Empire of Lies

Meredith Before

I’m getting exactly what I deserve right now…

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, counting down from twenty for the last time. The man I brought home from the bar—my first one night stand in years, was currently having a conversation with his cock. Literally.

“Come on, little buddy.” He patted his thighs. “We can do this. We can get this stroking done.”

Thirteen seconds.

“You were hard when you saw this woman at di

I held back a groan as he continued. I should’ve known that my expectations were way too high, that his promises of “making you come more than you ever have in your life” were far too much for him to deliver. He also repeatedly mentioned that I was “uppity” and “a little smarter than expected” throughout the night. He’d followed up those sugarcoated insults with, “Uppity girls tend to have super high expectations in bed. They’re not as patient, and they don’t believe in enjoying all the motions I have to offer before the climax.”

“It’s two weeks before the new year, man. It’s time to score big.” He now sounded like a football coach. “We’re going to wear a condom since we got gonorrhea the last time, I swear.”

What the hell? I sat up and looked over at him, shaking my head as he cradled his manhood. Half of me was curious to know if this pep talk would end with him kissing his own shaft.

“Um, Scott?” I cleared my throat. “I just remembered that I have to be up for work early in the morning, so—”

“Can you give us a second, please?” He scoffed, looking up at me. “I’m trying to fix this, so we can fuck you tonight.”

I wasn’t even sure how to respond to that, and he didn’t give me a chance. He looked down again, rendering me invisible to their conversation once more.

Rolling off the mattress, I left the room and pulled the door shut behind me. I grabbed my phone from the kitchen counter and slipped into the bathroom.

Scrolling down my ‘recent calls’ list until I reached my best friend Gillian’s number, I let out a deep breath before hitting call.

Please pick up, Gillian…Please pick up…

“Hey, there!” Her voicemail greeted me after six rings. “You’ve reached my personal line, but I can’t come to the phone right now. I’m currently in flight with Jake or taking our little one on a play date. Leave me a message, and I’ll do my best to get back to you when I can!”

Beep!

“So…” I sighed. “You know how years ago—back when I had a sex life, when I used to rate cocks on a scale of one to five? How even though the goal was a 5 star, that a 3.5 star was great, if it’d been a while?” I paused. “Well, I’m currently in the middle of not receiving a 1-star cock and I can’t believe that he’s been in my place for—”

“Oh my god, Meredith!” She answered the phone mid-sentence, laughing. “Seriously? It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

“Were you purposely ignoring my call?”

“No. Little Jake grabbed it before I could answer it. Your message came on via the speaker system, by the way. So, I’m sure his next word to ask his Daddy about will be the c-word since, thanks to you, his vocabulary already includes the p-word.”

“Pussy?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “That one.”

“Well, you’re welcome. Less stuff to explain to him later.” I smiled, and her laughter came over the line once more.

“Is this one-star the guy you were telling me about before? The guy from Tinder?”

“No.” I slumped down onto the tiled floor. “That guy is a super successful Wall Street suit named Jameson Turner and he begged to reschedule on me fifteen minutes before our date.”

“So, you blocked his number immediately, right?”

“I wanted to, but…” I sighed. He was the first decent guy I’d met on the app in forever, and we’d talked off and on for the past several weeks. “He’s making it up to me on New Year’s Eve by taking me to one of the most exclusive nightclubs in this city. This one star guy is just a case of what happens when I’m too desperate…”

“Please don’t tell me you met him at a bar…”

“Worse,” I said, leaning back against the toilet. “I met him at a subway station. He said, ‘Hey you’re cute’ and that was all it took to get a date.”

Her silence let me know that she was being nice by not telling me how pathetic I’d become.

“I feel like I’m still not back to being myself, you know? Shit still isn’t going right in any part of my life for another year in a row, and I’m—” I paused mid-sentence, feeling tears prick my eyes. “My mom is really gone, Gillian…” I tried not to cry, but the pain overwhelmed me and I couldn’t help but give in.

Ever since I’d lost my mother two years ago, things were never the same. I couldn’t go to a party without breaking into tears when certain songs played, couldn’t watch a film without wondering what she would’ve said, and I couldn’t pick up the phone without wanting to hear her soft words of advice. She was the only person who knew what I did for a second job from time to time, what I had to do to keep the pain of my father’s neglect from seeping too deeply into my system.

“I’ll have Jake fly me back home first thing this afternoon,” Gillian said softly. “You and I can stay up until daybreak and sip cheap mimosas like old times. We’ll go shopping, too.”

“No, no, no.” I ripped a few sheets of toilet paper from the roll and dabbed my eyes. “I don’t need you to do that. Not this weekend.”

“Why not? You’d fly across the country in a heartbeat, if I needed you.”

I held back a sigh. Taking her up on that offer right now would make me the shittiest best friend in the world. Her husband had called me weeks ago to make sure he was doing everything right for their a

“I’ll be fine until next weekend,” I said. “I promise. I was just having a moment.”

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent sure.”

“Okay, well…” She paused for a few seconds. “If you haven’t had the guy’s c-word yet, how do you know that it’s a one star?”

“Because I’ve seen it.” I laughed and wiped my face. “It’s a tad bit longer than one of my lipstick tubes. And don’t even get me started on the unkempt gorilla hair he has going on down there.”

“Have you tried eHarmony? OkCupid? Maybe those are better than Tinder these days?”

“I’ve never heard anything good about those other sites.”

“It’s been years, so you kind of have to adapt to how things have changed. You can’t just use Tinder and wait on one guy at a time. You used to tell me that.”

“Good point. I’ll get on both of those tonight.”

A soft knock suddenly came to the door.

“I’ll call you later, Gillian,” I said. “Gotta go.” I ended the call and opened the door, finding myself face to face with a naked Scott.

“If you hop on my dick within the next few seconds, I’ll be able to fuck you for at least three minutes.” He winked. “What do you say?”

I looked down and noticed that he wasn’t hard anymore.

“Um…” His face reddened and he placed his hands over his crotch. “You know what? I think I’m just go

“I think that’s a great idea.”

I watched him grab his jacket and hastily put on his pants, watched him not-so-subtly steal a handful of chocolate chip cookies off my kitchen counter.