The Runner Tumbles

I lay in his arms for what seemed a long time, waiting for him to go on speaking, but he remained silent, occasionally kissing my hair and eyes. Did he know what he was doing to me, how he was making me feel worse than ever?

I couldn't stand it and I cried out, "Roger, I don't know what to do; if you love me then help me."

"Here or in the bedroom," he asked.

"Here...here," I moaned, "I need you so badly."

I felt his hand reach up behind me and start to pull down the zip of my dress. I think it was then that I realised the full implication of what was about to happen. A vision of that night in the fog arose, the fear, the violence and the pain.

"You will be gentle with me, won't you? They hurt me so badly."

"I'll be very gentle, my love, and if I do anything that hurts, tell me and I'll stop."

He rose to his feet and drew me up with him. My dress slithered down my body to spread round my feet.

I felt so shy I couldn't look at him. As he removed my bras he said, "You have lovely breasts, darling, I knew you would."

He pulled down my panties, and then stood back from a little. "You really are beautiful, Jackie," he said, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment."

He undressed himself and for the first time I saw a naked man.

I wondered why he was taking so long. Those men in the fog had taken no time at all to rape me. It was only afterwards that I understood that Roger loved me and wanted to enjoy just looking at me...touching me.

His hands reached up to cover my breasts, touching them as if they were something precious. He bent to kiss my nipples, and then drawing me close kissed my mouth. It was a kiss like I had never experienced before and I didn't know how to respond.

His tongue ran over my lips as if moistening them and I pulled myself closer to him as if by some inherent instinct. Then he started to use his tongue to part my lips. I opened my mouth for him and his tongue entered, pressing, searching.

I hadn't been able to bring myself to look at his penis, but I could feel it, pressed hard against my lower abdomen.

He stopped kissing me and gently drew me down onto the divan, laying me on my back, and parting my legs. For a few moments I felt his fingers exploring my genitals, and then he came between my legs. There were a few moments of hesitation as he seemed to be trying to find the opening to my vagina, and then he was penetrating me.

Any remaining doubts I might have had, fled. I now knew the difference between sex taken in violence and sex taken in love. It was the difference between ugliness and beauty; between being violated and being loved; between hell and heaven.

He didn't move like those fog men had, quickly and fiercely, He was slow at first, moving back and forth in me. What until so recently I had thought disgusting, now became a wonder to me.

The physical union gave me a feeling of belonging. It was right that we should be together like this, and I whispered, "I love you Roger...I love you...it's so beautiful."

His lips were close to my ear and he whispered back, "It is love and you that makes it beautiful."

I thought I had been translated to heaven as he started to move more quickly and strongly in me. His hands came under my buttocks, raising me so I could feel him penetrating more deeply.

Then it began; bewildering, frightening; at first only a little shock like a mild electric jolt. But it increased, the jolts becoming ever more frequent and violent. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I feared it and the pain it would bring.

I began t struggle in Roger's embrace, crying out, "No...no darling...stop...it's going to hurt me...please stop...I don't want...oh my God..."

It was too late. Roger didn't stop as he said he would. The agony overwhelmed me and I wanted it. It was pain and pleasure drawing me upwards through a welter of flashing coloured lights into another realm, possessing me, controlling me.

A voice was screaming, "Yes...oh my darling yes...don't stop...don't stop..."

Someone was weeping and I felt as if from a long way off something thumping into me...something I wanted so dearly.

A voice was saying, "I love you...I love you..."

Slowly the wonder passed. There were more little jolts but of ever diminishing power, until I came out to a calm and lovely world.

Roger was still with me, seemingly unwilling to withdraw from me.

"What did you do to me, my darling, what have you done?" I asked, as a sobbed in his embrace.

"I've shown you how much I love you, my darling, and you've had an orgasm."

I twined my arms round his neck and said, "You're a brute, a callous brute. You said you'd stop if you were hurting me, and you didn't, thank God."

He laughed, but then became serious.

"Can you tell me who it was who hurt you so badly?"

I hesitated, but I knew that nothing less than the truth between us would serve. This wasn't the night of the fog; this was something that had a future, and there could be no secrets between us. If in telling him he found me undesirable; a raped, a despoiled woman, then so it must be, but there must be nothing hidden to always stand between us.

"I can tell you if you just sit beside me and hold my hand," I said.

He withdrew from me, and sitting beside me took my hand.

"If, after what I'm going to tell you, you find you don't love me then I shall understand," I said.

"There's nothing you can tell me that will stop me loving you," he replied.

So I told him of that night on the cliffs in the fog.

I waited to see how he would respond. He did not let go of my hand and I thought I saw the shimmer of tears in his eyes as he said, "You've been very brave."

"Brave?"

"Yes, brave. You've let me be with you like this tonight after all that was done to you, that is brave."

"But I love you, Roger."

I didn't need to ask if he still loved me, I could see it in his eyes and the way he touched me.

Then he took me completely by surprise.

"Next weekend, will you come and meet my parents?"

"Yes, but...but why?"

"I want them to see what a lovely bride I've won."

"Bride, but..."

"Jackie my love, I've had affairs; they've been light and without much meaning, but with you it's different."

"How different?"

"From the time I set out to conquer you I had only one thought in mind. I would never have made love with you if I hadn't intended it to be more than a one night stand."

"You've taken a lot for granted," I admonished him, "but yes, I'll meet your parents, but on one condition."

"What's that?"

"You meet mine the following weekend."

I was still trying to wrestle with my sobs and I think Roger was near to tears, but we both managed a shaky laugh.

"Do you think," he asked, "that I should ask you to marry me now?"

Thoughtfully I said, "I don't think that either of us were protected against me getting pregnant, so yes, you'd better ask me. Then on second thoughts don't bother because the answer will be yes, anyway."

"Does that mean I'm invited to stay the night with you?"

"Yes, just so long as you don't stop when I tell you to."

Chapter 10. The Year 2006.

I'm expecting our first child in February. The experts tell us it's a boy. We're still arguing about names.

After our first night together I woke up to a new world. It was work the next day, and I discovered I liked, even loved people – even the lascivious Misters Greenbaum and Norris.

Roger's love had given me new hope for the world, but I suppose that loving and being loved has that effect.

We got married in September 2005 – not a fashionable month for weddings in Australia, but who cares. I know I love and am loved and in the end, and despite all the cynicism about love, that's what really matters.

At the beginning of January I put in my resignation from the firm. Until I can be sure I can safely go back to work, Greenbaum and Norris, or whoever I work for, can do without my profit making abilities. There are more important things, you know.

Roger had suggested that we might produce more children, and with our combined ardour, who knows when I shall be getting back to work?

I think I shall start running again after I've recovered from the birth, but not when there is any fog around.