The Rabbit #2
I thought William was different. The way he f*cked certainly was.
He wasn’t like three pumps and done. He was present.
He was there. He actually seemed to care whether I was enjoying myself, was intent on me having orgasms, something I didn’t even know I could do with another person.
Many times, in fact. This must be what lovemaking is, I remember thinking.
And afterward he actually held me as we were going to sleep.
He petted my hair. I felt his big body close around me like an oyster shell around a pearl and I felt so safe, and I tried as hard as I could to stay awake, staring at the stack of books on his dresser, because all I wanted was for this moment, this night, to last forever.
If I had died then, I would have been perfectly happy.
But of course daylight came, and William was up with the dawn, as the birds were chirping in the trees. I woke and felt cold
because he was no longer next to me and saw him dressing. “Good morning, lambchop,” he said when he saw my eyes open, and
he used the long toes of his big foot to pick my panties up off the floor. He made little beeping noises like a truck reversing
as he lifted them toward me. “You might need these,” he said with his sunshine grin. “I have to get to work. The page waits
for no man.”
“Oh sure,” I said, “I’ll leave ASAP,” and he said, “Stay as long as you want,” and I said, hoping he’d talk me out of it and
offer me breakfast, “No really, I should go, I need to write too,” and he said, “Romance?” and cocked his eyebrow at me, smiling,
and I said, “No, actually, I’m working on a thriller.” I couldn’t believe I’d said that, it was like a frog had jumped out
of my mouth, I hadn’t told anybody. Thrillers were almost as bad as romance in our program, the same mindless junk but with
gore. “Not a thriller-thriller,” I hastened to add, since William was standing there with one leg in his pants and one not,
gaping at me. I was so embarrassed. I cursed myself for having admitted this. “Much more literary,” I said, “like The Shining?”
William stared at me a minute longer, then said, “Godspeed.” He came to me and kissed me on the forehead, like a priest. “Thank
you for that gift of a night,” he said, and walked out.
I don’t know where in the apartment he worked, tucked away in a study or at the kitchen table, because I lay there for about
fifteen minutes and then got up and wrote my phone number and Thanks, this was fun!
!!! on a sheet of paper I ripped out of one of his notebooks.
I considered adding a heart, at the end or over the i, but finally I decided against it and snuck out.
The apartment was full of birdsong, sunshine, the smell of coffee.
That whole day I was in a daze, sore and sleep-deprived, replaying the night over and over in my head, trying to decide whether I’d said anything so stupid that he wouldn’t call, remembering how he’d touched me, talked to me, how he’d actually kissed me—no man could do that and not call you, right?
It was so different from before, any of the guys I’d known.
I thought of that kiss on my forehead. That was tenderness.
That was love. I checked my flip phone so much I practically sprained my wrist taking it in and out of my pocket.
I skipped my seventeenth-century poetry class, which believe me was no sacrifice, and stayed in my sh*thole to write Mr. and Mrs. Corwyn hundreds of times in my notebook, his name and mine together.
I kept looking out the window in case William was standing
out there like Romeo, had looked up my address in the student directory. I was on fire with impatience to see him again, which
was why I was so glad to hear his voice that night when I went to work at the Castle. He had come to see me! I was in the
kitchen loading a tray of pint glasses into the dishwasher when I heard him at the bar, and I was taking off my hairnet and
rehearsing what I’d do when I came out, would I play it casual and say Hey Hemingway, buy you a drink? or just lean over the
bar and kiss him?, when I heard other voices and realized William was not alone, he was with Matt and Thom from our program.
They were laughing about something, that goatish boy laughter I’d learned to dread because it was usually targeted at me or
some other woman but was always bad.
I went and stood by the door to listen. Thom said, “It wasn’t terrible, a little like f*cking a bag of mayo but any port in
the storm, am I right?” and Matt said, “Speaking of which, Corwyn, someone said they saw you leaving here last night with
the Rabbit.”
“Who said that?” said William.
“Is it true?” said Matt.
“Maybe,” said William, and Matt and Thom groaned.
“Jesus Christ, what the f*ck, man, are you desperate?” said Thom, and Matt said, “Did you finally f*ck your way through all
the other p*ssy on campus?”
“Maybe,” said William again, and they all laughed. “But seriously, what makes you think I f*cked her? Maybe I was just trying
to help her.”
“Yeah, trying to help her off with her size one hundred granny panties,” said Matt, and my face burned, because I actually
had been wearing bad underwear last night, waist-high and possibly with period stains, and how had he known this, had William
taken photos or something? And Thom said, “Trying to help her finally lose her virginity.”
“You have such a low opinion of me,” said William. “What if I was trying to help her with her writing?” and one of them made a WAH sound like an airhorn and said, “Nice try, Corwyn.”
“Oh all right,” said William, “I might have thrown her a mercy f*ck,” and they jeered.
“So kind of you,” said Thom, and William said, “It was no big deal. I like f*cking ugly girls. They work harder.”
“To Saint William,” said Matt, “patron saint of ugly women.”
“To Saint William!” and they clinked glasses.
“Thanks, boys,” said William. “That’s me. I’m a giver!”
I couldn’t listen anymore then. I had been standing with my hand over my mouth but I took off my apron and hung it up and
walked out the rear door of the Castle and never went back, and I never returned to my classes, either, especially our workshop,
because how could I face William and those guys after something like that? That was the last time I ever wrote anything, too,
thriller or stories or otherwise. The next day I packed up my things in my student housing sh*thole and drove away from Harrington
and never looked back. I shoved it all into the back of my mind and tried my very best never to think about it, writing or
William or Harrington, ever again.
Until a few years later, when something happened I knew would change everything.