Chapter 1
I am so fucking done!
Rachel, her jaw set, turned her head and stared at Matthew lying next to her on the bed. He was breathing hard but nonetheless had a self-satisfied grin on his lips. And why shouldn’t he? Once again, he had had all the pleasure.
Watching him, her own pleasure not even in sight, Rachel saw absolutely nothing appealing about the guy anymore. Fine, he was good-looking, with a hipster beard and dark Mediterranean features, but now she had about as much attraction to him as she would towards a walrus.
Four times. They had now had sex four times and in Rachel’s opinion, four times was enough. Did she really need a fifth time of having sex with this guy and not even getting close to orgasming? Did she really need yet another go around of Matthew’s selfish form of lovemaking, where his idea of foreplay was squeezing her boobs a couple of times as if that was the secret to turning a woman on? And, finally, did she really need a fifth time of sex with this guy lasting all of two minutes before he ended up just as he was now: lying next to her, completely spent, huffing and puffing as if he had just finished a marathon.
And for what? For the privilege of being seen with such a good-looking man every time they went out?
Nope! Four times was enough.
Taking her eyes off him, she looked down at her nude body. Her breasts and her abs were covered with tiny black hairs that had rubbed off Matthew’s chest during his two minutes of hard labor. Hairs that stood out clearly in stark contrast to her own lightly sun-bronzed skin.
“Ugh!” she couldn’t help exclaiming in revulsion, swatting at her body with her hands to bat the hairs away, wanting them off her as quickly as possible. Of course, this wasn’t the first time a man had shed hairs on her—it was an occupational hazard, so to speak, of being a straight woman. Normally, it didn’t bother her but today, it was disgusting her.
“Huh? What’s wrong?” Matthew asked sleepily as Rachel got up off the bed, still swiping at her body.
“Nothing,” she said, finding and then putting on her robe. She didn’t want him looking at her nudity. It might give him ideas, although she doubted it. After four times, Rachel had learned that Matthew was not only a quick lover but a one-and-done kind of guy. “Look, I have a showing soon and so you need to go.”
Thankfully, he didn’t argue. She had been worried he would try to convince her to let him stay. It was early Saturday afternoon and he didn’t need to be at work today. But, fortunately, after stretching and yawning—really, the guy made it seem as if he had just gone twelve rounds in a prize fight, Rachel considered—he got up and headed directly into the bathroom.
With her arms crossed, Rachel remained where she was, dressed in her robe, waiting for him to be done.
In a few minutes, Matthew was not only done in the bathroom but dressed.
“You want to hook up tonight after your thing?”
Showing, dumbass! It’s a showing and it’s my career! Aargh!
Rachel managed to pout regretfully.
“Probably not a good idea,” she said. “I think my period is about to start.”
Huge lie. Her period was temporarily a figment of her imagination. The birth control she was on made sure of that. Matthew, however, did not need to know this fact. All he needed to believe was that the only bit of her that he apparently cared about was about to start gushing blood.
Her fib did the trick. Matthew got that Please-don’t-tell-me-anymore look of fear on his face all men get when women start talking about the mysterious world below their waists. He shrugged his shoulders. She then started walking him to the front door.
She allowed him to kiss her goodbye. It was a deep kiss and though she let her tongue dance a little with his, she felt absolutely no desire bloom from it. Not even a flicker of want.
Yep, she thought…she was making the right decision.
With a promise to call her tomorrow, Matthew finally left.
Oh, thank god!
Rachel leaned with her back against the now closed front door and rolled her eyes.
She’d tell him tomorrow over the phone that she didn’t think they should see each other anymore. That’s if he even called. Another thing about a lot of men, Rachel had learned: they tended to think a woman on her period was not someone to bother; as if her period meant she needed to be isolated in a protective bubble through which all contact was impossible. Matthew seemed like that kind of guy.
In any case, if he called, she’d tell him it was over. Normally, doing such a thing over the phone was anathema to her nature but she was well and truly fed up. Matthew was just the latest in what has been a long line of men who—although they may possess other wonderful qualities—were absolute shit in bed, and Rachel was tired of it.
Finding a man who was nice and sincere? Great.
Finding a man with a good job, able to support himself? Also great.
No criminal record? Fantastic.
But Rachel wanted more. She wanted a fabulous sex life to go with all the other stuff. She was still young, after all! Her twenty-ninth birthday had just passed last month in December. And she knew she was attractive! Five-seven, with fiery red hair and a lean figure that possessed nice curves top and bottom, Rachel had never been concerned about her physical appeal to others.
But why was it that each and every man she started up with was a loser in some way, shape or form—particularly in the bedroom? Was she really that bad at picking guys? Was she somehow genetically predisposed to choosing men who had zero sexual talents?
Her mouth dropped open when she realized something…
Why this particular thought popped into her mind just now, she had no idea. It had to be because of the still very recent disappointment of what she had just experienced with Matthew. In any case, the thought was now in her head. Actually, it was less of a thought and more of an uncovered fact.
Surely, she must have always known this fact but had subconsciously repressed it. Now, for some reason, her mind wanted her to see it in all its naked truth.
She had never once had an orgasm during sex!
***
“Wait, what do you mean ‘done?’” Rachel’s best friend, Amy, asked an hour later.
They were in Rachel’s backyard, sipping coffee Amy had brought over from their favorite coffeeshop, La Vida Mocha. Amy had come over after Rachel had texted her, asking if she was free for girl-time—their code for “I need to talk about something with my bestie.”
“I mean, I’m done with men,” Rachel said, repeating what she had told Amy shortly after Amy had arrived.
Amy made a face, her chocolate-brown eyes showing puzzlement.
“Like, you’re becoming a nun?” she asked.
Rachel laughed
.
“Okay, maybe not that done!” she stated. “I just mean, I’m taking a fucking break from them. I’m going on a purge. Whatever you want to call it. But I have reached a point where I am absolutely tired of dealing with them! You don’t know what it’s like!”
That was an understatement, considering Amy was a lesbian—a fact which Rachel was very much now envious of.