The Closer (18+) ✓

| 7.3 | in the strictest confidence

❝You've seen me bare
And seen me covered up
Maybe I'm not scared
What you're thinking of.❞

Chapter Seven:
In The Strictest Confidence
(cont'd)

"Wow. That's seriously fucked up."

I lay sprawled across the bed, my limbs unceremoniously pointing in opposite directions as if I were making a snow angel. Hans lay next to me on his side, with one arm propped up to hold his head so he could look at me and the other resting on his leg, fingers drumming. My story really wasn't as tragic as his but it was a tragedy nonetheless. I had started off by telling him how Jacob and I had first met during college interviews, and immediately hit it off. Hans had let me know through his vivid facial expressions that he didn't want me going into laborious detail of just how perfect my relationship had been. I didn't have to. My face said the rest of it, of how much in love I had been.

From college sweethearts to a live-in relationship, to professional accomplices...thinking back on it now, I reprimand myself for not having seen disaster coming earlier. Nothing ever gets that good and lasts.

"Tell me about it," I grumbled. "Jacob was always threatened by me being more successful at my job than he was at his. I did the same things he did; worked long hours, traveled for meetings, scrambled around after the boss. The only difference is I worked harder, complained less, and it got me somewhere. I had a reputation that beat his as a lawyer. Jacob could never accept that."

"He sounds like a twat," Hans muttered out loudly then flopped on his back. I ignored the way my heart leaped as our arms brushed, the hem of his sleeve touching my wrist ever so slightly. "How did you two break up?"

I shut my eyes, reliving the images in my head. They no longer brought me pain, and it wasn't because of the multiple glasses of wine that I'd downed with Hans. I was far past the point of feeling hurt over what Jacob did to me now.

A cold numbness radiated in my voice as I spoke, "I wanted to surprise him so I finished work early on a trip and came back home. Things had been rocky for us and I thought it would be a good way to lighten things up again but Jacob saw my regular trips as opportunities to do just the same, only with different people."

That was the PG-rated version of things; the mellow version of a sordid turn out to a wish of true love. It wouldn't suffice.

"I walked in on him with his mouth latched on the perky little breast of our neighbor's teenage daughter."

"How old?" Hans asked quietly.

"Eighteen," I murmured, bitter. I didn't want Hans' sympathy so after he let out his low whistle, I took the opportunity to groan and roll onto my side, stuffing my face in the nearest pillow. "I can't believe I loved that douchebag."

I thought I heard Hans mutter something along the lines of 'neither can I' but it must have been my subconscious scorning me. I felt his hand touch my shoulder and turn me to face him gently. His eyes scanned my face for any sign of tears before relaxing with a slight sigh of relief. I don't know what it was that brought me to say the next words. Maybe I was in a confessional mood. Or maybe, the alcohol was acting up. Either way, Hans didn't react to my words at all when I whispered, "He was my first."

I was expecting something. An 'O' of shock or at least a laugh. Anything. But Hans didn't bat an eyelash at my words.

"I lost my virginity to him," I repeated, wondering if he'd heard me and again, got nothing.