Moving Out and Moving On

***All characters are over 18 and are fictional. Any resemblance to any real-life persons is purely coincidental. Thanks to MarriedHeat for helping me edit this story.

...

It was early in the morning when Steve went to pick up Cathy. She was standing in front of her new apartment with a bunch of moving boxes she bought the day before. She jumped into the front of his truck after tossing the boxes in the back. Steve noticed the smile on her face; she was very excited.

He hadn't been inside the apartment yet and just heard about what it was like inside. It was already furnished, with a few new things she added on her own; what she really needed was her stuff that she had at her old apartment that she used to share with Todd, her ex-boyfriend.

That's where Steve came in; he had the truck to haul away some of her things that she left behind. Cathy had other male friends that could've helped, but none that were available for that day in particular. It was the only day that she knew that Todd would be away on a hunting trip with his friends, and it was just enough time for them to get her things out of there.

Four months ago, she finally had the courage to break it off with Todd. She had enough of him cheating on her and making her look like a fool for sticking around with him. She knew it was partly her own fault and she should've left a long time ago. She had low self-esteem issues, and Todd took advantage of that.

He had a superiority complex that made him think he deserved to do whatever he wanted and liked to have Cathy around to make him feel good about himself by having a woman who always did what he wanted and let him get away with anything. There were a few times she did leave him, but she always found a reason to go back to him after a few days.

It took Cathy getting an STD that came from his philandering and finding out that Todd got another woman pregnant over a year ago without telling her to finally say she had enough. She grabbed a suitcase full of her clothes and a few things and got the hell out of there. Todd, of course, tried to pursue her, giving her the same tired lines that he would use to smooth talk his way back into her life, but this time it didn't work.

Cathy moved back in with her parents, who were both happy that she finally got away from Todd. She got treated for the STD he gave her, feeling fortunate that it wasn't herpes or something else incurable. She also started seeing a therapist to deal with her self-esteem issues and get over her thoughts of going back to Todd. She felt better than she had in years. She still had a long way to go with her therapy, but she felt she was going to make good progress with her life.

Although she was happy to stay at her parents' house while she improved her life, she still felt stifled being there and needed to be out on her own. She searched online for weeks for a good place to rent and felt that she had hit the jackpot when she saw a listing on an amazing apartment rental website. It was a standard one-bedroom apartment with a balcony and a walk-in closet that was already furnished by a previous tenant, all for an incredibly low price.

She saw that the listing was just posted a few minutes before she saw it and contacted the landlord right away. She sent an email letting them know who she was and how she had a good paying job to let them know she could pay her rent. The landlord replied to let her know she could come by to check out the place any time she wanted, and she ended up stopping by there within the hour. The place was better than the pictures, and she couldn't find anything wrong with the place or the location. She did a quick search of the building and the area and saw that everything was perfect. It was a spontaneous thing, but she signed the lease for the apartment that very same day.

This is where Steve came in; he was a long-time friend of hers and one of the few people who tried to warn her about Todd from the very beginning. They knew each other from high school. He had asked her out a few times back then, but she turned him down each time. Eventually, he was just happy to be friends with her. They knew a lot of the same people from the same crowd and always had fun when they hung out.

Cathy once introduced him to Susan, who he was with for several years and was engaged to before she abruptly broke it off. That took a while for him to get over; he didn't date anyone for several months after that, and didn't have sex again for over a year. By then, he was finally over his former fiancé and was really ready to move on. He dated some good women for a while, had a few good relationships, but it didn't work out.

During the time he was with Susan, he had seen Cathy get hurt by Todd several times. Whenever she left Todd, she ended up staying with each of her friends for two or three days; on a few occasions, she stayed with Steve and Susan. All of her friends have tried to talk to her about how bad Todd was for her; she did seem to listen to him, but those talks never seemed to stick in her mind. When she left him the final time, no one believed that it would last long before she went back to him. To everyone's surprise, she had shown that she was definitely done with him and moved on.

From what Cathy told Steve, Todd always left on his hunting trip early in the morning with his own friends. To be safe, they got there at around 10 am to be sure there were no changes to his plans, and fortunately they saw that his car was gone and no one was home. They brought several boxes with them, and Cathy had a list of everything that she wanted to take away. Fortunately for her, Todd didn't change the lock on the door, and even better, she saw that he didn't throw away anything that she wanted.

"Oh, good," she said. "After he stopped trying to call or text me last month, I was worried that he was going to throw my stuff away."

"But it also doesn't look like he has been throwing out anything either," said Steve.

They looked around and the place was a stye; Todd hadn't done any basic cleaning that a person should be doing to keep their house clean. Cathy was the one that did all the cleaning around the house, and it seemed that Todd didn't want to take up that job himself after she left.

"He was probably hoping I'd be back by now and clean up like I always do," said Cathy.

They began in the bedroom, with the remainder of her clothes and other personal items. She told Steve that he didn't have to worry about folding her clothes; he just had to throw everything inside the boxes and she would deal with them later. She went straight for her underwear drawer first, before Steve had the chance to get there before her. Besides her underwear, there was some lingerie and a few sex toys that she didn't want him to see. She threw all that in the box and closed it before he could see anything.

They got all of her clothes and a few extra things from the bedroom into four boxes. They even planned to take the TV and TV stand that were there because it was Cathy who bought it and she felt it was hers.

"That's everything we needed from the bedroom," said Cathy.

"You forgot that on the floor over there," Steve said, pointing to an area by the night stand.

Cathy walked over to that spot he was pointing to and picked up a black lacey bra with large cup sizes.

"Do you really think this is mine?" asked Cathy.

"It's not?" Steve responded.

"Steve, I know I'm your friend, but don't act like you haven't checked me out enough times to see that this can't be mine," she said.

Cathy wasn't naïve enough to think that none of her male friends had ever checked out her body. She had caught them looking several times over the years. She let it go because she knew how men were, and as long as they didn't stare too long or do anything inappropriate, she didn't mind the occasional looks. She was a short woman, around 5'2", brunette, with a slim body but with good-sized breasts that got noticed when she wore the right kinds of outfits, but her breasts were not big enough to fit into the bra that they had found on the floor of her old bedroom.

"Yeah, I see that now," said Steve.

"Must be from one of Todd's whores," she said as she tossed the bra away.

They took the bedroom boxes to Steve's pickup truck and took more boxes to get more things from around the apartment. They went through the kitchen, living room, and closet, taking what she thought was hers, and even a few extra things that were actually Todd's, but she felt she deserved to have anyway. She even took a few pieces of furniture that were hers, but left a few others behind only because she didn't want to have to deal with hauling them away.

It took them just a few hours to get everything in the truck, and they started to make plans to stop by somewhere for lunch before they headed off to her new apartment. Their good mood was short-lived; as Steve finished with the last ratchet strap to hold down the boxes in the back of the truck, a very familiar vehicle pulled up very fast next to them.

"Oh shit," said Cathy.

From the car came a tall man with a goatee, carrying a bouquet of flowers. It was Todd, Cathy's cheating ex. He was wearing the clothes he usually wore for hunting, and he came at her with a big smile on his face.

"Baby, it's so good to see you," he said as he walked up to her.

"You're supposed to be hunting today," said Cathy. "How the hell did you know I was here?"

"Someone we know drove by and saw you here and texted me," Todd told her. " I came as soon as I could."

He handed Cathy the flowers he had purchased for her, and she grabbed them and smashed them on the floor.

"I'm taking my stuff and getting the hell out of here forever!" Cathy yelled at him. "So, don't give me your usual bullshit."

She tried to walk away from him, but Todd grabbed her by the wrist to stop her. She tried to pull away from him, but he was too strong. He kept trying to talk to her, but she wasn't listening, and the more she struggled to break free from his grasp, the harder he pulled at her.

In the beginning, Steve thought he should let Cathy handle Todd in her own way as a way to stand up to him, but now that he saw him grabbing her wrist, he knew he had to interfere. He walked right up to them and forced Todd to release Cathy. This got Todd angry and he shoved Steve, who then shoved him back. They got into each other's faces, staring each other down. Todd was a good foot taller than Steve and way more muscular than Steve, but Steve didn't let that intimidate him.

"You should leave right now," said Todd, as he aggressively stared down at Steve.

"I'm not going anywhere," Steve replied.

"Then do something about it, pussy," said Todd.

"Why don't you try something, pussy?"

They went back and forth like this several times, threatening to hit each other and calling each other pussies. Cathy watched, impressed by how Steve was standing up for her. Eventually, it was getting annoying to watch them stare each other down and just call each other pussies and not actually doing anything. The whole situation reminded her of middle school, where kids in the schoolyard who were about to fight kept daring each other to throw the first punch, but no one ever did. Just like in middle school, someone had to stop that childish behavior, and Cathy realized that it was going to have to be her.

"That's enough from the both of you," she said as she got between them and forced them to separate from each other.

"Cathy, I just want to say—"

"Shut the fuck up, Todd," said Cathy. "It's over, you know it is. You just need me around because it makes you feel good to have someone you can treat poorly to compensate for the problems in your own life. It's emotionally abusive behavior, and deep down you know that's true. I'm taking my stuff and leaving forever."

She walked away from him, and Steve followed her. Todd didn't say anything, he just silently walked into his apartment. Steve and Cathy got into the pickup truck and drove away; she actually told him to drive away fast before Todd realized that she had taken things that were actually his and didn't want him running after them.

They stopped by for some burgers for lunch. Normally, Cathy didn't eat that kind of stuff because of how health-conscious she was, but after the day she had, especially with how she stood up to Todd, she felt that she deserved to indulge herself a little bit. Steve told her how impressed he was with how she handled herself with him, and liked the line she gave him at the end of why Todd only wanted to be with her. Cathy told him it was something she learned from therapy, and she couldn't wait to tell her therapist about everything in their next session.

Afterwards, they went to her new apartment and began to unload everything off of the truck and into the new place. Steve was actually impressed by how nice her new apartment was, and got jealous when he found out how much she was paying for rent. It took them a while to get everything off the truck, and then they had to organize the things they brought into the right places. Except for the boxes of her clothes, Cathy said she could handle them on her own.

With the big day they had, they finished everything by the evening. Cathy insisted on Steve staying for dinner, and he agreed. They ordered a pizza; it was more junk food that Cathy tried to avoid but made an exception for this time. They ordered from a new place that opened up nearby and were impressed by how great it was.

"I'm ordering from this place from now on," said Steve.

Cathy told him, "They may be too far away from you to deliver to." Cathy told him.

"Then I'm coming here more often to get this pizza."

They were in the living room, sitting on the sofa, eating their dinner on the coffee table. They were watching a sitcom on TV while they ate and had fun laughing at the show and just enjoying each other's company.

"Are you going to be OK by yourself here?" Steve asked. "I know this is the first time you'll be living alone."

"It will take some getting used to," said Cathy. "But I think I need this right now. My therapist says that I have a fear of being alone, which is one of the many, many reasons I had for sticking around with Todd for so long."

"I'm glad you finally stood up to him," said Steve. "I think he finally got the message."

"Yes, I think he did," said Cathy. "Can I tell you something?"

"What?"

"When I saw Todd in the beginning, I was actually happy to see him. I only felt that way briefly, but it did happen. And since we last saw him, I actually thought about calling him a few times since then."

"Wow," said Steve.

"I know it's bad, and I feel ashamed of it, but that's what was going on in my mind today. My therapist says that I'm an emotionally vulnerable person who could easily fall back into old habits like that. He says it's common, but the idea is to work on improving ourselves so we won't go back to those old ways again."

"At least you recognize that about yourself, and you can recognize when it will happen again and avoid those temptations," said Steve.

"But still, even now, I want to call Todd."

"What? No, don't do that," Steve cried out.

"I'm not," she assured him. "I'm just talking about it; my therapist says that just talking about it with friends will help me overcome these temptations."

"You're quoting your therapist a lot right now," said Steve. "He must be very good."

"Yes, he is, and I'm so glad he's gay, because with everything that I'm going through, I would've been trying to sleep with him by now, and that would bring up more things to talk about in our sessions."

They both had a good laugh about that and then ate more of their pizza.

"Anyway, I'm glad you're talking to me about it," said Steve.

"I'm glad you're listening," said Cathy.

They looked into each other's eyes and felt something at that moment. Without thinking about it, Steve leaned in and kissed Cathy on the lips. He held it there for a few seconds before pulling back from it.

"I'm sorry," he began to say. "That probably wasn't appropriate with everything you're going through and you probably—"

Cathy interrupted him by kissing him back; it was harder and more passionate than the kiss that Steve gave her. They held each other close as their tongues danced in each other's mouths. Cathy missed this feeling of being wanted by someone who actually cared about her. They pulled away from each other and looked into each other's eyes again.

"Is this a good idea?" Steve asked.

"Probably not," said Cathy. "My therapist probably says that because I'm an emotionally vulnerable person, I'm probably seeking something to make myself feel better about myself and forget my problems, even for a short while, but I will probably regret those actions afterwards."

"So, should I go home?"

Cathy got on Steve's lap, facing him as she took her shirt off and threw it away. Steve was looking straight at Cathy's white bra that showed a decent amount of cleavage. He then looked up at Cathy, who was smiling down at him.

"I'm in therapy; if this goes wrong, I'll just talk to my doctor about it," she told him.

They began kissing again. Cathy could feel Steve's dick growing in his pants, and she was getting excited thinking about it. Steve began by kissing her neck and then moved down to her breasts; he unhooked her bra and threw it away. He buried his face between her tits, kissing them and nibbling on their nipples. Cathy held his head close to her as he did this, getting more aroused by the second.

She got off of his lap, took him by the hand and led him to the bedroom. She took off her pants and Steve started to take off all of his clothes. She got a good look at how big his erection was and was very impressed by what she was seeing. She'd only had sex with three other men before, and for the last several years, she'd only seen Todd naked; she was nervous about having sex with someone new and with someone she'd known for so long, but she was intrigued by the prospect.

She made Steve sit on the edge of the bed, and she got down on her knees in front of him. She began stroking his dick and licking his head to tease him. She did this for a few minutes before she finally took his dick into her mouth. Her lips were firmly sealed around the shaft as her head bobbed back and forth on it. Steve just sat back and enjoyed himself as he was getting one of the best blowjobs of his life. Cathy began to deep-throat him, making small gagging noises as she did that. Steve was getting excited and wanted to get her on the be to begin having sex with her, but she wouldn't have it; she was having a lot of fun on her knees like this and wanted to continue a little longer.

Eventually, Cathy did decide to stop and get off of her knees. They both got on the bed and held each other as they began making out on the bed. Steve slipped off Cathy's panties that she still had on and then put his hand between her legs. He began to finger her pussy, rubbing the clit vigorously; he could feel how excited Cathy was getting by how heavy she was breathing.

He then positioned himself right on top of her and guided his dick right up to her pussy and drove it right in. The sudden thrust into her stunned Cathy; she didn't expect it to feel different than any other time she had a dick in her, but having a new dick inside her was what was making it extra special for her. Steve began fucking her; going slow at first, as he usually does, then picking up the pace until her pussy felt like it was being pounded by a jackhammer. She held him close to her as she began moaning loudly in his ear, telling him how much she was loving it.

They went on like that for a little while before Cathy made him turn over so she could be on top of him. She began bouncing around his cock, her tits jiggling all around as her hair was flying wildly. Steve had his hands firmly gripped on her hips as she was on top of him. He was loving how this woman was riding his dick. He couldn't help himself as he reached up and grabbed one of her tits. Cathy grabbed his hand and held it there on her tits, making him squeeze it hard as she was getting an orgasm from riding his dick.