“I’m aware of that. Do you begin to understand now? This is about making you feel worse than you’ve ever felt.”
“Yes, yes.” She was sobbing a little. “Please. I’ll do anything.”
“I know that.”
She sniffed.
“Lick my feet.”
“Seriously?” She couldn’t help herself.
He reached down and slapped her quickly across the face. “Now. Or I’ll change my mind.”
He put his foot in front of her face, and after one quick look up into his eyes, she stuck out her tongue and began licking. He sat down on a nearby chair, and he motioned to her to crawl over to continue. He held his other foot out, sole up. “The bottom,” he said. And she did it.
He sat back and wiggled his toes. “Umm. That feels terrific. And I hadn’t even thought of it until now.”
She said nothing and kept licking. Her eyes were closed.
“Open your eyes.”
She did as he said.
“Suck my toes.”
She obeyed.
“Now you’re not going to do anything else to try to salvage your ego, right, sweetie?”
She nodded, a toe in her mouth.
“Good.”
He leaned back again. “God, I could let you do that for hours.”
Her eyebrows betrayed her consternation, but she said not a word.
“Now my ass,” he said. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Good. You’re learning.”
He stood above her and spread his legs. He could see the calculation in her eyes. He was ready, if she tried anything. She sucked her lips in, then took a deep breath and raised herself up to a kneeling position behind him. She began to lick the outer curve of his ass.
“And you know that’s not where I meant.”
She grimaced again, closed her eyes, put her hands on his ass cheeks and pulled them slightly apart. She stuck her tongue out and began to lick his anus. This act ranked pretty high, although not at the top, on the list of the hardest things she’d ever had to make herself do in her life. And, metaphorically speaking, the night was still young, she knew.
He told her she could stop after about five solid, endless minutes. She rubbed her tongue with her hands and made small retching sounds. He ignored her. He went over to a satchel on one of the tables nearby and took out a pack of cigarettes.
“Do you smoke?” he asked, holding one aloft in her direction.
“I do now,” she answered.
He put two in his mouth and lit them both, then handed her one.
“Just like Paul Henreid in
Now, Voyager
,” she said, almost to herself.
“Exactly,” he said, delighted. “You really get me.”
“You’re mocking the very notion of romance, aren’t you?”
“Now that you mention it. I guess I am. I guess I do every minute with you.”
“Is that part of it?”
“What, exactly?”
“To make me lose faith in romance?”
“Oh, I don’t know if that’s the goal,” he said airily. “But it’s certainly a very likely side effect, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. She was still on the floor, waiting for his next instruction. He was walking around the living room, looking at the art and the view from the picture windows. There were only a few pieces of furniture, a sofa, two end tables, a couple of chairs. No coffee table; the middle of the room was open. The emptiness there corresponded with the central floral pattern of the Oriental rug. There were several, good-sized paintings on the light ivory walls.
“Nice sculpture. What is that?”
“It’s a mother and baby in an embrace.”
“I like it.”
“It doesn’t set off bad memories for you?”
“Please. Don’t waste your energy trying to figure me out. It isn’t worth it.”
“Low self-esteem?”
“I expressed myself poorly. I meant, it isn’t worth your while to do so. You might want to focus on other things.”
“What else could be more important?”
“You’re not going to psych your way out of this by understanding me. You’d be better off—” He stopped. “Nice.” He smiled in appreciation. “I guess instead of giving you any guidance, I’ll just let you focus on whatever you want.”
“Oh, god,” she said, from the floor. “I don’t know which is going to be more exhausting. The intellectual fencing or the fucking.”
“Oh, that’s easy. The fucking.”
“Ha. Ha. That’s what you think.”
“If you’re smart, you won’t fence.”
“Can I move to the ashtray, please?”
He slid one over to her.
“Thanks. Uh. How about a drink?” she asked. “Sir?” she added.
“Are you offering?”
“Yes, I guess. And asking. For some reason, this situation is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.”
He laughed. “My ass, I believe, is the reason. Sure, but just one. I want you sober for this. And pour me one of whatever you’re having.”
While she poured herself a shot of whisky and threw it back, he sat down, buck naked, on her leather couch. “Crawl over here with that drink and lie at my feet.”
She did as he demanded. He took the drink, downed it, and picked up the remote. “Now what’s on?” he said and started clicking.
“I’ve figured out my strategy,” she said, as he flipped through the stations.
“Really. And what is that?”
“I’m going to do exactly as you say, whatever you want.”
“And why tell me this?”
“I don’t know. I just thought I’d let you know.”
“I’m not sure if that’s wise.”
“Well, wouldn’t it have been wiser, or more effective, anyway, if you hadn’t told me anything about what you were doing here or why?”
He thought for a moment. “Maybe. But I did that to make it a challenge for myself. This kind of job is usually so easy. This way, I’m determined to achieve my effect even though you know exactly what I’m aiming for. When you lose this fight, you’ll feel even worse. Anyway, I’m such a gregarious fellow. How could I spend so much time with someone and not converse?”
“Do your employers know how you approach this sort of thing?”
“They just see the results. Nobody’s been disappointed yet.”
“Gulp,” she said, out loud.
“And well you should,” he said. “Oh. What’s this?”
It was SkinaMax. She didn’t rise to the bait.
“It’s almost over,” she said, in a bored tone.
“Too tame, anyway. For us.”
“It is kind of gauzy for pornography. It’s more like women’s fantasies than men’s, I think.”
“You may be right.” He kept clicking. “Certainly nothing like mine.”
“Do you have fantasies? I mean, after all, you get to live them.”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe your fantasies are the opposite of other people’s,” she said, again, almost as if he wasn’t there. “Maybe yours are about normal, everyday sex or even love. Somebody whispering, ‘I love you’ into your ear while you fuck in the missionary position in the dark, or about your kids giving you a present on Father’s Day. Maybe those are your kinky fantasies.”
“Very funny,” he said, without any humor. “And what are yours?”
“Oh. Being raped by someone like you, stud. Isn’t it obvious? Deep down, I’m living the dream.”
“Careful.”
“You said I could talk.”
“That is true. But have you heard the expression, ‘cruising for a bruising’?”
“No fair threatening me with physical harm when I’m not misbehaving. That’s not the game. You said yourself. You get points deducted for that.”
“The game?”
“Destroy or be destroyed. That’s the game, isn’t it? You’re trying to destroy me without any significant violence. And I’m trying to not be destroyed, and all I have is words. Isn’t that the game?”
He thought for a moment. “The violence question remains open. But, yes. That’s pretty much the game.”
“Ok, then.”
“You do get points for that,” he decided, with a slight smile. “You may sit in a chair for a little while.”
She actually smiled briefly and climbed into a big, fluffy one.
“Cozy?” he asked.
“Peachy,” she replied.
He couldn’t help grinning. He was thinking about what he was going to do to her next.
She was thinking about crawling. The crawling she’d already had to do. The crawling she was sure she would be doing. The crawling that people inevitably did when someone was trying to kill them and they were trying, however fruitlessly, to get away. The crawling that never saved them.
It had been a while since anyone had seen her naked. Longer still since she’d had occasion to parade around the house that way. It was something you did when you were first involved with someone. Both of you wandering around before, during, and after sex completely nude. And comfortable. It was such a lighthearted feeling, stopping and looking in mirrors, one behind the other. Safe. Yes, that was it. Natural and safe, if maybe a little naughty.
Of course, that ended after you had a child. Except perhaps on those rare occasions when the kid was with his grandparents or overnight with his aunt and uncle. Martinis and omelettes and late-night movies completely in the buff.
This man made a mockery of that.
Although, he was also a reminder. Of what it felt like to know somebody as intimately as that, to know a man’s body, head to toe. To know his penis and his testicles and the space in between, to know them like the back of your hand – the color, the hairs, the taste. A man had not peed in front of her since she’d lived with her husband. It was an intimate act. Or the complete opposite, like being in prison, the ripping away of all privacy. She knew that this man’s infliction of his own and her nakedness on her was meant to disorient her, but strangely, it had the opposite effect inside her. That was how it used to be, that familiarity, that belonging, that other body being as much yours as your own. He was repeatedly making the point that her body now was in his possession, but it was inevitable, in a way, that the reverse would become true as well. He should have, but he didn’t stop her from looking him over the way he looked at her. He liked being looked at, it was clear. He had a good body, solid, well-muscled in the military, not bodybuilder style, very strong. He had a few faded scars, most likely where someone had tried to fight him off or kill him, but no tattoos. Tattoos were identifying characteristics. He was smart.
And he clearly felt comfortable naked, which was not typical. Comfortable doing things naked, things most people did dressed. Her husband had been like that, too. You can’t afford to be handicapped in a fight by even the slightest hint of self-consciousness. You can’t stop to put on a robe or worry about your exposed genitals. Men like this were bottom-line professionals.
Despite what he represented and what he was trying to do, she found it fascinating to look at his body.