Of course, that she opened her legs so willingly and widely didn’t appear much like rape, but he’d fix that by thrusting hard.
“Yes!” she moaned.
Was she actually attempting to enjoy this? How dare she! She was hugging him, which spoiled the rape effect, got him dangerously close to coming, and also hurt him where Roland had kicked his ribs, so he took her wrists and held them down on either side of her head. He came anyway.
She moaned slightly. With pain. Or at least he tried to believe it was with pain.
That hadn’t done the trick. She still wanted him. He got off the bed, feeling emasculated. He dared not inform her that he had raped her, for fear she’d laugh in his face. He didn’t know what to do. He took his rat from the cage and stared into its beady eyes, and thought to it, Did you see Jessica cheating on me, again and again? He couldn’t tell what response the rat was giving him, but he was sure the answer was yes.
The phone startled them both. It was a wrong number. Alan turned off the ringer and sat on his armless white easy chair in front of the window, staring out. He said to Lynn, “Leave me alone for a bit, will you?”
She sat on the couch and read a magazine, glancing at him regularly.
“What happened to your face?” she finally asked.
He didn’t want to tell her Roland had beaten him up. “I fell.”
After a while he went and took a shower. At noon he said he was going out for a walk.
Perhaps if he allowed her to stay in his apartment, she wouldn’t follow him down the street. It would be a welcome respite.
An hour later, when he opened the door to his apartment, he was assaulted by a delicious smell of cooking.
He felt oppressed and comforted at the same time. He happened to be hungry. Dammit, he thought. And when he finally got a glance at her, she was wearing nothing but boxers and an undershirt, and she looked damn sexy.
She came out of the kitchen with a saucepan and presented him with the wooden spoon, asking him to taste her sauce. She pushed it against his mouth more gently than he had pushed himself into her. He parted his lips reluctantly and tasted. Mmm. His stomach growled. He hoped she hadn’t heard it, but her smile seemed to indicate she had.
“Sit down. It’ll be ready very soon,” she said, and sauntered back into the kitchen, her firm butt jiggling in that special way only firm butts can.
Five minutes later, she placed a meal on the dining table.
He dug into the pasta. It was good. He felt embarrassed by the pleasure it brought him. He ate, his eyes focused on the plate. He looked up at her only once, just out of curiosity, and she was looking at him, smiling. He looked back down, irked. He ate a few more mouthfuls, pushed his plate away, and was about to get up when she said, “There’s more.” She got up and came back from the kitchen carrying a warm crème brulée. Damn, he thought. He didn’t know she cooked. He pressed his palms over his face. What was he going to do? She giggled. She must have guessed his thoughts. Yes, he would eat some crème brulée. But that didn’t mean she had won. The grilled caramel on top looked crispy. And the smell. The smell was perfect, too.
He just stared at it.
“Eat it,” she said.
He picked up the spoon and tasted the crème brulée. He frowned. How had she become such a good cook? Had she taken secret classes? He ate all of it.
“Please make love to me again,” she said.
‘Make love to me again’? That’s what she thought he had done before? I fucking raped you. What was the point of even trying? He looked at her coldly.
“Please make love to me again,” she repeated.
“I never made love to you,” he said, getting up from the table.
“Ouch.”
Ah, now, finally, she said ouch. It was about time.
“Please take me again,” she said, stepping in front of him. She held his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. He didn’t move. His arms hung limply at his sides. She raised them and attempted to wrap them around herself, but when she let go of them, they fell.
“I don’t want to,” he said. “I didn’t want to before, and I don’t want to now.”
“You didn’t want to before? You could have fooled me,” she said.
“That was an act of violence, not of sex,” he informed her, hoping she knew he had just uttered the definition of rape.
But she didn’t pick up on it.
“I wish you would go home and leave me alone,” he said.
She kissed his ear, licked his earlobe. He hoped she couldn’t feel him getting hard. She stuck her tongue in his ear.
He wished she knew the art of seduction. How to play hard to get, blow hot and cold. At least then he’d get momentary respites from her stalking while she blew cold. It would be so refreshing. He would search his course catalogs for a class for her. It might even teach her how to give up.
Alan pushed Lynn away. She stroked his jawline, caressed his left buttock. He pulled his hips back slightly, so she wouldn’t feel his erection.
“God, I love you,” she murmured.
He had backed up against the bookcase, and he couldn’t back up any farther. The shelves dug into his back.
“You’re hard!” she said.
She rapidly unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, lowered them and his underwear.
“God, you turn me on,” she said.
He pressed his lips shut, his arms spread at his sides, hands resting on shelves. He was looking away from his penis, the way he would look away when blood was being drawn at the doctor’s office.
She was rubbing her thumb around the tip of his penis. He held his breath. He would not move an inch.
She pulled him to the bedroom and to the bed, laid him on his back, and straddled him. He stared fixedly at the ceiling.
She slid her tongue between his lips, licked his teeth. Nothing worked. She gave up trying to kiss him, and just rode him, her cheek against the side of his head. He could hear her panting in his ear. Her breath was warm. And then she sounded different. The panting turned to sobbing, and she rolled off him and curled up on her side, her back to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You’re not responding,” she said.
He sighed, got dressed, and moved to the living room. She followed him.
Alan was starting to think about Jessica again, and it made him sad. He suddenly remembered that Lynn didn’t know he and Jessica were broken up.
“You’ve made yourself quite at home, cooking a meal, and everything,” he said. “What if Jessica walked in?”
“This is the first time you brought her up. You haven’t used her as an excuse for why we shouldn’t do what we were doing. That’s a good sign.”
“A sign of what?”
“That she doesn’t have such a strong grip over your affections. Or maybe a sign that she doesn’t satisfy you completely. I mean, you know, you’re cheating on her.”
“No, I’m not. I would never cheat on her.”
Lynn frowned, then her features softened into a smile. “You’re not?”
He shook his head.
“That’s great news!” she said. “When did it happen and over what?”
“It’s not great news. I’m very upset.” He sat on the couch.
“Oh, don’t be!” she said, hugging him from behind. “I’ll make you better. You’re my honey.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Everyone can decide who her honey is. The honey can’t object. The honey has no say. The honey can only decide who his honey is, not whose honey he is.”
Lynn took off Alan’s shirt. Not this again. He tried to resist, but with so much lassitude that she succeeded in undressing him completely within three minutes. She spread plastic from the dry cleaners under his butt and over the couch.