My Free Use Girlfriend

By the time I walked into the living room and saw her taking two guys on my sofa, there was no longer much room for surprise.

The exact circumstances of how we met are now a little hazy, but I can draw the contours. Sometime in a very cold month -- it must have been January or Feburary, I had been hoisted unwillingly to a party hosted by a mutual friend of a friend. The theme of the party was 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' There were some drinks spiked with cheap rum, flimsy eye-patches and dollar store tricorn hats floating around, but the conceptual execution was otherwise lacking. By that point, we were all out of college and starting to work or enter professional and graduate schools, and the enthusiasm for a tired franchise from our teenage years was just not there anymore.

We met in a little semi-circle of our common friends making light, bantering party chat. I said something about not watching the last movie in the series, and she said she had not seen the last few. That got us talking more about Johnny Depp, and all the movies he had made with Tim Burton, which provoked talking about our favorite movies of the 90's: Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, The Coen Brothers. Soon we had broken out of the semi-circle and were in full conversation mode. We exchanged cell phone numbers before she left for the night.

I think I first texted her to tell her some news I had learned about Johnny Depp's legal woes. Why I had to search for something related to movies to text her about rather than just telling her that I enjoyed talking, I don't know. She did not hold it against me though, and our texts gradually began to wind into a gamboling thread of jokes, memes and quips. It didn't feel awkward for us to then meet up for lunch, share a coffee and gradually the barriers began to lower and a deeper affinity set in. A month or so after that party, the first kiss slipped in naturally like a coda on our friendship and the beginning of our intimacy. We would see each other once or twice a week. We'd either go for a movie, dinner, and she would stay over at my place and we would cuddle up in bed, kissing and touching and stroking each other. We began to familiarize ourselves with each other's bodies, enjoying the sensations of the other's hands and lips on our most sensitive and sensual areas.

We were having breakfast late one Saturday morning in February when the big revelation occurred. I had poured out two cups of black coffee for us both, and she was munching on some toast with butter and apple jam. She looked very cute in my oversized t-shirt. Her hair was in a frizzy loose mess and one long smooth leg was sticking out, bobbing back and forth with her bites as she looked at me over the table.

"There's something that we should talk about" she said. "I really want to be intimate with you. I enjoy all of our time together, I find you really attractive and fun to be with. I want to be your girlfriend and I would actually like for us to take our relationship further, if you know what I mean."

I nodded along.

"But, before we do that, I really need you to know something about me. It's important that you understand this, because I'm worried that it could create some problems between us if I don't tell you ahead of time, and if you find out on your own."
 "What is it?" I asked getting increasingly curious. I had no idea what she could be driving at. Maybe she had some jealous ex that I would need to watch out for?

"I really don't want to ruin what we have, so you have to promise not to be mad if I tell you" she continued.

"Sure, I promise. What is it?"

"You're sure. Please don't be mad" she said.

I had no idea what this revelation could be. Did she have a secret love child? Did she sell bootleg DVDs on sketchy street corners? Or maybe it would actually be something innocuous yet bothersome, like, she gets headaches after sex?

"Just tell me what it is" I said.

"Ok, well" she hesitated. "I am a free use girlfriend."

I blinked at her.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means, well... Have you not heard of 'free use' before?"

I shook my head.

"It basically means..." she looked down at the table. "That I have to have sex with any man who wants to have sex with me."

I stared at her.

"It's not something that I can help, or change," she looked up into my eyes searchingly. "I've just been this way since I was 19. Every time I meet a man, if I sense that he is interested in having sex, or doing something with me, we end up doing it."

I was completely stunned. I had never heard of something like this before. "What do you mean you can't help it?" I asked.
 "It's almost like an instinctual reflex. Like the way you shiver when you are cold, or pull your hand away from a hot stove. When I sense a man's sexual interest in me, I have this incredible urge to satisfy him. It's completely overpowering. I can't stop it."

I mulled this over for a minute. "But what about me?" I asked. I had plenty of sexual feelings for her already. We had fooled around and she had stimulated me to completion a few times, but I had not yet penetrated her. If she was so overpowered by this urge, then why had we not had penetrative sex plenty of times by now?

She smiled at me. "That's different. We have a romantic relationship. When I first met you, I could sense that the interest was so much deeper than just sexual. That's why we can form a real, meaningful relationship. I'm really grateful for that. You don't even know."

"But," I said "if you meet any man at all who is sexually interested, you are are compelled to do whatever it is he wants."

"That's pretty much it." Her mouth was drawn into a line as she watched me processing this.

I looked at my coffee and thought. Any man who was "sexually interested." What did that mean? She might not be a model, but she was certainly very attractive. Her long black wavy hair fell haphazardly over her shoulders. She was taller than average, and her physique was petite and perky. Her breasts were large enough to lift up even the baggy white t-shirt she wore to bed. Her long bare legs dangled below the table continuing to bob in time to some imperceptible tune. She was the kind of girl who could look sexy fresh out of bed or dressed up for a night out. I couldn't speak for all men, but knowing myself, if I saw her as a stranger in passing, I would definitely check her out. I might even have private a lascivious thought to myself. How could she possibly have sex with any man who was sexually interested in her?

"There are some limits on it," she said as if reading my mind. "Like, if I cross someone on the street, I might sense the interest and feel an urge, but I can normally rein it in."

Normally? So there were times when she couldn't?
 "But, if it goes on for awhile, then I have a lot more difficulty."

"How often does this happen?"

She looked embarrassed. "It's not as common as when it first started. It really depends on a number of things."

"Like what?"

"Well," she looked at her coffee again. "It depends on how I am feeling at the moment. I don't have any urge when I am on my period for instance. But after this started, I had to get an IUD because otherwise I'd be at risk of getting pregnant all the time. So, I also don't really have periods any more as a result."

"I see."

"I can also control it to some extent now. When I first had these urges, I was kind of out of control. It would happen every day, sometimes multiple times."

"With strangers?"

She nodded. "I would have to take the subway to go to class or go home, and pretty much every day I could sense at least one or two men sexualizing me in the car. When I got out, I would approach them and take them back to the restroom or to a secluded alley nearby."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I should have been horrified, but instead I found myself getting strangely aroused.

"When it was really bad I started dressing in a way that would get more attention so I could have more sex. Sometimes it was more than one man at a time. Now I realize that what I was doing was actually pretty dangerous. I'm lucky I didn't get into a lot more trouble doing all of that."

"But this doesn't happen as much now?"

"It will still happen a few times a week. I'm a little more careful now. I carry some mace with me in case I need it. But it has never come to that." She sipped her coffee and took a wistful glance out the window. "It's not like they are all gentlemen. But when I am in that moment, I actually enjoy some of the rougher stuff they do to me."

After she left I continued to mull over this conversation. How could I have a relationship with someone who was literally having sex with random strangers on the street? I didn't think of myself as a conservative or prudish person, but the behavior she described seemed disturbing, dangerous and irresponsible. Not to mention she might be one of the last people that you would consider having a totally dissolute lifestyle outside of a literal nun. Not because she was priggish, but because it was so out of character. She didn't exhibit bad judgment or reckless behavior in other facets of her life. She was very dedicated to her job, had a nice tidy apartment and was always punctual, polite and thoughtful.

The way she described her actions made it sound more like a medical condition: a tic, a compulsion or an urge that straddles the border of voluntary and involuntary behavior. Something that could be bottled up with some effort, but must be let loose now and then lest the fastenings that hold in place buckle and break under the strain. Could I fault her for that? Could she even be held personally responsible?

After the conversation, things between us actually proceeded at about the same pace that they had prior. We continued to see each other regularly and would occasionally fool around at night. I didn't bring the topic of her libidinous activities up again. Why not? Well, it wasn't exactly an easy topic to broach -- and gradually it felt more like the whole conversation had not even really happened or occurred in a strange dream. Occasionally, when I was squeezing her breast or sliding my finger inside of her, I would think about whether I was the first one that day to do these things to her. As I thought this, I would feel a little twinge in my cock -- but I couldn't say if it was the feeling of her body in my hands or the thought of all the strange other hands that had been in the same place as mine that was making me feel that way.

Things continued this way for another month or so. It was Spring now and the little shoots of dormant flowers were starting to pop out of the ground and buds were appearing on the trees. We went for walks, got coffee and would have dinner together every Friday night, usually spending the Saturday together in bed. This whole period of my life had an airy quality to it -- like a piece of silk blowing in a light breeze. I hoped it would go on like this forever.

On one of those Friday nights, I invited her back to my place for dinner. I promised that I would make a big meal for us: capellini with fresh pesto and shrimp, garlic bread and a fresh spring salad with cherry tomatoes, slices of pear and toasted walnuts. My roommate Jeff hung out on the kitchen island talking with me while I worked on prepping the food.

I had met Jeff through a mutual friend a year before graduation, and since we had both decided to stay in the city after graduation, we agreed to rent an apartment together to save money and benefit from sharing our meager supply of kitchen equipment. Despite living together for almost a year, we did not exactly spend a lot of time together and were not that close -- but we understood each other and never had any conflict over things like cleaning, having other people over or sharing food. It was an amicable, but also mostly unremarkable living situation.

As I was making a garlic and herb butter to spread over the loaf of Italian bread I bought, the buzzer hooked up to the front door of the building sounded off loudly like something from an old game show. "That must be her. Can you let her in?" I asked. Jeff sauntered off of his kitchen stool and hit the button that opened the door at the front of the building and turned the lock.

"The two of you are going to eat all of this?" he asked.

"You'd be surprised how many carbohydrates two people can put away," I replied, cutting the loaf down the long way with a bread knife.

From the hallway, I heard the doorknob turn and the squeak of the hinges. "Hello!" rang out a friendly, sweet female voice. My girlfriend entered with her jacket open, wearing a pair of tall black boots with heels, skinny jeans and a tight fitting black turtleneck sweater. Her hair was down and framed her face in wavy, stylish curls. Two small silver earrings glinted on her ears. She had clearly spent some time fixing her makeup before coming over -- her mascara gave her eyes a deep and luminous quality and her lipstick was a bold shade of deep red strawberries.

"Hello," I called back, "you look great!" I always appreciated how she would put in that little extra effort in her appearance on our Friday dates.

"Thank you," she said, beginning the laborious process of removing her boots. "Hey, Jeff!" she acknowledged my roommate.

"Hey," he replied waving from his perch on the kitchen stool.

She walked into the kitchen and examined my preparations. "Wow, this is quite a spread," she remarked

"I hope you are hungry," I replied while slathering the garlic butter and herb mixture onto the freshly cut loaf.

"He said you eat a lot of carbs," Jeff chipped in.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked with faux indignation.

"I just said that two people can ear a lot of carbs," I corrected with a laugh. "I did not single you out."

"I see," she said. "Well, it is also true: I can eat a lot of carbs," she said covering her mouth a little as she laughed.

"Do you want a glass of wine?" I asked, nodding at the fridge to indicate the bottle of white wine I had bought for us.

"Oh yes, absolutely." She went to the cupboard to retrieve a glass. "A glass for you too, Jeff?" she asked him.

"No, I'm going to be heading out soon," Jeff replied, playing with the bread knife I left on the counter.

"Just have a glass," I insisted.

"Ah, alright," Jeff smiled back. He did not need much convincing.

My girlfriend poured out three glasses for us. "Cheers!" she said raising her glass up. I hurried back from the oven where I had just dropped off my bread in time to clink glasses with both of them and take a hefty sip of the delicious white I had picked out.

"That's really good," my girlfriend remarked. There was a little crimson stain left on the rim of her glass.

While the bread toasted, I started preparing the salad. I cut up the pear and threw out the seeds, and started washing the mixed greens. Jeff and my girlfriend made some small talk about our apartment and the strange behavior of our landlord who lived downstairs. My girlfriend had met Jeff only a few times before in passing, but was very adept in finding topics of conversation to engage with when she needed to pass the time or mediate some awkward situation. As someone who was a bit more socially awkward, I admired that about her.

I pulled a bottle of apple cider vinegar out of the fridge to dress the salad and noticed that it was just about empty. Just a few drops left at the bottom. "I'm going to run out to the corner store to get some more vinegar," I told my girlfriend. "Can you just watch the bread. It's just got 10 minutes left."

"Do you want me to go?" she asked.

"Nah, it's okay. I wouldn't want you to go through all that trouble with your boots again."

She smiled, "ok, thanks! I'll make sure to take out the bread."

I gave her a kiss on the cheek and headed for the door. "Be back soon." I said, slipping on my shoes.

I headed out down the stairs and out the front into the nippy Spring evening. It was a beautiful day with a clear sky. Perfectly pleasant for a quick walk. I headed two blocks down the street and came to the corner store. It was a crowded little store, but stocked to the brim with goods, some of which had probably been placed there during the Clinton administration. The shelves were loaded with lots of household basics: cleaning supplies, toilet paper, tampons. I moved into the food section and started searching among the dusty jars of peanut butter, bread, cans of soup. At last I found a small and very generic bottle of apple cider vinegar. I swabbed it for dust. Not too bad. The best by date had passed a few months ago, but could vinegar even really go bad? I took it to the checkout.

Working at the front was a chatty Iranian man who owned the store. He had moved here many years ago to escape some form of political violence. In his previous life, he had been an intellectual or professional of some importance, which is what had made him the target of violence in the first place. In search of the kind of stimulation he could not get selling dusty peanut butter and packs of cigarettes to college students, he would try and engage some of his customers in debate. He pointed to the TV playing on the wall: a news segment about interest rates and the sluggish economic recovery. He wanted to know what I thought, I wanted to buy my vinegar. However, he made sure there was no quick way out by holding my change ransom until he was satisfied. I tried to give my pseudo-informed opinions on macroeconomics. These were clearly inadequate as he closed the cash drawer fully and proceeded to launch into a lecture that seemed to have been prepared for a college class. For the purposes of our current story, it suffices to say that I was delayed.

When I finally made my way home, I could smell buttery garlic and toasted bread wafting through the stairwell. I made my way up and let myself into the apartment, announcing my return with the loud familiar creek of the door. I was in the middle of explaining why I was late when my eyes made contact with a scene in the living room that ground my feet to a halt and shoved the words back down into my throat.

Jeff was sitting on the armchair, facing away from the door, his head leaning to the side over the back of the chair, eyes closed. In front of him, was a curly black mass of hair was bobbing up and down between his legs. Red crimson lips were pursed around a long shaft erupting from the seat of his pants. Long black eyelashes demurely pointed downward, eyes fixed on their work. Blue denim rose up behind her head in a beautiful and sensuous arch tightly pulled around her shapely waist. I heard Jeff curse and groan slightly under his breath between eager slurping sounds.

I froze on the spot as the image burned itself into me. Then, without thinking, I turned around and walked straight back down the hallway to my room, closing the door behind me. I dropped the plastic bag with the apple cider vinegar down on the floor and fell unsteadily into a chair. I was in a cold sweat.

What was it that I just saw? My girlfriend was down on her knees giving my roommate a blowjob. That was obvious. I could not have been gone for more than 15 minutes. How could this have happened so quickly? Did they not hear me come in? The hinge of the door was so loud and I was talking as I walked into the room. I watched them for more than a second, and they still showed no sign of stopping. Just what was going on?
 I wiped my forehead and looked at my watch, thinking that it might reveal that I had fallen through some kind of spacetime warp. No such luck. I thought back to the conversation we had those weeks ago -- my girlfriend's explanation of her sexual disinhibitions. I supposed that maybe I should have realized that it was just a matter of time before something like this might happen? It seemed so unlikely and out of character at the time that I had written off the whole thing -- yet, here was indisputable proof burned deep onto my retinas.

I don't know how long I sat like that. I felt a chill as the cold sweat dripped down my armpits. Eventually, I heard some distant shuffling outside and then the creak of the front door and a gentle slam. Then, quick feminine footsteps approached my room and the door opened.

My girlfriend looked down on me and I saw a look of pity and sadness flash across her face. Her hair was mussed and the lipstick she had been wearing was mostly smeared away leaving her lips light pink. There was a single white bead of fluid clinging onto the black fabric of her turtleneck right on her left breast.

I wordlessly pointed at the drop on her chest and she looked down and scrunched up her mouth. Then grabbing a tissue from the box on my desk she wiped it away and threw the used tissue into the wastebasket as though nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "But I told you before that this kind of thing just happens to me all the time."

I tried to reply, but couldn't. I felt like I had bodily melded with my chair.

"I told you, I can't really control it," she said, leaning over and searching my face.

"I just left for, like, 15 minutes." I drew the words out of myself slowly. "I didn't think..."

"I know. But, like I said, I'm free use. The whole time we were talking, I could sense that he wanted me to suck him off. After you left, it just got so overpowering that I couldn't help it. I was on my knees before I knew it... I think it must have been the lipstick. I can avoid this color in the future if you want."

"No, that's ok." I had to admit that she looked good in that shade of lipstick.

"I know this must be weird for you. I can go home if you want."

I stared ahead drilling holes into the wall with my eyeballs. I did not know what I wanted.

"If it helps," she said "Jeff is not going to remember any of this tomorrow."

"What do you mean?" I asked looking back at her in shock.

She played with a strand of her hair. "What I mean is that none of the men I do things with seem to ever remember doing those things the next day."

"What?"

There was a long pause.

"What I mean is..."

"No, seriously? They don't remember?"
 She nodded. "It's really strange, but yes. I'm pretty sure they don't remember any of it. I've met lots of these men again or seen them in public. Occasionally, I would see a glimmer of recognition in their eyes, but then they would just go back to whatever they were previously doing. At first, I thought they were acting as though nothing happened to avoid some mutually embarrassing situation. But then I tried asking one of them about it up front once. He acted like I was a crazy person. He looked like he was ready to call the police on me.

After that, I started to think that I was the crazy one. I thought that maybe I was losing my mind and having these florid hallucinations of random sexual encounters all over the city. But then I asked one of those men to take photos of me with my phone while I was going down on him. Afterward, the photos were still there. So they are proof that the encounter happened outside my own imagination."

I didn't know what to say. She had been through a lot more than I realized.

"I don't think any of men I've done stuff with remember any of it afterwards. I'm sure it will be the same with Jeff. If that makes you feel any better. I know it would be really awkward for you otherwise.

I opened my mouth in protest.

"I mean more awkward than it already is," she admitted.

"To be honest," she continued after a pause, "I'm almost a bit relieved that you saw me. Normally, when this happens, no one even reacts. I could be having loud sex in a crowded mall -- yes, that has happened -- and no one would even know. It's like when this happens, I'm in some alternate world where the same social rules of decorum don't apply, or people don't care, or can't even detect it. I will usually try and seek out a more private area because I can still see them all even if they don't see me, but sometimes I can't control that either.

"But knowing that you could see me with Jeff just now -- I can't tell you what a relief that gives me. It's like I finally know that I'm still here with you and not transported somewhere."

"Well," the words came out of me like water flowing through a dried out river bed. "I'm glad for you then."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I must sound so selfish. But, it's just been so long -- and, I sometimes feel like I don't even know what is real anymore." She had a faraway look in her eyes. Suddenly, I felt real pity for her. I couldn't imagine living a dual life like her's, and feeling like it was out of my control.

I reached out and brought her into my arms. She crawled up onto my lap chair and buried her head into my chest. We sat like that for some time, just holding each other quietly. Then I felt a warm dampness on my shirt and listening closely could hear a quiet sob. She gripped my shirt tight and pressed her face deeper into me as I held her and studied the walls in silence.

I woke up late the next morning, still wearing my day clothes in bed. I glanced over and saw my girlfriend there next to me, quietly slumbering. I slipped out the room and treaded quietly down the cold wooden floors of the hallway. Jeff's door was closed, but I could hear music playing inside. He must have come back sometime late last night. Did he really not remember anything that had transpired? I walked into the kitchen: a half made salad, rock hard garlic bread and a big bowl of cold pesto pasta sat on the counter. What a waste of food. I dumped it all into the trash, tied up the bag and took it downstairs. When I walked back up, Jeff was coming out of the bathroom.

"Did you guys not eat last night or what?" he asked.

"Nah, not really." I did not elaborate."How was your night?" I asked ask casually as I could manage.

"Not bad. Went to Olivia's place. Some of the old crew was there. We played Cards Against Humanity, it was pretty fun."

"That's it?"

Jeff gave me a funny look. "Yeah, I mean -- we talked a lot about how Dave wrecked his car last week..." as he proceeded to recount the story of how mutual acquaintance Dave had managed to drive his car into the gore point of a highway off-ramp. It really did not seem like he remembered anything about his encounter with my girlfriend last night. I nodded along to the story and laughed at the appropriate moment where he impersonated Dave remembering that his water bottle was at home as he veered off the road -- but my mind was fully occupied trying to understand how we could be having such a normal conversation given the circumstances.

I went back to my room and found my girlfriend half awake, blinking slowly at me. I excitedly recounted my conversation with Jeff and how he didn't seem to remember anything. She stared at me groggily and asked "wait, but is Dave ok?"

Having skipped dinner last night, we were both feeling famished and decided to compensate with a big Saturday morning brunch. We got a booth in the local greasy spoon: an older restaurant that had survived the ups and downs of many years with its steady stream of students seeking cheap calorie dense meals and loyal old timers seeking to plug their last open arteries. My girlfriend was searching the plastic encased menu with ravenous eyes. She had changed into the green v-neck cashmere sweater that she brought along with her last night.

"Can I start you guys off with any thing to drink?" a waiter stood over us with a little notepad.

"Just coffee for me," I said. "Same," my girlfriend chipped in.

"Coming right up," the young man jotted a note into his pad, smiled at us both and walked off. He must be a new hire or a student working part time I thought.

"Did you see that?" my girlfriend asked in a hushed voice.

"What?"

She leaned over the table conspiratorially. "The way he was looking down my shirt," she whispered.
 I had not noticed that. Was I just dense or something?

"He definitely was," she said arching her eyebrows.

"Does that mean you are feeling..." I searched for the right word, "compelled?" I asked.

"I haven't even had my coffee yet," she laughed.

As if on cue, "two coffees" said a voice as I saw two steaming mugs of hot black coffee come down on the table before me. I looked up. He was young, a little awkward, but with handsome clean cut features and a foppish head of hair. His eyes were fixed on my girlfriend, but he darted them back at me and gave a polite smile before hurrying off again.

We sipped our coffees and looked at each other.

"I won't do anything if it makes you uncomfortable," she said, frankly putting on a more serious tone. "I don't have to do anything. I can control it."

Did it make me uncomfortable? That would be one way of putting it. But that same feeling of discomfort is what made me curious and maybe a little aroused. The image of her down on her knees sucking my roommate's cock kept playing on my mind.

"Well," I said hesitantly "maybe you could just do something a little more subdued?"

"Are you sure?" She looked at me seriously.
 I nodded.

As we continued to sip our coffees, I reached across the table and took her hand. Her fingers felt so thin and delicate in mine. She looked at me with a playful little smile on her lips. Even without her makeup, her eyes seemed to sparkle a little when she smiled at me that way.

The waiter had come back. "Can I get you guys something to eat?"

My girlfriend's hand slipped away from mine and she sat up-right, sticking out her chest slightly with her hands on the table as if she was a teacher demonstrating good posture for some children in a finishing school. As she did so, she continued to look at me with a slight smile. Our waiter, very naturally, put away the pen he was holding in his right hand and reached over for my girlfriend's chest. His large bony hand clasped around her right breast over the green sweater and began circling slowly back and forth.. His fingers began to feel for her nipple through the fabric and he gave her a slight pinch. My girlfriend opened her mouth slightly and sighed, clearly with intense pleasure The whole time she maintained intense eye contact with me, searching my face for a reaction.

Then, as if nothing had happened, the waiter took back his hand, retrieved his pen and looked at us expectantly.

"Can I have the french toast with a side of fruit?" said my girlfriend chipperly.

"Very good," the man jotted down a note. "And for you sir?"

I looked up at the waiter. I looked into his green eyes and was met with an expectant and artless stare. Pen poised, notebook out. I searched his face and found nothing but a student working weekends to pay for an expensive degree. Where was the man who had very publicly and openly groped my girlfriend in front of me?

"Sir?

"Oh, sorry." I caught myself and looked back at the menu hurriedly. "Uh, a Denver omelet please."

He jotted down another note. "Sounds good!" He looked back down at the pad to double check his work. "One french toast and one Denver omelet coming right up!" He gave us both a big polite smile and went on his way.

"What was that?" I hissed, leaning over the table.

"You said something more subdued," she looked at me with surprise and alarm.

"Yes, but --" I started, "I mean, what just happened? He -- " I cut myself off.

"Was that too much?" she asked, looking worried.

"No, I mean..." I was struggling to articulate my shock. "I don't understand. Did you do something? It was like... I don't know how to say this without sounding crazy, but it was like you were controlling him?" I whispered hoarsely.
 "Oh, no" she said putting down her coffee. "That was all him. I just, how should I put it, let him be a bit more familiar. That's all it is."

"More familiar?"

"Yes."

"He was very familiar, indeed" I said, falling back a bit.

"Sorry, are you jealous?" she asked, looking at me warily.

"No, not exactly. It's more like, I am having a hard time understanding how this works."

"I don't understand it all myself, but It's pretty much what I've told you," she shrugged. "I'm free use. He wanted to do that, I had to let him. I can control it to an extent, but not entirely. If I didn't let him, he would have just continued to eye me the rest of the time we were sitting here and it would have gotten a lot more uncomfortable for me. In some ways, it is easier this way to just let him do a bit of what he wants."

"Is that all he wanted to do?" I asked.

She laughed a little. "I don't think so, but we don't have to find out what else he has in mind."

There was a little pause.

"I'm kind of curious."

She looked at me now with an expression of intrigue and surprise that I had not seen alight on her face before. "Really?" she asked.

I gave a kind of non-committal nod of my head and looked up at the diner decor. Old polystyrene tiles and an overworked ceiling fan above. Looking down, a carpeted floor with a formless gray and red pattern. The booths were made of a sturdy sort of wood, brightly stained and finished with a shiny coat. The tables were not remarkable, but were generously sized and quite securely attached to the floors.

"Ok," she said. "but, I am warning you that it might get a bit strange." She looked at me with that same playful smile from earlier.

"Denver omelet?" came a cheerful voice from above.

The waiter was back. I raised my hand and he dropped a large platter with a huge omelet, potatoes and toast came down in front of me.

"And the french toast with a side of fruit." A giant plate with golden eggy bread, butter and a pile of fresh cut bananas, berries and melon was set down on the other side.

"And for you, miss."

Just as he said this, I heard a zipper come down and looked up from the table to see our waiter's cock protruding straight out of his fly. Before I could even react, he grabbed the top of my girlfriend's head with one hand, and with the other began beating his cock rapidly as he pushed his hips toward her. For her part, my girlfriend leaned in and moved her face closer. She was looking up at him with a kind of expectant surprise and delight that would make you think he had given her a desert on the house. And just as quickly as these events unfurled, a huge wad of hot white cum shot out of his dick and splattered over my girlfriend's face, hitting her squarely on the nose. He continued to beat his cock and more ropes of cum came flying out in quick successive jets, landing in her hair, forehead and lap. I saw his chest heave with strain, as he slowed down and yet more cum came running out with each stroke -- falling onto my girlfriend's waiting face and dripping down onto the plasticky seat of the booth.

"Thank you," she said sweetly.

"I'll get you some napkins," was his response. He tucked his dick back into his pants and was off again like nothing had happened.

I stared at my girlfriend across the table. There was white goo dripping slowly down her face. She was holding out her hand to catch it from falling on her clothes as she looked at me, smiling sweetly.

"I told you," she said giggling.

I didn't know what to say. I looked around the restaurant, and saw the same patrons as earlier continuing to nonchalantly munch on their sausage, eggs and toast. As I looked at her across the booth covered in cum, I suddenly realized that I was very hard.

The waiter returned and set the napkins down. "Can I get anything else for both of you?" he asked.

"No, thanks," my girlfriend replied, still trying to keep the now slowly cooling down cum from falling all over her clothes.

"Then enjoy!"

The waiter gave us another big smile and took off.

My girlfriend grabbed a handful of napkins and began wiping away the cum from her face.

"Do I have any in my hair?" she asked turning her head for me to inspect

I gestured on my own head to where long spurt of cum had landed on her.

"What a mess. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I always worry that there is some left on me that I missed." She smiled at me. "Good thing you are here."

I watched her wipe up the last strands from the seat of her pants and on the booth. I wondered how was I going to tip for this meal.

"God, I'm so hungry," she muttered to herself with some exasperation, throwing the napkins aside as she grabbed her knife and fork.

What followed was probably the strangest period of my life. As I learned later, my girlfriend had been keeping her free use lifestyle somewhat out of view. She thought that I might be hurt knowing that she had been doing things with other men while we were dating. However, with my acceptance of her unusual proclivities, the floodgates came down. In many ways, it was a very informative experience. It felt like I had become privy to another world behind a hidden door that no one else could see. I knew all my own personal fantasies and depravities, but could not say that about anyone else. That had suddenly changed. I was now made startlingly aware of the sexual urges that other men harbored toward my girlfriend on a regular basis.

Just a few examples:

We had gone to the theatre to watch a cheesy B-movie on a lark. We were having a good time, laughing at the ridiculous dialogue and gleefully drinking up the gratuitous violence. Mid-way through the second act, I saw something moving up and down in my peripheral vision. I glanced over and saw my girlfriend illuminated in the wan blue reflected light of the screen. Her hand was on the crotch of the middle-aged man seated next to her, both of them looking forward, eyes glued on the over-the top action. Covertly, I watched as she fondled his penis lovingly through his trousers, gripping his shaft in her hand and using her thumb and forefingers to play with the head. As the movie's hero drove his motorcycle through a rising inferno, I watched her bite her lip as she unzipped his fly -- the sound drowned out by the swelling film score. Her hand began to crank up and down like she was churning butter. As the hero reunited with his lover, I saw several globs of shiny white fluid land on the seatback of the chair next to her. I had to gingerly watch my step as we left the theatre to make sure it didn't coat my pantleg.

Another instance occurred in the Summer as we were taking a long subway ride back home from a night out. She had worn a pink tulle skirt made of a ruffly fabric that puffed out with little translucent ends sticking out. As we stood next to each other holding the vertical rail in the middle of the car, I noticed the fringe of the back of her skirt seemed to be moving on its own. When I peered over her shoulder to find the source of this movement, I saw a thick, muscly arm traveling up inside of my girlfriend's outfit that was attached to a buff, 30-year old man seated nearby. It seems that at some point during the ride, he decided to stick his hand up my girlfriend's skirt to feel up her ass. Her expression did not betray any surprise, but that soon changed, when he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her bodily down onto his lap. The rest of the passengers in our car did not seem to notice a thing as he turned her over and bent her over his knee.

She looked at me with a mix of shock mingled with some glee while he pulled her skirt up revealing a pair of lacy panties in a matching shade of dusty pink. He then proceeded to bring his hand down hard on her exposed buttcheek, causing my girlfriend to yelp out and curl up her hands. An older woman seemed to look at the scene over her book, and a student watched out of the corner of his eye, but the other passengers were otherwise not disturbed as my girlfriend was spanked three or four more times with hard firm blows from the stranger's powerful hands. Our train came to a halt and the doors opened. More passengers boarded, walking past my girlfriend's exposed rear as they searched for a seat. The man had pinioned my girlfriend with one arm and was using his free hand had begun to stroke her pussy through her underwear. She began to moan loudly as the train sped up into the dark tunnel. Her legs kicked and she squirmed as the train rushed forward faster and faster in tempo with the man's fingers. He looked laser focused on pulling an orgasm out of her. She yelled out as her leg kicked up and a stylish platform sandal fell off her foot, clattering onto the floor of the car. Then, as the train began to slow down again, she suddenly pulled herself up, eyes searching out the window wildly, she cried out "this is my stop! it's my stop!" The man released her and she stood up wobbly on one foot. She grabbed her sandal, putting it back on with a quick gesture. She came right up next to me, straightened her dress -- gave her reflection a once over in the window of the subway door and stepped out of the car.

It was at that point that I began to think that my girlfriend's free use lifestyle was not just a sort of compulsion like I had originally believed. I began to think of it more like an inextricable but unseen force influencing the world around her. With any attractive woman, their sexuality puts a certain kind of pressure on others -- like the tug of the moon on the Earth's oceans. Their presence in social situations creates a gentle pull that can create little ripples -- or monstrous waves -- sometimes near us, but also on the other side of the planet. It was as though this dynamic with my girlfriend was out of balance in some way. As though the moon was always out of phase with everyone else's line of sight; so that the forces she exerted on men in the world around her remained as unknown to them as the moon would be to a fish permanent locked to the opposite side of the Earth.

These kinds of events were not an every day occurrence in my time with her, but they occurred with enough regularity that I began to start ignoring them. It started to feel normal that she might need to stop to suck off a guy at the park, or be quickly fucked behind a dumpster at the ice cream store. It would usually stir my loins a bit to see her come back with her hair in a mess, or to watch her getting railed from behind while she stood in an alley, her skinny jeans pulled down around her knees. But by the time autumn had rolled around, the surprise factor began to wear off. Which is why I was not exactly shocked to come home and find her being double teamed on my sofa.

I dropped my bag in a corner and took off my jacket, glancing over in her direction to see what was taking place. My girlfriend was fully naked, not a shred of clothing on her body -- she was just wearing two gleaming stylish golden semi-circle earrings that caught the light of the late afternoon sun streaming through the window. She was perched on her knees in the middle seat of the light gray sofa I had carried with me from college. Her hands resting on back of the sofa, her lower back sinuously arched so that her ass was raised up expectantly in the air. On either side of her were two young men: college age -- both tall and lithe, also fully naked except for the one in the front who was still wearing a pair of socks. Their muscles were taut and stretched around their lean frames. Both were fully engaged in their work and did not halt or otherwise take any notice when I walked into the room.

The man in the front was holding my girlfriend's long, curly black hair pulled back in a tight fist, his other hand clasped tightly around the back of her head. His long rigid cock was stuffed deep into my girlfriend's mouth. He was thrusting his hips rhythmically, seemingly intent on seeing how far he could ram himself down her throat. On the the other side of my girlfriend, the second man was keeping time with this counterpart, his hips thrusting repeatedly and smacking hard into her backside. He was sort of hunched over her, his legs set widely apart. His fingers were digging into her ass cheeks, like he was gripping onto her for dear life.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer. Last one of the pack. I popped the cap off with a bottle opener and walked over, dropping myself into Jeff's cheap armchair across from the sofa. My girlfriend was moaning loudly, but the sound was muffled by the cock stuffed into her mouth. I took a swig of my beer and put it down on the coffee table that the previous tenant had left behind. I looked at the face of the man fucking her from behind. His mouth was drawn in a hard line, his neck flared out and his eyes were fixed on my girlfriend's ass in a kind of wild concentrated frenzy. He looked like a bull seeing red. As I was thinking this, he raised his right hand and brought his open palm down hard against my girlfriend's ass cheek. The sharp sound of his hand slapping her echoed through the room and must have been audible through the walls. My girlfriend yelped in excitement and her head dropped down, the other man's cock popping out of her mouth and leaving a long trail of saliva and precum dripping from her lips.

"Yes! Just like that" she cried out.

He delivered another two blows with his open palm. A rosy pink hand print slowly bloomed on her ass cheek.

My girlfriend made a sort of guttural noise, pierced by a sharp inhale of breath as her hips quivered and shook in excitement. The man fucking her did not let up with his methodical and deliberative pounding.

I picked my beer back up and took another swig as I listened to the fleshy sound of the man's hips beating against my girlfriend's backside. It continued unabated with a kind of regular, hypnotic tempo. Beads of condensation had already formed on my bottle and the glass felt slippery in my hand. The man in front of my girlfriend had stuffed his cock back into her mouth. It seemed as though she was trying to say something, but all that came through were garbled moans and sounds of enthusiastic pleading.

I sat back and continued to watch quietly. The sunlight had a golden hue that made the skin of all three participants glow warmly in its rays. It was a beautiful scene in its own way, but certainly not the type you would see painted in your typical art museum.

As I was thinking all of this, the man fucking her pussy suddenly slowed his pace. His chest rose and fell heavily as he delivered two long, deep forceful thrusts into my girlfriend. His buttocks twitched visibly and he hunched over, seemingly suddenly out of breath. Gradually, he prised his fingers bit by bit from her ass and gently pulled himself out from her. A long, thick strand of cum followed his cock and coated the inside of my girlfriend's leg on its way out. He walked over a few steps and plopped himself down, fully naked, onto the second armchair just five or six feet away from me. He stared out into space, seeming not to notice my presence. I did not realize earlier how large his cock was: now that he was seated, I could see it slumped over his thigh like a thick bratwurst.

The man in front wordlessly walked around the sofa, keeping my girlfriend's hair tightly balled in his fist. Coming around to the other side, he very deliberatively and forcefully repositioned my girlfriend, pushing her head down so that her face was planted in the cushions of the sofa while her ass was raised up in the air. She complied eagerly with his actions: letting out a little moan as he pushed her down. As she repositioned herself, I saw a hot white bolus of cum drip out of her pussy. The man now positioning himself behind her proceeded to mount her, one hand pressing her head down into the sofa, the other pushing on her lower back, seemingly to create the best angle for him to fill her pussy as far as he could with his long cock.

The first man who had finished fucking my girlfriend looked on at the scene dispassionately, still seemingly unbothered by me sitting near him drinking my beer. We both sat and watched in companionable silence as the other man began to relentlessly drill my girlfriend's pussy from behind. While the first man had kept a regular and even tempo, this second man seemed to be using his hips like a jackhammer -- rapidly, almost violently, thrusting away like he was excavating her pussy for some rare minerals. For her part, my girlfriend seemed to be loving it. She was crying out encouragingly and demanding that he fuck her harder and faster in no uncertain terms. Her urgent cries were only broken up by the sound of rapid smacking of flesh against flesh. The man responded as best he could, pushing her down harder into the sofa and squatting over her to deliver maximum force. Sweat dripped off of him as he delivered these thrusts with all of his effort. The rapid pace eventually slowed to long hard and deliberate thrusts and suddenly the words seemed to leave her. My girlfriend responded to each thrust with a kind of loud throaty exclamation of pleasure mixed with deep satisfaction. Her ass quivered and shook involuntarily in pleasure.

I finished my beer and placed the bottle back on the coffee table. The man next to me seemed to be getting aroused as he watched. His large flaccid cock had begun to stir again and began to twitch as it filled back up with blood. I got up and took the bottle to the kitchen to wash it out. As I ran the tap, I looked at the face of the second man who was currently fucking my girlfriend. He wore the same expression of frenzied concentration that the first man had while he was behind her. I poured the mix of water and beer from the bottle and repeated the process twice more until the water ran clear. Then, with my foot, I popped open the recycling can and dropped the bottle in. It made a loud clink as it came to rest with the other discarded beer bottles and accumulated aluminum cans.

I stayed in the kitchen for awhile and continued to watch. The second man had impatiently turned my girlfriend over and was now pounding her out missionary style. Her body was folded pretzel-like with her head pushed into the back of the sofa and her legs high up in the air -- her toes curling with pleasure. He was hunched over her, his knuckles driven down into the cushions and his backside heaving up and down heavily as he drilled her pussy. My girlfriend was staring at his face. Her expression filled with a kind of searching, desirous excitement. Each thrust was accompanied by a hard, wet smacking sound as he slammed into her. She cried out and encouraged him to keep going. It seemed like no matter how hard he went in delivering each thrust, he was only driving her to further heights of yearning for a still deeper and harder pounding.

I could now see that the first man's cock was fully erect again. It throbbed achingly as he watched on. Slowly, he lifted his sweaty body from the armchair and plodded back toward the sofa to start another round.

I decided then that I had seen about enough and decided to head back to my room. I closed the door behind me, opened up my laptop and started to browse the internet to kill time. As I did so, the sounds from the other room continued to come through. The beating of flesh on flesh, the squeaking of furniture, the occasional loud slap and the frequent yelps and cries of my girlfriend did not abet. I mindlessly watched some videos and scrolled through social media for some distraction. I am not sure how much time passed, but eventually the sounds came to a gradual end without my noticing. Finally, after it had gotten dark, I heard some heavy footsteps and the door squeak open and then close. The men had left.

A few moments later, I heard some quick feminine footfalls and a little rap on my door. The handle turned and it cracked open. My girlfriend squeezed her way inside, shutting the door gently behind her. She was still fully naked, except for her underwear: stylish dark blue panties. She was carrying her clothes in her free hand: a matching blue short dress and a pair of black tights.

"I'm sorry that went on a bit long," she said. "I didn't mean to drive you out of the room."

"It's okay," I replied. "It seemed like you had a good time."

"Yeah," she was looking down, not meeting my eyes. "It was really satisfying."

Her body was still flushed red in several places where they had handled her more forcefully -- particularly around her breasts and her hips. She had cleaned the cum away from the inside of her leg, but her hair was a wild mess and there was a clearly visible, large bright red hand print on her right ass cheek.

"Can we cuddle?" she asked.

We got into bed together and dove under the sheets. She huddled up next to me, wrapping her leg around mine and nestling her head into my chest.

"One thing I've noticed is that they never stay around afterward," she said.

"The men you..." I trailed off.

She nodded.

"After they finish, they always take off like nothing ever happened. They never stay and cuddle up or snuggle afterward."

"Would you want them to?"

She thought for awhile. She made a kind of cute expression as she pondered my question.

"I'm not sure. On the one hand, it feels kind of lonely and empty when they leave. Like, after all of that wild sex, I am suddenly cold and alone again." She looked up at me. "On the other hand, I don't think I would want to cuddle like this with a stranger. I only want to do this with you."

"I see."

"It would just feel weird or wrong I guess."

"But doing all that other stuff with them doesn't?"
 "No, I have to do that," she said without hesitation. "Does that bother you?"

"Well, it does seem a little selfish," I said.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you have sex and do all of these things with these other men to satisfy yourself. But then when you are done and they leave, you have to come to me to cuddle because you feel lonely. It feels like you are just focused on getting what you want."

"But it's not like that, you know," she said. "It's not just that I want them to satisfy me -- I have to do all of those things with them. It's because they want it. I don't really have much of a choice. Believe me, it would often be a lot easier if I didn't have to stop and have sex or give a blowjob to random guys all the time.

"Is it selfish for me to want some support after?" she asked. She was looking a little upset now.

"No, no, that's not what I meant," I said.

"But maybe you are right," her eyes cast down on my chest. "I can't really ask you to provide that support. It must also be a burden on you when I have to go do these things all the time."

There was some truth to that. While the idea of her being freely available for other men to use as they pleased had aroused me in ways that I didn't anticipate earlier, I now had to acknowledge that this had some drawbacks.

"Well," I said, "it's true that sometimes I wish we could just go to a restaurant without you having to give a handy to the guy at the next table."

She tittered a bit at this.

We sat in silence for a little while holding each other.

Finally, she sighed deeply. "I really care about you. I wish I could be better for you, but I can't help this."

"At first, I found it exciting," I muttered. "But I guess now it's maybe a little too much for me. Do you think this is going to keep going forever?"


"I have no idea... I guess it's possible that it could one day stop just as suddenly as it started, but it doesn't feel like it's up to me to decide that."


"You're not the one in control here?"

She hesitated. "I think I have some degree of control, but not enough to stop myself. Like I told you, when it gets going, it's almost reflexive. It's something innate that I can't help."

"I supposed I just wish we could have a more normal relationship."

"But," she sat up a bit. "This isn't part of our relationship – it's totally separate. All the stuff that I do with these guys has nothing to do with you and me."

"I guess I might understand that intellectually," I said. "But, at some other level I can't help but feel left out."

We lay together in silence for a long time. She gently rubbed her hand on my chest. Finally, she sighed deeply.

"You shouldn't have to deal with all of this." She was looking up at me again, her eyes locked on mine. "I think it might be best for us to break up."

So ended the half year I spent with my free use girlfriend. The next morning, she packed up the clothes, toothbrush and books that she had kept at my place. Like a sappy romantic comedy, I watched her depart down the street from the window, her blue dress sashaying with her step.

It wasn't as though we parted on bad terms, and because we had somewhat overlapping friend groups, we would still see each other at parties occasionally, or run into each other on the street. When we met, we would just engage in some friendly, light banter catch-up on what each of us had been up to in our work, or talk about some other non-personal topics. She was always lovely, vibrant and well-dressed -- displaying the same charm that had first attracted me to her.

However, unavoidably, there was always a little undercurrent of tension between us. Maybe that is something unavoidable when re-encountering an ex-partner. But here it felt a little more charged. Certainly, the fact that I knew her secret and had been a witness to so many of her public and private sexual acts had something to do with it. But maybe the lingering feelings of attraction were also mutual?

I would never know for sure, but I could not shake the feeling that perhaps I had also unknowingly used her after our break-up. When or how exactly, I had no idea. It could have been during a party or even some time when we ran into each other outside. Would I have taken her in public? Could I have pulled down her clothes and fucked her in the street like an animal? Or perhaps, in some wild moment, forced her to suck my cock in front of all our friends and acquaintances? I would never know. I was on the other side now, and all those experiences would now disappear from me without leaving a mark, like ripples on a pond.