Broken In

It started with the bedspread. Red, threadbare—the kind of fabric that clings in summer, that snags if you move too quickly. You said it looked cheap, felt worse. But I watched your hand linger on it when you thought I wasn’t looking, stroking the roughness like it calmed something restless inside you.

The first cigarette burn came on a Sunday. You were propped against the headboard in those boxers you always wore, waistband loose, curls spilling low. I remember staring, caught by how easily you carried heat, how even your stillness radiated it. The ember slipped, dropped onto the bed, hissed a warning before it scarred the fabric.

‘Shit,’ you muttered, brushing at the mark. But you didn’t look worried. You studied the damage the way you sometimes studied me—with a kind of amused detachment, as though you didn’t mind what you’d done, as though you’d half meant it.

‘It’s ruined now,’ I said.

‘Nah,’ you smiled. ‘It’s just getting broken in.’

You always killed the light before you kissed me. ‘It’s better this way,’ you said. I didn’t ask why. I caught glimpses anyway: the slope of your collarbone in moonlight, teeth flashing at my throat, sweat bright on your temple.

In the dark, you became texture: stubble rasping my skin, the weight of your knee pressing into the mattress, your breath hot and damp at my ear. You pushed my thighs open like it was instinct, like you’d done it a hundred times before. You moved inside me with a rough steadiness, hips snapping, breath hitching, the rhythm more animal than tender. When I tried to catch your face, your hand pressed mine back down to the sheets.

Your voice broke when you said my name, guttural, half-growl, the word no longer language but a sound pulled from your body. The bed squealed beneath us. Sweat soaked into the mattress, slicking my back, until the whole room smelled of salt and sex.

After, your arm would drape across my waist, ribs aching under its heaviness. The ceiling sagged above us, pale and cracked, a jagged vein splitting toward the dead bulb.

‘Do you think it’s growing?’ I asked once, tracing the fissure with my eyes.

You didn’t answer immediately. Your fingers twitched at my hip, calluses dragging across skin as if to keep yourself tethered. Finally, you murmured, ‘Yeah. It wasn’t that long before.’ Your voice was rough, sanded down.

The weeks slid into each other. Cigarette ash on the dresser, damp towels heaped at the foot of the bed, your socks shoved under the mattress like offerings. We ate standing up sometimes, takeout cartons dripping grease onto the counter. You never stayed long enough for breakfast, but your scent lingered, sharp, sour, metallic, even after the door clicked behind you.

Nights blurred most. You came back late, body keyed up, hands impatient. Sometimes you fucked me without words, barely stripping the covers down, your weight pressing me flat. Other times you slowed, dragging it out—biting, licking, tugging me apart in increments until I felt strung open, raw. You left bruises like fingerprints, small half-moons where your teeth grazed. When I touched them later, they pulsed.

The night you came home with dried blood under your nails, I didn’t ask. Rust clung to the grooves, turning your touch into splinters. When your hand grazed my arm, it left a faint burn.

Later, I took your hand and licked the blood away. I started at the base of your palm, tongue tracing each ridge, slow. The taste hit metallic, bitter. I worked the nail beds one by one, sucking the iron loose, warm against my tongue. The blood softened under heat, smearing slick. I swallowed fast, too fast, gagging slightly, then went back for more.

Your fingers flexed against my mouth, almost pulling away, almost shoving deeper. I closed my lips tighter, teeth grazing the nail edge, until you hissed. My tongue darted into the half-moons where the blood had clotted, scraping it clean. The tang bloomed thick, unbearable, but I didn’t stop. I wanted every trace.

You watched, silent. When I finally let go, my lips were stained dark, my chin streaked. I wiped it with the back of my hand, but the taste clung, briny, alive.

The sheets were eggshell blue, soft but thinning. I loved the way your freckled skin glowed against them. When you leaned over me, muscles taut, sweat pooling at your collarbone, I twisted toward the mirror on the bedside table, hungry to catch your face.

‘Hold still,’ you’d say, hands clamping me in place. You could pin me easily, but I never found a way to hold you.

Afterward, when you thought I slept, your touch changed. Fingers drifted lightly across my stomach. Your breath slowed. You pressed your chest against my back, lips brushing my shoulder so faintly it felt like apology.

But you never said the words. Instead, you left traces: a tangled silver chain on the dresser, a smear of ash on the headboard, cologne sharp on the pillow.

The last time I saw you, you stood in the doorway, keys spinning in your palm. Each metallic click cracked the silence. Your shoulders bunched, weight shifting, eyes refusing mine.

‘See you later,’ I said.

You grunted, jaw tight. The keys slowed in your hand, edges digging into your skin. For a moment, it looked like you might speak. But the air held heavy, unmoved. You turned instead, broad back familiar, and stepped into the hall.

I waited two months before I knew you weren’t coming back. The sheets stayed crumpled, the grooves of your body pressed deep. At night, sliding in, I felt the stiff salt of your sweat rise sharp when I moved too much.

Your scent clung still—sour, metallic, faint. Rolling onto my side, I breathed it in, feral as an animal seeking the last trace of its mate.

When I finally tore the sheets free, they dragged and snagged, brittle in places, clammy in others. I gathered them to my chest, their weight pressing cold, as though they’d become another body.

The washing machine rattled when I shoved them in. Lavender detergent hit hard—sweet, cloying, almost obscene against the memory of you.

The machine lurched to life, water slapping the drum. The duvet button struck glass, a sharp click-click-click, faster and faster until it blurred into the churn. The sheets vanished beneath the water, swallowed whole. Froth bubbled up, leaving only a tangle of pale, sodden threads—stripped of weight, of form, of you.