Better Off Alone

By Eliot Waistlin

Nathan is freshly separated from his wife and has a chance to build a new, independent life for himself. He's meeting women and making plans for the future, but he is still making the same mistakes that caused his marriage to crumble. While his wife sends him pictures with her new lovers and he makes dates with his former neighbors, Nathan must figure out what he wants from life: to drink beer and smoke pot all night and day, or get in shape and reboot his writing career. But as the women drift in and out of his life, staying sober is turning into a full-time job in itself. And when his new lover decides she wants to explore a forbidden fetish with him, he has no idea how he's going to keep his fragile new life together...

An adult novel full of graphic sex, despair, and dark humor to keep you reading!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eliot Waistlin
• Release date: Apr 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463195130

Eliot Waistlin

Eliot Waistlin is a fiction-writing fool. He writes NSFW kinky erotica in a variety of genres, and insists that you read them all.

Book preview

The Knicks were in town and I decided to catch the game, so when my shift at the store finished, I hit the ATM and took out a hundred-dollar cash advance on my credit card. The local team was garbage at the time, so I figured with a hundred I could easily get a scalped ticket outside the arena, plus a couple of beers inside. It was a good plan, but between the ATM and the subway I passed a bar with a sign advertising the game on TV and cheap pints, so I ducked in there instead. I drank three pints of amber lager before tip-off, and by the time the final buzzer sounded, I had more pints of lager in me than the average human has pints of blood. I teetered out of the bar with no idea which team won the game, and barely any idea where I lived. I guess that’s what qualifies as a good night out.

By the time I got home all that beer wanted out, and I had to piss so badly that I could barely make it up the stairs. My apartment was a third-floor walk-up, and I was bending over to try and somehow reduce the pressure on my bladder. I got the key in the door, lurched inside, and went straight into the can where I fumbled my zipper open and threw one hand against the wall behind the toilet to steady myself as I unleashed a massive, shuddering piss.

I cleaned myself up and staggered to bed, flopping on top of the covers with my clothes still on. The room spun for a moment and then slowed down. I thought about taking off my clothes, but I was too drunk and tired. I dreaded the coming morning shift, but I was thankful that there were still seven hours of sleep separating me from the impending buzz-buzz of the alarm on my phone. I lay back and closed my eyes. Jeans and work shirt be damned.

My phone went buzz-buzz.

I fumbled around until I found the phone. It was a text from Sharon, my wife. We were separated, and she was now sleeping with a lot of other men and rubbing my face in it. The text just said Hi Nathan, but there was an eight-second long video attached. The preview image was her smiling pretty face, with her curly blonde hair running down over her shoulders, and her makeup done. She had a scoop-neck dress and her tits pushed up by her bra. She looked like a million bucks and I gripped my limp dick through the front of my jeans. I had a sick feeling of what the video would be, but I went ahead and opened it anyway.

Hi Nathan, she said, I just wanted to let you know what I’m up to right now. And then she turned her head and a big penis appeared in the frame right next to her face. She took it in her hand and guided it straight into her wide-open mouth, her eyes quickly darting up to the dick’s owner and then over to me before the video abruptly ended.

Fuck, I grumbled. Fucking fuck. It wasn’t a huge dick. Big, but probably smaller than mine. She had no complaints about the size my dick. She had complaints about the money. Complaints about the career direction, the life, the options, the home, the drinking, the bullshit. She had a lot of complaints. Justifiable complaints. One night I fucked her hard and made her cum a couple of times. I told her, hey, at least I’m giving you some orgasms, as though that justified my otherwise minimal contributions to the lifestyle that she felt she deserved. She told me she could get orgasms from anybody. I told her go ahead if that’s what she wants. The next day she texted me a video clip of her face as she came, with some unseen dude on top of her, railing away. I started looking for another place to live. Seven years of marriage had finally deteriorated into shattered shit.

I sat up on the side of the bed and rubbed my eyes. I was so drunk, but now I was too annoyed to go right to sleep. I got up, flicked on the lights, and looked around the studio apartment that I’d moved into. It was a messy shithole with some second-hand furniture that I’d paid for with my credit card, and a mess of my stuff that I’d taken with me out of Sharon’s condo. Despite being married, the condo was in her name alone. She’d saved the down payment, and since my income had been spotty around the time we moved in, she insisted it should be in her name. She gave an explanation why it was beneficial for tax purposes to only have her name on the papers, but I figured even then that she was already planning for life after marriage.

I wanted to rage, destroy everything, but I was caught by urge to prove her wrong about me, prove to her and myself and the world that I was capable of, well, if not greatness, at least adequacy. I picked up a few articles of dirty clothes off my chair and tossed them into the hamper, collected the dirty coffee cups from around the room and put them in the sink. That made me feel a little better, but not really better at all. I needed to stop being a goddamn alcoholic, get back in shape, sort out my career, and start fulfilling my potential.

My dumbbells sat in the corner, and I staggered over and picked them up, but I lost my balance, swung around, and banged one of them off my right kneecap. I dropped them back to the floor with a heavy bang-bang and caught myself against the wall, groaning and swearing in agony. My leg was limp, and the pain made me want to puke. Fucking kill me, I begged whatever cosmic forces might be watching and laughing. Just fucking kill me.

I half-hopped over to the kitchen counter, and pulled my tin of weed out of cupboard. There was a third of a skinny joint left in there. I hobbled over and opened the window, sat down with my injured leg straightened out in front of me, lit the joint, and smoked. The THC swam straight into my beer-drunk head, and I felt brain-dead and sleepy. My knee throbbed, and somewhere out there my wife was getting fucked by some loser with a big dick, and she was laughing at me. I needed to get myself straightened out. I needed to improve myself.

I took another massive piss and went to bed. This time I fell straight asleep before the phone could say buzz-buzz.

Chapter Two

I spent the next several days trying to get myself straightened out. My account was empty, my credit card situation was looking rough, and since pay day was several days off, I figured it was a good time to try and quit drinking. I went to work and opened boxes in the stock room each day, and went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at night. I knew I belonged there. I certainly fulfilled their categorization of an alcoholic: I was powerless over alcohol, and that my life was unmanageable. Unmanageable was an understatement. My life was a fucking mess, and alcohol was a central factor, but I preferred to think that my drinking was a response to the bullshit, and not the cause. Either way, the meetings got me through the week. I cleaned my apartment, did the laundry, bought some vegetables and ate a few healthy meals, and exercised without kneecapping myself again. Then I got paid on Friday and bought weed and a pile of beer.

I was mad at myself for blowing any progress I might have made by not drinking during the week, but all the anxiety and frustration I was holding inside were gone halfway through the first tall can of lager. I was being responsible, I told myself. I was drinking on the cheap by bringing beer home instead of blowing a hundred bucks at the bar. This way I could stretch my money. I chopped and measured the weed and rolled six skinny joints. I would ration them out, one a night, and make them last. I was going to get healthy. And I wasn’t just going to get wasted, either. I decided I was going to try and get some writing done. I wasn’t just going to work in that grey concrete stockroom for the rest of my life. Time to start putting work into my writing career again. I cracked open a second tall can, opened the window, and lit the joint. Then I opened my laptop and got to work.

After my second and third cans, and an hour of surfing internet porn, I closed my computer. My brain was completely unable to focus on any kind of writing project. There wasn’t even any pleasure to be found in surfing porn. I’d been drinking so much over the last few years that I’d mostly ruined my ability to maintain a good hard on. As a result, I’d been diving deeper into weirder and weirder porn, which had desensitized me and made things worse. That didn’t help things with Sharon either. Although I was still able to give her a good hard one every so often and somehow justify my role in her life, my confidence had deteriorated, and we weren’t fucking very often anymore. It had all been a downward spiral.

Despite my intentions of rationing the weed, I took out another joint. My apartment was a already stinky from the first one, so I opened the window all the way and leaned out, resting my elbows on the sill, watching the world go by as I lit up. Weed was legal now, so I didn’t have to worry about who would see me. It wasn’t like I had a reputation to uphold anyway.

The weed was in my head, and I felt tingly all over. Watching the porn clips had made me horny, but my dick wasn’t responding, and I began to wonder what would be worse: drinking but not being able to fuck, or being able to fuck but not being able to drink. Despite everything I’d heard at the AA meetings, I still couldn’t envision a life without getting completely hammered at every opportunity. This would require some serious reflection.

A small group of women were approaching along the sidewalk below me. I recognized one of them as a little blonde knockout that lived in my building. I figured she was around twenty-five, so maybe ten years younger than me, if I had to guess. We’d passed each other coming and going a few times, but hadn’t said much more than hello. She and her friends were approaching the front steps of the building carrying liquor store bags.

They looked up and saw me looking down at them, and the girl from the building waved. Is that what I think it is? she asked.

I looked at the tiny joint pinched between my finger and thumb. It’s a marijuana cigarette, I replied.

Uh-huh, she said, smiling. Is it medicinal?

Very, very recreational.

Cool. Have fun.

You too.

The girls giggled and entered the building, disappearing from my sight. The idea of lurking in the hallway to try and invite myself to their party rolled through my head, but I knew how creepy that would seem. I sat back down at the computer and fired up the porn engines again instead, looking around for clips involving one guy taking on four women, at least one of whom would be a little blonde spitfire with a tight bod and a cute, slightly upturned nose. What did the other girls in her group look like? It seemed like one was Asian. There was a second blonde. I wasn’t sure about the last one. They all looked as hot as hell though. I entered four girls one guy into the search bar and got a million responses. Okay now.

Chapter Three

I woke up in midmorning with a dry mouth and a drier brain. My phone had gone buzz-buzz, and there was another text from Sharon. I’m clearing out your stuff, it said. Come get this or I’m throwing it out. Instead of a video of her sucking some random fellow’s dick, the text had an attached picture of a box. I could see it was full of books, notebooks, file folders and the like, including the monogrammed folder containing my bachelor’s degree, that she was prepared to chuck in the trash. She would do it, too. I could imagine her response if I complained to her about throwing out my degree: Well, it’s not like you ever used it.

After a shower and a shave, a solid breakfast and two cups of coffee, I texted Sharon to say I was on my way over. I brushed my teeth an extra long time to try and erase the beer breath, then took the subway down to her building. I slipped in with another resident and was standing in the hall, knocking on her door when Sharon stepped out of the elevator, carrying bags of groceries. She was wearing her tight-fitting exercise pants and had her gym bag slung over her shoulder.

Hey, Nathan, she said, as I stepped aside for her to open the door. Come straight from the bar? You smell like booze.

That’s from last night, I said. You come straight from the gym? You smell like a sweaty ass.

Ha! she laughed, pushing the door open. Nice try. I’m fresh as a daisy. You’re gonna get your shit?

That’s the only possible reason I would come over, I said, peaking through the doorway before stepping inside. You got some men hanging around in here? Last night’s dicks?

No, Nathan, she said. The men I go out with have real homes and real, actual jobs that pay actual salaries.

Real wives, too, I’ll bet.

Well then, that would be three things they have that you don’t have, she said. She took off her jacket and started unpacking the groceries. She was wearing a sports halter top. She looked good. Her tits looked big. She was the total package. Big tits, a big ass, and a willing mouth.

Enjoying the videos I’ve been sending? she asked, closing the refrigerator door.

No, I said. You can stop that any fucking time, by the way.

Ha! she laughed. She loved laughing at me. No, I think I’ll keep it up. The guys love it. I tell them how pissed off you get, but that you jerk off anyway. It turns them on.

I guess you need all the help you can get in that department, I said. Can I just get my stuff? I feel disgusting just being here.

That’s understandable. You look disgusting too. The box is in the bedroom. Grab it and get out of my condo. You’re stinking up the place with your booze breath.

I ignored the insults and went into the bedroom. The box on the floor near the bed, next to the waste basket. As I picked up the box, I couldn’t help seeing all the condom wrappers and used rubbers in her trash. She’d been keeping very busy. Maybe I was only seeing a fraction of her total action. I guess she’d really been bottling her lust up when she was stuck with poor, broke, depressed, limp-dicked me. Fuck, I needed a drink.

Sharon let me leave without trying to stick any more verbal daggers into me. While I was standing waiting for the elevator, Tomoko, Sharon’s neighbor from across the hallway came out with her two girls. They came and stood with me to wait for the elevator, and we exchanged hellos.

I haven’t seen you in a while, Tomoko said with a smile. Her girls were occupied taking turns with a phone game.

I moved out, I said. I’m in an apartment. I was just coming back to pick up some stuff. I indicated the box I was carrying with a nod of my head.

Oh, she said, give me a look a sad concern. That’s why I haven’t seen you. That’s so sad. So, you two are…

We’re done, I said, finishing her presumption.

The elevator door opened, and we all stepped inside. Tomoko was giving me a little smile, and I could tell the wheels were turning inside her head. She was a stay-at-home mom, and her husband was big-dollar workaholic for a bank or trading company or something like that. She used to come over to our condo during the day while her girls were at school and Sharon and her asshole husband were at work. I would sit at my laptop trying to write, while she would sit on the couch with a glass of wine and talk about how disappointing her marriage was. I got the idea that she was totally open to an across-the-hallway affair, but I wasn’t interested in screwing up my already difficult marriage any further. Not that she wasn’t hotter than hell. Tomoko was taller than most Japanese women I’d met, with a big strong frame and voluptuous figure. She was also probably carrying just as much locked-up sexual frustration as my own wife was.

So I guess we won’t be seeing you around much anymore, she said.

Well, we can always catch up for coffee, if you like, I said.

Sure, she said with a smile. I think I’ve got your number in my phone.

The elevator door opened at the lobby and I stepped out. Tomoko and her girls were going to the basement garage to get the Lexus her husband had bought her. Say goodbye, girls, Tomoko said, giving me a little wave, and her daughters murmured their goodbye. I walked out to get the subway, deciding that lifting weights would be a better way to spend the afternoon than getting drunk again.

Chapter Four

Except for the degree, there wasn’t anything in particular in the box that was worth keeping, but it was worth the trip and the abuse from Sharon to catch up with Tomoko. Since move out of Sharon’s condo, I hadn’t been thinking much about getting laid. Women seemed an impossibility. Like with the group of girls walking into the building the night before, the most I could hope for would be getting drunk and jerking off. I didn’t want to fuck. I alternated between wanting to get drunk so that the world disappeared, and wanting to clean up and sort out my life in some sort of pathetic ‘fuck you’ to my many detractors. But actual, real sex with an attractive, interested woman who wasn’t my hateful wife? It was an intriguing thought. Even if she was married. But he was a capitalist prick who ignored her and the kids anyway, so fuck him.

I had to be honest though. If I wanted to have sex with Tomoko, the four-girl gang, or anybody else, I was going to have to get myself in proper shape. I would have to quit drinking, and not just for a day