She obviously didn’t expect him to mention that. Her eyes narrow. “How do you know so much about the contract all of a sudden?”
“I remember that part. I signed it, same as you.” Back when they were writing the contract, he even tried drafting his own version of the clause—more like a checklist, really—but the lawyers scrapped that in a hurry. In his opinion, it’s the only part of the document that matters. The whole point of getting married is to guarantee sex. If he isn’t going to be a porn star, at least he can be a husband. Ripple looks at his watch. “It’s 11:36. So technically we’ve got until midnight, right?”
“Perhaps we can text your father for an extension.”
“If you were so jealous of Abby, you should be thankful with the way things turned out. She’s gone. Now I’m all yours.” He indicates an area of plastic balls directly above his lap.
Swanny slides her pinky into her mouth. When she draws her hand away, there’s blood on her fingertip. “My God, I need a dentist. I need one today.”
Is she trying to turn him off? It’s gross, but he’s seen worse. On the garbage island he and Abby once banged atop clear transparent bags of liposuction. “We can do oral later.” He squeezes her heel.
Swanny kicks her foot away from him. She scoots backward, then to her feet, with a laugh that’s half shriek. “I detest you,” she says. Another laugh comes, more like a hiccup this time. “I detest you, and that doesn’t make the slightest difference.”
Ripple shrugs. If she wants to feel sorry for herself, fine, but she’s not going to get any sympathy from him. He clicks on HOT FOR CREATURE and opens one of the many video files inside. On some distant mountaintop a blond and elfin waif, clad in a bikini of primitive rags, hesitates at the mouth of a cave. Her wrists are tied: a sacrifice. “You want an annulment, be my guest”—he glances at his watch—“11:38.”
“It appears you’ve given me no choice.”
“Not so fast, you actually have to say yes. It’s in the rules. It has to be consensual to count.” Ripple dimly remembers his dad warning him about sexual assault penalties: fuck if he’s falling for that.
“Fine. Yes. I consent.”
“Sorry, you’ve gotta be more enthusiastic than that.”
Her eyes flare. “My desire for you is—indescribable. Beyond the imagining of either God or man. There, are you happy?”
Ooh, she’s mad: that’s a flavor he hasn’t tried before. Feelin’ Feisty. He smirks. “Not yet.”
“May I use the lavatory first?”
“See you on the bed boat in five.”
She disappears into the echo-chamberish bathroom suite; he hears water angrily blasting from all three sinks. Ripple gets out of the ball pit and lies down naked on the bed boat, gazing up at the waif onscreen, trying to wriggle out of her bonds. She looks a little like Abby if you don’t focus your eyes too hard, lean and tan, though her voice is all wrong: “Who’s—who’s there?” Way too normal. He thinks about Abby’s weird little accent, a dialect of one, how she references sex positions like discrete activities: “We could From Behind or Sideways or go fishing!” He never thought she’d be the only fem he ever had, never wanted that—but never again? Stuck the rest of her life in a Quiet Place? Maybe they allow conjugal visits. A padded room, every surface a mattress…“This place is fucked.” “Let’s Against the Wall.” Screw the adultery penalties, it would be worth every cent, it would feel so right….
By the time Swanny reemerges, he’s got a good-sized erection in hand. Onscreen, a yeti penetrates the virgin on the incongruous shag carpeting of the mountain cave’s floor.
“I kinda got started without you,” Ripple says, nodding at his penis.
“Good lord,” says Swanny. She stares at his body. “I’ve never seen a man naked before. Your genitals—it’s like an alien dissection.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“I didn’t intend it as a compliment.”
But anytime a half-naked woman ogles Ripple’s cock with rapt fixation, he’s going to take it that way. He gives it one last expert squeeze up near the tip, then opens his arms.
“C’mere,” he says.
Swanny lies down on the bed next to him. He cups his hand around her breast and kisses her on the chin. Channeled through surround-sound speakers, the yeti growls, “You like that, sugar tits?”
“Turn off the video immediately,” whispers Swanny.
Ripple taps a button on the controller. See, he can compromise. “Let’s listen to some classic sex tunes.” The blue notes of the Shat’s “You’ll Have Time” fill the room, along with church organ and Sprechstimme. “Close enough.” He hikes up the satin of her negligee and climbs on top. Swanny is rigidly still as he tongues her neck, slides the strap off her shoulder. Coma Vixen, up close and personal: some fems really do just lie there, apparently.
“Show time,” he mumbles, and presses into her.
But something is—weird. He’s in, he’s definitely in, but no way is this right. She feels like a cat’s sandpaper tongue. Ripple slows his pace, staring down at her. No, it’s not possible…“Those are happy tears, right? Like, you start crying when you come?”
“That’s right. That’s it exactly. You’ve brought me to orgasm.” Swanny turns her gaze to meet his, tears trickling down toward her ears. Her voice is as flat as her expression. “The pleasure is indescribable. You’re dominating. You’re ‘the abuser,’ Duncan.”
“Hey. That’s not nice.”
“Neither is this.”
She doesn’t want him. She really doesn’t want him. Not even for hate sex. Somehow he never considered that as a serious risk. Ripple feels himself retracting within her. He rolls off, and she tugs her nightgown down to cover herself. He turns his back, curls into a fetal position. He’s not going to be a great lover, captured onscreen for all eternity. He’s never even going to fuck his wife.
“I was doing my best, OK?”
Swanny snorts. “Really? That’s your best?”
“Go away.”
Swanny picks up the controller from where it’s fallen on the mattress. “Do you have any costume dramas in your archives?”
Duncan sits up. He swipes the controller from her hand and hurls it through the projector screen. It smashes into the wall. “Get out of my room.”
Swanny straightens the strap of her negligee. “And where, pray tell, am I supposed to sleep?”
“Who cares? Go die in a fire. You’re fat and frigid and nobody likes you.”
“How dare you speak to me that way. Verbal abuse is grounds for an annulment.”
“Good luck finding another husband. There’s the door.”
“When my mother hears about this, the consequences will be drastic.”
“Yeah right. She’s after her ROI, same as anybody else. You don’t believe me, look where you are.”
Swanny toddles toward the door. A drop of blood hits the carpet between her feet; it isn’t from her mouth this time. “I didn’t think it was possible to hate you even more than I did already.”
“Better pace yourself, wench. We’ve got the rest of our lives.”
* * *