Vice

52: Morning After

Guilt. Shame. Regret.

Those feelings press down hard on Natara's chest as soon as her eyes open the following morning. Drawing in each breath feels difficult, her heart squeezes in her chest, and bile rises to the back of her throat.

She doesn't want to think about the night before but she can't stop herself. 

Everything floods back into her brain, consuming her with anxiety. She pulls her knees up to her naked chest, laying her face on top of them as her body trembles and her teeth chatter. The whole world around her feels like a spinning top and she struggles to stay solid - to stay centered in reality. 

She had lost her virginity to her boyfriend. She should feel happy. Why does she feel so terrible?

She forces herself to look beside her at the bed, expecting to see Jace's bright eyes and pretty smile, but there is only emptiness. 

Her eyes flick around the room. She doesn't see his clothes laying on the floor, his keys, his phone, or his wallet anywhere nearby. He's left. Gone somewhere. Perhaps work, but there is no note or chauffeur here to even tell her that. 

She curls up on top of the bed, hiding herself under the blankets and choking out sobs. 

It was so easy to lose her virginity. Just as easy as it was to forget to brush your teeth or accidentally leave your backpack in your classroom. One moment, one push inside her, and it was done. It was gone. It shouldn't be that easy.

Natara wasn't exactly the type who cared about waiting until marriage or for the love of her life but she had still wanted it to feel special, or at least enjoyable, but her experience with Jace wasn't either of those things. 

She wished it had never happened. 

Jace seemed to have a method of action he was accustomed to and he did it, took care of himself, and then laid down on the other side of the bed and fell asleep. 

Maybe that was how sex was supposed to be. Maybe she should have tried harder to make herself enjoy it, but she really wasn't sure what she liked in terms of sex. What could she have done differently? Was this how she was supposed to feel afterward?

Her thoughts return back to the night Mr. Vice went on her. It was such a different experience. 

He had gone slow, gently sliding his tongue against her skin until her body twitched or a moan escaped her lips. He had made things happen to her that left her feeling like she never had before. Things that made her squirm and tense up inside. Things that made her toes curl and frenzied cries slip from her lips. 

Losing her virginity to Jace was not like that. Perhaps sex itself was just not that enjoyable. Natara doesn't know for sure. Maybe this was just as good as sex was. If it is, she doesn't understand what all of the hype is about. 

Why do so many people want sex? They should want a man to go down on them instead.

Eventually the tears stop coming and Natara takes a long breath, wiping her eyes. She rises from the bed and goes to the bathroom. 

The woman in the mirror looks older, more tired, with beet red eyes and dark circles under her eyes. Has all of the working been doing this to her? She sits on the toilet and buries her face in her hands, crying more for a few minutes. 

When she wipes, the toilet paper stares back at her with a small patch of bright red blood on it. She isn't sure why she's bleeding. It makes her feel nervous. Perhaps Jace was too hard on her last night. Do people normally bleed after sex? 

She feels like the one sex education class she had in middle school didn't prepare her well enough for this. The teacher barely said anything about what the other gender had or how it operated or how it felt or what was normal or what to do when things like this happened. All they said was "Stay Abstinent." 

Natara wishes she'd listened.

She also wishes she had a pantyliner for this seemingly endless trickle of blood, but she hadn't expected to bleed down there for another week or two. She folds a piece of toilet paper and stuffs it in her underwear temporarily. Maybe she can buy a liner from the dispenser in one of the work bathrooms.

She fumbles around Jace's apartment awkwardly as she looks for her clothes and her eyes keep drawing back to the lewd pictures along his walls. She had given him all of her and he didn't take them down. Maybe he hadn't had time to before work. Maybe he would take them down later. 

Or maybe he wouldn't. Her body certainly didn't look as nice as those girls in the photos and they were mostly white girls, too. Did Jace prefer white women? Natara bites her lip before it starts to quiver.

Tears continue to slide down her cheeks as she picks up her dress and slips it down over her body. It feels dirty, or maybe she's the one that feels dirty, and she can't wait to get to work and get changed into a new outfit. 

As she smooths the dress and puts her shoes on, her heartbeat quickens. She doesn't feel comfortable being in Jace's apartment like this. It's not her house and he isn't here. No one else is here, either, and he didn't take the time to leave her a note giving her permission to stay here for any longer than she had to. 

But maybe he felt like he didn't need to leave her a note. She was his girlfriend, after all. Maybe she had a certain right to be here alone.

Right or not, though, Natara tries to get prepared to head to work as quickly as possible. She sends her parents a text, too, letting them know she fell asleep after hours at work. 

This time, they aren't as forgiving. They send her a text back saying they're going to have a talk with her when she gets home. 

She slips out of Jace's apartment and heads outside, glances around the area to see what part of town she's in, and wishes she either had her bike or a ride to work. Thankfully, it doesn't look like Jace lives too far from Vicetech, but Natara still trembles as she walks down the road. 

After everything that just happened, she doesn't feel ready to face another day of work.