Every woman knows that true friends have no secrets.
“Does Sharon know?”
It was almost a rhetorical question.
Shortly thereafter, in holy Dionysian lust, Claudio decides to fuck Sharon. He undresses and tippy toes quietly sneaking up behind her, cupping her breasts in a most tender way. Sharon comes to for a second, recognizes Claudio, but still too drunk to properly grasp what’s going on, says nothing, and falls into the arms of Hypnos again. Totally under the influence of her drunken stupor, she dreams of stomping on purple grapes. The sweet purple grape juice beneath her feet slowly rises to above her waist on its way to her breasts, and in the depths of her dream, she feels Claudio slide deeper inside her. Dreamingly she gets on her back and makes herself more open to his manly body and to his experienced hands that are making her feel luxurious. It was a voluptuous meeting of two beautiful people. She was the personification of a beautiful woman, and he was very handsome. At that moment, they were young lovers, two strangers meeting for the first time, which made their lovemaking most pleasurable. It was the stuff that dreams are made of, and she was happy to be in it. For the first time in her life, Sharon felt the lust of her womanly instincts, and she was loving it. She felt the warmth of the dream, and being a dream, it was all free of guilt or sin, and she wanted more. She made herself even more available to Claudio who wondered how he was going to repay all this kindness, and how Hank, the hunk, would get even with his Kitty.
For one brief second Kitty came to, saw that Claudio was fucking Sharon, goofy-smiled, and fell back asleep.
Later, when she woke up, Sharon found herself all wet, vaguely recalled Claudio, and realized what had happened.
Humiliated, the next day, she called Robin and told her what she suspected.
“Fuck it, Sharon. You can’t go back to change things.”
“But Robin, he raped me,” said a still clouded Sharon.
“Does it hurt?”
“No,” said an almost inaudible Sharon.
“Then fuck it,” said Robin. “And listen, make sure you say not a word to Kitty. It would kill her if she knew.”
Chapter Eleven
She was in her house, feeling naughty in her brand new Max Mara. She wanted to be indulged like all pretty girls do. Lounging in one of her velvet chaise chairs in one of her spacious game rooms, she coyly licked the rim of her martini glass, self-consciously trying to fit another hopelessly mindless evening into her lovely expensive dress.
It was another insipid poker night at the Merker mansion. Like every other Friday night, once again, happy Hank was hosting his leftover dumb high school football teammates to endless rounds of poker, lots of finger food from his restaurants, and all the beer they could drink. Every other Friday night the boys of old days would get together and feel good about their socio-economic status, rolling up the cuffs of their old-time janitor-like loose-fitting pants. It was their way of recalling the simple joys of happier times of their high school varsity days when they could get any cheerleader they wanted. These were happy Friday nights with endless finger-licking barbeque Buffalo wings, compliments of the house. Hank especially enjoyed these poker nights when he could show off his good luck and fortune to his former football teammates. There had also been an open invitation to Phil, Dave, and Claudio to Merker’s poker nights, due to Sharon’s insistence who wanted some people with brains around. Dave, however, rarely joined the group feeling out of place with all of Hank’s high school jocks, something that he never wished to be. Occasionally, Claudio and Phil would show up; Phil to keep Claudio company, and Claudio mostly to enjoy Sharon’s presence. He had figured that it was worth the few bucks at the table to cop a few stares at Sharon, the game’s hostess, a role she hated but forced on her by host husband Hank. Some of the nights, one or more of the girl friends would also show up to keep Sharon company, but tonight she was alone.
“Sharon, have I ever mentioned to you that I’m an artist?”
It was Claudio, her other rapist of a few weeks before, whose assault had reaffirmed in her mind that she was right to have detested him from the day she had met him. In reality the attack still somewhat pleasant on her mind, had left no damaging wounds on her, and with the exception of Robin, only she and Claudio were privy to the event. Accepting that no harm had been done in his raping her, she excused the whole tasteless affair as nowhere near as horrible as that of husband Hank’s rape years earlier. It was quite possible, she had considered, that in each case it might have even been her fault; certainly some of it. She had accepted Robin’s advice not to make an issue of it.
She barely acknowledged Claudio, her rapist with the dupe’s smile. A feeling of weariness and boredom made her stare at him for one second. She felt revulsion pretending that in a dream there is no sin, except, she now knew that it hadn’t been a dream. She stood up from her chaise to get away from his glare and her legs involuntarily spread apart to keep her steady. She walked away and felt her whole body reluctantly operating against her will. She felt ridiculous, trembling in her own house. She was awake now, and the fucking Dago was not going to intimidate her.
He was not impressed.
She regained her form but still somewhat lightheaded she spread her thighs hard against her Max Mara evening blue form-fitting dress and gained confidence to steady her stand. Form fitting, stiff against her firm buttocks, and just for the fuck of it, she once again was commando that evening, and everything next to that dress rubbed tough and safe. She felt impregnable in her stunning dress and in response to the idiotic question she had just heard about his artistic credentials, she exhaled a wicked little laugh. She gave Claudio a daring look with her huge angry blue heavenly eyes, and immediately regretted it. She felt open to his stare and felt disgusted with herself for initiating such numb conversation which he obviously loved.
Kitty’s artless husband Claudio, an artist? A rapist maybe. At that moment she loathed the presumptuous bastard; sneaky fucking foreigner; they’re all sneaky; can’t trust any of them; poor Kitty. The memory evoked by his presence had already begun to spoil her evening to be pampered. There was never any hope of mighty Hank coming to her rescue because he no longer cared.
Bored and agitated by the European odor of his presence, she again stared at Claudio, an unlikely quarterback, and wished that somebody other than Claudio, would surface and touch her stupid breasts, braless beneath her tough dress, an American male, to let the Dago know that he was not the one for her. She read his charge very well; he made her feel naked, and she wished that someone other than Claudio would appear and touch her everywhere to cleanse her of his stares. Squeeze her firm breasts and bring her out of her dejected gloom.
“Claudio, I feel sorry for you because you’re a fucking idiot,” she half whispered.
She watched him for a minute as he laughed that twisted affected laughter that all foreigners are known for. She understood that the stupid laughter was intended mostly to put at ease all those within hearing range.
What the fuck does he want, she thought to herself? He couldn’t possibly think that I would want to fuck him?
Immediately she regretted calling him an idiot and she hoped that her remark was understood as more coy than aggressive.
His smile never left his face, and everywhere her mind went, he followed.
“I know you think that about me but it’s not fair. I suppose it’s your American way of thinking non-Americans as just fuckers, as you say, that you’ve always thought that about me, but I’d like the chance to prove you wrong,” smiled Claudio who really didn’t give a shit what Sharon thought about him, or about anything. To Claudio, Sharon was a lovely piece.
“You guys want some more beers, or something …” yelled out Sharon to the players shuffling their cards under the hot overhead light of the poker table in the adjacent room of the great game room.
“From you, I’ll take the something
else, Sharon,” came the typical rude reply from one of the guys. It pissed Sharon off that her husband never defended her by showing some minimal disapproval at his filthy-mouthed friends’ bad manners.
She left Claudio and walked to the poker table and tried to put her arms around her husband’s shoulders. It was a dismal gesture signalling to her dumb husband that he needed to run interference and save her from Claudio’s charges. True to form he heartlessly dismissed her in preference to a pair of fours. Behind him, hanging prominently on the wall was a huge poster of Johnny Unitas.
“Later,” he said, and all the boys laughed at the innuendo.
“OK, Hank!” they shouted. “Show her who’s the boss.”
“Later,” said Hank, and that too brought down the house.
She knew there would be no ‘later’ that night because she didn’t care to be alone with her depressing husband. But Claudio, even in her denials, had aroused her beneath her tight dress and she was feeling a bit upset, uncomfortable, and neglected. She felt her tight form fitting dress flawlessly hugging the dimples of her buttocks and felt hot, sensing all the testosterone around her. She also knew that as much as she might have wanted to make love that night it wasn’t going to be with Hank because he couldn’t handle losing and he always lost on poker night.
Frustrated, she walked back to the bar area, distastefully flipped a finger at Claudio who was sitting on an upholstered mahogany chair against the wall, patiently waiting for the sure thing. She thought she saw an idiotic smile on the face of a fool who wanted to impress. Sharon misunderstood the stupid smile as intellectually empty, similar to the expression she had come to recognize in Hank and his cerebrally damaged friends. His smile was an exaggerated display of teeth whiffing for the right smell, same as that of her husband’s and his friends’. She thought the devious little smile on his foreigner’s face, familiar to her since adolescence, was displayed only by her husband’s stupid friends whenever they thought they had something to look forward to. And here was Claudio displaying like them; like an ass in heat. Annoyed, she looked into his rough face and it reminded her of the learned posturing that children put on when being photographed.
“You know Claudio, most artists die young. They die without children even though they have many mistresses and marry when they’re young.”
And then she lost it, talking to herself more than to Claudio.
“They die wrinkled, and are buried in their village grave where they remain harmless dead, as ordinary nothings; as nothings, as when they were alive,” she mustered her hostile, leftover venom, full of vengeance, to dump on Claudio’s face for having taken her for granted.
She felt relief and hoped she had hurt him.
“Grave thoughts, there, Sharon,” said Claudio, still grinning, trying to impress that he was attentive.
“I still haven’t told Kitty on you, and if you don’t behave, one day I will tell her, and she’ll spank you,” Sharon stupidly smiled.
He laughed, determined as ever to fuck her that night.
They were in a great room warmed by stained-glass ceilings and a huge granite topped mahogany bar with eight upholstered mahogany bar stools in front of it. Behind the bar stools was the billiard table. At the opposite side of the bar, looking out to the poker room was a Vegas size craps table. Along the walls all around were hand-carved side tables. High school quarterback Hank Merker had done very well as a restaurant entrepreneur.
“Sharon, I have to say, it’s so nice being here with you. I much rather be here with you than out there with your husband’s poker buddies.”
“You’re too dumb to understand,” she said, “but at least you can still breathe.”
It was another unkind remark to wish him dead, and incomprehensible even for her. She had no idea what she was saying, or why, except maybe in reference to his assaulting her. She couldn’t help it, but it was uncalled for; even after his assault, he didn’t deserve it.
She couldn’t believe that she was beginning to have feelings for Claudio.
Her husband deserved such hateful outpourings more than Claudio did.
“Trust me Sharon. You deserve someone better than Hank.” He was trying to stupidly convey to her that nothing she could say would frighten him away; that she had no way out, and that Hank was in on it.
I see you now and I see you as you were when you were sixteen, you pretty little pussy cat in heat, thrill screeching to hide your lovely tight ass, then, as you are doing right now, pretending that somehow you’re different than the others, he held back.
“In the Garden stood a maid, beautiful as life could be.” He smiled timidly trying to rhyme a poem for her, but it was obvious that she was insensitive to his wit. Stuck, he wanted to sing it to her but there was no melody to be had.
She rolled her bluest eyes and her mind travelled to the Garden of Eden, and she immediately wondered if Adam and Eve did it in the Garden with all the holy angels chanting heavenly songs as they watched.
“Dirty little angels,” she said. “They have to go to confession and communion.”
“I, for one, like dirty little angels,” said Claudio.
“Have you told Kitty?” she said.
She went behind the wet bar and again spread her legs hard against her tough form fitting dress, a perfect eight, sensed her lovely thighs against it, and felt that things were under control. She chilled more Grey Goose and poured it in her glass with a lemon twist. Normally, she liked un-pitted fat green olives with her martinis but she felt pretty sharp at that moment and added another twist.
“In your honor,” she said to Claudio and added an olive anyway.
She felt good, angels beginning to buzz in her head.
“If you want to get another drink come around and fix it yourself,” she said to Claudio.
Going behind her to pour himself another scotch, Claudio purposefully brushed his hand against Sharon’s well defined ass clearly well rounded within her tight dress. It was a good exploratory feel without being too obtrusive.
So that’s the way it starts, she thought. Go ahead asshole, get your cheap thrill, because that’s all you get tonight.
She said nothing.
“I mean, after Kitty and I got married and I set up my company, when I stopped driving around to pick up restaurant grease, and I had more time in my hands, I didn’t know what else to do and I thought I would try doing some writing, which I did, and I’ve enjoyed ever since.”
He took another large gulp from his Johnny Walker Black.
Talking about Kitty made Sharon uncomfortable. She changed the subject.
“I thought you said you’re an artist?”
“That too,” said Claudio. “I have never told you that, have I?”
“Told me what, Claudio?”
“That I’m an author?”
“Well, now you have,” smiled Sharon in affected interest as she licked her lovely lips alluringly around another martini olive and in unison with her tongue coyly batted her crystal clear eyes. The vodka had snuck up on her and she was feeling good.
Claudio raised his eyebrows and nodded his head; he was feeling his scotch.
“You are full of surprises tonight, aren’t you, Claudio? I’m so glad you’ve made me one of your secret sharers, Claudio. You know, an hour ago I hated you, and you know why, don’t you? Imagine, our Claudio, an artist and an author these past some twenty years, imagine that,” she teased the prick.
Claudio smiled the proud smile of recognition.
She’s so beautiful, he thought.
“Who would have ever thought,” Sharon smiled to herself.
She felt another confusing moment of delectable vodka. She was alone at a time when she needed a friend to tease her feelings, or maybe cry on her shoulder. There were all sort of indistinct emotions blending with the vodka. Unfamiliar stuff surfacing from the depth
s of her stomach, it seemed; distressed light headedness that could only have been safely played out and shared only with a good, good friend.
Or a priest, she thought.
She wanted to sit but there was no chair behind the bar.
And at that moment Claudio once again from behind reached for a gentle touch.
She didn’t feel a thing. She was too distant from Claudio’s senseless fondling. He was not a familiar face to whom she could extend an approving smile, or a warm kiss in response. He was merely an acquired nuisance, her best friend’s second husband. Stupid ass; as if touching her ass meant happiness in his life; or hers. There was no way of registering his emotionally empty groping as anything meaningful.
“That’s my boy,” she said, and feeling sorry for him, like an adolescent, gave him a gentle insipid kiss on the cheek. It was an afterthought meaningless kiss, and just like Hank and his buddies didn’t care about what she was doing behind the bar, so, she didn’t care what Hank and his poker buddies were doing in their good times poker shit game.
She felt pity and shame for herself.
Death crossed her mind.
Bad luck, she understood exactly what Claudio was after. She didn’t know what the fuck to do as he gently pressed against her dress and to go into a swoon would have been too melodramatic. All at once she realized that no moral defence could stop Claudio’s drive to a good fuck. He was determined and she felt weak against his pressing.
“Odd thing is that I’ve always thought of you being there as the single most person of goodness away from certain corruption and to this day I could never find out why…” it was Claudio huffing and puffing in her ear.
What the fuck is he doing, she thought?
“Hey, Claudio and Sharon, what are guys up to in here?”
It was Mark Freeman, her husband’s best friend wide receiver, in a surprise come-to call for Sharon. In one of the rare time, she was happy to see him.
He had been part of the team, inseparable buddies on the Magnolia High School Tigers varsity football team, and ever since, Sharon knew that Mark badly wanted to screw her. Once, she had danced with him on the school gym, on a Friday night school dance, and he held her tight and made sure that she felt his hard-on. It was a long slow dance and she remembered it as very pleasant. In a different happening she would have been ok with Mark. Too bad for Mark, in deference to the buddy system, you did not hit on a best friend’s girl. So with reverence to his best friend Hank, who had gotten there first, and who had been screwing Sharon for some time in prelude to their marriage, Mark had learned to honourably keep his distance. There definitely was honor among friends in those early years of high school acquaintance. But as the years went by, the prowl instincts among the best of buddies became more determined, and stealthily they approached uncomfortably closer to her. And Mark wasn’t alone: all of Hank’s best friends wanted a piece of Sharon. Imperceptibly, lust gave way to indiscretion and crude familiarity. Of all of Hank’s friends, Mark was the most discrete as if by chance always appearing at the wrong moment with the wrong words. She found herself between distraction and disappointment as she felt Mark’s honor code on every pack occasion to rut into stupid touchy-feely, pardon, accidental pawing of her. And the more Hank’s interest waned in her, especially the last couple of years, the more solicitous Mark had become towards her. Stale odors exuded from an ignored wife whose body language had long ago blocked all sexual invites to amoral behavior among the dumb crowd including Mark. Bit by bit, though, the long-time high school buddies casually confused their once proper behavior with gratuitous little ass pinches and wanton hugs on an outwardly unmotivated Sharon who detested the physical attention of all of Hank’s high school buddy-friends.
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