“So that should be the end of it all, shouldn’t it? No need to debate anymore,” he noted.
“Except you still need to work through these inconvenient feelings of yours,” she suggested.
“Oh, right. My feelings. Well, what’s left to work through? You’ve told me I don’t feel love. You’ve told me I can’t expect you to feel anything like that for me. What’s left?”
“You tell me.”
He frowned. “How I’ll feel when this is over, I guess.”
“And how will you feel?”
“Pointless.”
“What an interesting word to use.”
“And empty. And lonely.”
She said nothing.
“I feel like killing you right now,” he said suddenly, almost raising his voice. “Because of what I just said to you. I should never have said that. And you heard me say it. Basically saying that I need you. Like throwing my power away.” He looked confused and a little angry. His hands were clenched.
He was so close to her, and he could do anything right now. She felt a spike in her fear and hastened to speak. “I don’t see me controlling the situation here all of a sudden, so I think we can conclude that your power is intact.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. This is a psychological battle, and you know it. If all I wanted was to kill you, you’d be dead. I’ve just told you something that makes me weak.”
“Does it, though?”
“Huh?”
“Does it really make you weak? Are you in any quantifiable way weaker?” she persisted. “I think it’s the bravest thing you’ve said.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
“Of course I would, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Instead of hurting me or killing me, you just honestly expressed a feeling of need. Isn’t that, well, like, progress?”
“Not in my line of work.”
“No. I suppose not. If this is your life’s work.”
“Even with all of this, underneath it all, I can’t help loving that you’re engaging in this debate with me, so intelligently, so carefully.” He stopped for a moment. “Can I use ‘love’ that way?”
She shook her head, then shrugged. “Why not?”
He pulled out of her finally.
“You must be a bad person,” he said, out of the blue.
“Me? Why?” she asked, startled.
“Nobody good could be as kind as you’re being to me.” He held up a hand to forestall any comment. “Yeah, yeah, I know part of it is just playing along with me, keeping me happy, but there are a million ways you could be talking to me and a million different things you could be saying, and essentially, what you’re being is kind. You’re not lying to me to lead me on. You’re being honest. You can’t be good.”
“Well, I don’t know how to answer that. To tell you the truth, I think I
am
good. I’ve always considered myself good. Just a little more realistic than maybe how we think of good people as being. I’m good, but I’m not an idealist.”
He chuckled. “But ultimately good can never compromise with evil.”
“Really?” she asked. “Are you sure?”
“Well, wouldn’t that be bad?”
“Good has always compromised with evil. Made deals, negotiated, peacefully co-existed. When it’s been realistic.”
He turned and took her in his arms. “Look how you made my angry feelings go away. At least temporarily. You figured out that weak is the one thing I can’t stand to feel, and you made me not feel weak. Now I have the strange desire to make you feel good. A little reward for being so good. And I mean that in every sense of the word,” he added, in an insinuating tone. He started to touch her.
“Oh, god,” she said. “I gotta tell you. I don’t think I have another orgasm, real or fake, left in me.” She tried to wriggle a little away from his grasp.
“None of them were fake,” he said.
“You’re right,” she conceded. “None of them were fake.”
“Well, then, never say die,” he said, continuing to touch her gently and teasingly. She just sighed. She tried to rise, but he pushed her torso back onto the bed sheets and moved down until his head was between her legs, his eyes looking up at her.
“Aw, man, you don’t have to –,” she began.
“Quiet,” he interrupted her. “I can do this.” And he continued in his efforts.
“What’s the difference between you trying to please me and anyone else doing this exact same thing?”
He brought his head up momentarily. “Oh, it’s still different. I’m forcing you to enjoy yourself. It’s my decision, not yours. Now shut up. I won’t tell you again.”
She shut up and left him to it. And though she was bone tired, there was, just this one time, a different feeling all around. They could both sense it, though neither said anything, for a change. Despite his words, there was a lifting of the threat, for just a few moments; there was a purity to the sex that was, as far as was possible, separate from the war. There was a friendliness.
Ultimately, she felt herself beginning to come. So did he. He continued doing the last thing he was doing until she finished. Then he smoothly glided into her again, feeling the last scattered contractions of her orgasm on his penis, and thrusting in a relatively benign fashion in and out, while gazing down at her flushed face.
It didn’t take him long to come, even without violence. And when he did, he whispered two words: “Hold me.” Very quietly. It was not a threat and not an order, she knew that. Not this time. And so she reached her cuffed hands up and over his head, around his shoulders, and pulled him toward her, closing her eyes and bringing her cheek next to his. She held him, and they lay there for a few moments, simply resting, briefly at peace, knowing soon it would all begin again.
S
he couldn’t help it. As awful as he was. And though it wasn’t any part of her plan. When he asked her to hold him, she did. He needed it, so she did.
That was the funny thing about sex. The things you did because of it. Wait. Everything about sex was ultimately funny. She could see that even from the supremely unfunny position she was in. The funniest thing was that something that felt so good could be turned into a physical weapon, an often devastating weapon. Only people could do that with sex. No. Correction. Only men.
Sex was messed up to begin with. You could have great sex with someone you didn’t like at all, bad sex with someone you did. It was a huge mystery all the while you were growing up and then when you finally had it, if you were female, it was like,
what the fuck
? The buildup was great, but the first experience of penetration, was like, what the hell was that? It was just weird. Interesting, yes, different, sure, but not like it feels to a man. A woman had to learn how to enjoy penetration; men loved it from the start. And they didn’t need a woman to enjoy it for them to. And that’s where the trouble began.
She knew there were women who came from being penetrated, but not a lot of them. Most everyone else was lying. It was more of a cerebral pleasure at first. The thought of it was appealing, meaningful. To take another into oneself. To be entered. But you had to learn how to really enjoy it physically.
And what an amazing word for it: penetration. That was kind of a laugh, too. Technically, it was correct. Men did penetrate, did enter the body. But they didn’t penetrate into what the woman was thinking, they didn’t break through there. Sometimes they thought they did. They looked into your eyes afterward and thought that there had been some great convergence, of spirit, or of mind. Not usually. You had to know someone very, very well for that. You had to love someone.
But sex didn’t require love. Or consent.
This one knew what he was doing. He was an expert actually, at knowing how to touch a woman, how to please her. He must have studied. But the most important thing about him, as a rapist, was that he enjoyed sex because the woman didn’t. How fucked up was that? Some people used to think that men raped because they couldn’t get a woman to give it up voluntarily, but that was never it at all. They wanted what didn’t want them. They wanted to decide for
someone else. And the decision was always yes. Sex and power, like the man said.
So many ways in which sex could be made to hurt.
Because you didn’t want it and you had no say.
Because if they raped you, like in Bosnia or Darfur, you were dishonored and a shame to your family.
Because it’s just our secret, and if you tell anyone, I’ll hurt them, too.
Because he’s fucking someone else at the same time, and you’re the last one to know and you feel like an idiot.
Because you’re just a girl, and the whole school hears about it and snickers.
Because no one will have it with you.
Because it’s what you had to do to get him to stay.
Because his wife doesn’t understand him.
Because she does.
Because you got knocked up when that was the last thing you needed.
Because you can’t get knocked up no matter how hard you try.
And then, of course, it can be made to actually hurt. Physically. This guy liked to hurt on at least two levels at once. Either making you like it when you didn’t even want to do it in the first place. Or making you hate it because he could be as brutal as he could be kind. He was decent looking. He probably had money. He could have sex any way he wanted any time he wanted. But he liked it this way.
“This game has become so complicated, even I’m beginning to lose track of the sides.” He paused while he shook the last few drops of urine off of his penis, then flushed the toilet, while she sat on the side of the tub, waiting, then he guided her back to the bedroom. “But I think when we left off, you were supposed to be persuading me as to why I shouldn’t consider changing the course of events here.”
“Arghh.”
“It has to be done, I’m afraid.”
“Really? Does it? Or maybe we should talk about what just happened.”
“What just happened?” he asked innocently.
“A temporary suspension of hostilities?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re just getting tired. I’m wearing you down. Soon your Stockholm Syndrome will be complete. And you’ll think you love me.”
She shook her head with a short laugh. “Will I? Is that what happens? Is that how it ends?”
“Maybe. With you. It’s different for different people. I’m sure I told you that.”
“So I should feel like an ass that I was nice to you for a minute there. ‘Cause really, how absurd was that?”
“If you weren’t acting, then you
should
be ashamed.” He pushed her down onto the bed again, while he stayed sitting on the edge.
“Not if... I felt sorry for you.”
His eyebrows rose. “Very nice. I guess that would just about make you a saint.”
“You’re supposed to take umbrage. I just said you were pitiable.”
He looked at her. “I am, though, aren’t I? Most people wouldn’t be able to see that for a second, let alone act on it. Like you did.”
“I was just faking.”
“No,” he said. “You weren’t. For those few seconds, you really meant it, didn’t you? How is that possible?” he asked, apparently to himself.
“You asked for it.” Her voice was gentle.