After Hours (InterMix)(43)
I couldn’t be sure what was happening with Amber and Marco. She didn’t have a restraining order, but I didn’t know if that was due to a paperwork delay or her *ing out with pressing charges. But he hadn’t bothered her since the afternoon I’d earned my formerly black—now yellow—eye, and she told me he’d dropped off a check. Whether that was true or not . . . The uncertainty gave me a headache, so I decided to not think too hard about it.
“Bullies tend to prey on weak people, people they perceive as worthless,” Dennis told me on Wednesday. We happened to be taking our mid-afternoon breaks at the same time, in the S3 lounge. I’d spilled the general details of what had happened at Amber’s when he asked about my eye, doing my best to make it sound like an isolated incident, not a drama that would threaten my reliability here at Larkhaven.
“Now, if some passionate party should happen to intervene,” Dennis said, nodding to mean me, “and demonstrate in no uncertain terms that the victim is indeed worthy, worthy of defending . . .”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I could never scare him off, physically. He’s huge, and strong. He must weigh as much as two of me.”
“But by proving that you’re willing to fight that losing battle over your sister’s honor and well-being, in turn you imbue her with an added perception of worth. You’re saying she and her son are worth putting yourself in danger for. And in turn, this Marco person is more inclined to respect her. Or at least value her.” Dennis’s amateur academic side was coming out, but I didn’t mind his turning my family nonsense into a case study. It could stand to be depersonalized.
Detach, I’d been chanting in my head, whenever the memory surfaced. Detach, detach, detach.
“We respect what others are willing to defend,” Dennis added, and drained his coffee cup. “We value what others value, or at least covet those things. But bullies don’t like conflict. Theirs is a cowardly facsimile of power, won only through sure bets. And they’ll always go after the low-hanging fruit.”
I nodded, but my thoughts had drifted from Marco.
It was Kelly I pondered, Kelly whom I’d always seen as a bit of a bully. But he didn’t want an easy target. If he was after anything, it was a challenge.
That first day I’d been at my weakest, and he hadn’t preyed on me when I was vulnerable, however possessive he’d acted at the bar. No, it was my resistance that seemed to get him salivating, like he wanted to pry me open after a good long chase. No low-hanging fruit for Kelly Robak. More a tough nut to crack, the meat surely all the more rich for the struggle.
I really needed to quit thinking of him as a predatory animal. But it was difficult not to, when all he did was prowl and pounce and leave me writhing in poorly veiled heat.
His invitation weighed heavily.
It weighed so heavily, in fact, that it often sank from my head straight through my chest and belly, settling like a restless, muscular presence between my thighs. I’d catch sight of his bare arm across the rec room, and my * would clench as though I were lounging in bed, nothing to occupy my brain but idle sexual fantasies. But this was during work. When I needed to be focused on dosages and staying alert for signs of trouble. One foolish glance at the cotton stretched taut between Kelly’s flexing shoulder blades, and I’d have to start my pill count all over again. It made me wish the nurses’ booth had blinds. But even then, the sound of his voice held the same power. He might say to a resident, “What channel you want?” but my memory echoed words from that night in my bed. That’s where I want to be, it whispered, invisible fingertips drawing a tingling line along the seam of my sex. Can’t wait to hear you beg.
I wanted to sleep with him. Badly. Worse than I’d ever wanted anyone. And the longer I resisted the idea, the weaker my argument grew. I’ll have feelings for him, and it’ll sting when he loses interest. But it wasn’t like I was in love with him, or that I’d have a mental break and wind up stalking him, yowling naked on his front steps demanding he give me a second shot.
My disappointment, should it come, would be private. And what was the threat of a few days’ sheepish disappointment, compared to an entire weekend of theoretical pleasure?
Who does that? I’d asked him. Who f*cked all weekend?
I could. I really, really could. All I had to do was say yes.
Say yes, and spend two debauched days doing the same—saying yes to his every command. Where in the tenets of feminism did it say it was liberating to stubbornly deny yourself pleasurable sexual experiences just to spite a bossy man? No place. Feminism isn’t a zero-sum game. Choosing not to sleep with Kelly, and our scoring zippo additional orgasms off each other? That was zero-sum. Banging each other’s brains out for one memorable weekend? Win-win.