Him
2245 Words
Erin wakes to the sound of the dripping faucet.
Her body no longer moves the way it should. She shifts under the covers and a deep, pulling ache radiates through her hips, her inner thighs, the tender place between her legs that makes her breath catch. She lies still and stares at the ceiling.
The water stain is still there. Misshapen cloud. Same crack. Same apartment.
See? Everything is the same.
She sits up slowly. Her lower back screams. Her neck is stiff on one side. When she turns her head, something tugs at the skin near her collarbone.
In the bathroom the mirror is small and spotted with toothpaste. She leans close.
Marks.
A dark bruise the size of a thumbprint sits just below her left ear. Another on the ridge of her shoulder—purple at the center, yellowing at the edges. She turns. More marks trail down her spine: faint red ovals, evenly spaced, as if something had pressed into her skin over and over with deliberate pressure.
Teeth marks.
“Psycho,” she whispers.
She turns on the shower and steps in before the water heats. The cold hits like a slap. She scrubs with the bar of soap—neck, shoulders, back, between her legs—hard enough that her skin turns pink and raw. The marks do not fade. They live under the surface. They will take days.
She does not have days.
She has work tomorrow. She has a life that cannot accommodate the evidence of a night that did not happen.
She turns off the water, wraps herself in the mildew-scented towel that has hung on the door for two days, and does not care.
In the kitchen she boils the kettle and pours water over instant noodles. She stands at the counter and eats. The noodles taste of salt and nothing. Her jaw moves. She swallows. The motions are mechanical, disconnected from her body, like watching someone else eat through a window.
She rinses the bowl. Goes back to bed. Pulls the blanket to her chin and closes her eyes.
Tomorrow you’ll wake up and this will be a bad dream. You’ll go to work. You’ll answer emails. You’ll sit at your desk and be normal. No one will know. No one will ever know.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand. She does not look.
---
She does not wake up normal.
The pain is worse the next morning. Walking is a negotiation—each step sends a sharp pull through her pelvis that makes her clench her teeth. In the bathroom mirror the marks on her neck have deepened overnight. Purple-black. Undeniable. She gathers her hair over one shoulder. It covers the worst of it. Barely.
A message from her supervisor at Aurelia:
Good morning team. Reminder: 9 AM project sync. Attendance mandatory.
Her thumbs hover.
Hi Sarah, I’m not feeling well today. Would it be possible to take a sick day?
The reply comes in two minutes.
Of course. Rest up. Feel better!
She swallows two painkillers with the last of the tap water and forces down three bites of bread. She chews without tasting. Stares at the wall above the sink.
Then she stops chewing.
He didn’t use protection.
She had been so drunk she could not tell a five from a two on a door panel. So far gone she did not know whose bed she was in. And he—
Had he used a condom?
She cannot remember. Only sensation—heat, pressure, his weight, the sound of her own breathing. No crinkle of foil. No pause. No moment where anyone stopped and said wait.
The bread turns to paste in her mouth. She spits it into the sink.
She grabs her phone.
symptoms after unprotected intercourse
The results load in clean white boxes with clinical headings. Chlamydia. Gonorrhea. Syphilis. HIV. The words blur and multiply. Forum posts from panicked strangers. Medical diagrams she does not want to see. Timelines. Incubation periods. Some infections show no symptoms for weeks or months.
Her pulse climbs. Her palms go slick against the phone case. Every ache in her body suddenly becomes a symptom—the soreness between her legs, the throbbing in her lower back, the faint nausea that has sat in her throat since yesterday morning.
You’re being paranoid. You’re spiraling. Put the phone down.
She does not put it down. She reads for another twenty minutes. Her heart hammers the entire time.
You need to see a doctor. You need to get tested. You need to do it today.
She searches for clinics. NHS walk-ins with four-hour wait times. A s****l health center in Southwark that does not open until Thursday. And at the top of the sponsored results—St. Maria Private Hospital. Same-day appointments. Discretion guaranteed. Fees that could cover her grocery bill for a month.
She calls before she can change her mind.
“St. Maria Private Hospital, how may I help you?”
“I need to see a gynecologist. Today, if possible.”
“Male or female preference?”
“Female. Definitely female.”
Keys clicking. A brief hold.
“We have a 2:30 opening with Dr. Evelyn Holden. She’s one of our senior consultants.”
The name means nothing to her.
“I’ll take it.”
St. Maria does not look like a hospital. It looks like a hotel—glass and limestone and soft recessed lighting. The lobby smells of fresh lilies. The chairs in the waiting area are upholstered in pale gray fabric that probably costs more per yard than her monthly rent.
Erin fills out forms. Medical history. Allergies. s****l history. The pen hovers over the checkbox: Have you had unprotected s****l contact in the past six months?
She ticks Yes. The ink bleeds slightly on the glossy paper.
She sits and waits. Her knee bounces. She counts the marble tiles on the floor—twelve across, nine deep from where she is sitting to the reception desk. She counts them twice.
“Erin Bennett?”
A nurse in a navy uniform holds a clipboard.
“Dr. Holden will see you now.”
She follows the nurse down a corridor that smells of antiseptic and money. The floors gleam. The lights hum. Everything is polished and quiet and precise—the opposite of the world she lives in.
The nurse stops at a door. Knocks twice.
“Come in.”
Erin walks through the door.
And stops.
The person behind the desk is not a woman.
He is tall. Even sitting, she can tell. Dark suit under a white coat. Hair pushed back, slightly less perfect than it would be on a magazine cover. Gray-blue eyes that lock onto her the instant she crosses the threshold.
She knows those eyes.
She knows those hands.
She knows the exact weight of that body.
Caiden Holden.
The room shrinks. The air compresses. Her vision narrows to his face, his shoulders, the collar of his shirt where—two nights ago—her mouth had been pressed against his throat.
No.
Every drop of blood drains from her face. Warmth pulls inward, retreating, leaving her skin cold and her fingers numb.
He looks at her. He does not blink.
She takes a step backward.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice comes out wrong—thin, cracked, a full octave higher. “Wrong room.”
She turns.
“You didn’t walk into the wrong room.”
His voice is calm. Level. The voice of a man who is never surprised.
She stops with her hand on the doorframe.
“Erin Bennett,” he says. “Twenty-two. Marketing intern, Aurelia Beauty Group. Have a seat.”
Her stomach drops through the floor.
He knows your name. He looked you up. He found you.
She does not move. Her hand grips the doorframe so hard the wood bites into her palm.
“Sit down.”
She sits. She does not know why. Her legs carry her to the chair and fold her into it like a marionette. Her hands land on the armrests and grip tight.
He watches her settle. His eyes drop—briefly, almost imperceptibly—to her neck. To the place where her hair has shifted and the edge of a bruise peeks through. He looks at it. Then he looks at her face.
“What brings you in today?”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
“I have… a medical concern.”
“Go on.”
“It’s related to…” The words stick. Her face burns. Her ears burn. “s****l health.”
He picks up a pen. “Specifically?”
“Unprotected s*x. I want to get tested.”
He writes something. “Was this a single occurrence?”
“Yes.”
“Was it consensual?”
She stares at him. “Yes.”
“Do you have a boyfriend? A regular partner?”
“No.”
“Are you currently seeing anyone?”
“No.”
He puts the pen down.
“The unprotected encounter. Was it your first time having intercourse?”
The room goes very quiet. She can hear the ventilation system humming above them. She can hear her own pulse in her ears.
“Yes,” she says. The word barely makes a sound.
Something shifts behind his eyes—a micro-movement, a tightening at the corner of his jaw, a fractional widening of his pupils. It is gone in less than a second. If she had blinked she would have missed it.
“I see.”
He stands. Walks around the desk. Stops in front of her—close enough that she can smell that cologne again. Cedar. Something cold. Something that makes her lungs constrict.
“My mother was called into emergency surgery this morning. I’m covering her clinic hours.” He gestures to the examination table against the far wall. “I need to examine you. Lie down.”
Her throat closes.
“I asked for a female doctor.”
“You can wait three to five days for her return. Or I can examine you now. Given the timeline, I’d recommend now.”
She stares at the examination table. The white paper. The stirrups folded against the sides.
This is not happening. This cannot be happening.
“I’m a licensed physician,” he says. “This is a standard examination.”
She looks at his hands. The same hands that pinned her wrists above her head two nights ago. The same hands that—
She stands. Walks to the table. Climbs up and lies down. The paper crinkles beneath her. She stares at the ceiling.
He pulls on latex gloves. The snap echoes in the quiet room.
“This may be uncomfortable,” he says. “Tell me if it hurts.”
She nods. She cannot speak.
He examines her. Methodical. Professional. His hands are steady, clinical, completely detached from any context that existed before this room. He does not look at her face. He does not speak except to give brief instructions—relax, shift left, take a breath.
She lies there and stares at the ceiling and thinks about the fact that this man was inside her forty-eight hours ago and now he is examining her like she is a stranger. Like she is a chart number. Like her body is a problem to be assessed and documented.
He doesn’t remember.
He doesn’t care.
To him you’re just another—
“You can get dressed,” he says.
She scrambles upright. He is already at the sink, stripping off the gloves. She pulls her clothes back on with clumsy, shaking hands.
He turns to face her.
“No visible signs of infection or trauma beyond what I’d expect. I’ll order a full STI panel. Results in three to five days.”
“Okay.”
He holds out a card. White, heavy stock, embossed lettering.
“My direct line. If you have concerns before the results come back.”
She takes it. Her fingertips brush his. She yanks her hand back so fast the card almost falls.
He watches her. That same steady, unreadable gaze.
“Erin.”
She is at the door. Her hand is on the handle.
“The man from that night. Do you want to know who he was?”
Her heart stops. Literally stops—one beat, two beats, nothing—and then slams back so hard her ribs ache.
She could turn around. She could look at him. She could say yes and watch his face and find out if he knows it was her—if he has known this entire time—if this whole examination was a performance.
But if she turns around, she has to see his eyes. And if she sees his eyes, she will remember everything.
“No,” she says. “I don’t want to know.”
She opens the door. Walks out. Does not look back.
The corridor stretches ahead of her, pale gray and gleaming. Her heels click on the floor. Her hands tremble at her sides.
Behind her, the door clicks shut.
On the other side of it, Caiden Holden sits down at his desk. He picks up the pen. Looks at the form where he wrote her name. He does not put it in the file. He folds it once, slides it into his breast pocket, and buttons his coat over it.
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