That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have seen an early newscast or else he'd been there on the spot and had seen her. Could it be coincidence that mild-mannered Harry Riggs, professional breaker and enterer, had picked this of all days to rape his parole officer?
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have seen she was a pushover, that she was round heeled whether she wanted to admit it or not. He must have seen past all her brittle self-sufficiency, seen that behind her facade of independence she was as empty, as deprived, as starved for love as he was after doing five-to-ten.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have known before he walked into her house what he was going to do, that he was just going to strip for action and then he was going to walk up to her and undress her and put her down and put it in and keep it in and empty his five-to-ten year accumulation of rancor, of loneliness, of deprived desire into her equally deprived duff.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have planned it all before he even phoned her. Big deal out of state! He hadn't even mentioned it, hadn't seemed even slightly put out when she had told him no dice. Hadn't had anything, probably, inside that manila envelope except a handful of newspaper to make an impressive bulk.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have known how it was all going to work out, that she was going to surrender to her belly, that her independence was going to melt and turn into come just as her brains had turned into pussy juice and run right out of her cunt.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have known that she thought she controlled him, held his future in the palm of her hand.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have known even before he started that she was going to like it, going to need it, going to want more, that she was going to start squealing and moaning and wrapping her legs around the man who was raping her.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have planned it this way, fucking her into a dead faint and then getting dressed and leaving before she even had time to make up her mind whether she wanted it or not, whether she was going to turn him in or not.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch! He must have gotten out of the way quickly so she could be alone, so she wouldn't be embarrassed to weep now that she knew what she was really crying about, now that she knew she was wailing and sobbing and moaning not because she had been raped, but because he had gone off and wasn't sticking around to do it again only slower and nicer this time, taking a little time for some smooth sensual foreplay.
That miserable little son-of-a-bitch!
She wanted to kill him. Putting him in prison was not enough. After what he'd done to her-not what he'd done to her body-what the hell, a douche and a shower and a half-hour's rest and she'd be good as new, but what he'd done to her mind.
She knew now exactly how much of an ass she had been all these years, what an ass she had made of herself by trying to pretend she didn't have an ass, that she only had some full, firm musculature designed to sit on, to piss through, to watch grow old and flabby.
She had told herself she didn't need men, didn't want to play in a world where the rules were stacked in their favor. Now she had to admit, not just to the world, but to herself, that it wasn't true. She might despise them, might hate them with a purple passion but Paula knew she could never ever lie to herself again. Hate them she might, despise them even but she needed them. Maybe not every part of them. Like those chauvinist pigs who got together to swill beer and sing, 'I only want a body, not a sweetheart,' Paula guessed she could do without scintillating conversation. She didn't need clothes or social position in a man. She didn't need anything in a man. All she needed was a man's cock inside her, coursing steadily in and out, in and out in the dance of love, fulfilling her, filling her full, fucking the chauvinistic daylights out of her.
That was all she had ever needed, ever wanted, and now that miserable little son-of-a-bitch-that was exactly what he had given her! Why couldn't he have stuck around to give her some more?
She still lay on her back, on the rug, blubbering, tears streaming down the sides of her face, come streaming down the crack of her ass. It was undignified. What if he were to see her now?
And what was she doing wondering, worrying about what some goddam convicted 'felon thought? She took a deep breath, struggled valiantly, and made herself stop blubbering. She tried to get up and was overcome with a lassitude she hadn't known in years. She felt relaxed, loose, as if every joint in her body had been painlessly disconnected. This, she realized, was the way cats managed to drape themselves in unbelievable positions and sleep undisturbed while the world came to pieces around them. This was total relaxation in a way she had not been relaxed since-since she had seen her life and her career sour in a blind alley-since she had turned woman's libber.
She lay still, managing to control her residual sobbing with deep breathing and finally mustered enough strength to roll over and get on her hands and knees. Still fighting off an overwhelming desire just to lie down and sleep, she crawled into the bath and began fiddling with the valves in the tub.
She got the curtain drawn and flipped the diverter valve, recalling too late that she hadn't put on a shower cap. The water was not cold but it was cool enough to rouse her from total lethargy. She rinsed off and squatted beneath the spray to douche come from her comely cunt. Only gradually did she become aware of the telephone's insistent jangling. She wondered if the goddam thing would ever stop ringing.
CHAPTER 7
She shut off the water and began toweling herself off. Her hair was a mess but she wasn't going anywhere. She'd gone far enough for one day. She sat before her mirror combing and drying those long blond strands that had played such hell with her efforts not to appear as a sex object. Christ! What was she going to do? She knew from the slightly different sound of the bells which phone was ringing. It was not the hot line for her parolees. To hell with the rest of the world and nosy reporters and freaks and total idiots who would ask if she had done it all deliberately as if a woman would risk getting shredded in one of Hizzonner's defective escalators just to get her picture in the papers and on TV!
And so far as Hizzonner was concerned, she decided, it was up to him to make the first move. If she saw the slightest hint of her career going sour or promotion being delayed, Paula resolved she was going to sue the old bastard and his corrupt administration for every dime they'd ever stolen. Hizzonner was a crook and a cheat but he was not stupid. Surely he or somebody close to him would realize that Paula was, after all, an attorney and as aware of personal injury suits as any ambulance chasing shyster. She would make careful note of the dates when statutes of limitations would come into effect. That would give her time enough-and give Hizzonner time enough-to get their heads together.
And meanwhile back at the ranch, what was she going to do about her real problem? She gave a bitter laugh. A while ago she'd been worried about her unexpected striptease before the cameras and city council. Now she had real problems.
There was one thing she'd better do goddam quick, she decided. That miserable little son-of-a-bitch had leered and told her he'd be back. He knew how much of a round heels she was. She knew that if he were to walk into her house again and point those eight prodigious inches at her she would roll over and play dead again. There was only one way to keep from getting fucked right out of her mind again: she had to make sure Harry Riggs, convicted breaker and enterer, did not get into her house again unless he broke and entered, whereupon she would be legally, morally, and newsworthy entitled to shoot the little bastard.
Paula finished drying her hair and hastily began making the rounds of her house, shooting bolts, locking windows and doors. She checked out front to make sure Smart-ass had closed the garage door as he left. Damn I What if Smart-ass ever found out about Harry Riggs raping her? She could endure exposure, had already endured it, she guessed. But how could she ever endure Smart-ass's pity?
She finished securing her little house and went back into her room, ignoring the steadily jangling phone. Then, tiring of the racket, she picked it up, blew another shrill police whistle blast into it, and put the damned thing down without hanging up. Dimly she could hear a tinny voice taking the Lord's name in vain.
What was she going to do?
There was, she realized, only one thing she could do. It had to be business as usual. If she made a big deal
