Bedroom Predator
by Christina Rosso
Every orgasm is like an exorcism. My body writhing, contorting, as the pain singes me. My skin is on fire. I try frantically to escape. To disappear.
He thinks I am possessed with pleasure, that my pushing against him is a form of play. That I am taunting my predator, a doe who wants to be captured. Skinned and gutted.
It is not my orgasm he thinks of. His interests are singular, indulgent. His pleasure and his alone.
For him sex is a tournament. Who will win? Man or woman? Beast or bride?
He starts and finishes on top, pinning me, never letting me forget I am his prey.
At first my legs are wrapped around him, making us a knotted pretzel of flesh. Then he yanks my legs upward by the ankles, my knees against his chest, pancaking my breasts. My heart thumps rapidly against my legs. I am being compacted, squeezed. I wonder, will I burst?
It is a different bursting he is concerned with. He takes my feet in his hands and places the heels on each side of his chest. He looks down, taking me in. In this moment, watching his eyes bore into my every crevice, I suddenly feel naked, revealed like a knife being unsheathed, though of course I already was.
He licks his lips, a little boy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, the edges peppered in stubble. He is a man, yet not. I wonder, do the desires of boys really change in manhood?
He pulls himself out of me and begins to rub and flick the head against me. It’s equivalent to rug burn, stinging and biting my pink lips. I’ll be raw soon, I know it. I think of high school health class and learning about urinary tract infections. My pelvis flinches in protest to him moving himself out and in of my holes. He doesn’t notice. He thinks my cries and grimaces are in pleasure. Ecstasy. Perhaps even admiration?
He is a fool, I think. But then what does that make me?
He is flicking me now with the tip of his thumb nail. Trying to get a reaction—a moan, motion, or wetness. A nod to his magnificence, his manhood.
I am swelling, the soft skin between my thighs reddening. He thinks this means he’s doing his job right. He never stops to think it might be too much, that he’s hurting me. Pain and pleasure are not the same thing I want to say, but don’t. I bellow loud and deep like a wounded animal.
He takes himself in his hand and begins to jerk up and down. I am dry as a desert and on fire. He doesn’t even look at me now. Not even my body is on his radar. Just himself and the salty, oily liquid he’s now ejecting. Proving his masculinity. His power.
He collapses on me, literally spent. He is dead weight, a corpse dropping into the water. I deepen my breath. Sigh. I play my part in this game. That was...I start to say. He grunts in response, his face buried in my neck.
I turn my face toward him. He is smaller now, maybe even vulnerable. I run my tongue over my bottom lip, forming the words in my mouth. That was…
Painful.
Disrespectful.
Demeaning.
How easy would it be to say any of these?
Instead, I swallow and plant a kiss on his cheek. I push him off me and he rolls over, a lifeless blob on the bed. I go to the bathroom to clean myself up. His snores roar from the bedroom, a lion asleep in his den. I finish wiping and washing myself and move to the bathroom doorway. I watch him slumber and think, Next time will be different. I’ll be the predator and he my prey.
Christina Rosso is a red-headed siren and bookstore owner living in South Philadelphia with her bearded husband and two rescue pups. Her work has been featured in Twisted Sister Lit Mag, Across the Margin, FIVE:2:ONE Magazine, and more. Visit https://christinarosso.wordpress.com/ or find her on Twitter @Rosso_Christina.