Creep Read Online Free PDF

afternoon light.
    “Oh, Bill.” At that moment, her genuine pity for him outweighed his betrayal. It didn’t make up for the years of emotional neglect and abandonment she’d suffered for most of their marriage, but she couldn’t deny there was relief.
    The story tumbled out. He had known since before they met. He’d had a long string of affairs before their marriage, most anonymous and taking place in the basements of gay clubs that Sheila had never heard of. When rumors began to swirl, he’d married Sheila quickly to secure his appointment as Seattle Pacific’s chief of surgery. The longer they stayed married, though, the more he’d come to resent her. She reminded him every day of the man he only pretended to be.
    He was at the height of his career and didn’t want to be labeled a gay man. Sure, Seattle was a progressive city, but the hospital still ran on a good old boys’ network and nobody wanted a homosexual as their chief. He’d found love with Norm, and Norm wanted them to come out, but Bill would rather have died.
    The divorce was quick. The settlement was exceptionally generous once Sheila agreed to sign the confidentiality agreement. She bought a brownstone townhouse in cash in the prestigious Harvard-Belmont area of Seattle. Shortly after, she was granted tenure at the university. It was time to make a fresh start, but surprisingly,there were no feelings of liberation. Just a broken heart. She had loved a man who had never truly loved her back.
    At thirty-five, she was divorced, childless, too tired to start over with someone new, but much too young not to. It was a shitty, weird, in-between place to be.
    Luke the bartender interrupted her thoughts. “Your man’s late, huh?”
    Sheila smiled. “If it’s his worst habit, I’m a lucky woman.”
    “I’m pretty sure he’s the lucky one,” Luke said with a grin.
    Three years ago his smile would have been a proposition. She would have invited him home in a heartbeat.
    It had started off with a couple of glasses of wine late at night to help her sleep and, when that stopped working, late-night Internet games to replace the social life she’d once had. Bill had not been much of a husband, but being married did have its perks—there were dinner parties to go to, work functions, couple’s nights out. As a divorcée, the invites dried up. She realized that most of her friends were actually Bill’s friends, and they’d chosen sides.
    The loneliness ate her up.
    On a lark, she joined a dating website, and within a few months she had profiles posted on half a dozen sites. The thrill of meeting new men was exhilarating. Finally, she was getting the attention she’d craved her entire life. She felt beautiful. Wanted. Sex made her feel powerful and in control, something she’d never felt before around men. Every man she met presented an opportunity to erase the insecurity and unworthiness she’d felt during her marriage. Before long, she was sleeping with just about everyone she met.
    It didn’t occur to Sheila then that she had a problem. Sure, she met a lot of guys. Sure, she ended up in bed with most of them (or in the backseats of their cars, or in the bathrooms ofthe bars, or in the bushes behind the nightclubs). So the hell what? How was it any different from the women on Sex and the City, who drank Cosmopolitans every night and screwed every cute guy they saw? She was a liberated woman, completely in charge of her sexuality. Wasn’t she?
    Wasn’t she?
    Never mind that she sometimes mixed Ecstasy with her wine and that sometimes it led to blackouts. Never mind that sometimes she’d wake up in a strange room, unable to remember where she was or why she was there.
    She couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t seem to stop it. She couldn’t temper her need for the warmth of another man’s body on top of her, beside her, inside her. The excitement of meeting someone new, the rush she felt when she saw the desire in his eyes, the adrenaline