"Perhaps no deeper, but more often," Helen said, and Bobby guffawed. "Let us know of your progress, Perry, but please, don't involve us in any way."
****In his haste he'd left the light on. The bare bulb glared above the bed, and Laura couldn't help but lift her head and look down at herself. That made her feel so ashamed. Spread-eagled on his foul bed, her blouse was wide open and her brassiere was only on her by one strap. Her skirt was twisted and torn, her panties gone, her stockings down around her knees. She was wet and cold and streaked with rain-washed mud. By arching her body upward she could see the smears of red between her legs, and that was comforting. It served as a reminder that she'd been forcefully taken, and that in turn helped to let her forget about those brief moments when his penis in her hand felt so very good.
But, no! It hadn't felt good, not even for one second! Sex only felt good with the one you loved, and she felt nothing but contempt for Perry Coleman. Driven by her anger, she started straining anew at the ropes that held her wrists and ankles, and as she did, she glared around at the unkempt little bedroom. There was dirty laundry on the floor and an array of junk on the dresser with its cracked mirror, and these were more mute evidence of the low sort of person he was. Every few minutes she'd stop in her struggles, take a deep breath, and scream. It only made her more dizzy. She felt that he'd drugged her, and hoped that could be proved and would make things go harder on him when he was brought to justice. She was making some headway on the rope around her left wrist when she heard his car come rattling into the yard.
Right away she knew he'd come back to do it again and then kill her, and she began to cry. She hated herself for doing it, but she couldn't stop. She thought about Chuck and how he would avenge her, and that helped. Then the door at the foot of the bed opened and there he was-and a great calm suddenly came over her. She didn't even try to close her legs, for she wanted him to see the blood and the shame he'd wrought.
He regarded her somberly for a few long seconds and left, and fury overwhelmed her and she screamed, "Let me loose! Come back here and let me loose!"
The bed creaked under her struggles until he came back, holding a towel in his hands. She knew he was going to strangle her with it as he approached the bed, but she had to ask. "What are you going to do with that?"
"Clean you up a little," he said, and sat down on the bed.
At first she tried to twist her head away when he began to wash her mud- and tear-streaked face, but then she submitted to it, sullen and grim-lipped. She became petrified when he drew a big clasp knife from his pocket, and she screamed and struggled when he approached her body with it.
"Hold still. I don't want to cut you. I just want these clothes off."
"No! Leave me alone! Get away from me!"
Phlegmatically, he sawed off the remnants of her once pristine garments, and she hated him almost as much for seeing her naked as she did for having raped her. She held still for a few moments when he started using the wet towel on her body, but had to twist and scream and thrash as he approached her loins with it. He held her down with his body across her belly as he wiped all around between her legs with the towel. She felt sick with shame.
He faced her again to ask her if she wanted some milk, and she took several seconds before answering. "I suppose it's drugged like the beer was."
"There was some vodka in the beer. The milk is okay. Do you want some?"
Her thirst overcame her pride, and she said yes. He held her head up so she could drink it, and even there his touch was revolting to her. But she did feel better with the milk in her stomach.
His hand was cold from the glass when he placed it gently on her abdomen, and she flinched from it. He looked her over, his dark eyes expressionless as he gazed at her naked and utterly defenseless body, and he said. "You know, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I want to brush out your hair."
She could smell his sweat as he bent over her and took out the one barrette that remained. When he went to the dresser to get a hair brush, she said, "I'd rather you killed me. You make me sick just looking at you."
"I can't get enough of looking at you," he said, and smiling, he tilted the dresser mirror so that she could see her reflection in it.
She looked away, but the image still burned in her brain. Her breasts flattened by her arms overhead posture, her belly hollowed out, her body looking so white and soft, and that tuft of hair that marked what he and every other man lusted for.
Using the brush, he said, "That was a pretty dumb thing I did today, talking you into coming to the Happy Hour. I should have left you alone. I knew I could never make it with you. I had to try, I guess, sooner or later. Being in love with a woman like you makes me do stupid things."
"Love! What do you know about love!"
He grinned a little sadly and said, "Even ex-convicts fall in love. Maybe it's worse with us than with straight guys, because we have so much time to think about it in-the joint-in jail," he added, when he saw she didn't comprehend.
"Well, you'll have a lot more time to think about it when they get you for this. And they will."
He sighed and nodded. "I know. That's why I came back."
She didn't at all like the way he was looking at her. Even more distinctly now, she could feel where he'd stabbed her with his great, thick, ugly penis. Keep him talking, that was the thing to do.
"Look, if you'll just let me go, I – won't p-prosecute you. I won't say a word to anyone about it."
"Even if II believed that, Laura, I wouldn't do it. Hell, I couldn't-not now that I've had this much of you. I'm like a little kid in a candy store who knows he's going to get hell and a stomachache both, but he has to go on swiping candy once he's tasted it."
"What are you going to do?" she said, trying to be unobtrusive about working at her bonds, trying to keep her head.
"I'm going to show you how much I love you, babe," he replied, and ran his hand down over her warm, smooth body.
Hard and hot as his hand was, it was as if a toad was crawling on her. She withstood it, for she'd put up with worse, even though she'd been drunk at the time. She couldn't help but squirm away, but she didn't start crying again and she was able to protest coherently.
"Perry, don't make it any worse for yourself. Honestly…honest to God, I won't report you if you stop now and let me g-go."
"I told you I can't stop now. And it won't be bad. I promise you that."
He was touching her bare breast and no man had ever done that before, and it was awful, terrible. And his face was almost as dreadful as his hand as he stared at her, slack-jawed and obsessed by his unnatural sex drive.
"It'll be terrible. It'll ruin me for life, Perry-and you too."
"I don't care about me. Laura, I'm willing to go back to prison and spend the rest of my life there in exchange for a little more time with you. If you don't like it, that'll be just too bad. You'll get over it, though. I won't."
When he tried to kiss her, she spit in his face. He merely wiped it off and used his lips and his hands on her breasts. There was little she could do about that but deride him.
"That feels awful. It's making me sick. Just stop it and let me go. If you really ever did feel any love for me or for anyone, you wouldn't be doing this. Stop it!"
"Getting to you?" he asked, and resumed sliding his wetted lips over the corrugated flesh of her nipples and stroking the taut globes with his hands.
No, it wasn't pleasant at all. All his supposedly erotic ticklings produced in her was a creepy feeling. Scornfully, she said, "Your doing that shows how disgustingly childish you are. You need psychiatric help."
"I need you, doll," he said. He quit his dirty kissings to stand up beside the bed. "And I'm going to have all I can of you before they lock me up again."