Читать книгу Enchanted Again - Nancy Madore - Страница 5

Birds of a feather

flock together

and so do pigs and swine.

Rats and mice will have their choice,

and so will I have mine.

Pansy’s spine arched reflexively where Jack’s hand gently prodded her forward, and a shudder crept menacingly along the length of it. She stepped timidly into the room ahead of him, hardly mindful of her actions or the events that were unfolding around her. She seemed more in a dream than real life, as detached from the events as a figurine in a game of chess. For the moment at least, she felt more like a spectator than a participant.

The instant that Jack shut the door behind them, however, Pansy suddenly snapped out of her dream state and came fully alert, and even the air all around her seemed to crackle with life. Jack, too, abandoned his cool demeanor and was seized with a violent passion, grasping a fistful of Pansy’s hair and jerking her head around so that her face was directly beneath his, with her lips parted for his approaching kiss. Pansy awoke to an explosion of sensation, and she clung to Jack frantically as he captured her lips in an all-consuming kiss that devoured the last of her reserve. She pressed her body against his with a sigh, causing him to kiss her even more passionately. His hands began moving deliberately over her clothing, finding buttons and zippers and clasps as he expertly removed every stitch without ever interrupting their kiss. Pansy was stripped to the skin before she even realized what Jack was doing, and though she normally had reservations about having her body so utterly exposed, Jack’s unyielding, take-charge manner left her with no time for objections—neither uttered nor even imagined, for that matter—and no choice but simply to enjoy the wonderfully vulnerable sensation of simply submitting to another’s pleasure. Pansy felt a slow, languid tightening in her womb that pulsated outward, causing the flesh between her legs to tingle and swell and moisten.

Once her clothes were removed, Jack took hold of Pansy’s hair again and gently pushed her head down toward the floor. She twisted awkwardly at the waist at first, but then bent her legs and moved onto her knees, supposing that he wanted her to take him in her mouth, but he kept pushing her down even farther, until her elbows too rested on the floor. With a mixture of apprehension and delight she succumbed to the position and waited breathlessly for what he would do next. She was keenly aware of the dirty hotel-room floor where she waited on knees and elbows, but it only seemed to accentuate the moment, making it all the more thrilling. She had only the briefest of seconds to consider any of this before she heard a long swooshing sound from behind her where Jack stood. Even as her mind was registering the sound of his belt sliding out from his belt loops, Jack swung it around with vigor and landed it with a loud, resounding crack across the underside of her buttocks. The sound rattled her eardrums with a peculiar ring before the sting of the blow struck her consciousness. There was a subsequent volley of lashes that followed, some four or five at least, before she managed to cry out. She was stunned by how much the blows smarted, and all of her desire of just seconds before seemed to freeze in that instant. She made an effort to get up.

Jack held Pansy down with one hand on the small of her back, but he did not immediately resume the lashes. Instead, he positioned himself so that he was straddling her, with one leg on either side of her, and he grasped her hair again and gently pulled her head back so that he could look down into her face.

“You can’t leave before you get everything you came here for, Pansy,” he said in a surprisingly composed voice. He paused to scan the contents of the floor all around her and picked up something near her leg before continuing in the same matter-of-fact tone. “And whether you realize it or not,” he said, “this is part of what you came here for.” At this point he began, ever so gently, stuffing Pansy’s panties into her mouth. Her eyes grew even wider at this, so he explained, as if as a side note, “This is just to cut down on the noise. Okay?”

There was nothing in Pansy’s experience to come close to preparing her for the sharp thrill that shot through her when she heard these words from Jack, so, without even considering what they meant, she found herself vigorously nodding her head in agreement. Jack kept pressing her panties between her lips until her mouth was forced wide open. She continued to stare up at him in wide-eyed astonishment.

“Now, Pansy,” he resumed calmly, “you have done nothing but put yourself down all the way over here, remember?” Pansy merely stared at him.

“Remember?” he repeated more forcefully. She nodded, but only because she realized he expected her to.

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad you remember that. Because that is what you did. You said awful things about yourself. Think about it. You said all those things because deep down you want to be punished.” He looked down into her face expectantly after saying this. With one hand Jack held Pansy’s head back so that he could see her face. With his other hand he began to gently caress her cheek. Pansy’s mind was starting to work again. She tried to recall what she had said. It was not unusual for her to put herself down; she did it continually. But her mind balked at the idea that she wanted to be punished. On the contrary, she had always believed her self-deprecating comments were designed to forestall others from drawing the same conclusions. When she was hard on herself it seemed others were prompted to contradict her.

Jack could see by her expression that she was considering what he had said, so he continued. His voice was soothing. “When you’re punished for something you don’t like about yourself, it makes it better.” For some reason these words sent conflicting sensations simultaneously rippling through her; one of panic, the other of arousal. “You’ll see,” he concluded, keeping a tight hold of her hair to keep her from squirming as he picked up the belt and resumed the quick, steady lashes over her buttocks and thighs.

Stinging pain and mortification came in a brutal downpour that lasted for several moments; long minutes where Pansy forgot her arousal and her nudity and her guilt and every other thing that had been a part of her consciousness before. Initially she felt something akin to hysteria, and was even overcome with an urge to erupt into wild laughter. But quickly her laughter turned into sobs, and the hysteria faded away in the sharp reality of the all-consuming pain and heat spreading through her. At one point she became immersed in her efforts to escape the lashes, but upon the realization that she could not evade them she gradually accepted them, and in the end she was consumed with merely enduring the harsh onslaught with the anticipation that it would eventually come to an end. And although she had ceased her efforts to escape, her hips bobbed and jiggled rebelliously, seemingly in an effort to predict where the next lash would fall and futilely attempting to dodge her assailant’s level eye. The skin of her backside burned hotter and hotter with every blow and Pansy could do little more than squirm and cry out in muffled sobs. The beating continued until Pansy was conscious of nothing but the searing pain that lit up her flesh like wildfire.

Then quite abruptly the blows stopped, and Jack dropped the belt on the floor beside her. Pansy’s eyes were still wide and frantic, and her hips continued to move in the rhythmic motion of her struggles. She was breathing heavily from her exertions and her gasps for air mingled with her muffled sobs. Jack pulled her head back again until her eyes met his, and she suddenly became still and ceased her crying. Even her tears seemed to halt on her cheeks. They stared at each other for a long moment. She felt as if he was observing her from within. He leaned closer and tenderly kissed her wet cheek.

“You took that well,” he said gently. Something within Pansy jolted, but outwardly she merely continued to stare silently into his eyes. His other hand began moving lightly over her blazing haunches. She couldn’t contain a slight moan when he touched the tender flesh. There was a strange combination of disbelief and acute attentiveness all around her and she struggled to ascertain what was real. Jack caressed her bottom thoughtfully, moving his fingers tentatively over the rising welts in her flesh. Very leisurely he let his fingers roam all around the area, and eventually he slipped a finger between the two round mounds of her buttocks, sliding it up and down along her crack. He slowly continued guiding his finger up and down; extending the span with every stroke until at last he reached her labia lips and pressed a few fingers into their silky folds. His fingers slipped in easily and Jack thrust them in and out brusquely, reveling in her soaking wetness, and accentuating the slopping sounds to add emphasize to his next remark. “You see,” he said, “how much you wanted that?”

Pansy simply stared up at him. She felt as if she was drugged. Her flesh ached more acutely where he fingered her playfully than where the swollen welts still raged. She felt a slight tugging in the back of her head where he still held her by the hair. “Do you see that, Pansy?” he asked her again.

She could not speak through the panties in her mouth. The pain of the lashing was subsiding into an achingly hot tenderness that pulled at her womb and spread warmth throughout her lower body. Slowly she nodded. This simple admission caused her swollen sex glands to contract. Jack felt the contraction with his fingers.

“You’re really a very good girl,” he said huskily, causing more of the little contractions, and making her engorged sex sting. Jack’s fingers moving in and out of her only managed to tantalize, not to satisfy. “We could take your punishment one step further, Pansy,” he murmured. Her eyes were still fixed on his, and they widened slightly when she heard his words. “This time it’s up to you,” he assured her quickly. Her eyes bored into his. “I know your bottom hurts,” he continued. “I can see that it hurts because it’s so red and hot and swollen.” Again he caressed her burning flesh. “But in order to get the full amount of pleasure—to get what you need from it, Pansy—you have to want it. You have to want it so much you’ll beg for it.” Pansy closed her eyes when she heard this. She dreaded what she was about to do even though she had no doubt that she would do it. How could she stop this now? Wasn’t she already here, naked, on her hands and knees, getting carpet burn on a dirty hotel-room floor, with a virtual stranger, having already given him more of herself than she had ever shared with her husband? The most difficult part—the part where she’d agreed to come here with Jack in the first place—was over and done. To stop now would be to go home with all the guilt and none of the satisfaction. She could do no less than to see it through to the end.

Besides all of this, Pansy had never been so aroused in her life, and she knew that some small part of her really did want this. She opened her eyes. Jack was still watching her intently. She nodded her head in the affirmative. She saw him smile and felt a brand-new thrill of fear. He carefully removed the panties from her mouth. “Well?” he prompted.

“I…want it,” she said, self-conscious. Her mouth was very dry.

“Ask for it.”

“Will you punish me again?” she asked, feeling her face burn. But her eyes didn’t look away from his.

“Beg for it, Pansy.”

She paused only a moment before continuing awkwardly. “Please…Jack…please punish me again. Punish me harder this time!” And suddenly she meant it. Her hips were already swaying back and forth in anticipation of the blows to come.

“It will hurt more this time, Pansy,” he said, looking to subjugate her a little more with every word. “Your flesh is raw from the punishment I already gave you. Are you sure you want more?”

Pansy faltered, recalling the pain. Jack smiled to see her hesitation. He wanted her broken. She began to tremble. He waited patiently for her answer.

“I’m sure, Jack,” Pansy said after another moment. And all of a sudden, she was sure, even yearning for what was to come. “Please, Jack, please! I need you to punish me some more.” She was overjoyed when she saw that he was pleased by her words.

“It will be good after, Pansy,” he told her, stuffing the panties back into her mouth. He paused to touch her face affectionately. “I promise you that.”

Her sex felt as if it was consuming her. She braced herself for the blows to come. He had not lied. The pain was twice as intense when it was inflicted on her raw flesh. Her hips bounced and jerked miserably as the blows fell over them and the flames of pain licked up along the length of her. She cried out and thrashed with all her might, knowing no one but Jack could hear or see her, and that it pleased him to see her so. In her wild abandon and absolute suffering she felt as if she was being released from something terrible, even though the incredible pain and heat was virtually consuming her.

Pansy was nearly beside herself by the time the second beating finally stopped and Jack threw down the belt for a second time. Without a word he immediately began removing his clothes. Her hips continued to rock back and forth and she moaned absently. She had rested her head on her arms, and gradually became quiet as it occurred to her that the worst was finally over. Her buttocks were rutted and inflamed and quivering. Her mouth was still held open wide with the panties. When Jack approached her she looked up at his hard, throbbing sex in wonder.

“Keep your head down,” he said hoarsely, adding approvingly when she complied, “Good girl. Now bring your hips up nice and high for me…higher.” He guided her hips up so high that she was obliged to unbend her knees and distribute her weight between her hands and feet. “That’s it,” she heard him murmur, and at long last she felt the hard length of him slide easily into her aching hole.

“Mmmhhh,” she moaned, shuddering, and she heard his responding moan mingled with laughter.

“I’ve never seen anyone need a spanking that badly,” he said, driving into her with hard and rapid thrusts. “You must have been really bad to need all that punishing.”

“I…am,” she tried to tell him though her words were garbled. She enjoyed these kinds of demeaning innuendos while in the throes of passion, and wanted to encourage him to continue in the same vein.

“Did you need to be punished because you’re an adulterous whore?” he asked, pounding himself even more violently into her. He found this kind of talk exciting, as well.

“Yes!” she cried unintelligibly, slipping her fingers over her clitoris.

“That’s it,” he coaxed when he noticed her arm reaching between her legs to touch herself. “No need to be shy with old Jack. I know what cheating sluts like you like even better than you know yourself.” He could see his words were exciting her even more. He wanted to hear more of her replies. “Have you ever been spanked like that before?” he asked her.

“No.”

“Your husband doesn’t spank you like you deserve?” he queried, thrusting harder and harder.

“No,” she choked out again.

“But you deserved it, didn’t you, Pansy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she cried out. Her fingers were enthusiastically rubbing her clitoris.

He grasped her bright-red buttocks and began roughly kneading them with his hands as he continued to batter her with his thrusts. “You can still feel it, can’t you, Pansy?” he asked her, knowing full well by her moans that she could. She responded in the affirmative. He squeezed her buttocks harder. He saw that she liked these painful reminders by the way her movements became more and more frantic with every squeeze from his prying fingers. Seeing that she enjoyed it, Jack became increasingly crude with her. “You’ll remember it tonight, too, when you fuck your husband, won’t you?” he asked her, and when she paused over the reminder of her husband, he repeated, “Won’t you, Pansy?” It was at that moment that she climaxed, ironically, while she was crying out that she would indeed remember this later that evening when she was in bed with her husband.

Almost immediately after the last waves of pleasure passed, Pansy felt a peculiar detachment from Jack, even though he continued to drive himself into her, all the while telling her what a “cheating whore” she was. She kept her head down and pushed her hips toward him, hoping he would finish quickly. “Oh, yeah,” he groaned. “Push that pussy out for me.” And with that she at last felt him erupt inside her. Her arousal was fading fast now, with morose quickly following on its heels.

Jack remained joined with her for much longer than she would have liked him to, but finally he pulled himself out of her and went over to the bed and collapsed on top of it. She stood up, unsure of what to do next. Awkwardly, she pulled the panties out of her mouth. She realized that Jack was still watching her when she heard him laugh. This pleased and annoyed her at the same time.

She moved with controlled calm, aware that just beneath the surface there was—lying dormant until she was alone—a wealth of recriminations and anguish over what she had just done. For the moment, she walked around in a kind of daze, picking up her scattered items of clothing and clumsily putting them on. Jack merely watched her quietly from the bed.

When she was fully dressed she faced him self-consciously. In spite of her jumbled emotions she managed an awkward laugh. She waited for him to say something.

He surprised her with, “Are you okay?”

This seemed too personal somehow, so she brushed it aside with a small wave of her hand and in a shaky voice she replied, “Of course.”

He saw her discomfort. “Look, Pansy,” he told her. “I want to see you again. I like you. I know it got a little…well, let’s just say I lost my head.”

In spite of her regret Pansy felt a brand-new kindling of desire from his words. “I don’t know, Jack,” she said hesitantly. “I’ve never done anything like this before, and I feel…I feel—” She stopped, at a loss for words.

“You enjoyed it, Pansy. There’s nothing wrong in that.”

“I know,” Pansy answered quickly. She did not want to think about the things they had done and she certainly didn’t want to discuss them. “It’s not that. I mean…it’s…I don’t know what it is. I need to think.”

“I want to see you again, Pansy,” he repeated. He suddenly seemed terribly vulnerable to her.

“I have to go,” she said. She approached him on the bed where he sat watching her and lightly kissed his cheek. She wasn’t sure what else she was supposed to say or do. “Bye for now, Jack,” she said.

Once she reached the shelter of her car, Pansy slumped down and let out a long, shaky sob. She was all at once assailed with so many conflicting sensations that she couldn’t even pinpoint what she actually felt. Overall there was a sensation of distress so potent it fell over her like a dark blanket of misery. She wept bitterly for several moments and then her tears stopped abruptly. As she forcibly resumed the familiar activities of her life, like turning the key in the ignition and shifting the car into Drive, she determinedly fought the revulsion that was steadily creeping over her.

“It’s going to be okay,” Pansy said out loud. “It was a onetime thing that I won’t ever do again.” She tried vigorously to pinpoint what it was that was bothering her so much. Certainly there was no love lost between her and her husband, and even more certainly there had been no real wrongdoing on her part, especially in light of her husband’s many indiscretions. And yet, this was the first time she had ever been unfaithful to him. Even so, she could not believe that the simple act of adultery, committed within such a marriage as theirs, could bring about such anguish. She was actually feeling afraid; but of what? Images of her affair with Jack kept tumbling into her consciousness and, though she recoiled at the reminders, when she forced her mind to receive them she found that they still had the power to arouse her. Yet this realization only seemed to make her feel worse. How could she have allowed herself to be treated that way? How could she have begged for it like she did? She could still feel the wetness of her panties from having held them in her mouth for so long and her revulsion and fear returned. Was she depraved?

On a deeper level that she could not yet dwell upon, Pansy faintly acknowledged that she had never felt such pleasure as she had with Jack. She continued to scrutinize her feelings over the matter as she drove home, struggling to achieve some sense of calm before having to face her husband. This mere contemplation of her husband brought forth such a sense of panic that she nearly lost control of the car. Her mind had only to mingle the thought of her husband with the memories of that afternoon to put her in a state of absolute terror. She knew well how abominable the things she had done with Jack would be to her husband. Were he to find out, he would most certainly destroy her. This, then, was the primary source of her fear. Anger came at her from every direction at the realization. Yet she whispered frantically, over and over again, “He must never find out!”

When at last she arrived home, Pansy appeared calm, except for a slight trembling. She entered the house tentatively. Tom was there. She could hear his voice, loud and argumentative, as he shouted objections at someone, most likely over the telephone. She was still steeped in morbid fear and regret, and longed for a hot shower. She dreaded seeing Tom more than usual, but oddly enough, the sight of him as she paused in the doorway of his office, slumped in his chair, angry and arrogant and bitter, seemed to fully exonerate her of any culpability. She struggled to wipe the grimace from her features as she stared silently at him, recalling absently how her mother once warned her that frowning might make her face stay that way. She intended to move away from the doorway before capturing his attention but, like a bystander at a gruesome accident, she couldn’t seem to pull herself away.

“Tapes malfunction every day,” he was saying to the person on the other line.

Especially when you’re around, Pansy thought.

She reflected that she felt different. Perhaps what she had done today had changed her somehow. But if she had changed, Tom had not. He was the same self-absorbed, miserable bastard. He looked up suddenly, barely registering her presence before proceeding to look through her as if she were no more than a picture on the wall.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said into the phone. “You act like this bum deserves the royal treatment or something. He’s the scum of the earth.”

Innocent until proven guilty, Pansy thought.

Tom slammed down the receiver suddenly and immediately launched into a tirade, addressing her, seemingly, but nevertheless oblivious of her.

“Goddamn paperwork is going to keep me up all night,” he said. “They need to decide if they want me to sit around dotting i’s and crossing t’s, or if they want me to get out there and serve and protect.” This was a familiar theme for him, but by now it was glaringly plain to Pansy that by “dotting i’s and crossing t’s,” Tom was not referring to some pointless red tape but, rather, he spoke of the actual tasks involved in investigating a crime—tasks which Tom felt he was above having to perform. He relied solely on his instincts when he decided whose rights to violate, and those instincts had been schooled over the years with the various prejudices he had acquired, all of which he considered “intelligence,” and which rarely coincided with the evidence that kept cropping up to make him look bad. The appropriate processing of evidence was a thorn in his side, and those who pressed for details were, to him, troublemakers.

Pansy knew from experience that Tom particularly disliked being disagreed with.

She warred with the muscles in her face that were reflexively assuming an expression of acute contempt. “They don’t appreciate you,” she muttered perfunctorily, but her lips and tongue cringed over the words, and they came out sounding like an accusation.

“Damn right, they don’t,” he said, looking directly at her then, perhaps to see if there was any insincerity in her remark; for if he had any sense of reality he would never be able to trust such a comment. He got up and stretched. Pansy’s eyes moved over him, noting with loathing the way his ill-fitting uniform emphasized the unsightly bulges that stretched out across his abdomen and hips, giving him an androgynous appearance from the waistline to his thighs. She wondered if he had ever actually physically pursued a suspect and then, quite unexpectedly, a small snort of laughter burst from between her lips. She immediately covered over it with a cough.

Feeling compelled to say something in the silence that followed, Pansy asked, “Is this the same case you’ve been working on all week?”

Tom let out a long sigh. “Yeah…the Foreman case. This new jackass at the D.A.’ s office keeps sending it back to me…finding things to nitpick over.” Pansy had no doubt that the “things to nitpick over” were really holes in the case—holes that the former district attorney would have ignored, pressing forward blindly only to push for a plea in the end. That way everyone came out a winner. Everyone except the accused, that is—if he or she was innocent. And what were the chances of that?

“What’s the matter this time?” Pansy asked, stalling until she could find the right moment to escape. She wondered that he didn’t notice how different she was. She was certain she must look different. But then, even she couldn’t identify what it was exactly that had changed about her. All she knew for certain was that she had changed. She shuddered. Tom went on, oblivious of any change. He was oblivious of her, she realized suddenly.

“This D.A. actually accused me of harassment!” he said, thrilled for an audience to talk to, even if it was only Pansy. “He just won’t accept the fact that the guy is guilty.”

“What did he do?”

“He killed his wife!” Tom said, looking at her as if to say, How do you like that? “He killed his goddamn wife!”

She wondered. It was one thing to accuse someone of murder; it was another entirely to prove it. Coming from Tom she found it hard to believe. She felt an instinctive aversion to the positions he took on nearly everything now. She wondered about this new district attorney. She secretly admired him. So, he refused to play ball? Well, that was refreshing. Although, she knew from experience that the D.A. would eventually come around. They always did.

She watched Tom, mesmerized, as he poured out his troubles with the case to her. She struggled to find any redeemable qualities in him but failed. She wondered why she married him. Poor, impotent, misunderstood Tom! She pitied the people he came up against, and another wave of fear and dread came over her. Thank heavens he hardly ever noticed her. He had no inkling whatsoever that less than an hour earlier she had been in a hotel room, groveling on her hands and knees, begging to be beaten with a belt.

Finally Tom wound down enough for her to make a graceful escape, which she did with a sigh of relief. A sense of guilt lingered over her, gaining strength with each little pang of discomfort that reminded her of her time with Jack. She pondered over the guilt for a moment; she thought she had gotten over that in the car. It occurred to her that the guilt was for herself, not Tom. The love between her and Tom had been gone for many years now, but she had stayed, and this suddenly bothered her. Yet how could she leave? As inept as he was at everything else, Tom did manage to somehow keep a roof over her head. She was certain she could not manage as well on her own. Things were difficult enough as they were. It seemed to her that this was an impossible world to survive in all alone, and it seemed more difficult every day. In the event of a divorce, Tom, with his connections, would see to it that she got nothing. She would have to start over from scratch. Who would take care of her? She thought about Jack and shuddered. There was nowhere for her to go.

But the thought of Jack lingered and grew stronger. Little flashbacks of what he had done to her kept playing themselves out in her mind, giving her almost as much pleasure as the actual events had. The memories sent simultaneous surges of shock and excitement through her. But what shocked her the most was Jack’s interest in her to begin with. Why had he chosen her? She knew there was nothing remotely outstanding about her. Most men didn’t even notice her. She had never possessed any one particular characteristic that drew them to her, but then again, she didn’t feel she was especially unattractive either. There were things that she saw in herself that she felt were overlooked…perhaps Jack saw these things, too. She recalled how persistent he had been with her when they met. He had approached her quite unexpectedly in the coffee shop just around the corner from where she lived. She had gone there every morning for years, and then one day he was there. She noticed him immediately because he was the first patron of the bustling little shop ever to notice her. His eyes were always on her when she happened to glance at him, and he smiled unabashedly when she caught him staring. It was Pansy who would, at these moments, look quickly and guiltily away.

It took only a few mornings of this before Pansy and Jack began exchanging small greetings of acquaintance, such as a smile and nod of the head, or a quick “good morning.” Pansy was curious about him but had no thoughts of satisfying her curiosity. Soon Jack began talking to her while they waited together in line, which he would unapologetically saunter into at whatever place Pansy held in it. He did this so casually that no one thought to question him, least of all Pansy. He would lean in and say confidential things in a low voice meant for her ears only. Sometimes he made comments about the other customers in the shop and other times he would tell her little things about himself. These comments, made in hushed tones, seemed inordinately intimate to her and she became more and more certain as the days went by that he was propositioning her. Yet she couldn’t quite believe this could be true, and later, reflecting upon it, she would actually laugh at herself. But the next morning there Jack would be, standing so close that she could feel the heat of him as he commented on something innocent enough in and of itself, but in a tone and manner that once again had her pondering over his meaning.

One morning Pansy impulsively voiced her conclusions about his behavior.

“Why are you flirting with me?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a laugh. “All I know is that I want to do things to you.” Those words, spoken in his low, determined tone while his eyes were boring into hers, had been her undoing. Although she managed somehow to resist a few more of his advances, she knew the moment he had uttered those words that she would not be able to rest until he had done whatever “things” it was that he wanted to do with her. And aside from her bursting curiosity over what those things might be, the fact that he wanted to do things at all, and that his mind had even conjured up the things to begin with, had been a copious feast for her undernourished sense of self.

Pansy stood under the hot water in her shower as her thoughts volleyed back and forth between Jack and Tom, exhausting her with the conflicting feelings both men aroused. She felt a kind of ecstatic horror when her fingers first identified the welts Jack left on her buttocks and thighs, which brought with it a wave of exhilaration so unsettling that she had to brace herself against the wall of the shower to keep from falling down. God forbid that Tom should come rushing to her aid if she did fall, only to discover those welts. This brought her thoughts back to Tom with annoyance. And all of these sentiments only left her feeling more confused when she reluctantly turned off the quickly cooling water and stepped out of the shower. She dried off and shrouded herself in her most matronly nightgown.

For a reprieve, Pansy’s thoughts wandered to the case Tom was working on. She wondered about the man he accused of murder and she found herself once again ticking through Tom’s many faults. It annoyed her that he could sit there and complain about having to produce more evidence when he was so likely in the wrong. Once she might have debated the matter with him; but now she knew only too well what it would cost to disagree with anything he said. Tom did not like to be crossed. He could never bear to have any negative suggestion made against him. Strange then, how casually he was able to point his finger at others, especially when he had the power to actually destroy their lives when he did so. She thought about the man who Tom was so rigidly pursuing. Tom had ranted and raved about the difficulties he was having with the case, but he had never mentioned a single fact that proved the man had committed murder. Did the man he accused really kill his wife? Was Tom actually right for once? After all these years with Tom, Pansy had difficulty imagining Tom being right about anything. How could he be? He had absolutely no relationship with the truth. He despised all forms of it, and even lied to himself, regularly and perpetually. He rarely looked at any single thing objectively. But thinking of Tom for too long acted on Pansy’s mind like a depressant. She forced him from her consciousness as she nestled down in their bed, where she let Jack once again creep into her thoughts.

Pansy asked herself what it was about Jack that caused her to think of him so often in the short time that she had known him. He was the opposite of Tom in every way. Lean and strong, with raven hair and coloring to match, he was all at once to Pansy beauty and danger and excitement. Dark and baleful, it was difficult to know what he was thinking. He did not whine and complain, as Tom often did. He was mysterious and perhaps a little treacherous. But to Pansy’s mind he could not be cruel or evil. He was not empty; he was closed, and there was a difference. Tom, for all his ranting and raving, hid a hard, malicious soul. Pansy laughed at herself suddenly. Here she was, defending Jack, as if it mattered. She would likely never hear from him again. Or worse, she would see him at the coffee shop and he would completely ignore her. And yet, she wondered. How could their experience together have changed her so much without having any effect on him?

Pansy was still awake hours later when she heard Tom approach their bedroom, but she quickly rolled onto her side, facing away from his side of the bed, and feigned sleep. Tom shuffled around in the dark room, clumsily undressing. The bed groaned under his heavy weight. Pansy sighed.

Suddenly and unexpectedly Tom’s hands were all over her, tugging at her nightgown awkwardly. Surprised, Pansy sprung around and rolled onto her back before his hands could reach her swollen buttocks. She wondered over his untimely advances. He had not touched her in months. Perhaps he had sensed a change in her after all…

Tom was still struggling ineffectually with her nightgown, so Pansy raised her hips to make it easier for his bungling hands. When she was bared from the waist down, she mechanically raised and opened her legs for him as he approached. He began thrusting himself at her, doubly annoying her because, as usual, he had made no preparations or allowances for her to accept him and, even worse, he wasn’t even anywhere near the point of entry where he was blindly and stubbornly jabbing forward. Was he ever able to get any single thing right? she wondered with exasperation.

Pansy reached down and grasped hold of Tom’s penis with exasperation, maneuvering it so that at the very least it would have a place to go when he thrust forward again. The lack of foreplay did not overly disturb her because thoughts of Jack had kept her in a continuous state of arousal and wetness since she left him. Tom groaned in surprise when he felt how wet she was. He automatically assumed that he was the cause of her excitement; just as he automatically assumed it was her own failure when it was otherwise. But he was genuinely pleased by her wetness, whatever the cause, and it increased his excitement as he began pounding himself into her. This conclusion to the events of her day had a strange effect on Pansy. Thoughts of her affair mingled with her absolute hatred for Tom to create an effect that suddenly seemed terribly exciting. She moved her hips rhythmically beneath him so that her clitoris rubbed against his body, further surprising and delighting him. “Pansy,” he moaned, slowing his thrusts and switching gears suddenly from merely using her body to making love to her. She preferred the feeling of being used by him, however, and his sudden gentle lovemaking quieted her passion considerably and, even worse, brought out more feelings of guilt. It occurred to her that her feelings were always subject to the actions of the people around her. She tried desperately to simply enjoy the rare moment of mutual goodwill between her and her husband, but it was no good. She was too aware of the man that Tom was, panting and sweating copiously from the simple exertions of ordinary lovemaking while his flab battered her from above. She bit her lip and wished for it to be over.

At the coffee shop the following morning Jack strolled confidently into line next to her, standing so close that his hand could lightly brush the small of her back without anyone around them noticing. She was shamefully relieved and delighted to see him.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he murmured, leaning in so his warm breath touched her ear as he spoke. As improbable as his words seemed to her mind, her heart clung to them fiercely.

“Me, too,” she whispered breathlessly. Her heart pounded. Why me? she kept wondering.

“This afternoon,” he said.

“Oh…I don’t know…” She paused. So soon? The welts still hurt. And while the memories kept her in a constant state of arousal, the thought of actually doing those things again frightened her.

“This afternoon, Pansy,” he repeated more firmly. A thrill shot through the center of her.

“Okay,” she agreed with equal parts exhilaration and apprehension. She walked around the next few hours in a fog. She could think of nothing but seeing Jack again. She whiled away the hours in a fever, trying to occupy the time in between. One of the things she found to do was to bring her husband and his cronies lunch at the police station.

Pansy’s excitement was palpable when she stepped into the precinct where Tom worked. He had been pleased by her generous offer to bring him lunch, but did not wonder too much over it, taking it in stride as his due. It didn’t even occur to him to wonder if her exuberant smile and starry expression was for anyone other than himself.

Pansy tried to appear unperturbed, but her mind had difficulty staying on what she was doing. Tom and his friends noticed this only so far as the inconvenience they felt that their sandwiches were all mixed up. Pansy merely laughed when they pointed out her mistakes. But in a sudden instant her laughter died and her face went slack. The men around her did not even notice the alteration in her, preoccupied as they were with getting their lunches in order.

Pansy’s gaze landed on a photo lying on Tom’s desk. Jack’s face stared up at her. A strange sense of unreality came over her. Random thoughts flitted through her mind as she struggled to achieve a blank expression. After several moments she attempted to speak.

“Who’s that?” she asked no one in particular, pointing at the picture of Jack.

“That’s him,” Tom replied with his mouth full of food. A clump of something greenish in color flew from his mouth and landed on Jack’s face. “That’s John Foreman, the wife killer.”

“Oh,” Pansy said. Of course it is, she thought. She had a strange urge to throw her head back and laugh hysterically.

“Tried to make it look like an accident, but I have no doubt he killed her,” her husband continued. As she looked at her husband she distracted herself by wondering why he always began a new sentence after taking a huge bite of food. She looked again at the picture of Jack. The green glob on his cheek made him seem rather pitiable. Thoughts raced through her mind. One carried the realization that it was not coincidence that brought her and Jack together. And yet, her heart rejected this.

Still, the more serious issue was that Jack was accused of murder. She wondered why this wasn’t her primary concern. If it were anyone else but Tom accusing Jack perhaps it would bother her more, but knowing Tom as she did, it was hard to give the accusation credence.

She was less than an hour away from her meeting with Jack. What if Tom was actually right for once? What if Jack really was a killer? Was it even safe for her to meet him alone in a hotel room? No one else in the world would know where she was. Thoughts kept pouring through her mind in frantic disarray. Always uppermost among them was the question of why Jack had pursued her to begin with. Had he approached her because she was the wife of his accuser? What did he ultimately want from her? This, more than anything else—even the potential danger she was in—filled her with an overwhelming sense of despair. She sat down in a nearby chair, suddenly weary. All of the energy and happiness of only moments before had vanished.

Tom and his companions had continued talking, oblivious of any change whatsoever in Pansy.

“He’s a clever one,” Tom was saying. “I’ll give him that. Always covers his tracks.”

“You’ll get the bastard,” one of the others chirped in.

Pansy only half listened, concentrating all her efforts on breathing evenly. It was a struggle to remain composed. She tried to soothe herself out of the overwhelming confusion. Why should she care what Jack’s motives were in seeing her anyway? What was he to her? But an all-consuming sense of hopelessness enveloped her. Nothing good ever came to her. Everything was suspect. She looked at Tom with perverse loathing. Everything associated with him brought her anguish, she thought unreasonably. She wished fervently that he was dead. As was her habit during these crucially unhappy moments of her life, she distracted herself by pondering her husband’s existence, finding comfort in conjuring up reasons why Tom might in all likelihood die an early death. It seemed not only probable, but inevitable. There were so many factors in favor of it, and it gave her hope to go over them, methodically and analytically. Why, his very position as a police officer was purported to put his life at risk, although Pansy could not imagine him ever being heroic or anything like that. More likely his arrogant disregard for the rights of others would eventually anger someone enough to provoke violence. But there were many other risks to Tom’s life that she had found to deliberate over. On this occasion, as she watched him practically inhale his sandwich, she found herself wondering how it was possible that Tom’s arteries, which by now had to be lined with numerous residual coagulations from years of habitual ingestion of every sort of saturated fat, never managed to halt the flow of blood and end his miserable life. How much longer could they hold out? Even as she thought these thoughts, she noticed all around his desk evidence of his slovenly eating habits, including several stale donuts and wrappers from fast-food restaurants. And yet, there he stood, ranting and raving like a healthy young toddler; pudgy and dimply and ruddy. His continued good health seemed a personal affront to her.

Pansy glanced at the clock and wondered what she should do. It seemed obvious now that Jack was only using her, but she still wanted to see him. Once again she blamed Tom, who had created in her such a desperate hunger for affection that she would crave the touch of any man who would have her. She couldn’t bring herself to listen to Tom and the other overstuffed peacocks of his precinct for another instant so she abruptly stood up and left the police station.

Although Pansy counted numerous reasons not to, she found herself hastening to get to the hotel room Jack had reserved for them, and when she arrived she was breathless and trembling with desire. In her present state of mind she wondered if she should even mention what she had discovered. She was terrified of losing whatever it was that brought Jack into her life, and suddenly it didn’t matter what it was. She was deeply troubled as she tapped lightly on the hotel-room door, and in the next moment, when she looked into Jack’s dark, troubled eyes she started to cry.

“I was at the police station before I came here,” she blurted out. “My husband is a cop. But you already knew that.” She sobbed miserably as the words spilled impulsively from her lips.

Jack didn’t move or speak. He only smiled. Pansy was taken aback by this at first, but then she felt relieved. She couldn’t have borne it if he had made up an obvious lie. She stopped crying and looked at him. Ruefully she succumbed to the slight pulling sensation at the corners of her mouth and dumbly returned his smile, but she said, “You have nothing to say?”

“What would you like me to say, Pansy?”

She would have liked him to say that he actually liked her in spite of everything else. She would have liked to hear that he had enjoyed being with her the day before and especially that he wanted to be with her again in the future. “Why?” she asked him. She was terribly afraid he would say the wrong thing.

Jack laughed at her. “Would you believe me if I told you that my dealings with your husband are purely coincidental and have nothing to do with us meeting each other?”

“No,” but she was pleased by the manner in which he asked her this.

He moved closer to her, approaching cautiously. “Would you believe that I saw you with him once and couldn’t get you out of my head?”

“Definitely not,” she replied with outright laughter this time.

He became serious all of a sudden, standing very close to her and looking down into her face. He reached out a hand and lifted a lock of her hair. He held it a moment, seemingly studying it. Pansy was absurdly flattered by the gesture. She waited breathlessly for what he would do or say next.

“Would you believe…” he continued contemplatively as he played with her hair, “that I thought you deserved a little happiness being married to a prick like him?”

“Well, maybe you thought that…but I find it hard to believe that was your reason for…being with me.”

“Does the reason matter so much?”

She paused, afraid to fully expose herself to him. “No,” she sighed. “The reason doesn’t matter. Only that you actually want to be with me, and not just for revenge.”

He dropped her hair suddenly and grasped her hand, placing it firmly over his groin. She quivered when she felt his hardness. “Does that feel like revenge?”

“Because my husband can never find out about us,” she continued.

A small, almost imperceptible change came over Jack’s face when she said this. All the humor left his expression and he looked at Pansy with a mixture of irritation and indifference. The irritation did not bother her half as much as the indifference. She wished they could put this behind them and begin on a different note.

“Look, Jack,” she began.

“What if I told you that your husband is going to find out about us?” he said spitefully. “I mean, what am I supposed to do with the video of us if I can’t show it to your husband?”

Cold steel seemed to close over Pansy’s heart when she heard his words. It was suddenly difficult for her to breathe.

“You’re lying,” she choked out.

“Am I?”

She looked around the room. There was no evidence of a camera anywhere, but she realized it would most likely be hidden. It occurred to her that both hotel rooms had been secured by Jack before she had arrived.

“I’m leaving.” But she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“Pansy, Pansy, Pansy,” Jack said then, all of a sudden smiling again. His anger had abated as quickly as it had appeared and he was once again good-humored and charming. “You’re so much fun to tease,” he said smoothly. “There’s no video of us. I wouldn’t want to be caught in a video like that any more than you would.” He began to laugh wholeheartedly, as if at the absurdity of her believing such a thing. But Pansy was deeply shaken.

“I don’t like that kind of teasing,” she said, upset. Her excitement had been squelched as thoroughly as embers doused with ice water.

“Then you shouldn’t be so naive and trusting,” he said with cheerful finality. The subject was abruptly closed and Jack was determined to move past it. He approached Pansy again and this time he put his hands on either side of her face, holding her just below the jawline in a firm but gentle caress. Her breathing stopped at the intense longing that came over her from this simple contact. She gazed up at him in abject adoration mingled with anguish. He appeared to her as a sumptuous feast, perhaps a poisonous feast; but like an animal, wild and starving, she would devour every last morsel to her gluttonous death. Jack saw the blatant hunger in her eyes and it caused the blood to rush to his groin in a violent surge. He continued to stroke the sides of her face with his thumbs. “Should you?” he whispered huskily.

Pansy was beside herself with a wish to appease him. “No, I guess I shouldn’t,” she whispered back, although she had forgotten the question. She felt weak and somewhat foolish, too. She vaguely wondered if Jack found her lack of self-control contemptible. But at that moment, there was such a look of tender passion in his eyes that it startled her. She looked away from him, saying, “I feel like a fool.”

“You’re no fool,” Jack told her adamantly. He held her face in both his hands and forced her to look at him again. His expression was grave. “No woman has ever revealed her feelings so openly, right there on her face, with me before, Pansy,” he told her. “It’s truly humbling, and I’m the one who acted like a fool.” Pansy was stunned by Jack’s admission and silently waited for his next move, floating helplessly in a deep sea of arousal, and knowing no relief without him.

Jack continued to lightly caress Pansy’s face as he went on talking to her, moving leisurely over his words, meandering in and around the pleasure to come. His voice was low and gentle, like his caresses. “But you shouldn’t look at me like that,” he repeated huskily. “Someone should have taught you never to let a man catch you looking at him like that.” Pansy just kept staring into his eyes and listening to him, hypnotized by his voice and the gentle, steady strokes of his fingers on her face. She watched him with an almost ludicrous devotion. But Jack appeared to find nothing ludicrous in her expression, and he continued speaking to her in the same vein, tantalizing her with his words. His voice was so heavy and laden it seemed to be moving over her, even fondling her. “Perhaps I should teach you why you shouldn’t look at a man the way you’re looking at me now.” He noticed that her eyes widened with anticipation when he said this, and he couldn’t suppress a laugh. “You would like that, wouldn’t you,” he said, amused. “You would enjoy a lesson from Taskmaster Jack?”

Pansy began to shake. His unhurried attentions produced a bounty in her desolate existence that she could not resist. She nodded her head shamelessly to his rhetorical question, as if to assure him that yes, she would indeed welcome any lesson he would care to give. Jack laughed once again, and his desire seemed to increase suddenly in reaction to hers. “Let me see the marks I put on you yesterday,” he said. “No, just turn around and take down your pants. Yes, like that.” He stared at the red and purple welts on her bared buttocks and thighs. Pansy stood quietly trembling with her pants halfway down her legs. The cool air made her more aware of the wetness between them. Jack, as if reading her thoughts, reached down to touch her and with a moan he let his fingers wallow in the silky fluid.

“Christ, Pansy,” he murmured. He moved onto his knees behind her and grasped her hips violently, causing her to cry out. “Bend,” he said simply before pressing his face between her legs and burrowing his tongue into her wetness. Pansy was bent awkwardly at the waist, light-headed from the dizzying pleasure he was giving her. His tongue wriggled and writhed its way into her, first into her front passage and then into the back, repeatedly switching back and forth between the two as he ravished her thoroughly. Pansy struggled to maintain her footing as she basked in the heady sensations that were rushing over her. She positively loved the way he opened her up and exposed her to his every wish as he took and gave pleasure in equal parts. She knew she would let him lead her anywhere, no matter if it brought her pain, shock, embarrassment or anything else. But even before she could fully consider the possibilities of where Jack might lead her, he was already taking her there.

Jack grudgingly pulled himself away from her, pausing to kiss her buttocks on and around the welts. “I won’t spank you again until you heal,” he told her. Pansy captured from this remark the promise that they would be seeing each other more in the future. “I have something else in mind anyway,” he added offhandedly. Pansy thrilled to his words. She noticed that his eyes were fixed on something across the room as he spoke, and she followed his gaze to an odd little statue that she hadn’t noticed before. It sat upon an elaborate footstool next to the bed. The statue was of a vicious-looking gargoyle with a sadistic grin on his hideous face. She wondered suddenly that she hadn’t noticed it. The gargoyle held a sword in its hand, the tip aiming downward and the handle turned outward and up, so that it was pointing toward Pansy and Jack. Pansy did not fail to notice that the handle of the sword was of a similar shape and size of a man’s penis, perhaps a bit larger. She felt a mixture of dread and longing curling up within her. Jack’s eyes remained fixed on the statue.

“Pansy,” he began slowly and thoughtfully, “take off your clothes.” As she removed her clothing he walked over to where the statue stood. He seemed to be studying it. “Come here,” he said after a minute or two. She shook off the last of her clothing and went to him. He looked her over. There was a lazy smile playing at his lips. “I want to see you ride the gargoyle’s sword handle.” Pansy closed her eyes. It had been exactly what she was thinking, and yet…

“Now,” he demanded, sitting down on the bed. Pansy was uncertain of how to proceed. That she would do it was evident; yet it was extremely awkward. She didn’t know if she should face the gargoyle or put her back to it. There was also the difficulty of getting onto the sword handle in such a way that she would be able to move up and down on it. And all the while she was painfully aware that Jack was watching her. She moved closer to the statue and saw that the object she was about to mount nearly reached her waist in height. It would have been easier had it been slightly lower, for now she would have to accomplish her task on tiptoe. She decided to face the statue so that she could rest her hands on it for leverage. She positioned her feet on either side of the gargoyle and placed her hands tentatively on its repulsive head. Its hideous face seemed to be looking directly at her from this vantage point, and its lips twisted into a lecherous smirk. Very carefully she maneuvered herself over the tip of the handle, easing her body down on it ever so slowly. It was larger than it first appeared and much stiffer than most man-made objects for that purpose. It was as hard and cold as marble, and terribly irregular. She gasped as she struggled to push herself down farther on it. Its solid length was foreign and extremely menacing, although startlingly arousing, too. She was never so well lubricated to take on such an object and she slowly and cautiously inched herself down farther and farther, literally forcing herself lower and lower with each downward thrust. Even with her extreme wetness she could feel the solid edges pulling at her insides. It affected her in the same way that the previous day’s beating had; leaving her weak and confused and craving, and fully unable to reason again until she found a release.

“That’s it,” Jack encouraged. “Just a little farther and you’ll reach the end.”

“I can’t,” she cried, even as she struggled to take more of it inside her. If only it were the tiniest bit flexible, she thought. But it was her body that was obliged to flex and yield to the hard edges of the gargoyle’s sword handle. She gasped loudly as she wiggled and squirmed her way down the length of it. She clutched the gargoyle’s head in her hands as she fought to get her body farther down on the rigid handle. “Ooooh!” she cried.

“Just a little more, Pansy…for me.” The sound of Jack’s gentle coaxing gave her strength. She grunted loudly as she finally succeeded in taking the last bit of the sword’s handle inside her.

“That’s a good girl,” he praised her enthusiastically. “Now ride up and down on it.” Pansy gripped the gargoyle’s head firmly as she began to painstakingly move up and down over his handle. Her moans were mingled with little gasps and shrieks. Her pleasure was as intense as her suffering. She was no longer aware of how she performed for Jack as he watched her with eager surprise, and she was only vaguely aware that she had lost control and entered some forbidden place that she had never been to before.

“I’m afraid,” she burst out in between gasps.

“Don’t be afraid, Pansy,” Jack chided her. “I’m here with you.” And he came up behind her and kissed her shoulders and neck and pinched her nipples firmly between his fingertips. He moved one hand lower and began massaging her clitoris carefully, so as not to inhibit her movements over the statue. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Go all the way down. I don’t want to catch you going only halfway.”

Pansy obediently drew her body up as far as she could on tiptoe and then descended all the way back down, over and over again, wailing and moaning like a woman possessed while Jack continued to cajole and caress her toward her climax. Her cries came louder and deeper the longer she rode the stiff and jagged shaft. She was in a state of arousal that surpassed all boundaries, but even if it had occurred to her to stop she would not have dared displease Jack by doing so. With dogged determination she pressed on tirelessly. Her tender insides clung to the statue as she pulled herself up, catching on the various ridges in its form, only to resist those same ridges when she pushed herself back down over it, so that every single movement had to be coerced, in spite of the moisture that poured from her body. The guttural sounds escaping her lips as she pumped her body up and down over the gargoyle seemed more suited to the gargoyle himself. Pansy absently wondered if perhaps it was the gargoyle, and not her, who uttered the sounds; for in spite of his hard, cold exterior, she was suddenly convinced that the gargoyle had become a living thing. She stared down into his grinning face as her legs continued to propel her up and down, up and down, along his rigid sword handle. And she knew suddenly that others had ridden the gargoyle’s sword before her. His eyes seemed to mock her, taking in all of her appearance; from the tears on her cheeks to her parted lips, to her bouncing breasts. And with that notion it suddenly seemed that she actually was making love to the gargoyle. It felt as if he was ripping her apart, but it was her own legs that continued to drive her up and down over him. She knew that Jack was watching her as closely as the gargoyle watched her. He was looking over her shoulder, staring down at her with one hand crudely pinching her nipples while the other expertly stroked her swollen clitoris. If she stopped short of going all the way down on the sword handle he gently scolded her. When her cries became too loud he tenderly shushed her. She fervently wished that she could stay there, in the room with Jack and the gargoyle forever, as her release washed over her, and she screamed from the force of it.

But in spite of her earlier wish and the powerful passion she had felt, Pansy was profoundly relieved when it was over, and in the very next instant she was filled with so much remorse that she burst into tears. She struggled to remove herself from the sword handle, which had suddenly become excruciatingly painful. Jack helped her off the statue and pulled her close to him.

“Hey!” he said, genuinely concerned over her distress, which was nearing hysteria. “Pansy, its okay,” he kept trying to soothe her, but he was at a loss for words. He wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her down onto the bed. He held her pressed so close to him that she had to struggle to breathe. His body remained aroused and hard, but he simply held her. “I’m sorry, Pansy.”

She looked up at him, momentarily shocked out of her grief by his apology. Her surprised expression amused him. He kissed her tenderly, but then more passionately as her arms slipped up around his neck. And then she was lost all over again in her desire for this man she hardly knew, except that he wanted her for whatever reason.

Later, Pansy put her clothes on in silence. She perceived Jack’s annoyance over her obvious regret.

“When can I see you again?” he asked impatiently. It suddenly occurred to Pansy that he was perhaps as unnerved by his desire to see her again as she was by her own.

“I don’t know,” she replied evasively.

“I see,” Jack replied, failing to keep the irritation out of his voice. He was silent for a moment, and then, “I guess if I get bored I’ll always have the videos.”

Pansy stopped dressing and looked at him. “Don’t worry…” He smiled at her. “They’re for my eyes only.”

Pansy stared at him. She felt a wave of nausea so powerful that she could taste the bile in her mouth. When he first mentioned a video, it seemed easy to believe it could have been a joke. Or perhaps it was easy for her to believe that with her desire for him looming over her like a shroud. But now, in the aftermath of that desire, with him bringing it up a second time, it seemed certain.

When the nausea passed, Pansy turned away from him and picked up the last of her clothing, dressing as quickly as she could. Then without a word she walked to the door and turned the knob.

“Pansy, I was kidding,” she heard Jack say. She opened the door and walked out into the hallway. “Pansy!”

She continued walking down the hall and out of the building.

The instant she reached her car, Pansy dissolved into tears. Why did I do it? she kept asking herself. She wondered why every decision she ever made in her life had to carry with it such a high price. She continued in this vein of self-recrimination and self-pity until the tears were depleted. Then, once the despair receded she turned to anger.

What right, she raged inwardly, did people have to always take advantage of her? Jack, like Tom, had immediately assumed that because she was amenable she was weak. Why did everyone always have to try to get one over on her? She was filled to overflowing with impotent rage and suddenly Jack’s taunt about the video recalled itself to her mind. In the next instant something peculiar happened. It seemed to Pansy that everything suddenly stopped. It lasted only a second or two, but it definitely stopped, leaving the hairs on the back of her neck tingling with life. The silence of it startled her. Afterward she might have thought she had imagined it, except that Pansy was certain that something had shifted in the interim. She struggled to pinpoint what happened.

Driving home, Pansy slowly realized that she was now looking in at herself from the outside, as well as out of herself from the inside, both at the same time. It was as if she was seeing her life from two different perspectives. She was suddenly filled with a strange calm as her thoughts began to collect themselves, seemingly of their own accord. All at once she perceived that she had other choices, choices that were already formulating into plans inside her mind. By the time she arrived home she was at ease with her thoughts.

Tom had once again arrived home before her. As on the previous night, he was talking to someone on the telephone in his study. She felt an odd sense of déjà vu that clashed momentarily with the parallel minds that were at war within her consciousness. The sound of Tom’s voice, which usually caused her skin to prickle and twinge was tonight not nearly so bothersome, perhaps due to her preoccupation. She stepped into the doorway of his office and looked inside. A little rush of adrenaline trickled through her when she saw him, and she realized this was a result of the plans that were formulating in her mind.

“How’s the case coming?” she asked him, smiling in secret and snuggling more cozily within her blanket of loathing. Her voice sounded a tad shrill in her state of overexcitedness. She felt strangely disconnected to everything around her as she tentatively sampled the role her parallel mind was creating.

“I’m getting nowhere,” Tom complained with a sigh, scarcely noticing her. “If there isn’t a break in the case soon, that son of a bitch is going to walk.”

“Hmm,” she said, trying to keep the joy out of her voice. “That’s too bad.” She was aware of a sense of being slightly off-kilter, but she was too excited about the drama that was—or was not—unfolding—she was becoming more and more unclear about which of these it was—and the things she would—or would not—do. Even so, to simply play along, for the time being, with these contemplations as they evolved within her consciousness and its parallel minds filled her with giddy excitement. She fairly skipped up the stairs and into their bedroom, where she went directly to her husband’s secret hiding place and reverently pulled out his handgun. The icy steel of the gun, rather than bringing her abruptly to her senses, actually intensified the sense of unreality that was all around her. An alarm did sound in the farther-back reaches of her consciousness, but the madness that had consumed her was stronger, and it seemed to gain strength from the certainty of cold, heavy metal in her hands. A hysterical laugh welled up in her throat as she felt another surge of adrenaline run through her. This isn’t really happening, she thought.

Even so, Pansy flipped the cylinder and checked to see if there were bullets inside. There were. Next she noticed the silencer in the gun case and was surprised by how easy it was to attach it to the gun. She pulled out an overnight bag that she kept under the bed, and placed the gun inside it, along with a pair of Tom’s shoes and various articles of his clothing. When the overnight bag was stocked with these things she slid it back under the bed and waited.

“I think I’m going to go downstairs and read for a while,” she told Tom several hours later. They were lying side by side in their bed. Tom was nearly asleep but Pansy was wide awake.

“Sure,” he mumbled from beneath the covers. Pansy quietly slid the overnight bag out from under the bed and took it downstairs with her.

Less than thirty minutes later, she found herself staring thoughtfully at Jack’s house from the inside of Tom’s idling four-wheel drive. She knew for certain now that Jack had made those morning visits to her coffee shop solely for the purpose of seeking her out, for in examining his file on Tom’s desk she discovered that he lived and worked all the way across town, with too many coffee shops in between them to count.

An excess of adrenaline was soaring through Pansy’s bloodstream, giving her an almost supernatural sense of self. She barely noticed any discomfort or awkwardness as she went through the motions like a person in a dream, although everything all around her seemed foreign and unnatural. She had put Tom’s shirt and pants on right over her clothing, and stuffed her feet into his shoes with her own shoes still on. She drove Tom’s car without altering a single thing, not even adjusting the seat, making it so she had to sit on the very edge of it in order to reach the pedals. She performed all of these activities at the direction of her parallel mind, like an actor playing out a role in which the director has every last detail planned out, and she did all this without being fully cognizant of where it all was leading and without knowing if she would actually carry it through to the end.

Pansy pulled Tom’s cap down low on her forehead as she quietly stepped out of his car. In spite of the layers of ill-fitting clothing, she moved as stealthily as a spider across the street and toward Jack’s house. It was dark inside except for a dim light coming from one of the windows. Pansy walked instinctively toward the darkest side of the house, approaching it as if she had been there before. She strode cautiously along that side of it and then around the corner, careful to make her steps consistent and natural. She peered into the windows as she went. When she came upon the back door she reached out a gloved hand, prepared to attempt the lock with a master key she took from Tom’s police key chain, but when she grasped the doorknob and turned, it was already unlocked. She smiled, realizing suddenly that Jack would not bother locking his doors, his reasoning likely being that if someone was determined to get in, they would do so. And, of course, he was perfectly right.

Pansy closed the door soundlessly behind her. She could hear television voices in the near distance. She pulled Tom’s gun out from the waistband of her pants and flipped off the safety switch as she tiptoed through Jack’s house, keeping the gun semi hidden at her side. The adrenaline flooding her system left no room for other emotions, except a lingering sense of unreality for everything around her. She looked around the dark rooms with mild interest as she moved onward, wondering absently what would happen next. She moved in the direction of the sounds coming from the television.

He was asleep. Pansy could see that immediately from the way he was slumped in his chair, even though he was facing away from her. She approached him slowly, expecting him to jump out at her in the next instant. But Jack didn’t move, not even when she stood directly in front of him, staring at him. From deep within her she could feel stirrings of desire, but that was in her other mind. She waited for him to sense her presence and wake up, but he did not.

“Jack,” she whispered at last. When this failed to rouse him she repeated it louder. “Jack!” There was a ringing in her ears. She kept the gun hidden at her side, although she now wished she did not have it. It seemed terribly heavy and burdensome all of a sudden.

Jack jerked awake at the sound of her voice. “Wha…Pansy?” He looked surprised, but not annoyed to see her. He stared at her in wonder. “What are you doing here, Pansy?” His voice was husky from sleep, and Pansy felt another wave of desire. His waking eyes were now taking in the strange clothes and oversize shoes. His expression went from wonder to uncertainty and he started to get up, but Pansy brought the gun from her side and pointed it at him.

Jack actually laughed; a spontaneous burst that lasted only a split second. “Pansy?” His voice was high with disbelief, but the smile was slowly fading from his face. “Is this a joke?”

“You mean, am I teasing you?” she asked with meaning. He didn’t have to pretend not to know what she was referring to. Dawning came slowly, but she waited patiently without elaborating.

“Pansy, I swear to you,” he said, completely serious now, “I would never, ever do that. There’s no video.”

“Did you kill your wife?” she asked him abruptly. It was the first time she really thought about it and she was curious. In the bizarre frame of mind she was in, it seemed more relevant than it had been when she was her other self.

“No, Pansy, I did not kill my wife,” he said wearily.

She was becoming painfully aware of her finger on the trigger of the gun, and revulsion was quickly replacing her earlier rush of adrenaline. She realized suddenly that she could not kill Jack after all. In fact, her parallel mind had unexpectedly disappeared and now she was all alone with the horror of her situation. Jack seemed to comprehend some of this from her expression and he sagged back down in his chair in relief, although the gun was still pointed at him.

“Christ, Pansy,” he said weakly. “I would never have said those things if I’d known they’d hurt you so much.” She was staggered by the genuine compassion in his tone. She would have fully expected him to be angry, or perhaps even try to hurt her. Her earlier anger had by now dissolved into nothingness, as did all her previous angers. And yet they still lingered dormant inside her, unrecognized and unavenged. Pansy was immobilized with despair and uncertainty. She looked into Jack’s troubled eyes and she felt a jolt from deep within her that caused her entire body to stiffen, including her finger that had remained on the trigger. The gun suddenly went off with a resounding thunk. Without even aiming, Pansy had shot Jack directly in the chest.

For the third time in two days, Pansy cried bitter tears of anguish and remorse, lamenting what she had done and issuing promises into the stifling air around her. One moment she was bemoaning her misfortunes and the next raging against the forces that seemed forever to be working against her. Eventually, as always, her thoughts came back around to Tom; fat, loathsome, useless Tom. Always her grief led her back to him.

But even as she stirred up her ongoing resentment of Tom, it suddenly occurred to her that something was different this time. She came alert with a newborn hope. Was it possible that she had fixed Tom once and for all? Her mind put all the events of the night together neatly and concisely as she quietly drove his car into their garage. It was Tom’s car that had driven to—and quite possibly had been seen at or in the vicinity of—Jack’s house. It was Tom’s shoes that made footprints all around Jack’s house, Tom’s gun that fired the shot into Jack’s heart, and bullets marked from Tom’s gun that ultimately killed Jack. It wouldn’t even be a lie when she told the police that she didn’t know for certain whether or not Tom had remained home that night, having spent the night in the den where she had supposedly gone to read. Even if Jack had taped videos of their affair, which she doubted now, they would only add to Tom’s motive and further explain his hatred for John Foreman. He had been obsessed with the man, and it would not be hard to prove that he had killed him.

Pansy was all at once exultant again. How perfectly just that Tom should feel the burn of being accused for something he didn’t do. How many people had felt that same burn because of him, including possibly even Jack?

Pansy deliberately fell into a routine of inertness in the weeks that followed. She spoke almost never, steering clear of everyone and everything. The uncertainty of what might happen kept her in a constant state of acute watchfulness, and her worst fear was that Tom would not be linked to the murder after all. She knew firsthand how bungling and corrupt the men of her husband’s precinct were, and it seemed more and more probable that the many subtle hints she had dropped would all be for nothing. Often she remonstrated with herself for not leaving some small possession of Tom’s near Jack’s body, but she had not wanted to make it too obvious, bringing suspicion in from the other end.

Just when Pansy had all but given up hope, John Foreman’s murder investigation at last took a turn in Tom’s direction. She could hardly believe her good fortune when at last they took him away. She remained quiet and thoughtful throughout the investigation and ensuing trial, appearing to all who observed her as the grief-stricken wife. She testified reluctantly of her inability to fully verify Tom’s whereabouts on the night of the murder, and her reluctance was at least partially genuine, for she was absolutely terrified that she might slip and say too much. The prosecutor had to drag every last word from her quivering lips, and this too made it all the worse for Tom.

As for Jack’s threat about a video, Pansy need never have worried about that. There were no videotapes, and no one ever came forward to link Pansy with Jack on the two occasions when they had met in hotel rooms. She had even worried that a stray hair of hers may have appeared on Jack’s body or clothing, but if such a thing had existed, the police never bothered with it. The police, who were Tom’s peers and cut from the same cloth as him, had set their minds at the first hint of culpability upon his guilt, and once their minds were set they, like Tom, were loath to change course. It was, for them, a staggering tragedy, and they were equal parts sad and superior, shaking their heads at the difficulty of being a police officer and the statistical likelihood of it driving a person over the edge.

Tom was ultimately obliged to spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement, evading aggrieved convicts as he pondered what had happened.

“I would visit, Tom,” Pansy told him one day over the phone. “But let’s face it. There hasn’t been anything between us for a long time now. To visit you would be to prolong the inevitable. You should just get on with your new life there.”

But Jack was not so easy for Pansy to forget. She thought of him often, especially the last few moments they had shared together, when his thoughts had been for her. She came to think of their short-lived relationship as a great love affair, all the more poignant for having ended so tragically at the pinnacle of their affection.

Eventually Pansy was moved to go out and date, out of sheer dread of living alone more than anything else. One of Tom’s associates at the precinct had expressed an interest, catching her off guard. She was charmed by his bemused demeanor and awkward advances. She sympathized with the challenges he faced, working so many unrewarding hours at the precinct and having no one to properly care for him. Surely with her help, he would have more success with his cases and perhaps even lose some of the excess weight he had put on from constantly eating in fast-food restaurants. Here, at last, was her second chance in life, and Pansy decided to seize it.

Perhaps things would be different this time.

* * * * *