Then another climax tremored and burst.
And then…
“Oh, honey,” she murmured. Her hands ran up and down his sides, feeling flexing muscles through his shirt. The intent thrusts, however, began to slow, while the look on his face crumbled. What…happened? She knew he hadn’t climaxed yet—she would’ve felt it. Then that undeniable male fullness seemed to abate, shrinking right in the midst of her feminine flesh.
“Honey, what—”
“Aw, damn it,” he spat. He looked flustered, even pained. His penis seemed to retract like something being expeditiously reeled in. Don’t stop! she wanted to shriek. But next he was mumbling, getting off of her.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Tom, what’s wr—”
“It’s not you. Christ. I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight. I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.” Then he was getting up, shuffling to the bedroom.
Helen was waylaid. She lay there, like an astonished idiot herself, with her skirt jacked up and her panties still hanging off one foot. Her emotions clacked together like the steel balls on a desk curio. Confusion, embarrassment, then hostility. Just get up and leave me lying here on the floor, you asshole. She felt infuriated and used, until she counted to ten as Dr. Sallee had taught her, and thought about it. In actuality, how could she feel used? It was an illegitimate response. I came like a freight train, she reminded herself. Twice. Yet he hadn’t come at all. If anything, I used him… “You think too much of yourself,” Dr. Sallee had told her at a long-past session shortly after her divorce. “We all do. But keep in mind that a relationship involves a drastic set of human dynamics. It involves two people, not one. Anger, hostility, rage? These are useless emotions, and selfish ones when you let them come into you without sufficient reflection. Think about the other person too.”
The other person.
Tom.
She sat up, sluggishly pulled her panties back on. Christ, he lost his erection. Think how embarrassed he must feel.
Dr. Sallee was right. Consider other people’s feelings for a change. Tom had problems too, Tom was subject to the same kind of stress as Helen, yet how often did he go out of his way to coddle her own plethora of bad moods and bitchy outbursts? Too many times, she realized. And after what he’d had to do today? Autopsying Jeffrey Dahmer?
Who in their right mind wouldn’t be bent out of shape over something like that?
She buttoned herself back up, then went the bedroom. Tom was lying on top of the covers, eyes closed, a hand on his forehead. He sensed her entrance.
“Sorry,” he repeated. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she nonchalantly replied.
“I mean, that’s never happened to me before.”
Helen sat down next to him, stroked his chest. “Tom, it’s just something that happens sometimes. No big deal.” How else could she console him? “You don’t have to be a stud every night,” she joked.
“Some stud,” he sputtered. “Somebody get me some Geritol.”
“Stop it, will you?” She leaned over and gave him a peck. “You make me feel guilty.”
“Guilty?” One eye opened. “Why?”
“You made me come twice,” she said slyly.
“Oh, yeah?” That seemed to perk him up. “Well, at least I did something right tonight.”
She kissed him once more and left. It was easy to tell when men wanted to be left alone, and this was definitely one of those times. He’ll be back to his usual jokester self soon enough, she felt sure.
What to do now? She moped around the kitchen, then realized she wasn’t hungry. And it was too early to go to bed. In the den she contemplated turning on Tom’s computer and trying one of his CD-ROM games, but discarded the idea. At work, she putzed around with computers all day, and hated the blasted things. Why putz with them now? Instead, she idly picked up that day’s edition of the Madison daily, the Tribune, then groaned when she caught an article on the front page: DAHMER’S DEATH SAVES STATE TAXPAYERS $1,000,000.
Taxpayers may wish to thank Tredell W. Rosser, the alleged murderer of Jeffrey Dahmer, for reducing the fiscal corrections deficit by $1,000,000. “That’s how much money the state of Wisconsin would have to fork over to keep America’s most notorious mass murderer alive in order to reach the age of 74, the statistical average lifespan of state convicts sentenced to life imprisonment,” said Dr. William Beierschmitt, a University of Maryland sociology professor. “The ticket comes to about 26.5 grand per year—”
Then— Oh for crying out loud! Helen thought.
Yet another front pager read: PRISON OFFICIALS DESPERATE TO THWART DAHMER “CONSPIRACY” THEORY.
PORTAGE— Bizarre rumors leaking out of the Columbus County Detention Center continue to proliferate as prison director James Dipetro and his staff struggle to quell them. Multiple sources, who have asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, have told the Tribune that the November 28 bludgeoning murder of Jeffrey Dahmer may have been the work of more than one man, and not just other inmates. So far only a lone inmate, Tredell W. Rosser, convicted of murder in 1990, is being regarded as the assailant, but our sources claim that even detention officers may have taken part in deliberately arranging Dahmer’s janitorial detail in the prison’s gymnasium lavatory, and that they were paid to do so by Milwaukee drug lords who had put a “contract” out on Dahmer’s life. “Merely vicious rumors perpetuated by disgruntled employees,” stated Dipetro. “Rosser has already confessed.” Sheriff Tritt Tuckton of the Columbus County Sheriff’s Department, however, isn’t as convinced. “Sure, Rosser confessed to murdering Dahmer, but he also confessed to the Linberg Kidnapping and the assassination of Pope Felix VI. How much credibility are you going to give a man like that? He’s crazy.” “The only one crazy in this mess is Tuckton,” countered Dipetro. “He’s just a small-time county bumpkin who wants to be in the lime light, so that’s why he’s ordering this ridiculous investigation—”
Helen skipped the rest. Even the legitimate papers, these days, were sounding like the tabloids. Anonymous “sources.” Conspiracies. Contracts.
Ludicrous, she thought.
Out of desperation, then, she turned on Tom’s Trinitron with the remote, then went back to the kitchen. A drink would be nice now, but Tom rarely kept any liquor in the condo. She settled, instead, for a beer—IC Light, whatever that was—and then went back to the den. A dark, monotone shape warbled out of the color-tinged darkness, fluttering shadows on the wall. Helen turned, began to sit down on the couch, then winced when she saw what was on the screen. You gotta be kidding me! It was Dahmer.
One of those tabloid shows. A stiff-haired brunet announcer with too much lipstick tried to appear professional as she recited, “…during P.M. Edition’s landmark interview with this crazed, cannibalistic killer last July.” Dahmer hardly looked crazed or cannibalistic. His drab face—thinner than more recent photos—barely moved as he responded to an interview question.
“…which is why I asked the warden for general pop,” he said in slate-green correctional coveralls.