Удушье (Choke)

I twist one of her arms behind her back and put the chilled blade to her throat.

'For crying out loud,' she says. 'This is way out of bounds. I said you could rape me. I did not say you could ruin my panty­hose.'

With my knife hand, I grab the front edge of her lacy bathrobe and try to tug it off her shoulder.

'Stop, stop, stop,' she says and slaps my hand away, 'Here, let me do it. You're just going to ruin it.' She twists away from me.

I ask if I can take off my sunglasses.

'No,' she says and slips out of her robe. Then she goes to the open closet and hangs the robe on a padded hanger.

But I can't hardly see.

'Don't be so selfish,' she says. Naked now, she takes my hand and presses it around one of her wrists. Then she slips her arm behind her back, turning to press her bare back to me. My dog's nosing higher and higher, and her warm slick butt crack's gum­ming me, and she says, 'I need you to be a faceless attacker.'

I tell her its too embarrassing to buy a pair of pantyhose. A guy buying pantyhose is either a criminal or a pervert; either way the cashier will hardly take your money.

'Jeez, quit whining,' she says. 'Every rapist I've ever been with has brought his own pantyhose.'

Plus I tell her, when you're looking at the pantyhose rack, they have all those colors and sizes. Nude, charcoal, beige, tan, black, cobalt, and none of them come in just 'head-sized.'

She twists her face away and groans. 'Can I tell you some­thing? Can I tell you just one thing?'

I say, what?

And she says, 'Your breath is really bad.'

Back in the bookstore coffee shop, while we were still script­ing, she said, 'Make sure and put the knife in a freezer before­hand. I need it to be really really cold.'

I asked if maybe we could just use a rubber knife.

And she said, 'The knife is very important to my total experience.'

She said, 'It's best if you put the edge of the knife to my throat before it gets to room temperature.'

She said, 'But be careful, because if you cut me by acci­dent'—she leaned toward me over the table, jabbing her chin at me—'if you even scratch me, I swear I'll have you in jail before you can get your pants back on.'

She sipped her herbal chai and set the cup back in its saucer and said, 'My sinuses would appreciate it if you didn't wear any kind of cologne or aftershave or deodorant with a strong scent, because I'm very sensitive.'

These horny sexaholic chicks, they have such a high toler­ance. They just can't not get banged. They just can't stop, no mat­ter how degrading things get.

God, how I love being codependent.

In the coffee shop, Gwen lifts her purse into her lap and digs around inside it. 'Here,' she says and unfolds a photocopied list of the details she wants to include. At the top of the list it says:

Rape is about power. It is not romantic. Do not fall in love with me. Do not kiss me on the mouth. Do not expect to linger after the act. Do not ask to use my bathroom.

That Monday night in her bedroom, pressed into me naked, she says, 'I want you to hit me.' She says, 'But not too hard and not too soft. Just hit me hard enough so I come.'