Richard Laymon - Flesh

Evan lifted the bottle. “Polish it off?”

“No thanks.”

He emptied the bottle into his glass and quickly drank the last of the champagne.

“I could use some coffee, if you have some.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Evan carried two mugs of coffee into the living room and set them on the table in front of the sofa. Then he crouched and slipped his tape of To Have and Have Not into the VCR on the shelf below his television. When he started to get up, he stumbled. He staggered a few steps, found his balance, and grinned over his shoulder at Alison. “I meant to do that,” he said.

He’s pretty polluted, she thought.

He walked carefully into the kitchen. While he was gone, Alison pushed herself off the sofa and turned on a lamp. As the lamp came on, the kitchen went dark.

She was seated again by the time he wandered in. He had a loose-jointed, swaying walk. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a can of whipped cream in the other. “How about Irish coffee?” he asked, and dropped heavily onto the sofa beside Alison.

Beside Alison, no more than three inches away.

“I think I’ll take my coffee straight,” she said.

“Fine. Do not let it be said that I attempted to ply you with liquor. When all is written and the story told, let it not be reported that Evan attempted to cloud the fair lady’s mind with spirits, opiates, or scorcery.”

“You’re bombed,” Alison said.

“I’m… semibombed.” Talking out of a side of his mouth in a fairly good impression of W.C. Fields, he said, “She was a gorgeous, delectable blonde and she drove me to drink; it’s the only thing I’m grateful to her for.”

Alison took a sip of her coffee. “Barf, and I’m on my way home.”

“Barf and the world barfs with you.” But he left the whiskey on the table. He took a drink of coffee. Then he turned on the movie.

Alison sat on the edge of the sofa, leaning forward, until her mug was empty. Then she settled back against the cushion. She slipped out of her shoes, propped her feet on the edge of the table, and stared between her knees at the television.

She couldn’t follow the movie. Her mind was on Evan. She sensed that he was paying no attention to the movie, either.

He was slumped beside her, his legs stretched out beneath the table, his left arm not quite touching Alison but so close that she thought she could feel the heat of it against her arm. His hand rested on his thigh.

The lighted red numbers of the VGR’s digital clock showed 9:52.

We’ve been sitting like mannequins, Alison thought, for almost twenty minutes.

She had an urge to shift her position. But she didn’t move. A move might trigger something.

This is crazy.

She lowered her feet to the floor, sat up straight, and stretched, arching her back. She rolled her head to work the kinks out of her neck.

Evan said, “Here.” He reached up with one hand and began to massage her neck.

The fingers felt good plying her stiff muscles. Alison turned her back to Evan, sliding a leg onto the cushion.

Now it starts, she thought.

Both of Evan’s hands were on her shoulders and neck, rubbing, squeezing, caressing. They eased the tightness. Alison closed her eyes and let her head droop. The massaging hands made her feel weak and lazy.

He worked on the bare sides of her neck, beneath her collar.

Nice. Why not nicer?

Alison unfastened a button. Evan’s hands moved outward from her neck, kneading her skin, widening the bare area. Alison felt something loosen and realized, vaguely, that her middle button had popped open on its own. Evan tried to spread the blouse more. It pulled at her. She tugged, untucking it, and the loose blouse rose and opened, exposing her shoulders.

She swayed under the soothing motions of Evan’s strong hands. She felt powerless to lift her head or to open her eyes or to protest when, soon, he slipped the bra straps off her shoulders.

His hands no longer massaged, but glided over her bare skin, caressing her from neck to shoulders.

He stopped for a moment. The sofa cushion moved slightly under Alison and she guessed that Evan was changing his position. Getting onto his knees? Yes. From the sound of his breathing, he was higher now. He stroked her shoulders, eased his hands under her blouse and inside the sleeves to caress her upper arms, then slid his hands out and down, down over her collarbones, down her chest, going away instead of touching her through the filmy fabric of her bra, and opening the last buttons.

He slipped the blouse down her back. Alison’s wrists were trapped in the sleeves, but she made no effort to free them.

For a while, his hands roamed her back and sides. Then they unfastened her bra. Evan kissed the side of her neck. He nibbled, making her squirm. Her heart quickened, desire pushing away the lazy weak feeling. He caressed her sides. His hands moved beneath her arms, slipped under her bra, and lightly cupped her breasts. Her nipples stiffened, pressing into his palms.

Reaching back, she rubbed his thighs through the soft fabric of his pants.

He squeezed her nipples.

A hot tremor pulsed through Alison. She caught her breath. She reached higher, intending to caress his penis through his pants, but she found it rigid and bare. Her hand flew from it.

He chuckled softly. “Surprise,” he whispered.

How long had he been that way, his penis secretly exposed while he caressed her? It seemed wrong, deceitful, almost perverted.

But he rubbed and squeezed her breasts and what did it matter if he’d jumped the gun a bit? He saved me the trouble, Alison thought. She reached up and stroked him.

Then she turned around. Evan was on his knees. As he slid down his pants, Alison removed her hands from the sleeves of her blouse.

She glanced down at herself. Her bra hung like a flimsy scarf above the tops of her breasts. She began to sweep its strap down her left arm and saw a smudge of red on the white, translucent fabric of one rumpled cup.

She stared at the red stain. It looked like a smear of the salsa they’d been dipping their chips into before dinner.

I must’ve spilled…

It’s on my bra.

In the bathroom after waking up, she had found the middle button of her blouse unfastened.

After waking up.

Evan, naked from waist to knees, lifted his knit shirt to pull it over his head. It was covering his face. Alison jabbed a fist into his belly. Air whooshed out of him. He folded at the waist. Alison flung herself off the sofa just in time to avoid being struck by his crumpling body.

She rammed her feet into her shoes.

Behind her, Evan was gasping for breath.

“You shit,” she muttered. Shaking with rage, she shoved her bra into her handbag. “You filthy shit, you felt me up while I was asleep!” She whirled around to face him. He was on his knees, his forehead pressed against the sofa seat. “That really stinks. Stinks!” She thrust a hand down the sleeve of her blouse. “It’s sick is what it is!”

“I’m sorry,” he gasped.

“You rotten bastard.” She struggled to find her other sleeve, then shoved her arm through and slung the purse strap onto her shoulder. With palsied fingers, she tried to fasten her blouse as she rushed to the door.

“Alison!”

She jerked the door open and glanced back at Evan. He was still on the sofa, his ass in the air.

“Don’t go!” he called. “Please!”

She stepped out and slammed the door.

I got him good, Alison told herself as she hurried along the sidewalk. I got him real good.

Oh, sure you got him good. Maybe he’ll have a sore gut for a while, maybe even a bruise, but by morning he’ll be almost as good as new and you won’t.