When Sarah Screamed

Love in the Ruins-2

Henry liked a good, deep elliptical hip swing. It was nice, mostly, to be f****d that way, only she wished he was bigger, or did it harder or something. But, that wasn’t his way. Henry did what Henry did because he believed it was best. As far as she could tell, it never occurred to him that his choice might not be the same as hers.

She didn’t mind that, as a rule. Her tastes ran to forceful men, or at least her dreams did. Unfortunately, along with all the other things that he wasn’t, Henry wasn’t dominant. She’d thought so once, but had learned otherwise over the years. She had made the classic mistake, confusing selfishness with self-confidence. Six years of marriage had taught her that, if nothing else.

Six years, she thought. Ye Gods! And here I am, still f*****g the man who left me for a younger woman.

It made her want to weep, or throw something, or scream out loud. It made her wish she’d jumped off a bridge, or poisoned his soup, or at the very least dragged him through the courts in a malicious divorce—something dramatic—something satisfying. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d settled for second best, which was a very bad habit of hers and hadn’t surprised anybody.

Once a month or so, Henry came to supper on Friday night and stayed for breakfast. And sometimes, he f****d her twice, which was pretty nice, if occasionally inconvenient. Sarah had no idea how he explained that to what’s-her-name, and had never asked. In her nastier moments, she wondered if maybe the girlfriend thought of it as a welcome respite.

Henry held himself above her on locked arms, thrusting away, steady and dependable as a metronome. He didn’t do it to look down at the conquered woman, but out of respect, or so he said. After all, he was heavier than she was, and he wouldn’t want to crush the life out of her, now would he?

You would if you had the balls, she thought savagely.

And the simple truth was that she really wanted to feel that kind of weight again, to be smothered and driven and taken with fierce disregard, or consideration, or even common decency. She wanted him to grab her with hands like vises and power-f**k her into the middle of next week. She wanted to be brutalized, screwed to a standstill and left bleeding in semi-conscious bliss on the bed. She wanted…

She tore her mind away from that kind of delusion with a deliberate wrench of effort. If wanting was getting I’d be rich and well f****d, she thought disconsolately. And I’d look like Sigourney Weaver, by God!

Instead, what she had was indifferent s*x and an empty house forty weekends out of fifty-two—if she was lucky. And even when she did get laid, it was only after playing June Cleaver, crooning and gasping decorously while Henry pumped into her, getting himself cranked up so that she could finally crank back, milking him hard with her muscular cunt in the last few seconds before he came.

That was her secret weapon, squeezing his c**k in that powerful and utterly feminine grip until he was groaning with sensation, and finally, finally, finally driving hard into her. She drew her knees back then, opening herself to him so that his prick thudded into the back of her womb, hurtful and, in counterpoint, utterly male. Sarah liked that a lot, and during those rare moments, she could even fool herself into believing that she liked Henry, too. Lately, it was about the only time she liked him.

He didn’t have any idea that the last, brisk couple of minutes were really all that mattered to her, or that it was the only time when he even approached giving her what she needed. Sadly, it never lasted anywhere near long enough, but even so, it was exactly what the doctor ordered; that relentlessly hard bang, bang, bang of his body into hers, with Sarah writhing and too breathless to say anything at all except uh, uh, uh, uh, uh with every stroke.

She loved the wildness of that crazy hammering thrust, when he was just taking and taking and taking. That ruthless pummeling seemed to batter her mind as well as her body, and she responded to it like nothing else. Unfortunately, that very reaction always sowed the seeds of destruction, as the hard grip on Henry’s c**k invariably took him over the edge way too early for her to catch up. He came, grunting breathlessly, lunging until she felt the heat of his sperm inside her—also too early and also, sadly, as usual.

That was the moment when Sarah’s first husband would have pulled out and c*m on her belly, or her t**s, or her face, and then gone down on her, using his tongue and lips and teeth, driving her to the edge of insanity.

Henry never risked that much. It was just too earthy for him, too messy. Instead, he spurted straight into her body, taking every bit of pleasure that he could stand which, apparently, wasn’t all that much. He couldn’t tolerate her famous p***y grip except in the paroxysm of his own orgasm. The sensations were too strong, too f*****g immediate and gut-wrenching for him to deal with over any length of time.

When it came to that point, he pushed himself to finish, as he always did; squirting, one, two, three, and then climbing off her almost as if embarrassed by such an unseemly display. His only concession beyond that was to put his hands on her breasts while Sarah reached down for the spot he had abandoned, so that she could take care of herself. She had that part down to a science. All she had to do was hook her hand around the blunt curve of her venus mount, dig down to catch her clit between index and middle fingers and then yank at herself hard and fast.

Lately, she’d had to yank harder and faster than ever before. She’d even drawn blood once or twice, and hadn’t been put off by it at all. She pinched the swollen bud between two knuckles, hard, covering one hand with the other to increase the pressure. Her breasts, squeezed in between her arms, shuddered with her own motion. It hurt to do that, too, but it was the only thing that would make up for the stultifying boredom of s*x with Henry Finnegan.

With her eyes tightly closed, she let the fantasy images swim up out of her imagination at last; Sarah, nude on a street crowded with strangers; Sarah, mounted by some kind of savage animal; Sarah, pulling a train with a biker gang; Sarah, strapped down on a gynecological examination table, screaming as medieval torture instruments were used one after another between her bloody thighs. There were flickering mental photographs of stockings, high heels, garter belts, of Sarah the courtesan, rigidly corseted and beautifully dressed, holding out her hand for cash from the first customer of the evening, or from the tenth, or the hundredth. And that was just for starters.

The pictures in her mind had changed over the years, becoming more elaborate and extreme, but the emphasis had not. She’d dreamt that way practically all her life, and had long since stopped apologizing for it, even to herself. They were her darkest secret, and her greatest escape. And they were hers—no one could take that away. In her teen years, those daydreams had sometimes been terrifying but, as an adult, she clung to them fiercely.

As Henry tugged her n*****s, Sarah jerked and clawed at her clit, and let the maelstrom of arousal and fantasy loose inside her mind, where it provided strange hands to tear at her; bloody fingernails cutting into soft skin; voices jeering; nameless leering faces looming in a smoky room; gigantic, veined c***s, spouting like fire hoses, and then, and then…

Oh, oh, um, mmm, mmmm, unnhhh, oh God, oh God, oh sweet ever loving…UNNNNHHHHHH!!!!

2.

When she was done, Henry let go of her and lay back to stretch and yawn. Sarah could feel his eyes on her, detached and clinical, watching while she caught her breath and tried to savor the orgasmic aftershocks that made her abdomen quiver and jump. The sensations were fleeting and delicate and, to her way of thinking, icing on the cake. He swept that aside disdainfully.

“Why can’t you get off like everyone else?” He was a college math teacher, and used that faintly distant and professorial voice, the one reserved for his more inept students. “My goodness, Sarah, you’re like an animal—grunting like a pig and sweating like…like I don’t know what…a horse, or something. It’s disgusting.”

Her post-orgasmic daydream broke into little pieces, leaving Sarah with an all but irresistible urge to cry. He was such a dork, sometimes. How the f**k was it that everyone else had acceptable orgasms, and how would Henry know, anyway? It wasn’t like he knew everyone else, after all. Was she the only person in the world who sweated and yipped and watched her belly muscles flutter and shudder afterward?

To cover her irritation, she made big eyes at him, smiling stupidly, and used the simpering Jayne Mansfield voice that he used to like so much. “I can’t help it, Henry; you just turn me into a little beast.”

“Little is the word,” he said offhandedly. “You’re too skinny, Sarah. Being in bed with you is like sleeping with a sack full of coat hangers.”

Sarah cringed, resentment stiffening her back. She’d lost the weight at his insistence, and suddenly he was bitching about it. It was so patently unfair that the heat inside her evaporated as if it had never been, crushed by Henry’s apparently limitless need to make her feel bad about herself. Such casual indifference was the ultimate sort of cruelty, and she despised him for it—and herself, because his words always made a little shiver inside her that felt an awful lot like…well, s*x, not to put too fine a point on it.

Kinky b***h, her little internal voice sneered.

She ignored it, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for her turn in the bathroom, and trying not to fret about Henry’s sperm oozing onto her fresh sheets. It didn’t matter. She’d be washing them again, anyway, just like always. When he came out of the bathroom to dress, she went for a shower, and scrubbed at her skin until it tingled, wondering if she ought to go ahead and shave her legs, and deciding not to. She hadn’t bothered for Henry, so why do it now?

After drying off, she put on her glasses and a crumpled red tank top of ribbed cotton that was hanging on the towel rack. She couldn’t find the soft pajama pants that she wanted, and was bent over trying to dig them out of the clothes hamper when Henry came back into the room to comb his hair.

“Now there’s a nice picture,” he said sarcastically in passing. She looked up, exasperated, but he went on without pause. “Have you got any hundred percent whole wheat bread? The real kind, mind you, not that honey wheat stuff. It’s got too much sugar.” He looked her up and down.

“In the bread box by the fridge,” she said.

The crack about her backside was just another in a long list of petty gripes she had about Henry. It was his idea of charming, which it wasn’t. Sarah used to have a killer ass. In the old days, she had shown off to beat the band, but Henry had taken to slamming her about it and she had gotten pretty self-conscious. Maybe it shouldn’t have mattered so much, considering the source. He didn’t give a s**t about her, except between the sheets, and not very often at that. Knowing that just made things worse.

She found herself fighting back the tears again, and marveled at how he could f**k her and then make her feel two inches tall, all in about ten minutes start to finish. To distract him, she waved vaguely toward the kitchen.

“The peanut butter is…”

“In the corner cabinet, I know.” He scowled with irritation. “You don’t have to tell me everything, Sarah. I used to live here, remember?”

She stuck her tongue out at his retreating back, and then let the tears come. Somehow, it was easier to weep than c*m, or at least more acceptable. And wasn’t that the most f****d up thing she’d ever heard of? She wiped brusquely at her wet eyelashes. What she needed was a cigarette and a double latte with a toasted bagel and stacks of cream cheese.