I shouldn’t be turned on by this… should I?

Pulling my clothes off, I decide I’ll worry about that later. Right now, I need a hot shower and a gallon of soothing aloe and lavender body wash. I turn on the hot water and look at my naked body in the full-length mirror on the back of the door while the small room fills with steam. I zero in on the faint black and blue bruises in the shapes of his fingertips marking my waist, thighs, and throat. I lightly run my fingers over them in fascination, until a small stain of dried blood smeared on my inner thigh catches my eye. Frantically, I grab a tissue from the box on the vanity and wipe it across my vagina, and there’s a few spots of bright-red blood. I toss it in the toilet and quickly flush it. I don’t need Exhibit A: Loss of Virginity sitting in my wastebasket for Archie to pull out and drag around my room like a prize.

My heart jumps into my throat when I realize I don’t know if Evan wore a condom. Gripping the edge of the porcelain sink, I play the moments over and over in my head while my pulse races, but I can’t dredge up the sound of the wrapper being ripped open or a lapse when he might have been putting it on. Or taking it off. His stiff cock went directly from my pussy to my mouth in a matter of seconds.

There was no condom.

A swarm of anxiety sucks the air out of my lungs. How could I be so stupid and irresponsible to let a stranger screw my brains out under a bridge without protection? Me… who won’t even use a public restroom unless it’s a last resort. Me… who’s been waiting for my first time to be some kind of off-the-charts romantic experience with a man I’d want to marry. Did I suffer temporary insanity tonight? It’s like someone else just took over my body and my brain, and now I could have just lost my virginity, acquired five STDs, and gotten pregnant all at once.

With a homeless man.

My body sways with a dizzying freak-out, and I suck in another grounding, deep breath as I step into the shower stall, still trembling despite the scalding water. The tears don’t stop. They mingle with the water dripping down my face as I scrub my flesh with a washcloth soaked in soap.

I’m going to make you dirty, too. And it’s never going to wash off.

He’s right. I can’t scrub away the memories of how he kissed, rammed, and tasted. And I already know I’ll lust over the bruises long after they’ve faded.

God help me, I don’t want to wash any of it away.

I stay in the shower until the hot water turns icy cold, then wrap a thick towel around myself and go straight to bed, crawling naked under my blankets and falling instantly into a mentally and physically exhausted sleep.

I wake up groggy the next morning with a dull pain between my legs, an immediate reminder of what happened last night with Evan.

What exactly did happen last night?

I don’t even know how to describe any of it. Was that a one-night stand? A quick down-and-dirty screw? I can only imagine what he must think of me now. Not that his opinion should matter, really. I mean, he’s the homeless one. Not me. I have a job and a car and a bank account and a cat.

I also have blue, purple, and red bruises scattered all over my body from sex with him because the gift of speech completely took a hike out of my life last night when I should have been saying no.

He told you to leave, Piper. Remember? You said you didn’t want to. Your ability to speak was working just fine when you said that. And speaking of your mouth, it was also functioning perfectly fine when you sucked and swallowed him as though he were your last meal.

Shit.

I’m lying to myself. His opinion matters to me very much.

The digital alarm clock on my night table beeps me out of my daydream, and I slam the rectangular button until it turns off. There’s no way I’m going to work today with all the madness shuffling through my brain. I’ll never be able to focus on documents or deal with the endless ringing of the phone, and lunch hour is a stressy dilemma I’m not ready to face. I’m too unsettled and embarrassed to go to the park today. What if Evan’s not there? Or what if he is and he ignores me? What if he comes over to my bench to talk? What would we say to each other now? What if he kisses me, there in the park, on my bench, out in the daylight in public and not hidden away under a bridge in the dark?