Free Punish Me with Kisses by William Bayer Page A

searched the lobby for him, waited half an hour, then shrugged and started home. It had been a week since they'd met. Already he'd become a part of her life. Why hadn't he come? She didn't know, and didn't know why she cared. She spent the evening staring at TV, feeling lonely and confused.
    Just before she fell asleep she tried to think things through. She liked him—she admitted that. They were friends. She liked his company. He made her feel happy, made her forget she was chronically depressed. Why hadn't he come then? Maybe he'd been busy auditioning for a part. Maybe he'd tried to call her but it was too late; maybe the switchboard at the office was closed, and he hadn't gotten through. He couldn't call her at home because she hadn't given him her unlisted number. It could all be as simple as that. Or maybe he'd just decided he'd had enough of her. He'd felt that way about her once before.
    Â 
    S omething's rubbed off on me. I'll never be rid of it—NEVER! What? Love of fucking, passion for fucking? No. Something else. Deeper. Primitive. Has got to do with power. Seduction. Thrill of the hunt. Ecstasy of the kill. Blood on the knife. Rituals. Magic. Want to be torn. Tired of wriggling like an insect, pinned down, twisting, working up a little set-of-tennis sweat. My pussy shrieks like the baby thy forgot to feed. Crying, shrieking in my crib, spitting out my pacifier. In need of milk. Hungry, hungry—thirsty, too, staggering in the desert, drying out, shriveling, dying beneath the cruel sun—
    Â 
    S he rose early Saturday morning and walked up to the reservoir. She felt empty and sad, lethargic, too. She wondered if she could do a lap, if she even had the will. Then she saw him standing in front of the pumphouse at the southern tip, wearing a pair of cut-off jeans, a faded "I Love New York" T-shirt, and a pair of tattered sneakers held together with tape.
    "Hey, babe. I've been waiting here since five."
    "What?"
    "Yeah. To work out. Waiting here for you to teach me how. Sorry about yesterday. Would have called, but we didn't exactly have a date."
    "That's OK," she said. "I figured you were busy."
    He nodded. "Well, which way do we go?"
    She showed him how to stretch, which they did together against the little iron railing at the entrance to the track. They started off then, running slowly side by side.
    "Great view," he exclaimed as they rounded the northeast tip. "The city just there waiting to be conquered, right?"
    She looked at him. He was breathing fairly hard. "Tired?" He shook his head. By the time they'd run three quarters of a mile she could tell he was about to drop. "Take a rest," she said. "I'll pick you up when I come around again."
    He nodded with gratitude and dropped back. She sped up her pace, was soon off running by herself. How miraculous, she thought, the way he turns up at the oddest times. She felt good, energetic, almost joyful as she reached out with her legs. When she was done she found him sitting on a bench beside the pumphouse . She stood before him, hands resting on her hips. "Now I'm tired," she said.
    "Don't look it. You're barely breathing hard. God—I wish I could keep up with you." He asked her how long she thought it would take him to get in shape. She told him three or four months at least. When she first started out, she said, she hadn't even been able to run a mile.
    "Yeah, I remember. You were the bookworm," he said. "Suzie was the jock."
    It was the first time since they'd met in Chinatown that he'd used Suzie's name.
    "I wish I'd never let her turn my head," he said softly after a moment. "I wish I'd stuck with you."
    "Jared, please—"
    "It's true. I've thought it a thousand times."
    "Please—"
    "Come here, babe." He motioned for her to sit beside him on the bench. She hesitated. She was wet. Her shirt was sticking to her back. Also she felt afraid, of something in him and in herself, too, a weakness, a longing she didn't understand. "Penny, Penny,