Michael Crichton - Disclosure

All his feelings shifted again, and now he had a familiar sensation. Going back to see an old lover, being attracted over dinner, then getting involved again, feeling desire and, suddenly, in the heat of the moment, in the press of flesh, being reminded of all the things that had been wrong with the relationship, feeling old conflicts and angers and irritations rise up again, and wishing that he had never started. Suddenly thinking of how to get out of it, how to stop what was started. But usually there was no way to get out of it.

Still his fingers were inside her, and she was moving her body against his hand, shifting to be sure he would touch the right place. She was wetter, her lips were swelling. She opened her legs wider for him. She was breathing very hard, stroking him with her fingers. "Oh God, I love the way you feel," she said.

Usually there was no way to get out ofit.

His body was tense and ready. Her hard nipples brushed against his chest. Her fingers caressed him. She licked the bottom of his earlobe with a quick dart of her tongue and instantly there was nothing but his desire, hot and angry, more intense for the fact that he didn't really want to be there, that he felt she had manipulated him to this place. Now he would fuck her. He wanted to fuck her. Hard.

She sensed his change and moaned, no longer kissing him, leaning back on the couch, waiting. She watched him through half-closed eyes, nodding her head. His fingers still touched her, rapidly, repeatedly, making her gasp, and he turned, pushed her down on her back on the couch. She hiked up her skirt and spread her legs for him. He crouched over her and she smiled at him, a knowing, victorious smile. It made him furious to see this sense that she had somehow won, this watchful detachment, and he wanted to catch her, to make her feel as out of control as he felt, to make her part of this, to wipe that smug detachment from her face. He spread her lips but did not enter her, he held back, his fingers moving, teasing her.

She arched her back, waiting for him. "No, no… please…"

Still he waited, looking at her. His anger was fading as quickly as it had come, his mind drifting away, the old reservations returning. In an instant of harsh clarity, he saw himself in the room, a panting middle aged, married man with his trousers down around his knees, bent over a woman on an office couch that was too small. What the hell was he doing?

He looked at her face, saw the way the makeup cracked at the corners of her eyes. Around her mouth.

She had her hands on his shoulders, tugging him toward her. "Oh please… No… No…" And then she turned her head aside and coughed.

Something snapped in him. He sat back coldly. "You're right." He got off the couch, and pulled up his trousers. "We shouldn't do this."

She sat up. "What are you doing?" She seemed puzzled. "You want this as much as I do. You know you do."

"No," he said. "We shouldn't do this, Meredith." He was buckling his belt. Stepping back.

She stared at him in dazed disbelief, like someone awakened from sleep. "You're not serious…"

"This isn't a good idea. I don't feel good about it."

And then her eyes were suddenly furious. "You fucking .son of a bitch.''

She got off the couch fast, rushing at him, hitting him hard with bunched fists. "You bastard! You prick! You fucking bastard!" He was trying to button his shirt, turning away from her blows. "You shit! You bastard!"

She moved around him as he turned away, grabbing his hands, tearing at his shirt to keep him from buttoning it.

"You can't! You can't do this to me!"

Buttons popped. She scratched him, long red welts running down his chest. He turned again, avoiding her, wanting only to get out of there. To get dressed and get out of there. She pounded his back.

"You fucker, you can't leave me like this!"

"Cut it out, Meredith," he said. "It's over."

"Fuckyou!" She grabbed a handful of his hair, pulling him down with surprising strength, and she bit his ear hard. He felt an intense shooting pain and he pushed her away roughly. She toppled backward, off balance, crashing against the glass coffee table, sprawling on the ground.

She sat there, panting. "You fucking son of a bitch."

"Meredith, just leave me alone." He was buttoning his shirt again. All he could think was: Get out of here. Get your stuff and get out of here.

He reached for his jacket, then saw his cellular phone on the windowsill. He moved around the couch and picked up the phone. The wineglass crashed against the window near his head. He looked over and saw her standing in the middle of the room, reaching for something else to throw.

"I'll kill you!" she said. "I'll fucking kill you."

"That's enough, Meredith," he said.

"The hell." She threw a small paper bag at him. It thunked against the glass and dropped to the floor. A box of condoms fell out.

"I'm going home." He moved toward the door.

"That's right," she said. "You go home to your wife and your little fucking family."

Alarms went off in his head. He hesitated for a moment.

"Oh yes," she said, seeing him pause. "I know all about you, you asshole. Your wife isn't fucking you, so you come in here and lead me on, you set me up and then you walk out on me, you hostile violent fucking asshole. You think you can treat women this way? You asshole."

He reached for the doorknob.

"You walk out on me, you're dead!"

He looked back and saw her leaning unsteadily on the desk, and he thought,She's drunk.

"Good night, Meredith," he said. He twisted the knob, then remembered that the door had been locked. He unlocked the door and walked out, without looking back.

In the outer room, a cleaning woman was emptying trash baskets from the assistants' desks.

"I'll fucking kill you for this!" Meredith called after him.

The cleaning woman heard it, and stared at Sanders. He looked away from her, and walked straight to the elevator. He pushed the button. A moment later, he decided to take the stairs.

Sanders stared at the setting sun from the deck of the ferry going back to Winslow. The evening was calm, with almost no breeze; the surface of the water was dark and still. He looked back at the lights of the city and tried to assess what had happened.

From the ferry, he could see the upper floors of the DigiCom buildings, rising behind the horizontal gray concrete of the viaduct that ran along the water's edge. He tried to pick out Meredith's office window, but he was already too far away.

Out here on the water, heading home to his family, slipping back into his familiar daily routine, the events of the previous hour had already begun to take on an unreal quality. He found it hard to believe that it had happened. He reviewed the events in his mind, trying to see just where he had gone wrong. He felt certain that it was all his fault, that he had misled Meredith in some important way. Otherwise, she would never have come on to him. The whole episode was an embarrassment for him, and probably for her, too. He felt guilty and miserable-and deeply uneasy about the future. What would happen now? What would she do?

He couldn't even guess. He realized then that he didn't really know her at all. They had once been lovers, but that was a long time ago. Now she was a new person, with new responsibilities. She was a stranger to him.

Although the evening was mild, he felt chilled. He went back inside the ferry. He sat in a booth and took out his phone to call Susan. He pushed the buttons, but the light didn't come on. The battery was dead. For a moment he was confused; the battery should last all day. But it was dead.

The perfect end to his day.

Feeling the throb of the ferry engines, he stood in thebathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. His hair was messed; there was a faint smear of lipstick on his lips, and another on his neck; two buttons of his shirt were missing, and his clothes were rumpled. He looked as if he had just gotten laid. He turned his head to see his ear. A tiny bruise marked where she had bitten him. He unbuttoned the shirt and looked at the deep red scratches running in parallel rows down his chest.