Sol Stein - Other people

"Put it in your mouth," he said.

I shook my head vigorously. Did my disgust show?

"Put your hand on it."

Scream now. Why cant I scream?

He unfastened his jeans the rest of the way, let them drop. I went toward him as if I was going to obey, then darted for the open bedroom door, saw him scramble to get his pants back up, ran through the living room for the door into the hallway, got my hand on the knob, remembered I had to turn the latch he had locked, and suddenly he was behind me, grabbing my arms, forcing me back from the door.

"You'll be sorry you did that," he said.

"You're hurting my arms."

He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out a rope. He brought it with him. He planned all this.

I felt him get the loop over my left wrist, pull hard, then he tied it around my right wrist. I tried to wrench away. I had to keep my hands free. He forced me to the ground face down, put his knee in my back so hard I thought my spine would crack. He tied my hands together. I had to remember that the important thing is not to die.

I turned my head enough so that I could see him standing over me.

"Now you'll have to suck it," he said.

"I'll choke."

"Nobody chokes from sucking."

"I'll do it with my hand if you'll untie me."

"You tried to get away."

What would he believe?

"I just wanted to make sure the front door was locked so nobody would come in."

"I locked it."

"I didn't see you lock it."

"You saw. Now be nice. No use getting hurt, is there?"

"Can we talk?" I asked. My tied arms hurt.

"About what?"

"You want to… have sex, don't you?"

"I didn't come here to play marbles."

"I mean your wife upstairs, what about her, having sex with her, wouldn't that—"

"I don't want you talking about my wife."

"Okay."

"Get back in the bedroom."

"Sure." Got to keep him talking. "What kind of sex do you like?"

"What do you mean what kind?"

"You know what I mean. If it's different kinds and—" Mustn't mention his wife. "There are prostitutes who will do anything. I'll give you the money." I knew it was the wrong thing the instant I said it.

He slapped my face. "I don't need your money. I got all the money I want."

It came out of me like a wail. "Why me??"

He smiled.

He actually smiled. "I been watching you. You got class."

"There're supposed to be a lot of call girls with real class."

"Where'm I supposed to call them? The gas station? My house?"

"I'd let you use my apartment," I said eagerly.

"I'm using your apartment right now."

There must be something I can do. "You could go to jail," I said. "It isn't worth it, is it?"

"Let's find out. Take that thing off."

"I can't. My arms are tied."

"Unzip."

"It won't come over my arms."

"Lie down and pull it up. All the way up."

I sat down on the bed. "You don't want to go to jail."

He slapped me across the face, harder this time. "I'm not going to no jail."

"That hurt."

"Good. Nobody goes to jail if nobody talks. You're not going to talk. I live right upstairs. You do anything I don't like and you're finished, see?"

Koslak pushed me, swung my legs up on the bed, tugged at my caftan, pulling it up.

Kick him? Is it worth getting killed resisting? I pressed my thighs together.

"No you don't," he said, taking his pants off. "Spread. I want to see it."

"There're plenty of magazines with pictures," I said.

He pulled his T-shirt over his head.

He's not removing his shorts. His thing isn't hard, that's the problem. I'm safe as long as…

He had picked up the sewing scissors from the dressing table. "You gonna spread?"

I did as I was told.

"Real nice," he said, dropping the scissors on the table. He was rubbing his thing through his shorts, desperately I thought. Then he reached out with his left hand. "You're dry," he said.

The idiot expects me to be excited.

I had an idea. "I'll make it easier," I said. "See that jar?"

He glanced over at the dressing table, as if expecting a trick.

"The cold cream," I said.

He opened the jar, dipped two fingers in it.

"Not on me," I said. "On you."

He took his shorts off, put the cold cream on his thing.

"Rub it," I said. "Put your hand around it and stroke it."

At least, I thought, I won't have to put it in my mouth.

He stopped stroking when it was half erect again.

"Want me to help?" I said. It might work.

He smiled. A bit suspicious yet, but smiled.

"Untie my arms so I…"

"No funny stuff."

"Promise."

When he had untied me, his thing had lost most of its rigidity. Have to go through with it, I thought. This way is better.

I pulled the caftan completely off and let his eyes inspect me. The circulation was coming back into my hands. Think of it like a chess game. I took his thing and started stroking it. It was quickly erect, with that funny angling over to one side, as it was when I had turned from looking out of the window. With my left hand, I held his balls from underneath, stroking with my right.

"Okay?" I asked.

He nodded.

Find his rhythm and keep to it.

Suddenly he wrenched away from me. "You're trying to make me come!"

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Lie down!"

The scissors on the dressing table. Could I plunge it deep enough to kill him? Even if I stabbed him, it might not kill him. He could wrench the scissors away, kill me with them.

I closed my eyes. Don't close your eyes, remember something to describe him afterwards. The small tattoo on his right arm, what was it, why was it so small? Mary . No arrow, no heart, just Mary .

I closed my eyes again as he mounted me, thinking of the movie I had seen just a year ago when I had closed my eyes in the movies in the rape scene because it repulsed me so, and then I knew he was in me and thrusting, and I tried to think of him as something inanimate, a machine, it would only take a minute more, and it would be over, over, over. It was an accident that my eyes opened,)ust a slit for a second, and I saw his face. He had a desperate, wild, anguished expression. It was grotesque to call this making love.

I hadn't felt his orgasm, but when my eyes opened, he was standing at the bedside, detumescent now.

It was over, thank God, it was over.

How many hundreds of clients over the years have responded to "Tell me what happened?" by proceeding to convince me of their inarticulateness. Most people use the language as if it were a grab bag of words, flinging them about in the hope that some will fit their meaning well enough to convey, loosely, what they want to say. Francine Widmer, to the contrary, strove for precision. If her first comment about something didn't satisfy her, she modified it. Her mind seemed to work the way I imagined a sculptor worked on a block of stone, chiseling away the debris until he got to the truth. When a client first tells me his or her story, I look for those small facial expressions — the tic of concealment, the eyes desperate to please — that sometimes tell you more than the words do. With Francine Widmer, one could concentrate on the words. During her recital of the events of March 22,I began to admire the inside of her head.

Which is quite a discipline considering how the outside looked, not just the strangely shaped eyes and the magnificent cheekbones, but also the curve of her long neck, the occasional pale blue vein under the skin, the way she sat tall like a dancer.

And though she must have been more distressed than she let me see, she didn't lose her sense of humor, which most people do the instant they are angry.