The afternoon sunlight filtered through half-closed blinds, casting striped shadows across my unmade bed. It was Tuesday, 3:27 PM. I'd called work this morning telling them I was sick, but the truth was much simpler: I needed this time alone. The apartment was silent except for the distant hum of traffic and the occasional creak of the old building settling.

I stripped off my clothes, tossing them onto the floor beside the bed. The air felt cool against my naked skin, raising goosebumps along my arms and hardening my nipples. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, dark circles under my eyes, hair dishevelled from a restless night. The stress of the past weeks had taken its toll.

I lay back on the sheets, still rumpled from my fitful sleep. The cotton felt rough against my back. I closed my eyes, letting my hands drift down my body. My fingertips traced the curve of my breasts, circled my nipples, and then moved lower across the soft swell of my stomach.

My mind wandered to last night's conversation with Alex. The argument had ended with a slammed door, the words we couldn't take back. The tension that had been building for months with no release.

I needed this. Needed to feel something other than anger and frustration.

My fingers found their way between my thighs. I was already wet, surprising myself with how ready my body was despite my cluttered mind. I slipped one finger inside, then two, feeling the warmth envelop them. No "secret garden" here, just my cunt, slick and eager, responding to my touch with honest biology.

I started slow, my fingers exploring familiar territory with deliberate patience. I traced the outer lips first, feeling them swell under my touch, before dipping just the tip of my middle finger inside. My breathing shifted, shallow at first, then deeper as I felt the first spark of pleasure ignite.

I withdrew my finger, bringing the wetness up to circle my clit, once, twice, barely touching. The contact sent small electric jolts through my pelvis. Not enough. Not nearly enough. I returned to my entrance, this time sliding two fingers inside to the second knuckle, feeling the walls grip them. My thumb reached up to brush my clit as my fingers curled forward, searching.

There. The spot that made my hips jerk involuntarily when I found it.

My free hand moved to my breast, pinching the nipple hard enough to make me gasp. The slight pain intensified everything happening below. I established a rhythm, fingers thrusting in and out while my thumb worked my clit in tight circles. My hips began to move, rising to meet my hand.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Alex. I ignored it, pressing harder against my clit instead. The buzzing stopped, then started again. Fuck Alex. Fuck the unanswered texts. Fuck the silent treatment that would follow.

I adjusted position, bending my knees and planting my feet firmly on the mattress. The new angle let me go deeper. I could hear the wet sounds now, obscenely loud in the quiet room. My fingers glistened each time I pulled them out, only to disappear again as I thrust them back in.

Sweat formed between my breasts and along my hairline, trickling down my temple. My abdominal muscles tightened, visible ripples beneath my skin as tension built. The pressure was mounting, but not fast enough. I needed more.

I withdrew my hand from my breast and reached down, spreading myself wider with my fingers, exposing my clit fully. Now I could stroke it directly, the hood pulled back, the sensitive bundle of nerves throbbing under my touch.

"Ohhh Fuck," I hissed through clenched teeth, my voice sounding foreign and ragged. The pressure built at the base of my spine, electric and insistent. I felt myself tightening around my fingers, gripping them, trying to pull them deeper. So close, but still out of reach.

I slowed momentarily, teasing myself, prolonging the climb. My thighs began to shake, not from exertion but from the effort of holding back. I moaned, the sound bouncing off the walls. My head pressed back into the pillow, neck arched, eyes squeezed shut.

Behind my closed eyelids, images flashed unbidden. Not Alex, no, someone new. Someone I'd seen at the coffee shop last week. Tall, with strong hands and a way of looking at me that made my skin heat. I imagined those hands replacing mine, pinning my wrists above my head while their mouth moved between my legs. The fantasy was so vivid I could almost feel hot breath against my thigh.

What would it be like to be watched right now?

The thought came from nowhere, sending an unexpected jolt of excitement through me. I imagined eyes on me, taking in every detail of my exposed body, every reaction, every tremor. Would they tell me what to do? Order me to go faster or slower, to show them exactly how I like to be touched?

My mind raced further, constructing a scenario where I wasn't alone in this bed. Where my fingers were replaced by a tongue, relentless and knowing. Where hands gripped my thighs, keeping them spread wide, denying me the ability to close them as the pleasure became too intense. The fantasy shifted; now I was the one in control, straddling a face, taking my pleasure while they struggled to breathe beneath me.

"Please," I whispered, though there was no one to hear.

My fantasy self, begged too, for release, for more, for permission. The imagined power exchange heightened everything, making my actual fingers feel like someone else's, making my approaching orgasm feel forbidden and urgent.

I thought of being filled completely, stretched wide, and used thoroughly. Of multiple hands on me at once, of being the centre of attention, of being desired so intensely that nothing else mattered. I imagined the sounds I'd hear, grunts, moans, skin against skin, and the words that would be whispered in my ear: filthy promises and commands that acknowledged exactly what I was, what I needed.

The fantasy was fragmented, shifting between scenarios, but the common thread was clear, being wanted, being taken, being consumed by pleasure with no thought for anything else. No responsibilities, no consequences, no hesitation. Just raw, unfiltered desire.

I was no longer thinking of Alex or work or the pile of unpaid bills on my kitchen counter. Just the relentless drive toward release, fuelled by images that I'd never admit to anyone but that my body responded to without judgement or shame.

The tension built higher. My toes curled into the sheets, cramping slightly. I didn't care. I added a third finger, stretching myself, feeling full. My breathing came in harsh pants, punctuated by whimpers I couldn't suppress. I was hovering on the edge, suspended in that exquisite moment before falling.

My hips moved frantically now, no longer in rhythm but desperate, chaotic. Sweat made the sheets stick to my back. I was chasing it, almost there, almost.

"Oh god, oh fuck, oh…" The words dissolved into a guttural moan as the first wave hit. My back arched completely off the bed, my body forming a taut bow. My thighs clamped around my hand, trapping it in place as my cunt pulsed and gripped around my fingers with brutal force.

When it hit fully, it was violent. My body convulsed, muscles contracting in visible waves that rippled from my core outward. My stomach muscles spasmed, and my legs trembled uncontrollably. I felt the initial rush of pressure building, different from the orgasm itself, fuller, more urgent, impossible to contain.

I kept my fingers pumping inside me, curled upward and pressing hard against that swollen spot on my front wall. The first jet erupted with startling force, splashing hot against my wrist and forearm. I didn't stop, couldn't stop, as my fingers continued their relentless rhythm. The second gush was stronger, arcing slightly before soaking the sheets between my thighs. I could hear it, the unmistakable splash and patter, and feel the warm liquid pooling beneath my ass.

Still, I worked my fingers, even as my hand grew drenched and slippery. A third powerful surge came with the next contraction, this one accompanied by a sound torn from deep in my chest, half-scream, half-sob. The sheets were soaked now, dark with wetness that spread in a widening circle. My fingers made obscene squelching sounds as they continued to pump in and out of my pulsing cunt, each thrust forcing more liquid from inside me.

My hips bucked wildly, grinding against my hand. My head thrashed side to side, hair sticking to my sweat-slicked face and neck. My eyes rolled back, lids fluttering as smaller spurts continued with each thrust of my fingers. I could feel the wetness spraying against my inner thighs, running down to pool beneath me, hot then quickly cooling in the air.

The muscles in my forearm burnt with effort, but I didn't slow down. Each continued stroke inside triggered another small gush, another shock of pleasure that kept the orgasm rolling through me in waves. My throat produced sounds I didn't recognise, animalistic, unrestrained, primal. My entire body shuddered as I squirted harder than I had in months, the release not just physical but something deeper, a dam breaking after too much pressure for too long.

Aftershocks rippled through me as I kept my fingers inside, prolonging the sensation until it bordered on pain. Finally, I withdrew them, noting the slickness that stretched between my fingers like evidence of a crime.

My breathing gradually slowed. The room came back into focus, the peeling paint on the ceiling, the stack of books I'd been meaning to read, the framed photo of Alex and me from last summer in Cape Cod. Before everything went to shit.

My phone buzzed again. This time, I reached for it.

"We need to talk," Alex's message read.

I looked at my wet fingers and at the damp spot on my sheets. My body felt lighter, emptied of tension, if only temporarily. I sat up, typing a response with my clean hand.

"Yes. We do."

I set the phone down and stood on slightly shaky legs. In the shower, I'd wash away the physical evidence of this moment, but the clarity would remain. There were decisions to make, and conversations to have. For now, though, I'd found what I needed, not in euphemisms or pretty phrases, but in the honest physicality of my own body's response to pleasure.

I'd found release. The rest could wait another hour.