about him. Hell, even one where he talks about jerking off in the back room at work—the same mail room where he touched himself thinking about me this weekend.
That message hits home because it’s dated.
Yesterday.
I want to vomit. The whole room feels like it’s spinning around me.
Frantic, I check Zayne’s regular profile. But the evidence is scrawled across it too. Something I should have noticed, something I was so stupid to miss. The date that any new account is created is listed on the user’s homepage,, mostly so the site can spam you with ads about “giving new members” a chance, hoping you’ll be more likely to match with someone even if they have a lame pickup line.
Right there at the bottom of the AtYourService account is the date it was created.
Friday. The same day he fought off that creeper. The same night we matched and first began to text.
Then to sext, using the same horribly cheesy lines Zayne used to pick up girls on his other profile. His real profile, the one he never told me about.
He was talking about deleting the app the other night. About getting off this site, because he didn’t need it now that he’d found me. But I’d bet anything he was just going to delete this brand-new account, made only to lure me in. He’d keep right on sexting all these other women with his regular account.
I feel nauseous.
I can’t think straight, can’t even formulate a response to this anonymous sender.
I can guess who it is, of course. It has to be the ex that Zayne told me about. The crazy stalker psycho ex-girlfriend trying to ruin his life. But is she?
What if she was just a normal girl trying to save me from getting played? What if this is her trying to spare someone else the same heartache she felt?
Everything hurts.
I slam my laptop shut and storm across my apartment, tears stinging my eyes. My bedroom is the worst place to go because it still smells like us, like him, like sex. I tear the sheets off the bed and crumple them into a tight ball, stuff them into the bottom of my laundry bin. Tomorrow I’ll wash the scent away, wash those sheets until I can’t smell Zayne on them, until I won’t be reminded of him commenting on the bright red color, or grinning as I tied him up using the silky fabric.
Fuck. Maybe I’ll have to throw them away at this rate.
How could I be so stupid?
That’s the refrain echoing in my mind all the while. How could I fall for a playboy like him? How could I think that what we had might be special, might be the something I’ve been waiting for all this time?
Tears sting at my eyes and I head into the shower. Because if the bed still smells like sex, then oh, god, you’d better not catch a whiff of me. I smell like him all over—and part of me loved that, loved the way he left his mark on me, and anytime I caught the scent it reminded me of last night and this weekend all over again. It reminds me of the way he drove his cock deep into me, fucked me hard, senseless, until I came screaming…
Fuck him. Fuck men, all of them.
I turned on the shower, scalding hot, and stepped right into the stream. Buried my face in the water so that when I finally let go and began to cry, my hot tears would blend into the stream rushing over my face.
I hate this. I hate feeling this way again. I thought I’d found someone different at last, but he’s just like all the other assholes in New York City. He didn’t care about me, he just wanted to fuck me. As soon as he got what he wanted, he was probably off chatting up other girls with the same pickup lines, the same stupid lines he used to lure me in and make me fall for him.
I know it’s only been a few days, but somehow our connection felt deeper, more real. Finding out that he’s just like all the other guys I’ve been with—just like that creepy stalker he punched in the face—it feels so much worse than any other shitty date. Because I’d started to actually fall for him. I’d started to actually believe there might be decent guys out there, and that maybe, finally, I’d found one.
Why do guys always do this to me? Why do they always use me, take advantage of me, play with my emotions. And why do they do it to other women to? I bet this ex of Zayne’s isn’t even crazy. I bet she was just a normal girl he seduced and used and jerked around until she got sick of his shit and decided to get even.
r /> My stomach sinks even farther. I just wish she hadn’t decided to get even by posting my naked photo everywhere.
Then again, was that her? What if he’d been lying again? What if that was him… But why?
My head hurts, along with everything else. I can’t take this.
I shut off the shower now that I’ve sufficiently scrubbed myself clean of him. Then I turn my phone off airplane mode and watch with listless eyes as the dozens upon dozens of creepy sexts pour in. I skim past those notifications, keeping my eyes peeled for any messages from my friends.
Nothing yet. But then again, they’re at work, doing their jobs, like normal, productive adults. They’re where I should be. Where I can’t be right now, thanks to this asshole creepfest who I thought actually had feelings for me.
I open our group chat and message them both.
He’s just another NYC asshole player. Should’ve known.
Then I close the window. I can’t even wait for my friends’ replies right now. I’m too exhausted. I fall asleep to the sound of my shower dripping in the distance, and outside, the faint rumble of construction equipment from somewhere up the street. A suitably depressing soundtrack for my suitably depressing life.
I’m in a hot tub. I’m in a nice bathing suit, tight-fitting, exposed in all the right places. It’s sexy as hell, and I know it. I’m shifting in the water, showing it off for the guy with me. Zayne. His gaze travels over my body, hungry as ever, and I feel a pulse deep inside me that responds to the hunger in his eyes. I want him the way he wants me. I always do.
He beckons me and I curve toward him, unable to move away. I slide right into his arms, and he grabs me, strong and possessive, just the way I like. But that grip shifts. Turns painful as he shoves me away again. Presses me against the side of the hot tub, and leans in to sneer in my ear. “Did you think I found you attractive? You?” He laughs, and when I look down again, everything has changed. The hot tub isn’t a hot tub at all, it’s a mud pit, and I’m dressed in a horrible, ugly, sagging suit, one that exposes all my worst flaws. My stomach sticks out, my thighs are covered in cellulite, and I feel naked in the worst way. Exposed, put on display like a circus freak.