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There
was no blood, just a low whimper. Adumbration of tears. Guilt, my guilt.
I pulled out of her and reached my stinging hand down to her pussy, looking
for answers. She arched high, asking, wet to my touch.
I hit her, my girlfriend, in the face. I hit her in the face
during sex. Smacked her hard, while fucking, with no warning and no permission.
It was the
first time I had done it, the first time I had done anything like it. My palm
shot with pain and her cheek blushed deep, trembling. It wasn't like me; I'm
a permission guy — I ask first. This time no asking, no prompting, no security
that it was the right thing to do. The police could have been called; instead,
it seemed like she liked it.
Of the many
things I've asked or not asked to do in bed, slapping a woman's face was the
strangest, the most counter-intuitive, and easily the most ambiguous. It felt
impossibly illicit, a thing never to be sanctioned, an octopus in the pasture
of my politics. And yet I did it, guided by an elusive, dubitable, shimmering
sense that it was the appropriate act for the moment. Hands tied behind her head,
Air France blindfold over her hazel-green eyes, she never saw it coming. Then
the noise, much louder than expected, the prickly needles of pain in my hand,
the shapes of my fingers traced in rouge on her cheek, and her quivering mouth,
jaw, lips.
I
reached my stinging hand down to her pussy.
She arched high, wet to my touch.
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There are things I do with women almost exclusively
for the sake of demonstrating our alliance, proving we are fully open to
each other. Things I ask for, things I give. Rarely, though, do I feel
fully trusted, fully empowered, free.
In truth, I'm a little afraid of
the id set free — mine, anyone's. But part of
me knows that sex doesn't, shouldn't, work that way. If she and I agree,
if we both want it, it's good.
Various women over the years have taught
me that hard lesson, slow pupil as I am. So there I was, trusting my intuitions,
deep inside her, hard-bucking, the intensity dial waiting to be turned
to maximum. With my left hand bunched in her hair, I lifted myself with
my right, looked at her one last time, and hit her hard across her face
with force behind my fingers.
You might know you're approaching a line, but how do you
know you can cross it? I don't want to ask myself this question, but I can't
help but do so. One part of me says that you know when you know, that old lovers
are smart that way, but at the time I almost wilted with the terror of my wondering.
I'm sure for some of you slapping or being slapped is unimaginable, while for
others it would be no big deal. But I was doing something I never thought
I could do, that I thought I could never believe in, and that I couldn't imagine
anyone would ever want. And then I found out that she liked it — and that
I did too. Not enough to become a habitué, but enough to know I could do it again.
Another gone, I thought, in the libido's dance of a thousand veils. It was a
strange moment, feeling like I had discovered something in — and perhaps
about — myself, and yet I felt so much unlike me. And then I heard her
moan; it seemed like a call. So I slipped back inside, trying to recapture the
rhythm. Three thrusts, perhaps four, and then with the left hand. Another moan,
but no tears. The unthinkable had become real, a matter of trust. n°
©2004 Jack Murnighan and Nerve.com
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Jack Murnighan's stories appeared in the Best American Erotica editions of 1999, 2000 and 2001. His weekly column for Nerve, Jack's Naughty Bits, was collected and released as two books. He was the editor-in-chief of Nerve from 1999 to 2001, before retiring to write full time and take seriously the quest for love. |
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