Malice (21 page)

“Come on, Grace … it's not going to hurt anything … just for us … for me … you're so beautiful … let me take some shots of you. I won't show them to anyone if you don't like them. I promise. Cheryl is right. You'd be fabulous as a model.”

“But I don't want to be a model,” she said, and really meant it.

“Why not, for heaven's sake? You've got everything it takes. Height, looks, style, you're thin enough, young enough … most girls would give anything to have what you've got, and have a chance. Grace, be sensible … or at least just try it. What could be easier than to do it with me? Besides, I want to have some pictures of you. I've been seeing you for a month, and I miss you when you're not around.” He teased, and nuzzled her neck, and much to her own amazement, by the end of the afternoon, she relented, just for him. And she made him promise not to show anyone the pictures. They made a date for a shoot the following Saturday, and he warned her that she'd better not cancel.

“I don't know what you're so shy about.” He laughed as they made spaghetti in his kitchen
in
the loft. And that night they came closer to making love than ever before, but in the end, she said she needed to wait. It was the wrong time of the month for her, and that wasn't the way she wanted to start their relationship. Besides, she wanted to buy a little more time, and a week wouldn't hurt anything. The way she felt about him, it would only make it better.

She worried about their photo session all week, she hated the idea of being the center of attention like that, and of being a sex object. She hated everything it stood for. She liked working with the models at the agency, but she had never wanted to be one of them. It was really only for Marcus that she was doing it, and for fun. He made everything fun to do, as long as she did it with him. And the next Saturday she turned up promptly at ten o'clock, at the studio, as she'd promised. She'd been at St. Mary's the night before, she'd worked late, and she was tired.

He made her some coffee when she arrived, and he had already set up. There was a huge white leather chair, and a white fox throw covering part of it, and all he wanted was for her to sprawl on it in her jeans, and a white T-shirt. He made her untie her hair, and it fell over her shoulders lavishly, and then he exchanged the T-shirt for his own starched white shirt, and little by little he got her to unbutton it, but the shots were all very chaste and modest. And she was surprised by how much fun it was. He took her in a thousand poses, he had great music on, and each shot was almost like a caress as he danced around her.

They were still taking photographs at noon, and he handed her a glass of wine, and promised her a huge lunch of homemade pasta when she was finished.

“You know the way to a girl's heart at least,” she laughed, and he stopped inches from her and peered around the camera sadly.

“I wish I did … I've been working awfully hard at it,” he confessed, and she blushed and looked demure as he took a shot of her that he was thrilled with. Cheryl was going to love these. “Am I getting any closer, Grace? … to your heart, I mean,” he whispered sensually, and she felt a hot flush shoot through her. The wine had made her feel woozy, and she remembered that she hadn't bothered to eat breakfast. It had been stupid to drink wine on an empty stomach, and he'd already poured her a second one, and she was halfway through it. She didn't usually drink wine in the daytime, and she was surprised at how strong this was, when he asked her shyly to take off her jeans, pointing out that the shirt was long enough to cover her completely. In fact it was halfway to her knees, but she balked at taking her jeans off. But finally, when he promised her again that he wouldn't even show Cheryl the shots, she slipped them off, and lay back against the fur again with bare legs and feet and only his shirt covering her, unbuttoned to the waist, but not revealing anything. Her breasts were covered. She felt herself drift off to sleep slowly then, as she lay on the chair, and when she woke up he was kissing her, and she felt his hands caressing her all over. She felt his lips and hands, and she kept hearing clicks, and seeing flashes, but she couldn't tell what was happening, everything was swirling around her, and she kept drifting off and waking up. She felt sick, but she couldn't move, or stop, or get up, or open her eyes and he kept kissing her, and then she felt him touching her, and for a minute she thought she felt an old familiar feeling of terror, but when she opened her eyes again, she knew she had been dreaming. Marcus was standing there, looking down at her, and smiling at her. Her mouth felt dry, and she felt strangely nauseous.

“What's happening?” She felt frightened and sick, and there were spots in front of her eyes now, and he was just standing there, laughing.

“I think the wine got the best of you.”

“I'm really sorry.” She was mortified, but then he knelt down next to her and kissed her so hard it made her dizzy again. But she liked it. There was a heady feeling to what was happening, she wanted it to stop, and yet she didn't.

“I'm not sorry at all,” he whispered from between her breasts. “You're gorgeous when you're drunk.” She lay back and closed her eyes then, and his tongue trailed tantalizingly down her stomach to her underwear, and then forced its way inside it, licking lower and lower, until suddenly her eyes flew open, and she jumped. She couldn't. “Come on, baby … please …” How long did she expect him to wait? “Please … Grace … I need you …”

“I can't,” she whispered hoarsely, wanting him, but too afraid to let him take her. All she could think of now was the night her father had died, as the room spun around, and she felt sick again. The wine had really done her in, and suddenly she felt like throwing up and she was afraid to say it. Marcus was touching her then, and feeling places where no one had been in years, no one had ever been except her father. “I can't …” she said again. But she couldn't muster the strength to stop him.

“Oh for chrissake, why not?” For the first time since he'd known her, Marcus lost his temper, but as he did, she felt the wine take over again, and with no warning, she swooned and fainted. And when she woke up, he was lying beside her on the huge white leather chair covered in the white fur, and he had all his clothes off. She was still wearing his shirt and her underwear, and he was smiling at her. And all she could feel was a sudden wave of terror. She couldn't remember anything except passing out. She didn't know how long she'd been out, or what they'd done, but it was obvious that something had happened.

“Marcus, what happened?” she asked him in a terrified voice, feeling very sick now, as she pulled his shirt tight around her.

“Wouldn't you like to know.” He looked amused, he was laughing at her. She had been completely unconscious. “You were great, babe. Unforgettable.” He sounded cold and hard and angry.

“How can you say that?” She started to cry. “How could you do that with me passed out?” She felt her stomach rise to her throat again, and her chest tightened with asthma, but she felt too sick to look for her inhaler. She couldn't even sit up and look around her.

“How do you know what I did?” he said evilly, as he walked across the room, his splendid body exposed for her to see it. “Maybe I always work like this. It's so much cooler.” He turned to face her then, so she could see all of him, and she looked away, trying not to see it. This was not how she had wanted their first time to be, and she didn't know if she was more hurt than angry. It was what it had always been for her. Rape. It was what he had wanted. “Actually,” he went on, as he strolled slowly back toward her, “nothing happened, Grace. I'm not a necrophiliac. I don't go around fucking corpses. And that's what you are, isn't it? You're dead. You go around pretending you're alive, and teasing men, but when it gets down to the big time, you just roll over and play dead, and dish out a lot of excuses.”

“They're not excuses,” she said, sitting up awkwardly. She had found her jeans on the floor, and she pulled them on and then stood up unsteadily. She felt awful. And she turned away a moment later to take his shirt off and put her own on. She didn't even waste time putting her bra on. She felt too sick to worry about it. Her head was both pounding and reeling. “I can't explain it, that's all,” she said in answer to his accusations. She was too sick to discuss it, and she kept having the feeling that something terrible had happened. She remembered kissing him, and his saying things to her, and for some reason she remembered lying there with him, but she couldn't remember anything else. She kept hoping it was all a nightmare induced by too much wine on an empty stomach. She kept having flashes of him tantalizing her with his body. But she had no memory of his raping her. And she was almost certain that he hadn't.

“Even virgins fuck eventually. What makes you think you're so special?” Marcus was still furious at her. She was a tease and he was bored with it. There were plenty of other girls he could have had, and he had every intention of having all of them. He had had it with Grace Adams.

“I'm just scared, that's all. It's hard to explain.” Why was he so angry at her? And why did she keep remembering him naked above her?

“You're not scared,” he said, picking up his camera and making no effort whatsoever to put his clothes on. “You're psychotic. You looked like you were going to kill someone when I put a hand on you. What
is
it with you anyway? Are you gay?”

“No, I'm not.” But he wasn't far from the truth about her killing someone, and she knew it. Maybe she would always be that way. Maybe she would never be able to have sex with anyone. But she wanted to know more than anything now, for sure, if anything had happened while she was unconscious. She wasn't sure at all what he had done while she was passed out. And she didn't like the feeling of the flashes she was having.

“Tell me the truth. What did you do to me? Did you make love to me?” she said with tears in her eyes.

“What difference does it make? I told you I didn't do anything. Don't you trust me?” After what had just happened, not really. He had taken advantage of her while she was out cold. He had gotten her to undress, almost nude, but not entirely, and had taken his own clothes off. It certainly didn't look like a wholesome scene when she woke up, but nor did she feel as though she'd been raped. She knew that would have been a familiar feeling. Remembering that comforted her. Maybe he had done nothing more than she remembered. A lot of fondling and kissing and touching. And she had liked most of it, but she knew that it had scared her. She had the feeling that he'd been close to making love to her, but then he hadn't. Maybe that was why he was so angry. It was plain old frustration.

“How can I trust you after what you just did?” she said softly, fighting a fresh wave of nausea.

“What did I do? Try to make love to you? It's not against the law, you know. People do it every day … some people even want to … And you're twenty-one, aren't you? So what are you going to do? Gall the cops because I kissed you and took my pants off?” But she felt raped anyway. He had taken photographs she hadn't wanted him to take, and seduced her into exposing more of herself than she wanted, and he had tried to take advantage of her sexually when she was drunk. The odd thing was that she had never gotten drunk on a glass and a half of wine before. And even now, she felt ghastly. “I'm sick of playing games with you, Grace. I've invested a lot of time, and patience, and Saturday afternoons and pasta dinners. We should have been in bed two weeks ago. I'm not fourteen. I don't do shit like this. There are lots of other girls out there who are normal.” It was a mean thing to say to her, but as she watched him now, in his natural habitat, so full of himself, as he finally put his pants on, she realized that he wasn't the man she'd thought he was. He had a real mean streak, and it was obvious he didn't love her. He had only been nice to her in order to get what he wanted.

“I'm sorry I wasted so much of your time,” she said coldly.

“So am I,” he said nonchalantly. “I'll send the contact sheets to the agency. You can pick the shots you like.”

“I don't want to see them. You can burn them when you get them.”

“Believe me, I will,” he said acidly. “And you're right, by the way. You'd make a lousy model.”

“Thanks,” she said unhappily, as she put on her sweater. In a single instant, he had become a stranger. And then, she picked up her bag and walked to the door, and looked back over her shoulder at him. He was standing at a table taking film out of his camera, and she wondered how she could have been so wrong. But then, standing there, looking at him, the room spun around again and she almost fainted. She wondered if she was coming down with the flu, or just upset over everything that had happened. “I'm sorry, Marcus,” she said sadly. He just shrugged, and turned away from her, acting as though he were the injured party. He had had fun with her for a while, but it was time to move on. Pretty girls,
in
his life, were a dime a dozen.

He never said a word to her as she left, and she practically crawled downstairs from his loft, hailed a cab, and gave the driver the address of the town house. And when they got there, the driver had to shake her to wake her up and tell her what the fare was.

“I'm sorry,” she said thickly, feeling sick again. She was feeling really awful.

“You okay, miss?” He looked concerned as she handed him the fare and a good tip, and he watched her go inside. She was weaving.

And as she closed the door behind her, once she got in, Marjorie looked up from the couch. She'd been doing her nails, and she was horrified when she saw Grace. She was so pale she was green, and she looked as though she was going to pass out before she got to her bedroom.

“Hey! … are you okay?” Marjorie asked, jumping up and going to her, as Grace started to collapse in her arms. Marjorie helped her to her bed, and Grace lay there, feeling like she was dying.

“I think I have the flu,” she said, slurring her words again. “Maybe I've been poisoned.”

“I thought you were with Marcus,” she said with a frown. “Weren't you going to shoot with him today?” Marjorie vaguely remembered.