A Discreet Distance

"Are you okay, Ronni?"

"Hm? Yeah." She smiled again and went to the kitchen to wash her face. "You need anything to clean up with?"

"A wet towel for the floor. I didn't get all of it across."

She laughed and came back with some towels, one of them wet. "Guess I didn't get you horny enough."

"You got me plenty horny, woman."

Her face grew that odd look again, and she retreated to her room after that. The day proceeded in an odd, uncomfortable way until she left for work. I was left to piddle around and try to sort out my feelings. Honestly, I can't really say I ever did manage it. All I can say is that when she came home, hot wings in hand, and collapsed on the couch, I had made a decision.

"Let's not do this anymore."

She stared up at me with a lonely, shocked look. "But..."

"I've loved every minute of it. Honest. You are spectacularly beautiful and frankly I'm either already in love with you, or I will be very soon. That's the problem. I can't touch you and it's driving me crazy." I got up and headed for my room. I didn't want to discuss it. I thought I could just walk out of there no matter what she said.

All she had to say was, "Brent." I stopped.

I didn't look back. I hadn't just heard my name. I heard tears. I didn't want to see them.

"Damn you, Brent, is that how you're going to do this?" I hadn't been wrong. She was sobbing the words as much as saying them.

"Is that how I'm going to do what?" I asked, forcing myself to stay calm. "I'm not asking you to move out. I don't want you to move out. I'll find some way to live with you prancing around naked if you must. I'll even see if I can watch your dancing without losing it, because I would really miss watching you dance. I'm just saying we need to stop masturbating for each other. I can't take not being able to make love to you, Ronni."

Arms slipped around me, nearly frightening me out of my wits. I'd had no idea she'd walked up behind me, but there she was, clutching on to me from behind, that beautiful body finally pressing against mine.

"Damn you. Why couldn't you just do what you're supposed to do?" she whispered.

"What was I supposed to do?" I asked. She didn't answer for a long time. She just slowly made the back of my shirt wet with her tears.

Finally her voice rasped, "You were supposed to rape me."

I couldn't even begin to imagine a response to that. It was just too out of left field. I waited instead.

"I didn't drop out of college because I washed out," she whispered. "I was raped. Not one of those guy in a mask in the bushes things, or a date rape. This was worse. Five frat boys decided to spend their spring break raping and killing a coed for the fun of it."

I recognized the story with a chill. It was news from a couple years before. Most of what she said next, I already knew.

"The only thing that saved me was that they disagreed exactly what would be the most interesting way to dispose of me. I had to sit there, gagged and tied to a cot, while they continued to take turns fucking me as they talked about how to do me. One of them wanted to... he wanted to eat me. He seriously wanted to cook and eat me. He almost had the others talked into it by the time the police showed up."

I felt her shaking breaths and tried to turn, but she gripped onto me, stopped me from turning to comfort her. "They got jail, but I got Hell. I was in a mental ward being treated for a breakdown for nearly a year. I guess I never really recovered."

"Ronni, you can stop," I said, my throat hurting from the tension. "You don't have to say any more."

"Yes, I do." she whispered in a fierce hiss. "You deserve an explanation."

In the silence, I kept trying to come up with something to let her relax and forget about it. She began again before I could think of anything. "Rape victims often try to come up with a justification for what happened to them, a way for their world to make sense again. Some decide that all men are like that, and freak out if a man gets near them. Some turn into tramps, to prove to themselves that what happened to them was okay, because they're just sluts.

"I... I guess I was in the first category. Once I was out of the hospital, I mostly kept it under control, but I only had it barely under control. I couldn't let a man touch me. I'm sure my family thinks when I moved in with you that I was making great progress. The truth was, the longer I was around you, the more I wanted to see proof . Proof that all men really were monsters. Proof that this perfect gentleman I was living with was really a monster. I dressed sexier at home, and you didn't do a thing. I started walking around in panties and a tee shirt, and you didn't blink an eye. Then I went nude. You complained, but politely, and you put up with it."

The sobs somehow turned into laughter. "Then you bought that damned pole. Brent, I don't think you knew what you had done when you did that. I watched the DVD, and suddenly... I found you'd given me back my dance."

She let go of me, then small but strong hands urged me to turn. She was looking up at me, smiling with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I guess... that was where my humanity had been hiding. And you gave it back to me."

Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply, then opened them again, hazel eyes burning into mine. "I can do this now. Only for you, but..."

Her arms slipped around my waist and she stared up at me, her lips waiting with a teary smile. I bent down to kiss her.