Violet’s reflection stared back at her in the bus window, ghostly against the cars and shops moving behind it. She’d always considered herself fairly average. Pretty enough, in a simple sort of way. Her primary complaint was her twig-like physique. Sometimes it seemed her body had skipped puberty entirely. She had hips because she was skinny, not because her hips had grown much. She was basically flat, but not broad shouldered either. She’d also never gotten periods, hence her earlier fear that something had suddenly changed for the worse. The family doctor she’d seen forever ago told her that wasn’t uncommon for people as skinny as she was and suggested she eat better, get a bit more than zero exercise, and check back in in a few months.

  She, of course, had done none of those things, and now at thirty three she suspected it was a bit more than that. “Never” was very different from “rarely,” after all. She was likely infertile, maybe even intersex or something, but she didn’t care about having kids and had always been terrified of bad news from doctors. She honestly didn’t even want to know.

  Not that she hated her appearance, per se. It was more that it never quite felt like her. She could see herself finding someone like her attractive but she always looked with envy at girls with “a bit more.”

  Like Kate, god she’s pretty.

  Kate nearly matched Violet’s five-foot six, but she had curves Violet idolized. Her hips swayed a bit as she walked, and she somehow made anything she wore look fantastic. Yes, she definitely had a little bit of a crush on her green eyed, perfectly freckled co-worker. And friend, she supposed, since they’d recently started hanging out outside of work.

  Or Meryl, her best friend since high school. Meryl was an inch or two taller than her now, but she’d been much taller for a few years in their childhood, thanks to an early growth spurt. She’d been a cheerleader then, and most of that growth had gone to her legs and hips. Seeing her show off her thighs in that pleated skirt had twisted a younger Violet’s thoughts into a baffling jumble of jealousy and attraction. It had taken her a long time to realize she could be jealous and bi. Not that it would have mattered if she’d sorted those feelings out sooner. Meryl was straight. Mostly, anyway. She had confessed to some experimentation in college, to Violet’s amusement, but otherwise only seemed to date men.

  Her thoughts drifted back to her recent indiscretion, remembering how long the intense high had lasted. Why had it felt so good? Why had she needed it so desperately in that moment, and why did it already sound tempting again? She’d barely paused to think before indulging, which scared her. What would happen if that feeling came over her in an even more public place? Just thinking about it sent a few tiny flashes of excitement leaping up and down through her core. She felt the warm dampness return between her legs.

  Fuck, not here. Think about literally anything else!

  Her brain instantly offered up the sensation of Ryan’s cum pouring onto her tongue earlier that morning and she shivered at the tingling sensation that washed over her. Why hadn’t she swallowed all of it? She couldn’t think of anything better in that moment.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  Desperately, she reached for a non-sexual thought. Meryl! Violet pulled her phone out of her purse.

  “Hey, drinks tonight? Having the weirdest fucking day. Please say yes.”

  She didn’t know if she was ready to talk to Meryl about something as strange as these sudden urges. Or about her nearly public masturbation. Or how her sense of touch seemed as though it’d been cranked up to eleven. Or that she seemed to always be turned on. Regardless, a night out would be a wonderful distraction. She shivered again, a shiver of both fear and excitement, considering what she might end up doing if she were home alone all night.

  Some overly imaginative part of her mind began handing her more and more creative scenes, all the ways she could return to that incredible high if she did have the entire night alone with no one around to judge or restrain her. Restraints. Now that was an enticing thought. She shivered again, this time as an involuntary reaction to the impossibly physical pleasure just visualizing the possibilities created.

  Vibrators usually produced her most intense orgasms, often two or three in a row. She imagined melting into climax after climax, each like the one she’d just experienced, each leaving an echoing afterglow, building on those before it. She could feel the slick warmth between her legs spreading again. She didn’t care anymore, her skin tingling as her imagination pressed on. She wondered if she could find some way to tie herself up with the vibrator snug against her dripping wet clit. No, that was silly. How would she tie herself up? Unless she somehow convinced Ryan to do it for her before he left for work, leaving her bound to her fate for hours, returning to find her little more than a twitching puddle of ecstasy.

  She knew the fantasy didn’t really make sense, but it didn’t matter. She kept replaying those imagined moments of desperate overstimulation followed by yet another, even stronger orgasm. She could almost feel those flashes of pleasure reverberating through her as she sat in the bus with her eyes closed. Each time she replayed it and explored a new detail of the experience, the tingling in her core intensified.

  Violet opened her eyes wide with surprise, realizing she was yet again teetering at the edge of that very same climax she’d flown off of in the cafe bathroom earlier. It was going to happen, already starting, and she was sitting on a busy bus in broad daylight. She gasped sharply, shutting her eyes and gripping the front of her seat beside her thighs until her knuckles turned white.

  It was just as intense as her last. She desperately tried to hold back any noise, to resist any shaking or twitching. She knew it wasn’t entirely working but hoped it was enough to keep people from noticing. Shame threatened to slip away from her grasp, however, as her thoughts drowned in the wonderful sensations. Slowly, the intensity faded until she finally let herself relax a little, the intense waves replaced by those warm, tingling echoes bouncing around her body.

  She opened her eyes and looked around, trying to be subtle about it. Her heart skipped a beat when she almost immediately locked eyes with an older woman across the aisle to her right wearing an expression which couldn’t seem to decide if it was concern or surprise. Violet flushed bright red and quickly looked at the floor, still attempting to suppress the occasional, involuntary twitch.

  A few excruciating minutes later the bus doors opened at her stop with a hiss. Avoiding any repeat eye contact, Violet broke into a run as soon as her feet hit the sidewalk. What had she just done? She felt like she was going to explode.

  As she turned the corner on her block her phone buzzed in her hand.

  “’Course, girl! 8? There’s a place I’ve been wanting to try.”

  “Yes! You’re the best!” Violet replied with shaky fingers. “Send the address!”