Erica
A week or so had passed since Mr. Blade had tried to rape me. Since then, I was proud to say, I had been to work, and stonily acted as if nothing had happened. He, too, seemed to take my lead, and did not approach me or talk to me in any way that did not seem professional. He even dropped his slimy term of affection for me, Erica my sweet. I was not stupid enough to think it was over. I did know, however, that he was changing his tactics.
I think he could sense that something had changed inside me. Ever since that night and the following dream. It was as if the dream had shown me another option for life. All I had to do was choose it.
Of course, that did not stop me from making sure that I did not work late, alone. Every day that week, even when I had work remaining, I went home, right on time.
Which I guess is what surprised Brian, when I found him opening the door to my house with his spare key.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, trying to quiet the sudden thundering of my heart. He was as handsome as ever, with his tall, tapering waistline and TV-star’s face.
He had the decency to look abashed. “I was trying to get my things while you were at work,” he explained. “I figured you’d be working later.”
Of course he would have. My tendency to work late was probably what enabled him to have his stupid affair. I scowled.
“You should have called,” I said, and charged right past him, ramming my key in the door. He waited for me to unlock it, then slipped in behind me without waiting for an invitation.
“You’re right, Erica, I should have,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He sounded apologetic, but his tone was slippery in a way that made me think of an eel.
“Yeah, well, you should be,” I snapped, annoyed at my lack of cleverness. I was feeling distinctly off-balance. I had not seen Brian since our break-up. And now, just when I was feeling so confident after work, running into him in my home felt like a sucker punch. I decided to handle it like I had been handling Mr. Blade: cold and professional.
Stomping, still in my shoes, I went to the bedroom to dig his suitcase out of the closet. Then, like a robot, I went to the dresser and started removing all over his clothing and folding it neatly into the suitcase. I did not do this to be nice, of course. I wanted to make sure that everything fit in there in one trip. After that day, I never wanted to see Brian again.
Speaking of which.
“Hey, Erica-Bella,” he interrupted sweetly, using his pet name for me. I turned and stared at him like one would stare at a preferred drink presented by an enemy and most likely filled with poison.
He took a step closer.
“Erica, I’m really, really sorry,” he whispered. “Please. I know you’re a good person. Take me back.”
I blinked. How dare he ask me to take him back? How dare he think I would?
“Please,” he repeated, now close enough to touch me. He reached out, and stroked a strand of hair behind my ear. My skin tingled even after his fingertips went away. “You’ve always been so good, so kind, so…forgiving. I know you’ll find it in your heart to take me back.”
His hand again brushed gently at my hair. I scowled at him.
“What, so you can cheat on me again?” I snapped. To my surprise, he winced at the harshness of my voice.
“I was stupid!” He exclaimed. “Stupid and selfish! I …I just had to get it out of my system, you know? Before we got married. One last hurrah.”
“Hurrah fucking hurrah,” I mocked, pushing him away. I had seen tears in his eyes, and they had not evoked pity.
They disgusted me.
“Come on,” he insisted, grabbing me again. “Haven’t you ever made any mistakes? Done anything stupid? I can think of a few times.”
Suddenly, at these words, a realization struck me. I could hear his every attempt at manipulation, as if someone had slowed them down, deepening each controlling word. He was making this my fault, as if I was in the wrong by pretending to be faultless. And, even worse, suggesting that taking him back would make me a good person, not weak and pathetic and timid.
Our whole relationship––everything, from the day we met, to his proposal, until that night I’d found him balls deep in that stupid fucking secretary— snapped into a new focus. I saw who he really was: a sniveling, muttering coward pulling the strings on his puppet, because he was too weak to face things head on.
Pulling the strings on me.
Like a cat, I bared my teeth at him and flexed, hurling him away from me. In his eyes, I could see that he was startled, but it was more than that: he looked stricken, as if I had done not only him, but his motherfucking manly pride, wrong.
That tear-stained grief and false remorse turned to anger. I guess, when you kick even the weakest of dogs, it growls.
“Listen, you dumb bitch,” he roared, seizing me just under my jaw and thrusting me back against the kitchen counter. “You will take me back! I’m the best you can get!”
I gazed at him. And even though his hand was on my throat, I was not afraid. Strangely, this was one of the many positions Dominic and I had found ourselves in when we were fucking: him, dominating, with his hand around my neck, a promise of the power he had over me. And yet, this, with Brian, was so, so different.
Dominic’s aggression made me stronger. It felt like a battle, a fencing match, a meeting of two strengths joined to show the other off. Brian, on the other hand, wanted to make me feel weak. He wanted to make me feel small, and helpless.
And just as I thought these words, Brian supplied the actions to prove it:
He reached up and grabbed my breast, pinching my nipple so hard that pain shot all the way through my body. I tried wrenching free, but his grip on me was too strong.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he growled, his hand snaking down from my tit to in-between my legs. “Haven’t you missed me? I’m sure you’ve been lonely.”
I wanted to laugh. Me? Lonely? If his grip on my windpipe wasn’t so tight, I would have spat: “Actually, Brian, no. I’ve had better sex in the last two weeks than I ever had in all my years with you.”
But I couldn’t. He was choking me, and all the bravado in the world wasn’t going to make up for the fact that he was physically stronger. A groveling scumbag he may have been, but he was still a full-grown man.
When he whirled me around, bending my chest over the counter to try to fuck me from behind––that was when I found my chance.
The cutlery drawer! To my left! Just within reach.
Brian was too busy fucking around with my underwear to notice. I let him at it. It was all the fun he was going to have tonight.
“Get back, you stinking coward!” I roared, pushing away from the counter and whirling the knife on him with an electric surge of strength. Its tip trembled slightly, pointing at his heart, but it was firm and deadly enough.
Brian paled. Immediately, all the toughness went out of him, leaving him looking like a petulant two-year-old who’d been denied his favorite sweet.
“Come on, Erica dear. Whaddya gonna do with that? Stab me?” He sneered. And yet, his eyes never left its point.
“No,” I grunted. I thought of Dominic, and my dream, and I felt years and years of bottled-up humiliation bursting forth, giving me the strength of a thousand Brians. “I’ll cut your fucking balls off, and mail them to your secretary, since she likes them so much.”
His eyes widened, his mouth flickering between a smile and a grimace of terror, as if trying to decide if I were joking. Inwardly, I must admit, I was dazzled by my sudden expression of violence. Outwardly, however, my face was as hard and deadly as the blade of the kitchen knife I now wielded at his heart.
“Come on,” he said, backing away. “You wouldn’t do that.You’re my kind, gentle Erica-Bella––”
“No,” I growled. “I have never been as kind as you think. Or gentle. I’ve just been afraid. But now––” I jabbed the tip of the blade forward, drawing the tiniest pinprick of blood from his chest. “Now, I’m not afraid of a pathetic thing like you anymore. So get out of my house!”
I brandished the blade at him, dangerously so, so that he was forced to leap through the air to keep from being sliced.
“You’re crazy!” He cried. “You bitch! You’re fucking crazy!”
“Oh, yeah. I’m crazy. You’re the one who’s broken into my house and tried to rape me, and I’m crazy!”
Perhaps my maniacal laughter was not exactly helping my point, but I was beyond caring. I swished the blade about like a fencer does his sword, until, at long last, Brian was forced from the house.
“And don’t come back!” I cried, slamming the door behind him. Then I sank against it, laughing and laughing. Casually, I glanced at the hand holding the blade and was astonished to see a trickling of red: I had held the bottom so tightly that I had cut myself.
The funny thing was, it did not even hurt. In fact, the sight of the blood exhilarated me. It made me feel even more powerful. I was ecstatic. Charged. In control of myself and my body. This was perhaps the craziest I had ever felt, but also the most collected.
I wondered if this was how men like Dominic felt every day. I wondered if this was how I was supposed to feel on a regular basis.
I hoped so. I liked it.
Grinning like a jack-o-lantern, I went to the sink, dropped the knife in, and began washing and dressing my cut. It wasn’t bad, but it would need some bandaging. After I was finished, I went upstairs and selected my sexiest, sluttiest little black dress and slipped it on.
I was going out. If one hook up with a man like Dominic could make me feel this good, surely another would make me feel amazing. I dressed up, put on high heels, applied a strong-but-classy amount of makeup, seized my jacket and a little clutch purse, and was out the door.
# # #
My first instinct was to the go to the bar where Dominic and I had met. But then, I realized that, cocky as I was feeling, going to a place where I was very-nearly gunned down not two weeks before was probably not the best idea. Instead, I chose a bar across town. It was another biker bar, full of muscle and black leather, and I was sure that there, I would be able to find another guy like Dominic.
I walked in and was disappointed to see that not one of the many men waiting there were as good-looking as he. Still, they were muscular and tough, so I figured one of them would do.
I decided to follow the same tactic as last time: sit with my legs crossed in a sexy pose, and wait for the bravest of them to come to me. The difference was, of course, that tonight I felt confident.
I swear, not thirty seconds passed before someone was beside me.
He was younger than Dominic––probably about my age––and was taller and a little lankier. He had a tattoo of a wolf with dripping, splintered fangs across his collarbone and throat, and though I thought it gaudy, it definitely gave the impression of toughness.
“Hi,” I said, coming right out with it. “I’m Erica.”
“Carter,” he replied. He ordered me a drink without asking what I wanted. It turned out to be a rum and coke. In the old days, I would have appreciated this gesture no matter what, but now, I was annoyed that he presumed that’s what I wanted.
I slid it towards him and said, “I’m feeling whiskey right now. Looks like you’ll have an extra drink to finish.”
I expected a wink or a witty comeback. Perhaps some self-deprecating joke. But all he did was stare at me as if he had never encountered the likes of me before. He glanced at the rum and coke as if waiting for it to leap up and yell, “Surprise!” When it didn’t, he turned back to me.
“I like a strong woman,” he said, grinning.
“And I like a strong man.” My whiskey arrived, and I sipped it stoically. Dominic would have been proud.
“I see,” Carter simpered. “I think I can give you that.”
He threw his elbows on the table, and flexed his bare arms for me to see. The muscles were impressive, but I was not particularly impressed with his subtlety.
Instead, I thought of Dominic. He made no secret of his interest in my body, but that did not mean he still did not enjoy bandying a word or two with me beforehand. But this guy? I got the vibe that I could have answered in Chinese and it would not have made any difference to him.
Suddenly, everything about him––from his muscles to his cut-off leather vest to that gaudy tattoo––seemed vain and stupid. I finished my drink and said, quite plainly, “I thank you for your interest, but nothing is going to happen between us tonight. Have a nice day.”
He stared at me as if I’d slapped him. I thought for a moment he was going to attack me, but I just kept on glaring coldly at him until his scalded pride cooled.
Without a word, he snatched up the untouched rum and coke, alongside his drink and stormed away.
Less than a minute later another idiot appeared to take his place.
If the whole bar did not attempt to hit on me that night, it was pretty close to it. And yet, the more guys I saw, the more disgusted I became. None of them seemed tough––at least, not in the way Dominic was. They were physically impressive, sure, but I got the sense that a light puff from an derisive wind would insult their pride so much they’d fly into hysterics. A strong man’s sense of self is more durable than that.
Frustrated not only with them but with my own pickiness, I eventually went home alone. And although I fought it, Dominic was on my mind the entire way.