"So where do you work?" Abel asked.

Chevelle sighed. She'd known this question would come up eventually, but she still dreaded it all the same.

A lot had happened in Chevelle's life this year; she'd had to finish school all while dealing with the aftermath of a catastrophic breakup—both from her boyfriend and from her family. Although she knew she needed to (and actually really did want to) get a job that she was passionate about—a job that could set her up for a better future—she just hadn't been able to find the drive. She woke up every day drained, and it was just easier to live the life she already had rather than to build the one she really wanted. And thus, she remained working the same job she'd worked for the past three years as a part-time maid for a rich man with...interesting proclivities.

All things considered, it was a pretty good job. Her boss, Julian, wasn't nearly the worst guy Chevelle had worked for in her life. He paid her well, he was kind to her, and although he made her wear a silly French maid's costume at work, he didn't stare too much. Just the right amount. And Julian was actually quite handsome for a man of his age, so Chevelle really didn't mind the extra set of eyes.

If she didn't feel as comfortable as she did in that job, she would surely have quit years ago, but it was easy money and minimal effort. Getting a real job that was actually in her field of training required work, and that wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that Chevelle felt constantly burnt out, every second of every day.

Ever since her life had imploded, even waking up in the morning had become a chore. Things that used to feel easy, like talking to her friends or meeting new people, now felt daunting. And although Chevelle pretended—tried to act like she wasn't drowning inside her own body—she could only fool herself for so long. She could feel the façade cracking; the lies she'd been telling herself were slowly catching up to her, and she knew that she needed to find a healthy way to cope with her pain. She knew that, but still...on some level, she didn't want to cope. There was a sick, twisted part of Chevelle that had actually grown to find comfort in the pain—the constant reliving of her trauma in a continual loop, the never-ending suffering. Her trauma had become a part of her identity that was now indistinguishable from the rest, and without this pain for her to hold onto, what else did she have to make her feel alive?

Chevelle's best friend, Sasha, had suggested therapy a few months ago, but Chevelle had given Sasha some vague answer about social workers being agents of the state and a psychology degree not being enough to make someone worthy of her trust, and it hadn't been brought up since.

Taking a deep breath, Chevelle brought her attention back to the Jenga tower. "I work as, um...an independent contractor," she said, gently pushing on a block from one of the upper rows.

Abel frowned. "What are you contracted to do?" he asked.

"Like...housekeeping management stuff," she murmured, holding her breath as the block began to slide out from the tower smoothly.

Abel raised a brow at her. "Housekeeping management?" he repeated, clearly confused.

Chevelle, who had been expertly avoiding Abel's gaze for the past minute or so, finally flashed her eyes up to look at him. It was just a glance, but the very moment Chevelle's eyes landed on Abel's curious face, the tower on the table between them came crashing down.

The blocks scattered everywhere, startling them both, and although Chevelle was a fairly competitive person, she couldn't even bring herself to care about the game she'd just lost. Her mind had already moved past it and was now running through all the possible reactions Abel could have to what she was about to tell him.

She brought her hands to her temples, groaning, and Abel assumed it was because she had just lost the game, until she finally spoke again.

"Okay, fine, I'm a maid," Chevelle muttered, watching Abel intently for his reaction. A few seconds later, when there was none, she continued, too nervous to wait for him to speak. "It pays well though! Like $50 an hour," she said, not fully sure why she felt such a gripping need to justify her life choices to this man, but doing it, nonetheless. "And I know that you're going to tell me I need to find a real job and follow my passions or whatever...I mean, yeah, that's why I got this whole degree in the first place, and I know that I need to, but it's just been a hard year, okay? I'm really hoping for better in 2017."

Chevelle paused, noticing that Abel now had an amused smile on his lips.

"What?" she asked.

Abel shrugged, chuckling to himself. "Nothing," he said. "Since you seem to already know what I'm going to say, I figured I'd just let you talk it out."

"Oh God," she groaned, covering her face in embarrassment. "I'll shut up now."

With a laugh, Abel waved a dismissive hand. "Don't worry," he assured her. "I didn't mind." And although she was still quite embarrassed, Chevelle couldn't keep herself from laughing alongside him. "Also, for the record," Abel added, "I wasn't going to knock your hustle. There's nothing wrong with being a maid, but I am glad that you know you should be following your dreams."

Chevelle smiled. "Thanks," she said, folding her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. "So tell me about you. Where do you work?"

"I work for the UN as an agricultural consultant."

Chevelle's jaw dropped. "What?" she demanded. "The UN? Are you serious?" Abel nodded. "Oh my God, that's been my dream like forever," she admitted.

"Well then you're in luck," Abel said, pointing some finger guns at Chevelle, "because the UN is pretty much always hiring. They definitely won't be paying you as well as this maid gig though," he warned. "Cause $50 an hour? That's crazy."

Chevelle laughed. "Yeah, I know," she said. "That's the only reason I haven't quit yet. Cause even with this master's degree, I know square one looks more like $16 an hour. Twenty if I'm lucky."

"Oof. Heard that."

Even with Abel's position as a mid-level consultant for the UN, he didn't make up to $50 an hour, so he definitely understood Chevelle's hesitation to leave such a well-paying job. Especially in this economy. Hell, if he was an attractive woman, he'd probably be doing the exact same thing as her.

"So what does an agricultural consultant even do?"

Abel shrugged. "Honestly, not much," he said. "I'm a program specialist for the commission on sustainable development, so I basically just advise strategy and policy for their fieldwork. A lot of sitting behind a desk doing writeups. You know, boring shit."

"Wow. I had no idea I've been playing Jenga all afternoon with such a big shot," Chevelle mused.

Abel rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide the smile tugging at his lips. "Oh please, don't flatter me," he said. "That's not even the work I'm really proud of. It looks good on a résumé, sure, but I want to help people, and I don't feel like I'm doing that there."

"Why not?"

"I guess I feel like the UN is honestly a lot of talk and not much action. Cause if it was actually doing its job, it would've stopped existing decades ago, but here we still are."

"Okay, fair. So what's the work you're proud of then?" Chevelle asked.

A bright grin spread across Abel's face. "Olympia," he said.

"Who?"

"No, not who," Abel said, laughing. "Olympia's the community garden. I co-founded it with my friend Reuben, and we both help manage it. We grow all kinds of food there and use it to feed the poorer members of the community. Olympia's actually turning two in March."

"Oh wow," Chevelle said, semi-stunned. "That's amazing. You're amazing."

I mean, it all made sense, considering Abel's house was two plants away from officially being a rainforest, but still. Chevelle just hadn't been expecting to hear that. She was shocked but not surprised. And for some reason, knowing that Abel invested so much of himself into providing for other people made her that much more attracted to him. Most of the men Chevelle had been with in the past were good to her, but quite selfish when it came to things that didn't directly serve them. It was refreshing to get to know someone who did things for others not to receive anything back, but simply because they cared.

Chevelle didn't say it for fear he would think she was actually insane, but hearing Abel talk about his garden was kind of turning her on.

"You know, I actually used to live on a farm," Chevelle said.

Abel's brows furrowed in surprise. "You did?" he asked.

"Mhm." Chevelle nodded. "Back when I was younger. We would grow all kinds of food. Plantain, cassava, rice, potatoes. I quite miss working on a garden. I wish my city had some kind of community garden like yours, I'd love to be part of it."

"You could always start one," Abel suggested, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

Chevelle shook her head, laughing. "Absolutely not," she said. "Knowing how to garden isn't the same as being able to manage something like that. I don't have the training you have, Abel. I wouldn't even know where to start."

"I could help you."

"From all the way over here?" Chevelle asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Abel chuckled. "Well, who knows?" he said. "I just might find myself in your city sometime soon."

Chevelle bit on her cheeks, unsuccessfully trying to keep the smile inside her from splitting her face in two. Hearing Abel talk like that made something rise up in her chest.

This whole time, she'd been under the impression that they were both approaching this as a Christmas fling, which she was fine with. She knew Abel liked her, but she thought those feelings were confined to the circumstances at hand (i.e. her being in his city for Christmas). She'd assumed that was why Abel wanted her to stay here longer, so that he'd have more time to get some ass before she whisked herself out of his life and the spell was broken. And again, she was fine with that. After all, she got quite a good deal out of that arrangement herself. But now he was talking about showing up in her city? That changed things...right?

Together, they cleaned up the scattered Jenga blocks, and then Chevelle restacked them into the box as Abel went to the kitchen to brew them some tea. When he returned to the living room, he handed Chevelle her mug and asked her how her Christmas went. She gave him some vague answer about it sucking, but she didn't go into much detail. She hadn't really processed how she felt about everything that went down yesterday—both with Jared and with his parents. She wasn't ready to talk about it just yet, and she certainly didn't want to have to think about her ex while she sat mere inches away from a man who was everything Jared was not.

Chevelle then asked Abel about his Christmas, and he told her that it had been pretty low-key. Since his family members all lived like five states away from him and his friends were all with their families, he didn't do much. He said that a friend had invited him over for Christmas dinner, but he'd declined their invitation, not really wanting to crash something that's meant to be a family affair.

"I just hung out, worked out a little...I was on Skype with my family for a few hours, which was nice. We ate together at least."

"Oh, that is nice," Chevelle said, taking a sip of her tea. "Sounds kind of lonely though."

Abel laughed, shaking his head. "No, I didn't mind," he assured her. "I think I honestly spend too much time with other people. It was nice to have a day to myself—well, kind of."

"Oh yeah? And what did you do with all that alone time?" Chevelle asked.

"You mean aside from staring into the void and questioning my existence?"

Chevelle laughed. "Right," she said. "Aside from that."

Abel chuckled. "Well, let's see...after I got off the phone with my family, I put on some music, lit some candles, and I rolled a fat blunt. I can't remember what I drank, but I know I smoked it with a glass of something."

"Dude!" Chevelle demanded. "You should've led with that, cause now it sounds like you actually had the perfect day."

Abel shrugged. "It was alright," he said. "Definitely not as much fun as Christmas Eve, I can tell you that."

Chevelle gasped quietly, her eyes widening as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She wanted to say something—something witty, something seductive—but she was at a loss for words. Tearing her eyes away from Abel, Chevelle focused them instead on the rug below her. She couldn't match the intensity of his gaze, and she feared that if she looked at Abel for too long, he would realize just how much control he really had in this situation. All he had to do was look at her and she was putty in his hands.

"Look at me."

"What?" Chevelle asked, even though she'd heard him clear as day. Abel repeated himself, and slowly—reluctantly—Chevelle dragged her gaze up from the floor and rested it on the man before her. And when she saw the way Abel was looking at her—when she saw the fantasies swimming beneath his eyes—she understood then why Abel had asked her to look at him.

It was because, now, he had shed all the dead skin. All the pretense. She could see it in his eyes, in his body language—she could feel in the energy surrounding him that he yearned for her. He craved her. That for every flashback she'd had to Christmas Eve, he'd had two. He didn't need to say it for her to know that he was insatiable, that he still wanted more.

"Why are you so nervous?" Abel asked, his brows drawn slightly together, his narrowed eyes taunting.

Chevelle could feel the sweat slicking up her palms and so she placed her mug down on the table, wiping her hands on her leggings. She didn't know what to say, because the truth was that she wasn't sure why she was so nervous. She knew that it wasn't the prospect of sex itself that was making her nervous, so what was it? The fact that it was Abel? Maybe. Or maybe, it was the fact that she still didn't know what to expect from him meanwhile he'd already seen her completely unraveled. He'd already heard the sounds of her euphoria, tasted the juices of her passion, but her? She hadn't so much as seen him. So maybe it was the unfairness of it all. The fact that they weren't entering this encounter on equal footing.

"I don't know," Chevelle finally said. "I guess I get nervous around people who have seen my pussy in HD."

Abel laughed, and as per usual, Chevelle's clit heard the sound long before her ears did. "You shouldn't be," he said. "It's beautiful." He licked his lips, and Chevelle could see in his wandering eyes that he was thinking back to that night. To the sight of her...the taste of her...

Holding her breath, Chevelle decided to take a risk and just say what was on her mind. It was the only way she knew to try and take some of the control back from him.

"I think we need to even out the playing field."

Abel frowned, clearly confused, but when Chevelle's gaze flickered down to his lap, he quickly understood. "Oh," he said, and then he paused, asking, "Right now?"

Chevelle nodded silently, scared her voice would betray her.

She just wanted to see it. That was all.

She didn't care if nothing else happened, but she at least wanted to know, for herself, what Abel really looked like.

A smile played at Abel's lips as he set down his mug wordlessly and began slowly unbuttoning his jeans. His eyes were on Chevelle as he worked at his zipper, more interested in her reaction to him than anything else. And what a reaction it was.

Chevelle audibly gasped when Abel's cock came leaping out of his jeans. She knew that he had heard her, and she would've been embarrassed about it was her brain not going into overdrive. She couldn't think about anything aside from the literal elephant in the room. And she'd seen her fair share of dicks over the years, but for some reason, seeing Abel's made her feel like a high schooler all over again. Like she'd never done this before.

Was it weird to call a penis pretty? Because that's what Abel's was. It was dark and thick and chiseled and pretty. And even though she'd sworn to herself that all she wanted to do was look, Chevelle couldn't stop thinking about whether or not it would fit inside her. About how massive it was. How it wasn't just a third leg, but all three of his legs.

And although she tried, she couldn't take her eyes off of it. She could feel Abel watching her, and she had no idea what her face must've looked like, but still, she couldn't take her eyes off of his cock. And the more she looked at it, the more it grew, and it wasn't until he was fully erect, flush against his stomach, that Chevelle realized she was now sitting in a puddle.

"Are we even now?"

Chevelle took in a sharp breath, ripping her eyes away from Abel's throbbing erection and instead, letting them land everywhere and anywhere that wasn't him.

God. She'd thought seeing his dick would make her more confident, but now she couldn't even look at him! She didn't know why it was that every time she wanted something, sexual or not, she grew ashamed.

"I..."

"...You...?"

She wanted to tell him to fuck off. That she couldn't believe he'd been hiding all of that from her this entire time, but she couldn't find the words.

Finally, Chevelle let herself look at Abel's face. She didn't know how else to say what was on her heart and so she was hoping that her eyes could say it for her. When she looked at him, Abel held her gaze as a knowing smirk played at his lips.

"Should I put it away?" he asked.

His voice was strained; Chevelle could tell that he was trying very hard to keep it from coming out as a grunt. She could also tell that his heart wasn't in it—that he didn't want to put it away, but he would if she asked him to.

The throbbing in her panties was almost unbearable at this point. What she really wanted to do was reach inside her leggings and touch herself while Abel watched her, maybe have him join in, but she was too scared. Of what, she wasn't sure.

Silently, Chevelle shook her head. She didn't want him to put it away either. She didn't know if she wanted to suck him, fuck him, or just look at him, but she knew that no matter what, she did not want him to put it away.