Rooftop Surrender After Weeks of Denial

I should probably start by saying I know how this sounds. Twenty-two, back in my childhood bedroom with a degree that hasn’t opened a single door yet, jerking off to the thought of my stepmother while she pads around the apartment in a thin tank top and nothing underneath. Her name is Vanessa. She’s forty-one. My father has been gone three months into a six-month contract overseas, and the silence he left behind has filled up with something heavier than empty rooms.

It started the night I got stupid on cheap whiskey and told her the truth.

We’d been on the balcony—her idea, a “welcome home from college” drink that turned into three. The city hummed below us. She was barefoot, legs crossed on the lounge chair, wearing one of his old button-downs that gaped when she leaned forward. I’d been staring at the shadow between her breasts for an hour and finally the words just fell out.

“I’ve thought about you,” I said. “For years. Since I was eighteen and you walked out of the bathroom in that towel. I jacked off thinking about pulling it off. Still do.”

She didn’t slap me. She didn’t leave. She looked at me over the rim of her glass, those dark eyes steady, and said, very quietly, “Roman. You’re drunk.”