this story contains adult language and is not for children

Cara pushed her mid-length fair hair behind her ears as she bent forwards. Her head throbbed. She closed her eyes and felt the start of tears.

She was surrounded by dirty washing, which she had sorted in two piles: whites, colours. Sheets. Handkerchiefs. Rolled up knickers and socks, a child's inside-out trousers; clothes taken off in a hurry: dried-up, stained, creased. All there for her to wash.

She wondered what he thought of as he watched. If he thought of her. If he thought of her with him. Where his thoughts took him and whether he took her with him then.

She doubted it.

She felt unlovely.

Who was this woman? She looked young, unremarkable with the strange and peculiar beauty of a porn actress. Did she dress again quickly after she'd wiped the semen from her skin? Put cream on where her skin burned, or carry that feeling with her for the day? Who washed her discarded, stained clothes? Her mother? Her father, perhaps? Who was watching? Did she like the idea of all those eyes taking her in? Maybe she felt good. Maybe the sex was good. Maybe not.

But when Cara looked into this woman's eyes, she could not tell. She saw only herself in the shadows. She longed for that attention. For her buttocks to be held so that she could feel each finger and the long pulling need there. She watched, one hand between her legs, masturbating slowly. Without reluctance, she moved her legs apart, arching her back; her eyes closed. She opened her mouth slightly and let a long, tense moan come from deep within her clenched body, feeling it rise and flood though her.

And once her orgasm had passed, she felt herself less. She shut her eyes to close out the unlovely world.

And, alone, Cara washed the clothes clean.