Jenny had been good all week. She’d been the kind of good that means answering every email with a smiley no one could see, agreeing to meetings she didn’t need, and saying “no, I’m fine” to small annoyances that nibbled at the edges of her patience. Every time she bit back a sigh, she rewarded herself with the same thought: Friday. By Friday, the package would be here. By Friday night, she would open the door to her apartment, shut out the hallway’s stale perfume of laundry soap and distant curry, and finally claim the one indulgence she’d promised herself for months.
She had cleared a space on the bedroom rug like it was a small altar: a rectangle of vacuumed beige, a folded towel, a bottle of lube with a gold cap, and a timer she didn’t need but liked to set anyway. She’d read the reviews, watched the demo clip half a dozen times, and compared attachments with the level of focus she used to reserve for choosing a laptop. The ROUGH BEAST Pumping Pleasure Machine—just saying it had made her cheeks warm—wasn’t cheap. It promised quiet power and thoughtful angles. The photos had shown it sleek but sturdy, with a stainless shaft and a set of attachments that had her biting her lip at her desk. She’d imagined it rising to meet her with each stroke, as if the machine could understand her better than anyone.
Friday. Her phone kept reminding her in the little ping she’d set for all deliveries, the cheerful chime that felt like flirty winking. “Out for delivery,” it said at 9:12 a.m. “Arriving today by 7 p.m.” A steady drumbeat under the day’s noise.
By the time she turned her key and slipped in, it was just after six. The hallway was quiet, the hum of the building’s old elevator like a sleeping animal. She should have found the box tucked by her door. She should have bent to lift it and felt the satisfying weight of what she’d earned. But there was nothing there. Just the beige doormat with its dark outline of where boxes had been, the welcome sign hanging slightly crooked, and the stubborn fact of absence.
Inside, she checked the lobby camera app (a perk the building advertised as a luxury). No delivery recorded. She checked her email, her tracking number, and refreshed. “Delivery attempted,” it said now, the words a little cruel in their neutrality. “Signature required.”
Jenny stared at the screen, the first wave of disappointment cresting, losing its shape, and then breaking. She stood in her kitchen with her tote bag still on her shoulder, shoes on, her shoulders hunched the way they did when hurt, trying to pretend it was anger. She wanted to stomp and demand that someone fix it, that they turn back time an hour, that a different driver made a different decision. Mostly, she wanted the feeling she’d been saving up all week.
The quiet in her apartment folded around her, a soft envelope that wasn’t comfort yet. She set her bag down and, by habit, loosened her hair from its bun. The pins clinked into the small concrete dish on the counter. She took off her shoes and felt the cool of the hardwood under her feet. The bathroom called to her with the promise of ritual: steam, water, heat, the reliable surrender of muscles held tight too long. If she couldn’t have the night she planned, she could at least have the sweetness of a long soak and the luxury of her hands.
She turned the taps and listened to the tub begin to fill, the first blast of water too loud, then settling into a rush like wind through leaves. She added a palm of milk-white bath soak and watched it bloom into soft clouds. The hot air licked at her calves as she shrugged off her dress and hung it on the hook, cinched the belt of her robe, and tested the water with her toe. Almost ready. She lit the small candle by the sink because she loved the way it threw a golden flutter across tile and mirror, and because the light made everything feel deliberate.
That was when the knock came—two polite knuckles, followed by a sigh through the door that sounded exactly like her building superintendent. “Jenny? You home?”
She wiped her hands down her robe, heart tripping in a ridiculous little dance. “Yeah, coming!”
She cracked the door and peeked out. Steve, mid-fifties, broad-shouldered under his navy hoodie, held a box like an offering. His eyebrows were knit in apology.
“Delivery guy needed a signature,” he said, gruffly kind. “He caught me in the lobby. I signed for you—left the slip at the desk—and thought I’d bring it up. I know you’ve been waiting for this one.” He tipped the corner of the box toward her with a curious smile, as if expecting the company name to tell him something. “Didn’t open it. Promise.”
Jenny’s gratitude was so immediate it felt like a laugh, like relief fizzing with her breath. “You are my hero,” she said, letting the door open wider. “Thank you.”
“Any time,” Steve said, passing her the box. It was heavy, deliciously so. He tipped an imaginary cap. “Have a good night.”
“I absolutely will,” she said, and when the door clicked shut behind her, she stood there holding the box like she might hug it.
The sound of the bath reminded her of the undone ritual. She turned off the taps and let the steam curl around her face while she carried the box to the bedroom. She set it down in the cleared space with a ceremony that made her grin, then grabbed scissors and sliced the tape in a clean line. The cardboard flaps opened to foam and plastic sheeting and the meticulous, friendly order of new things. She lifted each piece out with reverent hands: the base that looked like a small, serious instrument; the polished rod; the remote; the attachments in their sealed, hummingbird-light bags.
Up close, the Rough Beast A1 was even more beautiful: compact but solid, designed the way good appliances were designed—form serving function so elegantly it felt like another kind of art. The motor housing was matte, the shaft gleaming with an almost dangerous promise. She thumbed the remote and watched the green LED flicker to life. Her heart answered with the same small pulse.
Jenny read the quick-start guide even though she already knew it by heart. She liked the way the pages made each step feel like a door opening: position the base on a flat surface; lock the arm into one of the three labeled angles; test the stroke length with the side dial; choose your attachment. For a moment, she hesitated, fingers hovering. There was a slim, straight piece with a gentle taper, modest in length, the safe first choice; there was a more girthy, realistic shape with a yielding skin that made her mouth go dry; there was a curved, internal wand with a flattened head that made heat run low through her belly; and a shorter, ridged plug designed for external play, its ridges catching the light like fingerprints.
She took the tapered attachment first, sensible and sleek, and slid it onto the shaft until it clicked into place. She squeezed a line of lube along it that shone like honey and rubbed it in with her thumb. She adjusted the base closer to the edge of the rug and set the arm at the middle angle, one that would meet her if she sat with her legs open. The machine hummed to itself as if waking, and she imagined it recognizing her.
She shrugged out of her robe and laid it beside the towel, a pale pool on the floor. Her skin flushed at the temperature shift, the steam from the bath making her nipples tighten. She sat on the folded towel, the familiar softness under her sit bones calming and intimate. She rested her heels on the rug, knees opening slowly, the stretch a small, sweet ache. The sight of herself—thighs parted, the soft shadow of wetness already gathered—made her take a breath that went nowhere at first and then found its way into her lungs, unhurried and deep.
“Hi,” she whispered to the machine, laughing at herself immediately, and then didn’t take it back. “Be nice to me.”
She thumbed the remote. The shaft moved forward in a single slow stroke, a courteous knock. She adjusted the dial and watched the length increase by a millimeter, two, three, until it was right: an approach that would find her and then retreat, a rhythm she could lean into. She touched herself lightly first, middle finger tracing the seam that warmed and opened in welcome. The first press of the tip against her made her head tip back, mouth part. She guided it lower with her hand and met it, a slow intake that made the muscles deep inside her flutter in surprise.
“Oh—” The sound left her without permission, quiet and bright.
She breathed and let the movement happen, the machine’s patience matching her own. Each stroke pressed a little deeper, each retreat gave her a second to adjust, her body blooming open in small increments. The slickness grew. Her toes curled against the rug. She let her hand find her clit and circled softly, the additional sensation turning everything up a half-shade. The room felt smaller, as if the candle and the steam and the hum of the motor were all leaning in to watch.
She set the speed to something like a heartbeat—stronger than resting, not yet a race—and closed her eyes. The machine met her and withdrew, met her and withdrew, each time smoothing the path for the next. She thought of the week she’d had, of the way she’d tugged herself back from snapping at a coworker, of the long afternoon where time felt like taffy refusing to break. She let each thought run through her and then slip away like someone else’s laundry passed on the stairs. Here, there was only the glide and the press, the slick and the catch, the way her body softened and bloomed and then flickered with sharper sparks under her fingers.
When she felt ready—no, hungry—she tapped the dial to lengthen the stroke. The machine obliged, pressing into a new place that tugged a breathy curse from her mouth. She flexed around it, shocked by the deep sweetness, and then laughed again, a little wild. “Okay,” she told it, voice low, “okay.”
She rode that for a while, letting the tension gather like a knot she was tying herself, equal parts tenderness and need. She imagined someone watching—the faceless, harmless kind of fantasy that made everything feel more vivid—and pictured herself as a study in want: open, wet, attentive to the exact thing that made her gasp. The throb up high began, that warm pressure that made the rest of her feel like a ribbon being pulled through a ring. Her thighs trembled lightly. She steadied her breath and held herself there, hovering, learning the edge so she could return to it.
The curiosity that had sat with her all week nudged her toward the other position, the one that had made her flush when she first read the guide: squat over it, let it rise into you. She stopped the machine with a click and pulled it back, reaching for the curved attachment with a shiver of anticipation. The head was broad and flat, designed to stroke her where she sharpened to a point inside. She lubed it, generous now, and swapped it with a slid-and-click that felt like arming a pleasure she’d chosen.
She repositioned the base lower on the rug and angled the arm upward. The first attempt at a squat found her calves complaining—too low. She laughed, adjusted the arm again, and then knelt to test the height with two fingers. “There,” she whispered, setting the stroke length shorter to begin with. She rose, placed her feet on either side of the base, and lowered herself slowly, the coil of her thighs burning pleasantly with effort.
The tip kissed her, and she sank a little more, controlling her descent with the muscles in her legs and the hand on the remote. It slid into her with a relentlessness that wasn’t cruel, but certain. The depth felt inevitable. She braced a hand on her thigh and another on the floor, hair slipping over her shoulder. The angle lit her up like a switch she’d been looking for in the dark. The first full stroke with the curved head tipped her forward, the sensation so intense her mouth opened without sound.
“God,” she said when sound returned, and let her hips answer the machine. She rose and lowered herself in counterpoint to its thrust, finding a rhythm that made the head drag across that slick, aching spot with every pass. Everything else fell away. Her breath turned to little bursts, the candlelight stuttered on the wall in time with the rocking of her body. She bounced, tighter, let the speed notch up, then one more, the strokes a little faster than her control, so she had to give in to them.
The noises she made surprised her: small, high, then deeper, almost scolding when a stroke landed perfectly and then chasing it with a softened, pleading sound. She ground down to slow the next pass, to make it last, thighs shaking with the effort. When the sharp crest began, she didn’t try to avoid it. She wanted it to break her open.
She reached up, fingers sliding to her clit again, and the double edge of sensation made the crest catch and surge. The orgasm took her in a hiccuping rush, the kind that dismantled her in pieces—breath, then voice, then everything lower—before putting her back together with new, humming seams. The climax unfolded, first tight and pinched and then wide, rippling. She rode it, swore a little, laughed again when the aftershocks kept coming. The machine kept moving through it, slower now because she’d set it that way, as if caressing her through the last tremors.
She sagged forward onto her hands, the soft slap of her palm on the rug quiet and domestic and strange in the best way. For a moment she just stayed there, breathing hard, the warm steam from the bath still skeletonizing the mirror in the other room. She thumbed the machine off but stayed mounted, pulsing around the stillness for one last, indulgent beat. Then she rose with a groan that was 75% satisfaction and 25% protest from her thighs, and stepped aside, legs shaky in a way she’d be happy to explain to no one.
She swapped out attachments for the slim, straight one again because she wanted gentleness now, a sweet coda. She reset the angle so she could sit against the side of her bed and spread her legs, pillowing her back against the mattress with a lazy sprawl. The room smelled like warm skin and candle wax. The second round came on more easily: slow, coaxing strokes that allowed her to float in that edge-land between full and empty, between simmer and boil. She took her time, showing herself how to be careful. She thought of the delivery slip with Steve’s scrawl on it and smiled, blush rising for nobody but herself. She thought of text messages she’d send later—sly and vague—and how she’d walk differently in the morning, a private swagger tucked into her robe.
When the second climax tipped her, it came more quietly, all inward, a series of deep, thick pulses that made her belly flutter and her toes twitch against the rug. She moaned into her own shoulder, kisses bitten into the curve of it because it felt right to mark the moment. After, she lay back and stared at the ceiling until the candle flickered in her peripheral vision like a star.
Eventually, practicality stole back a little territory. She turned off the machine, wiped down the attachments with the soft cloth the manual recommended, and set them in a neat line on the towel like silverware after a feast. She didn’t have the energy to find drawers or boxes or the exact spot in the closet where it would live. She liked the way it looked out here anyway, a small, gleaming promise that would wait until she was ready to ask again.
The bath was just on the edge of too cool, but she slid into it anyway, because slipping down into water after a good orgasm felt like entering a room where every voice knew your name. The water lifted her hair and kissed at her skin, and she let herself float with knees bent, toes just peeking, the candle’s golden light distant through a veil of steam.
She thought of the week she’d had and how Friday had done exactly what she wanted it to do: it had given her something to look forward to, and then it had delivered. She thought of the attachments she hadn’t tried yet—of the night she’d put on music and let the machine chase her across the mattress, of a Sunday morning spent slow and ridiculous with the small, ridged plug, of the afternoon sun on the carpet turning her into a lazy cat with nothing to do but purr. She thought of ordering the case the site recommended, not because she planned to hide it, but because she liked the idea of lifting the lid on something precious.
When the water cooled, she rose and patted herself dry with the big towel that made her feel like a queen. She slipped into her robe again, the belt loose, the robe itself a perimeter she didn’t need but liked. She blew out the candle. Her apartment sighed into shadows. On the way to bed, she paused to press her fingers gently between her legs—a hello, a goodnight, the reminder of a throb she could still call up with a breath.
She crawled into fresh sheets and pulled them to her chin, smiling into the pillow. Somewhere in the building, a pipe ticked like a metronome. She thought, with a soft swell of satisfaction, that she had found the perfect rhythm tonight and that she could find it again whenever she wanted. The ROUGH BEAST Pumping Pleasure Machine waited on its towel like a knight catching his breath.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered, pleased by her own audacity. “Or—” She laughed, drowsy and bright. “Maybe in the morning.”
Sleep took her with the residue of that promise still humming under her skin, the good kind of anticipation renewed. Friday had delivered. Saturday would, too.
