The last of Jenna’s boxes was the heaviest, and of course Matt was the one carrying it while everyone else stood around.

The bottom started to rip halfway down the hall. Matt caught it with his knee and pinned it against the wall, but he could feel the books sliding around inside. Aaron was right there, leaning against the doorframe, scrolling his phone, drinking a beer at two in the afternoon because Aaron didn’t have anywhere to be on a Tuesday.

“Hey dude,” Aaron said.

“Dude!”

Aaron looked up. “Oh. Yeah, here.” He set his beer down and grabbed the other end.

They’d all graduated together a year ago and gotten this place because it was cheap, and you could tell exactly why within five seconds of walking through the door. Narrow hallways, one bathroom, thin walls that broadcast every cough and conversation, and a kitchen that two people could barely cook in without bumping elbows. The rent split four ways made it manageable. Matt was the only one who’d actually launched his career since graduation. The rest were still figuring it out. Or in Aaron’s case, not really figuring it out.

Matt dropped the box in the bedroom and looked around. The room had always been small, but it hadn’t felt small until today. His old twin mattress was gone, replaced by the queen they’d bought last weekend, and it ate up most of the floor. Her boxes were stacked along the wall, three deep in places. A dresser, a nightstand, and roughly eighteen inches of walking space on either side of the bed. They’d been married for six days. This was where it was all going to happen.

“Cozy,” Jenna said from behind him.

He turned around. Jenna was standing in the doorway in running shorts and a tank top, blonde hair up in a messy bun, looking like she’d just come from the gym. She had the face of a girl you’d see on the cover of a teen magazine. Big eyes, sharp jaw, cute in a way that made strangers talk to her in line at the grocery store. But her body was the real story. She’d played volleyball through college and kept at it after, and she’d filled out in ways that had everything to do with genetics and the squat rack. Hard shoulders, flat stomach, thick thighs, and a god-given pair of tits that had no business on an athletic frame like hers.

Matt was decent-looking. He knew that. Brown hair, decent face, medium build. Nobody’s charity case, but nobody’s fantasy either. He’d seen people do the math when they met him and Jenna for the first time. Their eyes would go to her, then to him, and you could watch the confusion land.

“It’s not forever,” he said.

“I know.” She stepped over a box and kissed him. “It’s actually nicer than that Airbnb in Myrtle Beach.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh.

“I don’t mean it like that. Our honeymoon was amazing,” she said. “Not like we needed much more than a bed anyway.” She raised her eyebrows at him until he smiled. “Everybody starts somewhere.”

He felt better. She just had that effect on people.

They spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking while the house hummed with its usual noise. Chris got home from work around five. He worked in claims processing at an insurance company, a gig that paid the bills and slowly drained your soul. He was lean, dark-haired, quiet in a way where you could tell he was paying attention even when he wasn’t talking. He helped them move some furniture around and asked Matt for the third time that month whether his firm was hiring. Matt said he’d look into it, which was what he always said, because he didn’t think Chris would survive a week there and didn’t know how to tell him that.

Cody showed up later with a pizza and a twelve-pack, which was his solution to most situations. He was the easiest of the three to be around. Medium everything. He said “sounds good” to any plan and meant it. He gave Jenna a hug, told her the house was lucky to have her, and then ate four slices in silence while watching SportsCenter.

By the time they all called it a night, Matt felt good. The room was small and the walls were thin and Aaron was already behind on his share of the utilities, but Jenna was here, and that was what mattered.

Matt discovered something new about his wife on her first night as a full-fledged resident of the house.

They’d been lying in bed for maybe ten minutes. The lights were off and the blue glow of his phone lit his face as he doom-scrolled. He set his phone on the nightstand and rolled toward Jenna to say goodnight.

Her eyes were closed and she was breathing a little heavier than normal. Her hand was under the covers, moving in a slow, steady rhythm.

He froze. Not because he’d never seen a woman touch herself. He had, on request, in the performative way that sometimes happened during sex. But this was different. She was masturbating like she was alone. Like she was scratching an itch before sleep.

She must have felt him staring, because she opened one eye.

“Oh,” she said. “Sorry. I’ve always been pretty casual about it. I do a lot of it at home, and, well, this is home now. It’s a habit, I guess.”

“I was just surprised,” he said quickly. “I didn’t know you did that.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, girls do it too, Matt.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean it’s not weird or anything, it’s just I’ve never seen it firsthand, ya know?”

“It’s only weird if you make it weird,” she said.

He lay there processing for a second, then laughed. She was right. Why would it be weird? This was his wife. He’d seen every inch of her. He’d been inside her. Watching her touch herself was, if anything, a privilege.

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” he said. “It’s actually pretty hot.” He reached over and put his hand on her hip. “Want me to help?”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’m pretty tired, babe. It’s been a long day. Sometimes you just want to get your hit, ya know?” She paused. “We could masturbate together? I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”

He shrugged. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad consolation prize. He pulled his cock out from under the covers and started stroking himself, watching her. She’d kicked the sheet off at some point, and in the faint light from the window he could see the muscles in her thighs flexing, her stomach tightening in little pulses, her tits rising and falling with each breath. Her tank top had ridden up past her ribs.

They lay there side by side, both touching themselves, watching each other. After another minute, her breathing quickened, her hips shifted, and she let out a restrained, but satisfied moan. She sighed like she’d just worked out a knot in her shoulder.

As she pulled her hand out, she rolled over, kissed Matt on the cheek, and was out cold in seconds. He came shortly after, spurting cum onto his t-shirt, which he promptly wadded up and threw to the floor.

The next morning, she kept her word. He woke up to her mouth on his cock, and she didn’t stop until he came down her throat. She swallowed, kissed his stomach, and said, “Good morning!”

“Yeah,” he said, still catching his breath. “Good morning indeed.”

Over the next several days, Matt learned what “casual” meant to his new wife.

She did it in bed before sleep. Almost every night, sometimes while they were still mid-conversation. She did it in the morning, often before he woke up, so he’d open his eyes to the soft, repetitive motion of the sheets and the sight of her biting her lip with her eyes screwed shut. This was a side of her he’d never seen in the years they dated, but he wasn’t about to question a good thing.

Sometimes he watched. Sometimes she pulled him in and they fucked, and she was always soaking wet before he even touched her. Sometimes she did it while he was right there talking to her about dinner plans or weekend schedules. It really was just part of her routine.

Their sex life had never been this good. He’d never cum so hard or so often. She was always a little warmed up, always a little on edge, and the sex carried an intensity that their dating life never had.

The guys had given him shit about it before she moved in. The old joke about sex dying after marriage. They made cracks about how Matt would be jerking off alone in six months. Matt had gotten defensive. “Jenna’s not like that,” he’d said. Now, with the thin walls broadcasting every moan and every time she came, he was the one laughing. She was always ready, always wet, always down. Like a sports car with a high idle.

On Saturday, Matt pulled Aaron, Chris, and Cody aside while Jenna was unpacking the last of her clothes in the bedroom.

“Hey, listen,” he said. They were in the kitchen, beers in hand, the door to the hallway pulled mostly shut. “I just want to set some ground rules now that Jenna’s here. Nothing crazy. Just be respectful of boundaries, okay? It’s not just us anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked.

“Just, you know. Always knock before walking into a room. Give her privacy in the bathroom. Don’t just barge in.”

“Dude,” Aaron said. “We’re not gonna walk in on your wife.”

“I know, I know. I’m not saying you would. I’m just saying, it’s different now with a woman in the house. She’s kind of...” He trailed off. “She just needs more privacy than we’re used to around here, okay?”

Chris nodded earnestly. “Totally. I’ll be respectful, man. She’s your wife.”

Cody said, “Sounds good,” because Cody always said “sounds good.”

Aaron took a sip of his beer and shrugged. “Whatever you need, man.”

Matt felt better. These were his boys, he knew they’d keep their word.

The guys had all gone to the park for a pickup basketball game. Chris had been bugging everyone about it since Thursday. Matt almost stayed back to help Jenna finish organizing the closet, but she’d waved him off. “Go. Have fun. I’ll be fine.”

They played for about two hours, shirts and skins on a cracked asphalt court with some guys from the neighborhood, and by the end of it Aaron was limping from a rolled ankle he refused to acknowledge. They stopped for gas station Gatorades on the way back.

When they walked through the front door, Matt was the first one in.

Jenna was on the couch.

She was on her back, one leg up on the cushions, the other hanging off the side with her foot on the floor. Her t-shirt was rucked up past her tits, bunched around her collarbones. No bra, no pants, and no underwear, because her black thong was stuffed in her mouth.

She was completely out, dead asleep, spread-eagle in the middle of the living room. Her phone was lying on her stomach with the screen still on, frozen on the last frame of whatever she’d been watching. Which was apparently Angela White getting a face full of cum with a big smile.

He heard the three of them file in behind him, Aaron muttering “holy shit” under his breath and Chris going completely silent, which was somehow worse.

Matt bounded across the room in three steps, pulling her shirt down over her chest and grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch to drape over her. He picked up her phone, killed the screen, and set it face-down on the coffee table with a thud.

Jenna stirred beneath the blanket, blinking up at him, groggy and unfocused. Then she registered the four of them standing there. She tried to say something but it came out as a thick mumble.

Everyone stared.

She blinked again, reached up, pulled the wadded-up thong out of her mouth and looked at it in her hand like she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh shit.” Then she laughed. “I fell asleep. Oh my god.”

Matt was not laughing. Aaron and Chris were frozen in the entryway, still holding their gym bags. Both of them were visibly hard, tenting their basketball shorts. Cody had drifted to the kitchen doorway, staring at the ceiling, but his shorts told the same story.

“Bedroom,” Matt said. “Now.”

She sat up, still half-wrapped in the blanket, still holding her panties, and padded down the hall. Matt followed her in and shut the door.

“What the fuck, Jenna.”

“I know,” she said. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I finished and I just passed out. You know how I get.”

He did know. He’d watched her do it every night for two weeks, the same sequence every time: she’d cum, roll over, and be snoring within ten seconds.

“They saw everything,” he said. “You were spread-eagle with porn on your phone and your underwear in your mouth.”

She winced. “Yeah, that’s not ideal.” But then she half-smiled. “I mean, it’s embarrassing, but it’s not the end of the world. They saw some skin. They’ll live.”

“Some skin? Jenna, they saw everything. They saw it all.”

“Okay, and? What am I supposed to do, never touch myself when you’re not home? This is my house too. I fell asleep. It was an accident.”

He paced, but the anger didn’t really have a fair target. She hadn’t done it on purpose, and the guys had just walked into their own house.

“You’re turned on right now,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“Matt.” She was looking at his shorts. He was still in his basketball gear, the thin mesh kind that hid absolutely nothing.

“That’s not the point.”

She stood up and crossed the two steps between them. She put one hand on his chest and slid the other into the waistband of his shorts. Her fingers wrapped around his cock and he sucked in a breath. She was still warm from sleep, her hair messy, her eyes soft.

“It’s fine,” she said, stroking him slowly. “It was nothing. They probably already forgot about it.”

“They didn’t forget about it.”

“Then they’ll get over it.” She kissed his jaw. Her hand moved faster.

He wanted to argue but she had his cock in her hand and whatever he was going to say fell out of his brain.

She stroked him slowly at first, her thumb rubbing through the precum already leaking from the tip, spreading it down his shaft until her hand was slick enough to glide easily.

She sped up, pumping steadily. She pulled her shirt back up, pressing her tits against his chest. He could smell the warm sleep-sweat on her skin. Before long his hips started pushing into her fist like they had a mind of their own.

He came hard, spurting cum onto her stomach and dripping onto her knuckles. She kept pumping until he twitched and pulled away. She kissed him. “Feel better?”

He wasn’t sure he could remember how to speak in that moment.

She giggled lightly and buried her head in his shoulder.

Nobody brought it up, but Matt could tell the guys weren’t really sure how to act around Jenna for the following few days. Eventually, things settled.