Enchanted Again. Nancy Madore
Jack continued to cajole and caress her toward her climax. Her cries came louder and deeper the longer she rode the stiff and jagged shaft. She was in a state of arousal that surpassed all boundaries, but even if it had occurred to her to stop she would not have dared displease Jack by doing so. With dogged determination she pressed on tirelessly. Her tender insides clung to the statue as she pulled herself up, catching on the various ridges in its form, only to resist those same ridges when she pushed herself back down over it, so that every single movement had to be coerced, in spite of the moisture that poured from her body. The guttural sounds escaping her lips as she pumped her body up and down over the gargoyle seemed more suited to the gargoyle himself. Pansy absently wondered if perhaps it was the gargoyle, and not her, who uttered the sounds; for in spite of his hard, cold exterior, she was suddenly convinced that the gargoyle had become a living thing. She stared down into his grinning face as her legs continued to propel her up and down, up and down, along his rigid sword handle. And she knew suddenly that others had ridden the gargoyle’s sword before her. His eyes seemed to mock her, taking in all of her appearance; from the tears on her cheeks to her parted lips, to her bouncing breasts. And with that notion it suddenly seemed that she actually was making love to the gargoyle. It felt as if he was ripping her apart, but it was her own legs that continued to drive her up and down over him. She knew that Jack was watching her as closely as the gargoyle watched her. He was looking over her shoulder, staring down at her with one hand crudely pinching her nipples while the other expertly stroked her swollen clitoris. If she stopped short of going all the way down on the sword handle he gently scolded her. When her cries became too loud he tenderly shushed her. She fervently wished that she could stay there, in the room with Jack and the gargoyle forever, as her release washed over her, and she screamed from the force of it.
But in spite of her earlier wish and the powerful passion she had felt, Pansy was profoundly relieved when it was over, and in the very next instant she was filled with so much remorse that she burst into tears. She struggled to remove herself from the sword handle, which had suddenly become excruciatingly painful. Jack helped her off the statue and pulled her close to him.
“Hey!” he said, genuinely concerned over her distress, which was nearing hysteria. “Pansy, its okay,” he kept trying to soothe her, but he was at a loss for words. He wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her down onto the bed. He held her pressed so close to him that she had to struggle to breathe. His body remained aroused and hard, but he simply held her. “I’m sorry, Pansy.”
She looked up at him, momentarily shocked out of her grief by his apology. Her surprised expression amused him. He kissed her tenderly, but then more passionately as her arms slipped up around his neck. And then she was lost all over again in her desire for this man she hardly knew, except that he wanted her for whatever reason.
Later, Pansy put her clothes on in silence. She perceived Jack’s annoyance over her obvious regret.
“When can I see you again?” he asked impatiently. It suddenly occurred to Pansy that he was perhaps as unnerved by his desire to see her again as she was by her own.
“I don’t know,” she replied evasively.
“I see,” Jack replied, failing to keep the irritation out of his voice. He was silent for a moment, and then, “I guess if I get bored I’ll always have the videos.”
Pansy stopped dressing and looked at him. “Don’t worry…” He smiled at her. “They’re for my eyes only.”
Pansy stared at him. She felt a wave of nausea so powerful that she could taste the bile in her mouth. When he first mentioned a video, it seemed easy to believe it could have been a joke. Or perhaps it was easy for her to believe that with her desire for him looming over her like a shroud. But now, in the aftermath of that desire, with him bringing it up a second time, it seemed certain.
When the nausea passed, Pansy turned away from him and picked up the last of her clothing, dressing as quickly as she could. Then without a word she walked to the door and turned the knob.
“Pansy, I was kidding,” she heard Jack say. She opened the door and walked out into the hallway. “Pansy!”
She continued walking down the hall and out of the building.
The instant she reached her car, Pansy dissolved into tears. Why did I do it? she kept asking herself. She wondered why every decision she ever made in her life had to carry with it such a high price. She continued in this vein of self-recrimination and self-pity until the tears were depleted. Then, once the despair receded she turned to anger.
What right, she raged inwardly, did people have to always take advantage of her? Jack, like Tom, had immediately assumed that because she was amenable she was weak. Why did everyone always have to try to get one over on her? She was filled to overflowing with impotent rage and suddenly Jack’s taunt about the video recalled itself to her mind. In the next instant something peculiar happened. It seemed to Pansy that everything suddenly stopped. It lasted only a second or two, but it definitely stopped, leaving the hairs on the back of her neck tingling with life. The silence of it startled her. Afterward she might have thought she had imagined it, except that Pansy was certain that something had shifted in the interim. She struggled to pinpoint what happened.
Driving home, Pansy slowly realized that she was now looking in at herself from the outside, as well as out of herself from the inside, both at the same time. It was as if she was seeing her life from two different perspectives. She was suddenly filled with a strange calm as her thoughts began to collect themselves, seemingly of their own accord. All at once she perceived that she had other choices, choices that were already formulating into plans inside her mind. By the time she arrived home she was at ease with her thoughts.
Tom had once again arrived home before her. As on the previous night, he was talking to someone on the telephone in his study. She felt an odd sense of déjà vu that clashed momentarily with the parallel minds that were at war within her consciousness. The sound of Tom’s voice, which usually caused her skin to prickle and twinge was tonight not nearly so bothersome, perhaps due to her preoccupation. She stepped into the doorway of his office and looked inside. A little rush of adrenaline trickled through her when she saw him, and she realized this was a result of the plans that were formulating in her mind.
“How’s the case coming?” she asked him, smiling in secret and snuggling more cozily within her blanket of loathing. Her voice sounded a tad shrill in her state of overexcitedness. She felt strangely disconnected to everything around her as she tentatively sampled the role her parallel mind was creating.
“I’m getting nowhere,” Tom complained with a sigh, scarcely noticing her. “If there isn’t a break in the case soon, that son of a bitch is going to walk.”
“Hmm,” she said, trying to keep the joy out of her voice. “That’s too bad.” She was aware of a sense of being slightly off-kilter, but she was too excited about the drama that was—or was not—unfolding—she was becoming more and more unclear about which of these it was—and the things she would—or would not—do. Even so, to simply play along, for the time being, with these contemplations as they evolved within her consciousness and its parallel minds filled her with giddy excitement. She fairly skipped up the stairs and into their bedroom, where she went directly to her husband’s secret hiding place and reverently pulled out his handgun. The icy steel of the gun, rather than bringing her abruptly to her senses, actually intensified the sense of unreality that was all around her. An alarm did sound in the farther-back reaches of her consciousness, but the madness that had consumed her was stronger, and it seemed to gain strength from the certainty of cold, heavy metal in her hands. A hysterical laugh welled up in her throat as she felt another surge of adrenaline run through her. This isn’t really happening, she thought.
Even so, Pansy flipped the cylinder and checked to see if there were bullets inside. There were. Next she noticed the silencer in the gun case and was surprised by how easy it was to attach it to the gun. She pulled out an overnight bag that she kept under the bed, and placed the gun inside it, along with a pair of Tom’s shoes and various articles of his clothing. When the overnight bag was stocked with these things she slid it back under the bed and