Impact 26: of The VVife

For those who pay attention to such things: When Sarah is alone the story is in the past tense. When Claire and Sarah are together the story is in present tense.

Thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for copy editing.

Impact of The VVife

"You in or out?"

Kip had pitched his voice as deep as he could go and spoke right next to my ear. And even though I was waiting on him, I had been wool-gathering. He had caught me totally unawares. His voice in my ear startled me enough to make me jump straight in the air and squeak loudly like a cartoon Sarah Beth.

I had been standing in our doorway, facing in, staring thoughtlessly past the hunched figures of Keith and Ben, their faces illuminated by their monitors. Nominally, I had been looking at what was left of our to-do list charted out on the whiteboard and our gouache studies pinned to the wall next to them... but actually I had been looking right through our lists and sketches.

Not a thought in my head.

Kip had caught me unawares, literally.

My cartoon squeal of very real fear startled both Ben and Keith, who both turned in alarm to see what all the commotion was. Until then they hadn't noticed I'd come back from the bathroom.

"Kippen!" I chirped. I tried to swat at him but he just wrapped me from behind in a bear hug.

"What's good, Nerds?" he called over my shoulder, while I struggled uselessly. Keith and Ben both mumbled greetings as they turned back to their monitors, returning to whatever tasks engrossed them. They were both as dead-eyed as I felt.

"You scared me," I whined as I went limp and Kip softened his hold on me.

"Just now, or with the Bobs?"

The image of the three naked men, Kip smiling and turning to wag his dripping erection, flashed in my mind's eye. I drew my chin into my neck as far as I could and waved my fingers in front of my face, trying to dispel the image.

"Yes," I sighed.

"Somethings can't be unseen..." he agreed with obvious pride. Switching gears, he asked, "You hungry? I'm FAMISHED - you boys want anything? I'm just taking her to the eighth-floor cafe...."

Ben raised his hands off his keyboard and pushed the question away. Keith just shook his head, no.

"Wow, you guys are really in it," Kip observed absently as he threaded his arm through the crook of my elbow and led me away.

"Yeah we are," I agree. "We bit off way more than we can chew, and it's all but caught in our throats, and now editorial is trying jam its fingers down our throats, tying to-"

"Stop! Oh my God! Seriously, I get it - do not torture that metaphor one instant longer!"

I hugged his arm to my side in a burst of affection unattached to any one thing. I felt like I should tell Kip how much I loved him.

"You big stupid," is what I said instead, putting all my love into the tease.

"Dummy," he teased back, his voice full of warmth and affection, squeezing my arm against his body.

"So I really like Claire," he announced seriously. "HUGE hit with the Bobs as well... you too, of course! Both of you were."

"Good save, Kippen!" I shot back, giving his name as much ironic disdain as I could. "For a moment there I was feeling a little like chopped liver."

"Have you been to Barney Greengrass, up on Amsterdam and Eighteee... something? Great chopped liver," he enthused. "Honestly, Sarah, the best in the city."

"Not my thing?" I reminded him.

On and on like that. I had seen Kip naked and fucking, he had seen me topless, coked up, and heard me have bathroom sex, but nothing had changed.

We were good.

"Perhaps coke isn't your drug?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, dabbing at my tears.

"This is a lot of angst, even for you."

I had broken down and told Kip about what a terrible week I was having. I didn't have the courage to tell him about the job interview but I spilled about Stephanie, well, not EVERYTHING about Stephanie, but about how she had been haunting me.

"Working at Pentagram sounds like it was super stressful but good, and I don't get why you're beating yourself up over an old roommate. Was she a crush?"

OK, so I hadn't told Kip everything, there was a lot I left out - like all the sex stuff. I just told him Stephenie had been really mean, but also the closest thing I had to a friend that summer.

"She wasn't a crush. She hated me!"

"We can be attracted to people who hate us," he replied matter-of-factly.

"She tortured me..."

I was leaning forward, whispering, trying my best to hide my tears from the rest of the room.

"Sarah," he sighed, and then in a conspiratorial tone he explained, "Drug highs are like climbing a roller coaster..."

Kip had made his voice overly serious, like a TV announcer, and was moving his hand, palm down across the table, but then, letting it climb steeply away from the surface, he made like his palm was scaling a bell curve.

"... the highs are super fun, but they gobble up dopamine or endorphins or... whatever."

"Science," I sniffed.

"Just so," he agreed. "Anyway, those artificial highs are inevitably followed by a crash," he said, swooping his hand down past the table's edge as if it were going to crash to the floor. "You are crashing. You were already fragile, this is a stressful week, obviously, and let's face it, kiddo, you tilt a little dark."

"I don't tilt dark!" I said gesturing at myself with a tear-soaked tissue.

"Sarah..." he said patiently.

"A little," I conceded, pouting and thinking about the cruel way my mind works at times. "But just a tilt!"

"Just a tilt," Kip agreed.

After lunch, I slipped into the women's room at the south end of the bullpen. It was always empty. I checked my eyes, they weren't bad. I'd wept, but I hadn't cried-cried. I was flush and my cheeks were rosy. I couldn't go back to work like this. I stared at myself for a long time, knowing what I was going to do, but trying to deny myself. I failed.

I slipped into the last stall and unzipped my skirt. Hanging it on the back of the door, I pushed my panties down to my knees and examined the stretched crotch. The silky gusset was soaked, smeared, and glossy with cum. Talking about Stephanie - even in abstraction - had upset me, but it had also worked me up.

I thought of Claire keeping a stash of fresh panties at work. I might need to take a page from her book.

I didn't want to think about Stephanie, so I pictured Claire instead. She was dressed the way she had been the other night, in her tight jeans and ratty t-shirt. But that night she had been all warmth and comfort, maternal and loving. I wanted to imagine her in a very different mood.

I pictured her unsmiling and haughty, the way she had made herself for me the morning she dressed me in office s/m drag. I imagined her scolding and berating me and finally lunging at me. Me in my little nightie, spinning around to avoid her, trying to get away but getting caught by the hair, Claire jerking me back and down.

I was standing in the stall, bare-assed, legs shaking, one hand against the stainless steel door for support, my other hand working between my legs, fingers making wet smearing sounds. My back was arched and my hips rolled back, making my ass stick out.

Wanton.

I imagined Claire throwing me to the floor, fighting her off as hard as I could but in my imagination, she was too fast and strong, easily pinning me.

That image was enough. The orgasm prematurely swamped my fantasy, ending it.

But it was Stephanie's mouth I saw poised over mine as I came, saliva hanging from her lips. God almighty, how many times had I cum to that image over the years?

I was left weak kneed and panting and disgusted with myself.

'Fuck, why?' I wondered, remembering Kip's hand swooshing down off the table. My post-orgasm thoughts crashed into darkness.

I had been dizzy after Stephanie pinned me. The cloying sweet licorice taste of her spit filled my mouth. It's hard for me to think about that mix of shock and humiliation, without recalling all the other feelings that went along with it. At that moment on the floor, it was all too much. I remember feeling frozen by it, unable to think, too afraid of my own thoughts.

Stephanie, meanwhile, had just left me on the floor, discarded, like her shirt and jeans which she had stripped off and dropped carelessly on her way to the bathroom as she walked away from me. One more discarded thing. I might have stayed that way all night, catatonic, but she had left the bathroom door ajar, and the slash of her piss in the pot roused me. She was almost done. I didn't want her to come out and find me still on the floor.

With weak arms I lifted myself off the carpet and on unsteady legs I crossed to my bedroom; not bothering to shut my door. It was hot and Stephanie had come home alone, but that wasn't why. I was simply beyond care. I stumbled into my bedroom and dropped into the shadows, landing on my bed hard enough to bounce. I didn't get under my covers or arrange myself. I lay still, wishing I could be more still, that I didn't have to move my lungs, that I could stop myself from breathing.

I was overheated and had no hope of sleeping. That particular oblivion felt very far away.

I had left the living room and kitchen lights on. I looked away from the glare, staring instead into the darkest of my room, seeking comfort in the inky nothingness and listening to Stephanie finish up in the bathroom. I didn't look up or even shift as her shadow crossed over me on her way to the kitchen. Her movements sounded... angry. Her bare feet pounded the floor and cabinets banged. She was mumbling to herself in German. Lights went out and she walked past my door again. I listened to her swearing under her breath. Her bedroom door was still locked and she had trouble getting it open.

Finally, I was left alone in the dark. I still didn't move. And I couldn't help listening with special interest through the thin wall separating us - my mind, as always, trying to picture her. She was moving around restlessly, probably stripping out of her underwear, or maybe putting things away, or maybe just pacing? Was she upset? Did she regret what she had done? Would she apologize?

No part of me believed she ever would.

Whatever it was that kept her moving around, she finished it. I heard her climb into bed and settle down.

Although separated by a wall, we lay just inches apart. I could still taste the Jägermeister she had been drinking. My whole body felt too full of blood. My nerves buzzed and pulsed. I was radiating a sticky heat. There was no relief in sweating. My pores felt clogged and dirty. My core was on fire. I could feel myself getting hotter rather than cooling down. My thoughts were a wine-addled confusion.

What had happened? What was going on?

I hated myself. Hated my body. Hated how soft and needy I was. Hated how much I wanted Stephanie to make some noise, some sort of sign... of what? I didn't know. I just wanted her... to do, or regret, or want, or act... I hated myself for wanting. I wanted so much. My whole body ached and vibrated with need.

My sleep clothes were still in disarray, twisted around me and binding uncomfortably. My left boob was pulled up and bound tightly by my little cami, my right boob was entirely exposed. My boy shorts were hiked over my hips, one ass cheek hanging out. The crotch was wedged like a rope in the crease of my pussy and ass.

Without really deciding to, I started pulling at my sleep clothes. I had chosen them because they were revealing. I wanted Stephanie and her boyfriend... or date... or fuck... whatever, to see me that way. I had been showing off for her and she had spit in my mouth.

She hated me.

And I knew why, my cowardice and habits of easy submission. She was right. Timid, anxious, doubting - I was pathetic and weak.

'And vain!' I thought, tugging at my sleepwear. I had wanted her to be excited, knowing I was listening. I had imagined she was conspiring with me, like Rebekah, that we were experimenting...

The thin stretchy fabric clung to me. I was filmed with sweat, radiating a moist viscid heat. Raising my hips off the mattress, I struggled to peel the little shorts down off my ass. I had soaked the crotch through. I had been so scared when Stephanie attacked me I thought I might piss myself, but this wasn't pee. Silvery threads of thin mucus trailed and smeared the insides of my thighs as I squirmed and rolled the damp little trunks down my legs. They were twisted and unrecognizable by the time I kicked them off, sending them arching into the darkness. Holding my knees apart, I dropped back down to the bed and bounced off the mattress again. In one smooth movement, I sat up. Twisting to get my top off as fast as I could. I felt my breasts swing and bounce as I fought to free my hair. I threw the damp top into the unknown to join my shorts.

All of these movements were immoderate and forceful enough to make the little bed's frame creak and knock against the wall. I was drunk and angry and carelessly telegraphing my every move, my need.

Keeping my legs apart I stretched back out. I ran my hands over the fronts of my thighs, the bowl of my belly, and the cage of my ribs, until I was cupping the undersides of my breasts. They felt big and firm, more than filling my hands. My palms slid easily over my sweat-slicked skin. I was so sweaty my hands were pushing the moisture into drops that trickled down my sides. It felt good to touch my breast. I was proud of them. I knew they were beautiful, that other women coveted them. I wanted to believe Stephanie coveted them, that she wished she had big boobs like me. I was fingering my nipples, they were swollen and ached in a way that felt wonderful.

I didn't want to feel wonderful. I wanted to feel the opposite of wonderful.

"HMN!" I cried as my fingers surprised me. They pinched the fragile skin as hard as they could. I wasn't thinking clearly. I wasn't thinking at all. I was all wretched feelings, loathing, shame, and anger. My hands and fingers were moving and acting on their own accord. My hands were punishing me, taking everything out on my nipples.

Naked and uncovered, my door wide open, I twisted and stretched my nipples, which were stiff swollen cones.

"MMNNH!" I mewled, baring my teeth as my clamped fingertips pulled my nipples away from my breasts, stretching them until my eyes began to water and tears ran into my ears

"AH!" I finally cried, my jaw unlocking, but my hands continued to pull. I would not stop.

"AHHh-" I cried again, biting back on the sound. My hands were forcing me to be loud, more than loud enough to be heard.

I felt overfull, like my nerves were overtaxed with sensations, like there was too much blood in my veins, too much heat in my body, and my blood was moving too fast, pumping too hard.

Unable or unwilling to let go of my nipples, I rubbed my thighs together for relief, scissoring them in order to compress my clitoris, smearing my wet lips against each other... I couldn't help myself, couldn't stop making the little bed churn and squeak.

My nipples burned, I was really hurting myself, I was going to leave bruises, but as bad as it was, it only brought me closer. And it was almost enough. I could almost cum this way.

"AYHhhaa..." I wailed, my hands tormenting my breasts, twisting and pulling them as hard as I could. Nails biting into the fragile skin. I badly wanted my hands between my legs, but they refused to let go, kept pinching and stretching, tormenting me, pulling the sounds from my throat.

"ah! AH! ahH!!"

My thighs were mincing against each other in some parody of dance, like a little girl desperate to pee, but my need was very different.

"AHH"

Thighs slick with sweat and cum, I was bouncing the little bed, mashing and stretching my swollen clit. Pulling and scratching at my nipples like they were at fault. My ass was soaked, my pussy was dripping, desperate for touch, even as my nipples screamed from self-abuse.

My hips began to roll and hump the air uselessly. That's when I saw Stephanie silhouetted in my open door. I couldn't make out her face, only that she was watching me. I opened my thighs for her, pumped my hips at her.

"AH, PLEA-" I choked.

It was enough.

My back arched as I came.

I woke up to the sound of Stephanie in the shower. I lay in bed, remembering what had happened.

"Jesus..." I groaned aloud.

My face burned. I touched my breasts and winced. I was too ashamed to move. How could I ever face her after what she'd done, after what I'd done? After she had watched me do it. I was wide awake. I wanted to be asleep. I never wanted to get up.

Her shower ended.

I was still uncovered and pulled the sheet over me. The bathroom door opened and she walked into the living room, standing in front of my bedroom door, carelessly naked, pretending to dry herself with her towel; displaying herself. I kept my eyes closed to slits, pretended to be asleep, but she didn't even glance in on me.

What were we doing? What was this?

I thought of Rebekah touching my hand while we studied, stroking the fingers I'd masturbated with in her bed, all smiles and affection.

I thought of Stephanie watching me jerk and shiver, legs spread, exposing myself entirely. She had been just a silhouette in the darkness but she didn't hide. I had called out to her - after what she had done to me - I called and pleaded, and she just turned away, gone back to her room without a word. But now she was displaying herself...

She moved away and I listened to the sounds of her morning routine. She got dressed and began moving around the kitchen, making herself breakfast. It was clear she wasn't rushing to leave. If I waited for her to leave I would be late. She might not leave at all. Paula had told me to be at her loft by ten.

And I needed to pee.

I got up.

I found my cami top on the floor at the end of my bed. I left them, pulled a jersey over my head. It was Danny's. It fit me like a tent and covered my bare ass. My little sleep shorts wadded up just outside my door on the living room floor. I kicked them back into my room as I went to take my turn in the bathroom.

She had left her clothes on the floor of the living room from the night before and the bathroom was a mess as well. I didn't think anything of it, just assumed she wasn't done, that she would pick up before she left.

I peed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I told myself I could do this. I had faced Rebekah. Stephanie was... different, but I could do it. I had to say something. I had to clear the air. I spent what felt like a long time trying to convince myself of this.

When I came out of the bathroom Stephanie was still at the kitchen table, the remains of her breakfast in front of her.

I wasn't at all convinced I could face her.

She had made herself a workman's feast of eggs and potatoes and sausage. Like the bathroom, she had left the kitchen uncharacteristically messy. She usually cleaned as she cooked, but her greasy pan was still on the stove, bread, and butter were still out, crumbs on the counter, a bowl with raw egg, and shells in the sink. She was in her underwear, her body deceptively thin.

I knew exactly how strong she was.

Before I could bring myself to say anything, she looked up at me, lifted the edge of her plate, and dropped it with a bang.

I flinched.

She didn't flinch. She just looked at me with dead-eyed contempt.

"Loser cleans for the winner," she told me, pushing away from the table.

"I'm sorry," I cringed reflexively, as if I had something to apologize to her for. And then I did it again. "Sorry, I didn't mean..."

But she wasn't listening. She just walked past me, leaving me her mess.

I spent a moment absorbing her words. I had hoped for an apology from her - or some sign of contrition or regret. I had imagined she might tease or mock me, but this...

And then I'd apologized.

I was left blinking in disbelief and horror, mostly at myself.

And then I did it. I did as I was told.

While she got dressed and made herself up for the day I cleaned the kitchen.

I thought of Rebekah cooking for me and asking about my family while I cleared Stephanie's mess and put away her juice and eggs. I thought of all the years I cooked and cleaned for my mother as I cleaned Stephanie's egg shells and potato peels out of the sink, washed her dishes and greasy pan, wiped down the kitchen table, the countertops, and stove. I left the kitchen exactly the way she liked it, spotless.

Her clothes were still on the living room floor where she had dropped them the night before. I picked them up and folded them, hanging them on the back of a chair for her. She had left her boots discarded on the mat by the front door, I stowed them, putting them off to the side with the rest of our shoes. I then put away the magazines and books I'd been reading the night before brought my dishes to the kitchen and cleaned them.

Stephanie was making herself up, preparing to go out. She wasn't dressed in her dusty work clothes, she had made herself up nice in dark slacks and a blouse.

When she was done in the bathroom I found that I was meant to clean there too. I put away her makeup, hung her towel up, and for the moment pushed her dirty underwear to one side.

While I took my shower wondering what I should do.

I had no place else in the city to go. No part of me thought Stephanie would refund the cash I'd given her. My choice was to stay with Stephanie or to run back to Buffalo and live with Danny.

I thought about what had happened the night before, and the way I... reacted. On the spectrum of my perversities, what I had done seemed to fall well outside the gradient between Rebekah's bed and listening to Darci in the girls' locker room. It was a new low, and seemed closer to the fucked up fantasies I had indulged, until then, only in my imagination. Certainly, there was just as much post-orgasm self-loathing, but I had cum even harder than when I thought Rebekah was watching me, or listening to Darci, or spying on Stephanie through her wall.

Until then, I had gotten off on the idea of being caught. Stephanie had caught me, I had seen her watching me and cum for her. My face burned with the memory.

My stomach twisted at the thought of what I had become.

I could not solve this now.

So I picked up her soiled panties, trying not to look at the smeared crotch. I left them neatly folded on the toilet seat. When I got out of the bathroom Stephanie was gone. I finished getting myself ready for work and ran out the door without breakfast.

Paula's Brooklyn studio was in Bushwick. I followed her directions to a big loft building that was almost on top of the Morgan subway station. The building had cavernous halls of plain drywall and steel fire doors. I found her studio on the third floor.

The Paula who greeted me was not the Paula I worked for in the city. She had coffee and pastries waiting for me. Mickey, her Australian shepherd who was always with her at the office, was there too. They were inseparable evidently.

Paula explained that she usually brewed a pot for the day, and showed me how. It was clear this would be one of my duties. But she was relaxed and friendly as she gave me a tour of her studio. She told me about her paintings, which were all huge colorful maps, and covered hand-drawn lettering. They were very big, and thick with splodged words, misspelling and larded with information like voting statistics and zip codes that may or may not be correct.

"Part of the misspelling in the paintings I really feel is 'mistake-ism'," she explained. "Where you make a mistake and allow that to be part of the painting and becomes part of the register, the inaccuracies."

I didn't really understand what she meant but I nodded and pretended I did.

"As a designer, because you're working on other people's material," she continued, maybe seeing that I was only pretending. "You're proofreading corrections, spelling mistakes, and all those things have to be taken care of every day on the job... so the idea of not having to do it was fantastic. Totally liberating!"

That at least I understood, and she seemed satisfied that I got it. Evidently, they were also really labor-intensive. Paula told me it had taken her eight years to make the nine paintings she had.

"This one I'm still working on," she said, indicating a massive, twelve-foot wide by nine-foot-tall map on a wall opposite her racks. The racks were simple two-by-four uprights, supporting here eight finished paintings, stored on edge, like books on a shelf.

"These will all need to be packed by the end of the month," she said, crossing her arms and looking worried, like maybe it was too much to do.

"Just us?" I asked.

"No," she told me, smiling. "But we will need to be here to assist the photographer, and the art handlers - still there's lots you will need to do before then."

"This is what I need you to do right now," she said, turning to face a big work table, covered in books, paperwork, drawing, and sundry art supplies and equipment. "I need you to clean and organize your workspace!"

'Loser cleans for winner," I thought, but not entirely glumly. I liked sorting through the clutter on the big table and loved how different Paula was when she was away from the office. I started by throwing away what was obviously trash and gathering up dirty cups and emptying ashtrays. I stacked and sorted books, and asked her about things I couldn't identify.

"What's this?" I asked, holding up a strange pair of pliers.

"Canvas stretchers," she said, looking up. "In the red toolbox."

"This?" I said, holding up a wood ball.

"Oh that's a music box," she said, smiling. "There should be a key."

"I'll keep an eye," I promised. Looking around.

On and on like this as I sorted through the jumble. She never got irritated with my questions; just the opposite. We talked as we worked, she told stories about herself, her dogs and husband, asked questions about me, my family, school, and Danny.

Much of what I was doing that first morning was obvious and menial - putting things away, cleaning tools, dusting and wiping things down. I was still learning where everything was and didn't know where to find things like rags, brooms, and the trash. But the work was enjoyable and rewarding, like painting a room.

"You move fast!" she observed.

I had worked up a sweat but was enjoying my morning. The space was sunny and open. Still, my thoughts kept circling the events of the night before. Rather than being angry at Stephanie, I found myself picturing how red and sweaty her face had gotten when she wrestled me to the ground, how hard she had been breathing through her nose as her spit dropped onto my tongue, her dark silhouette standing in my door watching me cum. I fought hard not to let those images entirely derail me.

I was turning myself on.

'What is wrong with me?' I wondered.

"I think it's time for lunch," Paula said, pulling me out of my thoughts. I was standing in front of her bookshelves staring down at the pile of art books and atlases held in my arms.

"You've been staring at that book for five minutes!" she laughed.

On the top of my pile was a book of paintings by Andrew Wyeth. The woman on the cover looked like she could be Stephanie's mother but with long auburn hair instead of Stephanie's dyed black mop.

"Her name is Helga," Paula told me, taking the book from me. "She was Wyeth's mistress. He painted her in secret - ten or eleven years."

"He was married?"

"So was she!"

I tried to imagine that, being married to Danny, carrying on a secret affair for ten years. For some reason, I thought of Stephanie's post-coital rituals. I had heard her twice now, directing her lovers, photographing them. I hadn't been sure that's what she was doing until a portrait of a beautiful black man that had hung between our bedroom doors had been replaced by a stunned-looking Little Mike, bare shoulders, bleary-eyed and wet chinned.

Paula had brought in soup and sandwiches for lunch. I was pleased she had known I was vegetarian - I had no idea I'd ever told her.

We ate at a small table in the corner. She asked me about my time in New York, about how I liked Pentagram. I gave her a sanitized version of my weekend with Danny, leaving out the loud sex and car thief turds. I did the same thing about Pentagram, leaving out the fact that I was being spurned and bullied by the other interns. I told her I was having a good time, that I felt lucky to be there.

'No one likes a complainer,' my mother had always told me.

"What about your noisy roommate, have you sorted that out?" she wanted to know.

There was no way I was going to confess to Paula Scher about what The Überfrau had done to me the night before. Still, just avoiding the question made me blush.

"I think so?" I stammered.

When it was clear Paula was not satisfied and wanted to know more, I continued, "We had a fight- an argument really, but I think we've settled things?"

"Settled how?" Paula asked.

I pictured Stephanie's face, how close she had brought her mouth to mine, the way she had been looking at me when I thought she was going to kiss me.

"I've agreed to do more chores," I told Paula.

"And that's settled the problem with noise?" she asked suspiciously.

"She knows where I stand, I guess?" I said, blushing furiously.

Paula gave me a look, but maybe sensing the depths of my discomfort she didn't push for more.

After lunch she helped me clean the dishes, but it was clear she was showing me how to do it. After everything was put away, she explained my job for the afternoon was to individually wrap print reproductions of her map paintings on the big table I had just cleared. But first the table had to be very carefully cleaned.

"You can't have any paint, or solvent, or dirt on your work surface," she warned. "Nothing that will stick or stain or seep, scrape or dent. Do you understand? It has to be perfectly clean, smooth, and dry."

She gave me a spray bottle of cleaning fluid, paper towels, but also a big palate knife and a razor blade scraping tool - showing me how to use them by attacking a blob of dried paint and a spot of ancient glue.

"No gunk of any kind!" she warned.

While I cleaned the table we listened to NPR. I tried my best to focus on the task at hand, or the stories being told over the radio, rather than the images my mind was showing me. I kept seeing the dried smear of mucusy cum in the crotch of Stephanie's panties, and the frothy spit dribbling from her mouth, remembering how it felt on my tongue, the bittersweet taste.

I was obsessing.

When I finished the table, and after Paula had carefully inspected my work, she showed me an "edition of prints" which she kept in the flat files under the big table. It was a heavy rectangular package, easily an inch thick. The stack of prints was tightly wrapped in a translucent, wax-paper-like parchment paper, she called "glassine".

"It's archival," she explained. When it was clear I had no idea what that meant. "Most paper has acidic compounds that cause it to break down over time," she explained. "This," she said, gesturing to the glassine, "won't stain or discolor or grow brittle as it grows old. The same is true for the paper the prints are on."

She put on a pair of thin white cotton gloves and handed me a pair. They felt cheap, almost disposable, which maybe they were.

Next, she opened the glassine wrapper, and inside it was a stack of thick heavy paper, with torn-looking edges.

"This paper is called Rives BFK, and is an archival printmaking paper," she said, lifting the top print in a white-gloved hand. "Neutral PH, no brighteners, ground wood, or unbleached pulp. Blah, blah, blah..."

I asked why the pages weren't cut clean.

"Aesthetics? Tradition?" she offered. "It's called a 'deckled edge' - it shows each sheet is made individually rather than cut from a roll. What you need to know is, it's fragile and important to preserve, don't bend, fold, manipulate, or otherwise ding that edge!"

I nodded seriously, suddenly worried I was out of my depth

"Take care, and you will be fine," she reassured. "This whole job is perfectly suited to your anal nature," she said, leafing through the pile and showing me the identical prints. Pointing out her signature and a fraction at the bottom corners of each print.

I was a bit shocked to have Paula call me "anal" but said nothing. Again, blushing furiously. She was oblivious to my shock, or ignoring it.

"Each edition has forty prints," she explained. There are eight editions, one for each of the finished paintings. They are all signed and numbered," she said, again pointing to the fraction on the bottom corner of the page. "Each print needs to be individually wrapped and labeled. That's where you come in."

She had a large roll of glassine that she set up at one end of the table, with a cutting mat. She showed me how she wanted me to cut the glassine to size and how to handle the individual prints.

"The gloves protect the paper from oil from your hands," she said. "See? All very anal."

Again I blushed, but this time she smiled and winked. Paula Scher was teasing me!

I watched as she demonstrated how to place the print in the middle of the oversized cut wrapper. She again pointed out the fraction: one-fortieth.

"This is the edition number: one of forty," she explained. She then carefully folded the glassine over the print, showing me how she avoided damaging the paper's fragile, lacy, "deckled" edge. Using a matte white "artist tape" to hold the folds fast, she made an envelope, she finished by placing a label in the upper right-hand corner.

"See?" she asked, pointing to the edition number on the label. "Each label needs to correspond to the print inside. Understood?"

I did.

"All the glassine sleeves need to look exactly the same."

"Anal girl to the rescue," I said doubtfully, which made her bark a laugh.

"That's the spirit!"

"Tie back your hair," she warned. "We don't want stray strands getting in with the print. No dust or hairs or oil from your fingers."

Hair pulled back, white gloves, and a clean smock Paula had loaned me to wear over my street clothes, I felt like a lab technician working in a NASA clean room. I had a soft Japanese brush to dust off each print - which I examined minutely before folding it away in its little parchment vestments.

"Don't rush. Speed is not the object!" Paula insisted.

Which was just as well. I had to move slowly, every fold had to be double-checked. I lived in fear of accidentally ruining the delicate edges.

The work was in fact fussy and dull and repetitive and required great care, and, as I did it I was struck by how right Paula was about my nature. The job was suited to me. It was calm and contemplative, but absorbing. Everything had to be just so. I enjoyed it.

'Anal," I thought, conceding Paula's judgment.

The prints were beautiful things, very unlike posters. The paper was cottony and smelled faintly of clove, which Paula said was probably the ink.

"Clove oil is a solvent," she explained.

The ink was thick enough to be heavy. The details of the map looked raised, almost as if they had been painted on.

"They are silkscreen prints," she had explained. "Like on t-shirts, but a t-shirt image is usually just a few screens. Photographic separations - mechanical isolations - each screen its own color."

"CMYK! I chimed in, showing off some of the knowledge I'd picked up working at Pentagram.

She smiled at this.

"Just so! Each of these prints, meanwhile, is made with dozens of individually hand-drawn screens, all the colors custom mixed - upwards of eighty screens!"

Paula had been so pleased when I knew the tiniest bit about color separations because she had been taken aback when she first learned how little I knew about design and even printing processes.

"Hire a journalist..." she had said, chiding herself.

I studied the print I was holding, trying to see the separations. At first glance, the image looked photographic, but on closer examination, I could see the analog quality of the image. Tiny squiggles of color, idiosyncratic lines, and blobs instead of halftone dots. I was suddenly very aware of how much work had gone into each print, how valuable each one was, and I understood the care she was insisting I take with each one.

Paula gave me instructions and made small corrections as I did the first one. She left me to it after that but came back to check on me as I finished each of the next three. After that, she seemed satisfied that I was doing it right and left me be.

Paula kept to herself after that, the radio was left off and we worked in silence, except for her talking on the phone. I did my best to keep my thoughts focused on what I was doing, and off my roommate, but my mind wandered and I started making mistakes. The second time I lost track of which sticker went with which print, Paula sent me home.

"It's almost five anyway," she told me. I told her that I was happy to work later.

"Nope, go enjoy your Saturday night," she commanded. "I'll see you at the same time tomorrow!"

I didn't tell her I had no place to go, that I didn't want to go home.

It was a warm clear Saturday night and the l train was crowded with young hipsters heading into Manhattan, excited for their various weekend plans. I had none. I didn't know what to do with myself.

No part of me wanted to go home and risk facing Stephanie. I was too mortified by what had happened, everything that had happened. What she had done, but also what I had done.

So rather than getting off at Third Avenue, I rode the L to the end of the line, drawn back by The Riverside, maybe thinking of how I might have to move back in there. I told myself I should spend the evening exploring the West Village. I hadn't really done that when I was living there.

I started by wandering west. I really didn't have a destination in mind. I knew The West Village must be cool - Sex In The City took place there - but the parts I'd seen coming and going to The Riverside were pretty sketchy and underwhelming.

The Apple Store wouldn't open for another ten years. The High Line Park was just some signs showing renderings of a project no one thought would be built, and I didn't know about the Chelsea Market. There was nothing and no one for me at The Riverside. What was I going to do there, gossip with the receptionist? I remembered the girl with all the piercings asking me if I was in "The Life"?

Still, I walked on, picturing Stephanie's face over mine, red and breathing hard...

Lost in my thoughts I found myself falling in with the movement of people all moving westward. All of Fourteenth Street was a little seedy, but the stretch past Eighth Ave was especially so. There were a few bars, a Mexican place, and a big Art Deco headquarters building for The Salvation Army that always seemed abandoned.

That night the street life of Fourteenth Street was different.

Walking towards Ninth Ave I remember thinking there were a lot of attractive people out, and everyone seemed to be in a festive mood, talking loud and laughing. At first, I just thought it was the difference a beautiful Saturday night makes, that everyone was just happy to be outside with the night off. But soon I realized I wasn't in a random mix of New Yorkers, that I was in a crowd and the crowd seemed to have a character ... no one was super young, but there were no really old people either. There were gay men, but not all gay men. Everyone was dressed well, but not at all dressed up. And they all seemed to have a destination.

I followed the crowd into the normally deserted intersection of Gansevoort Square. When I had lived at The Riverview I had avoided the area after work because it was strangely desolate. Super high-end boutiques studded otherwise empty-looking loft buildings, and no street life - not even much traffic.

Enjoying safety in numbers, I followed the crowd as it turned down onto the cobbled streets and there I found our destination: a street party. It turned out a little French cafe was celebrating Bastille Day. There were hundreds of people sitting at tables in the street. Men dressed as Marie Antoinette and the ladies of her court were moving through the crowd in powdered wigs, white pancake makeup, and pale pastel Rocco gowns with outrageously wide pannier skirts - their waists cinched tight in corsets. They looked monstrously gorgeous.

A block of Gansevoort Street had been closed to traffic and tables set up for the crowd. In front of the cafe - that just looked like an old American Diner - there were big sand lots in the street, with men and women playing the French version of Bocce, which, I remembered from my high school French classes, is called Pétanque.

It was early, but everyone was drunk. I was watching people play when one of the drag queens turned and recognized me.

"DOROTHY!"

In all her finery and makeup I didn't recognize her, but the froggy voice was unmistakable. It was the guy who lived in the room across the hall from me at The Riverside!

"Dorothy is on my team!" he cried, pulling me into the sandlot. He told me his name was Imma de Tox, and introduced me in fast succession to a dozen gay men, most were wearing nothing but skimpy running shorts that left nothing to the imagination. For two hours I was Imma's most precious friend, and through Imma, "Dorothy" was everyone's friend. I was charmed and plied with French 75s and Sidecars and Champagne - all of which were DANGEROUSLY good.

"She just wants to get back to Kansas!" Imma told anyone who asked me anything about myself. But after my third or fourth drink, Imma asked me why I left The Riverside, and I told her about Stephanie. Somehow telling Imma was easy, the whole thing was funny rather than sad and fucked up - an outrageous misadventure rather than scary and perverted. Laughing, I told Imma how mean Stephanie was and how I had to listen to her fuck a different guy every night.

"Is she a pro?" Imma wanted to know, batting their spidery fake eyelashes and mugging a knowing expression.

"I don't know?" I admitted.

It had actually never occurred to me that Stephanie might be a prostitute.

"I don't think so..." I told Imma. "She made one guy eat his cum!" I barked.

I was really in my cups.

"No!" Imma squealed, and then made a face, looking at one of the men we were playing against. "I think I'll make Joey eat his cum!" Imma cried loudly, making the others laugh, but also making them interested in what we were talking about.

"Her fucking AUNTY EM!" Imma screamed. "SHE NEEDS TO GET BACK TO HER AUNTY FUCKING EM!"

It was fun, but as it got later and got more and more crowded, I started feeling claustrophobic and Imma lost interest in me and my roommate drama. I excused myself and no one was really sorry to see me go, but I left the party to cheers of, "Your little dog too!" and "I'm melting!" and, Imma, loudest of all, calling out after me over the loud hubbub of the crowd in her froggy voice, "Oh, what a world! What a world!! MY BEAUTIFUL WICKEDNESS!!!"

I'm really not entirely sure how much I told Imma about Stephanie and me before she got bored of me, but I think it was a lot. My memories of the party get spotty towards the end. I know I took the bus home, but don't remember getting to the apartment at all.

What I do remember is startling awake a few hours later - very disoriented. Stephanie was getting loudly railed. I was still in my dusty work clothes, soaked in sweat, gasping in the heat. My mouth felt like shoe leather, but I was safe in my own bed at least.

I staggered to my feet and realized I was still very drunk. Taking care, I made my way cautiously in the dark to my door, which I had closed.

'Dummy,' I thought, scolding my drunken self for turning my room into a sauna.

''But it's date night!' some other part of myself responded defensively. The sudden loud banging of Stephanie's bed frame, as tonight's partner redoubled his efforts putting a point on the justification.

I couldn't argue with my drunken self's reasoning, she had clearly made the right call, but I did wish she'd undressed, or at least kicked off my boots.

'You wouldn't have either,' that other part of myself thought with total assurance. I couldn't argue with that either.

Stephanie was starting to moan.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

When I opened my bedroom door I was shocked by how much louder Stephanie was in the living room - until I saw the reason, her bedroom door was wide open.

"AhYA! AhYA!"

'That's new,' some waggish part of me observed dryly.

I couldn't see them and they couldn't see me, but I could hear absolutely everything. That in mind, I moved to the kitchen as quietly as I could, pouring myself a glass of cold water from the bottle in the fridge, gulping it down.

'Champagne of tap water,' some boosterish part of me bragged as I wiped my mouth and chin.

"Ah, YA!"

"Ah, YA!"

"Ahh, YA!"

I desperately had to pee.

To pee I would have to cross in front of Stephanie's door. Stephanie and her "date" were pounding away even louder than before. I rolled my cold glass over my sweaty brow and considered my options. The hilariously awkward image of me pissing in the kitchen sink made me stifle a laugh.

'Fuck it.'

I stepped past Stephanie's door, trying not to look, but I looked. There was Stephanie, on her back, in all her glory. On top of her was an older guy with longish hair and a beer gut. He was reared up, pumping his hips fast. His attention was on her, but she was looking at me.

"YA!" she called as I crossed out of view.

I closed myself in the bathroom and peeled off my sweaty jeans, peeing in the dark, listening to the pounding growing faster, to her calls growing louder. She didn't sound close, she sounded like she was encouraging him.

"YA!" she cried again and again, sounding more like a jockey than an orgasm.

I had a decision to make. Should I flush, and announce my presence to Beer Belly, almost certainly and immediately pissing Stephanie off, or risk Stephanie's possible future ire if she's the one who finds the piss in the pot?

"Leaving piss in zee pot is verboten," she had told me without a hint of irony or humor when I interviewed for the room. Such a charmer that Stephanie.

Beer Belly was really picking up speed now.

'If it's yellow, be mellow,' I told myself, choosing stealth now and a possible scolding later, over the prospect of interrupting Beer Belly and triggering Stephanie's instant fury.

The image of Stephanie, totally naked and half-fucked pinning to the ground in front of the strange guy flashed in my mind. I was still sitting on the toilet but the thought made me swoon. Even through the closed door, Stephanie sounded very excited.

"Hahh!

"Hahh!"

"AHA!"

I was gripping my pubic hair in my fist, pulling it hard. I thought again of how hard I'd pulled my nipples, of Stephanie watching me cum. The pain made me feel weak and lightheaded. I was holding my breath.

Releasing my bush I got slowly to my feet. Taking deep breaths I did my best to calm myself. Picking up my jeans I sidled as quietly as I could back through the half-open bathroom door and crept back towards the bedroom doors.

It was harder to know if Stephanie could see me this time. Beer Belly had collapsed onto her but was still thrusting hard. He had hooked his arms under her shoulders and was gripping her by the back of her neck, using his arms to thrust her whole body down onto his cock. She had wrapped her arms around his chest. Her face was buried in his neck, hidden in shadow.

I stopped to watch. He was thrusting into her, and she was gasping and grunting with each thrust.

"ugH!"

"ugH!"

"ugH!"

She dropped her head down. I could see her face, and watched her expression as he fucked her and her cries were no longer muffled.

"UugH!"

"UugHA!"

"UugHAA!"

She was staring directly into my eyes. I was pinned in place by her gaze. Her face was glazed with sweat and her eyes were a little glassy but her expression was almost blank, strangely mild.

"You like this," she groaned as if she were speaking to him, but she was looking directly at me, no wall between us. "This is what you like, mien spanner." she cooed. "Show me how much you like it."

Beer Bely took this as his cue to redouble his efforts, fucking her harder and faster, but I understood what Stephanie really wanted. I was still holding on to my jeans in one hand, but my other hand, hidden by my jeans, was gripping my pussy, squeezing it through my panties.

"Show me," she groaned.

And like something out of a dream, like I was someone else, I slid my jeans out of the way, showing her what I was doing. This couldn't be me.

"Ya," Stephanie called. "Ya, do it!"

I was fingering the wet crease in my panties when Beer Belly came with a loud choking gasp. I did not cum, instead, I realized what I was doing, that he might turn and see, and retreated into my room. Shutting my door and leaning against it, I dropped my jeans. My whole body was shaking. I could hear Stephanie laughing in the next room.

"You liked that a lot, I think!" she shouted to me. Beer Belly thought she was talking to him and laughed along with her.

The next day, over coffee, I was excited to tell Paula about my Bastille Day adventures, playing pétanque, how the cafe was just an old American-style diner inside, but that it was decorated with maps, which she thought was very funny.

"Ah, you discovered Florent!" she laughed. I got from her tone, that I had "discovered" Florent the way a teenager discovers orgasms. Not really a discovery, but still something very cool, even cooler than I'd assumed.

Paula was clearly impressed.

All of New York was so strange and extraordinary that summer, I just assumed something that extraordinary must happened in New York on any given Saturday night. But according to Paula, I'd discovered something fabulous and rare.

"Florent is the real New York!" she told me, her approval obvious. She had been going to the little cafe for years. "Tibor Kalman does all of their design. Do you know Tibor?"

When I admitted I didn't,

"Of course you don't!" Paula said, going to her shelves and pulling down books.

"Florent Morelley, the owner, makes those maps," she told me, as she began showing me Tibor's design work. "The ones hanging in the cafe - they're wonderful," she told me. "If you take a closer look, none of them are of real places - they're all made up. They're not very good, but he's a wonderful character!"

As she was excitedly tellingly no me about Morelley's maps, she was simultaneously paging through the book to point out instances of Tibor Kalman's design work she especially admired. I had gotten Paula on a subject that excited her and distracted her from work. She realized the time and teasingly scolded me for sidetracking her.

"We have work to do!" she exclaimed, shooing me to my table and taking her place in front of a painting of the United States. I had been packaging prints all morning and had gotten it down to a science. Not one mistake and they all looked exactly the same.

"He and I traded once..." she continued. "That was years ago - Florent I mean - a map for a map. I love the one he gave me - it's an archipelago," she said absently. "I'll show you when you come to the country."

After lunch, she was absorbed in her work, but at one point took a phone call, and afterward forgot to turn the radio back on. I didn't have the courage to say anything, so for the whole second half of the day, we worked in silence again.

Paula had been very happy when I'd shown her the rectangle I'd marked out on the table with blue tape. I had used her t-square to make it perfect. There had been small inconsistencies with the glassine envelopes I made the day before, but now all my glassine folders were perfect.

"Go ahead and redo the ones you did yesterday," she told me, looking over my work. "This is the first thing someone will see when they receive their print, we want them to feel good in that moment. That's why they need to be perfect. Do you understand?"

I did actually.

"First impression," I told her.

"Exactly!"

When I got back to the apartment that evening Stephanie was out. She had left the kitchen a mess, her clothes and boots were in the middle of the floor.

I started with the kitchen. Scraping her plates into the trash. Scooping cold grease from the frying pan, pouring out oily water she'd boiled sausage in. I wondered at how lean she was, the way she ate.

Next, I picked up and folded her clothes. The painties I'd left folded on the toilet seat were thrown in the sink with a second soiled pair. I looked at them for a long time. I understood what I was being told. Finally, I filled the basin, and using a bit of shampoo, washed her panties in the basin. After setting them to dry over the towel rack I went to take my place on the couch.

I continued cleaning up after Stephanie and waiting up for her when she went out. The mix of emotions I had around her was deeply confusing. My obsession with her promiscuity had taken a back seat to my obsession with "vesseling" her, which terrified me but I could not stop picturing and fantasizing about it. My reaction to my cleaning duties even stranger, I found cleaning up after her... arousing.

I didn't masturbate about it, not at first, but I quickly realized my feelings about being forced to clean up after her fell somewhere within my pantheon of sexually compulsive desires. When I was cleaning I would always start in the kitchen - the least sexy part of my chores. But just washing dishes I could feel myself getting keyed up. My belly would tighten and I could feel myself getting hot and trembly as I anticipated where my cleaning would eventually take me, my final chore.

It was most intense on the occasions Stephanie watched me clean. Mostly, she either left the house before I woke up or slept until after I left. On the mornings I woke up to a mess, I made very sure to clean up after her before I left for work, not wanting to come home to some new variety of fury. I made fast work of those morning chores, avoiding as best I could the ways I felt. I couldn't risk indulging, or even dwelling on my feelings, for fear I might lose track of time.

I had never been late for work, but Paula had made it very clear that was an absolute no-no. And I really didn't know what to make of my feelings anyway. Still, I would think about what I had done all day, and imagine what I might have to do when I got home.

But that was earlier in the week...

We had done a good job of avoiding each other after the Beer Belly incident. I did my part by working as late as I could stand. She did her part by shutting herself in her room either asleep or working silently - couldn't tell which. I in turn cleaned the apartment as silently as I could on those nights and mornings when she was shut in her room, afraid of having her come out in a rage otherwise. I was careful to leave everything spotless including her panties, which I hung to dry before going to bed myself. I went to sleep every night that week, my mind filled with hateful fantasies of fighting Stephanie, but I couldn't imagine winning. Instead, my mind served me visions of all the ways she might berate and beat me, always spitting in my mouth - again and again... until that Thursday.

That morning she was still awake when I left for work, she watched me rush through my chores, cleaning up her mess before rushing out the door to work. I came home that night to find she had been home all day and she was still awake watching TV. The house was again a mess. I was tired and very aware of Stephanie as I stowed my things and again got to work cleaning. As always I started with the kitchen, but this time I didn't rush. Doing the dishes I could feel Stephanie's eyes on the back of my neck. I tried not to behave self-consciously, but I felt exposed and humiliated. I was afraid to stand up to her and she knew it. But also because I was flush and trembling - visibly turned on - and I was sure she knew that too.

I was overheated and taking shuddering sips of air as I finished the dishes, and I was only getting worse. I could feel my color deepening to a brighter shade of red as I left the kitchen. I held my abdomen tight, trying to breathe as normally as I could while bending to clean up around Stephanie. There were coffee cups and plates, cigarettes, and takeout. I collected everything and emptied her ashtray into a takeout container. Watching her out of the corner of my eye I could see her watching me as I wiped down the coffee table. She seemed mildly curious, no hint of any deeper feelings. I meanwhile was bright red.

When I was done with everything else I went into the bathroom. There were no work clothes or makeup to put away. But on the floor next to the toilet was a pair of her panties. I picked them up and washed them in the sink, very aware that Stephanie had muted the television, that she was listening to me. I had left the door open so she could hear - watch too, I guess, not that there was much to see, just my back.

When I was done I closed the door, got undressed, and showered.

Afterward, I gathered up my things and wrapped myself in my towel, I meant to walk proudly to my room - head held high. Instead, head bowed and shoulders hunched, I scurried to my room. Stephanie just watched me. We hadn't said a single word to each other.

That next weekend I spent my days working for Paula and Stephanie spent her nights elsewhere. But she left messes, which I cleaned.

It was the following Wednesday when she finally brought another guy home. I was awake and reading on the couch when they came in. I looked up expecting Stephanie to introduce him, but instead, she introduced me:

"This," she slurred, gesturing at me with the back of her hand, "is my vvife," she announced.

The guy looked confused, but I knew what she meant, I probably looked horrified and surprised. Stephanie, meanwhile, couldn't care less about what either of us understood or didn't understand. She wasn't paying attention. She just barked a laugh and led her date to her room.

I turned off the lights and trailed them into my room. I came, listening to them, but I was picturing us.

Stephanie came home late that Friday night. So late I'd almost given up on her. She was alone.

Standing in the entranceway, she stared at me, swaying a little from the drink I thought, but her weight was on one leg. Her other foot, heel to toe, was working itself free of its boot. She kicked it off into the living room, lifted her clad foot, and pulled off the remaining boot, throwing it with the first.

"Put them away."

I got up and picked up the boots, carried them past her to the door, placed them behind her, next to the mat where they belonged.

When I turned around Stephanie had turned to face me and was working her pants off. I watched her peel them off, bending over to push them down, then marching in place until her jeans were entirely inside out and her feet were free. She kicked them at me.

I retrieved them. She watched me obediently turning them right side out, straightening them, and folding them neatly.

She took her panties by the waistband, pushed the fronts down until the band was free of her ass. She pushed them down her thighs and then dropped them. She stepped free of them and waited.

All she was wearing was a little T-shirt. Too short to cover her midriff, tight at the armpits, showing off her sharp little tits, her fat swollen nipples clearly visible through the thin, love-worn fabric.

Her pussy was shaved. I had known that because all her bras and panties were made of the same translucent beige nylon, and she walked around naked, drying off after her showers. Still standing in front of me naked, showing me her sex, was very different. There was a gap between her thighs. I could see the inner lips of her pussy, pink and swollen, glazed and wet. There were fresh bruises on her thighs, where someone with big hands had gripped her tight.

I stepped towards her and picked up the discarded garment. They were heavy, sodden. I started to lay them over the jeans but she stopped me.

"No."

I froze, afraid to look up at her, afraid she was going to attack me.

"They're soiled."

I hesitated, made a stuttering movement, unsure for an instant, unsure what to do. The panties were heavy with damp, sticky in my hand,

"Now!"

'Loser cleans,' I thought and I moved to pass her, to get to the bathroom. She turned to watch me but didn't make way. I was careful not to touch her. I didn't want to give her any reason to attack me.

Standing in the bathroom I examined the panties. The gusset was loaded with semen. It was still warm from her body. I pictured Stephanie in the bathroom of a dive bar, holding onto a filthy sink or maybe a urinal, getting fucked from behind by a stranger, or maybe, judging by how much semen was in her panties, more than one. Maybe there had been a line.

I rinsed them out under the tap with cold water, using my fingers to squeegee the gob of cum away and down the drain. Once they were clear, I washed them with a dollop of shampoo and placed them on her towel rack to dry.

When I came out of the bathroom Stephanie was gone, but her bedroom door was open. As I walked past her room I looked in to see her there in the shadows. She had taken off her shirt. She was on her bed, leaning back on her elbows, totally naked, knees raised and legs open, displaying herself.

"You like to clean," she called, laughing as I rushed to get away, rushed to my own bedroom, slamming the door.

I lay in the dark, terrified that she would burst into my room and attack me, but then I heard the sounds of her bed moving rhythmically. She was masturbating. I had never heard that before. For a moment I was as taken up with it as I was listening to her fuck. I considered touching myself, imagined the two of us cumming loudly together, just the two of us. But even as I imagined this I realized the sound of her jilling had stopped. I listened in the dark for a long time expecting her to start again, wanting her to, but she never did. She had passed out.

There were a series of guys after that, but not as many before. She spent more and more nights away from the apartment, fucking elsewhere. When she did bring a guy home she always introduced me as her "vvife".

God help me, I was excited for the night Stephanie would finally come home drunk and alone again, but she was careful not to.

Whatever we had shared, Stephanie's interest in me had dwindled, she even stopped leaving messes for me to clean. I was ashamed of the way I longed for her abuse. I knew I should have left, that living with her was toxic and perverse, but was too broke and too lonely to move out of her apartment; too enthralled by her to leave. If contempt was all she had left for me, I wanted her contempt.

I ended up staying with her for another month, masturbating to the sound of her fucking random men, jealous of her audacious promiscuity and her enormous capacity for pleasure, terrified and longing for her to take it out on me.

On the few occasions, she forgot a dish in the sink or left the house in a rush without cleaning, I did her dishes. Anytime I found her things in the washroom, I picked up after her, but it wasn't the same. She was no longer doing it to me.

And I never did do the other thing. I fantasized about her pinning me again, I was sure she was going to force me to do it, but she never did. I shivered in my bed imagining it, not daring to admit how much I wanted her to do it, but it never happened. Instead, she just ignored me.

She did, however, pin me one last time. She had gone out in a dangerously short black skirt and tight sleeveless top that showed her midriff. I had stayed up, hoping for her to come home, but not believing she would.

It was my last full weekend in New York.

Paula had told me to take Sunday off, forgiving me the last day's work I owed her. The weekend before she had taken me to Connecticut with her to work in her country house. Her husband Seymour was an illustrator in his seventies and a lovely host. He made our lunches, brought us cocktails at the end of our workday, and at night we all prepared dinners together. I slept in a guest room off their flower garden. It was like something out of a storybook. And now she was giving me more.

"Call it a bonus!" she told me, handing me a glassine-wrapped package, sandwiched between two cardboard flats.

We had finished preparing for her show, and the website for Public Theater was up and running - everyone at the theater was ecstatic with how it turned out.

"All the bells and whistles!" Paula had laughed when I showed her the live version.

She was decamping for Connecticut, she would spend the rest of the summer there, so we said our goodbyes.

"You should switch majors," she had told me. "No one guessed you didn't know how to build a website," she said with a wicked knowing grin. "You're a natural!" she laughed when she saw me blush.

She knew I had been out of my depth. She had known the whole time I was faking it, making it up as I went along, and she couldn't have been more pleased with me.

I left Paula's studio on a high. But it didn't last long, I knew I would be spending Saturday night in the apartment alone.

I had five days left of make-work at Pentagram to look forward to, but only because my mom wanted to pick me up and couldn't come until Saturday. None of the other interns were sticking around. It was late August and anyone who could leave the city was heading for the beach or the mountains or whatever. I would be "shadowing" Paula's new assistant, Lucy, who had only been on the job a week.

"Show her the ropes," Paula had told me.

So there I was, yet again reading a trashy romance novel, hoping my slut roommate would come home and loudly fuck some guy, knowing she probably wouldn't.

I had just decided to spend my Sunday exploring Central Park when I heard Stephanie's keys in the door. She was alone and seemed very drunk. She looked at me with something like disapproval, but it may have just been her face - or I was projecting. For myself, I was frozen in terror. My joints were locked, I could hardly breathe as she clomped past me to the middle of the room. She was wearing engineer boots with a tight black denim mini skirt and a baby-t. She stopped where we had wrestled before and kicked off her boots.

Without being told I stood up and walked over to retrieve her boots and put them away, but she stopped me, kicking them out of the way as I bent to pick them up.

"No," she said. "You fight."

I'm not sure what I expected to happen, that maybe we would square off like boys do? Whatever it was, I hesitated, and Stephanie didn't. She grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me downward. Before I could react she kicked my feet out from under me. I fell hard and she followed me down. I landed on my back and she landed on top of me, pinning me with all her weight. I had lost before I'd even known we started.

"You're pathetic," she whispered in my ear.

Trying to catch myself, I had twisted at the waist as I went down. She had one knee between my thighs and both my arms were to one side. She was lying on top of me with all her weight.

I surprised her by swinging my arms up and twisting away from her hard. For a moment I was on my hands and knees. I had bucked her off and desperately tried to scramble away, but she grabbed me by the back of the neck and the arm. I scratched and bit, but she didn't let go. I fought as hard as I could, flailing my arms and legs, kicking and hitting her, but she just threw me on my back winding me, and before I could even begin to recover she had me pinned again. I was wheezing, struggling to take a breath as she positioned herself over me. Knees next to my ears, shins on my biceps, and ass bearing down on my chest, making it even harder to draw a breath. My hands were still raised, fingers bent like claws, but I couldn't scratch her. She was gripping my wrists tight this time, her hands felt as hard and unmoving as oak.

I had hit her in the face. Her cheek was bright red where I'd slapped her, I had left teeth marks on her arm and she was bleeding where I'd scratched her neck and chest - but she seemed unconcerned. She looked triumphant rather than angry. She had won again.

"Open your mouth wider."

Straddling my breasts, pointedly smashing them with her ass, I already had my mouth open, gasping. She was holding my wrists away from her body. I remember she was breathing very hard. I had put up a fight, and she was especially drunk, so for a fleeting moment or two I thought I might actually best her.

I opened my mouth as far as I could as she let go of my wrists and raised her ass off my boobs, moving her weight forward so she was standing on her knees. I was readying myself for her to spit, but with her weight off my vest, I could finally take a lungful of air. But rather than positioning her mouth over mine, straddling my face, she was looking down the length of her torso at me. Almost yawning, I was looking straight up Stephanie's skirt.

"Looossser," she husked, stretching the word. "Show me how much you like cleaning."

As she said this she reached between her legs and pinching the transparent gusset of her panties, she pulled them aside, exposing her vagina. I remember how prominent her inner labia were, protruding from her outer lips, thick and wet.

I lay beneath her, mouth open wide, and obediently put out my tongue. My whole body was shaking with tiny spasms I was unequipped to understand at the time, only the benefits of hindsight have clarified those feelings for me. It was excitement. I was beyond aroused, and terrified of what I wanted.

"My vvife," she husked, her fingers playing with her labia.

I remember wondering if this is what men felt when they saw a man with a bigger cock. Stephanie's vulva was so much more womanly and full than mine, which is still girlish and compact. I was jealous, I thought. It was the only way I could understand my feelings about what she was offering me. I couldn't just want it, that would have been too impossible.

Touching her thick oversized inner lips was making Stephanie's fingers wet. She pointedly stroked her slit, using two fingers to part the thick folds, spreading them wide, showing me the pink smooth depths of her vagina.

I remember the way the silence stretched. The only sound in my ears was my breath.

"hhhhhhhu"

"hhhhhhhu"

"hhhhhhhu"

I was panting.

I made no attempt to move or close my mouth. She had been staring down at me, glassy-eyed, her attention jumping from my mouth to my eyes and back again. But then eyes lost focus as a shudder ran through her.

"Be still..." she husked a faraway look in her eyes, and a jet of hot urine sprayed my neck and chin, then found my mouth.

I coughed and gagged, her piss spraying my lips and nose.

"OPEN!" she barked.

My jaw had closed in shock, my lips squeezed shut against the warm stream, but at her command, my jaw sprang wide, my tongue went out as far as it would go to make way for her piss. The spray found the back of my throat and began to fill my mouth.

"AAH," she groaned in what must have been genuine relief.

I remember the taste was much milder than I expected, much less sour, and not at all foul - only a little salty. What I most remember is the warmth, it was the temperature of Stephanie's body; was warm in a way skin is warm, or cum is. It felt alive, part of her.

"DRINK IT!" she snapped as my mouth began to overflow, and I obeyed, forcing myself to swallow. A mist of urine was spraying my face and hair but the stream aimed at my throat was like a torrent. I was breathing through my nose as Stephanie's piss filled my mouth again, and again I swallowed, this time without being told.

The stream faltered and went wild, spraying my nose and eyes, blinding me before soaking my hair. Finally, I felt it trickle to a stop on my cheek, and fill my ear. I swallowed one last time and coughed, blinked to clear my eyes.

Stephanie stood, pulling her panties back in place, she flicked the urine off her fingers at me.

"Here," she snapped, ordering me, "get up!"

I turned over and lifted myself off the floor. I was coughing and gagging.

Stephanie turned and opened her door, leaving me in the living room, dripping piss, standing barefoot in a puddle. When she returned she was holding one of her cameras, not for video, but a boxy old Hasselblad, my uncle Pat used to have - the kind you look down into, that takes large format film.

Setting the camera on the side table, she pulled me by the wrist until I was positioned with blank wall behind me. She then reached for the straps of my cami, which was soaked in piss. I let her pull the straps down my arms, baring my shoulders but when she pulled the cami down off my breasts, exposing my nipples I covered myself with my hands. This earned a contemptuous eye roll.

"Your stupid tits won't show," she spat.

I didn't uncover and she didn't protest further

"Just your head and shoulders," she said, a little more kindly. as she picked up her camera again. She held it very high, resting against her breastbone, and pointed it at me. She was standing very close. I could see myself in the lens. The shutter began to sputter loudly in rapid fire.

"You think you're better than me, but you drink my piss," she pointed out helpfully.

She was right. I did think I was better than her, but I had drunk her piss when ordered.

"Clean this filth," she said blandly. "I don't want it smelling like piss in here."

Pulling up my top I went into the kitchen. fetching a bucket and filling it partway in the sink, I hunted out an oversized sponge and some rags. Returning to the living room, I used the sponge to clean the puddle, even as my face and hair dripped more piss onto the floorboards.

"Look how much you like to clean," she said, watching me wipe the floor dry with a rag and snapping more pictures of me on my knees. "You think I'm a slut," she accused. "What kind of girl wants to lick the slut's pussy?"

She left me alone with that question, drenched in her piss, wiping it off the floor.

I had gone into the bathroom afterwards, stared at myself in the mirror, wanting to see what she saw. My hair was a mess, I was glassy-eyed drunk, glazed with sweat. My eyeliner had run down my cheek with my tears. Slack jaw and bottom lip drooping and wet. I was struck by how familiar my reflection looked. I recognize the look. It was the expression of the men on the walls in Stephanie's living room; her trophies.