Jilling (Kit Tolliver #6) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) (7 page)

So hot.

She had never been with a woman. It was not as though it had never occurred to her. But whatever thoughts she’d ever entertained had stopped somewhere between speculation and fantasy. She’d certainly never thought about acting on them.

Or acting them out, as Graham Weider would put it.

It would be so easy now. They were both naked, they were both touching themselves, the whole evening was about nothing but sex, and all she had to do was cross the room.
Let me give you a hand, Rita. Let me play with that for you. What a beautiful cunt, Rita. Can I touch it? Can I kiss it for you?

And then what?

Would she have to kill her?

She considered the question later, lying alone in her own bed. She had stayed in her chair, and had confined her caresses to her own body. There had been that moment when they might have made love, and they hadn’t done so, and the moment had passed. Now they were in their separate bedrooms, and all that was left to do was sleep.

But what if she’d made love to Rita.
That was lovely, Rita. My very first time with a woman, and I have to say I liked it. Excuse me a moment, will you? I have to go to the kitchen to pick up something sharp.

Or not. How could she be sure?

When she stepped outside herself, when she allowed herself a little perspective, it wasn’t hard to see why she acted as she did. The signal event of her childhood and adolescence was the long affair she’d had with her father, who’d very artfully seduced her and then, ultimately, rejected her. And she’d erased that blot from her life by erasing the man himself, and once he was dead it was as if he had never been.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t. But he wasn’t alive, couldn’t sit smirking, remembering what he’d done to her, what he’d taught her to do to him. He remained on the list, but there was a line through his name, and whenever another man had earned a place on that list, she’d seen to it that his name had a line through it.

All but four names.

If she had sex with a woman, would hers be the fifth name? And would she feel a compelling urge, an actual need, to draw a line through that name?

No way to know. Not for sure.

She didn’t want to kill Rita. She wanted to kill Graham, Christ how she wanted to kill him, and she thought of all the other men, most of their names metaphorically crossed out almost as soon as they’d been inked in. She’d wanted sex with them, and afterward she’d wanted them dead. For a while it was a matter of taking care of business, but when she thought of Steve in Phoenix, she realized that it had become something more than that. She’d reached a point where the sex act itself wasn’t complete as long as her partner had a pulse. That was the true orgasm: when she struck like a cobra, and the man died.

Withheld, she was left with an itch she couldn’t scratch. Even now, after God knows how many orgasms, after she’d finished herself off with the vibrator, its surface still dewy with Rita’s juices, even now she found it maddening, infuriating, that she’d found a Graham Weider who’d become immune to her powers. Was he going to be on her list forever?

Oh, for Christ’s sake.

The answer came to her in a flash. With it she felt a emotional release none of the evening’s orgasms had managed to provide, and she drifted off and slept like a baby.

“Graham? It’s Kim. Please don’t hang up.”

A silence. Then, “All right.”

“First of all, I want to apologize. I don’t know what got into me yesterday.”

“That’s all right.”

“No,” she said, “it’s not all right. It was completely inappropriate and wholly unwarranted. I was disrespectful to you and made a fool of myself in the process.”

“I’ve had plenty of apologies to make,” he said. “So it’s not hard for me to accept yours, Kim.”

“Thank you.” She drew a breath. “Those apologies,” she said. “Would they be in connection with those meetings you’ve been going to?”

“It’s a 12-Step program,” he said, “and yes, making amends is very much a part of the program.”

“You told me the name of it, but I—”

“Sexual Compulsives Anonymous.”

“Right, SCA. Funny how I can’t seem to remember the name. Or maybe it’s not so funny after all.”

He waited, and she let the silence stretch.

Then she said, “My life’s not working so well these days.”

“I see.”

“Not just these days. For quite a while now. What was the term you used? ‘Acting out’? It seems like all I’m ever doing is acting out, or trying to, or thinking about it.”

“I understand, Kim. I’ve been there.”

“Can anyone go to these meetings? Or do you have to be a member?”

“Would you like to come to a meeting?”

“Would I like to? Probably about as much as I’d like to have root canal. But it’s that or lose the tooth. Graham, it’s not a question of would I like to. I think it’s something I have to do.”

“Hold on a minute. Okay, let’s see. There’s a meeting in downtown Seattle this afternoon, but I’ll be busy. If you don’t mind going by yourself—”

“I think I’d be more comfortable if you went with me.”

“Well, let me see. How’s lunchtime tomorrow? There’s a 12:30 meeting I sometimes go to in downtown Redmond near Marymoor Park. I could meet you there and we could walk in together.”

“I’m not sure I could find it. And on a bike—”

“No, that’s too far by bicycle. Maybe—”

“Graham? Suppose I come to where you work? I could meet you in the parking lot. At twelve? Or maybe a little earlier, so you can tell me a little about it before we actually walk in?”

She stayed out all day, ate dinner by herself at an Indian restaurant that served bland food dumbed down for the Western palate. She got the waiter to bring her hot sauce, and that helped, but she’d have been happier if the heat had been cooked into the food, not spooned on top of it.

It was almost eight when she got home, and she steeled herself to walk in to the smell of a home-cooked meal, and a housemate who wanted a reprise of the previous evening. But she encountered neither; there’d been no cooking since last night’s dinner, and no car in the garage.

There was leftover coffee and she reheated a cup and drank it at the kitchen table while she read that month’s
Vanity Fair.
She’d almost finished the coffee when she heard the garage door ascend, and she stayed where she was until she heard Rita and a man in conversation. She rose quickly, scooped up her cup and the magazine, and was in her room with the door closed before the two of them had cleared the threshold.

“Kimmie? Are you awake?”

No one, not even a devout Crystal Methodist, could have been more thoroughly awake. But did she have to admit it? If she just kept silent—

“Kimmie?”

If she kept silent, Rita would walk right in.

“I’m awake,” she said. “But kind of drifty.”

“He’s gone. I sent him home.”

Oh? Were you with someone? I never would have guessed.

“I suppose you heard us.”

“Just barely.”

“He was a guy who hit on me a couple of times. I was never interested. But after last night—well, let’s just say I was in the mood.”

No kidding.

“Kimmie, you’re half asleep. We’ll talk at breakfast.”

Footsteps receded. Rita’s door opened and closed.

And she lay in bed, waiting for daybreak.

A toasted English muffin and a cup of coffee. And Rita, wearing a belted housecoat, with her own English muffin and her own cup of coffee, and a full report.

“We fucked on the couch,” she said. “He’s going bald, and he could stand to lose a few pounds, but he was okay otherwise. Nice circumcised dick, medium in size. We didn’t do anything you couldn’t find in the
Kama Sutra,
but it was interesting enough. I mean, I came a lot.”

“I know.”

“That was on purpose. The noise, I mean. I knew you could hear, and the idea of you hearing made it a lot more exciting. You know what I was wishing?”

“What?”

“That you could sneak in and watch.”

“Would you have liked that?”

“Are you kidding? I’d have loved it.”

“It never even occurred to me.”

“I didn’t think it would. Or that you’d do it, even if you thought of it. You know what was going on in my head the whole time? Absolutely the whole time? How hot it would be when I told you all about it.”

“Really.”

“How’s that for weird? I mean, it’s like normal to think about fucking while you masturbate, but having fantasies of masturbating while somebody’s got his dick in you?”

“But I can see how it could happen.”

“So you don’t think I’m weird?”

“Oh, you’re plenty weird, Rita. But not in a bad way.”

“I’ll settle for that. And I could probably say the same about you.”

“Moi?”

“You and that guy who smelled.”

“Yeah, I can see where you could call me weird for that one.”

“I might have done it myself,” Rita said, “but I’d have wanted to kill him afterward.”

Oh, sweetie, if you only knew—

“Oops,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’ve got an appointment I’ll be lucky to get to on time.”

“You want me to drive you?”

“No, I’ll be fine with the bike. But I was thinking maybe tonight—”