“Because I like that sometimes. Don’t get me wrong—I like you more. What I am really going to like is telling you about them.” She set the glass down on the counter. “Maybe more than that. We’ll see.” You looked up and she was looking at you, intensely, like trying to read something. Trying to see if something was enough. And it must not have been enough, because she still looked mad.

You were sick of yourself, of this fucking wimpiness. Maybe you should yell back at her. Or walk. But what were you going to head to? Channel-surfing on the threadbare green couch in your crappy house? Christ, you couldn’t even jack off. Hearing the guys say sympathetically, “Fuck, we knew it couldn’t last, you and a chick like that.” Rhonda? Pretty clear what Rhonda wanted, and it didn’t include waking up for breakfast together.

Then she smiled, ferally. “Come in here,” she said.

You stood in front of her bathroom mirror, and she opened your pants and fished your dick out. “Get hard,” she said, and blood flooded it, pushing it up like a searching finger into a straining, swollen erection. She opened the cabinet and took out a big scoop of Vaseline and smothered your cock with it, and you tried not to flinch back from her hand.

“Now jack off,” she said. “But don’t come.”

“Jill—” you said.

“I want to watch,” she said, and she sounded more eager, now, than mad.

You started stroking, gingerly, ribbons of discomfort slithering along your skin.

“Harder,” she said. “Like a man.”

And that fucking did it: the unease and regret in you was washed away in a tide of rage, and you yanked your hand down and up, down and up over your traitor cock, squeezing and mauling. Choking the chicken. Gritting your teeth against the fireworks of pain.

It was like mauling a broken bone. Little grunts and sobs of pain were coming out of you. And your cheeks were wet, but you weren’t crying. No. Fuck that. Just tearing up with agony and anger. You weren’t feeling sorry for anything. Maybe you felt safe. Maybe you just were Jill’s, and that was that.

She pulled a clear, pliant plastic dildo out of a drawer and slathered it with Vaseline. “I’ll give you something to make you feel better,” she said, and you thought, oh, thank god, she’s going to make herself come.

It was hard to look at yourself in the mirror, your red wet face, your clenched teeth. You closed your eyes.

“Even harder,” she whispered in your ear, and you hurt yourself.

You felt her cool hand on your throat. It felt good. “Now relax,” she said, and she was sliding her slippery finger over your anus. You clenched, and she paused, leaving it there. You forced yourself to relax, and then you lost yourself in the pain.