I can do this. I’ve used my toy in lots of places before. This is just a normal day.

But you’ve never used it in your friends’ parents’ house.

It’s hard enough dealing with intrusive thoughts most of the day without my inner voice nagging me. I’m twenty-three. It’s just masturbating.

“Flora, hun, are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?” Jem’s mum shouts from outside my room.

“No, Liz, but thank you,” I say, shoving my lube in my pocket and yanking open the door to where her earnest smile greets me.

“Is there anything you need?”

I tighten my grip around the paperback in my hand to stop myself from rubbing my forehead in an attempt to clear what my doctor, Dr Russo, thinks might be one of many neurodivergent headaches.

The impact of not managing stress and too many sensory things makes every distraction stab my head sharper. I’ve tried all my usual tactics to rid myself of it, including a run, paracetamol, and a nap.

Masturbation is my last option. Is it even an option?

“Thank you, but I’m going to read before I head to my class.”

“Is this a class you’re assisting with or taking part in?” she asks. It’s a fair question, given that I mainly assist classes at the cookery school.

“Taking part in it. My photography class in town is in its last week.”

“Are you still looking for that forever career? Your passion?”

“I guess.”

“I’m surprised there are any courses and classes left for you to do,” she says with a soft smile.

My shoulders hunch as the headache climbs. I appreciate Liz letting me stay here while the builders empty my bank account repairing the flood damage to my house—even if it’s probably out of a sense of obligation, what with one of her children being my good friend and the other about to marry my pseudo big brother.

But I can’t relax here and not just because Liz is one of the owners of the Cloud Family Cookery School where I work.

I can’t relax anywhere but my own place.

“You’ve already perfected flower arranging, grade one keyboard, Spanish for beginners, and numerous others,” Liz says, cutting into my thoughts.

“I also did a counselling one at university as well as my accounting degree. Maybe one day I’ll find my calling.” I offer the fake smile I’ve perfected after years of trying to fit in.

“Maybe you have many callings.”

The niggle behind my eyes increases. Everyone I know has that one special skill they’ve turned into a job. Surely the same is true for me. Why can’t I figure out what it is?

“Well, I should probably go,” I say, easing backwards.

“What are you reading?” Liz asks.

“Just a romance book.” I tuck my smutty, age-gap romance paperback behind me, thumbing the corner like I’m trying to lacerate myself with paper cuts.

“If you’re sure you don’t want tea? I’ll make it how you like. I’ve remembered all your instructions,” she says kindly. “I didn’t mean to look so shocked the other day when you explained how many seconds the tea bag should spend in the water and precisely how much milk needed adding.”

“No, it’s fine.”

I silently ask the two questions I’ve bullied myself with after hearing my parents ask them all my life.

Why are you like this? What is wrong with you?

After long conversations with Dr Russo and a couple of the other adult students on my recent photography course, I have an inkling of the answer.

I retreat into my room.

“Jem will be home from the restaurant soon,” Liz says. Being reminded of my friend, who sometimes acts more like a little brother, just about kills any arousal I had left.

“Okay.” I shut the door and lean against it.

I sneak around my room, retrieving my lube from my pocket and a towel from a drawer and turning up my music to drown out any sounds I may make.

Does anyone else prepare for wanking like this?

I’ve spent so many years feeling different but not realising why, I don’t know what’s neurotypical and what isn’t.

Dr Russo told me that unless I pay privately, I’ll be waiting at least three years for autism and ADHD assessments, so I haven’t got a chance of finding out soon.

My eye twitches as my headache throbs, reminding me that he also told me I need to reduce my stress.

I check my watch. With Liz potentially in earshot on the other side of the door, I can’t bring myself to risk using the toy. If she hears the buzzing, she’ll interrupt to ask what it is. But if Jem’s return is imminent, I need to bring out the big guns. A book won’t be enough without the help of my vibrator.

I open one of the apps that I use to find hookups and flick through it, seeing a few guys from another of my dating apps. I swipe away the guy who nearly got money out of me—Jack Edwards, total romance fraudster who talked like he was twenty years older than his presumably doctored photos suggested. I like older men, just not money-thieving love bombers.

I continue scrolling through men who make guys my age look like boys. My gaze rests on one I hooked up with last year. He might be worth sexting.

Except that as I check out photos of him smugly holding large fish, I remember why we didn’t get past one night. He kept messaging about how he was a daddy dom, but when we met, he couldn’t even talk to me. I’m fine with sex that’s emotion-free—no cuddling, reduced eye contact, no kissing—but if you’re going to call yourself a daddy dom, you need to stop squeaking when a woman touches you.

I swipe left.

I see another guy who struggled to make me come. Again, not unusual. No matter how horny I am at the start, and I’m usually ridiculously horny, they still struggle to make me come. It’s a me problem, not a them problem, although I can’t be the only woman who plans her shopping list during sex.

I swipe left.

This guy looks like one I tried to hook up with last week.

Although I was horny as hell, I couldn’t get past how he smelled of sandalwood and grunted like a dog who had something stuck up his anus.

Another man catches my eye. He’s got that I’ll pin you to the bed and fuck you like an animal look. As I scroll through his pictures, something about his face niggles me, but he's hot, and he says he likes dirty talk.

I swipe right. It’s a match.

A message pings in my inbox.

Pete: Hey, baby, what are you up to?

I check the clock. Fifteen minutes until Jem returns.

Flora: Just playing with myself. How about you?

Pete: Hmmm, I like that. You must be a horny little freak to be playing with your princess grotto on a Wednesday afternoon.

Princess grotto? What the fuck? I’m too desperate to argue, though.

Flora: Yep.

Pete: Are you wet?

Flora: Soaking

I’m drier than I was when my ex told me his top five tips for making bitcoin.

I squeeze lube onto my fingers and relish the chill of the gel as I press them to my clit.

Pete: You’re making me really hard, babycakes.

I gag at how cringe this dude is.

Pete: Do you want to see how hard I am for you?

Flora: Yes, please, baby. I bet your dick is the best I’ve ever seen.

I actually bet it’s far from it, but it’s probably something he’d want to hear, and I’m a people pleaser.

A picture hits my inbox.

I gasp when I open it, but not because of the wrinkly cock being thrust in my face or the fact that Pete isn’t in his late thirties, like I want. He’s pushing mid-fifties at least.

Blue wallpaper with white daisies cascading down a back wall makes my arousal die.

Pete is in my bedroom, holding his dick like he’s a competition winner at a small-town cucumber grower event. He’s part of the team fixing my house!

Flora: Are you a builder, Pete? Are you meant to be working on my water-damaged house right now? I don’t pay you to fuck your hand while sexting strangers. Get the hell out of my bedroom and do some damn work.

The headache pulses. I open my favourite porn site on my phone. I promised myself I wouldn’t watch porn while I was in the Clouds’ house, but I need to come, and real men are failing me.

I connect to my earbuds and slip them into my ears.

As a video of a boss bending his younger subordinate over his knee plays, I slide my hand into my knickers.

The guy on screen calls the woman a good girl, and my fingers rub my clit faster as I pretend I’m the one being praised.

As I slip my fingers inside myself, I lean my head back, immersing myself in the filthy names he’s using.

I ride my hand slowly, biting back the whimpers of my impending orgasm. My fingers are getting wetter and—

“Flora, I need to chat,” Jem shouts, banging my door.

I pull my earbuds out and throw my lube across the room as he flings the door open.

“Fuck’s sake, Jem, I didn’t say come in. You’re such a pr—” My words die on my lips when Liz pokes her head in around him.

I yank the duvet up. My already pounding head throbs harder, the pain becoming almost unbearable as my final attempt at relief is, once again, thwarted.

“Sorry, hun. Were you napping? I’ve got you a tea.” Liz pops it on my chest of drawers next to my dark romance. A bare-chested, bearded god winks from the front cover, and Liz reaches for it.

“Thank you.” My voice pitches up into a squeak, dragging Liz’s attention back to me.

She smiles and puts her hand to my forehead. “You look really flushed.”

Wanking will do that, Liz.

I bite my tongue.

Jem sits on my bed, and Liz hovers beside him. This family has no boundaries. I need to move out, but my builders are too busy sending dick pics to finish fixing my damn house.

“You know how Garett has flu or something?” Jem says. I nod, convinced that if I speak, something in my voice will give away what I was doing. “Ruby has caught it as well. You need to run the class at the school tonight rather than assist.”

I can’t just sit here silently forever. “Okay. You’d best go so I can get ready,” I squeak.

“Don’t you want to sip your tea?” Liz asks. “It might help wake you.”

I pull the hand that isn’t dripping with a combination of lube and my wetness out from under my duvet and grab the mug. I sip it with a smile, even though it tastes too milky and sweet.

“Are we having a party in Flora’s room?” Iain, Jem’s dad, asks from my doorway.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

“What were you listening to?” Jem asks, reaching for my earbuds. “More pop music crap?”

In my haste to turn off the earbuds before he can hear the porn still playing from them, I fumble, accidentally switching the sound to the speaker.

The world turns to slow motion as the sounds of a man spanking a woman’s butt while he tells her she’s such a naughty girl echo around the room.

My tea spills on the duvet as I grab for my phone, locking it rather than turning the porn off. I jump out of my bed, tea scalding my thighs. Jem’s eyes widen, his expression is both playful and surprised as he stares between my T-shirt and underwear.

“Oh my,” Liz crows to Iain, who’s backing out the door. “It sounds like our role play last night, sweetheart.”

Iain chokes as he leaves the room in haste.

“Come on, Jem. Let’s leave Flora to her…nap.” She drags a still-gawking Jem to the door, winking at me as she closes it behind them.

I finally manage to turn off my phone and collapse on the bed. At least I have to go out tonight to lead the class so I can escape the embarrassment of the past sixty seconds, but with my now-raging headache, it’s going to be a shit one.

I can’t return to this house again.