I’d been living with Jake for eight months. He was a good roommate—clean, quiet, paid his rent on time. His girlfriend, Mina, had started sleeping over two months in, and by month four, she had a toothbrush in our bathroom and a drawer in his dresser.
By month five, I had a problem.
Mina was beautiful in a way that made me angry at myself for noticing. Dark hair that she wore in a messy bun when she was studying. A laugh that sounded like bells. A habit of walking around our apartment in Jake’s oversized t-shirts that covered exactly nothing and made it impossible to concentrate on anything except the curve of her thighs, the arch of her feet, the way she looked at me over her coffee cup with an expression I couldn’t name.
She was Jake’s. She’d chosen him. And I was supposed to respect that.
But tonight, Jake was at work. Midnight shift at the hospital. And Mina was in our shower.
I got home from the gym at 10 PM. The apartment was dark except for the light spilling from under the bathroom door. I could hear the water running, could smell the vanilla body wash that Mina used, the one that had somehow replaced the generic soap Jake and I had been sharing.
I should have gone to my room. Should have put on headphones, scrolled through my phone, pretended I didn’t know she was naked twenty feet away.
Instead, I leaned against the sink and watched.
The shower curtain was frosted plastic, cheap, the kind that came with the apartment. But through it, I could see her silhouette—her hand pressed against the glass, water streaming down in patterns that made her look like some kind of water spirit, some forbidden thing that had emerged from the depths of my own desire.
“My roommate’s at work till midnight,” I said, my voice barely audible over the water. “It’s just us.”
Her hand pressed harder against the glass. I could see the outline of her body more clearly now—her breasts, her waist, the curve of her hip. She didn’t speak. Didn’t pull away. Just stood there, letting me look, letting the steam and the plastic do exactly nothing to hide what she was offering.
I walked over. My palm found the glass, pressing against the spot where hers rested. The barrier between us was just inches of plastic and steam, but it felt like miles. Like continents. Like every boundary I’d ever respected.
“The curtain’s in the way,” I whispered.
She pulled it open.
Steam billowed out, warm and thick and smelling like her. She was completely naked, water streaming down her body in rivers that I wanted to follow with my tongue. Her dark hair was plastered to her back, her skin was flushed from the heat, and she made no move to cover herself. Didn’t look away. Just stood there, offering, waiting, her eyes dark with something that looked like relief.
I stepped in.
The water was hot, almost too hot, but I didn’t care because her mouth was on mine and her hands were under my sports bra and she was pushing me against the tile with an urgency that made me forget every rule I’d ever made about roommates and boundaries and loyalty. She tasted like vanilla and mint and the exact moment when a secret becomes inevitable.
Her fingers found my nipples, pinching hard enough to make me gasp, and I grabbed her waist, pulling her closer, feeling her wet skin slide against mine. My sports bra was soaked through, useless, and she pulled it over my head with a violence that made the shower rod rattle.
“Jake,” I managed, though I didn’t know if I was warning her or asking about him.
“Jake doesn’t ask what I want,” she whispered against my mouth. “You do. You’ve been asking with your eyes for months.”
My hand slid down her stomach, through the water, lower. She was already wet—soaked, trembling, ready. I found her with my fingers, pressing inside her with a confidence I didn’t feel, and she made a sound that was part moan, part laugh, part the exact frequency of my destruction.
The front door opened.
We both froze. The sound was unmistakable—Jake’s key in the lock, his heavy footsteps in the hallway, his voice calling out “Mina? You here?”
Mina didn’t panic. She just looked at me, her eyes dark and certain, and then she looked toward the bathroom door.
“Jake,” she called out, her voice steady despite my fingers still inside her. “I’m in the shower. With your roommate.”
Silence. Then footsteps approaching. The bathroom door handle turning.
Mina pulled the curtain open wider. Steam poured out into the hallway. Jake stood there in his scrubs, his mouth open, his eyes taking in the scene—his girlfriend, naked, with my hand between her legs, my sports bra on the floor, the shower running around us.
“You never asked what I wanted,” Mina said to him. Her voice was calm. Sure. The voice of someone who had made a decision and was going to see it through. “You assumed. You took. You never once looked at me the way she does.”
Jake looked at me. I looked back. I didn’t remove my hand.
“She’s staying,” Mina said. “You can go.”
Jake left. He didn’t yell. Didn’t fight. Just turned around, walked out of the apartment, and closed the door with a softness that was somehow louder than any slam.
Mina turned back to me. Kissed me. Deep. Slow. Like we had all the time in the world.
“His bed,” she whispered. “I want you in his bed. I want to replace every memory of him with you.”
We used his sheets. His pillows. His room. She showed me exactly what she’d been missing, exactly what she’d been fantasizing about during every night she’d spent with him. She used her mouth on me until I couldn’t remember my own name, until the only word I knew was hers.
After, lying in Jake’s bed with Mina’s head on my chest, I traced patterns on her shoulder.
“What now?” I asked.
“Now,” she said, looking up at me with eyes that were finally, completely honest, “you find us a new apartment. One with a bigger shower.”
We moved out two weeks later. Jake never came back for his things. Mina wears my t-shirts now. And our shower is big enough for two.
