by Chad Kultgen
He said, “Exact same thing. I guess I’ve had the job a lot longer than just this year, though. I been at the same place now for, let’s see, ten years. Wow, you never think you’re gonna be at some place, doing something you don’t like, for that long. And then one day you meet up with a potential Internet affair and you kinda get your whole life in perspective, you know?” Rachel laughed. Her husband hadn’t made her laugh in a long time. Her husband was funny, and she laughed at some of the things he did or said, but he hadn’t made her laugh in a long time.
Something in Secretluvur’s attempt at humor, something beyond the way it was amusing, made Rachel appreciate him. It was as though his attempt to make her smile, to make her laugh, to make her enjoy the time she was spending with him, was a display of his value, and, in turn, an admission that through that display he saw value in her. He wasn’t trying to amuse himself or the bartender, the way her husband would have. Secretluvur didn’t care if anyone else in the world found his joke funny, as long as Rachel did. It was this attempt to make her laugh that made her decide to have sex with him that night, and it was that decision to have sex with him that made her further decide to let him do anything he wanted to her, and to do things to him that she had never done with her husband. She wanted to be a different person that night.
The bartender brought her the cosmopolitan, and she reached for her purse. Secretluvur said, “I got this,” and paid for the drink.
They talked long enough for Rachel to have one more drink, which he also paid for. The conversation was about nothing specific to their lives. Neither of them spoke about their spouses, their children, where they lived; neither of them divulged their actual names. They spoke about movies, television shows, music, sports, celebrities—the generalities of life that everyone experiences in a way specific to them. She learned that his favorite television show was The Wire, and he learned that hers was Six Feet Under. They shared a mutual disdain for reggae, which she found strange for a black man and then immediately felt ashamed for having felt that way.
As she took the last sip of her second drink and put the glass back down on the bar, she said, “So . . .”
He said, “So . . .”
She said, “I guess we should . . .”
He said, “I don’t want you to think that this has to happen tonight or anything like that. We can just talk tonight if you want. This ain’t like a real pressing thing or anything. I mean, you seem like a real nice woman, and you look fine as hell, but—”
She stopped him there. She had never been called “fine as hell” by anyone, and it turned her on. She could feel something in her that had been buried for a long time starting to come back to the surface. She said, “I have a room here if you want to join me.”
He said, “Okay. Okay. We can do that,” and she took Secretluvur by the hand and led him up to her room.
Once inside the room, Rachel had no intention of giving herself any time to think too much about what she was doing, or to convince herself that she shouldn’t have sex with Secretluvur. She pushed him toward the bed and kissed him. He was the first black man she had ever kissed. It was something she had resigned herself to believing would never happen in her life. He was a good kisser, and along with the exhilaration that came from the circumstance itself, Rachel was excited by the way he grabbed the back of her hair and pulled it gently as they kissed.
She pushed him back down onto the bed and straddled him, never taking her lips off his. This level of sexual aggressiveness was something she hadn’t been able to conjure for her husband in several years. Even when they used to have sex more frequently than they had in the past year, she never found herself capable of feeling such animal lust for her husband, certainly nothing on the level that she felt for Secretluvur as she unzipped and unbuckled his pants.
She put her hand under his shirt and felt his stomach. It was big, fat, but she could feel the muscle underneath. She wondered if Secretluvur had been an athlete in high school or maybe even college. She wondered whether her husband had ever played football against Secretluvur in high school, and thought that if he had—if the world was that small—then she was merely living out one of her possible futures there in that hotel room.
She slid her hand down into his pants and under the elastic waistband of his underwear—which was the same style her husband wore—and found his penis. It was large. It wasn’t gigantic, but it was noticeably larger than her husband’s in both length and girth. This discovery only served to enhance the carnal desire Rachel had conjured for Secretluvur. She hoped that, along with being well-endowed, Secretluvur would also fit the stereotype of being a skilled and insatiable lover.
She pulled his underwear down a little bit so that his penis and testicles were exposed. Then she moved down and began to fellate him. Rachel hadn’t performed an act of oral sex in some time. She tried to think back to the last time she had put her husband’s penis in her mouth, but she was unable to produce the memory. A small part of her was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to perform to the standards Secretluvur might be used to. She tried to imagine what his wife was like. She wondered if she was black.
As she took Secretluvur’s penis in and out of her mouth, fondling his testicles with one of her free hands, it became erect. It didn’t gain much size beyond what she already knew it to be. She found this to be far different from her husband, whose erect penis was almost triple its flaccid size. Secretluvur said, “Yeah, baby, suck that thing.”
Rachel and her husband had passed through a phase early in their relationship in which they would employ pornographic commands and requests to one another during foreplay and during the act of intercourse itself. In the past several years, however, neither she nor her husband had uttered a word during these acts. She had almost forgotten that such a technique had once been a part of her repertoire. She remembered how much she enjoyed feeling a little dirty while she performed oral sex and found that this was a perfect opportunity to relive some of her sexual youth. She said, “You like it when I suck your big dick?”
Secretluvur said, “Yeah.”
Rachel said, “You want to fuck me with that big dick?”
Secretluvur said, “Yeah.”
She reached down and pulled off her panties under the dress she was wearing. Then she moved up and straddled him, both of them still fully clothed save for their now-exposed genitals. Rachel would have liked to have been nude, but she maintained her urgency to ensure there was no turning back. She reached over to the nightstand, where she had placed a CVS bag containing condoms she had purchased before arriving at the hotel. She handed the box to Secretluvur and went back to performing fellatio on him as he removed one of the condoms, unwrapped it, and then handed it to her.
In her entire life, she had never put a condom on a man’s penis. It had always been the man’s job. Although Rachel did remember a point in her life when she thoroughly enjoyed sex with her husband, she recalled some unshakable feeling that sex was a favor to him. And, as she was kind enough to perform this favor, so should he be kind enough to handle all of the perfunctory activities and protocols that were necessary before it could be carried out. This was different. This was not a favor.
Rachel took the condom in one of her hands and continued to lick the underside of Secretluvur’s penis. As she pulled her head back, she got her first really good view of his penis. It was not only large, but slightly misshapen. It curved to the right a little bit, and the head seemed to be a little bit too small for the rest of it. This only made Rachel want it inside her more. It was so foreign, so different from the penis she was used to, from the penis she felt a continual obligation to touch and to allow to penetrate her, that she had to know what it was like. She quickly rolled the condom down the length of his penis and slid it into her vagina. She could feel it stretch her a little more than her husband. The sensation wasn’t necessarily more pleasurable, but it was different in a way that Rachel found appealing. She slowly rocked back and forth, gettin
g used to the feel of Secretluvur inside of her. He reached down and grabbed her hips, squeezing them.
She was aware of the fact that she wasn’t in the best shape anymore and she was slightly self-conscious, but she didn’t ask him to move his hands. He seemed to be enjoying himself, to like the way his fingers felt as they massaged the soft, doughy area above her buttocks. And it was at that moment that she realized why it was that she was there with Secretluvur, why she’d sought out another man to have sex with, and why she couldn’t bear having any kind of intimate contact with the man she had sworn to love for the rest of her life. It had little to do with her. Over the past year, she had come to the conclusion that her husband found no joy in having sex with her. She had become aware of the fact that he no longer found her attractive or sexy, and this, in turn, made her hate any sexual act with him. It was as if they were both just doing it to maintain their routine.
She moved her hips more quickly, then lifted herself up slightly and sat back down on Secretluvur’s penis, forcing it in and out of her vagina with increased friction. He reached up and fondled her breasts through her dress and then said, “Turn around. I want to see that ass.”
The low, almost growling quality in Secretluvur’s voice made Rachel believe that he did, in fact, want to see her ass, no matter how unappealing it might have been to most men. So she obliged his request and turned around, keeping his penis in her. He said, “Oh, yeah, now lay down.” Again she obliged, bending her torso down so that her face was against the bed as she rode his erection. Secretluvur groped her buttocks with hands that were strong and rough. Rachel could feel the calluses on his hands and she wondered what they were from. His job seemed white-collar enough. Maybe he was lying about his job, or maybe he just worked out a lot or played softball or something. Whatever the reason for them, she enjoyed the way they felt on her skin.
Secretluvur said, “Oh, baby, my God, that ass,” and he began to move his hips with more force, slamming them against her as he thrust his erection into her. She felt his fingers slowly moving from the outside of her buttocks toward her anus. Her husband had attempted to have anal sex with her from time to time, and early in their relationship, she had indulged him on occasion. So she offered no protest when Secretluvur licked his index finger and put it into her anus up to the first knuckle, saying, “That is some hot shit, baby.”
He made no move to go deeper with his finger or replace it with his penis. He was content to have sex with her in this manner for several minutes until he ejaculated. The force of his thrusts, the shape of his penis inside her, and the knowledge that he was so aroused by the site of her buttocks that he climaxed caused Rachel to have an orgasm at the same instant. It was one of the most intense she could remember, causing her legs to tremble slightly.
Secretluvur said, “Damn, baby, that was something.”
Rachel said, “Yeah,” as she climbed off of him, turned around, and moved up to lie on the pillow next to him. They were silent for several minutes, neither really knowing what to say to the other. If this was truly Secretluvur’s first encounter with infidelity, then Rachel assumed it was reasonable that he wouldn’t have anything to say, just as she didn’t. She tried to conjure some amount of guilt for what she had done and found herself unable to. She had never seen herself as the type of person who could cheat on her husband, and as she lay there next to the man who just had his index finger in her anus and his penis in her vagina simultaneously, she realized that she was that type of person now.
Secretluvur eventually said, “So, I don’t know how you want the night to go, but I can’t really stay. I hope that’s okay.”
Rachel said, “Yeah. Not a problem,” realizing only in that moment that she might have preferred to spend the night with Secretluvur.
He said, “Okay, I just want to make sure we cool, you know. Without getting into all of the stuff we probably shouldn’t be talking about, I kind of have to get back to you-know-who.”
She said, “Oh, oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Rachel hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that Secretluvur might not have arranged to spend the entire night away from his wife and family, if he had one. He said, “But I would love to do this again if you want to. I mean, I don’t know how you’re feeling about everything right now, and you might need some time to think on it, but . . .” he leaned over, kissed her, and then said, “Damn, that was some hot shit right there.”
Rachel said, “Yeah. We can meet up again. I guess we should just keep talking through the site.”
He said, “Okay. So this is like an official . . . secret thing then?”
Rachel smiled and said, “Yeah. I guess so.”
He kissed her one more time and then went to the bathroom, where he removed the condom, washed his penis, and zipped his pants back up. Before he left, he said, “Can I just feel that ass one more time?” Rachel allowed this. They shared one last kiss before he left.
Rachel stayed in the bed they just had sex in. She could smell Secretluvur in the sheets, on her hands, on her lips. She smiled. As she closed her eyes, drifting into a relaxed sleep, she was happy that she had had an orgasm with a black man; she was happy that she would have at least one more with him; she was happy that she didn’t have to wake up next to her husband. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, drifting into a contented sleep.
Allison Doss completed her latest post on Ana’s Underground Grotto at 2:13 A.M. It was a detailed description of her first encounter with forced vomiting, including the clean and empty feeling she had immediately afterward. She explained that she understood mia would now be a friend of hers, just as ana already was. She uploaded the post and then went into the kitchen. Her parents and little brother were all asleep. She opened the refrigerator and saw that her mother had brought home a new peach cobbler. She left the lights off, took the peach cobbler, got a fork, and sat down at the kitchen table.
After eating half the cobbler, she found that her stomach ached. She forced herself to eat more until the entire thing was gone. She licked the spoon clean, rinsed it off in the sink, put it back in the silverware drawer, and then took the empty container the cobbler had come in to her bedroom and hid it under her bed, intending to throw it away in the dumpster behind her house tomorrow when no one was around.
She went to her purse and retrieved a bottle of ipecac syrup that she’d bought at CVS earlier in the day. In the bathroom, she drank a glass of water, following the instructions outlined on the back of the ipecac bottle, and then drank two tablespoonfuls of the syrup. She vomited within four minutes and she was happy.
chapter
thirteen
Principal Ligorski began his Monday morning announcements by congratulating the Goodrich Odyssey of the Mind team on its second-place showing at a competition that weekend. And he ended them by encouraging the Goodrich football team to remain enthusiastic about the rest of the season and to prepare for their game against the Scott Shining Stars the following Friday, adding that the entire school should come out to show support for their team at the next game.
Most members of the team had used the weekend to reconcile themselves to their loss. Tanner Hodge had not. Instead, he obsessively thought about why they hadn’t been able to overcome the Irving Aardvarks in a game he felt they should easily have won. Tanner convinced himself that all blame for the loss was to be placed with Tim Mooney and his decision not to play in the eighth-grade season. Having to deal with an entire morning of his classmates consoling him and telling him they were sure the following Friday would produce a win that would get the Olympians back on track only made Tanner angrier with Tim Mooney. By the time he found himself sitting across the cafeteria from Tim during his lunch period, Tanner could no longer suppress his rage.
He waited until Mrs. Rector, who was the only faculty member lunch monitor that day, was on the other side of the room, and then he took the orange he had sitting on his lunch tray and threw it toward Tim Mooney as he said, “Faggot.” Instead of
hitting the intended target, the orange struck Brandy Beltmeyer, who was sitting next to Tim, in the shoulder. Tim followed the orange’s trajectory back to Tanner Hodge, who was walking away from his own table toward Tim, saying, “We lost because of you, homo.”
Tim looked back to Brandy and said, “You okay?” She said, “Yeah. Don’t get into it with him.” Although up to that point Tim had found the anger of some of his classmates amusing, he no longer found any levity in it once it manifested itself in violence toward Brandy. Tim stood from his own table, bringing himself face-to-face with Tanner Hodge as he said, “You realize it couldn’t have been my fault because I wasn’t there, you idiot.”
Tanner said, “Yeah, that’s why it was your fault, fuckface. And if we don’t make it to district it’ll be because of this game.”
Tim said, “Who cares?”
Tanner said, “I do, faggot,” and then pushed Tim backward, causing him to fall over the bench part of his table onto the ground. Tanner took the opportunity to jump on top of Tim, swinging wildly. A crowd of students, Brandy included, immediately surrounded them. Some were screaming, some clapping, some silent in shock, having seen nothing like this in their lifetimes. The ruckus eventually gained the attention of Mrs. Rector. She had been a teacher in some capacity for almost fifteen years, and although she had seen her fair share of disagreements, arguing matches, and on occasion even a shove, she had never seen an altercation of this magnitude. Each of the boys involved was easily stronger than she was, and she knew it. In a minor panic, she reflexively did the only thing that came to mind, which is what she had been trained to do.
The year Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School, the school district that governed Goodrich Junior High School made mandatory the installation of panic buttons in locations throughout each of the schools in the district. The buttons were to be pressed in any situations of violence. Faculty members were made to undergo training each semester in order to ensure that they were knowledgeable about the locations of each of these buttons in their individual schools as well as properly refreshed on the protocol necessary to operate the buttons if a scenario should arise in which they might be needed. In addition to these panic buttons, each school was to employ a full-time armed security guard.