Jess

It does feel good. The bathroom is the only place in this little shit box that I really like, so maybe that's why I spent my entire decorating allowance in here. "Decorating allowance?" That is funny. I sound a little bit like my mom when I say it just so, turning my nose a certain way and fluttering my eyelids. My mom, who never thought I was good enough for — well, just about anything — she and I haven't talked in almost a year. When I left, I took some of the money that my dad had left me after he died, and with the rest saved from work, that was all I needed for a security deposit and one month's rent on this, my palace, a first-floor apartment in Jones Beach, Florida, a good thousand miles away from where I grew up. After my dad died, I thought about going west, to California or Arizona maybe, but instead I followed my friend Macy down here because she got me a job.

When we were little, my dad used to repeat the line from a movie we used to watch and tell both my sister and me that "all girls are princesses." Well, it hasn't exactly worked out that way, but once in a while, I still try to think of myself as a princess, so I call this place my palace. Just to myself, though.

The water in the tub is just the right temperature. Thankfully, tonight the pressure is high enough; some days, I barely can get any hot water much less enough to fill my tub. I have my legs hiked up on either side of the faucet, and I've slid down to just the right angle so the water is pounding right where it needs to go. The tub is a little small, like the one I had in my old house when I shared a bathroom with my sister. Instead of yellow, this one is a commercial greenie kind of color. Or maybe it's blue. It's hard to tell. Not that it matters at this particular moment.

The stopper on the tub broke after I moved in, so I had to buy a rubber one from Rite Aid. It fits in the drain pretty well, but sometimes it pops out and unless I can jam it in real quick, all the water runs out and I have to start refilling again. That gets particularly annoying, especially if I am in the middle of the "bathtub trick" as I like to call it when I get off in here. The stopper is in there nice and tight right now, and with the level low and the water running hard, all systems look to be a go.

When I have been with a boy, it is good too. I like having him touch me, rubbing me on just the right spot, getting inside of me, sliding in and out. But somehow, when I am with someone else, it's different. Like when I was little trying to climb the big hill in the Thompson's yard, it takes a while. That hill was a mountain to a ten-year-old girl. I have to get up slowly and pay attention to other things while I am working my way up before I can turn and enjoy the race back down. When I am in the tub, with the water running between my legs, pounding and throbbing, there is no climb. It's a quick pump up the mountain and then down I go over the slippery side, breathing hard, racing as fast as I can, like riding on greased-up skis, catching the wind and hitting a stride, coming in a matter of seconds.

My mind wanders as it often does just before focusing on what is going on below my waist. As soon as I rented this place, the first thing I did was run over to Pottery Barn in the mall and buy a distressed wooden ladder shelf that now sits in the corner, holding a Votivo vanilla-scented candle and Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion and body spray. When I was a little girl, I loved vanilla ice cream; it was the only flavor I would eat. I don't eat ice cream as much as I used to, probably because it reminds me too much of my dad, but I get my vanilla fix now from my candles, body sprays, and gels. I also have a set of really soft bright pink towels resting on the bottom ledge of the ladder. They were expensive — the HOTEL COLLECTION from Macy's — but every time I get out of the tub and wrap myself in one I sure am glad I bought them.

I can feel myself starting to tighten inside and as if a lead singer just counted down a song introduction — "a one, two, three, four" — and is starting to sing my hips are rocking up and down under the faucet. For a second, I think how funny it would look if someone came in and saw me humping the flow of tap water. But the second passes quickly and now I am focusing more on me. I can feel my breathing quicken. I feel hot, and my face is beading with just the slightest bit of sweat. I touch my nipple, swollen and hard, with my left hand, continuing to hold on to the faucet with my right so I don't slip under and inadvertently drown myself. I reach down from my breast and try to put my finger inside myself, just enough so I can feel it, but without upsetting the water rushing to my clitoris. The water is getting higher, not yet to Titanic levels, so I have a minute or so to finish. I can't quite reach in as far as I would like, and at this moment, I really wish my arms were a little longer or I had "the fingers of a piano player" like my sister. I feel the rush coming and tip my head back, resting lightly on the opposite side of the tub.

For some reason, just as my teeth clench and my back arches, my ADHD kicks in and I notice the rusty stain on the ceiling above me from when my friend Bobby in the apartment upstairs overflowed his shower and part of the drywall plopped right into my tub while I was brushing my teeth, maybe three days after I moved in. Bobby, who works two jobs as the super for the building and manager of the bar where I work, said he fixed it, but from the signs of the steadily spreading stain above me, he might need to come back and take another look. I almost laugh, thinking of asking Bobby down to see the stain, but can't because I am holding my breath and before I know it, the pulsing starts, I'm biting my lip and pulling that flow of water onto me, into me. I am flying down that mountain.

After I get my breath back, I swing my legs back around and slide down into the tub, the way it was designed to be used.

I remember reading in Women's Health or Cosmo or one of those types of magazines that the best way to make sure a woman has an orgasm is for her to have a steamy shower, a lot of foreplay, and maybe some oral sex first. Not me. Especially when I do the bathtub trick, I'm like a thirteen-year-old boy who just discovered his dick. A couple of minutes under the running water and pow — I'm good to go.

I get out of the tub and reach for my HOTEL COLLECTION towel. The orgasm felt good. Great even. But fuck, it just sucks. I'm not satisfied.

I need more.

I need to cut.

I start rummaging through my medicine cabinet, pushing aside a jar of Burt's Bees eye cream and the bottles of medications I have been prescribed over the last year. I haven't done it in a while, but I know I bought those blades a few months ago. The ones other people use to remove calluses on their feet. They're perfect, yes, but I don't see them.

Goddamn it, I need to find them. I bend down and my towel falls onto the cracked tile floor as I start to rummage through the cabinet under the sink. I immediately see the packaging — "Tweezerman" blades — they are made in Germany and come twenty in a pack. Hair thin and crazy sharp, they make the most amazing cut. Only one blade is missing from the pack; I used it a few months ago and tossed it away after, promising that would be the last time. At the time, I heard the ringing voice of my therapist in my ear....