Reckless Behavior
I walked into my penthouse and was met with the familiar, suffocating silence; the kind that makes my chest tighten and sets my brain's clock ticking.
I didn’t bother turning on the warm amber lights. Darkness would consume my soul either way.
With a heavy sigh, I dropped my bag and made a beeline for the only redeeming feature in a place built out of most people’s wildest dreams: the massive stone bathtub anchored in the center of the bedroom. I twisted the faucet on and sank into the basin before it was even half full, pressing my forehead against the cold marble, closing my eyes, and trying to force the relentless chaos in my mind to quiet down.
Hot water was always effective at loosening the physical tension a grueling CEO schedule locked into my bones, but it was utterly useless when it came to washing away the psychological toxins in my head. If only I’d stayed at the office. Work, as demanding and frantic as it was, left no room for spiraling. Coming home to this luxurious tomb, however, was what turned my nights into a quiet agony.
Eventually, the water turned icy cold, forcing me to face the reality of the night. I climbed out, water dripping onto the hardwood floor, and was met instantly by my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass walls: a pretty face, smooth skin, and curves sculpted in all the right places.
In short, a body capable of bringing a man to his knees.
Yet every night, I found myself lying untouched in a king-sized bed, relying on a cold plastic toy between my thighs just to dull the ache.
The longer the woman in the glass stared back at me, the deeper the loneliness settled into my chest and the hotter the rage boiled in my veins.
Why?
It had been two years since I packed up my life, moved overseas, and left everything behind. I’d started over, forged a new identity, and built an empire from scratch.
So why couldn't I forget? I had tried everything prescribed to women of my status: retail therapy, luxury getaways, and high-priced psychoanalysis. Nothing worked. In a final, desperate bid to purge the ghosts, I had even taken up painting; a frantic hobby meant to vomit all that internal filth onto a canvas.
Right. That’s what the smug, overpaid therapist had suggested.
just put it out into the world.
I walked over to the canvas set up near my bed, snatched up a brush with no plan in mind, and started throwing paint across the surface. Soon, my hands were flying, my eyes tracking every stroke with a fierce concentration bordering on madness. I didn't stop until my arms throbbed and my legs trembled beneath me.
Only then did I step back to look at what I’d created.
My chest heaved as shock took over.
It was a breathtaking, chaotic depiction of a couple entangled in an erotic embrace; their skin glistening with sweat, hands mapped across each other so seamlessly you couldn't tell where one body ended and the other began.
What unsettled me most wasn't just the raw intimacy of the art; it was the sickening realization that this wasn't imagination.
It was a memory.
Heat surged straight to my core, pulsing with a sharp, heavy ache. In that moment, resistance crumbled under a wave of pent-up frustration, and I just wanted to ride the sensation until I was completely spent.
Reaching into my bedside drawer, I pulled out the vibrator, slid it in, and let it take over until I was gasping for air against the pillows.
As the high ebbed away and my breathing slowly regulated, my gaze drifted back to the canvas. Though I had deliberately left the faces blank, I had rendered his body down to the exact, agonizing detail.
My throat tightened at the thought, and a single, hot tear slipped down my cheek.
I turned away, staring past the glass at the sprawling city below: The streetlights flickered like tiny red embers, and the cars moved like ants far below the skyscraper. Then I forced my focus back to my reflection. Out there, people were drinking themselves to oblivion, hooking up, and losing themselves in the warmth of another human being. Meanwhile, here I was on a Friday night, trapped in a high-end prison with a buzzing piece of plastic inside me to take the edge off, while desperately wishing for a real man to pin me down and fill me until I was trembling and weeping from pleasure.
I knew I could raise a single finger and have half a dozen desperate men at my beck and call tomorrow morning.
The problem was, I was far too paranoid to let a stranger lay a hand on me.
Pathetic.
I don't know how long I lay there staring at the ceiling, punishing myself for my inability to move on, for drifting through my own life like a ghost instead of actually living it.
I eventually drifted off into a restless sleep, waking hours later to the harsh glare of my phone screen.
I unlocked it to check my notifications and among the usual corporate emails and news alerts, one ad caught my eye: a dating app.
My finger hovered over the icon for a second instead of deleting it.
It was a monumentally stupid idea, one I knew I’d regret the moment the sun came up, but right now? I didn't care.
I was starving for a pulse. So I downloaded the application, set up a minimalist, semi-fake profile, and began to swipe.
The night wore on as a parade of messages flooded my inbox.
Most were crude, unsolicited displays; others were downright skin-crawling. I was just about to delete the app in disgust when a notification popped up from a user named Axel.
His photos showed someone decent-looking enough, but more importantly, he seemed remarkably normal compared to the sea of stomach-churning profiles I'd waded through.
The conversation flowed surprisingly well, until he sent me one particular text:
“I’m heading to a club in the Red Light District downtown. Wanna join me?”
For a fraction of a second, my heart skipped a beat, and a sharp ringing echoed in my ears. Then, before I could process it, a familiar, arrogant voice slammed into my thoughts:
“Don’t pull one of your reckless stunts. Stay put at home. A lady of your breeding shouldn't be out with strangers on her own this late.”
“Shut the hell up,” I muttered aloud to the empty room, my hands trembling.
“I left you. And tonight, I’m wiping you completely out of my head.”
Before I could talk myself out of it, I typed a reckless response and hit send:
“Sure. Text me the address.”
