This is a work of fiction. All characters are over the age of 18. It's a psycho-sexual story with a long build-up.
Jessica is laying on the couch in her father's darkened living room, her back to the shuttered windows. The room is too big for one person, but these moments alone in the house are so precious.
She is naked, and lets herself sigh aloud at the feel of the cool almost-grip of the leather couch against her skin. Whimpering quietly, she sinks into the sensations of the vibrator on her clit, her fingernails scraping lightly up along her ribcage. Pinching a nipple, twisting and tugging, she feels the vibration of her own moaning echo throughout her body. Alone in the house, her father at work, she tries to reawaken a side of herself that now seems lost.
For years now, she has thought about sex almost all the time, and the month she has spent living at her father's house has been no different in that way. An early bloomer, she had quickly discovered the sensations her young body was capable of. While living at her mother's house, she had often rushed home from school to spend luxurious afternoons with porn and her vibrator before her mom and step-dad got home from work. Those had been delicious times for her. Now, age nineteen, her body was addicted to the rush of intense pleasure she had discovered.
That is, until the accident a month ago.
Her memories of the crash are fairly spotty. When she tries to walk herself through what happened (because everyone says "talking about it is how you heal" yada yada) it's nearly impossible. From all the miscellaneous in her brain she can conjure up quick flashes: the music playing on the car radio, a moment of laughter right before, suddenly headlights outside the window, an overwhelming crunch, a shock of pain above her left eye.
It's the moments when she's really trying to let go of thought, however, that bring the memories flooding back. Moments like this. Moments when she just wants to be in her body, be out of control, feel reckless, feel like she's flying. When she's completely in her body, breathless with pleasure, right on the edge of falling apart with orgasm, her mind betrays her and floods with detail (all the shit she really doesn't want to remember, thank you very fucking much.) The laughing, her mom gasping from the passenger seat, tires screeching, sudden force throwing them to the left, broken glass, impact, blood in her eyes, slipping into unconsciousness.
These are the memories that come back when she's so, so close. In the final rush of chasing orgasm, she gets fear and pain instead (thanks a lot, Universe, good one.)
At the end of the day the result is the same. Mom's dead. Todd is dead. A drunk driver is in jail. She lives here now, with a dad she loves and trusts but doesn't really know very well.
Life is pretty cruel sometimes.
"GODDAMMIT!"
Her frustrated shout fills the living room as she hurls the vibrator away. Pleasure and despair are becoming irreparably linked. She wonders if she will need. . . anger management, or some other kind of shrink stuff.
Every goddamn time. Every time now, it's the same fucking thing. Every time she gets to the brink of orgasm, memories of that night crash through her, terrifying her all over again, trembling and vibrating through her body like a freight train. They flip her instantly from passion to panic, all over again.
Every. Single. Time.
She has tried everything: new genres of porn (everyone gets bored sometimes, right?), various toys, even different kinds of lube. But she has not come in over a month and the tension has by now built into a sense of daily urgency and nearly physical pressure. But every time she gets close, that wall of panic comes crashing down, making the frustration worse.
She stares at the ceiling, breathing hard from both from arousal and the panic attack. She feels scared all over again, fragile. But increasingly these days, she also feels furious at the drunk driver in the oncoming lane for new reasons. That motherfucker killed her family, stealing any feeling of safety she had with her closest family. Because that family is gone. Just gone. But more and more, it seems like he has actually stolen
sex
from her, too. And she fucking
loves
sex.
Or she had.
She sobs once and curls into a fetal position, a tear sliding down her cheek and puddling warmly against her face on the leather of her father's couch.
Fuck
, she thinks,
I need some kind reset button. It can't go on being. . . this.
Heavily, she thinks,
I