“I wouldn’t know!” I said crossly as I turned and looked up at the crack in the ceiling. “Sorry! Did I touch a nerve?”
“It’s all right.” I sighed.
She propped herself up on her elbow. “Are you ready to go again? I have to leave early tonight.” She sounded so practical; so antiseptic; like the time when Catherine and I were trying to make a baby and we had to screw on a schedule to increase our odds of impregnation. It took the intimacy out of sex, not that there was any intimacy anymore in the acts that Amber and I performed. Where at first she came to me at night to sleep with me, and at least in my mind to make love to me, she now came to fuck me; to get her rocks off; to take her orgasm as from a restaurant menu, to choose her desired positions: appetizer, entrée and dessert.
I answered with my silence. I didn’t want to have sex with Amber anymore. I felt vile for having given in to her pressure and at having included Melanie in our dirty sexual banter. I was also disgusted with myself for being the passive submissive. I was the blackmailed man-whore serving the satanic bitch who held my life in her hands. I wondered how I could ever have taken Amber for the sweet misunderstood housewife. She was cheating on her husband just as Catherine had cheated on me. She was no good, but she had a hold over me and for the first time since I had come to Kansas she had clarified our roles; had all but stated her position of power over me. For the first time since I had slept with her I felt cornered…like a mouse.
“Well lover, are we gonna fuck or what?”
* * *
I changed the bed sheets and sprayed air freshener in my bedroom before I climbed into the tiny tub and tried to wash Amber’s musky balm from my body as I bathed in the stubby tub filled with scalding hot water. I may have been paranoid but I couldn’t seem to escape Amber’s tincture and I new that Melanie would be stopping by to see how Amber had taken the news. I was such a coward. I wanted my freedom but I was willing to settle for tranquility. Not that I necessarily felt that I was ready to commit to Melanie; but I felt trapped, like a ping-pong ball being batted in an unending volley.
I heard the kitchen door open and close followed by soft footfalls and then the bathroom door opened.
“Can I join you?” Melanie said with a teasing tone.
“Sure there’s room on the spigot.”
She kneeled down next to the tub and then reached into the water. “Yes, there is room on the spigot.” She leaned into me and kissed me prying my lips apart with her tongue. Our kiss lingered for a moment before she released my lips.
“You’re going to get wet.”
“I hope so.” She stood up and grabbed a towel from the chrome-plated towel rack that was slowly pulling away from the yellow plastic wall tiles and she held it open for me as I stood.
“How did Amber take the news?”
I drew a breath and toweled myself dry, “She didn’t take it at all.” I said dejectedly.
“What do you mean?” Melanie’s voice carried a mixture of agitation and deflation.
“I mean she refuses to give me up.” I looked Melanie in the eyes so that she could see in my eyes that I felt helpless.
“It isn’t her decision. It’s yours.” She crossed her arms.
“If you’ll remember, she has something on me.” I draped the towel around my waist and tied it at the side, “I’m not saying that she would turn me in, but the truth is she might. She made it quite clear that it was not my decision to make. I can’t be with anyone if I’m in jail. I can’t take care of Sarah if I’m in jail.” My voice was as of a child pleading for mercy.
“What did she say about us?”
“She was happy for us. She wished us much sex and happiness. She wants us to have a little orgy with her.”
“That cunt!”
“Well you did sleep with her before didn’t you?” I knew it was a low dig but I wanted to put things into perspective.
Her eyes widened in surprise. I could tell that she felt betrayed by Amber for revealing such a private tidbit; and she felt stung by me for saying it.
“That’s what she said anyway.”
She turned away, her face filled with disgust, and walked slowly and broodingly toward the kitchen but I ran, dripping a trail of water behind me, and caught up with her midway to the door and grabbed her by the arm and turned her toward me. I looked into her pretty green eyes and found not a stripper but an injured child. She was willing to strip in front of men, but at heart she was an innocent. She was a victim. I felt a close connection with her. She really had fallen for me. She had been sitting back quietly while she watched Amber come and go and all the while she had been waiting for me to put aside playful things and come to her. I was both flattered at the level of her commitment and warmed that someone so young and Beautiful could feel a genuine love for a wretch like me. I was twenty years older than she. I was an accused murderer with no real prospects and yet she wanted me. And I found, in that moment, that I wanted her too.
“I’m just telling you what she said. Please don’t be upset with me. I’m a little trapped here.” I suddenly longed to have her warm body next to mine for the night. At that moment Melanie reminded me of Catherine in the way that she had exposed her vulnerability to me. And I was a romantic at heart. I wanted and needed her love and comfort and understanding, and I wanted to give her the same.
I tugged her hand but she pulled it away, “You’re playing me.”
I turned to her again and held her hands, and spoke softly, “I don’t know where we’re headed. My life is a complete train wreck right now, and I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I’m not playing with you.” I drew a deep sigh, “I would like to be with you tonight. I would like to take it slow and see where this leads if you still want to be with me. I don’t have any control over the rest. All I can tell you is that Amber means nothing to me anymore. You, on the other hand, mean a great deal to me.”
She studied my eyes for a moment and then she pulled herself to me and kissed me. I led her to my bedroom and closed and latched the door and I made gentle love, for the first time in my life, with someone besides Catherine. And afterwards we spooned and I cupped her breast in my hand and I slept peacefully for the first time since the night Catherine died.
11
For the next few months Melanie spent her nights with me, except on the evenings when Amber would stop by for her sexual servicing. Amber would call me after work on a Friday or early in the day on a Saturday and she would inform me of what time she would be arriving. She never came out and directly coerced me but whenever I would make an excuse as to why I could not keep my appointment with her she would retort with a veiled threat such as: I don’t think that would be wise of you, or more directly, That detective Bergant called me again today looking for you. Do you think we should invite him to share our bed?, and I would ultimately capitulate
I must admit that at first I was a little confused at Amber’s obsession with me; at her unwillingness to relinquish control over me. I was nothing special. I’m sure that I was an adequate lover and I was by no means hideous, but I am equally as sure that given Amber’s firm young body, her long alluring blond locks and her undisputable beauty, that she could have slept with any man she wished if she had plied her wares publicly; but upon reconsideration I think she got off sexually on the whole power trip. She just seemed to enjoy the manipulation. She had, in her mind, a sexual slave in me whom she controlled under the guised threat of incarceration. Her orgasms were no doubt heightened with each session in which I acquiesced to her primal demands. She grew bolder towards the end as she brought sexual toys to spice up her play. On the last night that we spent together, at my most degraded moment and despite my fervent protest, she tethered me to the bed with my own neckties (the only four I had). Then she pulled out a strap-on dildo and dangled it in front of me while I shook my head from side to side (my mouth was gagged) then she strapped the device to her body and she raped me while I cried like a little baby begging her to stop with every violent thrust of the un-lubricated plastic prosthesis. Had I known what she had in mind