In Need

It’s been days. Four days if you were counting, which you are. It’s making you crazy. Fuzzy eyes and aching head and swollen tongue. When you stop to think about it your skin itches. If you dwell for more than a minute you actually think you might do something…drastic. You threw a sweater at Daphne this morning and she only offered you breakfast.

You’re ten hours in to a twelve hour shift and you’re pretty sure you’ve been at the diner for nearly three and a half years. Every customer who walks through the door gets a dirty look. Your tips decrease in direct proportion to the increase in your bad attitude. If you were a woman, people would be snickering and making PMS jokes.

Deb finally asks what the fuck your problem is and gets nothing but a ‘leave me alone’ shot over your shoulder as you schlep table ten’s coffee and lemon bars over.

As you throw the plates down and pour the steaming hot liquid with little concern for public safety, the men you’re serving look on in horror. You sneer and leave them to their very healthy dinner selection.

You watch the clock and clean the same spot on the counter as the bleach from the rag burns the surface of your skin. Deb’s bitching puts and end to your pity party. When you trip as you turn to yell back at her, you recognize that instant karma is very real. You cut your knee, so she sends you home.

You’ve never been so happy to see blood in your life.

You throw your dirty apron in the laundry bin out back with a force that suggests it double-crossed you. You stalk through the streets of Pittsburgh watching your breath form clouds in the cold air as you huff and puff your way home.

Shaking the snow flurries from your hair and the cold from your bones, you toss your bag on the floor, your jacket on the couch and your insanity out the window.

“If you weren’t home yet I was going to die,” You’ve never been so happy to see anyone in your entire life.

You throw yourself on top of him and use teeth and nails before he has time to put down the magazine he was reading.

“Jesus,” he huffs as you claw at his clothes, “I should go out of town more often.”

You suck his skin until the blood rises underneath and you wrap your thighs around his waist so tight he grunts. “You’re never leaving me here alone, again.”

He laughs. You get naked.

You feel much, much better after you come.

-end-

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